Battling the Trump Cabinet Nominations

We are bloody but unbowed. Yesterday, after massive efforts of letter writing, phone calling, emailing, and petition signing, Betsy DeVos was confirmed as Secretary of Education by an historic tie-breaking vote by VP and Senate President Mike Pence.

Not long afterward, the effort to confirm Jeff Sessions, noted bigot, as Attorney General ran into an effort by Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to read a letter penned in 1986 by Coretta Scott King in opposition to Sessions being appointed a federal district judge in Alabama.

Senate rebukes Warren for reading from Coretta Scott King letter

By Matt Viser and Victoria McGrane Globe Staff  February 08, 2017

WASHINGTON — Senator Elizabeth Warren was ruled in violation of Senate rules late Tuesday night after quoting from a decades-old letter written by Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow — a rare rebuke that silenced Warren from further debate on the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions as attorney general.

The striking 49-to-43 vote, which occurred along party lines, marked yet another setback for decorum in a chamber that has long considered itself the world’s greatest deliberative body. It also immediately made the Massachusetts Democrat a hero of the left, with a Twitter hashtag #LetLizSpeak quickly going viral.

Read more >>>>

We see how this is going.

Here are the Twitter hashtags.

“Silencing Elizabeth Warren”

#LetLizSpeak

#ShePersists

#ShePersisted

Here is the exchange on the Senate floor.

The swamp gases in DC are toxic.

Stay battle-ready. This is just the beginning.

Thank you, Liz!

Here is the letter.

My Senator, Cory Booker.

Sen. @CoryBooker: I start my remarks tonight aggrieved by what I saw happen to @SenWarren. #StopSessions #LetLizSpeak pic.twitter.com/erfYPuNX6M

— Civil Rights (@civilrightsorg) February 8, 2017

From Hillary Clinton:

"She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted."

So must we all.https://t.co/JXROGHPNkH

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 8, 2017

Happy Black History Month!

Cross-posted at Still4Hill.

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Weapons of Electoral Destruction

From the day Donald J. Trump entered the race, this past election cycle followed a path from the most bizarre to the most corrupted in our history.  If a website experienced the multilateral attacks this election suffered, it would have been taken down. Your bank would have notified you after one such intrusion into your account, cancelled your card and the unauthorized charges to it, and arranged for a new card to be issued. Our government knew these things and did nothing to head off what amounts to election theft.

By now, you know about all of this, of course.  I am posting it for the record. Why was this information  not released prior to Election Day?  What can be done now?  Must we live with  a flawed election? How secure are we if a major adversary can influence our elections and install the candidate they prefer?  If this were not presidential election, I would be tempted to go full Laurel & Hardy mode and say, “Now you’ve done it!”  But it is not a movie. It is not TV. It is not reality TV. It is reality.

National Security

Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House

CIA assessment: Russia tried to help Trump win 2016 election

CIA briefers told senators in a closed-door briefing it was now “quite clear” that electing Trump was Russia’s goal, according to officials. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

By Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller December 9 at 10:45 PM

The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.

Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.

“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”

Read more and see videos >>>>

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U.S.

Russian Hackers Acted to Aid Trump in Election, U.S. Says

By DAVID E. SANGER and SCOTT SHANE DEC. 9, 2016

Photo

President Obama giving a speech in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday. He has ordered a comprehensive report on the Russian efforts. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies have concluded with “high confidence” that Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances and promote Donald J. Trump, according to senior administration officials.

They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding — which they say was also reached with high confidence — that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks.

In the months before the election, it was largely documents from Democratic Party systems that were leaked to the public. Intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russians gave the Democrats’ documents to WikiLeaks.

Republicans have a different explanation for why no documents from their networks were ever released. Over the past several months, officials from the Republican committee have consistently said that their networks were not compromised, asserting that only the accounts of individual Republicans were attacked. On Friday, a senior committee official said he had no comment.

Read more >>>>

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Harry Reid: Comey Should Resign

In the wake of a “soul-crushing” report on Russia’s meddling in the presidential election, Sen. Harry Reid has called for FBI Director James Comey to resign for allegedly withholding information on President-elect Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. Reid, who was a fierce opponent of Comey’s handling of Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, which many believe cost her the election, told MSNBC on Saturday that he believes the FBI knew all along that Russia was helping Trump and deliberately did nothing about it. “This is not fake news. Intelligence officials are hiding connections to the Russian government. There is no question,” Reid said.

