The Clinton Foundation received four out of four stars — the highest rating that Charity Navigator gives after a close look at a charity's finances. The rating is based on annual federal tax documents. It was not intended to reflect whether Hillary Clinton kept donors to her family's foundation at appropriate arm's length or provided favored access as secretary of state.
Charity Navigator is a leading and respected organization that evaluates and rates charities so donors can make informed decisions about contributions. It was itself a member of the Clinton Global Initiative between 2012 and 2014.
Ooh, this “leading and respected” organization was a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. More scandal? Except it turns out that in 2012, Charity Navigator changed its methodology in a way that downgraded the Clinton Foundation to three stars at that time, so apparently being part of the Clinton Global Initiative did not buy higher marks. Also:
Another charity watchdog, Charity Watch, previously gave the Clinton Foundation an "A'' rating on a scale of A-F. Charity Watch has no connection to the Clinton Foundation, said its president, Daniel Borochoff.
Donald Trump spoke at Greater Faith Ministries International church this morning in Detroit, one day after a draft script of his Q and A with the pastor was circulated via media. Trump’s presentation to the church was also scripted—no teleprompter though—as the Republican presidential nominee read from notes placed on the podium before him.
Trump’s visit comes as one of his staunchest African American pastoral supporters, Mark Burns who did the invocation at the Republican National Convention in July walked out of an interview with CNN after his credentials—or lack thereof—on his official biography were questioned. You can see that interview below the fold. Video of Trump’s antics in Detroit are forthcoming.
Welcome back, Saturday Campaign D-I-Y’ers! For those who tune in, welcome to the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic campaign. Each week, we discuss issues that help drive successful campaigns. If you’ve missed prior diaries, please visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide.
We’ve been following our fictional candidate, Jessica Jones, as her campaign moves through the election cycle in her efforts to win a state Senate seat. With fewer and fewer days left in the campaign, many campaigns are putting their mail plans into the field. Jessica is focused on the type of mail her campaign wants to send and the way she wants to use mail to help her campaign.
Suddenly, a friend in the campaign sends her a postcard they received in the mail from an outside Republican lobby group that attacks Jessica. It’s a photo of Jessica Jones, a state Senate candidate, hugging President Obama thanks to the beauty of Photoshop. It also accuses her of everything short of clubbing baby seals to death.
Before Jessica Jones starts to panic, it’s time to talk about how we deal with attack mail and slimy attacks.
Ron Johnson, the most at-risk GOP senator in the nation
Ron Johnson, the most at-risk GOP senator in the nation
It's only natural that everyone has been so focused on Donald Trump—how can you look away from that Cheeto-hued Dumpster fire?—but let's not forget that if we want Hillary Clinton to have any shot of enacting the far-reaching progressive agenda she's campaigning on, she'll need a Democratic Congress on her side.
And at Daily Kos Elections, you can trust us to never take our eyes off the ball. We track every key development in every key Senate and House race every day of the week—only serious news, no fluff or bogus "scandals"—and you can read about it all, for free, by signing up for our Morning Digest newsletter.
To give you a taste of the kinds of news we cover, we've put together an overview of the top Senate races that the Democratic Party is targeting this year. Democrats currently hold 46 seats, so they need to win five more for a majority, or four if they keep the White House since the vice president would break ties. Here, in order of the likelihood they change hands, are the seats Democrats are most likely to pick up:
1. Wisconsin. Ever since he was first elected in 2010, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson has acted as though he represents Alabama, not a swing state. As extreme as his conservative voting record has been, his penchant for sticking his foot in his mouth and chomping down hard is even more remarkable. Every poll ever taken has shown former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold leading—even GOP polls! Conservative groups long ago cut back on their planned ad spending, making RoJo look like a dead man walking.
2. Illinois. Republican Sen. Mark Kirk has been more cognizant of the fact that he represents a state that's home to lots of Democrats, but for every dumb thing Johnson says, Kirk says something offensive (like the time he declared that black neighborhoods are the ones "we drive faster through"). Democrats landed a top recruit in Rep. Tammy Duckworth, a double-amputee Iraq veteran, and Illinois is a very blue state. Major GOP groups haven't even bothered making ad reservations here.
