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POLITICS

Meet Huma Abedin, Mysterious Clinton Confidante and Long-Suffering Spouse of Anthony Weiner By Nina Burleigh

Abedin handles everything for her boss, from classified emails to booking hair appointments and answering her cellphone.

In 1996, two young, ambitious women worked at the Clinton White House. One was assigned to the West Wing—the presidential wing—and became known for her stained blue Gap dress, a sordid manifestation of Bill Clinton’s baser appetites. The other served in the East Wing, where the first lady’s offices are situated. This is the story of the second one, whose selfless servility and uncanny knack for predicting what the boss wants have put her closer than almost anyone to the most powerful woman in American politics.

For most of the past 20 years, Huma Mahmood Abedin, now a vice chair of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, has served as Clinton’s “body-woman”—basically a glorified lady’s maid. But she has also expanded her role and now monitors all access to Clinton. According to her many fans in Hillaryland, Abedin possesses a skill set that cannot be taught: the emotional intelligence to keep big-ego VIPs and other “clutches” (in the argot of Washington, civilians and celebs who overstay their face time with the boss) at bay without making them angry. Also, she wields a black-belt organizing talent that enables her to toggle between directing classified emails to the right people, keeping an eye on how weather is affecting the D.C.-LaGuardia shuttles and knowing which donors need a photo op—all while monitoring Clinton’s meals and hair appointments and cellphone. The perpetually lipsticked and soigné Abedin is elegant and gentle—qualities Clinton sometimes lacks—but also relentlessly obedient, a quality her boss treasures.

‘The Speech’: When Reagan Electrified America, and Transformed It By Gene Kopelson

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from the introduction to Reagan’s 1968 Dress Rehearsal: Ike, RFK, and Reagan’s Emergence as a World Statesman, which was published earlier this month.

Ronald Reagan turned over in bed the night of October 27, 1964, to kiss his wife Nancy good night, but he was worrying about the speech, “A Time for Choosing,” he had given on behalf of the Republican candidate for president, Barry Goldwater. It had been recorded in advance and was aired on national television earlier that evening. “I was hoping I hadn’t let Barry down,” he wrote in his autobiography. The Reagans had returned home after watching the speech at the home of some friends (who later became his political supporters).

A scant two hours after going to sleep, shortly after midnight, Reagan was awakened by the shrill ring of their telephone. It was the operator from Citizens for Goldwater headquarters in Washington, D.C. She could barely contain herself, yelling, “The switchboard has been lit up ever since you signed off. It’s 3 a.m. and there’s been no letup!” Political operative Clif White, running the office, was amazed by the speed and intensity of the popular response to Reagan’s speech.

Some politicians didn’t watch it. George Romney was on a speaking tour in Michigan. Robert F. Kennedy, running for the Senate as a New Yorker and busy campaigning on Long Island, was conversing with President Johnson. Former vice president Richard Nixon, however, the losing 1960 presidential nominee, did tune in. Nixon was grateful to Reagan for campaigning on his behalf two years earlier, when Nixon ran for governor of California and lost.

Nixon had keen political insight and knew political talent when he saw it. He could spot a potential political competitor as well. Immediately after the speech, Nixon noted that the one Republican winner emerging from the Goldwater debacle was not even on the presidential ballot: Ronald Reagan. Nixon likely started to mull the ramifications of the speech. He may have begun to appreciate that Reagan’s clear call for individual freedom, coupled with his emergence into the political limelight, could threaten, from the conservative right, Nixon’s own ambitions: He was musing whether to seek the Republican nomination for president once again.

And of course many other, ordinary citizens also listened to Reagan’s speech and were deeply impressed. Like America as a whole and, for that matter, the world, the lives of those touched that evening by Reagan’s speech would never be the same. A few of these men and women would would become political operatives at the heart of Ronald Reagan’s first campaign for the presidency in 1968. Each of them had been transformed by the inspiring words they heard that October evening from Ronald Reagan four years earlier.

