Monday, October 31, 2016

Comey Unleashes the FBI to Fully Investigate Hillary Clinton's Email Scandal -- with the Blessing of President Obama

ELECTION DAY MINUS 7. What you need to know now about the Hillary & Hacks and mainstream media smears and lies campaign following the Comey letter to Congress about Hillary emails on the disgraced Weiner's laptop. • • • FIRST, A BIG MEDIA LIE AND THE FACTS. On all the Sunday morning news shows, Democrats and the mainstream media (MSM), as well as a lot of online sites, kept repeating that Comey's action was unprecedented. The fact is that several days before the 1992 election that catapulted Bill Clinton into the presidency -- on October 30, 1992 to be exact -- Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh indicted Caspar Weinberger, President GHW Bush's Attorney General and mentioned Bush, who was running against Bill Clinton to be re-elected, in the indictment. Walsh had been investigating Iran Contra for 6 years, but he chose to announce the indictment a few days before the election. AND, after Clinton won the election, the charges were dropped. So much for "Unprecedented." • • • THE FBI WAS NOT ALLOWEDTO INVESTIGATE THE CLINTON FOUNDATION. The Washington Post reported Sunday that career prosecutors at the Justice Department refused a request from the FBI’s New York field office to pursue an investigation of the Clinton family’s charity. The Justice Department’s public integrity unit said they did not have enough evidence to move forward. The Clinton Foundation says it was never contacted by the FBI, suggesting the bureau’s efforts were in a preliminary stage when prosecutors asked for DOJ permission to continue. But FBI agents in New York have tried to keep their inquiries alive, feuding with the Justice Department about the lengths to which they can go, according to people familiar with the matter. The infighting became public Sunday, when the Wall Street Journal published a detailed account of interactions between prosecutors and FBI officials over the politically sensitive subject. • The FBI already is under fire for taking actions that could influence the presidential election just a week away, after FBI Director James B. Comey revealed to Congress that agents wanted to look at a newly discovered batch of emails that were possibly relevant to the probe of Clinton’s private email server. The FBI New York field office was one of a few that -- in at least a small way -- were looking into topics that touched on the Clinton Foundation’s work, according to unnamed sources. Agents in New York wanted to examine allegations of corruption and conflicts of interest in the Clinton Foundation. It is not clear what evidence they had to substantiate those allegations, particularly through the use of subpoenas or search warrants. At a congressional hearing in July over the email investigation, Comey declined to say whether agents had looked at the Clinton Foundation : “I’m not going to comment on the existence or nonexistence of any other investigations." When Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) asked if the Clinton Foundation was “tied into” the email probe, Comey responded : “I’m not going to answer that.” BUT -- with or without Comey's help -- once more the inference of corruption raises its head in these newly revealed efforts of the Obama DOJ to protect Hillary and Bill Clinton's Foundation from FBI criminal investigation. • What actually happened in the case of the Weiner laptop seems clearcut. The FBI New York office stumbled on the Abedin emails while they were reviewing emails and other communications on the laptop considered to belong to Weiner, the officials told CNN. They immediately stopped their work and called in the team of investigators from FBI headquarters who had conducted the probe of Clinton's private email server. The investigators saw enough of the emails to determine that they appeared pertinent to the previously completed investigation and that they may be emails not previously reviewed. That is when they briefed Director Comey, who immediately wrote his letter to Congress. So, Tim Kaine is wrong when he says : "As far as we know now, Director Comey knows nothing about the content of these emails. We don't know whether they're to or from Hillary at all...Comey "hasn't seen the emails, I mean they need to make that completely plain. Then they should work to see the emails and release the circumstances of those once they have done that analysis." Wrong, Senator Kaine, wrong. • • • WILL THE COMEY ANNOUNCEMENT INFLUENCE THE ELECTION? The impact of the announcement on public opinion can't be evaluated until major opinion polls are released that were conducted wholly in its aftermath. But a Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll released on Sunday, which included data from both before and after the revelation, was bad news for Clinton. The poll found that 34% of likely voters said they were “less likely” to vote for Hillary as a result of Comey’s announcement. A clear majority of those people were Republican or Republican leaning, the Post reported, and may never have intended to vote for Clinton. But 17% of those who said they were deterred from backing Clinton leaned Democratic, and a further 9% were self-described independents. Any shift in their ranks could be pivotal in an election that was tightening even before the Comey bombshell. Also unknown is whether the FBI will make further comment on the matter before Election Day. Many experts believe such comment is unlikely given that agents only obtained a search warrant to look through the relevant emails -- some 650,000 -- on Sunday. The emails could be duplicates of messages already examined by the FBI. Yet, at the other end of the range of possibilities, the emails could lead to the criminal indictment of a president-elect, a scenario that would envelop an already nervous America in chaos. But, if Clinton loses the election on November 8, it would be all but certain that her supporters would blame the FBI. And, Trump has stated often that he believes the process is “rigged” against him, raising questions about whether his most fervent backers will accept the legitimacy of the outcome if he loses. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said on ABC's Sunday program that Clinton has “a very casual relationship with the truth.” Trump reacted to the Comey announcement by arguing that “Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we have never seen before.” In a statement, he warned voters not to let the former Secretary of State “take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office.” • • • WHEN THE FACTS ARE AGAINST YOU, ATTACK THE MESSENGER. Team Clinton, at first shocked into silence and spluttering by the news, has now found its 'strategy' -- aggressively attack FBI Director Comey. Campaign chairman John Podesta called Comey’s conduct “inappropriate” on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, while Clinton’s running mate, Senator (Tiny) Tim Kaine (D-Va.), asserted on ABC’s “This Week” that it was “completely unprecedented.” [not true -- see above.] Those comments were part of a broader effort by the Clinton campaign to undercut Comey. In talking points sent to surrogates on Saturday afternoon and obtained by TheHill, the campaign suggested emphasizing that the Director’s actions were “extraordinary” and accusing him of having created a “misleading impression.” The talking points also noted that both the Clinton and Trump campaigns were calling upon the FBI director to make more information available -- which Team Clinton believes could show that the emails are not related to her, and the Trump camp believes they could be damning to her. • But, in what seems like an effort to be fully in contact with Congress, Comey spoke Saturday with the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Judiciary Committee, said Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va). Goodlatte said he and Representative John Conyers (D-Mich.) encouraged Comey to make as much information as possible public before the election. He said the FBI chief "did not give us any response in terms of what more he could say." Goodlatte said he also asked Comey about the status of the request from the House Republicans on the referral "of potential impeachment -- I'm sorry - potential perjury charges to be brought with regard to Ms. Clinton and he deferred to the Justice Department itself." The slip about impeachment reflected the GOP promise, if Clinton is elected, to fully investigate her. • AND, on Sunday evening, WikiLeaks tweeted that it would “commence Phase 3 of our US election coverage” this week. What next??? • • • HILLARYGATE AND WATERGATE. K.T. McFarland -- Fox News National Security Analyst, who served in national security posts in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations -- wrote on Monday that "this Halloween is the haunting of Hillary, where her final political act could well be a ghostly spectre of her first political act, which happened some 40 years ago. She was just a year out of Yale Law School, when she went to work for House Judiciary Committee. Her job? Investigating President Nixon’s involvement in the break-in of Democratic National Committee Watergate headquarters just before his 1972 landslide re-election, and the cover-up that followed." McFarland was a young West Wing research assistant working on Henry Kissinger’s National Security Council Staff. The Watergate Scandal and Nixon’s resignation was a political earthquake that had a formative influence on many of "our generation," McFarland writes : "The comparisons of Secretary Clinton’s email scandal are eerily similar to Nixon’s Watergate scandal. The evidence against Hillary is contained in her emails with aides. The evidence against Nixon was contained in tapes of his Oval Office meetings with aides. The very fact that Hillary had a private email server was discovered almost by accident, in an unrelated investigation into the Benghazi scandal. Similarly, Nixon’s private taping system in the Oval Office was discovered almost by accident, in unrelated investigation into the Watergate break-in. The FBI has reopened its case against Hillary because they found new evidence while pursuing a separate investigation into the creepy sexual exploits of Anthony Weiner, husband of Hillary’s closest aide. The evidence of Nixon’s relationship to Watergate came from investigations into his staff’s involvement in the cover up. It was nearly two years between the Watergate break in, and Nixon’s forced resignation. Hillary’s private server was discovered over a year ago, and it will take months before the FBI can conclude its investigation. The relentless pursuit and final humiliation of Nixon were the result of years of investigations by Congress and the leaks of Deep Throat, an anonymous source