Did the Kremlin push Donald Trump to reject Mitt Romney and instead choose Rex Tillerson for his Secretary of State? Yeah, quite possibly.

New in this fantastic Chris Steele profile: Steele wrote another memo in November 2016 that said the Kremlin had intervened to block Trump’s initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt Romney. https://t.co/Jtdj72CjJi pic.twitter.com/NWWkJGr5DJ

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) March 5, 2018

Here is the passage courtesy of the New Yorker:  

One subject that Steele is believed to have discussed with Mueller’s investigators is a memo that he wrote in late November, 2016, after his contract with Fusion had ended. This memo, which did not surface publicly with the others, is shorter than the rest, and is based on one source, described as “a senior Russian official.” The official said that he was merely relaying talk circulating in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but what he’d heard was astonishing: people were saying that the Kremlin had intervened to block Trump’s initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt Romney. (During Romney’s run for the White House in 2012, he was notably hawkish on Russia, calling it the single greatest threat to the U.S.) The memo said that the Kremlin, through unspecified channels, had asked Trump to appoint someone who would be prepared to lift Ukraine-related sanctions, and who would coöperate on security issues of interest to Russia, such as the conflict in Syria. If what the source heard was true, then a foreign power was exercising pivotal influence over U.S. foreign policy—and an incoming President. 

As fantastical as the memo sounds, subsequent events could be said to support it. In a humiliating public spectacle, Trump dangled the post before Romney until early December, then rejected him. There are plenty of domestic political reasons that Trump may have turned against Romney. Trump loyalists, for instance, noted Romney’s public opposition to Trump during the campaign. Roger Stone, the longtime Trump aide, has suggested that Trump was vengefully tormenting Romney, and had never seriously considered him. (Romney declined to comment. The White House said that he was never a first choice for the role and declined to comment about any communications that the Trump team may have had with Russia on the subject.) In any case, on December 13, 2016, Trump gave Rex Tillerson, the C.E.O. of ExxonMobil, the job. The choice was a surprise to most, and a happy one in Moscow, because Tillerson’s business ties with the Kremlin were long-standing and warm. (In 2011, he brokered a historic partnership between ExxonMobil and Rosneft.) After the election, Congress imposed additional sanctions on Russia, in retaliation for its interference, but Trump and Tillerson have resisted enacting them.

If accurate this would indicate that not only did the Kremlin help Trump get elected, but that they are still influencing his decision making so that it directly benefits Russia and not  the United States of America.

And yet the Republicans continue to support him and protect him from impeachment.

By the way this New Yorker article is a deep dive into the Steele Dossier and how it was assembled, so it is well worth your time to read. 

Watch the Secretary of State admit that he called Donald Trump a moron, by refusing to admit that he called Donald Trump a moron.

Q: “Did you call the president a moron?”
Tillerson: “I’m not going to dignify the question.” (via CBS) pic.twitter.com/JuoN8OpaZG

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 19, 2018

Oh man, I could watch that all day.

Apparently Secretary of State Rex Tillerson may soon be on his way out as well.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seemed focused this week on rebooting his image as a beleaguered Cabinet member on the outs with his boss and his own employees — holding a rare town hall with employees, promising foreign trips into 2018 and saying he is “learning” to enjoy his job. 

But then he went off script by offering another invitation for diplomatic talks with nuclear-armed North Korea, putting him at odds once again with President Trump and senior White House officials, who are increasingly exasperated with the secretary of state and say he cannot remain in his job for the long term. 

The episode highlights the deep distrust between the White House and Tillerson and suggests how difficult it will be for the relationship to continue. While Trump and Tillerson have clashed on several policy issues — including negotiating with North Korea, the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and planning to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem — much of the distance between them seems personal and probably irreversible, White House officials said. 

Tillerson, one White House official said, “had not learned his lesson from the last time,” when Trump publicly rebuked his top diplomat on Twitter over the wisdom of talking to North Korea. 