Trump Would Press the Agenda That Drove His Voters from the GOP By Andrew C. McCarthy —

I wonder when the Trump backers will realize they’ve been had.

The 2016 GOP campaign has been overwhelmed by Donald Trump’s celebrity persona, by the can’t-take-your-eyes-off-it appearances where he might say or do anything — and “anything” includes expletives, incitements, and assorted idiocies that would have been disqualifying in the bygone times of, oh, five or ten minutes ago. But Trump is not the real story of the campaign. The real story is the Republican base’s rejection of the Republican establishment — i.e., the party leaders, prominent pols, lobbyists, and donors who make up the GOP component of the Washington ruling class.

It is, we’re told, an “insurgent election.” In the media narrative, which swallows whole Trump’s self-portrait, the “outsider” real-estate mogul’s ongoing clash with Senator Ted Cruz is the ultimate showdown of “Insurgent v. Insurgent.”

Alas, if you buy this storyline, you’re apt to miss a couple of things.

The first is that no one else is left. As we focus on the pitched battle between the two remaining candidates, it is easy to overlook that all the insiders’ preferred candidates have been swept aside — unless you count the vanity crusade of John Kasich (which I don’t, except as a subsidiary of the Trump campaign).

Fox takes hits on viewer numbers By Steve McCann

It appears that the SS Fair & Balanced (aka Fox News) is taking on water. In April CNN, for the fifth time in the past eight months, is ranked #1 in prime time. The last time CNN had this many prime time wins was 14 years ago (November 2001) in the post 9/11 period. Further, in April, CNN had the most growth of any television network (cable or broadcast) among total viewers in the most important demographic, adults 25-54 increasing this key viewership by triple digits in prime time.

Normally in an election season, particularly one this contentious, viewership always increases significantly. However, Fox has experienced only a 9% increase in prime time versus CNN’s 156% in the 25-54 age group. Thus CNN has now more actual viewers than Fox.

There is no question the overall tilt of Fox News during the past eight months has been pro-Trump — at time to the point of sycophancy. The worst being in prime time with the lone exception of Megyn Kelly. Considering the long and successful track record of the network, the only explanation is that they have struck the Trump iceberg that has sunk so many others who foolishly attached themselves to the Trump whirlwind.

On the other hand, while CNN is still a liberal-leaning network, they have been much more open to the other Republican candidates and have been more muted in their cheerleading for any one candidate. Perhaps they are secretly rooting for Trump to face Hillary in the general election secure in the knowledge that he cannot win in November, but they have maintained a veneer of actually being fair and balanced.

Why Pro-Trump Conservative Media Should Worry By Christian Toto

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/04/29/why-pro-trump-conservative-media-should-worry/

I didn’t give up on print newspapers even when the web starting delivering all the news I needed to my laptop.

I kept buying the daily paper, tucking it under my arm and taking it everywhere I went that day. Sure, I could find it all online, but I loved the feel of the paper in my hands. It also connected me to my early days as a newspaper reporter, eager to read my colleagues’ work.

Not anymore.

Now, when I see the newspaper on our front lawn, cocooned in its pristine orange wrapper, I just keep on walking. I’ll pick it up later. Maybe.

What day is recycling again? CONTINUE AT SITE

Michael Warren Davis Much to Celebrate, More To Do

You can see it in the faces of the Left’s champions as voters and the tide of history oblige them to confront the wreckage their policies have wrought, from the divisive separatism of multiculturalism to the morass of red ink that mires the West’s economies. Damage done, now to fix it.
I love the label “reactionary”. It’s far more useful as an anti-Right insult than those slightly more common slurs – Nazi, fascist, etc. – because, well, obviously no prominent right-wing leader is looking to Hitler and Mussolini as models of good government. The “reactionary” label, while less stinging, is at least believable. It doesn’t stink of hyperbole. You can say of conservative politicians like Tony Abbott, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Nigel Farage, and Boris Johnson, “They’re just raging against the modern world,” and even those gentlemen’s most ardent supporters will have a hard time rebuffing your claim. Boris, by the by, is a new hero of mine. He speculated that President Barack Obama’s call for Britain to remain in the EU is “a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire”.[1] As if we all haven’t been thinking the same thing.