within the FBI, who provided a steady drip of information about Nixon administration wrongdoings." • McFarland has a good point, but we should remember that if President Nixon had only destroyed the Watergate tapes, he could have ridden out the scandal and his presidency might have survived. But Nixon didn’t destroy the tapes. McFarland's point is that Hillary learned the wrong lesson from Watergate : "Presumably Clinton thought she had learned that lesson -- always be able to destroy the evidence -- which is why she set up a private email server before joining the Obama administration. She wouldn’t have known in advance what she would need to keep out of prying eyes -- perhaps it would be the pay-to-play scheme that linked foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation to her decisions as Secretary of State. Perhaps it was the 'off the books' policy initiatives like her role in the Iran nuclear deal, or supplying arms to 'friendly' Libyan or Syrian rebel groups that turned those weapons on our own people. As long as she had a private server, she could decide later what history would know -- and if she ever got into trouble she could always delete the emails. She could do what Nixon had failed to do -- destroy the evidence. But it now seems unlikely that the evidence was ever really destroyed. WikiLeaks has some of the emails. Some may have been on the computers of her aides – or their spouses." • • • Dear readers, the Washington rumor mill is freneticaly spinning with 'the word' that some in the FBI are in near-open revolt over Director Comey's July refusal to recommend that the Department of Justice proceed with the Clinton investigation. Former assistant FBI director James Kallstrom said on Sunday that FBI Director James Comey and the rest of the FBI leadership were responsible for holding back the investigation, not the rest of the FBI : “The agents are furious with what’s going on, I know that for a fact.” Was a new Deep Throat about to emerge, as in Watergate? We have no idea where this new FBI investigation will lead. Maybe, McFarland suggests : "as with Nixon and Watergate, Secretary Clinton’s most trusted aides will be forced to testify against her to protect themselves. Maybe the Justice Department will charge Secretary Clinton with a crime. Maybe the political fallout will be so significant that she will lose the election. Maybe she will be elected but unable to govern effectively because her presidency will be dogged for months, and even years, by investigations and scandals." No one can know that now. • BUT, we do know that this scandal is not going away. The FBI now has its warrant to plow through the Weiner laptop's emails for Hillary-related information. Investigators will now look at whether the newly uncovered emails contain classified information or other evidence that could help advance the Clinton email probe. Law enforcement officials who are technical experts say it is generally not difficult to create software to analyze such emails, searching for terms like “secret” or “top-secret” or any mention of places with classified operations, such as Pakistan or Iraq. Agents should also be able to figure out quickly how many of the emails duplicate those that have already turned up. What will take more time, they say, is making conclusions about whether any of the emails include classified information. That process, former FBI officials have said, could be cumbersome and drag on after the election. Investigators would have to read those for potentially relevant information, and, if there are questions about their classification, send them to other agencies for review. • Team Clinton and its Hillary & Hacks operatives can attack FBI Director Comey with everything they have -- it will no longer matter -- Director Comey has unleashed his agents and they will not retreat. Vitally important, Comey and the FBI have received the full support of President Obama. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday that Obama "believes FBI Director James Comey is a man of integrity and is not trying to influence the US presidential election" by announcing scrutiny of additional emails linked to Democrat Hillary Clinton's private server. Earnest also said he has no "independent knowledge" of how Comey had arrived at his decision to make public the FBI email investigation or "what factors were considered" in his decision to discuss the issue publicly. Earnest said he would neither "defend nor criticize" Comey's decision to disclose the FBI's renewed probe.He also said there are significant institutional responsibilities that the Department of Justice must fulfill. He said Comey is in a tough spot, but the FBI director is in the best position to defend his actions in the face of significant criticism. • The Hillarygate email scandal is now inevitably set on a course for full investigation and decision by the DOJ. If Trump is elected President, the investigation will proceed without interference. If Hillary is elected, the Republican House and senior Senate GOP leaders will have to fight every inch of the way to break through what will be stonewalling and corrupt attacks on the 'messengers' on a scale that America has never before witnessed. • The Clinton campaign has called for "full transparency" from the FBI regarding the emails described in the Comey letter. There is at least one piece of advice Hillary should heed : Be careful what you wish for.

Sunday, October 30, 2016

How Did Huma Abedin or Hillary Clinton Get a "Top Secret" Security Rating from the US Government??

ELECTION DAY MINUS 8. What you need to know now about the new 'Hillary' emails. • • • The world was shocked on Friday when it learned that FBI Director James Comey wrote to Congress that the Hillary Clinton email server investigation is still open. One person was not surprised -- Donald Trump. In August 2015, Trump warned of Clinton-Abedin-Weiner security risks. Then earlier this year, in a tweet, Trump said : "Huma Abedin was wise to separate from her husband and her marriage to Weiner posed a national security risk." In a later statement, Trump warned : "Huma is making a very wise decision. I know Anthony Weiner well, and she will be far better off without him. I only worry for the country in that Hillary Clinton was careless and negligent in allowing Weiner to have such close proximity to highly classified information. Who knows what he learned and who he told? It's just another example of Hillary Clinton's bad judgment. It is possible that our country and its security have been greatly compromised by this." • • • COMEY'S NEWS WAS STARK. Fox News gave a brief breaking News alert on Friday : “The FBI has reopened its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while Secretary of State, in a stunning turn of events just days before the presidential election. FBI Director James Comey wrote in a letter to top members of Congress Friday that the bureau has ‘learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.’ Comey did not detail those emails, saying only that they surfaced ‘in connection with an unrelated case’…He said the FBI could not yet assess whether the new material is significant and he could not predict how long it will take to complete ‘this additional work.’ Fox News reported that, according to a source connected to the Clinton campaign who spoke to law enforcement, the FBI has four devices -- one belongs to Abedin, and at least one belongs to Weiner. So far, no classified information has been found on the devices. The move comes after Comey and the Justice Department decided in July not to pursue charges over Clinton's email practices.” • • • COMEY REJECTED DOJ ADVICE. TheHill's Harper Neidig reported Saturday that FBI Director James Comey "went against the wishes of Attorney General Loretta Lynch" when he sent a letter to lawmakers Friday notifying them that the agency was reviewing new emails “pertinent” to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. An unnamed government official told TheHill that the Justice Department’s position was to abstain from taking any actions that could impact the presidential race : “The AG’s position is consistent with the department’s position not to take investigative steps that would influence an election so close to an election and to not comment on ongoing investigations. Director Comey decided to operate independently of that guidance by sending that letter to the Hill.” The unnamed official said that while Lynch and Comey did not discuss the matter directly, “the position of the department was made clear to the FBI.” It is DOJ policy to avoid interferring in presidential elections. A 2012 memo from former Attorney General Eric Holder stated : “Law enforcement officers and prosecutors may never select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party. Such a purpose is inconsistent with the Department's mission and with the Principles of Federal Prosecution.” Comey wrote an internal note to FBI staffers before sending his letter to Congress : “Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record." • • • WAS THERE A PALACE COUP AT THE FBI. • • • Washington DC super-lawyer attorney, and former US Attorney, Joe DiGenova said on The David Webb Show on SiriusXM Friday night that despite the FBI agreeing to destroy the laptops of Clinton aide Cheryl Mills and ex-campaign staffer Heather Samuelson as part of immunity deals made during the initial investigation of Clinton’s email server, agents involved in the case refused to destroy the laptops : “According to the agreement reached with the attorneys who handed over their laptops, the laptops were to be destroyed per the agreement after the testimony was given -- the interviews were given -- by the attorneys. The bureau and the department agreed to that,” DiGenova said. “However the laptops contrary to published reports were not destroyed and the reason is the agents who are tasked with destroying them refused to do so. And by the way the laptops are at the FBI for inspection by Congress or federal courts.” DiGenova said the laptops have already been subpoenaed and the FBI is waiting for Congress to ask for them. • • • HILLARY CRIES "BE FAIR." Hillary & Hacks are 'outraged' that the FBI sent the letter to Congress and are demanding that the FBI "show the cards it is holding to be fair to the American electorate." Fair??? To the American electorate??? It was Hillary Clinton herself who refused to release her emails, deleted 33,000 emails in a one-person decision about whether they were "work-related" or not -- thousands of the deleted emails have since been proven to be "work-related," that is, shown to be property of the US government and not of Hillary Clinton, despite her hiding them on an unsecured secret server and then deleting heaven only knows how many that would have personally incriminated her. It is the finding of