A senior U.S. official said foreign diplomats and leaders often ask if Tillerson is speaking for the administration and when he will depart. Another White House aide said White House officials, diplomats and other Cabinet secretaries largely deem the former ExxonMobil chief executive “irrelevant.”

Inside the White House, this person said, there are fairly regular conversations about who will replace Tillerson even as he remains in the job. CIA Director Mike Pompeo, for example, may no longer be the leading choice because it means he would not brief Trump every day, and the president likes him in that role, the official said. 

“I think our allies know at this point he’s not really speaking for the administration,” this Trump official said — a particularly sharp slap given that Tillerson has sought to be a buffer and interpreter for allies angry or bewildered by some of Trump’s actions.

Tillerson "had not learned his lesson."

Yeah, how dare this guy to continue trying to do his job.

At some point it seems possible that Trump will have replaced every single original member of his administration and White House staff. 

However he should keep in mind that rearranging the deck chairs did not keep the Titanic from sinking to an icy grave.

CNN's Jake Tapper asks Rex Tillerson point blank if he called Trump a moron, Tillerson refuses to answer. "I'm not gonna deal with that petty stuff."

.@jaketapper: Did you call Trump a moron?

Rex Tillerson: “I’m not gonna deal with that petty stuff” #CNNSOTU https://t.co/mQxyzmjzBa

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 15, 2017

Well, THAT'S a confirmation if ever I heard one.

By the way "unconventional" is code for "dysfunctional."

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson almost quit this summer after calling Trump a "moron." Mike Pence convinced him to stay.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was on the verge of resigning this past summer amid mounting policy disputes and clashes with the White House, according to multiple senior administration officials who were aware of the situation at the time. 

The tensions came to a head around the time President Donald Trump delivered a politicized speech in late July to the Boy Scouts of America, an organization Tillerson once led, the officials said. 

Just days earlier, Tillerson had openly disparaged the president, referring to him as a “moron,” after a July 20 meeting at the Pentagon with members of Trump’s national security team and Cabinet officials, according to three officials familiar with the incident. 

While it's unclear if he was aware of the incident, Vice President Mike Pence counseled Tillerson, who is fourth in line to the presidency, on ways to ease tensions with Trump, and other top administration officials urged him to remain in the job at least until the end of the year, officials said. 

Officials said that the administration, beset then by a series of high-level firings and resignations, would have struggled to manage the fallout from a Cabinet secretary of his stature departing within the first year of Trump’s presidency.

Actually I am not at all convinced that managed the fallout from the large number that have already resigned or been fired.

However losing Tillerson would have only amplified the fact that Trump is in way over his head.

Donald Trump's Defense Minister General James Mattis also seems to engaging in a little mutiny.

Courtesy of the New York Times: 

Days before President Trump has to make a critical decision on whether to hold up the Iran nuclear deal, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis openly split with him on abandoning the agreement, the second senior member of the president’s national security team to recently contradict him. 

Mr. Mattis told senators on Tuesday that it was in America’s interest to stick with the deal, which Mr. Trump has often dismissed as a “disaster.” 

“Absent indications to the contrary, it is something that the president should consider staying with,” Mr. Mattis told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee after being repeatedly pressed on the issue. 

The comments were the latest example of how Mr. Trump’s instincts on national security — to threaten North Korea with destruction and tear up an Iran accord that most experts and allies say is working — are running headlong into opposition from his own National Security Council.

I would bet my house that there are a whole lot of folks in this Administration, and on the White House staff, calling Trump a moron and much worse behind his back.

Right now he is likely seen as no more than a performing monkey working to keep the public distracted, while aides and cabinet members try to get as many things as possible accomplished before this presidency implodes.

Which, let's face it, could be any day now.

Secretary of State Tillerson says that when it comes to American values Donald Trump speaks only for himself.