Read more >>>>

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DEFCON 1

World War III: Democrats and America vs. Trump and Russia

The CIA believes Moscow tried to destroy Hillary Clinton and tilt the election. Republicans stayed quiet. This is a fight for who controls America: you or Putin?

Michael Tomasky

12.10.16

Make no mistake, yesterday’s Washington Post revelation that the CIA has concluded that Russia was actively trying to elect Donald Trump as opposed to just “meddling with” the election, is a nuclear bombshell. And if the Post piece is Hiroshima, then today’s New York Times story, which adds the detail that Russian actors also hacked email accounts at the Republican National Committee but did not release those publicly as they did Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign emails, is Nagasaki.

Hyperbole? Think again. A foreign government may have determined the outcome of a presidential election. And not Canada or Costa Rica, but Russia: the United States’ chief historic adversary and an oligarchy ruled by a tyrant who has systematically taken away rights. Bombshells don’t come much bigger.

Oh, wait; yes they do. On top of all the above, leaders of one of our two political parties—I’ll let you hazard a guess as to which one—argued against letting the American public know about all this before the election, reportedly saying it would be too partisan. That’s not hardball politics. That’s a hair’s breath away from treason.

Read more >>>>

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Ted Cruz: A Metaphor Too Far

We all heard, I am sure, The Green Eggs and Ham reading.   Until tonight, when Tammy Duckworth referred to it to Lawrence O’Donnell, I was unaware of this reprehensible remark by Ted Cruz as he closed out his faux-filibuster.

It is difficult to imagine an insult more searing, ignorance more abysmal, demagoguery cheaper and slimier, and a lack of patriotic respect for history more striking.

Ted Cruz Compares His 21-Hour Speech To Bataan Death March

Hmmm… posted on September 25, 2013 at 12:42pm EDT

Andrew Kaczynski BuzzFeed Staff

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz compared his 21-hour speech on the Senate floor against Obamacare to the infamous Bataan Death March that killed hundreds of American troops at the hands of the Japanese during World War II. Cruz was speaking Wednesday at the conclusion of his remarks thanking staff who stayed up through the night for his speech.

“Now in 31 minutes we will be concluded,” Cruz said. “I don’t want to miss the opportunity within the limited amount of time is imperative that I do, which is to thank the men and women who have endured this, this Bataan Death March. And I want to take a little bit of time to thank by name. I want to start by thanking the Republican floor staff and cloakroom. I want to thank Laura Dove for her fairness, for her dealing with crises and passions on all sides and for her effectiveness in the job. And this is an interesting occurrence to occur so early in her job and I thank her for her service.”

Read more and watch the CSPAN video if you don’t believe me >>>>

No number of apologies can alter the fact that these words came from his lips.  Those words tell you all you need to know about Ted Cruz, his respect for our veterans, troops, and history, and his means to reach his goals.   How revolting!  How sorry a figure in our government.

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A Lesson from Karen Finney: How to Disrupt a Wingnut

I have been struck for some time by the similarities between Ted Cruz and Old Joe McCarthy (I even see a physical resemblance), so I was particularly pleased to see Karen Finney raise the comparison on her weekend MSNBC show Disrupt.  On Sunday, Karen and guests Mark Tapscott (Washington Post), and Michelle Cottle (The Daily Beast) discussed “McCruz’s” latest campaign to sow fear of Obamacare likening this effort to the fear-stoking and resultant paranoia of Communists  and spies in our government that McCarthy effected during the Cold War.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Apparently as a result of this piece, Karen was invited to call in to a conservative radio show hosted by Hugh Hewitt.  When Hewitt attempted to derail Karen’s argument and refused to let her make her point, she hung up on him.  Here is how Mediate described the encounter.

When To Hang Up On A Right-Wing Radio Host

ARI RABIN-HAVT

There is an odd excitement in the right-wing media over an exchange between MSNBC host Karen Finney and conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt. The right-wing talker invited Finney on his program after she linked the rhetoric of Ted Cruz to that of Joe McCarthy, an unsurprising comparison considering the Texas senator’s previous hunts for communists on the Harvard Law School faculty.

Finney’s comparison was not unique as numerous others have observed the same thing, and Cruz claimed the comparison to the disgraced senator led him to conclude he is “doing something right.”