more such emails that undoubtedly caused the FBI to renew its investigation. Hillary, who used sophisticated technology to delete the emails and then BleachBit them into destruction, who lied about sending and receiving classified material, and lied about turning all her material over, who conspired to delete and hide material from the American electorate, who displayed, as Comey so delicately put it, "extreme carelessness" with American national secrets and security. It is that Hillary Clinton who now cries "BE FAIR." • • • PRESIDENTIAL? -- NOT HILLARY. Her only accomplishment as Senator, Secretary of State, and Bill Clinton's wife has been to escape prosecution multiple times. We do not know what the FBI has found, but it must be more damning than just recovering some missing emails to warrant reopening her investigation. Director Comey risked condemnation for playing politics before the election, but he chose to risk that rather than be damned forever for participating in a cover-up, so we may assume that he has something that could lead to a criminal indictment -- either of Hillary the Candidate (not likely given the short time left in the campaign period) or of Hillary the President (a national disaster). That several unnamed sources say the emails came from devices used by Hillary's top aide and confidante Huma Abedin and her estranged husband, disgraced former Democrat House member Anthony Weiner (of the sexting scandal) indicates how extreme Hillary's carelessness was if she transmitted to, or received classified material from, Huma and Weiner. Exposing national secrets in this way should disqualify her from the presidency and even from being a candidate. In this sense, Trump is right when he claims that the system is rigged. It is rigged by a media obsessed with his locker-room tape and alleged groping rather than with Hillary's career of lies and deception being once again shown to have endangered American security in the past and to expose her, if elected, to blackmail as President. • • • HUMA ABEDIN AND THE MOSLEM BROTHERHOOD. Huma Abedin's association with Hillary Clinton has been profitable, even as it endangered America's national security interests. Investor's Business daily found : "Abedin made $135,000 a year as Clinton's deputy, a period in which she is reported to have raked in as much as $355,000 from consulting contracts. Having a pipeline into the Clinton inner circle is invaluable to some. This reminds us of Johnny Chung's famous comparison of the Clinton White House to a subway turn style -- you had to put money in to gain entry..." • Abedin's family connections are truly troubling. Her father is said to be close with the Saudi government's Moslem World League, and her mother is said to be a member of the Moslem Sisterhood. World Trade Center bombing prosecutor Andrew McCarthy wrote in National Review : "The ties of Ms. Abedin's father, mother and brother to the Moslem Brotherhood are both specific and substantiated." The Moslem Brotherhood took power in Egypt with Obama administration approval after Obama abandoned the government of Hosni Mubarak, a long-time ally and friend. It was while Abedin was advising Hillary that State dropped its long-standing policy of having no dealings with the Moslem Brotherhood. As Andrew McCarthy wrote in National Review, Huma Abedin's family and work history "suggest a devotion to islamic supremacist ideology" that may contribute much to explaining the imploding US Middle East policy from Baghdad to Egypt : "Ms. Abedin worked for many years at a journal that promotes Islamic-supremacist ideology and that was founded by a top al-Qaeda financier, Abdullah Omar Naseef. Naseef ran the Rabita Trust, a formally designated foreign terrorist organization under American law. Ms. Abedin and Naseef overlapped at the Journal of Moslem Minority Affairs for at least seven years. Throughout that time (1996–2003), Ms. Abdein worked for Hillary Clinton in various capacities." The consulting firm Abedin worked for simultaneously was Tenco Strategies, founded by longtime Bill Clinton aide Douglas Band. Bill Clinton initially serving on its board. Abedin allegedly sent some 7,000 emails on her government account that involved Band, now famous for his recently unearthed memo about "Bill Clinton, Inc." That memo (reviewed last week in our blog) showed how Bill Clinton enriched himself as part of the Clinton Foundation's pay-to-play schemes. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) questioned Abedin's 2013 designation as an SGE -- "special government employee" -- which is a government designation for those who fill "an unmet government need for rare or unique expertise, while allowing individuals to retain their private-sector positions." Grassley was right to worry. Abedin's "expertise" and her simultaneous employment by three employers put her in a unique position to influence and to peddle influence. The Washington Examiner reported the content of a letter Grassley wrote to Abedin during his inquiry : "The Committee has learned of allegations that, during your simultaneous employment by the Department of State, Teneo, and the Clinton Foundation, you were solicited for and delivered favors for preferred individuals." Abedin was one of several key aides to Hillary Clinton who had email accounts on Hillary's private server in the Clinton New York home in violation of federal records laws. • • • POLITICAL REACTION TO THE EMAILS. • REPUBLICANS. Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement that Clinton had “nobody but herself to blame” and called for her classified briefings as a presidential candidate to be suspended. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said the “stunning development raises serious questions about what records may not have been turned over and why.” Representative Pete King (R-N.Y.) told MSNBC that the situation was “totally unprecedented.” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said in a statement : “The FBI’s decision to reopen its investigation into Secretary Clinton reinforces what the House Judiciary Committee has been saying for months : the more we learn about Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server, the clearer it becomes that she and her associates committed wrongdoing and jeopardized national security." Donald Trump used the news to reinforce his case that Clinton is culpable of “corruption...on a scale we have never seen before.” When the GOP nominee told a crowd at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, about the breaking news, he was almost drowned out by cheers. Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, tweeted that “a great day for our campaign just got better.” • DEMOCRATS. By contrast, Democrats sought to stave off questions on the issue. Hillary's campaign chairman, John Podesta, issued a statement that took aim at Trump and the GOP for “baselessly second-guessing the FBI.” Podesta also asserted that it was “extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election.” Clinton’s running mate, Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.), told a reporter who asked about the new probe that he would have to “read a little more” before he could offer a comment. Donna Brazile, the interim chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, tweeted “Good grief.” Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, called Comey’s move “appalling” : “Without knowing how many emails are involved, who wrote them, when they were written or their subject matter, it’s impossible to make any informed judgment on this development,” Feinstein said in a statement Friday. “However, one thing is clear : Director Comey’s announcement played right into the political campaign of Donald Trump, who is already using the letter for political purposes. And all of this just 11 days before the election.” Supporters have been buoyed by Hillary's lead in the polls and the fact that there were no big events expected before November 8 that could knock her off course. “I'm livid, actually,” one Clinton surrogate told TheHill. “This has turned into malpractice. It's an unforced error at this point. I have no idea what Comey is up to but the idea this email issue is popping back up again is outrageous. It never should have occurred in the first place. Someone somewhere should have told her "no." And they didn't and now we're all paying the price.” Another ally called the campaign’s mood something akin to “paralysis,” and blamed Weiner’s behavior for railroading the campaign. One strategist said the developments would further cement the notion that Clinton has something to hide : “It’s made people think there’s always going to be something around the Clintons, some investigation, some inquiry. It never goes away.” One longtime Clinton adviser said : “In the short term at least, this does provide Republicans with something they can all hang their hat on, at a time when they've been fighting with each other so much -- so that can have a salutary effect by shoring up the GOP base and distract from the daily drama around Trump himself.” Democratic strategist Steve McMahon : “It is extraordinary for the FBI director to do this 11 days before the election.” It violates the Justice Department’s rules about engaging in investigations in a way that might impact our democracy. It is extraordinary and very, very surprising.” • • • Dear readers, what the Democrat leadership refuses to say is that Hillary Clinton made a career-ending error when she started down the road of using a secret unsecured email server in order to hide her actions from the State Department and the American public. She compounded that career-ending error by destroying emails that were very likely evidence of criminal activities. Then she lied to Congress, the FBI and the American people about her illegal acts. These new emails simply reinforce the opinion most Americans have of Hillary Clinton -- that she is an untrustworthy liar who should be in prison, not the White House. But these new emails raise two more critically important questions. First, why did Huma Abedin not turn over to the FBI this laptop when she turned over other electronic devices. And if some (most likely all) of these emails were sent through Hillary's secret server, why did Hillary and her lawyers delete them or hide them from the State Department and the FBI? Could it be that this latest trove of emails is the 'lost' 33,000 emails that Hillary said she 'erased'??? Second -- HOW IN THE WORLD DID HUMA ABEDIN, a person with personal and family connections to the Moslem Brotherhood and to a US-designated terrorist entity, get a TOP SECRET or any other security clearance from the US government. For that matter, how did Hillary Clinton, Abedin's employer, get any security clearance??? There is Obama-related malfeasance in office here. Will anyone ferret it out???

