Hillary Clinton's Opening Statement To The House Committee

From The Borowitz Report. here is the transcript of Hillary Clinton's opening statement to the House Committee: 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, Members of the Committee… as a former Senator, I have respect for legislative oversight and I expect its exercise, as do the American people, to be principled and fearless in pursuit of truth and accountability.

As we all know, however, too often Congressional investigations are partisan political theater, which is an abdication of duty and an insult to the American people.

The Committee justified its subpoena to me based on its assumption that I have information regarding the investigations into the criminal activities of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Let me be as clear as I can. I do not.

As I stated in my sworn declaration on January 13, I had no idea about their criminal activities. I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein. I never flew on his plane or visited his island, homes or offices. I have nothing to add to that.

Like every decent person, I have been horrified by what we have learned about their crimes. It’s unfathomable that Mr. Epstein initially got a slap on the wrist in 2008, which allowed him to continue his predatory practices for another decade.

Mr. Chairman, your investigation is supposed to be assessing the federal government’s handling of the investigations and prosecutions of Epstein and his crimes. You subpoenaed eight law enforcement officials, all of whom ran the Department of Justice or directed the FBI when Epstein’s crimes were investigated and prosecuted. Of those eight, only one appeared before the Committee. Five of the six former attorneys general were allowed to submit brief statements stating they had no information to provide.

You have held zero public hearings, refused to allow the media to attend them, including today, despite espousing the need for transparency on dozens of occasions.

You have made little effort to call the people who show up most prominently in the Epstein files. And when you did, not a single Republican Member showed up for Les Wexner’s deposition.

This institutional failure is designed to protect one political party and one public official, rather than to seek truth and justice for the victims and survivors, as well as the public who also want to get to the bottom of this matter. My heart breaks for the survivors. And I am furious on their behalf.

I have spent my life advocating for women and girls. I have worked hard to stop the terrible abuses so many women and girls face here and around the world, including human trafficking, forced labor, and sexual slavery. For too long, these have been largely invisible crimes or not treated as crimes at all. But the survivors are real and they are entitled to better.

In Southeast Asia, I met girls as young as twelve years old who were forced into prostitution and raped repeatedly. Some were dying of AIDS. In Eastern Europe, I met mothers who told me how they lost daughters to trafficking and did not know where to turn. In settings around the world, I met survivors trying to rebuild their lives and help rescue others – with little support from people in power, who too often turned a blind eye and a cold shoulder.

If you are new to this issue, let me tell you: Jeffrey Epstein was a heinous individual, but he’s far from alone. This is not a one-off tabloid sensation or a political scandal. It’s a global scourge with an unimaginable human toll.

My work combatting sex trafficking goes back to my days as First Lady. I worked to pass the first federal legislation against trafficking and was proud that my husband signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which increased support for survivors and gave prosecutors better tools for going after traffickers.

As Secretary of State, I appointed a former federal prosecutor, Lou CdeBaca, to ramp up our global antitrafficking efforts. I oversaw nearly 170 anti-trafficking programs in 70 nations and directly pressed foreign leaders to crack down on trafficking networks in their countries. Every year we published a global report to shine a light on abuses. The findings of those reports triggered sanctions on countries failing to make progress, so they became a powerful diplomatic tool to drive concrete action.

I insisted that the United States be included in the report for the first time ever in 2011. Because we must hold ourselves not just to the same standard as the rest of the world but to an even higher one. Sex trafficking and modern slavery should have no place in America. None.

Infuriatingly, the Trump Administration gutted the Trafficking in Persons Office at the State Department, cutting more than 70 percent of the career civil and foreign service experts who worked so hard to prevent trafficking crimes. The annual trafficking report, required by law, was delayed for months. The message from the Trump Administration to the American people and the world could not be clearer: combatting human trafficking is no longer an American priority under the Trump White House.

That is a tragedy. It’s a scandal. It deserves vigorous investigation and oversight.

