To everyone feeling surprised, disappointed, or even sorry that Matt Lauer has met his deserved fate, perhaps you missed this event last year. Reposted from last September. #JustDesserts #Karma #PoeticJustice
Rereading this, I remembered how furious I was that night.
Hillary was the first candidate to appear at the MSNBC/NBC Commander-in-Chief Forum tonight. Matt Lauer began with a question about what Hillary saw as the most important characteristic for Commander-in-Chief. Hillary replied: steadiness.
Our next Commander-in-Chief needs to have the steadiness, strength, and judgment to make life and death decisions.
Then Lauer launched into the emails. Hillary re-explained for the nth time the classification markings. Then came the Iraq war vote. Hillary explained that succinctly and went on to speak about her record on her broader work on legislation for the military. Said she views force as a last resort.
Re: Iran nuclear deal “if Iran cheats.” Hillary pulled that deal back into context and provided a rationale for putting together the coalition and imposing the sanctions.
It should be noted that Hillary popped up out of her seat, stood, and walked while addressing questions several times. Trump remained enthroned throughout. So much for the question of who has stamina and who does not.
Trump came on and spoke at length about Hillary and President Obama when he was told not to. He also informed all and sundry that Iraq has oil! He said people do not know that. Really? Most kids entering 5th grade this week know that as they also knew before his “big reveal” in Detroit that Abe Lincoln was a Republican. What is wrong with him? He seems uneducated even at a basic level. That or he thinks we are. So supercilious. So arrogant. So infuriating!
Trump was allowed to bash Hillary and President Obama throughout and even compared President Obama unfavorably to Vladimir Putin and accepted Putin’s compliment about him. That was disgusting!
Lauer was exceptionally contentious with Hillary and repeatedly interrupted her especially when she referred to Trump. He was very lenient with Trump’s attacks on Hillary. He made no effort to control that and allowed Trump to misquote her. Hillary never said the plan to privatize the VA was Trump’s plan. She said there is a plan, not that it was his plan, but is supported by him. We all know Trump doesn’t have any plans! And why was he allowed to hear everything Hillary said???? What???
In the post-forum analysis, very smart people do not know what Trump means by “take the oil.” What do you mean “What does he mean?????” ISIS knows what he means!
And there is this!
Donald Trump pointed to the resignation earlier Wednesday of a high-ranking Mexican official as proof that his trip to Mexico last week was a success.“If you look at what happened, look at the aftermath today, the people who arranged the trip in Mexico have been forced out of government,” Trump said in a commander-in-chief forum hosted by NBC News in New York. “That’s how well we did, and that’s how well we’re going to do have to do.” Read more >>>>
My final two cents: Matt Lauer was a terrible choice for moderator, and he performed pretty much as we knew he would. I would have been happier with Lester Holt or Joy Reid. OK three cents: I blame the Republican Party for Donald Trump. Not that Cruz or Rubio would have been better, but there were sane traditionalists there, Jeb, Kasich, Lindsey. You gave us this guy to contend with and even you all don’t want him!
Here is an annotated transcript from WaPo.
Wow! How did I miss this one? I didn't know she was scheduled to be on and would certainly have been there given the fury she expressed in her book regarding Lauer's "moderation" of the Commander-in-Chief Forum.
I do not normally watch this show anymore since I didn't like how they ganged up on Ann Curry. If, like me, you missed this appearance, here it is.
Hillary held a press conference on the tarmac at Westchester Airport
this morning before flying to Charlotte for a campaign event at Johnson C. Smith University. Look for
Hillary at the 42 minute mark.
A question at the press conference had to do with Hillary's serious facial expression at last night's MSNBC forum
and whether she felt she was being held to a different standard. Talk
about begging the question! This is what that expression actually
means!
At
a voter registration rally in Charlotte on Thursday, Hillary Clinton
made the case that Donald Trump is unfit to be president and Commander
in Chief. Clinton pointed out the range of Trump’s unacceptable
policies, from opposing a federal minimum wage to proposing cutting the
estate tax, which would do nothing for working families, but could save
his own family $4 billion. Clinton also highlighted Trump’s pitiful
performance at the Commander-in-Chief Forum, during which he
unpatriotically lavished praise on Vladimir Putin while disparaging our
military and attacking President Obama. Clinton added, “We have never
been threatened as much by a single candidate running for president as
we have been in this election. As your commander-in-chief, I will not
trash our country’s most cherished values, I will defend them. And that
is especially on my mind because this weekend is the 15th anniversary of
9/11. I was a senator serving, and I will never forget the horror of
that day or the bravery of our first responders, the victims, the
survivors, people I had the honor to work with and represent.”