Friday, October 28, 2016

Saturday Politics : "Freedom is a fragile thing...Government is the people's business." (Ronald Reagan)

Saturday Politics is all about ELECTION DAY MINUS 10. What you need to know now about the Real America vs Hillary's Fake America Progressives. • • • BREAKING NEWS. The FBI has reopened its investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server because of new emails found that seem to be related it. More when sufficient details are available. • • • THE GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY. The leaders of an armed group who seized a national wildlife refuge in rural Oregon were acquitted Thursday in the 41-day standoff that brought new attention to a long-running constitutional dispute over control of federal lands in the US West. A jury found brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy not guilty of possessing a firearm in a federal facility and conspiring to impede federal workers from their jobs at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, 300 miles southeast of Portland where the trial took place. Five co-defendants also were tried one or both of the charges. At trial, the case was seemingly open-and-shut. There was no dispute about the facts : the group seized the refuge, established armed patrols and vetted those who visited. Assistant US Attorney Ethan Knight said in his closing argument : "Ladies and gentlemen, this case is not a whodunit," arguing that the group decided to take over a federal workplace that didn't belong to them. On technical grounds, the defendants said they never discussed stopping individual workers from accessing their offices but merely wanted the land and the buildings. On emotional grounds, Ammon Bundy and other defendants argued that the takeover was an act of civil disobedience against unconstitutional out-of-control federal government land grabs that have crippled the rural West. Federal prosecutors took two weeks to present their case, finishing with a display of more than 30 guns seized after the standoff. An FBI agent testified that 16,636 live rounds and nearly 1,700 spent casings were found. Bundy testified in his defense, spending three days amplifying his belief that government overreach is destroying Western communities that rely on the land. He said the plan was to take ownership of the refuge by occupying it for a period of time and then turn it over to local officials to use as they saw fit. Bundy also testified that the occupiers carried guns because they would have been arrested immediately otherwise and to protect themselves against possible government attack. Ryan Bundy, who acted his own attorney, did not testify. Despite the acquittal, the Bundys are expected to stand trial in Nevada early next year on charges related to another high-profile standoff with federal agents. Authorities rounding up cattle at their father Cliven Bundy's ranch in 2014 because of unpaid grazing fees released the animals as they faced armed protesters. The brothers are part of a Nevada ranching family embroiled in a lengthy fight over the use of public range, and their occupation drew an international spotlight to a uniquely American West dispute : federal restrictions on ranching, mining and logging to protect the environment. The US government, which controls much [as much as 80% in some states] of the land in the West, says it tries to balance industry, recreation and wildlife concerns to benefit all. Authorities had charged 26 occupiers with conspiracy. Eleven pleaded guilty, and another had the charge dropped. Seven defendants chose not to be tried at this time. Their trial is scheduled to begin February 14. • For the time being, an American jury of their peers has agreed with the Bundys on their position about citizen rights on 'federal' lands and their argument that the federal governmant has unconstitutionally seized far too much Western land. • • • HILLARY HAS NO ANSWER FOR THE FLOOD OF DAMAGING PODESTA EMAILS. Hillary Clinton has failed to effectively contain the damage from the release of thousands of campaign chairman John Podesta’s personal emails, giving new ammunition to Donald Trump. The fallout from the daily releases have raised concerns among Democrats that even if Clinton is elected President, the controversy will follow her into the White House. The Clinton campaign has refused to confirm the authenticity of the emails and has sought to cast doubt on them whenever they are mentioned, noting that the exchanges were stolen by Russian hackers and could have been doctored. They want to deflect attention from the contents of the emails by describing the hacks as an unprecedented interference in the US election by foreign adversaries that threatens the nation’s sovereignty. And they have lashed out at the media for covering what they describe as trivial political minutia rather than the national security implications of the hacked emails. • But, none of it has been enough to halt the daily flow of new emails published by Wikileaks, or the media interest in the contents of the emails. Instead, interest appears to be increasing over the final two weeks before election day -- infighting among Clinton’s top advisors, concerns about Hillary's health and good judgment, Donna Brazile's leak of a question to Hillary before a primary debate with Bernie Sanders, new details about the millions of dollars flowing into the Clinton Foundation and their personal bank accounts -- these are issues that need to be aired before the election. Democratic strategists say that while revelations about Donald Trump have so far distracted from the alleged revelations, Clinton will lose that cover on November 8 if she’s elected President. Democratic strategist Brad Bannon says : “They refuse to acknowledge anything and deal with it. Basically their strategy as far as I can see is whistle past the graveyard and just hope no one pays attention to it. That was easy to do because of Trump, but they won’t be able to do that after November 8. That’s a big part of the Clinton problem, they’re so stubborn dealing with this stuff.” • A newly released email from WikiLeaks shows campaign officials were blindsided by Hillary’s use of a personal server while Secretary of State. Podesta asked campaign manager Robby Mook in an email late on the evening of March 2, 2015 : “Did you have any idea of the depth of this story?” Mook responded after 1 a.m. that night : “Nope. We brought up the existence of emails in reserach [sic] this summer but were told that everything was taken care of.” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed to have more than 50,000 emails from Podesta’s account when he began releasing them earlier this month -- 35,000 have been made public as of Thursday, leaving 15,000 yet in reserve. Democratic strategist Craig Varoga warns : “Everybody just need to fasten their seatbelts and get ready for a really rocky landing. The next 11 days are going to test everyone’s mettle.” • The email showing Chelsea Clinton pushing to have the family separate itself from Foundation fundraiser Doug Band, and Band's response calling her a “spoiled brat," led to one of the most damaging revelations so far : a memo written by Band in which he defended his work for the family by detailing how his consulting firm solicited donations from corporations and foreign governments for the Clinton Foundation, while also arranging lucrative personal business deals for Bill Clinton. That memo could be a major problem for Clinton if she wins the White House. It has already reinvigorated the Trump campaign as polls show a tightening race. At a Thursday rally in Ohio, Trump said : “The more e-mails Wikileaks releases, the more the lines between the Clinton Foundation, the Secretary of State’s office, and the Clintons’ personal finances are blurred. If the Clintons were willing to play this fast and loose with their criminal enterprise when they weren’t in the White House, just imagine what they will do if they are given the chance to use the Oval Office to pad their pockets.” • One more reason to keep Hillary -- and Bill -- out of the Oval Office. • • • THE THREAT HILLARY POSES TO AMERICA. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the Progressive elite that seized control of the federal government in 2008 with the election of Barack Obama represent a visible threat not only to the Constitution's fundamental law but also to the ideal of the American Republic designed to deny legitimate office to illegitimate power, because, as the Founders warned, once illegitimate political power has seized the machine of government, it will always, by disregarding the Constitution, maintain and increase its advantage through unconstitutional rule-making authority, forcing one-party rule -- and ultimately tyranny -- as in Venezuela, and possibly the Philippines, today. Americans would be unwise to think that they are not vulnerable to this historical truth. • A Clinton presidency will expand on the Obama seizure of illegitimate Progressive power for a long enough period so that there will be little hope of recovery. The American Thinker writes : "In one sense, Hillary Clinton represents an image of the stereotypical politician: ambitious, unprincipled, and guided only by political self-interest. But in another more disturbing impression, she embodies all that is indecent and corruptible with human character in pursuit of power. Her dishonesty precedes her like an advertisement. Everyone knows she will lie, for she, like Obama, studies and calculates upon the political advantages that accrue to dishonest rhetoric....She speaks the insider's voice and she is delirious on the insider's intoxication with power. The elitist environment in which she swims is as undemocratic in its nature as despotism itself....That she feels she must lie in every speech and upon all occasions in order to gain their votes is a clear signal of her disrespect for them. It is a disease of our culture that the entire Democratic establishment finds political advantage and comfort in agreeing with her unconcealable disdain for the "stupidity" of millions who wish only to live their lives without the interference of government, and the fact that many of these same Americans, hearing and believing her lies, are willing to vote for her merely reinforces that sentiment. We have reached that point in our political affairs most feared by the Founders of our Republic : the virtual tyranny of one-party rule. Progressive interests in the Democratic Party have discovered the means by which they may perpetuate themselves in power indefinitely, and they have only to win the presidency and the Senate at this time in order to achieve that victory over the American people they have sought after for one hundred years." • • • HILLARY IS NOT FIT TO LEAD AMERICA. Hillary Clinton is guilty of perjury, destroying evidence, ignoring security laws for classified materials, obstruction of justice, and pay-to-play corruption of public service. She hasn't been charged, much less convicted of those crimes, because the Obama-controlled FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) served as accessories after the fact to cover up her crimes and enable her to avoid prosecution. The FBI simply and pubicly rewrote federal law to "save" Hillary. DOJ tried to be sneakier, but Bill Clinton's meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the airport tarmac in Phoenix was caught on video. Was the meeting meant to influence Comey? There is no record of the meeting so we cannot be sure. • But, we can be sure that Obama's corrupt administration has led America to a woman -- Hillary Clinton -- who should be in jail but is instead cruising along to the presidency. Obama's Justice Department openly assists Hillary in her cover-ups. A complicit media hides all these facts from the public. Collusion. Criminal acts. Cover-ups. It is the corrupt theft of American constitutional government by Progressive fellow travelers funded by Soros and using the violent political terrorism of Alinsky. IT IS A COUP -- one in which Hillary laughed off questions of a potential indictment and is certain that she will be elected. But, she proved in the Democrat primaries that she can't get the votes honestly -- she had to cheat to beat Bernie Sanders, a 73-year-old socialist who spent his honeymoon in the USSR. The truth is, a large chunk of the Democrat base doesn't like Hillary. So how is she winning -- because that's all we hear, isn't it? -- "Hillary's winning in a landslide, has a monumental lead that can't be overcome. Hillary's leads are insurmountable, there's not enough time for Trump to catch up. Voters abandoning Donald Trump in droves. Hillary's running away with the election." -- You have heard it all, haven't you? But, Hillary is "winning" because the media is her unregistered, unregulated campaign Super-PAC. America's once free press is joined at the hip to the Progressive coup to defeat Donald Trump and impose a sick, evil woman -- a criminal -- as America's new leader. The free press that America has depended on to expose corruption, ensure fair elections, and protect the Rupublic is now part of the corruption. • • • Dear readers, the most frightening possibility is that on election night, mainsteam media will quickly call the race for Hillary even if they know the 'win' is based on fraud. And, Paul Ryan, John McCain, President Obama, and the entire political establishment will tell us we must have a peaceful transition, that we must not question the results under any conditions. And, Hillary & Hacks have already begun paving the way -- setting up the myth of Russian tampering with the US election because Russia wants to see Trump elected. The media and the establishment will join Hillary and Obama in calling what may well be a Trump landslide a "fake election" created by Russian hackers. The Progressives and Democrats now attack Trump for wanting to see fair results before agreeing on the election outcome, but there will be no "peaceful transition of power" if the Progressives lose. There is the real chance of a COUP by the people who have infested the US government at the highest levels, co-opted the national media, and now hold the keys to the most powerful government on Earth. They won't just hand those keys over and go quietly -- they will fight every inch of the way. • How to stop it? Donald Trump. He is the sole reason the Progressive and ruling elites even need to fight, because establishment Republicans are on their side. But Donald Trump is leading a revolution, fighting daily coordinated attacks, slander, and smears. See this week's New York Times sordid 4-page smear attack on Trump if you don't believe me. But, Trump needs -- must have -- a landslide, enough votes to overwhelm the fraud and expose the media's lying. In the primaries, Trump used a boxing analogy, saying he couldn't win by decision because if it was close, they could cheat. He repeated often that he needed a knockout -- and he got it. Now, it's up to the American people to deliver another knockout on November 8. • RONALD REAGAN, when he was inaugurated as Governor of California in January 1967, said : "Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again. Knowing this, it is hard to explain those who even today would question the people’s capacity for self rule. Will they answer this : If no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? Using the temporary authority granted by the people, an increasing number lately have sought to control the means of production as if this could be done without eventually controlling those who produce. Always this is explained as necessary to the people’s welfare. But, “The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principle upon which it was founded.” This is true today as it was when it was written in 1748. Government is the people’s business, and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid. With all the profound wording of the Constitution, probably the most meaningful words are the first three, “We, the People.” Those of us here today who have been elected to constitutional office of legislative position are in that three word phrase. We are of the people, chosen by them to see that no permanent structure of government ever encroaches on freedom or assumes a power beyond that freely granted by the people."

