A Marine Veteran’s Open Letter to Trump Critic Khizr Khan

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Dear Mr. Khan,

I want to preface this letter by stating that I respect your son’s sacrifice for this great nation. By all accounts, he is a true hero that sacrificed himself in service to our country. For that I am thankful.

As a veteran, I watched your comments at the Democratic National Convention with a mixture of sadness, and anger. The United States has a military comprised of volunteers. Every single member has made the conscious choice to join the military and serve. There is not a single service member who has been forced into service. It is important for all service members (and apparently, their families) to understand that service to this great nation does not imbue one with special privileges or rights. I found your comments troubling when you said: “Have you ever been to Arlington cemetery? Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”

Does it matter whether Mr. Trump has sacrificed “…nothing and no one?”…has Ms. Clinton “..sacrificed” for this nation? How about Mr. Obama? Your comment stating that Mr. Trump “…has sacrifice no one” is alarming. Are you intimating that YOU sacrificed? Sir, your son willingly sacrificed himself. As a father I cannot imagine the pain you must feel but his sacrifice is his own. He was not forced to serve.

I am troubled that you would allow a party that has little more than contempt for the US Service Member to parade you into the DNC to denounce Donald Trump. Did you watch when protesters at the DNC booed and heckled Medal of Honor recipient Capt. Florent Groberg? Did you notice your party interrupting the moment of silence for slain police officers? Your own hypocrisy in not denouncing these acts and instead using the DNC as a platform to make a political point is disgraceful. The simple fact is that whether one served or sacrificed does not give greater power to their statements. One vote is as valuable as another. That sir, is why our Country is great. Your condemnation of one person for a statement while standing idly as your party disparages veterans and police officers is the height of hypocrisy.

To conflate the need to prevent potential terrorists from entering our country with the belief that ‘all Muslims’ should be banned is simply wrong and disingenuous. As a reminder, Mr. Trump said: ” “Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” The irony of your son’s own death at the hands of these very people in Iraq should not be ignored. I have little doubt that your son would have recognized the need to protect our country from these very people. In fact, he held is own troops back so that he could check on a suspicious car. Your son understood sacrifice and how to protect “his people”…’his soldiers’….’his fellow Americans’…

As you continue to make the media circuit and bask in the glow of affection cast upon you by a party that has little regard for your son’s own sacrifice, and veterans in general, I would ask you to consider your comments and your position more closely.

Respectfully,

Chris Mark

US Marine and Navy Veteran.

(“A Marine Veteran’s Open Letter to Trump Critic Khizr Khan” originally posted HERE)

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Lewandowski: Khans’ Son Would Be Alive If Trump Had Been President

By Sandy Fitzgerald. A Gold Star Muslim couple’s son, who was killed in military action 12 years ago, would not have lost his life if Donald Trump had been president at the time, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski argued Monday in a heated exchange on CNN.

“Their son is a hero, and every person who’s ever died fighting for our country and their families are heroes,” Lewandowski said in the segment, aired as a discussion after the couple, Khizr Khan and his wife, Ghazala, wrapped up an interview minutes before. “The difference is we’ve got 7,000 soldiers who have died, $6 trillion wasted in wars overseas that if Donald Trump was the president, we would never have had. And Captain Khan would be alive today” . . .

Trump has come under fire by Democrats and Republicans alike for his criticism of the Khans, who took the stage at the Democratic National Convention last week. Khizr Khan delivered a stinging indictment of Trump’s calls against Muslim immigration as his wife silently stood at his side. Trump criticized Ghazala Khan for her silence and questioned if she was allowed to speak. (Read more from “Lewandowski: Khans’ Son Would Be Alive If Trump Had Been President” HERE)

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Retired Four Star General Predicts “Civil-Military Crisis” If Trump Elected, Reflects Pathetic State of Modern Flag Officers

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By Connor O’Brien. The election of Republican Donald Trump as president could mean a breakdown in the relationship between civilian and military leaders, a former top commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan warned Sunday.

In an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” retired Marine Gen. John Allen criticized Trump for his rhetoric on the wider use of military force and torture. And if Trump followed through with those pledges, Allen said, it would create “a civil military crisis, the like of which we’ve not seen in this country before.”

