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Good morning to the Hillary-supporting community! It;s great to be with you in this Hillary-positive diary.
First an apology and explanation. I’m afraid I don’t have a Thursday Herstory for today. I have one half-written that I hope to share with you next week. Being realistic, I can’t keep producing one every week now that classes have resumed and my teaching, administrative, and research obligations become more onerous. (If you’re still interested in reading a Thursday Herstory, please check out the poll at the bottom of this post. I can keep producing new ones occasionally, or offer a separate feature on Thursdays to republish old posts and mix in new ones as possible— a few people have mentioned wanting previously-published ones as standalone diaries, and that I could definitely do, with an occasional brand new one.)
And now on to the Hillary goodness!
In campaign news, CNN rather politely reports that Hillary will appear at events for African-American and Hispanic Voters while the press spins to understand what “alt-right” means “racist”:
Trump is trying to make gains with African-American and Latino voters by routinely arguing that he would be better than Clinton for the longtime Democratic-leaning groups.
"What the hell do you have to lose?" Trump asked African-American voters during an event in Michigan last week. "You're living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58% of your youth is unemployed -- what the hell do you have to lose?"
The refrain has been blasted by Clinton's campaign, Democrats and African-American interest groups. Clinton's campaign tweeted, "This is so ignorant it's staggering," shortly after Trump made the remarks. Clinton will headline the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute annual award dinner on September 15 in Washington, according to an invite from the group, where the former secretary of state is expected to contrast herself with Trump on immigration and the economy, two topics she regularly hits on during events geared towards Latinos.
President Barack Obama also will headline the Hispanic caucus dinner.
Two days later, on September 17, Clinton will keynote the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation awards dinner, where the former secretary of state will receive the Trailblazer Award, in recognition of becoming the first woman presidential nominee of a major party in the United States.
On the eve of a planned speech here on Donald Trump’s ties to the “alt-right,” Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Wednesday accused her Republican opponent of “taking a hate movement mainstream.”
Clinton is scheduled to deliver remarks Thursday about a conservative movement often associated with white nationalism and fervent anti-immigration views that has cheered Trump’s candidacy, including his campaign’s recent hiring of the chairman of a website that caters to the alt-right.
“Donald Trump has shown us who he is, and we ought to believe him,” Clinton told host Anderson Cooper Wednesday night on CNN. “He is taking a hate movement mainstream. He’s brought it into his campaign. He’s bringing it to our communities and our country.”
Good news from polls:
If the U.S. presidential election were held today, Democrat Hillary Clinton would win the key swing states of Florida, Ohio and Virginia and have a 95 percent chance of beating Republican Donald Trump to become America’s first female president, according to the Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project.
The project, which combines opinion polls with an analysis of voting patterns under different election scenarios, shows Clinton currently beating Trump in the popular vote by six percentage points and ahead in 19 states, including most of the larger-population ones that heavily influence the outcome of the election.
At the moment, Clinton would win at least 268 votes in the Electoral College, the body that ultimately chooses the next president, just two shy of what she needs to win the White House. On average, the former secretary of state would win by 108 electoral college votes.
And an interesting analysis from Nate Cohn at the New York Times:
Can liberals dare dream of two blue coasts?
Nate I think the Democrats can dream of blue coasts in the same way that they can dream of decisive victories.
I think a 10-point victory for Clinton could involve blue coasts.
...What are your thoughts on whether the Democrats can retake the Senate?
Nate This Senate situation feels very familiar to me. I feel like we saw this in 2014, when the Senate was a tossup in August and then the G.O.P. swept nearly all of the competitive races. We saw it in 2012, when the Senate was a tossup and then the Democrats swept nearly all the competitive races. We saw it in 2008, when 60 seats seemed tough for the Democrats and then they swept nearly all of the competitive races. We saw it in 2006, when it seemed really hard for the Democrats to take the Senate and then they swept nearly all of the competitive races. I could take this story line back to 2000, but I’ll stop here.
So here we are in August. The Senate looks like a tossup on paper in a lot of ways. But it seems clear that if any party is going to have the wind at its back this year, it’s going to be the Democrats. If they do, it’s really hard for me to see how the G.O.P. holds on.
In campaign news, Clinton is scheduled to receive her first classified briefing of the campaign this weekend:
DNI Director James Clapper and the White House recently said they have no qualms about briefing the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, noting that providing the briefings is a tradition dating back more than 60 years.
"Ensuring a smooth transition to the next president is a top priority ... and that's important, in part, because of the significant threats around the world," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters in Washington, D.C., last month.
