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NOVEMBER 3,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

NICE TO KNOW - FROM THE HILL:    Newly discovered emails that the FBI initially said may be "pertinent" to its investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server do relate to her tenure as secretary of State, a source told CBS News Thursday.  A U.S. official told CBS News that the emails are not duplicates of documents previously reviewed during the investigation into Clinton's private email server. They were reportedly found on the computer of Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Clinton's top aide Huma Abedin.  It is unclear how many new relevant documents were retrieved from the computer and how significant they are to the investigation.  Other news outlets have reported that the new review of discovered emails will likely not be completed before Nov. 8.  And if Hillary is elected Tuesday. the investigations are expected to continue indefinitely.  Not a good way to become president.

A SIGNIFICANT DROP – FROM THE HILL:   The University of Virginia's Larry Sabato is now predicting Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will win the White House with 293 electoral votes.  That number includes 272 " 'hard' Safe or Likely" electoral votes and 21 additional electoral votes that are leaning toward the Democratic nominee in Nevada and North Carolina, according to Sabato's Crystal Ball.  Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is predicted to now have 214 electoral voters and is not seen as having a "clear path" to getting the remaining 56 electoral votes that would be necessary to clinch the presidency.  In an analysis, Sabato's team wrote that Clinton picked an "awful time to hit one of the rough patches that has plagued her throughout the campaign."  "Now with just days to go until Election Day, there’s added uncertainty about the outcome," the analysis said.  If Trump can get three more points by Tuesday, he might pull it out.  That's not a fantasy.

DISGRACEFUL – FROM BREITBART:   President Barack Obama wants people in North Carolina to vote for Hillary Clinton, so he’s warning them that Donald Trump would tolerate the support of the Klu Klux Klan if he’s elected president.  “If you accept the support of Klan sympathizers — the Klan — and hesitate when asked about that support, then you’ll tolerate that support when you’re in office,” he said.  Obama added that Trump would “disrespect” the Constitution as president, citing the Republican nominee’s vow to put Hillary Clinton in jail.  This is disgraceful campaigning.  It;s designed to appeal to the worst fears of blacks.  Obama probably knows better, but he won't do better.  At heart he's a local Chicago politician.

November 3, 2016       Permalink

WHERE IT STANDS – AT 9:08 A.M. ET:   Not much change from yesterday.  Indeed, there are some small – repeat small – hints that Trump's surge is slowing down.

The RealClearPolitics average of polls is unchanged, with Clinton up 1.7 points.

Rasmussen has Trump up three, 45-42, breaking a tie that had held for two days.

L.A. Times has Trump up five, a tiny drop from yesterday, statistically insignificant.

However, IBD/TIFF has it tied 44-44.

Washington Post/ABC now shows Clinton ahead, 47-45, after a multi-day dip for Clinton.  The pollster claims the enthusiasm of Clinton voters has now returned.

New York Times/CBS has Clinton up three, 45-42.

CRITICAL:  In the vote that counts, the race for electoral votes, RealClearPolitics estimates Clinton with 273, three more than needed to win, and Trump with 265.  This assumes no toss-ups, with toss-ups assigned according to the best judgment of the pollster. With toss-ups included, it's Clinton 226, Trump 180.

Including today, there are five more days of campaigning.  We don't know what surprises may be in store.  We also don't know the extent of voter fraud.

A week from today we'll be speculating on the new president's Cabinet choices.

November 3, 2016       Permalink

ANOTHER CLINTON IMPLOSION? – AT 8:24 A.M. ET:  We've wondered for months whether there really is an FBI investigation of the Clinton Foundation.   According to a new report by Fox, there is, and it's deadly serious.  From Fox: 

The FBI's investigation into the Clinton Foundation that has been going on for more than a year has now taken a "very high priority," separate sources with intimate knowledge of the probe tell Fox News.

FBI agents have interviewed and re-interviewed multiple people on the foundation case, which is looking into possible pay for play interaction between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. The FBI's White Collar Crime Division is handling the investigation.

Even before the WikiLeaks dumps of alleged emails linked to the Clinton campaign, FBI agents had collected a great deal of evidence, law enforcement sources tell Fox News.

"There is an avalanche of new information coming in every day," one source told Fox News, who added some of the new information is coming from the WikiLeaks documents and new emails.

FBI agents are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case," and will be going back and interviewing the same people again, some for the third time, sources said.