A committee endeavoring to stopping human trafficking would seek to understand what specific steps are needed to fix a system that allowed Epstein to get away with his crimes in 2008.

A committee run by elected officials with a commitment to transparency would ensure the full release of all the files.

It would ensure that the lawful redactions of those files protected the victims and survivors, not powerful men and political allies.

It would get to the bottom of reports that DOJ withheld FBI interviews in which a survivor accuses President Trump of heinous crimes.

It would subpoena anyone who asked on which night there would be the “wildest party” on Epstein’s island.

It would demand testimony from prosecutors in Florida and New York about why they gave Epstein a sweetheart deal and chose not to pursue others who may have been implicated.

It would demand that Secretary Rubio and Attorney General Bondi testify about why this administration is abandoning survivors and playing into the hands of traffickers.

It would seek out officers on the front lines of this fight and ask them what support they need.

It would put forth legislation to provide more resources and force this administration to act.

But that’s not happening.

Instead, you have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump’s actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers.

If this Committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes, it would not rely on press gaggles to get answers from our current president on his involvement; it would ask him directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files.

If the majority was serious, it would not waste time on fishing expeditions.

There is too much that needs to be done.

What is being held back? Who is being protected? And why the cover-up?

My challenge to you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, is the same challenge I put to myself throughout my long service to this nation. How to be worthy of the trust the American people have given you.

They expect statesmanship, not gamesmanship. Leading, not grandstanding. They expect you to use your power to get to the truth and to do more to help survivors of Epstein’s crimes as well as the millions more who are victims of sex trafficking.

Hillary Clinton Strongly Endorses Kamala Harris For President

The following is part of an op-ed by Hillary Clinton in The New York Times in which she endorses Kamala Harris for president:

Elections are about the future. That’s why I am excited about Vice President Kamala Harris. She represents a fresh start for American politics. She can offer a hopeful, unifying vision. She is talented, experienced and ready to be president. And I know she can defeat Donald Trump.

There is now an even sharper, clearer choice in this election. On one side is a convicted criminal who cares only about himself and is trying to turn back the clock on our rights and our country. On the other is a savvy former prosecutor and successful vice president who embodies our faith that America’s best days are still ahead. It’s old grievances versus new solutions.

Ms. Harris’s record and character will be distorted and disparaged by a flood of disinformation and the kind of ugly prejudice we’re already hearing from MAGA mouthpieces. She and the campaign will have to cut through the noise, and all of us as voters must be thoughtful about what we read, believe and share. . . .

Ms. Harris will face unique additional challenges as the first Black and South Asian woman to be at the top of a major party’s ticket. That’s real, but we shouldn’t be afraid. It is a trap to believe that progress is impossible. After all, I won the national popular vote by nearly three million in 2016, and it’s not so long ago that Americans overwhelmingly elected our first Black president. As we saw in the 2022 midterms, abortion bans and attacks on democracy are galvanizing women voters like never before. With Ms. Harris at the top of the ticket leading the way, this movement may become an unstoppable wave.

Time is short to organize the campaign on her behalf, but the Labour Party in Britain and a broad left-wing coalition in France recently won big victories with even less time. Ms. Harris will have to reach out to voters who have been skeptical of Democrats and mobilize young voters who need convincing. But she can run on a strong record and ambitious plans to further reduce costs for families, enact common-sense gun safety laws and restore and protect our rights and freedoms. . . .

Ms. Harris is chronically underestimated, as are so many women in politics, but she is well prepared for this moment. As a prosecutor and attorney general in California, she took on drug traffickers, polluters and predatory lenders. As a U.S. senator, she rigorously questioned squirming Trump administration officials and nominees and was inspiring to watch. As vice president, Ms. Harris has sat with the president in the Situation Room, helping make the hardest decisions a leader can make. And when the extremist Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, she became the administration’s most passionate and effective advocate for restoring women’s reproductive rights.

I look forward to hearing her prosecute a compelling case against Mr. Trump, who failed as a president the first time and is running on a dangerous agenda. A second Trump term would be much worse than the first. Mr. Trump’s plans are more extreme, he is more unhinged, and the guardrails that constrained some of his worst instincts are gone. . . .