For his Labor Day weekend address, President Obama commemorated, yes, Labor Day.
I want to talk a little bit about the reason we get to celebrate Labor Day – and that’s the labor movement that helped build this country and our middle class.
For generations, every time the economy changed, hardworking Americans marched and organized and joined unions to demand not simply a bigger paycheck for themselves, but better conditions and more security for the folks working next to them, too. Their efforts are why we can enjoy things like the 40-hour workweek, overtime pay, and a minimum wage. Their efforts are why we can depend on health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, and retirement plans.
All of that progress is stamped with the union label. All of that progress was fueled with a simple belief: that our economy works better when it works for everybody.
But there’s more to do.
So as a country, we’ve got some choices to make. Do we want to be a country where the typical woman working full-time earns 79 cents for every dollar a man makes – or one where they earn equal pay for equal work? Do we want a future where inequality rises as union membership keeps falling – or one where wages are rising for everybody and workers have a say in their prospects? Are we a people who just talk about family values while remaining the only developed nation that doesn’t offer its workers paid maternity leave – or are we a people who actually value families, and make paid family leave an economic priority for working parents?
To read the transcript in full, check below the fold or visit the White House website.
Welcome to the latest edition in our war on voting series. This is a joint project of Meteor Blades and Joan McCarter.
Every now and then, a Republican lawmaker experiences a sudden gust of honesty. It happened in Wisconsin this spring, when Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Of course) said "I think Hillary Clinton is about the weakest candidate the Democrats have ever put up. And now we have photo ID, and I think photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference as well." He was one of the guys who cheered passage of that state's voter ID law because "what it could do for us."
“Of course it’s political. Why else would you do it?” he said, explaining that Republicans, like any political party, want to protect their majority. While GOP lawmakers might have passed the law to suppress some voters, Wrenn said, that does not mean it was racist.
“Look, if African Americans voted overwhelmingly Republican, they would have kept early voting right where it was,” Wrenn said. “It wasn’t about discriminating against African Americans. They just ended up in the middle of it because they vote Democrat.”
And of course it's also racist, because politics and racism are most certainly not mutually exclusive things. There's also the part about how a representative democracy is supposed to have free and fair elections, a concept Republicans are apparently now explicitly and openly rejecting.
Some of the more egregious parts of North Carolina's voter suppression law will not be in effect this November, having been rejected by the Supreme Court, at least for the time being. The state had requested that the Supreme Court lift a stay on the law imposed by a lower court, and four of the Supremes said no. Unfortunately, that lower court ruling left one big loophole for the suppressors—it continues to allow local entities to restrict early voting. While they have to provide opportunities to vote for the 17 days prior to the election, county boards get to decide the hours and the locations of that voting.
About a third of the state's county election boards (all with Republican majorities) heeded a memo from the NC GOP that urged them to "make party line changes to voting" and now the state elections board "is poised to wade into what could be a lengthy county-by-county fight over how much early voting should be allowed." It's a fight that could easily end up back in court.
And court is where we're headed in Ohio and Michigan, too. For that and more head below the fold.
Don’t ignore the data journalists tracking the race, and note that while there’s a steady Hillary Clinton lead in the national head to head, the state polls have tightened (driving the prediction banner at top of page) in some states. Still, a 3 point win in a state gets you as many electoral votes as a 12 point win. That’s why you’re seeing pieces like this:
Three weeks until early voting, the campaign scrambles to pick a path and stay on it.
It makes a lot of you uncomfortable to talk about winning, but it’s the political reality: Trump is losing. We are seeing the inevitable tightening, but there’s no question Clinton not only remains the heavy favorite, she’s the only one with an actual campaign.
As to whether the race is already over, well, many people are saying it.