COMMENT:  And if the agents hit the jackpot?  What then?  Will the case go forward, or will it be stopped by Loretta Lynch's Justice Department?  And if Hillary Clinton is elected?  Will the FBI dare to confront a president-elect?

You know, this could easily lead to a Constitutional crisis.  It could also raise the most profound questions about whether we have two systems of justice in this country – one for the Clintons and another for everyone else. 

The story is far from over. 

November 3, 2016       Permalink

REMARKABLE – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:10 A.M. ET:   There are some news organizations that remain a credit to journalism.  They are dwindling, but they're there.  The Daily Commercial, a Florida paper, has apologized for the bias it has shown during this campaign.  Here is part of the paper's apology, our quote of the day:

Has the media been biased against Trump? Yes, we believe so, especially lately. Trump's every utterance, no matter how innocuous, is now parsed, analyzed and criticized by a litany of political pundits. The wire services that the Daily Commercial subscribes to churn out stories almost daily that fact check Trump, which is warranted given his penchant for exaggeration and duplicity. Yet those same services turn out so few stories that fact check Clinton, who also has a strained relationship with the truth.

And while hundreds of stories have attempted to shed light on Trump's feelings about women, minorities, his business dealings, his taxes and more, so little has been written about some of Clinton's questionable decisions as secretary of state, her emails and the fact that she and Bill have somehow amassed incredible wealth during their political careers. That certainly deserves scrutiny.

Here's the mea culpa: The Daily Commercial hasn't done enough to mitigate the anti-Trump wave in the pages of this paper. We've tried to be circumspect about the stories we run, the headlines we put on them, the political cartoons we publish (we recently abandoned our usual cartoonists in favor of a service that is not so unrelentingly anti-Trump). Our editors have even re-edited some wire stories that we thought used loaded language to describe Trump. But in retrospect, we haven't gone far enough.

To be clear, this is not an endorsement of Trump, a candidate whose brutish, sometimes childish antics are responsible for his sizable deficit in the polls. Rather, it is a recognition that you, the voter, deserve better than we in the media have given you.

You deserve a more balanced approach to the coverage of elections and other weighty issues.

COMMENT:  Very well said, and deserving of applause.  We dare some of the bigger guys, including The New York Times, to do the same.  Don't hold your breath.

November 3,  2016     Permalink

NOVEMBER 2,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:21 P.M. ET: 

VIRGINIA – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:  A Hampton University poll released Wednesday shows Donald Trump up three-points over Hillary Clinton among Virginia voters, 44 percent to 41 percent — a dramatic shift for a poll that just weeks ago had the Democratic presidential nominee holding a double-digit lead over the Republican.  The Virginia university’s survey results come after the FBI announced Friday the reopening of a probe into Mrs. Clinton’s emails.  It’s the first time Mrs. Clinton has trailed in the Hampton University Center for Public Policy poll this year, and the latest results show Mr. Trump has erased a 12-point deficit since early October and shows a five point swing between the candidates since Thursday, the day before the FBI’s announcement.   We're careful about polls, but this one is a stunner.  We'll look for verification by other Virginia polls in the next three days.  If Virginia falls to Trump, I can't imagine Hillary winning the election because a loss in Virginia would mean there's big trouble for her nationwide.

COLORADO – FROM THE DENVER POST:   Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are tied in Colorado, a new poll shows, entering the final days of the 2016 presidential race.  The University of Denver poll released Wednesday found Clinton and Trump deadlocked at 39 percent in a four-way race, in a survey of registered likely voters conducted Saturday through Monday.  The third-party candidates combined for 15 percent with another 8 percent undecided. The poll’s margin of error is plus-or-minus 4.2 percent.  A head-to-head match between the major party candidates put Clinton at 42 percent and Trump at 41 percent, a statistical tie.  One in five voters in the poll said a Clinton victory is “not legitimate,” meaning they would not accept the results on Election Day.  Floyd Ciruli, a veteran Colorado pollster who conducted the survey, said the numbers are “reflective of the fact that this environment has turned negative for Clinton,” notably the FBI inquiry into additional e-mails with possible ties to her tenure as secretary of state.  Like Virginia, if Trump can turn Colorado red, it may be the ball game.  There is movement all over the country.

