Blue Horseshoe

Democratic donors hope to recruit NBA legends Grant Hill and Dwyane Wade to run for Senate in Florida ....NBA legends Dwyane Wade and Grant Hill have rocketed to the top of the recruitment lists for some Florida Democrats looking for a strong candidate to run against Sen. Rick Scott in 2024. There have been separate active efforts to get both to consider forays into state politics.... three sources familiar with the situation said. The Party operatives and donors see the need for a moonshot-type candidate to reverse the trend of Republican dominance in the state, in which most recently Gov. Ron DeSantis won re-election by a double-digit margin. Yet even they acknowledge that getting either one of them is a long shot.... .....“Grant Hill has great name ID. He would raise a boatload of money .....” said John Morgan, an Orlando-based trial attorney and national Democratic donor, who has spoken directly with Hill about his desire for him to run. “Grant Hill would beat the s--- out of Rick Scott.”....Morgan brought up the idea of Hill’s running for the Senate over dinner Sunday night with Larry Grisolano, a partner and the CEO of the David Axelrod-founded Democratic consulting firm AKPD Message and Media, at the home of Bob Mandell, who was the Obama administration’s ambassador to Luxembourg from 2011 to 2016......Hill, who played seven seasons with the Orlando Magic and lives in the Orlando area, has not been publicly political on a regular basis. He campaigned with Hillary Clinton in Jacksonville in 2016 and has criticized former President Donald Trump ...Hill did not respond to a text message seeking comment. He and Morgan are business partners. Democratic donor groups have openly discussed the idea of recruiting Wade, who played 13 seasons with the Miami Heat, to run for the Senate.....Beyond having star power in the state, Wade has become an outspoken advocate for transgender rights. His 15-year-old daughter, Zaya, is a transgender model and activist. ....“My family would not be accepted or feel comfortable there,” Wade said on Showtime’s “Headliners with Rachel Nichols” last month. “And so that’s one of the reasons why I do not live there.”....“Dwyane Wade is a Florida legend, whose leadership past and present has a lot of folks in our state sending feelers out,” said Ray Paultre, the executive director of the Florida Alliance, a progressive donor group that plays a significant role in Florida Democratic politics. “We have seen former athletes, in both parties, bring something special to the political landscape......but he is on the list of four or five dream candidates to challenge Rick Scott..... ....Democrats in Florida have not won a Senate race since the 2012 re-election of Bill Nelson, whom Scott defeated in 2018. They have not held the Governor’s Mansion or either chamber of the Legislature since the 1990s.....“Top donors and party leaders know they need different kinds of candidates with pre-existing profiles to mount statewide campaigns,” said a veteran Florida Democratic operative, who was granted anonymity to discuss candidate recruiting strategy. “There’s a short list of retired athletes and business leaders who could fit that bill, and Dwyane Wade tops that list. There are definitely conversations underway about recruiting Wade or a retired athlete like him to challenge Scott.....” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/grant-hill-dwayne-wade-democrats-senate-florida-rick-scott-rcna83401

@League Champion is my favorite poster here. He's the true MVP!

What's stopping you from looking it up? You are telling people they are wrong, based on opposing your "suggestions" that have no practical legal pathway. Then you want others to spoonfeed you as to why there's no legal pathway. I've given you more than enough contextual background to look it all up yourself. Kathy Hochul / CCIA 2022 Operation Fast And Furious Bruen / SCOTUS "May Issue" provisions as public policy to proxy ban guns, mostly in Blue strongholds via their state legislatures In diem vivere in lege sunt detestabilis - Basically the "justice delayed/justice denied" principle Again, what's stopping you from looking it up yourself? It appears you are attempting to offload trying to actually subvert the actual US Constitution by accusing me of not spoon feeding you since you refuse to spend the two minutes on Google to read it all yourself.

