Looking past Election Day, Republicans sketch plan to stymie a President Hillary Clinton agenda.
If elected, Clinton would likely become the first Democrat since Grover Cleveland to enter office without control of both houses of Congress.
.. Clinton would likely enjoy the shortest honeymoon period of any incoming commander in chief in recent history
.. “What that would leave her with is an absolute imperative to govern from the center,”
.. “A lot of us would like to hold her accountable for the failures, but we are holding our fire,” Schake said. “It’s because all of us are afraid of Trump. If she wants to maintain our support after, she’s going to have to address our policy concerns about the economy and America’s role in the world.”
.. Hillary Clinton, being a multi-decade partisan who fought tooth and nail with Republicans and called them her enemy, is uniquely ill-suited to having a honeymoon period if she wins.”
.. the focus will be on her domestic agenda, “which is not in any way bipartisan.”
.. Republican operatives on the Hill, for instance, are already planning to block Clinton’s agenda by strategically targeting individual Democratic senators who will be up for reelection in 2018. “Take Joe Manchin in West Virginia,” explained one GOP operative of the strategy. “If Hillary puts up an anti-coal, pro-EPA judge for the Supreme Court, the smart play is to start pressuring him with an advocacy campaign to vote no.”
.. the left will be pushing Clinton to begin her administration by “daring Republicans to oppose her” on big-ticket items like expanding Social Security and instituting debt-free college.
Questions About Hillary’s Health: The Birtherism of 2016
The last two weeks have seen a steady increase in innuendo by supporters of Donald Trump who claim—without evidence—that Hillary Clinton is frail, unhealthy, or on the verge of physical collapse.
The rumors, spread by voices ranging from the conspiracy theorist radio host Alex Jones to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, represent a sort of updated birtherism for the 2016 election
This Campaign Isn’t Trump vs. Hillary, It’s Trump vs. the Media
If a terrible natural disaster in Louisiana can be blamed on a Republican president, then it’s one of the biggest stories of the decade. If the lack of a public statement on a Louisiana disaster during a presidential vacation might reflect badly on a Democratic president, it’s best to treat the flood as a “page A4″ story, check-the-box journalism.
A paranoid schizophrenic shooting a Democratic Congresswoman in Tuscon warrants national conversation on whether the Tea Party’s rhetoric is inherently inciting to violence, and whether gun owners as a whole represent some threat to their fellow citizens. But an illegal immigrant shooting a young woman in San Francisco offers no further explanation or discussion, no need for a national conversation on whether a “sanctuary city” might protect dangerous criminals. A racist madman shooting up a Charleston church group indicts all Southerners, but the twisted cruelty of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell is just a “local crime story.”
If there really is a giant and widening cultural gap between America’s elites and the rest of the citizenry in “flyover country,” how much of it is driven by narrative-minded journalism? If you die in a particular way that can advance the Democrats’ legislative agenda, your death is going to be an enormously big deal. If the circumstances of your death are politically inconvenient to the Left — Brian Terry or the Benghazi four or those who died on the waiting list for the VA — there are no greater lessons to be learned or need for further action; it’s just an unfortunate set of circumstances. One set of citizens are in the picture; one set of citizens on the periphery get cropped out. It just doesn’t fit the picture that someone wants to create.
.. The national media, as defined by the news networks, largest newspapers, newsweeklies, cable news networks, and news radio, have a collective worldview. That worldview likes to spotlight and give in-depth coverage to particular kinds of stories — perhaps better to say “narratives.” If a story contradicts that narrative, the media as a whole will rarely ignore it completely. It will just get “check-the-box” journalism, the five-paragraph wire service article on page A4. But when something comes along that confirms one of their preferred narratives, it becomes a multi-day story, generates opinion columns and “think pieces” and essays and house editorials and spurs calls for a “national conversation.” The media has decided this news story has an importance and meaning that goes far beyond the particular event, and should shape how its audience sees the world.
It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over
She is a political opportunist who voted for a war in Iraq, in which she did not believe, that proved ruinous for her country. As secretary of state, she pushed for the overthrow and celebrated the assassination of a Libyan dictator, resulting in a North African haven for al-Qaida and ISIS.
Her reset with Russia was a diplomatic joke.
Her incompetence led to the death of a U.S. ambassador and three brave Americans in Benghazi, and she subsequently lied to the families of the dead heroes about why they had died.
Her statements about her server and emails were so perjurious they almost caused FBI Director James Comey to throw up in public.
.. But on leaving State, Hillary Clinton was pulling down $225,000 a pop for 20-minute speeches to Goldman Sachs. It’s a long way, baby, from her Children’s Defense Fund days