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I wrote a piece today on the Johnson and Stein candidacies. I'm gonna make a few comments about them here. https://t.co/6AtbSrHVrH
Several staffers have described feeling like being part of a totalitarian regime whose dictator has just been toppled. “No one knows what to do. No one knows who to report to. It’s just mayhem,” said a Fox host. As details of the Paul, Weiss investigation have filtered through the offices, staffers are expressing a mixture of shock and disgust. The scope of Ailes’s alleged abuse far exceeds what employees could have imagined. “People are so devastated,” one senior executive said. Those I spoke with have also been unnerved by Shine and Brandi’s roles in covering up Ailes’s behavior. [...]
Many people I spoke with believe that the current management arrangement is just a stopgap until the election. “As of November 9, there will be a bloodbath at Fox,” predicts one host. “After the election, the prime-time lineup could be eviscerated. O’Reilly’s been talking about retirement. Megyn could go to another network. And Hannity will go to Trump TV.”
Just in case you missed the amazing performance of the Republican leadership yesterday...
President George W. Bush said, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." Well, no one except the entire world and even Mr. Bill.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice went shoe shopping on Fifth Avenue, but not before she played tennis and yukked it up at Spamalot.
The Viceroy in charge of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff said "We’re much better prepared than we’ve ever been.” I'm not sure if that was before or after he reminded us that September is National Preparedness Month, so be sure to stock up on duct tape.
The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael D. Brown leapt into action, mustering all the emergency disaster management skills he learned as a lawyer for the International Arabian Horse Association Legal Department (from which he was fired). His money quote: "Paula, the federal government did not even know about the Convention Center people until today."
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin explains the taco trucks thing, reminds us how to read the polls & rounds up other news before we get lost in… just exactly how disgusting Roger Ailes is. The only thing that can make us put that aside is: Chris Hamby’s ISDS reporting.
The New Jersey state legislature passed a minimum wage increase, only to have wildly unpopular Gov. Chris Christie veto it. Now, Democrats say they will try to put the issue on the ballot in 2017, when voters will also be electing Christie’s successor:
"We gave him a chance to do the right thing by putting this bill on his desk even though we knew the chances of him standing up for low-wage workers were slim," [state Senate President Stephen] Sweeney said.
"While I'm disappointed the governor has once again turned his back on the most vulnerable participants in our economy, Senate Democrats stand ready to continue our march for economic fairness," he said. "We will do the right thing and introduce a constitutional amendment to incrementally raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour by the year 2021."
Christie went to a grocery store to veto the bill, taking selfies with some of the workers he was presumably denying a raise. His veto will push back the timetable for reaching $15 an hour, but give Democrats a valuable voter turnout issue for the 2017 elections.
Day two? Yeah, talk to ... what's his name? Mikey? Yeah, I think it's Mikey. He's handling day two.
Day two? Yeah, talk to ... what's his name? Mikey? Yeah, I think it's Mikey. He's handling day two.
In his hateful Phoenix speech on immigration, Donald Trump seemed to leave no doubt about the fate of every undocumented immigrant.
Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation. ...
For those here illegally today, who are seeking legal status, they will have one route and one route only. To return home and apply for reentry like everybody else, under the rules of the new legal immigration system that I have outlined above.
Trump declared he would build a super-sized “deportation force,” and promised to send out everyone whether they came over the southern border or overstayed their visa. But elsewhere in the same speech …
And the establishment of our new lawful immigration system then and only then will we be in a position to consider the appropriate disposition of those individuals who remain.
Always saluting. You'll be saluting so much you'll be sick of saluting.
Always saluting. You'll be saluting so much you'll be sick of saluting.
Donald Trump rolls out his plan for molding the kids today into proper Americans.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump today told veterans from across country that he would require patriotism to be taught in schools [...]
In addition to teaching patriotism in schools, he called for students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
“We will stop apologizing for America, and we will start celebrating America,” he said. “We will be united by our common cultures, values, and principles, becoming one American nation, one country under the one constitution, saluting one American flag—always saluting.”
