Virginia Governor/Friend of Clinton Terry McAuliffe says Hillary Clinton will flip-flop again on the Trans-Pacific "Partnership" if she gets elected President. Well, so much for that post-convention bounce! I won't say this is a surprise, but to hear Mr. McAuliffe utter this so carelessly, and then to hear his spokeshack walk the comment back so quickly, all brings back such fond memories of the 1990s, when the Clintons attracted drama the way carcasses attract vultures. Of course, we should trust Hillary Clinton on "free" trade exactly as much as we should trust Donald Trump, i.e., not at all.
Connie Bruck at the New Yorker writes an amazingly intricate piece addressing the issue of "Why Obama Has Failed to Close Guantánamo." Long story short: it wasn't just Congress's fault -- the Defense Department fought tooth-and-nail to keep it open, federal judges issued pro-detainment rulings, and the President was too lax about the matter in his first term and then too strident about it in his second. I'm a bit surprised to see both Hillary Clinton (as Secretary of State) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (as Senate Intelligence Committee Chair) looking fairly good on this matter.
The EPA readies a proposal to curb airplane emissions -- but would exempt military planes. And we don't know exactly how big a loophole that's going to be -- because the Pentagon doesn't have to report on emissions! I guess the military's reasoning is that they need to be allowed to do exactly as they like or they won't be able to protect the country, but you recognize that as a hostage situation, and you could easily argue that allowing military planes to remain dependent on fossil fuels actually compromises our security, as we remain beholden to the big corporations and foreign nations that make those fuels.
Davey Alba at Wired finds a peculiar way the FBI derails Freedom of Information Act (or FOIA) requests: they use 20-year-old software that returns lousy results, leading folks to believe the information they're looking for just isn't there. The FBI, using decades-old software -- who'da thunk it? Especially when the agency has much better software available. The FOIA requires government agencies to conduct a "reasonably calculated" search to locate requested records, but of course you already see the wiggle room in the phrase "reasonably calculated." I have faith that a federal judge will, one day, examine this issue and call BS; I just don't know if it will happen soon.
Finally, in case you were wondering if Donald Trump was ever going to release his tax returns, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort says no, citing the fact that he's being audited by the IRS. How can you tell right away Mr. Trump doesn't have a leg to stand on? Because even Ron Fournier can absolutely eviscerate his argument. (Though "I'm being audited" isn't necessarily Mr. Trump's "latest" excuse -- he's made it before. I suspect Mr. Trump has all his excuses sitting on a lazy Susan that he just spins to his heart's content.)
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