The Bruen ruling is based on 2nd Amendment principles. To get what you want, or say what you want, Bruen needs to be overturned. That can only happen by repealing the 2nd Amendment of US Constitution. Bruen exists because of gross overreach, particularly in Blue strongholds, that try to "game" around the fact that they can't legally fully ban firearms period. This is NO DIFFERENT than in Texas, where abortion laws are gamed to the point where it's effectively attempting to outlaw abortion without technically completely trying to wipe it off the board. I'm Conservative leaning, and I'm actually criticizing the Texas GOP for their abortion stances and attempted public policy at it, because it's in bad faith. (i.e. just try to outright ban it if you want it completely banned in your state, don't game it so you can fundraise off if it and try not to incite the Pro Choice voters in your districts) Kathy Hochul in New York, had a midnight session of the NY State Legislature after the Bruen ruling meet together. They came up with the CCIA 2022, which demanded anyone applying for a gun permit in NY to submit to releasing all their social media accounts, then doxx everyone who has ever lived with them in any household, while setting public gun restrictions so widely, that it would be impossible to carry a firearm outside your home. This was struck down legally, of course it would, it defies Bruen and SCOTUS openly. But Hochul want to fundraise off of it since she barely beat out Lee Zeldin after taking over for the ousted Cuomo. When this failed, Hochul pushed to have ammunition only be sold if the buyers could be vetted and approved, which again, is a delaying tactic to attempt to choke out ammunition period in New York, which makes firearms useless by extension. ( I.E. if they can't ban guns, they'll try to ban bullets. This happened in the Obama Adminstration, where his DOD was told to order trillions of rounds, while changing environmental standards to make it harder for companies to make ammo period. Since these companies are obligated to fulfill government/military contracts first, they were running 365/24/7 to fill those orders, choking out the civilian ammunition market on purpose. This is also around the timeline that Obama and Biden told Eric Holder to send the Sinaloa drug cartel countless AK47s and anti-material rifles, with our tax dollars no less, in Operation Fast And Furious) So no, this does not depend on SCOTUS. Even a hard left leaning SCOTUS, with that kind of majority, would not simply run over the 2nd Amendment on their own. They aren't going to, not even as woke zealots, burn their own judicial legacy, on setting the Constitution on fire, when NO ONE WOULD COMPLY. Every major law enforcement agency in the country would simply refuse to act on it. They are going to send in their street cops, already embattled and defunded, into potential firefight after firefight to grab guns in a pathway that is clearly does not align with the actual Constitution? If you want what you say you want, you need an Amendment to the US Constitution to wipe the 2nd Amendment off the map. That's it. I've laid it out for you. So, again, nothing you say here makes any sense legally. You can't just pretend the parts of the Constitution you don't like simply don't exist at all.

You are suggesting a proxy for a "may issue" provision in order to purchase a firearm. (Yours is the most extreme version possible) This was struck down by SCOTUS in the Bruen ruling. Even if Democrats could generate enough numbers in Congress to try to sidestep Bruen, SCOTUS would just strike that down too. So, 'Yes', you would need to amend the Constitution to get what you want. Your plan is not "beautiful". It makes no sense at all legally.