The vice president’s law enforcement experience gives her the credibility to rebut Mr. Trump’s lies about crime and immigration. The facts are on her side: After spiking under Mr. Trump, the murder rate is plummeting under the Biden-Harris administration. Illegal border crossings are also dropping fast and are now the lowest they’ve been since 2020, thanks in part to Mr. Biden’s recent executive order. We’d be making even more progress if Mr. Trump hadn’t killed a bipartisan immigration compromise in Congress this year for his own selfish political purposes.

As a friend and supporter of Mr. Biden, I find this a bittersweet moment. He is a wise and decent man who served our country well. We have lost our standard-bearer, and we will miss his steady leadership, deep empathy and fighting spirit. Yet we have gained much as well: a new champion, an invigorated campaign and a renewed sense of purpose.

The time for hand-wringing is over. Now it’s time to organize, mobilize and win.

Republicans Take Hypocrisy To The Ultimate Level

In the 2016 presidential campaign, Republicans whined loudly about Hillary Clinton's home server. They were convinced that she had broken a federal law by using that server for government work. And "lock her up" became a rallying cry for them. Crowds at Trump rallies still chant the phrase when Clinton's name is mentioned.

They overlook a few facts. When asked to return the documents on the server to government control, she did so immediately. And according to the FBI, there were no classified documents on that server, and Clinton broke no federal laws by using it.

Fast forward to 2022, and we have a very different story. This time it's a Republican. Donald Trump took government documents to his home at Mar-A-Lago. Taking those documents was a clear violation of federal law. And making it worse, he lied when asked to return the documents. 

After his repeated refusal to return the government documents, the FBI finally got a search warrant and retrieved the documents themselves. Among those documents were over 300 documents that were classified -- many of them Top Secret.

But no Republican is yelling "lock him up" -- far from it. In fact, they are trying to excuse Trump's obvious law-breaking. They want to give him a pass -- not because he's innocent, but because he is a Republican. They want to put Trump above the law (apparently not realizing that such a precedent would then apply to all future presidents of either party).

The Republicans were overjoyed when the FBI investigated Clinton, but they are angry (and calling for the FBI to be defunded) because of the investigation of Trump.

Hypocrisy seems to be a Republican value these days -- and this latest example is the ultimate example of it.

NO! Hillary Did NOT Pay Hackers To Spy On Trump!

Jesse Watters of Fox News, and many other right-wingers, are claiming that a court filing from DOJ attorney Durham proves that Hillary Clinton paid hackers to spy on Donald Trump. That is simply not true. Durham's filing says no such thing, and the claim that it does is just another right-wing lie.

From PolitiFact.com.

Clinton Remarks On Sanders In 2016 And 2020

(The photo of Hillary Clinton, from Wikipedia, is by Gage Skidmore.)

In a podcast interview last Friday, Hillary Clinton had the following to say about Bernie Sanders and his followers:

I mean, you had, unfortunately, a very different outcome in the 2016 primary, where I won by four million votes. I won overwhelmingly in delegates. There was no question about who was going to be the nominee. But unfortunately, you know, his campaign and his principal supporters were just very difficult and really, constantly not just attacking me, but my supporters.

We get to the convention. They’re booing Michelle Obama, John Lewis. It was very distressing and such a contrast between what we did to unite in ’08.

All the way up until the end, a lot of people highly identified with his campaign were urging people to vote third party, urging people not to vote. It had an impact.

That cannot happen again. I don’t care who the nominee is. I don’t care. As long as it’s somebody who can win, and as long as it’s somebody who understands politics is the art of addition, not subtraction.

I think people need to have to really think hard about who can beat Trump. And it’s not the popular vote, as I learned to my own grave disappointment. . . So I just want us to be really focused on winning. That’s all I care about.

Ivanka Trump (And Others) Broke Federal Law By Using A Private Server For Government Business!

