Trump Adds Huma Abedin & Anthony Weiner Split To List Of Hillary Risk Factors

Trump Campaign Successfully Finds Way To Blame Hillary Clinton For New Anthony Weiner Sexting Scandal New York Magazine

Republican nominee Donald Trump decided it was necessary for his campaign to release a statement on Hillary Clinton's top aide Huma Abedin's decision to separate and presumably divorce Anthony Weiner. Trump -- who has no pristine record with women and wives himself -- offered his unsolicited opinion on Huma’s decision, saying: “I know Anthony well, and she will be far better off without him”,

Then Trump the cat pounced. tying the sexting habits of Weiner into a condemnation of Hillary Clinton's leadership, saying:

"I only worry for the country in that Hillary Clinton was careless and negligent in allowing Weiner to have such close proximity to highly classified information. Who knows what he learned and who he told? It’s just another example of Hillary Clinton’s bad judgement. It is possible that our country and security have been greatly compromised by this."

Trump's new aim: Poison a Clinton presidency Politico

"The trick out of Brooklyn isn't just to make Hillary Clinton win but to make her win as something other than a brain-damaged crook who stole the election and will spend the next four years selling out the government from her deathbed," writes Politico.

Donald Trump’s campaign is in the bunker in an Obama-birther-type project to de-legitimize Hillary Clinton as a candidate for office but also as America's future president.  So rabid is this Trump agenda that Hillary hate has seeped beyond extremist chatrooms into “lock her up” chants on the Republican convention floor and daily Trump rallies, into Trump's assertions that he's really leading but the national polls are rigged, and voters are doused with Hillary-health images as former New York mayor challenges America's citizens to go on the Internet to see Hillary about to expire or needing to be carried up the stairs. 

The Clinton campaign has deliberately refused to defend against these absurd attacks, preferring its surrogates to redirect the fire back onto Trump. Given the absurd letter from Trump's own physician, he's hardly in a position to challenge Hillary Clinton's health.  “It holds up a mirror to Donald Trump and what his campaign is about, and says everything you need to know about Donald Trump and where these kinds of crazy conspiracy theories are coming from,” one campaign aide told Politico.

Still, the Democrat’s professional team is aware of how these daily accusations might live beyond November and into a Clinton presidency. 

“Some of the campaign and allies' conspiracies are designed to delegitimize her personally. Most are simply designed to spread fear and mistrust. And I am sure if she wins, the right wing will continue to spread these theories,” said Clinton senior adviser Jennifer Palmieri. Palmieri is in favor of ignoring most of the wackiness but warned: “Just because they may have zero basis in truth doesn't mean they can't be corrosive. So in this cycle I believe you have to call out the truly destructive theories calmly, but aggressively, and in real time.”

President Barack Obama and his allies spent eight years being sandbagged by Donald Trump and his obsession with the president's birth certificate, his-middle-name’s-Hussein attacks, and a mountain of accusations that all boil down to the same thinking now hounding Hillary Clinton: "he’s a fake, his presidency either doesn’t count or is a Moorish-style Trojan Horse."

“It’s a longer strategy. It’s not that people believe that he wasn’t born in the United States,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), recalling how this played out for Obama and sketching the parallels she sees facing Clinton now. “It was the relentless negative attacks on him that really created a backdrop to pressure Republicans and hold them accountable not to work with him.”

Michelle Kwan Is Working for Hillary Clinton New York Magazine

Olympic figure-skating star Michelle Kwan has the unique role of being both celebrity surrogate and Clinton campaign staffer. Kwan’s official role with the campaign is “surrogate outreach coordinator,” which requires her to identify and solicit support from high-profile backers like Katy Perry, Lena Dunham, and Meryl Streep, all of whom have made appearances this year on behalf of the candidate.

Most people don't know that Kwan became a public-diplomacy envoy on behalf of the United States, working for the State Department in 2006. Kwan continued this role into the Obama administration, joining the Clinton State Department in a formal capacity in 2011 as a senior adviser for public diplomacy and public affairs. Kwan's undergrad and graduate degrees are in international relations and political science.

Brazile on Clinton Foundation: 'I don't see where the smoke is' Politico

"This notion that, somehow or another, someone who is a supporter, someone who is a donor, somebody who's an activist, saying I want access, I want to come into a room and I want to meet people, we often criminalize behavior that is normal," she said in an interview with Martha Raddatz on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "I don’t see what the smoke is."

How The Clinton Campaign Is Foiling the Kremlin Vanity Fair

Staffers from the Clinton campaign were instructed months ago to use a special app called Signal, when communicating about Donald Trump. The app, which uses end-to-end encryption is "Snowden-approved". 

