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Clinton Gets Endorsements From Top Iowa, New Hampshire, Boston Papers As Primary Season Kicks Off

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Editors Say Sanders’ Policies Are Unachievable, Have ‘No Chance Of Being Approved’ By Congress

Hillary Clinton walked away with endorsements from three highly influential local papers this weekend, a week before the nation’s first primary and a day before Monday’s Democratic forum. The former Senator and Secretary of State, who is losing to Bernie Sanders in some recent state polls and winning in others, scored the backing of The Des Moines Register, The Boston Globe, and the Concord Monitor. All three papers are the top in their markets, and could influence voters ahead of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. The Globe has a strong impact on the New Hampshire market, with a reported 20,000 New Hampshire subscribers.

Clinton also this weekend received an endorsement from another Iowa paper, the Sioux City Journal. 

Iowa, the first-in-the-nation primary, is February 1. New Hampshire follows shortly thereafter, February 9. 

“Hillary Clinton has needed knowledge, experience,” The Des Moines Register’s editorial board wrote, noting that the former Secretary of State “has demonstrated that she is a thoughtful, hardworking public servant who has earned the respect of leaders at home and abroad. She stands ready to take on the most demanding job in the world.”

The paper noted whomever takes the Oval Office next year will face challenges of working with Congress domestically on “immigration, health care, increased threats to national security, the disappearing middle class, the growing deficit, Social Security solvency, gun control, renewable energy, sentencing reform.” Internationally, challenges include “ISIS and other terrorists, climate change, the containment of nuclear threats posed in North Korea and Iran, the Russian incursions in Ukraine and foreign trade.”

They conclude, “Democrats have one outstanding candidate deserving of their support: Hillary Clinton. No other candidate can match the depth or breadth of her knowledge and experience.”

Calling Bernie Sanders “an honorable and formidable campaigner,” and “a man of courage and principle,” the Des Moines Register observed that Sanders “admits that virtually all of his plans for reform have no chance of being approved by a Congress that bears any resemblance to the current crop of federal lawmakers.”

The Boston Globe put it simply in its title: “Hillary Clinton deserves Democratic nomination,” and notes that although “tumultuous…the Barack Obama years have proved transformative — and the priority for Democratic voters should be to protect, consolidate, and extend those gains.”

The Globe says Clinton is “more seasoned, more grounded, and more forward-looking than in 2008,” and says “the nation has new challenges, which require a different kind of leader — someone who can keep what Obama got right, while also fixing his failures, especially on gun control and immigration reform. That will require a focus and toughness that Obama sometimes lacked.”

The paper devotes three entire paragraphs to gun control, concluding that “Clinton is simply more credible on what for too many Americans is a life-and-death issue,” because “Sanders presents himself as an avowed foe of big business, but his vote to protect firearms corporations from legal liability tells a different story.”

Ultimately, the Globe decides “the best reason to support Clinton isn’t the weaknesses of her opponents; it’s her demonstrated strengths and experience. Even her most dyed-in-the-wool opponents ought to take a second look at her. While Sanders has made an important contribution to the Democratic primary campaign, it’s Clinton who would make a better president.”

Lastly, from New Hampshire, the Concord Monitor decides “Clinton is Democrats’ best choice.”

“Only one Democratic candidate for president is truly qualified to hold the job: Hillary Clinton,” labeling Sanders’ promises unachievable.

The paper’s editors believe under a President Clinton, “the poisonous partisanship that’s paralyzed Washington will be diminished rather than increased. Why? During her eight years as a senator from New York, she proved her ability to find common ground with Republicans, accords that allowed needed legislation to advance.”

“No contender’s resume can come within miles of matching Clinton’s. She’s ready to take up the nation’s top job on day one and her knowledge of domestic issues and foreign policy is encyclopedic.”

They call her “tough as nails when she needs to be,” but also “funny and without the arrogance displayed by so many high-level politicians.”

“The plans Clinton has put forward – whether on foreign policy, making college more affordable, addressing climate change or increasing access to health care – display her knowledge of the issues. They are not pie-in-the sky, but achievable. Her health plan, for example, builds on the success of Obamacare,” the editors state.

“By contrast, Sanders’s health plan, such as it is, was described by Vox founder and health care analyst Ezra Klein as offering voters ‘puppies and rainbows.’ Virtually none of what he has pledged to do is achievable.”

 

This article has been updated with video. 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license

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CRIME

Jan. 6 Grand Jury Witnesses Are Being Asked What ‘National Security Levers’ Trump Was Trying to Pull

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March 27, 2023

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CBS News revealed a smidgen of news nested in a shocking episode of “Face the Nation,” in which Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) blamed Democrats for Donald Trump celebrating Jan. 6 attackers at his Waco, Texas rally over the weekend.

After, however, reporter Robert Costa noted that special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attacks had taken a turn.

“Based on our reporting, the special counsel is tightening his investigation around former President Trump when it comes to January 6, now compelling some of his top aides and allies to testify under oath about their private conversations with Trump,” he explained. “That means there’s no privilege, no executive privilege they can cite to try to block any kind of testimony on those issues.”

This has been a losing battle for a number of officials that attempted to assert executive privilege during the House Select Committee’s investigation into the insurrection and the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election. Ultimately, Congress voted to hold a few of those subpoenaed in contempt of Congress and those proceedings are moving forward despite the House changing hands to the GOP.

“We know the special counsel is looking into a possible conspiracy case against Trump and people around him about trying to block the congressional proceedings on January 6,” Costa continued. “We’re going to potentially hear now from Mark Meadows. Robert O’Brien, the former national security adviser, John Ratcliffe, the former director of national intelligence.”