Instead of discussing Cruz’s behavior, however, Hewitt decided to discuss the history of McCarthyism, ostensibly defending the Wisconsin senator.

“Was Alger Hiss a communist?” Hewitt asked. Finney responded, “I think that’s distracting from the point I was trying to make.”

Finney continued, “And the point I was trying to make was, you had Joe McCarthy was on a mission to root out communism in the government, and he did it in such a way that created a hysteria that was very unhealthy for this country. Do you really disagree with me on that?”

Read more >>>>

Long-time fans of Karen’s can remember numerous times when she, as a guest on various MSNBC shows,  was prevented from making her point. Many of us tweeted at those times: “Let Karen talk!” Now that she has (finally!) her own spot, she is free to make her own points in her own time. She is also free to hang up on rude radio hosts that try to hijack her message.

Good going, Karen! Thank you for raising the topic, and thank you also for not letting Hewitt drag the discussion off course.  The tack he chose to take deserved disruption.

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Friends of Dorothy: What is it going to take?

Background checks on potential purchasers of firearms went down in flames today.   The bill that was defeated by a 54-46 vote in the U.S. Senate was already badly hobbled when both an assault weapons ban and a ban on high capacity magazines were removed.  Polls have indicated that 90% of Americans agree with legislation that would keep military-style weapons and the accoutrements out of the hands of individuals who might use them to unleash more  Newtown, Columbine,  Tucson, Aurora, and Virginia Tech mass shootings and serial murders like the D.C. area sniper attacks.

Gun control loses: No expanded background checks

By ALAN FRAM

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON —

Senate Republicans backed by a small band of rural-state Democrats scuttled the most far-reaching gun control legislation in two decades Wednesday, rejecting tighter background checks for buyers and a ban on assault weapons as they spurned pleas from families of victims of last winter’s school massacre in Newtown, Conn.

Read more >>>>

Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has let forth with a stinging op-ed in today’s New York Times.

Op-Ed Contributor

A Senate in the Gun Lobby’s Grip

By GABRIELLE GIFFORDS

Published: April 17, 2013

SENATORS say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them.

On Wednesday, a minority of senators gave into fear and blocked common-sense legislation that would have made it harder for criminals and people with dangerous mental illnesses to get hold of deadly firearms — a bill that could prevent future tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., Blacksburg, Va., and too many communities to count.

Read more >>>>

What these senators faced was not fear.  Those killed in these massacres knew fear.  Parents who send their children off to inner city schools know fear.  Those cheering at the finish line at the Boston marathon faced fear, and before you think I am confounding things,  Lawrence O’Donnell reported tonight that the defeat of this legislation effectively blocked the FBI from obtaining evidence related to “taggants” in the gunpowder in the home-made  bombs used there.

Senators Manchin and Toomey, who co-authored the legislation,  are both gun owners and NRA members with A ratings from the organization.  Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, are also gun owners and members of the NRA.  Yet these 46 senators voted against this legislation for “fear” of the gun lobby. These senators are cowards.

So, what is it going to take?  What do these senators need in order to hear 90% of the American public?  Do they have the woodman’s tin ear – and no heart?

Or would giving them a medal help?

Maybe they just need this.  Ba-Bye!

These are the reasons.

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Heroes & Villains

Huma Abedin is Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, a post she has risen to after long years on Hillary’s staff having started as an intern when Hillary was FLOTUS.  She is of Indian-Pakistani descent, but is an American (born here) with a pretty high security clearance.  She is a Muslim-American married to a Jewish-American, former Congressman Anthony Weiner, and the mother of an adorable six-month-old boy, Jordan.  She and Anthony recently gave a joint interview to People Magazine.

THE VILLAINS

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, former presidential candidate, has bizarrely and persistently claimed that Huma has ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the party from which newly inaugurated Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi resigned after being declared the winner of the election, and therefore is a mole within the State Department with access to America’s top diplomat.

An amusing take on her accusations was posted in WaPo today.

Posted at 08:56 AM ET, 07/19/2012

Michele Bachmann vs. Huma Abedin: ‘The Ramadan Conspiracy’

By Arsalan Iftikhar

In the warped universe where this American currently resides, there remains only one heroic person brave enough to save our beloved United States from secretly being taken over by a falafel-eating, Mecca-praying and Ramadan-fasting cabal of sinister Muslims duplicitously bent upon imposing Islamic sharia law upon our golden shores.

