Italy: Today's news for August 24, 2016

The big news today is a 6.2 earthquake that hit Italy, destroying the ancient town of Amatrice.

To me, Italy is a place of wonder and beauty, a place where history lives. I have never been there, yet I soak it up in every way I can. In a way, I idolize it from afar. If Italy was a woman, I'd be considered a stalker.

When someone dies, we mourn for purely selfish reasons, knowing the dead person can never be seen again in this life. I mourn today for an Italian town which I will never get to see or know.

In other news...

Associated Press:

Many donors to Clinton Foundation met with her at State

More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. It's an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president. 

At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million. 

Donors who were granted time with Clinton included an internationally known economist who asked for her help as the Bangladesh government pressured him to resign from a nonprofit bank he ran; a Wall Street executive who sought Clinton's help with a visa problem; and Estee Lauder executives who were listed as meeting with Clinton while her department worked with the firm's corporate charity to counter gender-based violence in South Africa. 

The meetings between the Democratic presidential nominee and foundation donors do not appear to violate legal agreements Clinton and former president Bill Clinton signed before she joined the State Department in 2009. But the frequency of the overlaps shows the intermingling of access and donations, and fuels perceptions that giving the foundation money was a price of admission for face time with Clinton. Her calendars and emails released as recently as this week describe scores of contacts she and her top aides had with foundation donors.

Even though the article says there was nothing illegal here, I question whether this meets the qualification of bribing a public official. The fact she solicited the "donations" even gives it the appearance of bribery. The additional fact that she used State Department staff to help solicit the donations further gives it the appearance of state-sanctioned bribery. Is this what America is about?

CNN:

Clinton's health is fine, but what about Trump?

I cannot believe CNN actually used that headline. It reads like a child's response to an insult: "I know you are, but what am I?"

Even worse, the article is nothing more than speculation. Here is the most interesting, albeit inconclusive, thing from the story:

Like Clinton, Trump has released minimal information, most notably in the form of a December 2015 letter of a few paragraphs from his personal physician, a gastroenterologist, that described his blood pressure and lab results as "astonishingly excellent" while suggesting a President Trump would be the "healthiest individual ever elected."

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, found much of that language surprising and, in some cases, almost comically lacking in objective data.

"I don't even know what to make of this letter," he told CNN's Ashleigh Banfield on Tuesday. "Whether you are a doctor or not, that degree of hyperbole and these words being used is very unusual. People don't write like that. ... 'Strength and stamina are extraordinary' -- what does that mean, exactly?"

If you read the linked letter, it does actually include some facts to back up the doctor's hyperbole:

• Trump has had no significant health problems over the past 39 years. (His last surgery was an appendectomy at the age of 10.)
• Trump's blood pressure was 110/65.
• As of December 2015, Trump had lost 15 pounds over the previous 12 months. 
• "...Trump takes 81 mg of aspirin daily and a low dose of a statin."
• Trump has never used alcohol or tobacco.

Aside from the extremely childish-sounding headline, the article reads like a hit job, with CNN pulling out their resident progressive-minded doctor to give his Leftist opinion on what Trump's doctor wrote.

CNN needs to grow up. They are making Trump look like the adult in the room with their pointless attacks.