Costa went on to say that witnesses brought to the grand jury are being asked about the kind of “national security levers Trump was asking about in those final days.”

Some of the militia members had said over chats that it was important that they riot so that it would give Trump what he needed to declare the Insurrection Act of 1807 or declare martial law. That would then allow him to deploy the military, seize voting machines, and ultimately allow him to stay in office. Trump had toyed with the idea during the summer of 2020 during the protests of the slaying of George Floyd.

Costa also brought up the document theft case, which is also being investigated by the special counsel. He noted that it’s extremely rarefor a judge to call in a defendant’s lawyer to testify. As legal analysts explained this week, it only happens if there is enough evidence that a crime was committed. It means that a judge believes that’s exactly what happened.

“Evan Corcoran, Trump’s lawyer in this case, [is] now being told to come in, and he did come in for hours on Friday,” Costa said. “And he didn’t just talk about his broad view. He had to share audio files, notes, details about all of his conversations with Trump about how Trump handled those federal requests about classified documents. Think back to the Mar-a-Lago FBI search last summer. Corcoran was pressed about what was Trump doing at that intense time. And that really gives the prosecutors a prism into what really happened.”

Costa later added more details on Twitter about the information he’s gathered.

“Sources directly familiar with witnesses and questions tell me it’s clear Special Counsel is now ‘tightening’ the Jan. 6 probe around Trump and his inner circle, with focus on infamous 12/18/20 Oval [Office meeting], and efforts to push national security, DOJ official,” he tweeted. “Witnesses have been pressed in recent weeks about [Rudy] Giuliani, [Sidney] Powell and others who sought to use levers of government to stop the certification of the election… and sources directly involved believe a case on conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding could be in the works.”

See the segment in the video below or at the link here.

 

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'DEHUMANIZING AND DANGEROUS'

Trump Team’s Efforts to Rein Him ‘Wilted’ in Waco as He Invoked ‘Retribution and Violence’: Report

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March 26, 2023

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Any hope that Donald Trump’s new re-election team may have had that they could steer him into running a more conventional campaign appears to have been swept aside as he used his first major rally to whip up the crowd with a litany of grievances and personal attacks.

According to the Guardian’s David Smith, during Trump’s appearance in Waco late Saturday, the former president used his speech to “invoke retribution and violence” at his perceived enemies, with attacks on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) who might possibly challenge him for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

As Smith wrote, “Efforts by Trump’s team to steer a more conventional, disciplined candidacy have wilted in recent days as the 76-year-old unleashed words and images that – even by his provocative standards – are unusually dehumanising, menacing and dangerous,” before adding nothing the past week Trump used “increasingly racist rhetoric as he launched ever more personal attacks against Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, raising fears that supporters could try to lash out on his behalf. Trump even shared an image of himself holding a baseball bat next to a picture of Bragg.”

RELATED: Trump is giving his ‘violent followers’ time to get organized: former FBI official

According to the Guardian report, “Wearing a dark jacket, white shirt and no tie, he said: ‘I got bad publicity and my poll numbers have gone through the roof – would you explain this to me … It gets so much publicity that the case actually gets adjudicated in the press and people see it’s bullshit.'”

The former president also, once again, called his 2024 run the “final battle.”

“Our opponents have done everything they can to crush our spirit and to break our will. But they failed. They’ve only made us stronger. And 2024 is the final battle, it’s going to be the big one. You put me back in the White House, their reign will be over and America will be a free nation once again,” he told the crowd.

You can read more here.

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Trump Desperate to Keep Any Possible Criminal Evidence From Supreme Court: Legal Expert

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March 25, 2023

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Donald Trump’s decision to allow one of his lawyers to speak before a grand jury on Friday morning, instead of appealing all the way to the Supreme Court, may have been made out of fear of what the justices on the nation’s highest court might see if they reviewed the case.

According to MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin, under normal circumstances, the former president would have dragged out a legal fight over attorney-client privilege that would have kept attorney Evan Corcoran from testifying under oath about Trump’s possession of government documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort that led to the FBI showing up with a warrant.

As Rubin notes, the fact that Trump let Corcoran testify over three hours raised eyebrows.

“For one, yes, it is indeed unusual, if not unheard of, for a lawyer to be litigating against a party one day and then testifying under court-ordered examination by that same party the next one,” she wrote before suggesting Trump and his legal team were looking at the long game when he might need the predominantly conservative Supreme Court to lend him a helping hand.

RELATED: Revealed: Emails show how Trump lawyers drove Michael Cohen to turn on the president

Writing, “Trump has made clear he believes this Supreme Court — controlled by conservative justices, three of whom he appointed — owes him one,” she added, “My hunch is that Trump’s team let Corcoran’s testimony happen because of what’s likely involved in any request to pause, much less, review a crime-fraud-related ruling: the evidence.”

“Put another way, if Trump had petitioned the Supreme Court to stay Corcoran’s testimony and document production, the justices would have seen some, if not all, of what Judge Howell and the three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit have already reviewed: proof that Trump misled Corcoran and engaged in criminal conduct,” she elaborated.

Rubin went on to note that Trump would likely appeal any conviction to the Supreme Court, writing, “And for someone whose one last hope, if he is ultimately charged or tried by any of the multiple entities now investigating him, is that same Supreme Court, letting the justices see evidence of his alleged crimes now would be a bridge too far.”

“Trump can’t afford to lose the Supreme Court yet,” she suggested.

You can read more here.

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