Year: 2016

Yesterday, there was literally a shit ton of Donald Trump and Russia bombshells and Donald Trump and taxes bombshells and James Comey bombshells that came at you at a pace of one major story every hour yesterday afternoon. I have posted links to these stories below, and Matt Yglesias provides a good round up and then offers why it matters:

Breathless speculation about possible Trump-Russia leaks is a lot more fun than boring policy analysis. But Trump’s policy views on matters related to Russia are a lot clearer than any of these cloak-and-dagger allegations. He’s called for greater US-Russian cooperation in Syria, signaled sympathy for Russia’s seizure of Crimea, and most of all he’s called for dismantling the NATO alliance. These are policy ideas that can be assessed on the merits (they’re terrible, in my opinion) completely separately from the question of exactly what motivated Trump to adopt them.

Politico: “In the hours after FBI Director James Comey threw a wrench into Hillary Clinton’s home-stretch plans, her campaign launched into an uncharacteristic frenzy of activity, quickly trying to turn the development into a base-energizing tool. But in her New York headquarters and her battleground state outposts, the news sent shivers down operatives’ spines, and immediately had them scrambling to gauge the effect on voters they need most…” “Clinton’s strategists have projected a confident front, shrugging off any possible impact from Friday’s bombshell news and pointing to weeks of strong early voting and persistent polling leads, even as they blast Comey for re-injecting the email issue into the race with his cryptic letter to Congress. Their goal is now to convert Democrats’ anxiety over the FBI chief’s move into a fury and a rallying point for a base that has flirted with overconfidence in recent weeks.” I think that has been accomplished on its own. Everyone I talked to since Friday is livid at Comey and the GOP. Not down in the dumps like bedwetting Democrats tend to do.

“Donald Trump’s path of destruction has pushed the Republican Party to the cusp of a historic reckoning, an existential crisis that has left half of America’s political establishment in desperate need of new leaders, a new message, and even a common orthodoxy,” the Boston Globe reports. “Party members say it is almost impossible to underestimate the challenges facing the 162-year-old GOP, which for the last three decades has been largely defined by a hagiographic vision of Ronald Reagan but is now riven by a civil war with multiple dimensions.” “Some Republicans are even studying the collapse of the Whig Party in the mid-19th century, hoping they can avoid a similar fate. Others are girding for proxy wars that will be waged on Capitol Hill, within the Republican National Committee, and live on the set of Fox News.” A great quote from this piece: “It’s like Humpty Dumpty fell and broke, then a giant lawn mower ran over it, acid was thrown on the pieces — and a bunch of racist idiots ran off with an arm and a leg. How do you put it back together? I don’t know.” — GOP strategist John Weaver.

After all we’ve seen over the last year when it comes to the topic of Hillary Clinton and emails, we should have learned to avoid the media freak-out when something new pops up. It almost always turns into a big nothingburger, as it did yesterday. To review, the new emails: 1. Were not from Hillary 2. Were not from her private server 3. Were not from her investigation 4. Were not withheld from the FBI by Clinton 5. Were found on a computer seized during an investigation of former Rep. Anthony Weiner Indeed, as the Los Angeles Times and other outlets have reported, they are all likely duplicates. So what we have is a Republican FBI Director who decided to interfere in the election, and Republican Chairman Jason Chaffetz who mischaracterized Comeys' letter in leaking it to the press (reopening criminal investigation of Hillary, which is false). The result of all this is that Comey is gone. He will be fired for cause after the election by either Obama or Clinton. He no longer has the trust of the Administration. The other affect of this is that Democrats and Hillary supporters are now pissed and no longer complacent. More motivation to vote.