“It’s an inherent responsibility in who we are,” Allen said. “So what we need to do is ensure that we don’t create an environment that puts us on a track conceivably where the United States military finds itself in a civil military crisis with a commander in chief who would have us do illegal things.”

“That’s a major issue that we’re facing here, the potential for a civil military crisis where the military could be ordered to conduct illegal activities,” he added.

But Allen, a supporter of Hillary Clinton who spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, said he hoped it wouldn’t come to a public feud between military leaders and a Trump administration. (Read more from “Retired Four Star General Predicts “Civil-Military Crisis” If Trump Elected, Reflects Pathetic State of Modern Flag Officers” HERE)

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Former Joint Chiefs Chairman: Retired Generals Shouldn’t Speak at Political Conventions

By Jeff Schogol. Retired Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is arguing that retired general officers should not endorse political candidates.

In a letter to the Washington Post, Dempsey wrote that retired Marine Gen. John Allen and retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn crossed the line by speaking at the Democratic and Republican conventions, respectively. . .

“As generals, they have an obligation to uphold our apolitical traditions,” Dempsey wrote. “They have just made the task of their successors — who continue to serve in uniform and are accountable for our security — more complicated. It was a mistake for them to participate as they did. It was a mistake for our presidential candidates to ask them to do so.” (Read more from “Former Joint Chiefs Chairman: Retired Generals Shouldn’t Speak at Political Conventions” HERE)

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Clinton: Trump’s Comments on Gen. Allen ‘Prove’ He Should Not Be Commander-In-Chief

By Liz Kreutz. Hillary Clinton on Saturday ripped into Donald Trump for his critique of retired four-star Gen. John Allen, saying it’s unpresidential to “insult and deride our generals.”

“Just yesterday, he went after retired Gen. John Allen who commanded our troops in Afghanistan. . . . Our commander in chief shouldn’t insult and deride our generals, retired or otherwise. . .”

On Friday, Trump unleashed on Allen, who delivered a scathing critique of the Republican nominee during remarks to the Democratic National Convention.

“Let me tell you, I think my kids have more star power, I really do. I think they do, than everybody I saw,” Trump said of the DNC. “They had a general named John Allen. And he, I never met him, and he got up and he started talking about Trump, Trump, Trump. Never met him

“And you know who he is? He’s a failed, he was the general fighting ISIS. I would say he hasn’t done so well, right? Not so well.” (Read more from “Clinton: Trump’s Comments on Gen. Allen ‘Prove’ He Should Not Be Commander-In-Chief” HERE)

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Obama Has Given up on Defeating ISIS

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By Kimberly Dozier. Officially, the Obama administration is still committed to defeating ISIS. But at the annual gathering of national security chiefs in Aspen, no one was talking about beating the terror army and its adherents. Instead, grim resignation and dark warnings of a long hard fight to come dominated the discussion, with every official predicting a global rise in terror attacks, including in the United States. . .

It was a far cry from earlier gatherings of the Aspen Security Forum, where officials and experts hailed the killing of al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden as a death blow to Islamic extremism. And it was a markedly different tone from President Obama’s statements of just a few months ago, when he redoubled his commitment to “defeat [ISIS] and to eliminate the scourge of this barbaric terrorism that’s been taking place around the world.”

In contrast, national security officials at Aspen didn’t really speak of ISIS as an enemy that could be taken out. They talked about the terror group like a long-term problem to be managed—a chronic illness in the global body politic. (Read more from “Obama Has Given up on Defeating ISIS” HERE)

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Moqtada Al Sadr and His Followers in Iraq Are ‘Thirsty for Americans’ Blood’

By Andrew Tilghman. For the first time in years, the Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr and his militia are unleashing fiery anti-American rhetoric and threatening to attack U.S. troops . . .

Sadr rose to prominence when his Mahdi Army battled U.S. troops after the 2003 invasion. He has quietly tolerated the comparatively small U.S. military force there now supporting the war on Islamic State extremists. But the powerful cleric became confrontational again after Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced plans on July 11 to send an additional 560 U.S. troops to Iraq, bringing the total to more than 4,600.

