* I don’t know how much Bill Clinton is into schadenfreude, but I expect that this is not a bad birthday present.
Ex-@Baylor president Ken Starr quitting post after sex assault scandal https://t.co/5HLDx39fUk pic.twitter.com/TVJf6bUXcD
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) August 19, 2016
* Speaking of Clinton and Starr, here is what The Hill is reporting:
House Republicans are doubling down in their effort to bring perjury charges against Hillary Clinton over her testimony last year to the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
GOP lawmakers have claimed that the Democratic presidential nominee broke the law by lying under oath about her private email setup during her marathon appearance in October.
Next month, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee plan to make the issue a central part of a hearing with senior officials from the FBI, a committee aide said on Thursday.
Eric Kleefeld is hearing echoes of the “I-word” in that.
According to experts cited in the article, any inconsistencies in Clinton’s statements would not realistically lead to any criminal charges that could result in conviction. But this story is a very useful reminder that, assuming Republicans keep the House, a Hillary Clinton presidency will not pave the way for an era of political reconciliation. Instead, it’s far more likely that we’ll see an effort to impeach another President Clinton.
If he’s right about that, this is the song that comes to mind: “When will they ever learn. When will they e-ver learn?”
* Here’s another good move from the DOJ:
The Obama administration has joined the fight against the American bail industry, telling a federal appeals court that bail practices that keep poor defendants kept locked up because they cannot afford to purchase their freedom are unconstitutional.
“Bail practices that do not account for indigence result in the unnecessary incarceration of numerous individuals who are presumed innocent,” the Justice Department wrote in an amicus brief filed Friday.
The brief marks the first time DOJ has weighed in on the constitutional requirements of bail systems in a federal appeals court.
* This morning I wrote about a shift if what we consider to be “battleground” states. Along those lines, here’s something interesting from Sabato’s Crystal Ball:
By the way, we’re lowering Kansas and South Carolina from Safe Republican to Likely Republican after recent closer-than-expected surveys surfaced. In the former, the latest statewide poll from SurveyUSA had Trump ahead by just five points, 44%-39%, and notably it showed Clinton ahead 45%-35% in the Kansas City region.
The shift in Kansas probably isn’t related to demographics. It might be more of a reaction to things like this:
The new July jobs report released Friday is an utter disaster for Kansans and embattled Gov. Sam Brownback…
The governor has stated for more than four years that the income tax cuts he signed in 2012 would lead to an explosion of jobs.
That has not happened.
Instead, the state has bounced around employment levels of 1.4 million people for the last two years.
* Finally, I’ll leave you with this little nugget from The Daily Show last night – and only an “Oh my!” in response.
