The Justice Department grants immunity to the staffer who set up Hillary Clinton’s email server
According to this story the Justice Department has granted immunity to Bryan Pagliano, the man who set up and maintained Hillary Clinton’s private email server, in return for his testimony in the ongoing scandal.
Here is more:
The Justice Department has granted immunity to the former State Department staffer who worked on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private email server, a sign the FBI investigation into possible criminal wrongdoing is progressing.
A senior U.S. law enforcement official said the FBI had secured the cooperation of Bryan Pagliano who worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign before setting up the server in her New York home in 2009.
Could this be the first shoe to drop? The article linked to above goes on to say the FBI will most likely be interviewing Hillary Clinton and her top aides as well. Now that the first person has been granted immunity perhaps it is possible the former Secretary of State’s top aides will look to strike a deal with the FBI rather than protect their boss. This could be about to get very interesting…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
According to this article there is a growing grassroots effort among the supporters of Bernie Sanders to convince other supporters of the Senator from Vermont to not vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election if she is the nominee. Here is more:
The movement is called “Bernie or Bust,” and it means just that: If Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont loses the Democratic presidential nomination, a group of his supporters will either write in his name in the general election or consider casting their ballot for a Republican.
The one thing they certainly won’t do: Vote for Hillary Clinton.
More than 50,000 people already have signed up at the Revolt Against Plutocracy, pledging to vote for the Green Party candidate in the general election or write in Mr. Sanders’ name if Mrs. Clinton wins the Democratic nomination. Other groups, such as Grassroots Action for Bernie, are taking to social media, using Facebook and Twitter to try to get the “Bernieorbust” hashtag trending.
Even Sanders supporters not tied to the movement, or unaware of its existence, seem to agree with its principles, making one thing clear: The Democratic National Committee and Mrs. Clinton will have a hard time attracting many of Mr. Sanders’ voters.
Ben Carson drops out of the Republican primary
Not that this news is going to surprise anyone but after a poor showing on Super Tuesday Ben Carson has decided to drop out of the race. Here is part of what he had to say:
Even though I will not be in my hometown of Detroit on Thursday, I remain deeply committed to my home nation, America. I do not see a political path forward in light of last evening’s Super Tuesday primary results. However, this grassroots movement on behalf of “We the People” will continue. Along with millions of patriots who have supported my campaign for President, I remain committed to Saving America for Future Generations. We must not depart from our goals to restore what God and our Founders intended for this exceptional nation.
“I appreciate the support, financial and otherwise, from all corners of America. Gratefully, my campaign decisions are not constrained by finances; rather by what is in the best interests of the American people.”
I have no doubt Ben Carson is a nice man, in fact probably too nice to be a politician, and he was an incredible brain surgeon but he simply did not have what it takes to run for President.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
With each winning seven states on Super Tuesday it would appear as if Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have secured frontrunner status in their respective parties. At this point the nomination of these two candidates is all but certain in my opinion.
Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz both won four states and this should be enough to allow them to hang around until the bitter end, while Marco Rubio is going to use his first victory to make a claim he should stay in the race. After all, he has been trying to tout third place finishes as victories so now that he has a real victory he can point at we can rest assured he is not going anywhere anytime soon.
Until and unless either Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz drop out of the race there is no chance at stopping Donald Trump but even if one of them does leave the race the billionaire businessman is going to be hard to stop.
That is really all I have time for before I head to work so consider this a Super Tuesday open thread. Oh wait, did I forget to mention Ben Carson…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
In recent days Donald Trump has come under fire for not disavowing the KKK after former Grand Wizard David Duke endorsed him for President. Personally I thought that Donald Trump did not handle the situation very well, first he said he did not know anything about David Duke or the KKK and then he blamed a bad earpiece for the comments he made regarding David Duke.
But he did say that if he found out David Duke needed disavowing he would disavow him, or something like that, I still do not understand what was going through his mind or what he was trying to say. But having said that the one thing Donald Trump did not do was heap praise on the former Grand Wizard of the KKK.
But speaking of heaping praise on a former leader of the KKK, Bunkerville unearthed a video of Hillary Clinton praising her “friend and mentor” former Exalted Cyclops (apparently that is a real title) of the KKK, Robert Byrd.
According to this story there is polling data from which shows Donald Trump doing remarkable well against Hillary Clinton in New York and this data has some prominent Democrats very worried. Here is more:
Confidential polling data shows Hillary Clinton could lose the presidential election in heavily Democratic New York to Donald Trump as the GOP front-runner’s support grows to the point of being “surprisingly strong,” The Post has learned.