“They are a target for us,” Sadr said in a post on his official website on July 17.

A few days later, an official spokesman for Sadr’s militia, Alaa Abboud, echoed the threat.

“We are thirsty for Americans’ blood,” Abboud told a prominent Iraqi television news channel. (Read more from “Moqtada Al Sadr and His Followers in Iraq Are ‘Thirsty for Americans’ Blood'” HERE)

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US Military Is Going Soft: The Millenials Have Taken Over

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By Kevin Lilley. Are younger service members — so-called ‘millennials,’ born in 1980 or later — soft?

Are they too reliant on technology? Are they buried so deep in social media that face-to-face communication becomes impossible? Are they too busy questioning orders to follow them?

It’s not uncommon to hear such complaints from members of the Old Guard, some of whom are quick to stereotype the new breed as too desperate for praise and too ill-disciplined.

Across the services, leaders certainly are scrambling to adapt to the millennial mindset, even as the generation is taking over. . .

“The problem that we do have is that right now the generation we have coming in is not as disciplined as we would like them to be,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Gragg, the senior enlisted soldier for the Center for Initial Military Training, earlier this year. “So we have to provide them with discipline over a longer period of time.” (Read more from “US Military Is Going Soft: The Millenials Have Taken Over” HERE)

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Obama Cuts Military Pay for 3rd Year in a Row

By Livenews. While shouting that the minimum wage for illegal aliens working at McDonalds should be $15 an hour, President Obama used a loophole in the US Code deter a pay raise to the military.

The lower pay increase translates to a Pay Grade E-4 (Corporal, Petty Officer 3d Class, Specialist 4, Senior Airman) with less than three years in service will earn less than $3.00 an hour.

Under the 2016 pay scale, a Pay Grade E-1 undergoing recruit training will be paid roughly $2.15 an hour. (Read more from “Obama Cuts Military Pay for 3rd Year in a Row” HERE)

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Facebook Blocks Michael Savage for Posting News on Islamic Crime

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Facebook has temporarily blocked talk-radio host Michael Savage from posting stories to his page after he put up a link to a story about a Muslim migrant killing a pregnant woman in Germany.

A message from the social media giant on Savage’s page said: “You recently posted something that violates Facebook policies, so you’re temporarily blocked from using this feature.”

The message then refers the user to Facebook’s “Community Standards” and states the block will be active for 21 hours.

Facebook’s “Community Standards” page lists “hate speech” as one of its prohibitions, along with “violence and graphic content,” and nudity.

The article linked by Savage was about a pregnant woman in Reutlingen, Germany, who was hacked to death with a meat cleaver by a 21-year-old Syrian refugee. (Read more from “Facebook Blocks Michael Savage for Posting News on Islamic Crime” HERE)

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GOP Judge Laments SCOTUS Hasn’t Fully Codified Transgenderism Into Civil Rights

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After years of our side agreeing to the premise that courts have the final say over all political issues, in 2015 the judiciary hit rock bottom and redefined marriage, the building block of civilization. If nothing is done to fundamentally reform the entire judiciary, the courts, within the next few years, will fully codify transgenderism and every other form of de-civilization into the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act. This will force all states, government employers and even private citizens to accommodate all sorts of disruptive behavior – all under the guise of furthering civil rights.

In addition to illegally overturning basic election integrity laws in Kansas, Wisconsin and North Carolina last week, there was another important case in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals that is worth mentioning. On Thursday, Judge Ilana Rovner, a GOP appointee to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, bemoaned the lack of a Supreme Court ruling fully codifying transgenderism into all aspects of anti-discrimination laws. Although she ultimately exercised self-control and stopped short of siding with the plaintiff who was alleging discrimination on account of her “transgender lifestyle,” nonetheless, Judge Rovner wrote a 40-page sexual identity polemic winking and nodding at the legal profession to go ahead and complete this final social transformation. Noting that “the writing was on the wall,” she used the old tactic of building upon existing insane case law bastardizing the intent of the Civil Rights Act and asserted that it is now incongruent not to take that law to the next frontier. This is the very culture of the legal profession’s one-directional ratchet away from sound constitutional and statutory jurisprudence I warn about in chapter 1 of Stolen Sovereignty.