An unforgettable moment. pic.twitter.com/KNu18g2FyP

— Margarita Noriega (@margarita) August 27, 2017

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

On “Fox News Sunday,” host Chris Wallace noted that the United Nations had condemned President Donald Trump for not unequivocally condemning racism and asked Tillerson if Trump had made it more difficult to promote American values abroad. 

“We express America’s values from the State Department,” Tillerson said. “We represent America’s values, our commitment to freedom, our commitment to equal treatment for people the world over, and that message has never changed.” 

Wallace noted that the U.N.’s statement suggested world leaders are beginning to doubt whether the U.S. is living its own values. 

“I don’t believe anyone doubts the American people’s values or the commitment of the American government or the government’s agencies to advancing those values and defending those values,” Tillerson said. 

What about the president’s values, Wallace asked. 

“The president speaks for himself, Chris,” Tillerson said. 

After a moment of silence, Wallace asked whether Tillerson was deliberately trying to separate himself from the president. Tillerson replied simply that he’d already made his own statement on his department promoting U.S. values. 

Can you say "awkward?"

Now you might think that it is no big deal that Trump's Secretary of State seems to be distancing himself from his boss (But don't fool yourself it IS a big deal.) however it appears he is not the only one in Trump's administration to be doing so.

Here is Trump's Secretary of Defense James Mattis talking to the troops.

Wow. "Hold the line until our country gets back to understanding & respecting each other..." Jim Mattis to US troops pic.twitter.com/VMAAXjBWyg

— Richard Chambers (@newschambers) August 26, 2017

"You're a great example for our country right now it has some problems, you know it and I know it" so just "Hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other."

It sounds like he means hold the line until Trump is out of office and America can start repairing itself.

Or is that just me?

Some how I get the feeling that Trump is becoming more and more isolated every day.

Secretary of State rejects 80 million from Congress to fight Russian propaganda because it will upset Moscow.

Courtesy of Newsweek:  

Congress has given $80 million to the State Department to fight Russian propaganda and misinformation, but Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly is reluctant to put it to use. 

A former senior State Department official told Politico that Tillerson’s spokesman, R.C. Hammond, suggested using the money to counter Russian disinformation and propaganda would rile Moscow. 

“Hammond said the secretary is in the process of working through disagreements with Russia, and this is not consistent with what we’re trying to do,” the official said.

Tillerson and President Donald Trump have been working to mend relations with Russia from their “all-time low point” (in Tillerson’s words) after U.S. intelligence agencies issued a report early this year concluding that the Kremlin worked to interfere in the 2016 election.

I'm sorry, WHO does Rex Tillerson work for again?

Since when has America not wanted to protect itself from Russian propaganda for fear it might hurt their feelings?

I am sure that the White House will want to label this "fake news," but that will be a tad difficult with their boss tweeting things like this:

Our relationship with Russia is at an all-time & very dangerous low. You can thank Congress, the same people that can't even give us HCare!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 3, 2017

And then there's this:

🔥🔥🔥Top WH source: Trump spoke with Putin before he signed Russia sanctions bill. No word yet on what #PutinsPuppet told him, but stay tuned!

— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) August 2, 2017

Yeah, in Trump world Congress is just a bunch of cock blockers interfering with the Trump Administration's love affair with the Kremlin.

And some on the Left want to start aggressively pointing out what should be obvious to everybody.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed:

A major progressive think tank wants Democrats to stop being shy about accusing the Trump campaign of colluding with Russia. 

The Center for American Progress has written a nearly 50-page report for Democrats in Congress, making the case for collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia. The report, a draft of which was reviewed by BuzzFeed News ahead of its release Wednesday, makes the bold claim that “it is now clear there was collusion” and “this is the biggest political scandal in American history.”

I have been saying for awhile that the evidence of collusion is literally all around us.

But clearly we need to start working harder to make that obvious to to those who still cannot, or will not, see it. 

