THURSDAY, JULY 7, 2016
Today’s Good News The Bad News
By James Carville, Political Commentator
Today’s Good News for Hillary: House Republicans dragged F.B.I. Director, James Comey before an “EMERGENCY” Hearing today, to grill him on why he didn’t recommend prosecuting Hillary for mishandling confidential emails. What the “emergency” was, they would not answer but it probably had to do with the fact that many of them may lose their jobs on November 8 if they can’t do something quickly to avoid the train wreck that may be coming to the Republican Party on that day. Finding a way to knock Hillary out of the race is their best and maybe only shot to do that.
We DemocRATS will all agree that Comey shot down every one of their talking points, which were disguised as questions. He stated that there was absolutely no coordination between himself and the Obama Administration on either the timing or the content of his report. He further went on to say that Hillary did not lie to the F.B.I., did not obstruct justice and was not guilty of any crime. He said that, at worst, she was guilty of sloppy handling of classified material, but that lots of people do that and no one has ever been prosecuted for it. In a give back to Hillary, he also said that any classified material that she did receive was not properly marked as such, because classified or top secret information is supposed to have red headers at the top of each item and what she received did not.
Normally, this would be the end of such a controversy, but of course, these are not normal times. Republicans will attempt to continue the matter as long as they can possibly sustain any interest in it. If they can drag the Benghazi affair out for 4 years, then surely they can drag this out until well beyond election day. For politicians, who have no shame, it’s going to take a lot of public embarrassment before they end it. Expect them to call for a new investigation soon.
One big piece of news exploded out of the hearing. In response to a question, Comey revealed that, after a lifetime of being a registered Republican, he no longer is. After having his integrity repeatedly challenged by Republicans today, we can guess that he is glad to be rid of them. One could expect that he is now on Hillary’s very very short list to be the next Attorney General. In fact, there can only be two people on that list – Loretta Lynch and Comey.
Good News for Trump: The campaign reported that they raised $51 million in June, which is less than Hillary but still far better than the previous month when they were nearly broke. So we can all expect to see a lot more TV ads now.
Trump’s speech in Sharonville last night was great entertainment. The “liberal” media actually assisted Trump by pre-empting the CBS Evening News on Channel 12 to show it in its entirety. Trump put on quite a show, acting like he was either unhinged or drunk. Since he doesn’t drink, we guess it was the former. The show was basically 3 parts: One, Hillary is corrupt and lies a lot. (now there’s a revelation for everyone- politicians lie?) Two, he never said Saddam Hussein was a good guy, he said Saddam was baaaaad – very baaaad, but good at killing terrorists, without reading them their rights or doing anything except just shooting them. Three, he is not an anti-Semite because his son-in-law is Jewish and the photo that Trump got off an anti-Semitic website and posted was not anti-Semitic, even if it did have Hillary with a six-pointed star and a huge pile of money. The rest was his usual rant about how our military has been devastated or something, because well, just because he said it is, and he is going to get rid of regulations and create jobs. Oh, and he is going to build the wall and make someone else pay for it.
A few protestors also appeared outside, but there were hundreds of cops to keep things in hand by keeping the protesters at a distance. Some protesters waved signs and some even brought Trump Ties, to show everyone that they are made in China.
Trump’s VP choices are dwindling. Two possible names that were supposed to be on the short-list said “no thanks” yesterday – Bob Corker of Tennessee and Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa. Corker said he didn’t want to be an attack-dog and Ernst said she had to wash her hair. No big-name Republican want to be on the ticket, so he is stuck with second-tier and washed-up people who have no future political ambitions. Best guesses for who is left over are his campaign side-kicks Chris (Krispy Kreme) Christie of Bridgegate fame, who couldn’t win an election for dog-catcher in his home state of New Jersey and the disgraced former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, who was forced to resign from congress 18 years ago because of ethics and tax violations. Other possibilities are supposed to be Indiana Governor, Mike Pence and Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. As unpredictable as Trump is though, it could also be someone completely off-the-wall, like another version of Sarah Palin or maybe a younger General (who am I? – why am I here?) Stockdale. We will know in two weeks or less.