The reason I've called you in both in today, Mr. and Mrs. Turner, is that little Billy is getting a B in Patriotism this semester and I think it's something we need to look at. In his last homework assignment I asked him to come up with six reasons he loves America, and he was only able to come up with five. His P.E. teacher reports that his saluting is sub-par; the form is acceptable, but we're looking for a more snappy execution in the elbow and at the wrist. These would by themselves be only a matter of general concern, but I'm told that at lunch earlier this week he was saying some somewhat unsavory things about America's generous resettlement of native populations.
Now we've noticed that these sorts of things generally tend to start at home, and so I have to ask—is your household fostering a nurturing patriotic environment? I presume Billy has a flag in his room—have you noticed any drop-off in form, during his bedtime salutes? Are his television habits being monitored? National Geographic is fine, it’s a Fox production now, but I hope you've been getting the notes we've been sending home about the Cooking Channel.
I'm sure I don't need to remind you both that we here at Eric Trump Middle School take patriotism very seriously, and while a B effort in most classes would count as a fine grade, the president himself has directed that students with a semester grade of B+ or lower in Patriotism be referred to patriotism camp. There is still time for Billy to get his grade up, but it's going to require some work. He’ll be needing to come in for extracurricular patriotism activities after school. This week we'll be egging the house of ... let's see, Gerald Stutch, whose family was recently deported for mentioning segregation. I believe Billy and Gerald knew each other, if our files are right. We're all just one big happy family here!
So will Billy be able to attend? Oh, good, I was certain we could make this work. One other thing, I've noticed that his uniform could use a good pressing. He must be such a handful at home!
Welcome back to your daily roundup of the Donald Trump presidential campaign. We begin where we ended: with the Trump campaign having another bad day, nearly all of the damage self-inflicted.
• Donald Trump made changes to his immigration "policy" speech on Wednesday in response to getting a spanking from the Mexican president on Twitter, because that is how we in America do "policy" now. The line "They don't know it yet, but they're going to pay for the wall" was added after the president of Mexico tweeted that he had explicitly told Trump Mexico would not be doing that. So there you go; Donald Trump remains steadfast in the face of foreign adversity, so long as you give him four hours to work up to it. Oh, and the foreign adversity isn't actually in the room at the time.
• Trump's weekend trip to Detroit becomes less ambitious with each passing day. Yesterday a "script" of Trump's planned interview with Detroit televangelist Wayne T. Jackson was leaked from the campaign, revealing the twelve approved questions Jackson would be asking Trump and the campaign's preferred Trump responses. (In response, Jackson says he will now be asking different questions.)
• Today was an exceptionally bad day for Trump adviser and perhaps-someday Trump Network head Roger Ailes, as a long exposé of sexual harassment claims against him throughout his career. The most noteworthy detail: Fired Fox host Gretchen Carlson had recorded multiple instances of that harassment.
• Meanwhile, reports that Fox News under Roger Ailes' leadership worked to secretly obtain the phone records of a Media Matters reporter, an illegal act in the United States, has overtones of the phone hacking scandal which shuttered Murdoch's News of the World paper and resulted in multiple criminal convictions. The Trump round table certainly is making Nixon's team look like a bunch of pikers, I'll give them that. Especially when you ...
• … meet the newest member of the Trump campaign team, serial Clinton muckraker David Bossie, who will take a leave from the outfit he founded to take a position as deputy campaign manager. You may have heard of that other outfit: Citizens United. Before that, he was known as the guy who got canned for being too crooked for House Speaker Newt Gingrich; he was fired from his position as the House's top Clinton scandal-investigator after he was caught "leaking" doctored transcripts and interviews that he had re-edited in order to make his evidence look more damning than it was. That, too, should sound familiar, as it would later becomes the go-to model of conservative "journalism". Oh, and President George H.W. Bush was so incensed by fellow Republican Bossie's campaign tactics against Bill Clinton that he filed an FEC complaint against Bossie.
I presume the good people of the national media will point each of those things out, while obligingly regurgitating whatever new Clinton attacks Bossie has planned for us this next time around.