It seems like Secretary of State Tillerson is just about fed up with this administration.

Don't worry Rexi, your still my man.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s frustrations with the White House have been building for months. Last Friday, they exploded. 

The normally laconic Texan unloaded on Johnny DeStefano, the head of the presidential personnel office, for torpedoing proposed nominees to senior State Department posts and for questioning his judgment.

Tillerson also complained that the White House was leaking damaging information about him to the news media, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Above all, he made clear that he did not want DeStefano’s office to “have any role in staffing” and “expressed frustration that anybody would know better” than he about who should work in his department — particularly after the president had promised him autonomy to make his own decisions and hires, according to a senior White House aide familiar with the conversation. 

The episode stunned other White House officials gathered in chief of staff Reince Priebus’ office, leaving them silent as Tillerson raised his voice. In the room with Tillerson and DeStefano were Priebus, top Trump aide Jared Kushner and Margaret Peterlin, the secretary of state’s chief of staff. 

The encounter, described by four people familiar with what happened, was so explosive that Kushner approached Peterlin afterward and told her that Tillerson’s outburst was completely unprofessional, according to two of the people familiar with the exchange, and told her that they needed to work out a solution.

I would not be at all surprised if Tillerson were not the first administration official to get the hell out of Dodge, without being fired first.

Of course knowing Trump he would likely fabricate a story to make it appear that he did indeed fire him.

One can hardly blame Tillerson, after all he was the head of one of the largest corporations on the planet, and has now been reduced to a mere figure head while Trump's snot nosed son-in-law does his job instead.

I can only imagine what the morale must be like in the White House right now.

It must be like a scene from "Lord of the Flies."

New Zealand warmly welcomes Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Well sort of.

US media travelling with Sec of State Rex Tillerson surprised by the number of people flipping the bird at his motorcade in Wellington.

— Tracy Watkins (@tracy_watkins) June 6, 2017

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

The US Secretary of State has been met with a frosty reception and a backhanded compliment from the prime minister while on a flying visit to New Zealand. 

Rex Tillerson arrived in wet and windy Wellington for an eight-hour visit on Tuesday, with his motorcade greeted by middle fingers and thumbs-downs. 

Fairfax Media reported that the US media contingent were surprised by the hostile reception from members of the public.

“I’ve never seen so many people flip the bird at an American motorcade as I saw today,” the New York Times’ Washington correspondent, Gardiner Harris, told Stuff.co.nz. 

The whole Trump Administration is now the laughingstock of the world. 

I swear this is even worse than the ill will created by George W. Bush and his cadre of criminal accomplices.

Donald Trump chooses the freaking CEO of Exxon Mobil to be his Secretary of State. Gee, no way we will get into a war over oil now, right?

Seriously? He picked me? Get out of here.

Courtesy of The Daily Beast:

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, according to NBC News. The report cited two sources close to the situation as saying Tillerson had been confirmed as Trump’s pick after earlier being floated as a top choice. It was also reportedly “very likely” that Tillerson, who has no experience in government, would be paired with former U.N. ambassador John Bolton as deputy secretary of state, NBC News reported. Tillerson has strong ties to Moscow, having secured a 2011 deal with the Kremlin to access Arctic resources in Russia. That deal was blocked, however, when U.S. sanctions against Russia came into effect for its occupation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine. Tillerson was outspoken in his criticism of the sanctions for the “broad collateral damage” they resulted in.

Great a pro-Russian anti-environmentalist, sounds like the perfect guy to help completely screw up this country's future.  

And with freaking John "I hate the UN" Bolton as his deputy secretary it appears that Trump didn't even bother to try and leave any illusion that he was really ever interested in "draining the swamp."

An interesting factoid, Tillerson has NEVER worked anywhere except Exxon, where he was first hired in 1975.

So you can see that he is simply brimming over with a lack of experience.