Here is Rovner’s punchline:

Perhaps the writing is on the wall. It seems unlikely that our society can continue to condone a legal structure in which employees can be fired, harassed, demeaned, singled out for undesirable tasks, paid lower wages, demoted, passed over for promotions, and otherwise discriminated against solely based on who they date, love, or marry. The agency tasked with enforcing Title VII does not condone it, (see Baldwin, 2015 WL 4397641 at **5,10); many of the federal courts to consider the matter have stated that they do not condone it and this court undoubtedly does not condone it (see Ulane, 742 F.2d at 1084). But writing on the wall is not enough. Until the writing comes in the form of a Supreme Court opinion or new legislation, we must adhere to the writing of our prior precedent, and therefore, the decision of the district court is AFFIRMED. [some legal citations omitted]

First, it’s important to remember that the Supreme Court is not on an equal playing field to Congress in defining Title VII, which was enacted in the ‘60s to stop the existing discrimination in the workforce against African Americans. The Supreme Court has no power to absurdly rule that Congress designed civil rights for transgenderism and somehow apply it retroactively to the 1960s. Yet, evidently even a GOP judge believes such a court-made power exists. Taken together with the Fourth Circuit already codifying transgenderism into Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, now mandating that members of the opposite sex be allowed in school bathrooms, this is gay marriage legal hocus pocus all over again. The lower courts are goading Justice Anthony Kennedy into taking the plunge into the abyss of judicial Gomorrah. There is no doubt as to how he would rule if and when these cases reach the eminent tribunal.

This is why we will never fix the courts conventionally simply by trying to appoint better judges. Sure, there are some better tactics we can employ relative to past GOP presidents in ensuring more Republican appointees share our view of the Constitution, but fundamentally the entire legal system is broken. Moreover, it would take years to even turn the tide of the circuits, and by then, all of this will be codified into the Constitution. We are now at the point when an individual can engage in any sort of behavior and assert civil rights based on an immutable identity. We are coming close to a time when a person can come into work fully nude or assert they are a trans-human and hide behind civil rights or the 14th Amendment. Justice Kennedy already wrote in Obergefell that a person has “the right to define and express their identity” as it relates to securing state benefits. There is no floor to this insanity if we don’t put a stop to it soon.

The courts have declared war on our society, representative democracy and our Constitution. It’s time to respond in kind and strip them down to their original job of interpreting the laws, not remaking the laws, the Constitution and the most immutable laws of nature and Nature’s God. (For more from the author of “GOP Judge Laments SCOTUS Hasn’t Fully Codified Transgenderism Into Civil Rights” please click HERE)

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First, An Apparent Seizure, Now a Strange Hole in Hillary’s Tongue

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The Interwebs have been blowing up of late with a startling picture of Hillary Rodham Clinton appearing to shriek in laughter while standing next to one Barrack Hussein Obama.

I believe it may have been Glenn Reynolds who first examined the picture closely and wondered “What the heck is that dark thing on Hillary’s tongue?”

160731-hole-in-hillarys-tongue-closeup

Suffice it to say that it doesn’t look like a throat lozenge that might have been employed to stay her persistent, sickly cough.

iOTWreport discovered a likely cause of said cavity:

It appears to be the result of a tongue biopsy.

(see the apparent seizure from several weeks ago here:)

Such a biopsy would have have taken place when doctors feared oral cancer (interestingly, oral cancer has been linked to HPV, a sexually-transmitted disease). Here’s what the CDC has to say about the matter:

What is genital HPV?

Genital human papillomavirus (also called HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the U.S. Most types of HPV are not harmful to people. There are more than 40 types of HPV that can infect the genital areas as well as the mouth and throat. Most people who become infected with HPV do not know that they are infected.

What is oral HPV?