"Red Flag Laws" are more than public policy decisions in a vacuum. You cannot effectively enact public policy that cannot be supported by practical logistics and cannot fit within the scope of baseline public administration. For example, abortion will never be fully illegal in this country. Yes, some states are gaming their laws to attempt to make it just about impossible to get an abortion based on timelines. (I.E. it actually takes time for person to figure out their pregnant in the first place. Putting them into such a narrow window of "opportunity" to get an abortion based on laws, that it's functionally punitive to their rights. I don't agree with it, nor do I agree what is happening in New York with guns, where Hochul is looking to delay and loophole SCOTUS rulings to effectively widespread ban firearms and ammunition anyway) But how would you get the logistics to work out. What would be the vast taxpayer cost, the bureaucratic and legal nightmare, and the endless bloodshed if you truly and fully attempted to ban abortion widespread on a federal level in this country. Who will pay for all those unwanted babies? Someone has to feed them. They have to live somewhere. Just on that alone, the staggering costs implied, makes banning abortion impossible. Some elected officials might "tease" the idea of banning abortion to get fundraising, but it's just not possible. Do I wish there were more public mental health facilities and treatment centers? Yes. That would however be a massive budgetary haul and rollout, a vast cost to taxpayers, would create a ton of legal liability for the state itself, and frankly, to be honest, mentally ill people, many don't vote and don't exist in a powerful voting block. Which is pretty critical, sadly, to trying to get any kind of public policy rolled forward. Saying you want more public mental health facilities is one thing. The logistics and cost is another more problematic set of hurdles. Do I believe some people out there fit into a specific classification where I'd prefer they'd not have firearms? Yes, there are some people out there like that. However, again, "Red Flag Laws" requires a very complex logistical chain that's difficult to enforce. You need to perpetually follow up on potential threats. There is another state wide level liability consideration. Also you will trigger more shootings with police, if you keep showing up to take guns away from people. Then there is problem that elected officials like Hochul and Newsom are gun grabbers. Any slight opening to try to take everyone's guns period, they'll try it. This creates pushback against all gun laws by the gun lobby. Put it this way, the antagonism created by someone like Hochul and Newsom to create political narratives for their own fundraising ( they know they can't just outright ban guns in America) and their policy overreaches are clearly intentional. They attempt to push legislation that they know will not survive judicial scrutiny. The "simplest" path logistically is for more private citizens to "self arm" and legally purchase a firearm for themselves. That's relying on yourself. Not your "government", where it's clear more and more everyday that they've abandoned the rank and file working class citizen. More legal firearm sales have occurred to private American citizens in the last four and a half years than have ever occurred in the same time block at any point in American recorded history. Ten percent of all guns in this country today, legally sold, EVER, were sold in the last four and a half years. That number is beyond staggering. The people have "spoken" with their feet and their wallets. They want guns. Lots of them. Interviews in 2020 and 2021 show, across all states and all demographics show the same concerns - People feel abandoned and realize the government is not going to help them, they will have to save themselves. For those who demand Red Flag Laws. There is more than just GOP and gun lobby pushback (though that will exist as well) The logistics are difficult to impossible. It's not enough to want to do something. It's not enough to get enough real clean votes to have the public say they want it. You need to be able to effectively deploy it against your baseline resource situation and circumstance. The average local law enforcement agency is embattled enough already, without having this entire gigantic bureaucratic pathway dumped onto them. Amy Klobuchar, if she was POTUS, would never try to actually deploy Red Flag Laws. And she's a Democrat. She might talk about it in public for fund raising, sign worthless statement letters, support meatless legal "Acts" that she knows will fail or virtue signaling, but she'd never try to roll it out. She heads many of the most powerful committees in Congress. She understands policy. Out of "contenders" even fringe ones for POTUS, from the Team Blue side, she's the one that understands real policy the best. But she would NEVER be allowed to sniff any real power. She can't be fully controlled. So many of the elected officials who would attempt to roll out alternative solutions where the logistics have to add up, they are NOT coming into the highest levels of power. The concept of "Red Flag Laws" only exists for political fundraising and to find "fresh meat for the base" or to help someone like Klobuchar to win reelection. She'll talk it, but she would never really risk her political career to go after guns and make RFL's a true reality in this country.