I can't believe I am saying this out loud, but I actually cannot imagine that giving Sarah Palin this position could have really been any worse.

Either way you are getting a tragically unqualified person, who hates the planet earth, and thinks constantly raping it is a sign of affection. 

During interview FBI attempted to trick Hillary Clinton. It didn't work.

"Trump and the Truth" FBI Lied and altered Clinton email documents by placing a (C) on them to trick her. SMDH. https://t.co/py5Ns6XNIY

— SouthFlorida4Hillary (@SFL4Hillary) September 3, 2016

I have long felt that James Comey and the FBI were not huge fans of Hillary's and in fact went out of their way to suggest that she was guilty of recklessness when it came to her personal e-mail server.

Apparently I was correct.

Courtesy of ABC News:  

FBI Director James Comey recently said his agency could prove the presence of classified information in the e-mails but found no evidence to indicate that Clinton knew she was sending or receiving classified information — a conclusion reflected in the FBI documents released today. 

“Clinton did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not have been on an unclassified system,” reads a summary of the FBI’s findings from July. “She relied on State officials to use their judgment when emailing her and could not recall anyone raising concerns with her regarding the sensitivity of the information she received at her email address.” 

As Comey said before, three email chains with Clinton included at least one paragraph marked with a “(C),” indicating the paragraph contained confidential material. 

“Clinton stated she did not know what the ‘(C)’ meant at the beginning of the paragraphs and speculated it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order,” according to the FBI summary. 

In addition, the paragraphs were not properly marked, lacking a header or footer indicating they contained classified information. But before their interview with Clinton, FBI agents placed the appropriate header on one of the emails to see how she would respond. 

When confronted with the altered document, Clinton recognized the header and footer as indicating the presence of classified information, but she didn’t connect them to the “(C)” marking and said she didn’t think the email’s content was in fact classified. She questioned why it was marked as such, according to the FBI summary.

To be clear not only did the FBI determine after the fact that multiple e-mails contained classified information though they were not classified at the time they were sent, an accusation refuted by the State Department, but then during the interview they also attempted to trip Clinton up by falsely marking the header of one her e-mails to see if she recognized what it meant.

Not only did she recognize what the markings were, but she also determined that it was false and not reflective of the content of the e-mail.

In fact we have never been told exactly why those few passages were marked with a "C" for classified in the first place, or whether or not they should have been marked that way.

It also should be noted that for documents originating within the State Department the Secretary of State, in this case Hillary Clinton, has some control over what is, or is not, considered classified. So for many of them if she did not believe they were classified, then they weren't.

Also remember the fact that the folks sending the e-mails to Hillary's server were ultimately responsible for their content being stored on a "unsecured" server, so since Hillary did not forward those e-mails she herself took no action which put potentially classified information at risk.

And finally, and possibly most importantly, since there is NO evidence that Hillary's e-mail server was hacked, while the State Department's was, then the argument that information was less secure on her server is factually inaccurate.

John Aravosis of Americablog destroys the AP's story of Hillary Clinton's so-called "pay for play."

You probably heard about this AP story, or at least about the fallout from the story, that while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton provided access to big donors to the Clinton Foundation.

The Right Wing erupted in orgasmic delight after reading it and serious media outlets took it and ran with it.

Except, like most Clinton smoking guns, it is all smoke and no gun.

To make this point John Avarosis took to Twitter to point out the holes in the story.

1) Clinton campaign is rightfully slamming AP for refusing to correct an outright lie about the Clinton foundation. https://t.co/Iv665DU8Pz

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

2) AP claimed in blockbuster story that HALF of Hillary's meeting while secretary were w/ Clinton foundation donors. pic.twitter.com/s7zIwEzRR4

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

3) AP then gave numbers: 85 of 154 people who met or talked by phone with Hillary were donors. More than half! pic.twitter.com/zmYlQT3JT3

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

4) Then you think about it. In 4 years as Sec of State, Hillary only met or talked to 154 people? Really?

