US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4879

The plan to get to 270 electoral votes remains unclear. The battleground state deployment plan is a work-in-progress. Money from big donors is slowing to a trickle. And aides are confused about who’s calling the shots.

Donald Trump’s campaign is teetering, threatening to collapse under the weight of a candidate whose personality outweighs his political skill. And now, with 22 days until the start of early voting, the GOP nominee is running short on his most precious commodity: time.

Late last week, with Labor Day and the final stretch of the 2016 campaign approaching, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met with Republican National Committee brass — including chief of staff Katie Walsh and political director Chris Carr — in New York City. Kushner, who has in many respects assumed the role of campaign manager, asked a series of direct questions to the GOP officials — all surrounding the troubles the party was having in deploying field staffers, opening up swing-state headquarters, and establishing field offices in battlegrounds that will decide the election.

Those present for the meeting, and those briefed on it, insisted there were no fireworks, no drag-out fights. But they said Kushner’s questions reflected a growing realization within Trump’s team that for all the party’s talk about implementing a major swing-state deployment plan, it hasn’t yet materialized.

For weeks, Republican officials and operatives have groused about a dearth of campaign infrastructure in battlegrounds across the country — a state of affairs that could impact GOP candidates up and down the ballot. But like many aspects of the Trump campaign, the deployment plan has been wracked by confusion, false starts, and a lack of quick decision-making. On Aug. 18, Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, came to Trump’s Alexandria, Virginia, headquarters for a day of meetings. He left ready to finalize a series of decisions.

But the next morning, Manafort, under withering scrutiny surrounding his work overseas, abruptly quit. His departure created a chain reaction, delaying the talks for days on end. By late August, finger-pointing had begun: In interviews, a Trump aide accused the RNC of slow-walking the process, while RNC officials blamed the lag on dysfunction within the campaign.

Trump’s son Eric, who has expressed impatience to party officials about progress being made in battleground states, on Monday made a pilgrimage to RNC headquarters in hopes of expediting the delayed field programs.

The RNC shrugged off any talk of tension with the Trump campaign. "The RNC and the Trump campaign have a good working relationship,” said Lindsay Walters, a committee spokeswoman. “We are coordinating on all fronts as we work towards victory in November."

The absence of a clear plan has spread to something even more fundamental — the campaign’s path to 270 electoral votes.

On September 02 2016 09:29 Nyxisto wrote:
I can't see how Hillary is going to come out of this badly. He can't just brag about his genitals like he did in the Republican primaries, I have enough faith in the American people that this doesn't work in front of a general election audience.

On September 02 2016 09:29 Nyxisto wrote:
I can't see how Hillary is going to come out of this badly. He can't just brag about his genitals like he did in the Republican primaries, I have enough faith in the American people that this doesn't work in front of a general election audience.

On September 02 2016 08:40 xDaunt wrote:

Well, it sounds like they basically said she was a whore. Looks like libel to me unless they prove it to be true.

Klepper pointed to a Maryland defamation statute that might provide a basis for Melania Trump’s suit. It reads: “A single or married woman whose character or reputation for chastity is defamed by any person may maintain an action against that person.”

He was on Hillary Clinton’s veep shortlist and holds valuable political cred in a Western swing state. But Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper faces a green blockade that could dash his chances of leading her Interior Department if she wins the White House.

Environmentalists are sour on the Democratic governor for his outspoken defense of the oil and gas industry, in a state where two anti-fracking measures just failed to make the November ballot. They are warning Clinton against giving Hickenlooper power over the nation's fossil fuel resources as Interior secretary, a spot that presidents of both parties have often given to popular Westerners.

Choosing Hickenlooper — a former petroleum geologist — would mean picking a fight with a vocal part of the Democratic base at the very start of Clinton’s presidency, environmentalists say, sounding the same kind of warning that other progressive activists make about handing senior Treasury Department roles to Wall Street insiders. His support for fracking also contradicts the tough line Clinton took on the practice during her primary battle against Bernie Sanders.

"This is a line in the sand moment," said Diana Best, Greenpeace's senior campaigner in Denver. "People impacted by climate change and fossil fuel pollution cannot afford leaders like Gov. Hickenlooper, who choose oil profits over public health and safety, at any level of government."

"All the big greens would wind up against him," one Colorado environmental advocate said, discussing the governor's future on condition of anonymity. "He’s not done much for the conservation movement in general — it’s not just fracking. He just hasn’t done much. But he’s been so extreme on fracking that I think it’s going to present a problem for Hillary.”

Hickenlooper has won praise from environmental groups for his actions on climate change and water conservation, but he opposes giving localities the power to ban fracking, which Clinton has assured Coloradans she supports. At a POLITICO policy discussion during July’s Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, he likened mandatory distances between fracking and homes to the kind of property seizure that "works fine in Russia or China."