The same types of HPV that infect the genital areas can infect the mouth and throat. HPV found in the mouth and throat is called “oral HPV.” Some types of oral HPV (known as “high risk types”) can cause cancers of the head and neck area. Other types of oral HPV (known as “low risk types”) can cause warts in the mouth or throat. In most cases, HPV infections of all types go away before they cause any health problems.

What head and neck cancers can be caused by HPV?

HPV can cause cancers in the back of the throat, most commonly in the base of the tongue and tonsils, in an area known as the “oropharynx.” These cancers are called “oropharyngeal cancers.”

What appears to be a gaping cavity on Hillary’s tongue is at or near the base and not where a piercing would have occurred.

In fact, Bill Clinton’s ex-lover Gennifer Flowers stated the following when asked about the relationship between Huma Abedin and Hillary:

I don’t know Huma or the Weiners. I just know what Bill told me and that was that he was aware that Hillary was bisexual and he didn’t care. He should know.

He said Hillary had eaten more p***y than he had.

Further, the cavity in the blown-up image resembles that of other tongue biopsies.

It’s time for Hillary Clinton to come clean about her entire medical situation; to explain the condition of her tongue and to release all of her medical records — including the injuries suffered in her infamous “fall” in Chappaqua that sidelined her for months.

And the fact that Ms. Abedin is on record as saying Hillary is “often confused”, just two months after the fall.

The American people have a right to know what the true health situation is with this very unhealthy-looking person. (For more from the author of “That Strange Hole in Hillary’s Tongue Can Only Mean One Thing” please click HERE)

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Liar, Liar Pantsuit on Fire: It’s Time to Disbar Hillary

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Now that Hillary’s considerable edges have gone through an awkward and hilarious softening procedure via last week’s DNC account of Bill Clinton romancing her, it’s time to come back to reality.

Because Hillary’s edges aren’t just ordinary edges. They have sharks with lasers on their heads. And no one should ever forget that, no matter how clumsy and decadent the Trump cult is on the other side of the political ledger.

She is a ruthless liar and moral reprobate. As has been demonstrated over and over again across roughly two and a half decades in the national spotlight as first lady, senator, secretary of state or presidential candidate. But her Faustian nine lives keep her unapologetic in the extreme and incomprehensibly on target to achieve her life-long dream: to rule us all.

Hillary embodies the very worst in what a lifelong politician becomes over time as their soul goes the way of the dodo. Yet try as Trump supporters might to convince us otherwise, their false god is temperamentally, ethically, philosophically and demographically incapable of saving us from her looming tyranny.

This is well documented by now, both by myself and many others. Trump has been an avid supporter of Hillary over the years, in both deed and dollar. And he wasn’t doing that as a businessman who needed to grease the palm of a politician to get a development approved, because she was never in local power as far as he was concerned. No, Trump supported her because he admired her, so we must look elsewhere to render justice in the case of Hillary Clinton vs the world.

In that vein, might I suggest following in the footsteps of Elliot Ness and William Wilberforce. Whereas Ness finally got Al Capone on tax evasion, not thuggery, and Wilberforce ultimately kneecapped the slave trade in Great Britain through legislative sleight of hand, perhaps the place to attack Hillary at the moment is in a place long forgotten – her legal career.

More to the point: Hillary, like her husband before her, should be disbarred. FBI Director James Comey’s statements before Congress proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Hillary not only lied, but jeopardized national security, and mishandled classified material. At a minimum, that means Hillary has committed acts of professional misconduct that should be taken up by the state of Arkansas.

According to the code of ethics for the American Bar Association, which happens to coincide with the dictates of Arkansas’ rules for professional conduct, Hillary is guilty of failing to ‘maintain the integrity of her profession’ as outlined in rule 8.4.

She has engaged in conduct “involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation” and that is “prejudicial to the administration of justice.” Furthermore, “although a lawyer is personally answerable to the entire criminal law, a lawyer should be professionally answerable only for offenses that indicate lack of those characteristics relevant to law practice. Offenses involving violence, dishonesty, breach of trust, or serious interference with the administration of justice are in that category. A pattern of repeated offenses, even ones of minor significance when considered separately, can indicate indifference to legal obligation.”