From The Washington Post:

Ivanka Trump sent hundreds of emails last year to White House aides, Cabinet officials and her assistants using a personal account, many of them in violation of federal records rules, according to people familiar with a White House examination of her correspondence.

White House ethics officials learned of Trump’s repeated use of personal email when reviewing emails gathered last fall by five Cabinet agencies to respond to a public records lawsuit. That review revealed that throughout much of 2017, she often discussed or relayed official White House business using a private email account with a domain that she shares with her husband, Jared Kushner.

Frankly, I am stunned by this.

Donald Trump sent dozens of tweets during the campaign blasting Hillary Clinton for using a private server to conduct government business. And he made many campaign speeches saying the same thing -- so many that his crowds began to chant "Lock Her Up"! It was more than obvious that Trump thought using a private server for government business was a terrible idea (and should be against the law).

Wasn't Ivanka a part of the campaign? Did she not read her father's tweets? Did she not listen to any of his speeches? Could she not hear the crowds chanting "Lock Her Up"? It is astounding that she would do the same thing Clinton did once becoming a part of the Trump administration.

But it gets worse. When Clinton used a private server to send government e-mails, it was not against federal law. She broke no law. But the Republican-controlled Congress fixed that by passing a law to make it illegal to use a private server for government business. That means Ivanka broke the law -- and really could be locked up!

That would be bad enough, but it turns out that Ivanka is not the only member of the Trump administration to use a private server for government business. Either members of the Trump administration are incredibly stupid, or they think laws and rules only apply to Democrats -- probably both.

Hillary's Back (And Still Telling The Truth About Trump)

Like other decent Americans who love their country, Hillary Clinton is speaking out against the incompetence, corruption, and divisiveness of the Trump administration. She has written an excellent article for The Atlantic (and I urge you to read the whole article). Here is just a part of it:

It’s been nearly two years since Donald Trump won enough Electoral College votes to become president of the United States. On the day after, in my concession speech, I said, “We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.” I hoped that my fears for our future were overblown.

They were not.

In the roughly 21 months since he took the oath of office, Trump has sunk far below the already-low bar he set for himself in his ugly campaign. Exhibit A is the unspeakable cruelty that his administration has inflicted on undocumented families arriving at the border, including separating children, some as young as eight months, from their parents. According to The New York Times, the administration continues to detain 12,800 children right now, despite all the outcry and court orders. Then there’s the president’s monstrous neglect of Puerto Rico: After Hurricane Maria ravaged the island, his administration barely responded. Some 3,000 Americans died. Now Trump flatly denies those deaths were caused by the storm. And, of course, despite the recent indictments of several Russian military intelligence officers for hacking the Democratic National Committee in 2016, he continues to dismiss a serious attack on our country by a foreign power as a “hoax.”

Trump and his cronies do so many despicable things that it can be hard to keep track. I think that may be the point—to confound us, so it’s harder to keep our eye on the ball. The ball, of course, is protecting American democracy. As citizens, that’s our most important charge. And right now, our democracy is in crisis.

I don’t use the word crisis lightly. There are no tanks in the streets. The administration’s malevolence may be constrained on some fronts—for now—by its incompetence. But our democratic institutions and traditions are under siege. We need to do everything we can to fight back. There’s not a moment to lose.

As I see it, there are five main fronts of this assault on our democracy.

First, there is Donald Trump’s assault on the rule of law.

John Adams wrote that the definition of a republic is “a government of laws, and not of men.” That ideal is enshrined in two powerful principles: No one, not even the most powerful leader, is above the law, and all citizens are due equal protection under the law. Those are big ideas, radical when America was formed and still vital today. The Founders knew that a leader who refuses to be subject to the law or who politicizes or obstructs its enforcement is a tyrant, plain and simple.

That sounds a lot like Donald Trump. He told The New York Times, “I have an absolute right to do what I want to with the Justice Department.” Back in January, according to that paper, Trump’s lawyers sent Special Counsel Robert Mueller a letter making that same argument: If Trump interferes with an investigation, it’s not obstruction of justice, because he’s the president. . . .