ANOTHER VALENTINE TO JOURNALISM – FROM CNS:   More people see the news media--as opposed to Russian hackers or political bosses--as the "primary threat that might try to change the election result," according to a recent Suffolk University/USA Today poll.  Pollsters asked 1,000 likely voters: “What do you think is the primary threat that might try to change the election results?”  45.53% said “the news media”--followed by “the national political establishment” (20.79%); “undecided” (13.42%); “foreign interests such as Russian hackers” (10%); and “local political bosses” (8.95%).  When asked whether they thought the news media was “acting completely of its own accord or coordinating stories with individual campaigns,” less than half of respondents (47.8%) said that the media was reporting on the campaigns independently, while about a third (38.8%) said they believed that the media was coordinating with the campaigns it covered.  Another 12.6% of survey respondents were “undecided” whether there was coordination between the news media and individual campaigns.  Journalism, as I saw firsthand, is a pretty arrogant profession, and that arrogance is preventing it from realizing what a serious credibility problem it has.  Unless problems are corrected, and greater respect shown for readers and viewers, some news organizations may simply disappear.

November 2, 2016        Permalink

WHERE IT STANDS – AT 10:35 A.M. ET:  BOTTOM LINE – TRUMP IS GAINING.  In the RealClearPolitics average of polls, he trails Clinton by only 1.7 points.  It was 2.2 yesterday.

Rasmussen and IBD/TIPP both have the race tied, both at 44-44.  Washington Post/ABC has it tied at 46-46.  But the L.A. Times poll has Trump up six points.  It is the only poll, however, that shows Trump leading.  Most of the other polls show a diminishing lead for Clinton.

Oddsmakers still heavily favor Clinton to win, although the odds for Trump have risen somewhat.  Remember, we vote by state, and state polling is generally not as intense as national polling.  Virtually all pollsters give Clinton a large lead in the Electoral College, with 270 votes needed to win.  But again, Trump appears to be gaining in key battleground states. 

If the election were held today, Clinton would probably squeeze it out by a couple of points, but with a solid electoral-vote victory.  However, the election isn't being held today, and, if Trump continues to gain we could see an upset. 

The key will be turnout.  Who will vote?  In the "enthusiasm" category, Trump is clearly ahead, and has been gaining. 

November 2, 2016       Permalink

MINORITY VOTING – DANGER FOR HILLARY – AT 10:18 A.M. ET:   A drop in the black vote, detected in early-voting patterns, is a danger sign for Hillary in what looks like a very close election.  From CNN:

Washington (CNN) A dip in African-American turnout has knocked Democratic early voting numbers off their 2012 pace in key battleground states like North Carolina.

The trend is also evident in early vote data from other swing states that could play key roles in deciding the election, including Florida and Georgia.

More Latino voters, however, are among the more than 24.4 million American voters who have already cast their ballots -- including 12.4 million in battleground states -- according to a CNN analysis of the latest early voting numbers.

Republicans appear to be in better position than they were in previous presidential elections in Florida, Iowa, North Carolina and Ohio, while Democrats have improved their standing in Colorado and Arizona.

COMMENT:  It was anticipated that the African-American vote would decline because Obama isn't running.  Early voting figures are not necessarily predictive of voting on election day, however, as early voters tend to be more partisan.

We should know the whole story a week from today.

November 2, 2016       Permalink

TWO IOWA COPS KILLED IN AMBUSH – AT 9:25 A.M. ET:  The story has gone national, and is reminding Americans of the war on police that has been waged by extreme elements over the last two years.  From Fox: 

Authorities in Iowa have identified the suspected gunman in the ambush-style attacks early Wednesday morning-- occurring 20 minutes apart-- that claimed the lives of two police officers who were sitting in their patrol cars.

Authorities said Scott Michael Greene, 46, is considered armed and dangerous. He is about 5'11 and 180 pounds and is believed to be driving a blue 2011 Ford F-150 with an Iowa license plate 780 YFR.

State officials are conducting a massive manhunt.

Officers responded to a report of shots fired at 1:06 a.m. and found an Urbandale Police Department officer who had been shot. Authorities from several agencies saturated the area after that shooting, and about 20 minutes later discovered that a Des Moines officer had been shot in a patrol car at an intersection. The shootings happened less than 2 miles apart and both took place along main streets that cut through residential areas.

“There's somebody out there shooting police. There is a clear and present danger to police officers right now,” he said.

COMMENT:  The murders remind us of the executions of two New York City cops last year, as they sat in their patrol cars. 

The war on cops has been assisted, sadly, by a certain hostility toward police by the Obama administration.  Let's see if the Clinton campaign acknowledges today's tragedy.  It was recently reported that the Clinton operation made it clear to a police organization that it wasn't interested in their endorsement, such is the power of the left in the Democratic Party.

November 2,  2016     Permalink