Clinton
also vowed to support HCBUs as president and make it easier to vote, in
light of targeted attempts in North Carolina and across the nation to
suppress minority turnout. Clinton’s remarks, as transcribed, are below:
“Hello!
Whoa, it is so great to be here. Thank you all so much. And I was
backstage listening to Jordan Polk’s story, and it was just so powerful
and moving, and her ability to stand up here, talk about her personal
family experience, coming out of Katrina, staying strong, moving
forward, being a student here at Johnson C. Smith University. I am so
excited.
I want to thank her and I want to thank Dr. Carter. Thank
you for welcoming us here. You have welcomed two Clintons in the last
year. There’s something about this place that has attracted both my
husband and myself. I apologize for being late. We had a disabled
airplane on the runway that had to get moved. It took a lot longer than
expected. But I’ve been looking forward to joining all of you here in
Charlotte.
I want to recognize and thank your mayor, Mayor
Jennifer Roberts. There you are. Thank you, Mayor Roberts. I want to
thank Trevor Fuller, chair of the Mecklenburg County Commission. I want
to acknowledge Josh Stein, candidate for attorney general. And to all of
you gathered here today.
It is 61 days until the election. And I
think it’s so appropriate to be here in the great state of North
Carolina – at a really well-renowned H – you know what I’m saying? –
HBCU, historically black college and university.That, like so many
others, has played such an important role in our country’s history,
producing some of America’s finest leaders. And I am very proud. I was
just doing a phone call on the way here with a lot of my young
organizers on college campuses across our country, and I got a question
from a young woman at another historical black college and university –
Fayetteville. And I told her that I have a plan to help all of you
afford to go to college. I have a plan to help all of you with student
debt to pay it down and pay it off. And I have a special plan of a $25
billion fund specifically aimed at supporting HBCUs. Because we need a
lot of opportunities for young people from everywhere. It shouldn’t
matter what you look like, where you’re from, or who you love. You
deserve to be in college if that is your choice.
So right now
we’re up and running, we’re organizing across America, and as Jordan
said, this election has such high stakes, but the highest stakes are for
young people. Young people across America. This election is going to
determine in so many ways what kind of futures you will have. I don’t
say that lightly. Everybody always says every election is important, and
I happen to believe that. I think it’s one of the great gifts of our
democracy that we have the opportunity to choose our leaders. And people
– brave people – going back for so many years have fought to preserve
that right. And that right is under attack right now, and it is under
attack in North Carolina, of all places, a state that often set the
standard for moving everybody into the future, and I admired that so
much – emphasis on education from literally preschool through college;
emphasis on research; emphasis on job creation and innovation. And now
North Carolina, under the current governor and legislature, has been
trying to restrict people’s right to vote. Well, you know it. North
Carolina voters, though, won an important victory when a federal court
just struck down this state’s voter ID law. And the federal court
brought back more days of what’s called one-stop early voting. And
here’s what the court said – this is not me talking. This is what the
federal court said. The court said the North Carolina law was designed
to target African American ‘with almost surgical precision.’
Now,
that’s not just happening in North Carolina, unfortunately. It’s
happening across America. And courts have been overturning restrictions
that make it harder not just for African Americans but low-income
people, Latinos, young people. One of the provisions in the North
Carolina law was to make it really hard to vote where you go to school.
So this has been a concerted effort to undermine the right to vote, even
to make it hard for people with disabilities to cast ballots. Well,
what’s the best way to repudiate that kind of underhanded, mean-spirited
effort to deprive people of their votes? Get out and vote and make it
clear we’re not putting up with that.
These laws are a blast from
the Jim Crow past, and they have no place in 21st century America. We
should be doing everything we can to make it easier to vote, not harder.
That’s why if I’m elected president, I will work to expand early
voting. We will enact universal voter registration so every young person
in every state is automatically registered to vote when you turn 18.
And we will repair the damage done to the Voting Rights Act and take on
discrimination in all forms.