The poll results, from Democratic and Republican legislative races, have surprised many leading Dems, virtually all of whom have endorsed Clinton, while confounding and energizing GOP leaders, many of whom until recently have been opposed to Trump.
“There are some Democrats who think that Hillary can be taken if Trump mounts a strong campaign,’’ one of the state’s most prominent Democrats said.
According to this story the Federal Election Commission has sent Bernie Sanders a letter informing him that some of the donations he accepted in January were illegal and unless he refunds the illegal contributions he could face legal action. We are not talking about one or two, or even several, illegal contributions but rather close to 3,500.
Here is more:
Thousands of contributions to Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ campaign in January violated federal campaign finance laws, election regulators said on Thursday.
The Federal Election Commission sent a letter to the Democratic presidential candidate’s campaign committee on Thursday with a 90-page spreadsheet listing 3,457 “excessive, prohibited, and impermissible contributions.”
The campaign’s January financial disclosure filing listed contributions from foreign nationals and unregistered political committees, the FEC said. Other contributions came from donors who exceeded the $2,700 per-election limit.
“Although the Commission may take further legal action concerning the acceptance of [excessive or prohibited] contributions, your prompt action to refund the prohibited amount will be taken into consideration,” the FEC told the campaign.
He accepted donations from foreign nationals, I thought only Republicans did that…but that was just for January, and this is not the first time the FEC has caught Bernie Sanders taking illegal campaign contributions:
February 28th open thread: ‘Kiss Off’
Here is the open thread for Sunday, February 28th. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
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On a personal note: This Tuesday I will officially be off of light duty at work following my October 28th surgery! To be honest I think not lifting more than 10 pounds for 3 months was a little excessive, I did my best to adhere to doctor’s orders but it was tough because that meant I could not lift anything heavier than a gallon of water.
I feel great but it was a long road. Looking back on it now I realize while I talked a good game in the beginning I did not feel as good as I thought I did but now I am 100% and I thank God for giving me the strength to get through it, for my family who supported me during my time of need, and for this second opportunity to set my priorities straight.
Here is the Violent Femmes performing “Kiss Off” live from I would guess somewhere between the late ’80’s and early ’90’s.
frui diem
Hillary Clinton has defeated Bernie Sanders in the Democratic South Carolina primary and it was not even close. In fact this victory was so lopsided that on its website CNN called the race at 7:00 with 0% of the precincts reporting. The original projections I saw earlier tonight predicted the former Secretary of State would beat the Senator from Vermont by 30 points, however as I write this Mrs. Clinton is defeating Mr. Sanders by almost 50 points with 81% of the precincts reporting.
This lead may shrink slightly when the last 19% of the votes are counted but I would expect this tally to be close to the eventual margin of victory. This is a huge momentum builder for Hillary Clinton heading into super Tuesday and it could signal the end of the controlled opposition–Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders supporters can take some solace in the fact that, much like New Hampshire, South Carolina awards the delegates on a proportional basis–it is not a winner take all State. In New Hampshire Bernie Sanders soundly defeated Hillary Clinton by 20+ points yet they both were awarded the same amount of delegates. This should bode well for Bernie Sanders because it should mean he would gain enough delegates to remain competitive on super Tuesday, right?
Well, not so fast. If this is what supporters of Bernie Sanders are thinking they are forgetting the pesky little issue of the way the Democrats have rigged the system using the superdelegates to ensure the elitist party favorite wins the nomination. Hillary Clinton was awarded the same amount of delegates in New Hampshire due to the superdelegates who have pledged to support her in the State, and she locked up half of the superdelegates in South Carolina before the primary even started, so unlike New Hampshire the Democratic party will not be spreading the delegates around in South Carolina.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Hillary Clinton regrets calling black youths ‘super predators’ in 1996
At a campaign event earlier this week Hillary Clinton was caught off-guard when two Black Lives Matter protesters asked her to explain some racist comments she made about black youths back in 1996 while she was the First Lady. If you missed that story you can read about it here, but to summarize: while she was the First Lady Hillary Clinton was taking about “at risk youths” (which is a dog whistle for black youths) and she called them “super predators” and went on to say we need to “bring them to heel.”
Before we go on you need to let that comment sink in. Think about it this way, she was saying that black youths were basically akin to dogs who needed to learn how to submit to their masters. Is there anything more racist than a comment like this?
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