Endorsements for HRC

[Guinevere]

The Houston Chronicle, which endorsed Romney last time around, had this to say yesterday:

http://www.chron.com/opinion/recommenda ... 650345.php

On Nov. 8, 2016, the American people will decide between two presidential contenders who represent the starkest political choice in living memory. They will choose between one candidate with vast experience and a lifelong dedication to public service and another totally lacking in qualifications to be president. They will decide whether they prefer someone deeply familiar with the issues that are important to this nation or a person whose paper-thin, bumper-sticker proposals would be dangerous to the nation and the world if somehow they were enacted.

[Guinevere]

Michael Bloomberg, from the DNC:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/27/politics/ ... on-speech/

Loved this line:

"I'm a New Yorker, and New Yorkers know a con when we see one"

[Guinevere]

Other Republicans for Clinton, as of Monday:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... o-far.html

A few of the names on the list:

Brent Scowcroft, foreign policy adviser to four GOP presidents, said in a statement last month that Clinton “has the wisdom and experience to lead our country at this critical time.”

Henry Paulson Jr. former treasury secretary under President George W. Bush, said “Enough is enough. It’s time to put country before party and say it together: Never Trump.”

Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of state to George W. Bush, told Politico last month, “If Donald Trump is the nominee, I would vote for Hillary Clinton.”

Ken Adelman, U.S. Arms Control director under Ronald Reagan, said “Not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but also I am not voting for any Republican who endorsed or supported Trump.”

Dr. Patrick Cronin, senior official at USAID during the W. Bush administration, who said, “Only one candidate has thought through America’s challenges… and is ready to be president, and I intend to vote for her—Hillary Clinton.”

[Lord Jim]

This was the Bloomberg line I liked the best:

"We've heard a lot of talk in this campaign about needing a leader who understands business. I couldn't agree more. I've built a business, and I didn't start it with a million-dollar check from my father,"

[Burning Petard]

Or try to save it with the biggest stack of casino chips ever seen, bought by my daddy for me to play with.

[BoSoxGal]

I'm frankly shocked that any self respecting Republican could justify endorsing the Chump. Everyone who does should be voted out. He's as unAmerican as Joe McCarthy.

[Bicycle Bill]

I'm frankly shocked that any self respecting Republican could justify endorsing the Chump. Everyone who does should be voted out. He's as unAmerican as Joe McCarthy.

Hey now!!!
Tail-gunner Joe was a good, honest, upright All-American boy (and, certainly it's merely a coincidence, a Republican) from the Midwest!
Damned East Coasters, picking on us people from the Heartland.....

-"BB"-

[Econoline]

FiveThirtyEight projection on what the Electoral College would look like if women refuse to vote Trump:

[Guinevere]

http://www.vox.com/2016/8/2/12353496/ri ... se-hillary

There are plenty of prominent Republicans who have telegraphed their displeasure with Donald Trump's candidacy. Some Republican members of Congress have even refused to endorse Trump. But until today, no Republican member of Congress had crossed party lines and endorsed Hillary Clinton.

Now Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY) has done just that. In an op-ed for the Syracuse Post-Standard, Hanna offered a scathing evaluation of Trump’s fitness for the White House and vowed to vote for his Democratic opponent.

"I found him profoundly offensive and narcissistic but as much as anything, a world-class panderer, anything but a leader," Hanna wrote, describing him as "deeply flawed in endless ways."

Trump, Hanna argued, is "a self-involved man who is worth billions yet is comfortable — almost gleefully — using bankruptcy laws to avoid the consequences of his own choices. A man of character would not defend his actions but rather display shame and or at least regret. He is unrepentant in all things. Think about those average people who paid for his choices."

In an interview about his endorsement, Hanna said that the last straw was Trump’s quarrel with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of a fallen Muslim American soldier. "I was stunned by the callousness of his comments," Hanna said.

Hanna has long been one of the most liberal members of the House Republican caucus. And he’s retiring in January, which means he’s not reliant on Republican volunteers and infrastructure to win reelection. So we shouldn’t necessarily expect a lot of other Republicans in Congress to follow Hanna’s lead.

Still, having a prominent Republican openly denounce Trump isn’t going to help him win in November.

I will also add -- he is from a profoundly BLUE COLLAR part of upstate NY (not Albany and the Hudson Valley upstate -- which is where so many of those NYC elite retreat for the summer), but from Binghamton to Oswego, and he is from Utica, himself. That part of the state supported HRC quite strongly in her Senate races, too.

[rubato]

If it weren't for the obvious self-interest I might want to call it a moral act. That will have to wait for a Republican in a 'safe seat' to do the right thing.

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Meg Whitman, Calling Donald Trump a ‘Demagogue,’ Will Support Hillary Clinton for President

Meg Whitman, a Hewlett Packard executive and Republican fund-raiser, said Tuesday that she would support Hillary Clinton for president and give a “substantial” contribution to her campaign in order to stop Donald J. Trump, whom she berated as a threat to American democracy.

“I will vote for Hillary, I will talk to my Republican friends about helping her, and I will donate to her campaign and try to raise money for her,” Ms. Whitman said in a telephone interview.

She revealed that Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic nominee, had reached out to her in a phone call about a month ago, one of the first indications that Mrs. Clinton is aggressively courting Republican leaders. While acknowledging she diverged from Mrs. Clinton on many policy issues, Ms. Whitman said it was time for Republicans “to put country first before party.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/us/po ... .html?_r=0

[Guinevere]

Meg Whitman's statement:

As a proud Republican, casting my vote for President has usually been a simple matter. This year is different. To vote Republican out of party loyalty alone would be to endorse a candidacy that I believe has exploited anger, grievance, xenophobia and racial division. Donald Trump’s demagoguery has undermined the fabric of our national character.