Second, the legitimacy of our elections is in doubt.

There’s Russia’s ongoing interference and Trump’s complete unwillingness to stop it or protect us. There’s voter suppression, as Republicans put onerous—and I believe illegal—requirements in place to stop people from voting. There’s gerrymandering, with partisans—these days, principally Republicans—drawing the lines for voting districts to ensure that their party nearly always wins. All of this carries us further away from the sacred principle of “one person, one vote.”

Third, the president is waging war on truth and reason.

Earlier this month, Trump made 125 false or misleading statements in 120 minutes, according to The Washington Post—a personal record for him (at least since becoming president). To date, according to the paper’s fact-checkers, Trump has made 5,000 false or misleading claims while in office and recently has averaged 32 a day. . . .

When we can’t trust what we hear from our leaders, experts, and news sources, we lose our ability to hold people to account, solve problems, comprehend threats, judge progress, and communicate effectively with one another—all of which are crucial to a functioning democracy.

Fourth, there’s Trump’s breathtaking corruption.

Considering that this administration promised to “drain the swamp,” it’s amazing how blithely the president and his Cabinet have piled up conflicts of interest, abuses of power, and blatant violations of ethics rules. Trump is the first president in 40 years to refuse to release his tax returns. He has refused to put his assets in a blind trust or divest himself of his properties and businesses, as previous presidents did. This has created unprecedented conflicts of interest, as industry lobbyists, foreign governments, and Republican organizations do business with Trump’s companies or hold lucrative events at his hotels, golf courses, and other properties. They are putting money directly into his pocket. He’s profiting off the business of the presidency. . . .

Fifth, Trump undermines the national unity that makes democracy possible.

Democracies are rowdy by nature. We debate freely and disagree forcefully. It’s part of what distinguishes us from authoritarian societies, where dissent is forbidden. But we’re held together by deep “bonds of affection,” as Abraham Lincoln said, and by the shared belief that out of our fractious melting pot comes a unified whole that’s stronger than the sum of our parts.

At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. Trump doesn’t even try to pretend he’s a president for all Americans. It’s hard to ignore the racial subtext of virtually everything Trump says. Often, it’s not even subtext. When he says that Haitian and African immigrants are from “shithole countries,” that’s impossible to misunderstand. Same when he says that an American judge can’t be trusted because of his Mexican heritage. None of this is a mark of authenticity or a refreshing break from political correctness. Hate speech isn’t “telling it like it is.” It’s just hate. . . .

There is a tendency, when talking about these things, to wring our hands about “both sides.” But the truth is that this is not a symmetrical problem. We should be clear about this: The increasing radicalism and irresponsibility of the Republican Party, including decades of demeaning government, demonizing Democrats, and debasing norms, is what gave us Donald Trump. Whether it was abusing the filibuster and stealing a Supreme Court seat, gerrymandering congressional districts to disenfranchise African Americans, or muzzling government climate scientists, Republicans were undermining American democracy long before Trump made it to the Oval Office.

Now we must do all we can to save our democracy and heal our body politic. . . .

In 1787, after the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin was asked by a woman on the street outside Independence Hall, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin answered, “A republic, if you can keep it.” That response has been on my mind a lot lately. The contingency of it. How fragile our experiment in self-government is. And, when viewed against the sweep of human history, how fleeting. Democracy may be our birthright as Americans, but it’s not something we can ever take for granted. Every generation has to fight for it, has to push us closer to that more perfect union. That time has come again.

In An "Alternate Universe" Would The GOP Be As Forgiving ?

 The following is part of an op-ed by Bret Stephens in the New York Times. He poses an interesting and thought-provoking question -- what if Hillary Clinton had been elected and acted in the same manner that Donald Trump has acted? He writes:

Late last year, Tom Nichols, a professor at the Naval War College and a NeverTrump conservative, proposed a little thought experiment for Republicans skeptical of Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s Russia ties.