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

5) AP would like us to believe that Hillary has fewer than one meeting or phone call per week as Sec of State? Uh, no.

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

6) In fact, Hillary met over 1,700 people as Secretary. And if only 85 were donors to foundation, that's pretty lousy rate of pay-for-play.

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

7) Oh but it gets worse for AP. AP devoted 1/3 of the story to Muhammad Yunus. He's their big smoking gun.

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

8) probably because the AP reporters had no idea who Yunus actually is. He's huge. Done more than anyone alive to alleviate poverty.

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

9) Yunus won the Nobel peace prize for founding the Grameen bank and pioneering concept of microlending to women in LDCs.

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

10) no shit the Secretary of State met with Yunus. He's global poverty's Mother Teresa. That's AP's big smoking gun.

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

The tweets continue on until they reach 24.

I will not post all of them here, but I will include that 24th tweet.

24) it's only corruption when you're a Democrat. It's only corruption when you're a Clinton.

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 25, 2016

This is what I meant the other day when I said that Hillary Clinton is held to a higher, and I would argue unattainable, standard.

Small, almost insignificant issues like private e-mail servers, clumsy explanations about Benghazi, and even her personal health is put under a high powered microscope and examined for any hint of scandal that can be used against her politically.

Yes other politicians receive scrutiny from the press, but nothing compares to what Hillary Clinton has had to face. Or for that matter President Obama.

P.S. You can read the AmericaBlog post that goes along with these tweets right here.

Hillary Clinton goes on Jimmy Kimmel to address concerns about her health and to talk about her e-mails.

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

Being in the presence of Clinton allowed Kimmel not merely the opportunity to ask questions but to check if Clinton was actually still alive. Given the conspiracy theories about her health, she could very easily be a cyborg by now. 

“Oh my God, there’s nothing there!” Kimmel joked, taking her pulse. 

“Back in October, The National Enquirer said I would be dead in six months,” Clinton said, “so with every breath I take I feel like I have a new lease on life!” 

Clinton was shocked why the GOP would hope to paint her as unhealthy. “I don’t know why they are saying this. I think on the one hand, it’s part of the wacky strategy. Just say all these crazy things and maybe you can get some people to believe you. On the other hand, it just absolutely makes no sense. I don’t go around questioning Donald Trump’s health.” Clinton said, as far as she can tell, that Trump’s health seems to be physically fine. 

Kimmel cited Trump’s doctor, who says a medical examination proved the GOP nominee has the best health ever — of all time. Of all time. Clinton smiled and nodded, saying that she’d heard about that. To prove her stability, Kimmel gave Clinton the ultimate test: Open a jar of pickles. Somehow, she managed.

I am going to suggest that the pickle jar was pre-loosened or else I doubt that Hillary would have agreed to do that on live television. That's just common sense.

However when anybody argues about Hillary's poor health I always suggest that they sit and watch that eleven hour testimony before the House Benghazi witch hunt.

That would have killed Donald Trump.

Clinton also addressed the release of more of her e-mails.

I want to once again remind everybody that neither Condoleezza Rice nor Colin Powell ever released ANY of their e-mails from when they were Secretary of State.

All standards are changed when it comes to Hillary.

While on the subject of clearing up nonsensical GOP charges against Hillary here is an article in which John Dean (Yes, THAT John Dean.), does that for the charge that she lied under oath. 

That time when Mike Pence, now Donald Trump's running mate, essentially accused President Obama of being anti-American and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put him in his place.

Oh yeah, Hillary is going to eat Trump and his VP choice for breakfast.

Remember just three years ago when Donald Trump gushed over the Clintons and praised Hillary's tenure as Secretary of State?