Trump’s reckless and uninformed positions on critical issues – from immigration to our economy to foreign policy – have made it abundantly clear that he lacks both the policy depth and sound judgment required as President. Trump’s unsteady hand would endanger our prosperity and national security. His authoritarian character could threaten much more.

Therefore, I have decided to support Hillary Rodham Clinton. It is clear to me that Secretary Clinton’s temperament, global experience and commitment to America’s bedrock national values make her the far better choice in 2016 for President of the United States. In a tumultuous world, America needs the kind of stable and aspirational leadership Secretary Clinton can provide. I urge all Republicans to reject Donald Trump this November.

[rubato]

Endorsing Hillary will help Meg a lot if she tries to run in Calif. in future but I'll grant for the moment that this is a moral act on her part. That is to say she is doing the right thing for the right reasons.


yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Is there some place I can place a bet on Pence bailing before the election?


yrs,
rubato

[Econoline]

I'd bet on Trump being more likely to bail. (After refusing to debate Hillary because the whole political system is "rigged".)

[Guinevere]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/opini ... ebook&_r=0

During a 33-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, I served presidents of both parties — three Republicans and three Democrats. I was at President George W. Bush’s side when we were attacked on Sept. 11; as deputy director of the agency, I was with President Obama when we killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.

I am neither a registered Democrat nor a registered Republican. In my 40 years of voting, I have pulled the lever for candidates of both parties. As a government official, I have always been silent about my preference for president.

No longer. On Nov. 8, I will vote for Hillary Clinton. Between now and then, I will do everything I can to ensure that she is elected as our 45th president.

Two strongly held beliefs have brought me to this decision. First, Mrs. Clinton is highly qualified to be commander in chief. I trust she will deliver on the most important duty of a president — keeping our nation safe. Second, Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security.

I spent four years working with Mrs. Clinton when she was secretary of state, most often in the White House Situation Room. In these critically important meetings, I found her to be prepared, detail-oriented, thoughtful, inquisitive and willing to change her mind if presented with a compelling argument.

I also saw the secretary’s commitment to our nation’s security; her belief that America is an exceptional nation that must lead in the world for the country to remain secure and prosperous; her understanding that diplomacy can be effective only if the country is perceived as willing and able to use force if necessary; and, most important, her capacity to make the most difficult decision of all — whether to put young American women and men in harm’s way.

Mrs. Clinton was an early advocate of the raid that brought Bin Laden to justice, in opposition to some of her most important colleagues on the National Security Council. During the early debates about how we should respond to the Syrian civil war, she was a strong proponent of a more aggressive approach, one that might have prevented the Islamic State from gaining a foothold in Syria.

I never saw her bring politics into the Situation Room. In fact, I saw the opposite. When some wanted to delay the Bin Laden raid by one day because the White House Correspondents Dinner might be disrupted, she said, “Screw the White House Correspondents Dinner.”

In sharp contrast to Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump has no experience on national security. Even more important, the character traits he has exhibited during the primary season suggest he would be a poor, even dangerous, commander in chief.

These traits include his obvious need for self-aggrandizement, his overreaction to perceived slights, his tendency to make decisions based on intuition, his refusal to change his views based on new information, his routine carelessness with the facts, his unwillingness to listen to others and his lack of respect for the rule of law.

The dangers that flow from Mr. Trump’s character are not just risks that would emerge if he became president. It is already damaging our national security.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was a career intelligence officer, trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them. That is exactly what he did early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump’s vulnerabilities by complimenting him. He responded just as Mr. Putin had calculated.

Mr. Putin is a great leader, Mr. Trump says, ignoring that he has killed and jailed journalists and political opponents, has invaded two of his neighbors and is driving his economy to ruin. Mr. Trump has also taken policy positions consistent with Russian, not American, interests — endorsing Russian espionage against the United States, supporting Russia’s annexation of Crimea and giving a green light to a possible Russian invasion of the Baltic States. In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.

Mr. Trump has also undermined security with his call for barring Muslims from entering the country. This position, which so clearly contradicts the foundational values of our nation, plays into the hands of the jihadist narrative that our fight against terrorism is a war between religions. In fact, many Muslim Americans play critical roles in protecting our country, including the man, whom I cannot identify, who ran the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center for nearly a decade and who I believe is most responsible for keeping America safe since the Sept. 11 attacks.

My training as an intelligence officer taught me to call it as I see it. This is what I did for the C.I.A. This is what I am doing now. Our nation will be much safer with Hillary Clinton as president.

[rubato]

No debates? At all? I am going to be so disappointed.


You have to admit, no tax returns, no debates, he is charting his own course; a true Maverick like Sara Palin.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Hillary's got a good new ad out featuring clips from former CIA Director Admiral Michael Hayden and other prominent conservatives like Charles Krauthammer questioning Trumps fitness to be Commander-In-Chief and being entrusted with control of nuclear weapons...

I wanted to post it but I couldn't find it on YouTube...

The one she has with the little kids watching Trump was very effective in the states it was run in, (recent polling in those states reflect that) I expect this new one could be equally impactful.

[RayThom]

Hillary's got a good new ad... clips from former CIA Director Admiral Michael Hayden... other prominent conservatives like Charles Krauthammer questioning Trumps fitness... and being entrusted with control of nuclear weapons... I wanted to post it but I couldn't find it on YouTube...

Is this the one of which you speak?

[Lord Jim]

That be the one...