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Hillary's Pride in Making Enemies...

10/14/2015

The first Democratic debate of the 2016 Presidential season is in the books. On style points, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both looked great. Clinton looked composed, and dare I say it? Even likable. Bernie Sanders showed the passion he clearly feels for his socialist agenda.

But what about substance? The Democrats promised literally trillions in free stuff to the American people. Single payer healthcare, free college, a free puppy and free ice cream... when you tally up Bernie Sanders “free” plan, the cost is about $18 trillion over 10 years...or roughly equal to the entire US debt. Who pays? Who knows! Who cares?

The most disturbing Hillary Clinton line of the night came in response to the moderator’s question about enemies. The nature of public service is that you make enemies, he said. He then asked each candidate what enemy they were most proud of having made.

Martin O’Malley said the NRA.

Hillary Clinton had a list including the NRA, Iran and Republicans. Never mind the fact she put an American political party in the same category as Iran and their death wish for America. It may have played well in a room full of Democrats to brag on making enemies of the Republicans, but if the President's job is to unite America, should you really be most proud of having made enemies of nearly half of America?

Of all the promises and all the applause lines, the most telling...and the one most likely to come back and haunt her, was Hillary’s pride in alienating half of the American electorate.

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GOP's Likely New Leader Throws Hillary a Lifeline

10/2/2015

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For the better part of the last two years the experts, pundits and Washington insiders have proclaimed that Hillary Clinton was the inevitable 2016 Presidential nominee of the Democratic party. She would sweep to an historic victory with overwhelming support from women, we were told, and continue the left leaning revolution launched by Barack Obama.

A funny thing happened on the way to her coronation however. Hillary’s ill fated campaign launch, her “Scooby Van” foolishness, her meetings with 6 or 8 hand picked supporters to discuss the issues and her freezing out the media all pushed her campaign, and

her poll numbers down. Oh sure, she raised a small fortune through various Super PACs, but had a noticeably hard time drawing a crowd or authentically connecting with people.

Hillary can’t make a call to her daughter without focus testing talking points first. She is so scripted and stiff that voters overwhelmingly find her unlikable. But the pieces of the political puzzle that have sent her once inevitable nomination reeling is her email scandal and her role in the deaths of Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

It was through the lens of Benghazi that America learned Hillary Clinton, she of the ever-present Blackberry, had never sent a single email from a State Department email account. How could this be? As it turned out, Hillary not only used her own private email, she set up her own server. This server assured that no one would have access to any of her email unless she released it to them. She also added a number of her State Department staff to the server so that their email couldn’t be tracked either.

By law, any government related records, including email, were to be turned over to the State Department upon her departure as Secretary of State. Hillary turned over no email at that time. In fact it wasn’t until nearly 18 months later, when requested to surrender her records that Hillary began the process of reviewing her emails. After deleting more than 30,000 emails she deemed personal, she provided the balance to State - in printed form. Rather than provide electronic copies that could easily be sorted, reviewed, searched and stored, Clinton gave State about 60,000 printed paper pages and wished them well.

So much for “being as cooperative and forthcoming” as she possibly could.

Hillary didn’t follow the law on turning over her records. She wasn’t as forthcoming as possible while first publicly addressing the issue in March. In fact at that time she declared she would not be turning over the server with her email information on it. Months later, under enormous pressure, she changed her mind and did provide the server to the FBI, although a letter from her attorney claimed the server had been “wiped” and now contained no information.

Through all of this, Hillary’s numbers made a steady decline. A national poll found that the terms people associate most with Clinton are “liar” and “dishonest”. Self proclaimed socialist and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is now leading Hillary by 16 points in New Hampshire polling and by 9 points in Iowa. Rumors of Vice President Joe Biden jumping into the race have run rampant. Contributions and endorsements have been slower coming for Hillary than most anticipated.

With a DNC debate and Congressional hearings on Benghazi on her dance card for October it looked as though Hillary might be knocked out of the race altogether before the Democrats even made it to the first caucus in Iowa.