He said U.S. intelligence officials "understand what steps are necessary to protect sensitive national security information, and the administration is confident that they can both provide relevant and sufficient briefings to the two major-party presidential candidates while also protecting sensitive national security information."
Hillary Clinton has a few words for the makers of the Epi-Pen, who have raised their prices to an unaffordable amount. Via Angela Chen at the Verge:
Hillary Clinton has asked the maker of the the EpiPen to voluntarily lower the price of the lifesaving allergy treatment, which has jumped by over 400 percent in the past few years. Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Claire McCaskill of Missouri also requested pricing information from the manufacturer, Mylan NV, within two weeks.
Clinton called the price hit "outrageous" and "the latest troubling example of a company taking advantage of its consumers" in a statement. She’s not alone. Several senators have been pressing Mylan over the price hikes. The American Medical Association — the nation’s largest physician organization — made a similar plea, with AMA president Andrew Gurman calling the price hikes "exorbitant" in a statement. These rising prices have been a burden on consumers who, depending on insurance, sometimes pay full price or otherwise have very high co-pays for the widely used treatment.
People with severe allergies stab themselves with the EpiPen to deliver a hormone called epinephrine that ends an allergy attack. Nine years ago, one EpiPen cost about $57. Now, a two-pack costs more more than $600. The dramatic price hike is even more astonishing given that epinephrine itself is incredibly cheap: there’s less than $1 worth of the hormone in each EpiPen. The cost comes from the design of the pen, which is necessary to make sure someone can easily use it and get the right dosage
In keeping with her healthcare priorities, Clinton also announced her plan for a new public healthcare fund focused on outbreaks of disease, such as the recent Zika outbreak. (You can watch the statement here.) Via Patricia Mazzei at the Miami Herald:
In response to Miami’s rash of Zika infections, Hillary Clinton on Wednesday will propose the creation of a public-health fund with money available year-round to quickly respond to disease outbreaks. The Democratic presidential candidate cited congressional inaction on Zika, the mosquito-borne virus that has spread in South Florida during lawmakers’ seven-week summer recess. Legislators left Washington in mid-July after having failed to pass President Barack Obama’s emergency-funding request to fight Zika — and won’t return until after Labor Day.
“Uncertain long-term budgets leave our public health agencies dependent on emergency appropriations — meaning that when Congress fails to step up, communities are left without the resources they need, vaccines languish in development, and more people get sick,” Clinton said in a statement that in addition to Zika referred to the Ebola virus and other diseases and public-health threats.
Clinton’s proposed “Public Health Rapid Response Fund” would be aimed at providing financial relief to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Health and Human Services Department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state and local public health departments and hospitals.
Fredreka Schouten at USA Today has a piece on Hillary Clinton's overwhelming advantage on the airwaves:
Clinton's campaign is the top sponsor of political ads, spending $57 million since the general election began in early June, according to a tally released Wednesday by the Wesleyan Media Project. In second place on the airwaves: a pro-Clinton super PAC, Priorities USA Action, which spent $27 million. The analysis examined ads that aired on local broadcast stations, national cable and national networks.
Trump announced his first buy of the general election late last week, reserving nearly $5 million in ads over 10 days in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The Wesleyan tally showed two outside groups — the National Rifle Association's political arm and the pro-Trump Rebuilding America Now super PAC — spending a combined $8.5 million on his behalf through late last week.
“We haven’t seen a modern presidential campaign that is so lopsided in terms of advertising,” Erika Franklin Fowler, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, said in a statement.
By R. Erik Thomas, a serious (not really) analysis of Hillary’s photo booth pictures with Jessical Biel and Justin Timberlake:
The first photo is the "official" photo. This one is technically the best photo but tbh it doesn't capture the true essence of the relationship. The first photo booth photo of you and your ex is the one you point to and tell your friends "Look at my dimple: I think I knew he was no good even then. My dimple never lies. I'm telling you. Put my dimple on the witness stand, everybody's going to jail. They needed to interview my dimple for Making a Murderer. She'll get them all straight."
...Sometimes the third photo booth photo turns into a telenovela. Secrets are revealed; worlds crumble; drinks and shade will be thrown with abandon.Jessica and Hillary go full telenovela and I'm living for it. (Meanwhile Justin is trying to get a better look at his nose hair situation. He's thinking about waxing.)
...The last photo in the photo booth is always the winning photo. After going through the tumult of the third picture, you come back together in photo booth picture four. You're closer, you're stronger, you're going to make it after all.This is the picture you hang up on your dorm wall and look at when you're feeling lonely and have to remember the good times you shared with your bestie Cool Aparna.