“Let’s play Alternate Universe,” he wrote on Twitter. “It’s 2017, and President Hillary Clinton is facing charges that Chelsea met with Russians who offered oppo on Trump. Chelsea didn’t call the FBI; and Clinton nat sec adviser Jake Sullivan lied to the FBI about talking to the Russians.”

Nichols laid out the unfolding drama over a series of tweets. President Clinton fires the F.B.I. director after he declines her request to “let it go” on Sullivan. “Then, at least three other Clinton campaign officials end up indicted. All of them are tied in some way to a hostile foreign power.” Later, she threatens to “yank FOX’s license” because she didn’t like its critical coverage.

“I’m sure … totally sure …” Nichols added with no little irony, “that stalwarts of the G.O.P. would say: Look, this is a nothingburger, you can’t define ‘collusion,’ it’s just ‘the coffee boy,’ and on and on.”. . .

So let’s play Alternate Universe again, and bring Nichols’ scenarios up-to-date.

Imagine that President Hillary Clinton had agreed to release a partisan Democratic intelligence memo over the objections of Republicans in Congress and her own top F.B.I. officials that disclosure could harm national security.

Would conservative pundits and politicians:

(a) Praise President Clinton for abandoning her old habits of secrecy and standing strong on the side of transparency in government?

(b) Call for her impeachment on grounds that she had compromised national security for shamelessly self-serving political reasons?

Imagine, next, that the Clinton campaign had named as a foreign policy adviser a little known figure with scanty business or academic credentials but with strongly pro-Putin views and curious links to senior Russian officials. Imagine that this same adviser later testified to Congress that the Clinton campaign had asked him to sign a nondisclosure agreement after a trip he took to Russia during the height of the campaign. Imagine also that senior Clinton campaign officials at first denied and later had their memories “refreshed” about knowing him.

Would conservative pundits and politicians:

(a) Agree with Clinton administration spokespersons that, while the campaign had named him as an adviser, he had no role in anything and that his links to Russia were purely incidental?

(b) Agree with Democrats in Congress that the F.B.I. had no business whatsoever in surveilling him because a political dossier might have served as one basis of suspicion, and that his civil liberties had been seriously traduced?

(c) Note that his presence on the campaign was of a piece with Clinton’s disastrous “reset” of relations with Russia under the Obama administration, and that it suggested a policy of appeasing the Kremlin at America’s expense?

Imagine, finally, that after firing James Comey for insufficient loyalty, President Clinton had asked the deputy director of the F.B.I. how he had voted in the election in an Oval Office meeting. Imagine that after learning that he hadn’t voted, she unleashed a campaign of public invective and belittlement aimed at his wife for having once run for state office as a Republican. Imagine, in this same connection, that the effort to oust the deputy director was only a warm-up to getting rid of the deputy attorney general, a well-regarded, straight-shooting Democrat who had appointed the special counsel looking into Clinton’s Russia ties.

Would conservative pundits and politicians:

(a) Applaud President Clinton for taking a belated but necessary step to clean up a “politicized” Justice Department that had interfered against her at the end of the campaign, while also agreeing that the party affiliation of an F.B.I. official’s spouse is a legitimate basis to suspect the official of disloyalty and partisan motives?

(b) Cast aspersions on the deputy attorney general for defending the work of the special counsel against the wishes of the president?

(c) Accuse the president of obstructing justice by smearing and effectively ousting upstanding public servants whose only sin was to do their jobs to the best of their abilities while, in one case, being married to a woman with political ambitions?

I think we all know the answer. The Republicans would be screaming for her impeachment. That exposes their hypocrisy in defense of Trump.

Obama And Clinton Still Top Gallup's Most Admired List

This has to make the narcissist in the White House very unhappy. The Gallup Poll has released their annual survey of the men and women who are most admired by Americans. The poll was done between December 4th and 11th of a random national sample of 1,049 adults, and has a 4 point margin of error.