But when conservatives describe themselves as reactionary, it’s like a nuclear warhead has detonated in the conversation. The “reactionary” accepts that the status quo – unstable globalist economies, unfettered immigration, cultural deterioration, and the like – are indeed hallmarks of modernity, and so they reject modernity out of hand. “This is the way the world is!” the Left insists, “You can’t stop progress.” To which the neo-reactionary replies, “Then the world is ugly and wrong. And if this is what you call progress, then it, too, is ugly and wrong and ought to be undone.”

Senator Mike Lee Rages at John Boehner and Peter King on the ‘Mark Levin Show’ By Debra Heine

An impassioned Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) called in to the Mark Levin Show Thursday evening to register his extreme displeasure with John Boehner and Rep. Peter King for making “vile remarks” about his friend, Senator Ted Cruz. Levin gave the angry senator a few minutes of airtime to vent, and Lee really cut loose. “It’s really vile stuff!” he raged, “and what perplexes me about this, Mark, is that these are not words that I hear these gentleman use in response for anyone else.”

I hear John Boeher heaping praise on Bernie Sanders, heaping praise on Hillary Clinton, heaping praise on Donald Trump.

And yet for Ted Cruz? What’s he call him? He calls him the devil! He calls him Satan, he calls him Lucifer. Why? The question is why? Why does he do this? Well, there’s an answer. Ted Cruz actually challenges the system – the very same system that Donald Trump claims to rail against!

This is an insightful moment. First of all, I’m appalled that John Boehner would do this.

I have bit my tongue for years. I’ve held my tongue for years on John Boehner even when I disagreed with him. Because I respected him as a person and respected with his office enough to not call him out on it personally.

I expressed disagreement with his policies, but I’ve never ridiculed him personally. The fact that he has done this is appalling and he should be ashamed of himself and I demand that he apologize!

…This is a wake-up call for people who are supporting Donald Trump thinking that he’s the guy who is going to rail against the establishment. He’s NOT! He is the establishment. He’s the golfing buddy – the texting buddy of John Boehner. The same guy who praises Hillary Clinton — who praises Bernie Sanders. So if you’re out there thinking that Donald Trump is somehow going to be the guy who takes down the establishment, think again because quite the opposite is true.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you so angry,” Levin noted. “This has really fired you up.”

TRiUMPh of the Outsider :Peter Smith

“Trump offers hope that he will faithfully represent ordinary people. Of course he won’t represent those on the left – thinking and unthinking — who would tear down capitalism and traditional Western values. Personally I can find nothing amiss in temporarily stopping Muslim immigration into the US; except for the word “temporarily”. Building secure borders is the first duty of any government. From a US perspective, negotiating better trade deals, and getting those living under a US defensive umbrella to stump up more cash to pay for it instead of freeloading, seems unexceptional if ,as president, you are patriotic enough to put the US first.”

Seemingly poised to seize the Republican nomination, the tycoon elicits more ire than his vulgarity alone warrants. The reason, of course, is that while his stump promises may prove illusory, what he says in pitching them indicts do-nothing professional politicians of all mainstream stripes.
Donald Trump is on track to win the Republican nomination despite the machinations of the GOP political elite and the demeaning deal between his competitors, Cruz and Kasich, to split their efforts to prevent him. He is on a roll. Following his thumping victory in the New York primary (April 19), he easily won all five north-eastern states – Delaware, Pennsylvania, Rhode island, Connecticut and Maryland — up for grabs on April 26. If he were to win Indiana on May 3 it would be almost done and dusted.

The political elite don’t like him. Considering what they have done and are doing to screw Western civilisation that must be a plus. The mainstream commentariat don’t like him. After Trump’s victory in New York, Greg Sheridan writing in The Australian said that many things Trump has said “should disqualify him for from serious consideration from running for the presidency.” The paper’s editorial intoned that “even in New York Mr Trump’s divisiveness was on display.” The evidence adduced for this was that Trump lost Manhattan to John Kasich. The editors couldn’t help themselves by then quoting one unnamed commentator as saying that, “the closer you live to Donald Trump the less you actually like him.” There are cheap shots and then there cheap shots from our only remaining newspaper of any quality.

