Sunday Funnies

Clinton and her e-mails again

The issue:

The Obama administration confirmed for the first time Friday that Hillary Clinton's home server contained closely guarded government secrets, censoring 22 emails that contained material requiring one of the highest levels of classification. The revelation comes three days before Clinton competes in the Iowa presidential caucuses. 

State Department officials also said the agency's Diplomatic Security and Intelligence and Research bureaus are investigating if any of the information was classified at the time of transmission, going to the heart of Clinton's defense of her email practices.

The scalded, scolding response from the Hillary sycophant.

The response from the White House:

Asked Friday if he had "certainty and confidence" that Clinton will not be indicted over the email controversy, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said any decision to prosecute Clinton would rest with the Justice Department. 

"That is a decision to be made solely by independent prosecutors," Earnest said. "But again, based on what we know from the Department of Justice, it does not seem to be headed in that direction."

The response from former federal prosecutor Joseph DiGenova:

However, as we previously noted, the implications are tough for the DOJ: if they indict, they crush their own candidate’s chances of the presidency. If they do not, someone will leak the details and the FBI will revolt… The leaking of the Clinton emails has been compared to as the next “Watergate” by former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova this week, if current FBI investigations don’t proceed in an appropriate manner. The revelation comes after more emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal email have come to light. 

“[The investigation has reached] a critical mass,” DiGenova told radio host Laura Ingraham when discussing the FBI’s still pending investigation. Though Clinton is still yet to be charged with any crime, DiGenova advised on Tuesday that changes may be on the horizon. The mishandling over the classified intelligence may lead to an imminent indictment, with DiGenova suggesting it may come to a head within 60 days. 

“I believe that the evidence that the FBI is compiling will be so compelling that, unless [US Attorney General Loretta Lynch] agrees to the charges, there will be a massive revolt inside the FBI, which she will not be able to survive as an attorney general,” he said. 

“The intelligence community will not stand for that. They will fight for indictment and they are already in the process of gearing themselves to basically revolt if she refuses to bring charges.” 

The FBI also is looking into Clinton’s email setup, but has said nothing about the nature of its probe. Independent experts say it is highly unlikely that Clinton will be charged with wrongdoing, based on the limited details that have surfaced up to now and the lack of indications that she intended to break any laws.

And the characterization of DiGenova by Media Matters.

Right-wing media are reporting discredited Republican lawyer Joseph DiGenova's baseless claim that Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton committed "numerous federal crimes" with her private email use, failing to note that Clinton is not the target of the FBI's investigation and that the probe is not criminal in nature.

Make of it all what you wish.

The elephant WAS in the room

But he left shortly after the opening and ambled over to MSNBC and CNN, where the circus reconvened.

Moderator Megyn Kelly asked Senator Cruz to address “the elephant not in the room,” referring to his absent rival. “I’m a maniac, and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly,” replied Cruz, getting the “Trump portion out of the way.” Read more.

It will be a long time before Ted says something I agree with again.  Or maybe just a few minutes.

Cruz later criticized the moderators, suggesting that they were trying to incite his rivals to gang up on him. “If you ask one more mean question, I may have to leave the stage,” said the Texas senator, in another mocking reference to the absent GOP frontrunner. Read more.

Despite these clever moments, it was not Cruz's finest hour last night.  It actually may have been his worst, in a nasty exchange with Marco Rubio on immigration.  And it almost surely was Rand Paul's best, as well as Jim Gilmore's in the undercard.  John Kasich and Chris Christie did not advance whatever their remaining prospects are.  Carly Fiorina was terrible and Ben Carson is just out of his element.  There's a reason these two candidates' numbers deflated just as rapidly as they inflated.  Even diehard Republicans see them for what they are.

As for Trump's counter-event, it seemed both understated and overblown, certainly in the eyes of his supporters.  Later this morning the ratings for both of last night's reality shows will be announced, and one side will have something to brag about.

Update: Nothing for anybody to brag about.

Thursday night’s Fox News/Google GOP Debate attracted better ratings than candidate Donald Trump’s counter-event and the previous Jan. 14 Republican presidential debate on Fox Business that featured the billionaire real estate investor and reality TV star. 

[...] 

According to CNN Money, the main stage portion of Thursday night’s debate on Fox News drew in 12.5 million viewers. The previous Republican presidential debate on Fox Business attracted 11 million viewers. MSNBC and CNN reported a combined 2.7 million person viewership during Trump’s fundraiser for veterans. 

Though last night’s debate beat out the previous contest, it was the second-lowest rated GOP debate of the 2016 campaign season.

Ted Cruz will emerge from Iowa next week as the last chance to stop the Trump train, because he's doing all the little things a politician has to do to win there.  If he upsets the Donald next Monday night, you shouldn't be surprised.