Currently, it's "normalized" for many people to keep wearing masks because of COVID19. Just five years ago, it would have drawn attention if you wore a mask all the time in public places. Maybe even intimidated some strangers around you in a grocery store or a hardware store, places like that. Now no one gives it a second thought. So this threat could wear a baseball hat and mask and put on a hooded jacket and literally walk around casually in any major city in America. This "new normal" obviously creates limitations on using facial recognition resources. Also the threat can go to multiple major cities and hide in plain sight. If he went to NY or Texas or Chicago, there are so many unvetted and unidentified people out there, what's one more in a sea of millions in just outright chaos in public. There are illegals sleeping in airport lobbies and empty baseball fields and police stations, we are talking intentional local public policy here, and these are often purely non vetted at any level. A guy could literally blend into that crowd and disappear for a long time. If you observe out in public, 60 percent of everyone around you is staring into their IPhone. They aren't even paying attention to what's around them. This guy could take off his mask, his hat and even some fake glasses and walk past people holding a sign identifying himself in public and many wouldn't even notice. They'd be too busy with social media on their phone. The terrifying thing about the Beltway Sniper is he was caught by being turned in. Same with the Unibomber. What if they weren't turned in? What if the Beltway Sniper kept it up for years and years? What if the Unibomber's brother passed away years before and there was no one to tell the police outright about him? You can't hide forever. But how about a month? Two months? A week? How much damage can one threat cause in a week? Also many major law enforcement agencies are heavily understaffed right now. You need warm bodies to follow up on leads. What if those retired already. Or quit because they figured out being a cop is just too horrible a job to have right now in current American society. Not to mention all the bailed out criminals driving case loads where LE agencies simply can't ignore all the other crime going on around them. Unfortunately the conditions currently are ripe for someone like this to hide a while. How long, no one knows. If this threat had a long time to plan, it could be a while. It's tough to blame cops in general for this one. They can't be everywhere at once.

Katy Tur slept her way up the media ladder. Olbermann was one of those medium level steps. He fell in love with her but she was just passing the time and using that "relationship" as a means to get ahead. Happens all the time. She was transactional but pretended to be in love. Olbermann was in love but pretended to be transactional. When she ended up getting married to someone else and having kids with someone else, then he just totally snapped. The real problem with Olbermann is he has zero common sense. When Kayleigh McEnany was starting out, she worked at CNN. She had the choice in the beginning to either lean Conservative or to lean Leftist/Liberal. There are way more jobs for leftists, but they all compete for the same audience. Is there much difference between Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel and the rest of the left leaning "late night hosts"? This is how Greg Gutfield won out. It's not that he's so much funnier or wittier or better, it's just that he's alone on his side while 4-5 other people are fighting for the same market share in reverse. McEnany decided to become Conservative leaning because it was just an easier pathway to have a media career. Where would Candice Owens be if she leaned left? There are lots of black women in the leftist media space. Who exactly is competing with Owens as a Conservative? She's actually a mediocre analyst. (She's great a person to person conflict and debate though) Olbermann is entirely replaceable. He's parroting the same talking points as other leftists in the media. He doesn't have the brand and audience capture of a Rachel Maddow. Olbermann believes he's on the level of Tucker Carlson and Maddow in terms of audience appeal, but he's not. "Don't fall in love" Some careers, it's all mercenary. For example, realtors, that's just a completely savage business. Cold and ruthless. You have to know when you are dealing with other mercenaries. But that's a lot harder for narcissists.