The Clinton Pivot Begins You’re about to meet the second coming of Franklin Roosevelt and Bill Clinton. By Daniel Henninger

Want to know which way America’s political winds are blowing? When Bill Clinton speaks, listen.

Talking in Spokane last month about the U.S. economy, the former president mentioned “the awful legacy of the last eight years.” In Indianapolis Tuesday, Mr. Clinton let the same cat out of the bag:

“The problem is, 80% of the American people are still living on what they were living on the day before the [2008 financial] crash. And about half the American people, after you adjust for inflation, are living on what they were living on the last day I was president 15 years ago. So that’s what’s the matter.”

Hours later, Hillary Clinton delivered her victory speech in Philadelphia after winning four of five primaries against Bernie Sanders. With that speech, the great Clinton pivot has begun. By the time she’s done repositioning herself for the fall campaign run, most likely against Donald Trump, Hillary’s pivots will make Stephen Curry look like a little old lady.

Note well this phrase toward the end: “So my friends, if you are a Democrat, an Independent or a thoughtful Republican . . . .”

That doesn’t quite sound like the Obama coalition of millennials, minorities and college-educated white women circa 2012. It sounds more like the centrist Clinton coalition, circa 1996. Democrats, independents and thoughtful Republicans—call it neo-triangulation for Trumpian times. CONTINUE AT SITE

The Agony of a Trump Delegate Rules may say they’re bound to The Donald, but many are thinking through their options. By Kimberley A. Strassel

Donald Trump, fresh off his Northeast sweep, declared himself the “presumptive nominee.” He presumes too much.

For all the news of Mr. Trump’s victories and Ted Cruz’s veepmate, the essential action of this GOP contest continues to take place far from the media lights. It’s happening in towns like Harrisonburg, Va., where Republican voters will gather this weekend to pick a slate of delegates for the Cleveland convention. That’s the action that matters, and it’s not going Mr. Trump’s way.

With the media all but anointing the mogul, it’s worth a short primer on presidential nominations, why Mr. Trump is still far from claiming the title, and why (by the way) this is, in fact, democracy in action.

Start with this: The GOP is a collection of 50 state parties. Each gets a voice in choosing who the national party nominates for president. In long-standing deference to states’ rights (a concept conservatives are supposed to revere), the state parties have total control over how they pick delegates to the national convention.

Some states, like Colorado, still do this purely the old-fashioned way. Republicans meet at the precinct level, at the district level, and at the state level, and vote for delegates who will speak for them. This isn’t a “rigged” system, but representative democracy.

Other states think it useful to canvas wider views. They hold what the media call primaries, but what are technically “presidential preference polls.” (Note those words.) In many states, the results of these polls are supposed to bind “delegates” to candidates at the national convention.

Only here’s the rub: Even states with primaries still go through an independent process to elect the actual people who will serve as delegates. The Republicans at these events can still choose whomever they want. And they aren’t electing delegates who personally support Mr. Trump.

Look at Virginia. The Old Dominion held its statewide preference poll (primary) on March 1, and 35% of voters (who included independents and Democrats) preferred Mr. Trump. Some 17% preferred Mr. Cruz. On paper, the delegates are automatically apportioned based on these results.

Yet at the two district conventions so far (in Virginia’s 9th and 10th congressional districts), attendees have elected five delegates who personally support Mr. Cruz and only one who supports Mr. Trump. At the statewide convention in Harrisonburg this weekend, 4,000 attendees will choose another 13 delegates. Cruz supporters will likely dominate.

This is happening across the country, and no surprise. While some attendees at these events are “the establishment”—party officials and operatives—many more are intensely committed GOP activists. These are the people who brought you the tea party, the rebels in the U.S. House, and the cheers for government shutdown. CONTINUE AT SITE