Democrats also squabble about their debates

Two days ago the Manchester (NH) Union Leader, the newspaper of record in the Granite State, got together with MSNBC and scheduled a "unsanctioned" (not approved by the DNC) Democratic candidates debate, to be held on February 4 and moderated by Rachel Maddow and Chuck Todd. That prompted Hillary Clinton and Martin O'Malley to say yes, and Bernie Sanders to say no, rationalizing...

“DNC has said this would be an unsanctioned debate so we would not want to jeopardize our ability to participate in future debates,” Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told the AP.

Yesterday, Debbie Wasserman Schultz shot the idea down.

“We have no plans to sanction any further debates before the upcoming First in the Nation caucuses and primary, but will reconvene with our campaigns after those two contests to review our schedule,” she said in a statement.

Late yesterday, Sanders made a counter-offer.

Sanders’ campaign released a statement late Wednesday calling for additional debates in the Democratic primary, but with specific provisions.

They want one each in March, April and May. All three must not be scheduled on a Friday, Saturday or holiday, and all three must include Martin O’Malley as well as Sanders and Clinton.

“If the Clinton campaign will commit to this schedule, we would ask the DNC to arrange a debate in New Hampshire on Feb. 4,” the Sanders campaign’s statement said. It noted that Sanders has called for more debates since the beginning of the race, and accused Clinton of wanting few.

Sanders’ campaign said Clinton now wants more debates because “the dynamics of the race have changed and Sen. Sanders has significant momentum.

“Sen. Sanders is happy to have more debates but we are not going to schedule them on an ad hoc basis at the whim of the Clinton campaign.”

No response yet from Deb.  More from The New Civil Rights Project on this development.  Martin O'Malley saw an opening and took a shot.

Martin O'Malley is pissed at Bernie Sanders. With the Democrats on track to add a new debate for their presidential candidates between Iowa and New Hampshire, the long-shot candidate ripped into Sanders (who has yet to agree to this debate, while Hillary Clinton has) with an odd charge. He claimed that Sanders' public calls over the summer for additional debates had been "totally disingenuous" and that Sanders had privately worked against more face-offs being added to the lineup. "Bernie Sanders didn't want any more debates, from the beginning," O'Malley said following an event in Grinnell, Iowa, on Wednesday night. 

Speaking with reporters from Mother Jones and MSNBC, O'Malley seemed to fault Sanders more than Clinton for the limited number of debates on the Democratic side. The number of debates was set by the Democratic Party, and the rules it established prohibited candidates from participating in debates that were not sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee. O'Malley claims that, once these rules were announced, his campaign reached out to the Sanders camp seeking their support in pushing for more debates. But, O'Malley says, Sanders declined. "We knew as soon as those rigged rules came down, we knew that if [Sanders] would agree to do more debates, we would have more debates, but he would never agree," O'Malley said. "He didn't want more debates." O'Malley's charge, however, is a bit hard to square with Sanders' actions at the time. The Vermont senator was in fact sending letters to the DNC and posting petitions to his website rallying supporters behind more debates.

Because it's MO'M, nobody's paying attention.  I feel bad for the guy that even his temper tantrums are under the radar.  I'm figuring that the next time I blog about him, it's that he's dropping out.  Less than a week from now.

As for Clinton... it's all going to be okay.  Really and truly.

"Let's watch losers debate the man who isn't there"

One No Trump.

Whee, one more Republican debate before Iowa votes, after which somebody will win the Iowa caucuses and nobody will drop out and we’ll have a million more debates, even after Hillary Rodham Clinton’s two terms as president are over. And it’s tonight! What’s going to happen? We don’t know, do you?

It gets a lot NSFW after that, Wonky-style.  Here are YouGov's polling results on Trump's boycott; while he continues to lead in Iowa, even pulling the evangelical vote there, a plurality (43%) in the YG survey deem his withdrawal from tonight's Fox debate  'unacceptable'.  But like many others at this point, I think Trump is going to win the Republican nomination, mostly because nothing he has done has slowed his roll.

As for tonight, Rand gets back on stage, while Carnival Cruz takes the center. And look who the cat dragged in; why, it's Jim Gilmore, fighting his way back to the kiddie table.  Too bad it's way too late to matter; the world in which Ted Cruz is looking like the only alternative to Trump is causing some queasy stomachs in the GOP.

Some powerful Republicans are dismayed at what this election cycle has yielded. Party officials (last) week declared themselves against Ted Cruz. But none, with the exception of the former Alaska governor, will endorse his top rival — Donald Trump. 

Cruz and Trump kicked off their campaigns as radical candidates pit against the stale "establishment," then rose to take the top spots in national and early state polls. Now "the establishment" must choose which they'll support for the nomination. 

Cruz's week of hard hits got worse (last) Thursday. Five Republican senators told CNN they didn't want Cruz to win, and Texas Sen. John Cornyn expressed concern with the race. The AP reported one Republican senator vowed to vote for Democrat Bernie Sanders before Cruz, though the senator denied it, according to the Charlotte Observer. 