Who were the most admired. It was the same man and woman who have been the winners for several years now -- Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Obama topped Trump by 3 points, and Clinton topped Michelle Obama by 2 points. It marks the first time in many years that the sitting president has not finished first, but then most Americans don't admire the current inhabitant of the White House.

We Were Warned About Trump's Dangerous Incompetence

(Caricature of Donald Trump is by the inimitable DonkeyHotey.)

The following is most of an excellent post is by Lindsay Gibbs at Think Progress:

It is appropriate to be appalled at the current state of our government. But none of us should be particularly shocked. We were warned, time and time again, by people who know Trump well and who know the role of the presidency well, that the former was in no way fit to fill the latter.

And nobody warned us about the danger Trump posed to our nation more forcefully or with more prescience than Hillary Clinton.

“[A]s Michelle Obama has said, the presidency doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are,” she said in Raleigh, North Carolina days before the election. “And I think it’s fair to say that my opponent has already revealed who he is.”

Clinton knew then that Trump’s allegiance to Putin and Russia was not only problematic, but dangerous.

“It is pretty clear you won’t admit that the Russians have engaged in cyber attacks against the United States of America. That you encouraged espionage against our people. That you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do,” she said during the third presidential debate.

“[Trump] would rather believe Vladimir Putin than the military and civilian intelligence professionals who are sworn to protect us.”

The day after Trump fired Comey, he met with Russian officials in the White House and reportedly divulged classified information about ISIS that had been gleaned from allies, a move that put American sources in jeopardy and infuriated allies.

“He praises dictators like Vladimir Putin and picks fights with our friends — including the British prime minister, the mayor of London, the German chancellor, the president of Mexico and the Pope,” Clinton said last October.

“The United States has kept the peace through our alliances. Donald wants to tear up our alliances.”

Clinton told us that other foreign leaders were bothered by Trump’s off-the-cuff rhetoric — “words are important,” she said during the first debate, “especially when you’re president” — and discussed how his volatile and victim-oriented temperament would be a threat to democracy.

“You know, every time Donald thinks things aren’t going in his direction, he claims whatever it is, is rigged against him,” Clinton said. “This is a mind-set. This is how Donald thinks, and it’s funny, but it’s also really troubling. That is not the way our democracy works.”

“He is not just unprepared — he is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility,” Clinton said. “Rather than solving global crises, he would create new ones.”

. . . at the end of the day, the only thing comforting about any of this is how predictable it all really was.

“Now, I know some people still want to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. They hope that he will eventually reinvent himself — that there’s a kinder, gentler, more responsible Donald Trump waiting in the wings somewhere,” Clinton said in a speech about the alt-right and Russian influence on Trump’s campaign last August.

“Because after all, it’s hard to believe anyone — let alone a nominee for president — could really believe all the things he says. But the hard truth is, there’s no other Donald Trump. This is it.

“Maya Angelou, a great American whom I admire very much, she once said: ‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.’ Well, throughout his career and this campaign, Donald Trump has shown us exactly who he is. We should believe him.”

She’s right. We really, really should have.

Obama And Clinton Are "Most Admired" By U.S. Public

The Gallup Poll has done its annual survey on which living man and woman is most admired by the general public in the United States. This year there was no change in the man and woman most admired. It was Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Donald Trump's supporters were able to get him into second place -- 7 points behind President Obama. Michelle Obama finished second among women -- 4 points behind Hillary Clinton. I have included on these charts every person that was able to gather at least 1%.

The survey was done between December 7th and 11th of a random national sample of 1,028 adults, and has a 4 point margin of error.

Final Popular Vote Totals From 2016 Presidential Election

The final vote totals from all 50 states (and the District of Columbia) have now been certified, and the outcome is known. The charts above (from the Cook Political Report) show the national and state totals.

Note that Donald Trump received 2,864,974 votes less than his main opponent Hillary Clinton. Only 46.1% of the voters cast their votes for Trump, while 53.9% of voters voted against Trump (48.2% for Clinton and 5.7% for others).

The claim by Trump to have a "mandate" is utterly ridiculous.