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Rigged Polls and Voting Machines, Corrupt Clintons Coddled by the Media -- Let Trump Drain the Washington Swamp

ELECTION DAY MINUS 11. What you need to know now about early voting fraud and the latest campaign news. • • • TEXAS VOTING MACHINE 'ERRORS.' In Texas, Trump voters say their presidential picks were switched to Hillary, but election officials call it 'Voter Error.' After casting their ballots, some early voters in Texas claimed voting machines changed their votes for president from Republican Donald Trump to Democrat Hillary Clinton. The reports came from Dallas, Collin, Tarrant and other Texas counties, according to The Dallas Morning News. The fraud allegations follow a similar pattern : voters say they voted straight-ticket Republican, but when they reviewed their ballots, it had changed their presidential vote to Hillary Clinton for President, not Donald Trump. Their votes for Republicans in down-ballot races were not affected, according to the complaints. Texas elections officials didn't seem too concerned. Dallas County elections administrator Toni Pippins-Poole said it’s likely the issues are due to “voter error” or a machine that needs to be “recalibrated.” • IF YOU VOTE A STRAIGHT REPUBLICAN TICKET -- not just in Texas but anywhere -- be sure to check that the machine has recorded your vote for Trump. Do not hit the VOTE button or pull the lever until you are sure the straight GOP vote has been properly recorded. Voter fraud is possible everywhere. Be alert. • • • TRUMP CONTINUES TO USE HIS OWN MONEY. Has anyone in modern American history spent more of his own money in a presidential race? No. And, Donald Trump will continue to invest in his campaign, saying he will spend $100 million of his own money by Election Day : "I will have over $100 million in the campaign, and I'm prepared to go much more than that," he told CNN's Dana Bash outside his new Washington, DC, hotel. Trump also said he is confident he'll defeat Hillary Clinton despite many mainstream media (MSM) polls showing him trailing her : "We are going to have, I think, a tremendous victory," he said. "If I didn't think that, I wouldn't say it." Trump has until now put $56 million into his campaign, according to official records. You won't hear this on MSM, but particularly interesting is the fact reported by Western Journalism -- Trump brought in the largest small-donor fundraising pack in the history of the Republican Party. From small individual contributions of $200 or less, the billionaire has raised $78.6 million, over $30 million more than former nominee Mitt Romney and $18 million more than John McCain. When Bash criticized Trump for being present at his Washington hotel opening instead of campaigning, his answer was swift : "For you to ask me that question is actually very insulting because Hillary Clinton does one stop, and then she goes home and sleeps. I want to back my children." • • • CNN, DON'T MESS WITH KELLYANNE CONWAY. CNN's Wolf Blitzer tried to give Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway a hard time about Trump's treatment of reporters covering his campaign. Wolf asked Conway to convince Trump not to ridicule reporters at his rallies, saying that they are “scared” of violence against them : “He shouldn't be doing that. I mean, can you talk to him? And say to him, 'Mr. Trump, we only have a few days left, these are hardworking young journalists, they deserve to have some security,' if you will, because some of those Trump supporters out there, they get pretty nasty with what they're screaming at these young people.” [Are you in tears for the poor CNN reporters, or perhaps for the conniving Wolf, who got a double-barrelled kickback from Conway? Didn't think so.] Conway skillfully turned the question back on Blitzer, mentioning the WikiLeaks email that showed reporters had sought approval for stories from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta : "[T]hat's not journalism, that's advocacy and, frankly, that's collusion....that would bother us. Many journalists have admitted that Donald Trump has compelled them to 'suspend objective standards of journalism.' I think Americans deserve to have the race covered fairly." Blitzer, not too bright at his best, interrupted to mention the scared young reporters who might be harmed by Trump supporters. Again, Conway took aim : “[T]he only violence I saw at rallies so far was what we saw on video tape by somebody whose cohorts were at the White House 346 times, actively paying people -- $1,500 a pop -- to be protesters to incite violence at Trump rallies. That's being done by Democratic operatives. The stink goes all the way up the chain through the DNC and related groups to Hillary Clinton's campaign. That's all I saw, but I'll make a deal with those embeds...I'll excuse some of their tweets, but their twitter feed for some of them -- we've done an analysis -- is 85%-90% negative toward Donald Trump.” Then Conway asked Blitzer a final quietly blistering question about the coverage of the campaign : “I wonder if the way the news is being covered in this election cycle, particularly in the last few weeks, is the way Americans actually see the news and see the race? It's not clear to me that [what] they're being told is what they think is important to them is what is being reported to them...jobs, Obamacare, ISIS...” • • • MSM POLLS' CHEATING & LIES. American Thinker on Thursday called this election's polling "propaganda polling" meant to "panic the peasantry" -- that's we deplorables. In Jared E. Peterson's article, he said there is mounting evidence of an extremely tight race nationally, and of noticeable recent movement towards Trump in multiple battleground states, but he accused America’s corporate media -- he called MSM the “Goebbels/Pravda” media -- of continuing the Big Lie that Clinton is far ahead and the race all but over. But, said Peterson : "traces of concern were visible on October 26 in the once unfailingly sunny visages looking down on the peasants from the offices of Goebbels/Pravda. A review of the CBS, ABC, NBC and CNN websites for October 26 suggests that America’s collective propaganda ministry senses that people are not dancing to their drumbeat and that a different rhythm is detectible in recent numbers." • Peterson compared the findings of the independent, unaffiliated polling organizations to the Goebbels/Pravda poll findings. Independents : LATimes/USC Tracking (10/20-10/25): Clinton 43%; Trump 45% / IBT/TIPP Tracking: Clinton 43%; Trump 41% / Rasmussen Tracking Clinton 44%; Trump 43%. In the same time period, sqys Peterson, "the Goebbels/Pravda Propaganda Ministry Polling at ABC News" (10/21) showed Cinton at 51% and Trump at 43%. So, says Peterson, the three independents (polling data through 10/25) have the national vote essentially tied, while Goebbels/Pravda polls, "of which ABC is just as good as any," containing polling data though 10/24, gives Clinton an 8% lead : "Gaps of this size simply don’t occur without massive sampling or other methodological differences -- or deliberate tampering, which of course is another way of expressing targeted oversampling of a preferred group as measured against that group’s expected actual turnout." MSM doesn't even discuss this huge difference in their vs independent poll results, and they certainly don't mention the conservative Fox News significantly tightened poll that has Clinton at 44% and Trump at 41%, down from a 7% spread last week. And, now that even the MSM polls are tightening in favor of Trump, MSM avoids the facts. An article at the CBS website, posted on the afternoon of October 26, references its own CBS poll, claiming a 9% Clinton lead nationally, but the article is silent on the three independent polls showing a neck and neck race. And, ABC’s October 26 website election wrap carried an October 14 (!) article asserting a big Clinton lead in the Electoral College. • RULE # 1 for MSM -- when present polls don’t support your narrative, discuss past polls. They must believe that we deplorable peasants won't know the difference. • • • MORE EMAILS KEEP HITTING HILLARY. Two of Hillary Clinton’s top advisors, including her campaign chairman John Podesta, agreed in a leaked email exchange that Hillary's “instincts can be terrible.” Clinton advisor Neera Tanden, president of the Soros flagship far-left Center for American Progress, wrote to John Podesta on September 6, 2015, to check in : “How are you feeling about things? Podesta responded : "Biden will get in. We are still way more likely than not to win nomination. We've taken on a lot of water that won't be easy to pump out of the boat. Most of that has to do with terrible decisions made pre-campaign, but a lot has to do with her instincts. She's nervous so prepping more and performing better. Got to do something to pump up excitement but not certain how to do that." Tanden agreed about Clinton’s “instincts” : "You know I'm not a sycophant to you by any means. But the thing that makes me most confident she will prevail is that you are there. Almost no one knows better than me that her instincts can be terrible. She does have to give time to allow new things to take hold." When WikiLeaks released the email chain, Podesta expressed his “love” for Clinton in a statement to The Daily Mail [why a UK paper?] : “No, I think, you know, I love Hillary Clinton and I think if any fair reading of what I've said about her or what I think about her indicates that I think she is someone who's a tremendous leader who's gotten tremendous results for kids, for families, for people throughout her public service.” [But we know Podesta loves Soros, his mentor and big bucks backer more.] In another email exchange, Podesta and Tanden wondered in shock why Clinton's team didn't disclose information about her private email server long before her presidential campaign to avoid the distraction : “Why didn't they get this stuff out like 18 months ago? So crazy.” Podesta replied : “Unbelievable.” Then Tanden answered her own question : “[I] guess I know the answer. [T]hey wanted to get away with it.” • OUCH!!! • • • An internal memo released Wednesday by WikiLeaks reveals new details about the interplay between the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton family’s personal business interests. The 12-page document was written by Doug Band, a longtime Clinton confidant who had been the Clinton Foundation’s primary fundraiser for a decade. Band wrote the memo as a principal for Teneo, a private consulting firm that raised tens of millions of dollars for the Clinton Foundation while also acting as a personal in-house agency for Bill Clinton. In the memo, Band describes his “unorthodox” role in raising money for the nonprofit Foundation while simultaneously securing for-profit opportunities for the former President. Band argues in the document that his dual lines of work were “independent” of one another. The memo came after criticism from Chelsea Clinton (!!!) -- revealed in a separate email published by WikiLeaks -- over Band’s role within the family’s network of interests. The memo states that as of November 2011, Teneo had raised tens of millions for the Foundation and produced between $30 million and $66 million in revenue for Bill Clinton through various “business arrangements,” including paid speeches. The Clinton camp has denied that Clinton Foundation donors were given special access to the former Secretary of State or that the Foundation was used to enrich the Clinton family. Clinton spokesmen have not yet commented on the Band memo. The campaign has refused to confirm the authenticity of any of campaign chairman John Podesta’s stolen emails and has tried to cast doubt on their authenticity. But, a week after Band sent his memo, longtime Clinton lawyer Cheryl Mills sent a document to Podesta and Band laying out several options for unwinding the former President’s charitable and business interests -- all of which distanced Band from the Foundation. In December of that year, according to the emails, the former President resigned from his position on Teneo’s advisory board. • ALL in the FAMILY - MONEY. • • • EARLY VOTING TRENDS. Early voting results are predicting tight races in key states, with Donald Trump holding potential advantages in Florida, Ohio and elsewhere, while more Democrats have cast early ballots in Nevada and North Carolina. In Florida, Republicans have a 1.8% lead in ballots received as of last Friday, reported Fox News. Republicans and Democrats had equally requested 3.1 million early ballots, a record for the state. In Ohio, early voting among blacks, critical in President Barack Obama's victories there in 2008 and 2012, is down 10% while early ballot request among whites is up 3%, said Fox News. Politico reported on Tuesday that in Nevada Democrats had cast 23,000 more ballots than Republicans out of the 150,000 cast so far, and they also hold a slight edge in ballots cast in North Carolina. WFAA-TV reported on Monday that Texas early voters set records on the first day polls were open in Dallas County (more than 58,000) and Tarrant County (more than 43,000), in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. • • • THE JUICIEST NEWS OF THE DAY. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich pounded Megyn Kelly's bias against Trump on the Kelly File, accusing her of being "obsessed with sex" Tuesday when she brought up claims by women against Donald Trump that he has groped them and otherwise made unwanted sexual advances. Gingrich had said two "alternative universes" will exist over the next two weeks in which pollsters do not use accurate data to measure voters' feelings. He said media, including Fox News, are not accurately looking at data. Kelly challenged, asking whether Trump himself has some responsibility for the tape of him making lewd statements in 2005, and the 11 women who have made public accusations against him. Gingrich said Trump's numbers are low because most of the media coverage of him has been negative, while the same media ignores Clinton's email scandal. Kelly's response : "Let's assume she is corrupt. She was just as corrupt three weeks ago and three months ago." But, Kelly said, Trump's poll numbers tanked after a bad first debate performance, followed by his talking about charges by a former Miss Universe that he shamed her about her weight, followed by the tape and the sexual allegations. "If Trump is a sexual predator..." Kelly began. "He's not a sexual predator," Gingrich snapped back. Kelly said she was only trying to make a hypothetical statement, but Gingrich shook his finger at Kelly and said she was ignoring Bill Clinton's own history : "I'm sick and tired of people like you using language that's inflammatory, that's not true." Kelly answered : "Excuse me, Mr. Speaker, you have no idea whether it's true or not." Gingrich replied, "Neither do you." "I'm not taking a position on it," Kelly said, adding, "I think your defensiveness on this may speak volumes, sir....What I said is, if Trump is a sexual predator, then it's a big story....We have to cover that story, sir." Gingrich answered : "Sure, OK. So it's worth 23 minutes on the three networks to cover that story, and Hillary Clinton's secret speech in Brazil to a bank that paid her $225,000 for saying her dream is an open border where 600 million people can come to America is not worth covering." Kelly said that story was worth covering, too, and Fox covered it. Gingrich then took on Megyn Kelly directly : "You are fascinated with sex, and you don't care about public policy." Her reply : "Me, really?" Gingrich said : "That's what I get out of watching you tonight," noting that she had pressed Trump VP running mate Mike Pence about the issue moments earlier. Kelly said the allegations are a "real issue" that should be covered, since Trump is trying to win the highest office in the land. Gingrich : "You want to comment on whether the Clinton ticket has a relationship to a sexual predator?" Kelly : "We on 'The Kelly File' have covered that story as well." Gingrich : "I want to hear your words : Bill Clinton sexual predator. I dare you. Say Bill Clinton, sexual predator." Kelly did not repeat the words, and immediately ended the interview. Kelly's last shot was : "We're going to have to leave it at that, and you can take your anger issues and spend some time working on them, Mr. Speaker." But, Newt got the last word : "You too." • Rabbi Dov Fischer, whose political commentaries have appeared on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, National Review, and the Los Angeles Times, called the Megyn Kelly - Newt Gingrich exchange "riveting." He also said : "For me, it also was the last straw. Let the drive-by media attack Gingrich, but I thought it was his finest hour since he handled John King four years ago at that GOP primary debate, when King of CNN started attacking Newt by quoting Newt's bitterly vindictive ex-wife....But, with two weeks left to this deeply demoralizing presidential race that should have been a walk-away for the GOP -- the country not only needs change, but wants change, and Hillary is the most despicable person ever to seek high office...I am just sick of Kelly. And her arrogant comments to Newt at the end, telling him to "deal with his anger issues," were my last straw. In my home, The Kelly File now is assigned to the "Circular File." • • • American Thinker's Michael Finch wrote on Thursday : "Donald Trump is going to win on November 8th....Trump is not a Republican in any sense of what we are used to. He is really nonpolitical, so his audience, again, is not the Paul Ryan-Mitt Romney class, but the dissatisfied, concerned, pissed off, and anyone else who feels the country is going in the wrong direction. And remember, that number is upwards of 70%, which obviously includes a lot of independents and Democrats. And, not to be forgotten, it includes the millions of Bernie Sanders supporters....let’s face it, outside of very few bought and sold Clintonites, the Democratic Party primary was completely rigged against Bernie. Everyone knows it, the folks who felt the Bern, most of all. Trump knows this as well and he is using it to reach this audience....Trump is not playing by the usual rules, he refuses to buckle and play as the good Republican Marquess of Queensberry candidate just so he can end up as road kill under a rancid, corrupt Democratic attack machine. It is funny that so many who stood by him and rooted for him have also gone weak in the last days, just as the battle is engaged. History is full of examples of the flinch, the pause and hesitation, the worry that the risk of total catastrophe is so great that one must wait and pull back. But the reward in this case is the saving of our country. Trump, for all the bluster and bluff knows this and can see the path to restoring our Republic. Yes, he has the, dare I say, political vision. But even more critically, he has the boldness to strike when least expected, against all odds in the quest for victory, even if the Lieutenants around him are feeling the jiggle in their spine." • • • Dear readers, forget the mainstream media -- forget the polls -- forget the GOP establishment. Concentrate on the man who is spending his own millions, risking his own business and putting his own reputation on the line to save America from the jackels on the Progressive left, led by Hillary and Bill Clinton, bought and paid for by George Soros and foreign interests. They have sunk America up to her knees in corrupt politics and government. There may never, in our lifetime or perhaps ever, be another Donald Trump to save her. A vote for Trump is a vote for the future of America as a constitutional Republic. Do it. Let Trump drain the Washington swamp.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Trump Polls Mount as WikiLeaks Rips Podesta and Pat Buchanan Provides Historical Perspective