Clinton has also pushed for allowing the EPA to regulate fracking fluid under the Safe Drinking Water Act, a power Congress stripped away during the George W. Bush administration. Meanwhile, Hickenlooper proudly told senators in 2013 that he has drunk the fluid to vouch for its safety.

On September 02 2016 09:27 Danglars wrote:
She's not policies, she's not experience, she's the anti-Trump! Trump needs that outstanding debate performance to win because he is behind and he hasn't been campaigning in swing states hard. But if Hillary has a bad show she'll suffer hard.

On September 02 2016 09:29 Nyxisto wrote:
I can't see how Hillary is going to come out of this badly. He can't just brag about his genitals like he did in the Republican primaries, I have enough faith in the American people that this doesn't work in front of a general election audience.

On September 02 2016 09:53 Yoav wrote:
Now the danger is that America's enemies are solidly lined up with Trump, and between them, happen to have a few ways of fucking with the election. Imagine a world where Putin leaks damaging stories about HRC on the eve of the election. Or where ISIS pulls off a major attack that validates Trump's doom-and-gloom fearmongering. Or the DPRK does something particularly sabre-rattling. Any or all of these could credibly affect the outcome of the election. Which is fucking terrifying.

On September 02 2016 10:07 Nyxisto wrote:


I mean the US doesn't exactly have a history of paying much attention to what anybody else has to say about them, so starting now would be hilariously bad timing. I'm still amazed by the fact how this weird nativist nationalism of Trump, LePen and others brings people all over the globe together.

On September 02 2016 09:53 Yoav wrote:


In all seriousness, the election is more or less over unless something terrible comes out about her.

Which it might. We all know the Clintons have baggage, and most of us would be pretty unsurprised if she ends up with some disqualifying bit of info coming out.

As for me, I'm voting for her even if I found out she personally flew to Benghazi, shot the ambassador in the face, and then got a beer with the local terrorist leaders. I've long been in the Clinton-is-a-crook camp, I would have campaigned actively for Joe Biden, and I rooted/voted for Bernie even though I thought his policies on many issues seem very pie-in-the-sky.

But if your choice is a crook and a fascist, you vote for the crook. Every time.

Now the danger is that America's enemies are solidly lined up with Trump, and between them, happen to have a few ways of fucking with the election. Imagine a world where Putin leaks damaging stories about HRC on the eve of the election. Or where ISIS pulls off a major attack that validates Trump's doom-and-gloom fearmongering. Or the DPRK does something particularly sabre-rattling. Any or all of these could credibly affect the outcome of the election. Which is fucking terrifying.

Consumers and lawmakers pushing for cheaper alternatives to the EpiPen, an antidote for life-threatening allergic reactions, and other high-priced drugs are seeking answers about a stubborn backlog of generic drug applications at the Food and Drug Administration.

Even after the agency started levying user fees on drugmakers in 2012 to pay for more people to review the medicines, the backlog of decisions still stretches almost four years.

As of July 1, the FDA had 4,036 generic drug applications awaiting approval, and the median time it takes for the FDA to approve a generic is now 47 months, according to the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, a trade group. The FDA has approved more generics in the past few years, but a flood of applications has added to the problem.

By comparison, the European Medicines Agency, Europe's version of the FDA, has just 24 generics, including biologically based biosimilars awaiting approval. The FDA's generic count doesn't include biosimilars, which are more complicated medicines to review. The EMA along with the European Commission, which handles approval of marketing materials, are approving generics and brand-name drugs in about a year on average, according to the EMA.

On Monday, three members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce wrote a similar letter to the FDA, seeking information about the EpiPen generic applications it has received and how they've been prioritized.

When asked whether the FDA bears any responsibility for the lack of EpiPen competition, FDA spokesman Kristofer Baumgartner said he couldn't comment on pending applications or confirm their existence, citing confidentiality rules. But he stressed that the FDA pushes pending applications for drugs with no current generics to the front of the line and approved 580 generics in 2015, a record for the agency and 40 percent more than in 2014.

"The FDA is confident that the overall trend in actions on generic drug applications will be one of continuing improvement," Baumgartner said.

In March, generics giant Teva Pharmaceuticals told investors that its generic version of EpiPen was rejected by the FDA, and that it wouldn't be able to launch the generic until at least 2017. Adamis Pharmaceuticals reported a similar rejection from the FDA for its EpiPen generic in June.

On September 02 2016 10:10 xDaunt wrote:

It's not hard to believe when globalization has created a large global class of disenfranchised people.

On September 02 2016 09:46 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Don't do it Clinton...



Source

On September 02 2016 12:03 LegalLord wrote:

One of the most dangerous things about Trump is that Hillary is convinced that she can be any degree of shitty president as long as she can just convince people that she isn't Trump so it's automatically good and justified.

On September 02 2016 12:03 LegalLord wrote:

One of the most dangerous things about Trump is that Hillary is convinced that she can be any degree of shitty president as long as she can just convince people that she isn't Trump so it's automatically good and justified.