And finally, “lawyers holding public office assume legal responsibilities going beyond those of other citizens. A lawyer’s abuse of public office can suggest an inability to fulfill the professional role of lawyers.”

With this ammunition in hand, the next logical step would be to obtain an official statement from the congressional oversight committee or the Benghazi committee officially accusing Hillary of committing perjury. If they were to then join a similar complaint in Arkansas — as the judge in the Paula Jones case did for Bill Clinton’s disbarment in 2001 — it would be a far more effective path toward seeking quick and perhaps consequential justice for Hillary than going down the road of filing criminal perjury charges.

Hillary is immune to such things at the federal level as long as Obama’s departments of injustice and statism are calling the shots, and does anyone really believe the IRS that targeted conservatives is going to truly “investigate” – wink, wink — the Clinton Foundation’s “pay for play” con? But perhaps Hillary’s Achilles Heel lies elsewhere. It is no defense to say that she has not practiced law for a long time. She is still a licensed attorney who has been voluntarily suspended for failure to keep up with continuing legal education requirements, which exactly describes Bill Clinton’s circumstances when he was disbarred for his own assault on the truth.

And if the truth still matters – as it always does – justice must be rendered without thought of compromise to absurd binary presidential categories such as the ones confronting us in 2016. I stand against Hillary and Trump simultaneously, and my conscience will allow me to do nothing less.

For we are now dealing with the roulette of such a binary choice because we have become drunk on scam compromises to the point of farce. We bend and we twist and we contort the truth until those noble souls who would still fight for it are almost unrecognizable to us. And we actually prefer to be ruled by conmen, crime syndicates and craven usurpers of our Judeo-Christian and Constitutional underpinnings as a free people.

Maybe, just maybe, some folks in Arkansas still have something to say about that. It is no secret to any honest person, be they Republican or Democrat, that her respect for the rule of law is dead man walking. But making it official by taking away her right to practice law – just as she prepares to assume the highest office in the land – would be an important shot across the bow.

If Hillary doesn’t even belong as a legitimate officer in a courtroom any longer, why on earth should she be allowed to move back into the White House as president?

And while our broken country has perhaps moved beyond caring about or recognizing such fundamentals, might I suggest to you that is all the more reason to fight like heaven in order to breathe life back into them once again. (For more from the author of “Liar, Liar Pantsuit on Fire: It’s Time to Disbar Hillary” please click HERE)

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Clinton: I Am Not Responsible for What People Do or Do Not Remember From Benghazi

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Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, sat down with Fox’s Chris Wallace to discuss several issues pertaining to her campaign on Sunday.

With Benghazi playing a major theme in the attacks against Clinton, Wallace played a video clip from the Republican National Convention (RNC) of Pat Smith blaming Clinton for her son’s death . . .

Wallace asked Clinton about Smith’s comments that Clinton lied to her and the other families on the day when the Benghazi victims’ bodies returned to the United States.

“I don’t hold any ill feeling for someone who in that moment may not fully recall everything that was or wasn’t said,” Clinton said.

Clinton responded by saying that her heart went out to the families of the Benghazi victims and that she understands the grief that the families are going through. She then tried to discredit Smith’s narrative by saying that the families of the other victims didn’t hear Clinton make the comment about the Youtube video. (Read more from “Clinton: I Am Not Responsible for What People Do or Do Not Remember From Benghazi” HERE)

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Painful to Watch: This Is the Weakest U.S. Economic ‘Recovery’ Since 1949

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Most of us have never witnessed an economic “recovery” this bad. As you will see below, the average rate of economic growth since the last recession has been the lowest for any “recovery” in at least 67 years. And unfortunately, the economy appears to be slowing down even more here in 2016. On Friday, I talked about how the U.S. economy grew at a painfully slow rate of just 1.2 percent in the second quarter after only growing 0.8 percent during the first quarter. And last week we also learned that the homeownership rate in the United States has dropped to the lowest level ever. This is not what a recovery looks like. Instead, it very much appears that a new economic downturn has already begun.