Love the timestamp

The narrative you are pushing is that if Trump showed up to one of these GOP debates, that some combination of DeSantis, Haley, Ramaswamy, Scott, Pence, Burgum, Hutchinson and/or Christie would accuse Donald Trump of sedition. Obviously someone on that stage would need to accuse Trump of actual sedition since why would Trump need to 'defend himself' from a claim of sedition otherwise? Now Pence, Christie and DeSantis have zero chance to be selected as a VPOTUS candidate if Trump wins the primary for the 2024 cycle. However particularly Haley, Scott and Ramaswamy are very prime candidates to split the ticket. Why would they accuse Trump of sedition during a debate? Then do what? Try to backtrack that later as a potential VPOTUS? Why would Pence, Christie, DeSantis, Burgum and/or Hutchinson do it since there is no legal pathway for it? To look stupid? ( i.e. as if they don't have the legal teams and common sense at their disposal to realize they shouldn't accuse Trump of something that isn't considered an actual legally viable pathway against him? ) What in the entire world are you even talking about? There is ZERO legal pathway to charge Trump with sedition. That's an extremely high legal bar. How does Team Blue and the DNC plan to skirt around the Brandenburg Test? If someone asked me if Brandenburg is likely outdated given the reality of changes in technology and speed of information, I'd actually agree with that. But it's the law on the books right now. And SCOTUS will not set Brandenburg on fire just to get Trump. Even if SCOTUS was loaded with liberals and leftists, they still wouldn't do it. The catastrophic legal slippery slope to that would split this country in half. You want to talk about "wasted bandwidth"? You are trying to sell the idea that Trump would walk into this hypothetical debate and be hammered with something that has no practical legal pathway against him ( Just because MSNBC tries to flirt with the idea for ratings doesn't mean their canned partisan hack job is in good faith) By potentially half the stage who want the VPOTUS slot themselves. Personally, I find Trump to be a total imbecile. He's a 4th rate failed narcissist grifter. I'm totally exhausted with his gutless trolling routine. I'd prefer he exit professional politics and never come back. However he's still an American citizen. And Team Blue and the DNC can't just try to leverage all major institutions beyond all practical legal and ethical measure to go get him and put him down because he won before and might actually win again. Why would anyone on that stage, even the ones that despise him the most, accuse of him of something that can't possible exist? If someone hammered Trump over the documents case or Trump University, sure, that would make sense. But sedition? You're an idiot. You are saying stupid sh!t and then trying to flail around to defend it. It's pretty clear you don't understand sedition. Which is fine in that most Americans don't on a casual level. Most don't work anywhere near the law. But you could have looked it up. Instead you just make sh!t up and then you find the most ridiculous path to backtrack to try to paper mache it all away. You know who kept harping on "sedition"? CNN, MSNBC, plenty of the hard partisan left leaning outlets. Odds are you kept hearing and then just repeated it. I want to ping @Tree of Knowledge and @Patented Phil . See this guys? See what Fnord is doing here? This is what I'm talking about when I discuss the difference between a "traditional liberal" and a "leftist" I have no quarrel with traditional liberals. But look at Fnord and his BS leftist flailing. This kind of stupidity is what you guys should expect from leftists. In real life, I know many traditional liberals. I don't agree with all of them, but some are really good people and good neighbors and assets to their community. However I've never met a leftist in my entire life that I've respected, nor trusted, nor thought was worth a single damn. Mouthbreathers like Fnord trying to shovel his crap down Conservatives throats because he's too frail and arrogant to use Google.