"Well first of all I know her very well and I know her husband very well, and I like them both. And they are just genuinely terrific people. I like them both very much. But I think you'll be, you know, you'll be looking at the record of Hillary Clinton, and how did she do as Secretary of State. Probably above and beyond everybody else, and everything else. You'll be looking at her record, and everybody else will be looking at her record. I don't know that Benghazi, it doesn't seem to have resonated like perhaps it should have, but many other things have come up, and the world is in turmoil. And I think that a lot of people will be looking at Hillary's record as Secretary of State and she will be defending that record, and I'm sure she will do a good job of defending it, but that will be the thing that they will be going for. "

I swear it is almost as hard to decipher the Trump babble as it was to make sense out of the Palin word salad.

However what seems fairly clear here, and don't forget this interview was in 2013 only a year after Trump embarrassed himself over the Obama birth certificate lunacy, is that Trump had great admiration for Hillary and even points out that during a campaign she will be attacked on her record as Secretary of State, but that he thinks she can easily defend it.

So here we are, flash forward three years, and it is Donald Trump who is attempting to attack Hillary Clinton on her record as SOS.

Crooked Hillary Clinton is a fraud who has put the public and country at risk by her illegal and very stupid use of e-mails. Many missing!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 1, 2016

If I were the Clinton campaign I would simply make an ad featuring that NBC clip, followed by some snippets of the truly harsh things he says about her today, and then add the tag line, "Donald Trump, he was for Hillary Clinton, before he was against Hillary Clinton."

Damn, I really need to start charging for this. 

Hillary Clinton apologizes. But for what?

Courtesy of ABC News: 

Hillary Clinton on Tuesday told ABC News’ David Muir that using a personal email account while Secretary of State was a “mistake” and that she is “sorry” for it. 

“I do think I could have and should have done a better job answering questions earlier. I really didn’t perhaps appreciate the need to do that,” the democratic presidential candidate told Muir in an exclusive interview in New York City. "What I had done was allowed, it was above board. But in retrospect, as I look back at it now, even though it was allowed, I should have used two accounts. One for personal, one for work-related emails. That was a mistake. I’m sorry about that. I take responsibility.” 

This is the farthest Clinton has gone yet in offering an apology for her use of a private email server while Secretary of State.

You know here's the thing.

This is all the result of the Republicans beating the bushes over Benghazi, and if they had not flushed out the private e-mail server, which so fucking weak, they would have found something else.

And here's the other thing, NONE of Colin Powell or Condi Rice's e-mails have been made available for review, from the time they served as the Secretary of State, and in fact Colin Powell's were not even archived.

The excuse for Rice is that she really didn't use e-mail that often.

Yet nobody seems to find that suspicious considering the fact that these e-mails occurred during the buildup to, and execution of, the Iraq War, and would contain details of great interest to the American people.

If we don't think that sensitive and top secret information was sent through both Rice and Powell's private e-mail accounts then we are fooling ourselves.

And here is another point laid out by Massachusetts's Senator Stephen Lynch: 

“We have clandestine information that is now in the hands of the Chinese,” he said, citing a recent data breach at the Office of Personnel Management. “Her information now is the only information that hasn’t been hacked.” “It’s hard to argue that if she had put it on a government server, it would have been safer.”

Exactly! There was no breach of Clinton's e-mail security, however the one that affected the State Department e-mail server was the "worst one ever."

So like I said, what in the hell is Hillary apologizing for?

Hillary Clinton to release her e-mails to the public. May be awhile before we see them however.

I want the public to see my email. I asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 5, 2015

Courtesy of Reuters:

 A growing controversy over Democrat Hillary Clinton's use of personal email for work while she was U.S. secretary of state could drag on for months, threatening to cloud the expected launch of her 2016 presidential campaign. 

Clinton tried to cool the brewing firestorm late on Wednesday, saying she wanted the State Department to release the emails quickly. But a senior State Department official told Reuters on Thursday the task would take time. 

"The review is likely to take several months given the sheer volume of the document set," the official said. 