Hillary Clinton Headlines August 29, 2016

Trump Thinks He Can Win Without a Ground Game. He's Wrong. Slate

Poll: Clinton leads Trump by 7 points Politico

Clinton questions Trump's doctor letter Politico

What I learned about Trumpism from reading 50 Breitbart articles about immigration VOX

Maine Gov. Paul LePage: you shoot "the enemy" in war, and people of color are "the enemy" right now VOX

Yes, They'll Always Come After Hillary Clinton; All the More Reason She Must'nt Hand Them Any Clubs The Daily Beast

Has Huma Abedin Overplayed Her Good Wife To Anthony Weiner Role? Thinking Women Wonder Out Loud

It’s a rare day in New York — except for Sept. 11, 2001 — when the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Daily News agree on anything. Today the op ed pages in all three newspapers say that disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner must drop out of the New York mayoral race. Weiner’s compulsive texting problem didn’t stop when he was busted in 2011; and it’s not clear exactly when it did stop.

“Weiner’s dishonest, impulse-driven psyche is once more stripped as naked as the images of his texted private parts”, writes the Daily News.

Many people — and especially women — are taking a second, confused look at Weiner’s wife Huma Abedin, who addressed the couple’s marital troubles in their joint press conference. Hillary Clinton’s ‘second daughter’ — previously an accomplished and sympathetic figure — is now cast as a potential enabler in a “partnership of ambition”.

Just three months ago, prior to Weiner's joining the New York City mayor's race, the couple appeared in a New York Times profile by Jonathan van Meter, who asked Abedin why she stayed with Weiner after his first texting expose, that lead to his resignation from Congress. For background, the couple first met when Hillary Clinton became a New York senator in 2001. They were good friends long before they became husband and wife in 2010, with Bill Clinton officiating. Huma explained:

When I asked how long it took for her to think she might be able to get over what her husband did, she said, "That’s a really good question," and then took a minute. "At the time, we were very early in our marriage, but it was an old friendship. He was my best friend. In addition to that, I loved him. There was a deep love there, but it was coupled with a tremendous feeling of betrayal. It took a lot of work, both mentally and in the way we engage with each other, for me to get to a place where I said: ‘O.K., I’m in. I’m staying in this marriage.’ Here was a man I respected, I loved, was the father of this child inside of me, and he was asking me for a second chance. And I’m not going to say that was an easy or fast decision that I made. It’s been almost two years now. I did spend a lot of time saying and thinking: ‘I. Don’t. Understand.’ And it took a long time to be able to sit on a couch next to Anthony and say, ‘O.K., I understand and I forgive.’ It was the right choice for me. I didn’t make it lightly."

Pepper Schwartz lends insights into Huma Abedin’s actions, saying: “Her steadfastness is hard to watch though. She doesn’t deserve this, and he doesn’t deserve her.”

Hillary's Second Daughter

It's impossible to understand Huma Abedin, who prides herself on being a very private person, without considering her within the orbit of Hillary Clinton.

“Huma Abedin has the energy of a woman in her 20s, the confidence of a woman in her 30s, the experience of a woman in her 40s and the grace of a woman in her 50s,” Clinton told Vogue. “She is timeless, her combination of poise, kindness, and intelligence are matchless, and I am lucky to have had her on my team for a decade now.”

Hillary’s Secret Weapon: Huma Abedin Vogue August, 2007

“Both Hillary and Huma are extraordinary people who are also workaholics,” says Oscar de la Renta, who has often hosted the two at his house in the Dominican Republic. “The E-mailing! It never stops. I tell Hillary, ‘Just because you are working in the sun, that doesn’t make it a vacation.’ They are lucky to have found each other.”

A US-born Muslim fluent in Arabic, Abedin grew up in Saudi Arabia. Her Islamic scholar father founded an institute fostering religious understanding between East and West. Her professor mother helped create one of the first private women’s colleges in the country.

Huma attended George Washington University, where she became an intern to Hillary Clinton, then First Lady. When Hillary Clinton became a senator from New York State, Huma joined her team as an adviser on Middle East policy. By this time, her reputation as a workaholic was well-established.

The two became inseparable during Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential run, which she lost to Sen. Barack Obama. Huma became effectively Hillary's "body woman" and traveling chief of staff. When Hillary Clinton became Secy of State, Huma was her deputy chief of staff, traveling the world with her and tending to her every need.

A Second Disgrace

Huma Abedin has come full circle, enduring the humiliation of a second texting bust with her husband.

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn on Wednesday had sharp words for mayoral race competitor Anthony Weiner, calling Weiner’s campaign as “the circus”. Quinn called Weiner’s presence “a disservice to New Yorkers who are looking for someone who has the judgment and maturity to lead this City and a record of actually delivering real results for them.”

“Before Anthony Weiner came along, we used to have forums on issues like stop and frisk, on issues like paid sick days… health care, things that really mattered to people,” candidate Bill de Blasio said. “But since Anthony Weiner entered this race, good luck finding education or health care or jobs or paid sick days or stop and frisk on the front pages.”