Then a funny thing happened. Help came to Hillary from the most unlikely of places. The odds-on favorite to be the next Republican Speaker of the House threw Hillary a lifeline. Current House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, while being interviewed about his potential promotion this week bragged that the Benghazi hearings have made Clinton vulnerable.

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” McCarthy said on Fox News. “But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened had we not fought.”

In a span of thirty seconds the GOP Leader’s comments shifted the Benghazi hearings from serious political information to partisan political theater. His comments give credence to Hillary’s claims that it’s all just a witch hunt. Rather than a dishonest, conniving dirty politician on defense, Clinton will now spin the hearing that she is the victim of a mean spirited attempt to sully her good name.

Make no mistake, Hillary knows how to milk being the victim. As the only first lady to ever have an unfavorable rating with the public, it took her husband’s affair with Monica Lewinsky to bring her numbers back into positive territory. In 2008 she finished third in the Iowa caucus and promptly thereafter cried while telling a reporter “how hard it is sometimes” to be a woman candidate. Poor victim Hillary won New Hampshire.

Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi testimony could have been a knock out blow to her candidacy. Instead, compliments of Kevin McCarthy, it will be spun by Team Clinton and by the eager mainstream media as evidence that she is the victim of a mean spirited attack by those awful Republicans. Despite the fact that Ambassador Chris Stevens is still dead and we’ll be no closer to knowing why, poor victim Hillary will have a resurgence in the polls.

Thanks a bunch Kevin McCarthy.

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John Boehner Values Polls more than Human Life

9/18/2015

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John Boehner and his House GOP Leadership gathered the team for a closed door meeting on Thursday to talk about proposals being floated by several House Members to defund Planned Parenthood.

The effort comes in reaction to videos that have surfaced where Planned Parenthood is actively selling baby parts. Hearts, Livers, Limbs...they even slice open a baby’s head because they can get a good price for an “intact” brain.

This human tissue we are told, is valuable for research. What is patently obvious is that human tissue can only come from one place...a human. Video of lab workers moving baby parts around in a petri dish like they are carrots in beef stew will literally turn your stomach.

That alarming reality is no match however, for the power of polling.

Speaker Boehner reportedly presented polling data to House Members that showed the Republicans would be blamed for any government shutdown resulting from a Presidential veto of a spending bill that doesn’t include Planned Parenthood. The GOP would suffer as a result...or so says Boehner.

Politically, his assertion just isn’t true. The government shutdown two years ago was blamed (incorrectly) on the Republicans. The next election saw the GOP pick up 13 seats in the House and take a commanding control of the US Senate. Clearly the shutdown didn’t translate into trouble at the ballot box.

Far more important is principle.

Speaker Boehner has been a vocal opponent of abortion all the way back to his days as a state legislator in Ohio. Now however, with the best and strongest opportunity to stop the government from funding the biggest provider of abortions in America and their wholesale sell-off of baby parts, Boehner is instead depending on polling data to try and convince Members to punt and put the issue off until some future undetermined time.

Where is the principle in that? What is more important, human life or a political poll?

Planned Parenthood has been roundly and justifiably criticized for putting money and profits into their abortion equation. House GOP Leadership’s decision to put polling over the value of a helpless human baby is equally as bad.

Speaker Boehner should be ashamed.

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Tim Constantine

Tim Constantine is a political and broadcasting veteran. He was a Political Science major at the University of Southern Maine, was twice elected to public office and has been a top ranked broadcaster in multiple markets.

The Capitol Hill Show with Tim Constantine is not only seen in the United States, it broadcasts on television in 119 countries worldwide. Tim's guests include some of America's highest profile public officials.

Tim Constantine's Capitol Hill Show (radio) broadcasts daily from Washington DC and is heard throughout the country.

Constantine also partners with The Washington Times on a variety of projects, including a weekly column.