ELECTION DAY MINUS 12. What you need to know now about new polls, WikiLeak's Podesta email dumps and the state of the American Republic. • • • NEW POLLS. Hillary Clinton's lead over Donald Trump has decreased and she does not appear to be causing a wave of Democratic support, according to the latest ABC News tracking poll released Tuesday. The results : Clinton 49%; Trump 40%. In the previous tracking poll, Clinton had 50% and Trump had 38%. ABC News actually pointed to the possibility that Trump may overcome recent controversies. The same poll looked at voter preference in their congressional district, and it appears voters are evenly split over their support for Democrat and Republican congressional candidates, with no trend toward Democrats : Democrats 47%; Republicans 46%. Independent voters are split evenly when deciding between Clinton and Trump, while Independents favor Republicans more in voting for Congress, according to the poll results. Among independent voters : Clinton: 41%; Trump 41%. Independent voters' congressional support : Republican candidates: 51%; Democratic candidates 39%. • The ABC News' poll breakdown. Male voters : Trump 45%; Clinton 42%. Female voters : Trump 37%; Clinton 54%. Men, no college degree : Trump 61%; Clinton 29%. Women, no college degree : Trump 56%; Clinton 37%. The poll was conducted by landline and cell phone from Ocober 21 to 24 in English and Spanish among 1,119 likely voters. • And, the RealClearPolitics' average of national polls -- including ABC News' tracking poll -- puts Clinton ahead by 4.2% over Trump. • Good news in Florida's race for the US Senate -- Republican incumbent Marco Rubio leads Democratic Representative Patrick Murphy by 10% in a Bloomberg Politics poll released Wednesday. The survey of 953 likely voters in Florida shows: Marco Rubio 51%; Patrick Murphy 41%. Independents support Rubio 51% to 36%. • The Question -- has Trump's calling polling "rigged" actually had an effect on polling? Are the pollsters beginning to realize that their tilted poll results do not sit well with the majority of Americans -- and more important, do the pollsters know that Trump and the GOP are winning this election and that they better get in line or be pushed aside permanently??? • • • POLLING -- ONE MORE TIME. A new Podesta email reveals the Democrat 'oversampling strategy' to inflate poll numbers. Hillary Clinton's recent lead in the polls has many doubting Donald Trump's ability to win the upcoming election, but a leaked email reported by financial blog Zero Hedge shows Democrats using "oversampling" to inflate polling numbers. The email, sent in 2008 by Democratic activist Tom Matzzie, reads : "I also want to get your Atlas folks to recommend oversamples for our polling before we start in February. By market, regions, etc. I want to get this all compiled into one set of recommendations so we can maximize what we get out of our media polling." According to Zero Hedge's shared pen name Tyler Durden : "That's how you manufacture a 12-point lead for your chosen candidate and effectively chill the vote of your opposition." However, the Washington Post rejects Zero Hedge's interpretation, arguing that Matzzie wasn't talking about public polls, since those are handled by independent pollsters working with media outlets. Instead, the WP presumes that Matzzie was referring to internal polling done to inform media buys. According to the Post, campaigns often oversample, meaning intentionally including more members of a certain group in sampling, to "figure out how to craft a message" tailored to those groups. BUT, the problem with the WP analysis is that the email is vague about how it will use the oversamplign results, and the email sounds very much like skewing polling samples in order to get the preferred polling result -- in favor of Hillary. There is another word for that -- CHEATING. • Donald Trump is accusing pollsters and the media of deliberatley putting a bias against him into their surveys, because many include too many Democrats in their sampling surveys. Trump and his supporters argue that mainstream pollsters are under-sampling Republicans to account for a rise in Independents, while failing to account for an enthusiasm gap that favors Trump or the new voters he could bring into the fold. Conservative news outlets agree with Trump’s arguments, seizing on a trio of national polls that show the race between Trump and Clinton is a toss-up. • A half-dozen pollsters interviewed by TheHill acknowledged it’s tough to do a poll on the 2016 race. They blame unprecedented volatility, two historically unpopular candidates, fast-changing voter behavior patterns and shifting demographics. All of those factors "make it tough to figure out exactly who will show up on election day." Even though the pollsters interviewed by TheHill largely dismissed arguments that polls showing a tight race are the accurate surveys, many pollsters are puzzled by the extreme variations in the surveys. A new survey from the conservative Rasmussen polling group gives Trump a 1-point lead nationally. A Los Angeles Times-USC poll -- one of the most accurate from 2012 -- has Trump qnd Clinton tied. And a survey from IBD-TIPP -- which has been among the best for the last three presidential elections — has Trump ahead by 2 points. All three surveys were featured Monday in the conservative Drudge Report under the banner of “Shock Polls.” The polls showing a tight race are very important since there are also recent surveys that suggest a landslide win for Clinton, who has had a 6-point lead in the RealClearPolitics average -- although Hillary's lead is now down to 4 points. Rasmussen polling analyst Fran Coombs says : “I’m scratching my head just like everyone in America. Believe me, we’re not putting the thumb on the scale to make Trump look better. It’s a crazy election year and this is what the numbers tell us. We’re comfortable with our methods.” The LA Times / USC survey has drawn scrutiny for consistently being the only survey to find Trump with a lead. One pollster interviewed by TheHill dismissed that survey as “experimental,” noting that it contacts only the same fixed pool of respondents, rather than reaching out to new voters for each poll. But that same methodology worked in 2012, when it predicted Obama would win by 3.3%, even when many other polls showed Obama doing worse. The President won reelection by 3.8%. LA Times Washington bureau chief David Lauter defended the poll : “Obviously, the poll’s [2016] results have been an outlier compared with other surveys, but if ever there was a year when the outlier might be right, it’s this year.” The IBD-TIPP poll has been praised by data guru Nate Silver as among the most accurate for several cycles in a row. TIPP pollster Reaghavan Mayur told TheHill he believes the surveys showing Clinton with a double-digit lead are equally deserving of scrutiny : “In 2008, Obama defeated McCain by 7.2% and that was a blowout election in terms of enthusiasm. Everyone was revved up and to accentuate it, there was the financial tsunami,” Mayur said. “And you’re telling me now that now in 2016 Clinton is up by 12? Does that jibe with anything we’ve seen in the past or common sense?” • • • THE STATE OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. Veteran conservative GOP analyst and former presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan says there is no need to panic if Trump doesn't accept the election results. ressed by moderator Chris Wallace about whether he would accept defeat should Hillary Clinton win the election, Donald Trump replied, "I will tell you at the time. I'll keep you in suspense." Hillary called his answer "horrifying," setting off a fire storm on post-debate TV panels with Hillary-supporting pundits falling all over one another in anger, outrage and disbelief. "Disqualifying!" went out the cry on Clinton cable. "Trump Won't Say If He Will Accept Election Results," shreiked The New York Times. "Trump Won't Vow to Honor Results," ran the front-page headline in The Washington Post. • But, asks Buchanan : "what do these chattering classes and establishment bulletin boards think The Donald is going to do if he falls short of 270 electoral votes? -- Lead a Coxey's Army on Washington and burn it down as British General Robert Ross did in August 1814, while 'Little Jemmy' Madison fled on horseback out the Brookville Road?" Buchanan says one word explains the hysteria of the establishment -- Fear. Buchanan's reasoning : "The establishment is horrified at The Donald's defiance because, deep within its soul, it fears that the people for whom Trump speaks no longer accept its political legitimacy or moral authority. It may rule and run the country, and may rig the system through mass immigration and a mammoth welfare state so that Middle America is never again able to elect one of its own. But that establishment, disconnected from the people it rules, senses rightly that it is unloved and even detested. Having fixed the future, the establishment finds half of the country looking upon it with the same sullen contempt that our Founding Fathers came to look upon the overlords Parliament sent to rule them." • Buchanan says the Establishment panic is also traceable to another fear : "Its ideology, its political religion, is seen by growing millions as a golden calf, a 20th-century god that has failed. Trump is 'talking down our democracy,' said a shocked Clinton. After having expunged Christianity from our public life and public square, our establishment installed 'democracy' as the new deity, at whose altars we should all worship. And so our schools began to teach. Half a millennia ago, missionaries and explorers set sail from Spain, England and France to bring Christianity to the New World. Today, Clintons, Obamas and Bushes send soldiers and secularist tutors to 'establish democracy' among the 'lesser breeds without the Law.' Unfortunately, the natives, once democratized, return to their roots and vote for Hezbollah, Hamas and the Moslem Brotherhood, using democratic processes and procedures to re-establish their