That could dash any Clinton hopes of putting the controversy to rest quickly, and give her Republican foes plenty of time to hit her with allegations that the use of personal email for official duties while secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 was inappropriate. 

"I want the public to see my email," Clinton said in a tweet late on Wednesday. "I asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible."

The other thing to keep in mind is that many of these are going to contain sensitive state department information that the review will simply not okay for release, so I expect these e-mails to be heavily redacted.

Which I am sure would have occurred whether Clinton used a private or government e-mail address. 

Knowing that I do not think that the conservatives are going to let the possibility that there is a scandal connected to the e-mails die out until well after the 2016 election.

And they might well keep it going long after that.

Not that it will ultimately make any difference. 

Secretary of State Kerry in response to criticism directed toward the Obama Administration from Dick Cheney: “Any advice from him really has no meaning to me."

Courtesy of The Hill:  

Secretary of State John Kerry late Thursday dismissed former Vice President Dick Cheney's comments knocking the Obama administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal plan. 

“Any advice from him really has no meaning to me with respect to what we’re doing today,” Kerry said on PBS Newshour. 

Kerry said he’s not surprised Cheney would say something “negative” and “wrong.” “Dick Cheney was completely wrong about Iraq, and we are still struggling with the aftermath of what Dick Cheney and his crew thought was the right policy: To go in and start a war of choice for the wrong reasons. And they turned topsy-turvy the entire region with respect to Sunni and Shia and the relationships there,” Kerry said. 

The Bush administration, Kerry said, was “deeply, deeply wrong” in the policy it pursued. 

This needs to be repeated by members of the administration, Democrats, and journalists, over and over again.

Just the fact that Dick Cheney is still out free, and allowed to criticize this administration's handling of the two wars that he helped start, is a slap in the face to every veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to the families of the soldiers who died fighting for a lie.

P.S. You can watch the entire interview with Gwen Ifill here.

Secretary of State John Kerry will comply with House GOP subpoena to testify about Benghazi.

Courtesy of Politico:  

Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday indicated he would comply with a House GOP subpoena to testify about Benghazi and other questions from the new select committee appointed by House Speaker John Boehner. 

But in his first comments on the topic since renewed attention to it began in the last week, Kerry batted away the inquiry into the September 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi as a “partisan” effort that won’t bring forward anything that isn’t already known. 

“I think this sort of speaks for itself, frankly,” Kerry said at a press conference at the State Department he held with European Union High Representative Lady Catherine Ashton, following a day of meetings. “We have had more than 50 briefings, there have been in the double digits of hearings and we’ve released 25,000 documents.”

Such a monumental waste of time and tax payer dollars.

I hope Kerry embarrasses the crap out of the House Republicans over this on national television.

Personally I think that the country should demand that the Republicans in Congress pay the American people back for all of the money they have wasted investigating this non-scandal.

President Obama appoints Susan Rice as national Security Advisory. Essentially giving the Right Wing a giant middle finger.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

Hailing her longtime role as a “trusted adviser,” President Barack Obama formally named U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice as his next national security adviser on Wednesday. 

Obama tapped Rice, a target of Republican criticism in recent months, to succeed Tom Donilon; the president also nominated Samantha Power, a longtime foreign policy adviser, to take over Rice’s role at the United Nations. 

“I am absolutely thrilled that she'll be back at my side leading my national security team in my second term,” Obama said of Rice, a longtime confidant whose role in publicly explaining the administration’s initial assessment of last year’s terror attack in Benghazi, Libya, has made her a lightning rod for criticism.

This role will actually give Rice MORE access to the President, and she will be instrumental in helping to make virtually all of the foreign policy decisions, whihc means that in many ways it has more power than the Secretary of State position that, if she had been nominated, the Republicans threatened to filibuster.

Once again the GOP is playing checkers while the President plays a game of three tiered chess.

"How you like me now?"

Update: The victory lap.

Courtesy of the Obama Diary