Now, HB2 is another example of trying
discriminate against people that doesn’t have any place in our modern
society. You’ve seen this firsthand in North Carolina. Discrimination is
not only wrong, it’s bad for business. The NBA, you know, cancelled the
game. PayPal cancelled bringing, I think, 400 jobs. Others are not
coming to this beautiful state because they don’t want to be associated
with the discriminatory, bigoted policies of your governor and
legislature. Now, one thing you can do about that is change your
governor in November. And while you’re at it, change one of your
Senators. We’re going to need reinforcements up in Washington. We got a
big agenda.
And people say to me, well, what is it you’re going to
try to get done? Well, I’ll show you real easy. We just published a
book. Right? Tim Kaine and I put this book out. It’s called ‘Stronger
Together.’ It’s not very long. Not a hard read. But we have this
old-fashioned idea that if we’re asking you to support us for president,
we ought to tell you what we’re going to do. Not just bluster. Not just
empty words. Not just demagogic rhetoric. Real plans that will improve
your lives, make our country safer and better. So you could pick this
up.
We’re going to build an economy that works for everybody, not
just those at the top. Sounds like a good idea. We’re going to make the
biggest investment in good-paying jobs since World War II –
infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, clean energy jobs. We’re going
to make the economy fairer, raise the national minimum wage, get people
who work full-time out of poverty. And we are finally going to guarantee
equal pay for women’s work. It is long overdue.
Did any of you
see any of the Democratic convention? Well, I don’t know. You might have
missed one of my favorite sets of speakers. We had these two young
people from Kansas, 17 years old, young man, young woman. I’d read this,
and I said, let’s contact these young people and find out their story.
Here’s their story. Seventeen. Had the same summer job. Knew each other,
working in a pizza restaurant. And they were pretty excited. I remember
when I got my first real job, not babysitting but actually showing up
at a job and having to do it.
And so one day, after they finished
work, they were talking, and the young woman said, ‘I think, making $8
an hour, I should be able to at least save something for college.’ And
the young man, a friend of hers, said, ‘Well, I’m making $8.15 an hour.’
And she said, ‘Well, why are you making 15 cents more an hour than I
am? Neither of us had any experience to do this job. We’re the same
age.’ He said, ‘Well, I don’t know. That doesn’t sound right. Maybe
there was a mistake.’ So they go to the manager. They tell the manager.
And the manager fired them both. And you know what? That’s legal. If you
find out you’re not being paid the same for doing the same job, you can
be fired. So this is not some made-up problem. And this would raise
family incomes. And if you have a mother, a wife, a daughter, or a
sister who’s working, it’s your issue. So we’re going to get that done
as well.
And like I said, we’re going to make college affordable
for everybody, pay down debt. But we’re going to do something else. I
think it was a mistake when we got rid of all vocational education in
high school. It needed to be improved, don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t
training people for the jobs that were out in the marketplace any more.
But we got rid of all of it. We need technical education in high school.
We need more apprenticeship programs where young people can learn and
earn at the same time. And we’re going to go back to emphasizing that in
high school, community colleges, apprenticeship programs, creative
ideas like coding camps. We’re going to have 1.4 million jobs in 2020
for people who have computer science skills, and we’re going to only, if
we continue on our present path, only have 400,000 Americans prepared
to do those jobs. I want those jobs to be American jobs. So we’re going
to help train people of all ages to be able to do those jobs.
We
are also going to defend quality affordable health care for everybody,
but we’re going to get the costs down. We’re going to get the costs of
prescription drugs down for sure. And we’re going to emphasize two
things that we have fallen short on, mental health and addiction
services. People I’ve met here in North Carolina and across America talk
to me about that all the time. So again, we’ve got our ideas in here.
We want you to engage with us, give us your ideas. This needs to be an
ongoing conversation. We want you to hold us accountable when we’re in
that White House trying to do all of this.
But we also have to
keep America safe. And we have to lead the world with steadiness and
strength. One of the biggest differences in this campaign is Donald
Trump basically says, ‘I alone can fix it,’ we have it is. Think of who
that leaves out. That leaves out our troops on the front line. It leaves
out our police and fire responders to emergencies. It leaves out our
teachers, our educators who are working to help young people. It leaves
out everybody. ‘I alone can fix it?’ I was raised to believe that we’re
in this together, and together we can fix it. And that is exactly what
we’re going to do.
That’s why Tim Kaine and I are running a
campaign of issues, not insults. Donald Trump has a different approach.