Trump Vows to Give Full Pardon and Apology to the Hundreds Convicted in J6 Protests .....Former President Trump....if he is elected to a second presidential term in 2024...."..... If I decide to run and if I win, I will be looking very, very strongly about pardons..... Full pardons... I mean full pardons with an apology to many...." https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2022/09/02/trump-said-he-would-give-full-pardon-and-apology-to-the-hundreds-convicted-in-j6-protests DeSantis Says He Will Look Into Pardoning Jan. 6 Rioters If Elected President .....Speaking on the podcast Clay & Buck’s the day after he announced his presidential bid, DeSantis said the FBI and Department of Justice have been “weaponized” to target certain political groups, after he was asked if he would consider pardoning the January 6 defendants and former President Donald Trump. From the start of his presidency, he would be “aggressive about issuing pardons” to groups he believes have been politically targeted, such as pro-life demonstrators, he said. While some cases may involve a true violation of the law, DeSantis said he believes there is an “uneven application of justice” in many incidents—he used the example of a Black Lives Matter protester not getting prosecuted the same as someone involved in January 6. https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/05/25/desantis-says-he-will-look-into-pardoning-jan-6-rioters-if-elected-president Clay & Buck’s Exclusive Interview with Presidential Candidate Governor Ron DeSantis ....CLAY: We’re talking to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He announced yesterday he is joining us live here to start off the program. I’m sure you agree — you have a law background; you’ve obviously been very aggressive legally in what you can and cannot do as the governor of Florida, Department of Justice — the FBI has gone after the January 6 defendants with reckless, I would say abandoned. A big part of being president is pardon powers. Do you think the January 6 defendants deserve to have their cases examined by a Republican president? And if Trump, let’s say, gets charged with federal offenses and you are the president of the United States, would you look at potentially pardoning Trump himself based on the evidence that might emerge of those charges? GOV. DESANTIS: The DOJ and FBI have been weaponized. We see that. We see it in a variety of contexts, some of which you mentioned. Some of it is the FBI going after parents, going to school board meeting. Some of it’s how they treat a pro-life demonstrator, how they don’t go after people that are attacking pro-lifers. And so what I’m going to do is — I’m going to do on Day One – I will have folks that will get together and look at all these cases, who are people who are victims of weaponization or political targeting, and we will be aggressive at issuing pardons. Now, some of these cases, some people may have a technical violation of the law.....But if there are three other people who did the same thing, but just in a context like BLM and they don’t get prosecuted at all, that is uneven application of justice, and so we’re going to find ways where that did not happen. And then we will use the pardon power — and I will do that at the front end. You know, a lot of people wait until the end of the administration to issue pardons. We’re going to find examples where government’s been weaponized against disfavored groups, and we will apply relief as appropriate. But it will be done on a case-by-case basis, because I think you’ve got to make sure that… There’s a whole bunch of cases that don’t necessarily get headlines. But if people are being treated just because they don’t get on TV or something, they’re being treated disfavorably. They need to have a fair hearing as well.... https://www.clayandbuck.com/clay-bucks-exclusive-interview-with-ron-desantis/ Sen. Blumenthal: Trump offering pardons to Jan. 6 prisoners would be grounds for impeachment Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said that if former President Donald Trump were to pardon convicted January 6 rioters after re-election in 2024, his actions would warrant an impeachment process. Sen. Blumenthal told a CNN reporter on Thursday that a Trump pardon of the January 6 prisoners would be a betrayal of America’s trust. https://justthenews.com/videos/sen-blumenthal-trump-offering-pardons-jan-6-prisoners-would-be-grounds-impeachment ****** I don't believe Trump can win the 2024 general election even if it's against Joe Biden. But let's say that he did. What would happen if Trump gave full pardons to all convicted regarded to J6? Here's the thing, the "threat" of coming after Trump or his family or impeaching him again or saying you'll trigger rioting, burning and looting becomes pretty toothless from Team Blue and the DNC. Because if Trump wins POTUS again, those things will happen anyway. Trump literally will be in a position where he has nothing to lose at all. If he doesn't pardon anyone from J6, then he'll still be attacked endlessly by the radical left and establishment Democrats. If he pardons all convicted from J6, or even just some of them, the net effect will be the same. Pardoning just one person would be the same "woke justification" to go on the full attack as if all were pardoned period. But what if Trump actually did it? And also, as DeSantis points out, does it early in his potential 2nd term? How much burning, looting, rioting and just out of control chaos would we see coming from the radical left if that did play out? What's interesting is even if Trump doesn't win the primary, DeSantis would likely issue some early on pardons if he took POTUS instead. So this becomes even more of a looming potential controversy that will split America right in half if it happened.