Nope, the hero of this story is not Jason Bourne. Her name is actually Michele Bachmann.

Read more >>> (You will laugh, I promise.)

Not surprisingly, that paragon of truth in investigative bloviating, Glenn Beck (I shall spare you from looking at his picture.  You know what he looks like), has supported Bachmann’s McCarthyesque campaign against the woman who, last summer, also via People Magazine,  leaked, to everyone’s delight, the contents of Hillary Clinton’s bag: mesh zipper bags, hand sanitizer, Evian mineral water spray for her face because of the dry air on the plane where she lives.   (Yes I did go running to Harmon’s and bought some.  I had to ask for it,  and the clerk turned to another clerk and asked why this stuff was going like hotcakes.  Heh-heh – because Hillary Clinton – who has beautiful skin – uses it!  Huma said so!)

So now here’s Huma – defenseless.  Even her husband can’t really do anything for her, disgraced as he has been and the subject of his own rumors this week of resuming his mayoral run in NYC.  AND THEN A HERO COMES ALONG!

THE HEROES

First, a real hero, the war kind, from Bachmann’s own party.

John McCain defends Huma Abedin against Michele Bachmann

By Phoebe Connelly, Yahoo! News | The Ticket – Wed, Jul 18, 2012

Talk to the hand. (Justin Sullivan/Getty)

John McCain took to the Senate floor today to discuss Huma Abedin—known variously for her work at the State Department under Hillary Clinton and for her marriage to sexting ex-congressman Anthony Weiner. Is McCain perhaps a People magazine subscriber, using his time in the chamber to congratulate Abedin on the charming family photo unveiled by the mag today?

Alas, no. McCain was defending Abedin against recent accusations made by Rep. Michele Bachmann that Abedin’s security clearance should be questioned due to alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. “I understand how painful and injurious it is when a person’s character, reputation, and patriotism are attacked without concern for fact or fairness,” McCain said according to prepared remarks. “It is for that reason that I rise today to speak in defense of Huma Abedin.”

Read more >>>

McCain’s condemnation of Bachmann’s remarks was quickly echoed by fellow Republican heavy-hitters, Speaker John Boehner (honorably discharged because of a bad back after enlisting in the Navy during the Vietnam War),  Senator ( and decorated Air Force veteran) Lindsey Graham,  and the cherry on the castigate-Bachmann cake, her former campaign manager Ed Rollins whose remarks indicate that she struggles when attempting to deal with facts.  From the other side of the aisle,  Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison, also a Muslim-American, spoke out.

DeHoS accords all of these heroes Gold Medals of Decency.  You guys rock! 

Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.

To all of our Muslim Homegirls and boys, we wish you a Happy Ramadan!

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CEDAW: It Is High Time!

I have said it before here, the Obama administration has a miserable record of pushing treaties through the Senate.  I keep a record of Hillary Clinton flying all over the world signing treaties, but back here at home, precious few get pushed to a ratification vote in a Senate that, for now, has a Democratic majority.

When I posted Secretary Clinton’s remarks at a women’s leadership event at UNGA yesterday, little did I know that the U.S. is the only industrialized nation that has not rung in on the women’s rights treaty.  But here it is, thanks to HuffPo.  Signed by Jimmy Carter 30 years ago, CEDAW has been languishing without Senate ratification all these years.

It is time for this White House get moving on treaties, and this one would be a good start.  It needs a push!

Joshua Hersh joshua.hersh@huffingtonpost.com

Hillary Clinton Promotes Women’s Rights Treaty That U.S. Has Not Yet Signed

Posted: 9/20/11 07:55 PM ET

NEW YORK — On the eve of high-level meetings for the United Nations’ general assembly, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended an event on Monday afternoon designed to highlight the importance of women’s participation in public life.

Together with a selection of major female world leaders, including Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s top diplomat, and Michelle Bachelet, the former president of Chile and the head of U.N. Women, Clinton put her name to a document calling for developing countries — especially in the changing Middle East — to clear the way for women to hold leadership roles.

The joint statement read:

We call upon all States to ratify and fulfill their obligations under the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and to implement fully Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on Women and Peace and Security and other relevant UN resolutions

Read more>>>>

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Words Fail…

IT’S OVER

Harry Hamburg, File / AP Photo

Elizabeth Warren Out: Report

There’s no better way to ruin a weekend than having somebody replace you at work. President Obama has reportedly chosen his nominee for chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and it’s not early favorite Elizabeth Warren, a source told Bloomberg News Friday.