But don’t just take my word for how painful this economic “recovery” has been. The following comes from a Wall Street Journal article that was just posted entitled “Seven Years Later, Recovery Remains the Weakest of the Post-World War II Era“…

Even seven years after the recession ended, the current stretch of economic gains has yielded less growth than much shorter business cycles.

In terms of average annual growth, the pace of this expansion has been by far the weakest of any since 1949. (And for which we have quarterly data.) The economy has grown at a 2.1% annual rate since the U.S. recovery began in mid-2009, according to gross-domestic-product data the Commerce Department released Friday.

The prior expansion, from 2001 through 2007, was the only other business cycle of the past 11 when the economy didn’t grow at least 3% a year, on average.

This entire seven year stretch has come while Barack Obama has been in the White House. After more than seven and a half years, he is solidly on track to be the only president in U.S. history to never have a single year when the U.S. economy grew by at least three percent.

And unlike many presidents, he has had two terms in which to try to accomplish that feat.

One of the industries that had been doing fairly well during this recovery was the auto industry, but now in early 2016 they have found themselves struggling too…

Now, the auto sector, which has propped up GDP growth for years, is slowing down. For the first six months, total car and light truck sales, at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 17.5 million vehicles, are lagging behind last year by 100,000 units. Over the first half, fleet sales to rent-a-car companies and big fleet buyers were up industry wide. But retail sales fell 2%.

All over the corporate world, earnings are down.

In some cases, they are way down.

It is being projected that this will be the fifth quarter in a row when corporate earnings have declined, and even mainstream analysts are now admitting that it is “evident” that we have entered “a global slowdown”…

“Earnings season in the U.S. confirms the overall macro picture that we have. We have a global slowdown. It’s evident in all of the major economies,” said Peter Garnry, head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank, on a Bloomberg podcast.

Of course I have been saying this exact thing for the past 12 months, but a lot of people have tuned me out because the stock market in the United States has been doing so well.

But the stock market is not an accurate barometer for the real economy. It never has been, and it never will be.

If stocks accurately reflected the health of the U.S. economy, they would have already crashed really hard a long time ago. At this moment, stock prices are completely disconnected from economic reality, and this has many of the most respected names on Wall Street scratching their heads. One of them is Jeffrey Gundlach, the chief executive of DoubleLine Capital. Just check out what he told Reuters on Friday…

Noting the recent run-up in the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index while economic growth remains weak and corporate earnings are stagnant, Gundlach said stock investors have entered a “world of uber complacency.”

The S&P 500 on Friday touched an all-time high of 2,177.09, while the government reported that U.S. gross domestic product in the second quarter grew at a meager 1.2 percent rate.

“The artist Christopher Wool has a word painting, ‘Sell the house, sell the car, sell the kids.’ That’s exactly how I feel – sell everything. Nothing here looks good,” Gundlach said in a telephone interview. “The stock markets should be down massively but investors seem to have been hypnotized that nothing can go wrong.”

If you follow Gundlach, you probably already know that he has been dead on accurate with regard to the financial markets over the past couple of years.

So when he says that the stock market “should be down massively” and that it is time to “sell everything”, we should all take him very, very seriously.

All throughout history, a huge decline in corporate earnings has almost always resulted in a huge decline in stock prices. As Jesse Felder has noted, “we have never seen a decline in earnings of this magnitude without at least a 20% fall in stock prices” during the last 50 years.

To any rational observer, it is quite obvious that stock prices should have already started collapsing quite some time ago.

And to a large extent this has already happened around the planet, but here in the United States stocks continue to defy the laws of economics.

But at this point it isn’t going to do much good to warn people about this. Those that could see the danger coming have already pulled their money out of stocks, and most of those that want to stick their heads in the sand and pretend that things are somehow going to be different this time are not likely to be persuaded this late in the game.

In the end, we should all be grateful that this absurd financial bubble has lasted for as long as it has, because stability is much more pleasant than instability. The U.S. economy and the U.S. financial system have enjoyed a prolonged period of stability that has defied all the odds, and let us hope that it lasts for at least a little while longer… (For more from the author of “Painful to Watch: This Is the Weakest U.S. Economic ‘Recovery’ Since 1949” please click HERE)

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