He wants to build an economy that works even better for himself,
starting with a $4 billion tax cut for his own family. He’s built a
career on stiffing workers, mom and pop contractors, small businesses
that did jobs for him and the he refused to pay them. I take this very
personally. My father was a small businessman. That’s how he provided a
good middle class living for us.
He printed drapery fabrics. He
would get the fabric and roll it out on these big long tables, and you’d
take a silkscreen and you’d put it down. You’d dump the paint in. You’d
take the squeegee. You’d go across. You’d lift it up. You’d go down to
the end of one table, start on the other end of the other table. And
you’d do it until the job was done. Sometimes I was there helping him.
And then he would load the fabric into his car and he would deliver it. I
tell you what, I am so grateful he never had a contract with Donald
Trump’s businesses.
In fact, I just ran across a story in Las
Vegas when I was there a few weeks ago of a small drapery business who
got what they thought was the greatest contract ever for Trump’s new
hotel in Las Vegas. They delivered the goods, and they were refused
payment, for no reason other than it’s a game to him. Everything is a
game. It’s like he’s living in his own celebrity reality TV program. You
know what, Donald? This is real reality. This is real people. This is
real decisions that have to be made for our country.
He actually
stood on a debate stage and said wages are too high in America. Now,
he’s got some new advisors. He’s had a bunch of advisors. He’s got some
new advisors. And they’re all trying to make him look more presidential.
Sound more serious. It’s not working too well. But remember what Maya
Angelou, who spent the last years of her life right here in this state
at Wake Forest, reminded all of us. I think about it often. I was so
privileged to know her. When someone shows you who they are, believe
them the first time.
You know, stronger together also means
working with our true allies and partners around the world, and last
night I offered some thought about ISIS, Iran, how we’re going to reform
the VA system to take better care of our vets. And just since last
night, when I appeared on that program back-to-back with Trump, just in
the last 24 hours, more retired generals and admirals have signed up to
support my campaign.
People who have sacrificed and spent their
lives protecting our country, valuing what makes us exceptional and
already great, see Donald Trump and know he should not be anywhere near
the White House. He is temperamentally unfit to be president and
commander-in-chief.
Now, tomorrow I will hold a meeting of
bipartisan, bipartisan which is what I want to get us back to where
Republicans and Democrats work together to make the changes to protect
our country. I’m going to be meeting with a bipartisan group of leaders
and experts to focus more on these crucial challenges, but it’s hard to
forget what Trump did last night. It was a test and he failed it. He
trash-talked about America’s generals saying that they’ve been quote
‘reduced to rubble.’ He suggested he would fire them all and hand-pick
his own generals since he knows so much about what it takes to be a
general.
He attacked dozens of former flag officers. At the same
time, and here’s what I want you to really hear, because even I was
shocked by this and I didn’t know much could shock me coming out of his
mouth anymore, he praised Russia’s strongman Vladimir Putin, even taking
the astonishing step of suggesting he prefers the Russian president to
our American president. That is not just unpatriotic, it’s not just
insulting to the office and the man who holds the office, it is scary;
it is dangerous. It actually suggests he will let Putin do what Putin
wants and even make excuses for him.
I said this morning – I was
trying to think about what other presidents would be imagining hearing
that coming out of the nominee for the Republican Party. What would
Ronald Reagan say about a Republican nominee who attacks America’s
generals and heaps praise on Russia’s president?
We’ve never seen
anything like this. And one thing you didn’t hear from him was any plan
to take on ISIS, one of the biggest threats facing our country. He says
his plan is still a secret. Well, the truth is he doesn’t have a plan. I
served on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I served as Secretary of
State as you know. I respect the men and women who put their lives on
the line for the country that I love and that I believe in.
So
whether you’re passionate about more good jobs, better education,
healthcare, whether you’re passionate about protecting our country and
the brave men and women who serve us, you have to realize, as so many
Republicans are, that this is a time to put country over party. I would
be saying that even if I were not running against him. We have never
been threatened as much by a single candidate running for president as
we have been in this election.
As your commander-in-chief, I will
not trash our country’s most cherished values, I will defend them. And
that is especially on my mind because this weekend is the 15th
anniversary of 9/11. I was a senator serving, and I will never forget
the horror of that day or the bravery of our first responders, the
victims, the survivors, people I had the honor to work with and
represent. It’s what kept me really so passionately involved on behalf
of the people that I served all during those years.
And that is
what I was thinking of 10 years later in the White House Situation Room.