Read more>>>>

Why do I have a nagging thought at the back of my head that this announcement, coming at this particular time, is inextricably tied to conversations going on behind closed doors at the White House between the Republicans and the erstwhile POTUS?

Did I require yet ANOTHER reason not to support Barack Obama for any additional time leading from behind?  No!  Leading from behind whom?  My guess, from behind the GOP!

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Secretary Clinton’s Statement on the Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

This is cross-posted at  Still4Hill. I wanted to put it here also as a reminder to the LGBT community that Secretary Clinton fights for LGBT rights here and all over the world.

Pictured here with Secretary of Defense Gates, a fellow proponent of repeal of DADT, Secretary Clinton tonight released a concise statement in support of today’s  vote in the Senate to repeal  DADT.  Here is her statement. Short, sweet, and to the point.

Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Press Statement

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State

Washington, DC

December 18, 2010

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This is a historic step forward for all Americans, a step toward a more perfect union and a more perfect reflection of our core values. As the President and I have repeatedly said, we are committed to universal standards abroad and here at home. Our progress on equality here strengthens our advocacy for human dignity everywhere.

Related stories:

Senate Repeals Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Reid: Suspend DADT Discharges Now

Lieberman And Collins On DADT Repeal: This Is A Civil Rights Bill

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Fox News: On Notice!!!!!

So it is a snow day,  and I was using the time for pointless leisure activities rather than doing anything that really NEEDS to be done simply because I am tired,  and I really needed this break.  Idly checking on my news feeds I happened upon several linking to this Fox News story:

Gridlock in Congress Hurts Obama’s Global Image, Clinton Says

Since it is a snow day, I am able to surf over to CSPAN and watch as the Republicans vote in a solid NAY on an intelligence programs resolution.  That is a fact, not an opinion, and Secretary Clinton’s testimony regarding the overseas perception of such party-line intransigence is very probably accurate since she spends so much of her time either overseas or dealing with foreign governments from here.  It seems reasonable that her statements are accurate.  But that is not why we are here.  We are here because of this picture, which I saved and filed yesterday from her Senate testimony.

When I filed it, I did so as “02-24-10-5” under the file rubric “HRC/Secretary_of_State/2010.” (I have resolved to be far more organized and assiduous this year than I was last year.)  Running across the picture in the Fox News story, I right-clicked to “save as” and saw that I already had the picture, so did not need to save it again.  But then something caught my eye – Fox’s file name for the picture.  Get a load of this!

foxnews.com/static/managed/img/Politics/clinton_hillary_022410_monster_397x224.jpg

(Don’t just take my word for this.  Click on my picture and look at the URL in your navigation bar, then click on the fox news picture and look at that URL,  please do this before I ever hear or read another word about how harmless and OK they are – including their new,  female acquisition.)

WHAT?  What is that word after the date?   Ooooohhhhhh!!!!!!!  I get it!  With their all-American-girl mouthpiece now esconced over there along with Huckabee, Fox is the official channel of the GOP mid-term election (with a running start toward 2012), and we are back to empty name-calling.  Excuse me, “monster?”   What?

If you had a chance to watch the Secretary of State before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee and the Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, you saw the prototypical HRC performance.  Flawless, speedy, thorough, delivery of facts and rationales/arguments for budgetary revisions for 2011, broad and deep knowledge of the issues, and, as usual, consistency with NO hemming and hawing.  Does THIS a “monster” make?

Performances like that on the Senate floor and on the campaign trail, those facts, so well organized in a steel-trap mind spitting out like machine-gun fire almost before the question was complete were what caused me to label HRC “scary-smart.”  But I did not mean “scary” in a negative way.  I meant that her mind accessed information faster than my computer can.  And,  God knows, after eight years of George W. Bush, I was (still am) very hungry for scary-smart that knows the answer without hesitation or prompting.  Let me say here, before I am called on it, it was not simply the delivery that won me, of course.  It was also the content of the answers.

I said all of the above in order to frame the purpose of this post: Fox News, the Homegirls are putting you on notice.  Mind your p’s and q’s.  We are watching.  Even if you bury your name-calling, we will find it! When we do, we will expose it.  We will not respond in kind, but as for the candidates you promote and your own personnel, we will not hesitate to label them truthfully, not with silly, indefinable names, but with accurate descriptors.

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