James O’Keefe Drops Bombshell Video On BlackRock: ‘You Got $10k? You Can Buy A Senator’ .....A journalist working for the O’Keefe Media Group (OMG) spoke with BlackRock recruiter Serge Varlay — who told her that because of the vast sums of money the company controls in the global market, they can essentially “run the world.” He began with a caveat, noting that BlackRock did not necessarily want people to notice what they were doing....“They don’t want to be in the news. They don’t want people to talk about them. They don’t want to be anywhere on the radar,” he said, and when the journalist asked him why, he paused. “I don’t know, but I suspect it’s because it’s easier to do things when people aren’t thinking about it.” ....Varlay went on to explain that while BlackRock might be one of the biggest players, the asset management firm was not the only game in town.....“All of these financial institutions, they buy politicians,” he said. “You can take this big f*** ton of money and buy people … It’s not who is the president, it’s who is controlling the wallet of the president. You could buy your candidates. First, there is the senators, these guys are f***ing cheap. Got 10 grand? You can buy a senator. I’ll give you 500k right now … It doesn’t matter who wins, they’re in my pocket.” ...In another segment of the video, Varlay discussed the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine — but strictly from a financial perspective....“Ukraine is good for business, you know that right? Russia blows up Ukraine’s grain silos and the price of wheat is going to go mad up. The Ukrainian economy is tied very largely to the wheat market. The price of bread, literally everything goes up and down, this is fantastic if you’re trading,” Varlay continued, adding, “Volatility creates opportunity to make profit. War is real f***ing good for business. It’s exciting when s*** goes wrong, right?” Varlay said several times that there were other financial institutions taking similar steps to “buy politicians” and influence the global markets, but that the sheer volume of capital that BlackRock was controlling made the company even more formidable.....“BlackRock manages $20 trillion. It’s incomprehensible numbers,” he said....He also claims that BlackRock can influence global politics and culture because it has large stakes in numerous companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Anheuser-Busch, Meta, Target, and Fox. He even says that institutional giants press the media to take sides on a story because they want controversy—no drama, no viewers..... “normal people don’t give a s***” about these harsh realities. “It’s beyond them,” says Varlay.... https://www.dailywire.com/news/james-okeefe-drops-bombshell-video-on-blackrock-you-got-10k-you-can-buy-a-senator https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2023/06/21/james-okeefe-captures-blackrock-recruiter-saying-they-run-the-world-and-war-in-ukraine-is-good-for-business

Hillary’s Friendly Skies: Air Lockheed ....Has former lefty pinup Hillary Clinton become the senator from Lockheed Martin? According to the senator’s travel-expense forms, unearthed by the Center for Public Integrity, the senator and her aides have taken free rides on a Lockheed-owned private plane at least five times since 2001. The Lockheed jet isn’t exactly Air Force One, but it certainly has saved time and airfare costs during the Armed Services Committee member’s successful efforts to get Lockheed defense contracts, notably a $1.7 billion, 750-job deal to build presidential helicopters up in Owego (population 3,911), near Binghamton.... ......Last year, Lockheed’s PAC gave Clinton the maximum $5,000 donation, a first since Clinton became senator, but its generosity didn’t start there. In July 2004, Clinton and her personal aide, Huma Abedin, boarded a Lockheed jet at Dulles and zipped up to Troy for the day with the Italian ambassador to the U.S., Sergio Vento, for the first-ever New York State Little Italy Heritage Tourism Conference. After the full-day affair, Clinton zipped back down to Teterboro, New Jersey, on Lockheed’s jet. The trip, labeled on disclosure forms as a “speaking engagement,” was paid for by Lockheed, even though Senate ethics rules mandate that a primary sponsor of the event pony up. Jennifer Hanley, a Clinton rep, insists no ethical breaches were made, explaining that Clinton and Lockheed share the same goal—bringing jobs upstate—and that Lockheed’s free lift to Troy was made in that spirit..... Of course, by 2003, Hillary was a Senator and a staunch supporter of the Iraq War, which has cost the US trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and done more to create ISIS and Middle East instability than any other single decision of modern foreign policy. In defending her vote, Hillary parroted the phony propaganda of the CIA: "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members... " https://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/17339/ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hillary-is-the-candidate_b_9168938