I was part of the small group advising President Obama whether or not
the intelligence we had was good enough to take a chance to go deep into
Pakistan to try to finally bring Osama bin Laden to justice. It was not
an easy choice by any means. These never are. That’s why who sits at
the head of that table in the Situation Room has to be able to sort out
fact from opinion, has to be able to ask the hard questions, pursue even
the most difficult leads. We went through that hour after hour after
hour. And then the President went around the table asking each of us
what we advised, and we were split because it was not some kind of easy
layup. I believed it was strong enough that we needed to take action,
and I supported taking action that would determine whether or not we
were successful. That meant sending in Special Forces.
Now, you
know what happened. I was in that Situation Room watching that day – the
most stressful 30 minutes of my life probably because you remember one
of the helicopters hit its tail on the wall going into the courtyard and
became disabled. That meant – thank goodness there were good
contingency plans, but you had to get another helicopter in to take out
the SEALs who would no longer be able to fly out on that one. But here’s
what I want to tell you because it is a story that to me illustrates
our values in such a clear, unambiguous way. You’ve heard Donald Trump
say he would order our troops to torture. You’ve heard him say he would
order our troops to kill family members of terrorists. You would know
that he was advocating illegal actions against our own laws as well as
the laws of war. Thank goodness there’s a code of honor in our military
stronger than the bluster and the bullying of Donald Trump because here
is what happened on that night.
Every single second counted. That
helicopter had to be blown up, but before it was – and remember the
SEALs had gone in, they had taken out the two Kuwaitis, the bodyguards,
they’d taken out bin Laden’s son who was there, and they took out bin
Laden. They had to get his body out. They had to get themselves out, but
here’s what they did first. They rounded up all the women and children,
members of terrorist families, they took them outside as far from the
helicopter as they could get them in order that they would not be hurt.
That, Donald Trump, is what American honor looks like, and that is what
we’re going to stand up and defend in the face of your outrageous,
disgraceful attacks on the men and women of our armed forces.
We’re
going to unify this country, my friends. We are going to bring us back
together. We are going to get things done, big things. That’s who we are
as Americans. I can’t do any of this unless you join me in this
campaign. You can start by going to HillaryClinton.com or texting
‘join,’ j-o-i-n, to 47246. You can knock on doors. You can make phone
calls. Register your friends to vote. Attend a house party in your
neighborhood. We’re going to keep asking for your help over these next
two months. There is so much at stake in North Carolina and in America.
No one can sit on the sidelines. The stakes are high for everyone. Join
the campaign. Let’s build a future where we’re stronger together. Thank
you.”
In other news, ICYMI, Matt Lauer was taken to task by Twitterstorm today for his sorry performance as moderator at last night's Commander-in-Chief Forum. The hashtag is #LaueringTheBar. If you also notice #Aleppotrending,
that would be because on Morning Joe today, Gary Johnson asked "What is
Aleppo?" So that happened. Now more than ever, it is crucial that we stand with Hillary!
From the campaign.
This is a longer email than I usually send, but I wanted to share this important column from Jonathan Chait I read last night:
Chait
is far from the only media observer discussing the extent to which
Lauer fell flat in trying to interview the two candidates for president.
But Chait actually discusses what the failures mean, and in doing so,
he keys in on something important.
"The average undecided voter is
getting snippets of news from television personalities like Lauer," he
writes, "who are failing to convey the fact that the election pits a
normal politician with normal political failings against an ignorant,
bigoted, pathologically dishonest authoritarian."
If you're on
this email list, you've come to know a lot about Donald Trump -- his
racist and divisive policies, his complete lack of qualifications for
the presidency, and his visceral allergy to the facts.
But most
voters aren't like us. Most people are picking up on politics when it
finds them on Facebook, on the radio in the car, or when they flip
through a magazine in line at the grocery store.
Their information
is filtered through the press. And right now, a lot of journalists are
failing to hold Trump accountable and grading him on a curve, while
forcing Hillary to meet an entirely different standard.
So instead
of most voters hearing about how Trump is empowering a new generation
of white supremacists, for instance, and having that news placed in a
proper, terrifying context, they read stories of Hillary and Trump
lumped together.
And that makes our jobs in this election all the
more important. We have to do what the media won't do. We have to be on
the air, online, and at people's front doors, talking to them honestly
about the stakes of this race. And all of that takes resources. It takes you. I'm counting on you. You know this matters. Chip in $5 right now and make sure we can hold Trump's feet to the fire.