That comes after the Republican governor of Iowa, the first state to host a primary caucus, announced he wanted Cruz to lose, and after Bob Dole, a former Republican presidential nominee, said he preferred Trump, who also (last) week got the endorsement of Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin.

Tonight's spotlight dance for the Cuban Canuck may come at a perfect moment for him to surge as the voting is set to begin ... or it could just be another missed opportunity.  Don't watch tonight; I'll do that for you and Tweet some of the best laughs in the top right column.

The stingers get stung

The news broke late yesterday afternoon, and every media outlet has posted a story about it, so consider this one a coda.

A Harris County grand jury on Monday indicted the videographers behind undercover recordings of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Houston and cleared the women's health provider of any wrongdoing. 

The indictments — part of the county prosecutor's investigation into allegations that Planned Parenthood was illegally selling fetal tissue — include charges against anti-abortion activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt for tampering with a governmental record, a second-degree felony that carries a punishment of up to 20 years in prison. The grand jury handed down a second charge for Daleiden for “Prohibition of the Purchase and Sale of Human Organs," according to the Harris County District Attorney's office. That charge is a class A misdemeanor that carries a punishment of up to a year in jail. 

The grand jury cleared Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Houston of breaking any laws.

The Republican district attorney, appointed by Greg Abbott (and subsequently re-elected against a worthy Democratic challenger) investigated the national women's healthcare organization for wrongdoings associated with the undercover and heavily edited videotapes by the two folks named above.  It was the Texas lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who pressured the DA to bring charges to a grand jury.  She did, and the grand jury returned an indictment.  Just not against Planned Parenthood.

The irony is so rich it must be fattening.

"We were called upon to investigate allegations of criminal conduct by Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast,” Anderson said in a statement. "As I stated at the outset of this investigation, we must go where the evidence leads us. All the evidence uncovered in the course of this investigation was presented to the grand jury. I respect their decision on this difficult case."

Rarely do you see a group of right-wing freaks get clocked this badly all around the horn.  It reminds me of the kind of embarrassment inflicted upon themselves -- and the rest of the state of Texas --  by the advocates of the Operation Jade Helm conspiracy.  Except in this case, women's lives and health have been endangered by their rabid, frothing extremism.

On to the next outrage, patriots!  You have lost the Battle of the So-Called Baby Killers.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance, in bringing you this week's blog post roundup, hopes everyone stays safe in the Northeast as the socialist snowplows come to the rescue.

Off the Kuff interviewed Harris County Sheriff candidates Ed Gonzalez and Jeff Stauber.

SocraticGadfly questions the mainstream media narrative that the GOP presidential race is down to a Trump-Cruz two-person event with this analysis and has a follow-up skewering of the Trump-Palin fun coming.

McBlogger goes the full 'pragmatism' on Bernie Sanders.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis, state Rep. Garnet Coleman, three current and one former Houston city councilmen all want to take the place of the recently-departed Harris County Commissioner El Franco Lee on the November ballot. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has the latest on the most highly contested 2016 race that you won't be eligible to vote for.

Of course the frackers are big GOP donors. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme knows that the Texas Republicans don't work for you. They work for their rich buddies.

In additional fracking developments, Texas Vox has the details on the teleconference open to the public on EPA's assessment of hydraulic fracturing and its effect on drinking water, and TXsharon at Bluedaze has more environmental news from across the country.

Texas Leftist writes about the legal challenge to Obama's executive action on immigration moving toward the SCOTUS.

nonsequiteuse attended the HISD meeting where Confederate heroes, and the schools named after them, were on the agenda.

Neil at All People Have Value took a Martin Luther King Day picture of two different types of birds sharing space in peace. We could learn from these birds. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Democratic Blog News has this pointed reminder: "Texas primary early voting starts on Tuesday, February 16, 2016 and runs through Friday, February 26, 2016. [...] Texas early voting voters will likely have cast about half of their total primary ballots by the time SC Democrats vote in their primary on Saturday, February 27th."

Prairie Weather helps out with a good definition of 'progressive'.

Zachery B. Taylor asks whether academia is helping or hurting democracy.

Jonathan Tilove noted that Greg Abbott flew Air Adelson to Israel and then Davos.

Ty Clevenger appealed the slap on the wrist given US Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. in his judicial misconduct investigation.

Keep Austin Wonky interviews Texas House candidate Huey Rey Fischer.

The Current advertises a movie screening to raise money for the Texas Civil Rights Project.

Texans for Public Justice filed a complaint with the FEC against Ted Cruz for his failure to report those Goldman Sachs and Citibank loans from 2012.

Anastasia Hansen tells you things you may not have known about Houston's bus system.

And Progress Texas documents four decades of Texas abortion laws.