Let’s all take a moment and appreciate the brilliance that is Hillary’s social media team. (With a h/t to Scott Madin for this.) From Wednesday, on Twitter:
(If you can’t read it, it’s a photograph of a sign for the “Gulf of Maine Gunsmithing” that says:
BEWARE THE BEAST HILDABEAST CLINTON AND ITS VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE.”) Subtle! Very subtle.
From the very same day: check out what happens when you visit vagendaofmanocide.com.
Oh yeah. Her team is good.
Writing at the Guardian, Celine Gounder bluntly calls out the “Hillary Healthscare.” It’s not about her health. It’s about her winning:
But the scientist in me understands that the real issue here isn’t Clinton’s health. Conspiracy theories signal fear; in this case, Trump’s realization that Clinton may well be the next president of the United States.
...Trump shares a certain worldview with his supporters, but he’s also a brilliant psychologist. It should come as no surprise that he “loves the poorly educated”. They’re most likely to buy into his conspiracy theories, and not because they’re stupid. Researchers have found that having less education – not sex, race, ideology or knowledge – is the most reliable predictor of whether someone will believe a conspiracy theory. Education not only arms us with facts but also teaches us how to think analytically (methodically and scientifically) not just intuitively (from the gut).
The scientist in me knows that attempts to debunk conspiracy theories – whether they’re about Clinton’s health or the myth that vaccines cause autism – are at best futile and may in fact backfire. We pick and choose those facts that add up to the truth we’ve already chosen to believe. The more someone tries to disprove the reality we’ve constructed, the more we dig in our heels.
Writing for the Irish Times, Frank Bruni has a pretty hilarious piece spoofing the conspiracy theories:
Although she has gone to extraordinary lengths to distract and deceive American voters, the truth is finally coming out: Hillary Clinton has an 11th toe.
I don’t have the medical records. She refuses to release them. But just try to come up with some other explanation for why she’s so infrequently photographed in sandals or flip-flops; why she seldom appears barefoot in public; why, during debates, she keeps her legs, especially the lower halves, tucked carefully behind the lectern.
...
Maybe they weren’t Googling aggressively enough. We’re only now realising the full potential of the internet, which connects visionary dissidents once dismissed as isolated crackpots and gives them a big, ready billboard for their hallucinations – oops, revelations. They can tweet the unvarnished, unshod truth, and who needs cumbersome Freedom of Information Act requests or tedious investigative journalism when you have hashtags? #ShowTheToe.
The lamestream media pussyfoots around all of this, protecting Clinton by persecuting Trump for his unshared tax returns. It’s a classic diversionary tactic. But while a man’s bank account is personal, a woman’s body is public. It’s in the constitution, maybe one of the amendments, or should be.
Melissa McEwan, per usual, cuts through the BS with a piece at Blue Nation Review: CASE STUDY: How to Manufacture a Presidential Horse Race:
Since Hillary has refused to be the disaster the media want her to be, and since they’ve failed to turn her emails into a campaign-derailing scandal, many of them have decided to simply take their cue from Team Trump, breathing the guise of credibility into whatever right-wing conspiracy theory he’s trying to mainstream.
...The corporate media want a horse race. But Hillary is such a strong candidate and Trump such a terrible one that there can’t be a horse race unless they endeavor to fabricate one.
They want Hillary to have a scandal, and so they are doing their utmost to try to generate one, whether it’s emails, her health, or the Clinton Foundation. Create enough smoke with a smoke machine to make people believe there’s a fire. As the Washington Monthly’s Nancy LeTourneau observes: “That is basically what most every drummed up ‘scandal’ against Hillary Clinton comes down to: from the perspective of the people judging her – it looks bad. Welcome to the world of optics as scandal.”
Be sure to read the whole thing.
Here are some kids:
In a video played at the DNC on the night her nomination was made official, Hillary Clinton spoke directly to the girls who stayed up late and said, "I may become the first woman president, but one of you is next." Though they're still too young to vote, plenty of girls have expressed their support for the first female presidential nominee by sending her heartwarming letters. Here are 16 adorable notes, provided by the Clinton campaign, from girls across America:
(so cute— please read.)
Finally, how long has Hillary been working to promote the whole Democratic party? A long time! As a Hoosier-born Democrat, I really appreciate this picture of Hillary working on elections in Indiana in ‘76. My first political memory is of an Indiana Democratic rally in the 70s, and I love the idea it might have been for a campaign that Hillary also supported:
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Crossposted at HillaryHQ, an independent, progressive blog committed to the electing Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States. If you would like to support @Scan and his work there, visit GoFundMe and make a donation.
(Header image by Barbara Kinney for Hillary for America. Used under Creative Commons License.)