true God. And Allah is no Democrat." • Those are tough words, even coming from Pat Buchanan, but one has to admit he makes sense. By suggesting he might not accept the results of a "rigged election," Trump is committing an unpardonable sin, says Buchanan, because he is saying out loud that none of the three axioms of the Progressive left -- diversity, equality, democracy -- is to be found in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers or the Pledge of Allegiance. In the Pledge, we are a "Republic." Buchanan cites Ben Franklin, emerging from the Philadelphia convention, being asked by a woman what kind of government they had created, he answered, "A Republic, if you can keep it." Among many in the silent majority, Clintonian democracy is not an improvement upon the old Republic; it is the corruption of it. • Buchanan points out Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton bundler, announcing that by executive action he would convert 200,000 convicted felons into eligible voters by November. If that is democracy, many will say, to hell with it. Buchanan agrees : "And if felons decide the electoral votes of Virginia, and Virginia decides who is our next US President, are we obligated to honor that election? In 1824, Gen. Andrew Jackson ran first in popular and electoral votes. But, short of a majority, the matter went to the House. There, Speaker Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams delivered the presidency to Adams — and Adams made Clay Secretary of State, putting him on the path to the presidency that had been taken by Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Adams himself. Were Jackson's people wrong to regard as a "corrupt bargain" the deal that robbed the general of the presidency?" • Buchanan also gives the example of the Establishment recoiling in horror from Milwaukee Sheriff Dave Clarke's declaration that it is now "torches and pitchforks time." Yet, says Buchanan : "Some of us recall another time, when Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote in "Points of Rebellion" : "We must realize that today's Establishment is the new George III. Whether it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition, is also revolution." Baby-boomer radicals loved it, raising their fists in defiance of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. But now that it is the populist-nationalist right that is moving beyond the niceties of liberal democracy to save the America that they love, elitist enthusiasm for "revolution" seems more constrained. What goes around comes around." • • • Dear readers, I can only say, Right you are, Pat Buchanan, right you are. This election is about saving the Republic and its Constitution -- political correctness be damned.

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Obamacare Implodes and the Polls Look Like Pick-Up Sticks Gone Beserk

ELECTION DAY MINUS 13. Here's what you need to know now about Polls and Obamacare. • • • POLL RESULTS. Donald Trump has a 2-point lead over Hillary Clinton, 42.6% to 40.8%, when tested in a four-way race, according to the latest IBD/TIPP presidential tracking poll released Sunday. Trump also has a one-point lead in a two-way race in the poll. Investor's Business Daily (IBD) and TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence (TIPP) poll has been the most accurate among 11 national polls in the past three presidential elections. The poll surveyed 783 likely voters, 282 Democrats, 226 Republicans and 259 independents. • Despite the mainsteam media (MSM) emphasis on pollsters and media pundits who predict that Hillary Clinton will win the election, one academic with a history of correctly predicting the past five presidential elections insisted to Fox News that Donald Trump will win November 8. Stony Brook University Professor Helmut Norpoth said he uses two models -- the Primary Model because it "usually turns out the candidate who does better in his party's primaries or her party's primaries beats the other guy who does less well." Norpoth explains he used the primary races in South Carolina and New Hampshire, where Trump won and performed better than Clinton did in the Democratic race, because the results in the early primaries are the best indicators for the general election. The second model is called the Swing of the Pendulum, which he told Fox & Friends : "is the tendency after two terms of a White House party being in office that there is a change...which gives a prediction that Republicans are favored this year." • Newsmax on Monday published an article by Denis Kleinfeld -- a tax and wealth protection lawyer, and widely published author and creative teacher -- in which Kleinfeld says "Trump Will Win in a Landslide." Kleinfeld says : "This presidential election cycle is unlike any other in modern times....Mr. Trump works selling things in the private sector, while Mrs. Clinton works selling government influence....Fraud is illegal in the private sector, but apparently business-as-usual in the public sector. Emails from WikiLeaks allege that the Clinton campaign is engaged in a massive vote fraud effort. Voter fraud has worked in big elections and little ones. I recall Walter Cronkite’s comments about the voting coming out of the South Side of Chicago during the Kennedy-Nixon 1960 election. The Dems have perfected their ballot-stuffing strategy since then..." Kleinfeld agrees with Professor Northrup’s “primary model” -- Trump’s supporters are more motivated than Clinton’s backers : "In the primaries, the GOP had about a 60% increase in primary voters; around 86% went to Trump, Cruz, and Carson -- anti-establishment candidates all; Mr. Trump alone got more primary votes than any Republican in history. That powerful result sent the Republican Establishment into the first stage of grief. Many have not moved on yet. The Dems had about 21% less primary voter turnout. If Mrs. Clinton and the DNC did not rig the primary election (as the WikiLeaks emails apparently prove), then Bernie Sanders would have won." Kleinfeld points out that while Hillary has overwhelming support in the mainsteam media : "voters view the MSM as having the same level of credibility as Congress. At about 11%. Effectively, the drum beat of the MSM is being discounted rather dramatically by the potential voters who think more highly of roaches than journalists. Then consider who is the audience or readers of the mainstream media. Not the millennials nor Generation X. And as to the boomers, Mrs. Clinton is not generating any excitement or motivation to come out and vote. The Dems think Trump is a low life. But they also see Mrs. Clinton as suffering from severe ethical and legal deficiencies. They don’t want to vote for Mr. Trump but find voting for Mrs. Clinton troubling. Many of the Democratic boomers are sitting this one out." But, Kleinfeld says, the primaries proved that "Trump supporters are want to come out and vote for him and against the political establishment. If the Dems cannot front-load the election vote prior to November 7, then all bets are off for Mrs. Clinton on November 8." Kleinfeld concludes : "Even President Obama is on record complaining about voter fraud. I’m convinced that if it were not for WikiLeaks and the email disclosures, then Mr. Trump would not be in a competitive position. It is not easy taking on the Democratic and Republican Establishment, the mainstream media, Wall Street, and all the other parasites that live off of the federal government’s largesse. • Denis Kleinfeld also makes several excellent 'practical politics' points : "Why would anybody vote for Mrs. Clinton when she promises to raise their taxes? And, literally 50% of the potential voters in this election cycle did not vote in the 1990s. There is no past history to draw on to predict how they will react under the circumstances of this 2016 election. The financial markets are in an asset value bubble. By November 1, the new Obamacare premium bills will come out. There is a full-fledged war in the Middle-East, and threats of war in Eastern Europe and in the South China Sea. I don’t foresee that there will be anything happening in the economy or in the foreign policy arena that could favor Mrs. Clinton. Quite the contrary....Mr. Trump’s supporters...are part of the “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore” crowd. Mr. Trump’s election will be the victory long sought by the voters in retaking power back from the utterly corrupt ruling political establishment class, their crony partners, and their media servants." • • • OBAMACARE UNRAVELS BIGTIME. Remember President Obama's biggest lie of all : "If you like the plan you have, you can keep it. If you like the doctor you have, you can keep your doctor, too. The only change you’ll see are falling costs as our reforms take hold." Well, yet again premiums will go up, and sharply, next year under Obamacare, and many consumers will be down to just one insurer, the administration confirmed Monday. That will fire up another Obamacare controversy days before the presidential election. Without counting taxpayer-provided subsidies, premiums for a mid-level benchmark plan will increase an average of 25% across the 39 states served by the federally run online market, according to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services. Some states will see much bigger jumps, others less. Bottom line -- about 1 in 5 consumers will only have plans from a single insurer to pick from, after major national carriers such as UnitedHealth Group, Humana and Aetna scaled back their roles. The fact is that insurance markets created by the 2010 Obamacare are on the verge of collapsing in a "death spiral." • THE OBAMACARE ENDGAME. In Colorado, where Obamacare enrollees face 20% premium hikes, voters will decide November 8 whether to create a new single payer healthcare system --the cost is estimated at $25 billion, funded by a 10% payroll tax plus various other taxes. Colorado’s entire budget is just $27 billion. And, Obama last week said the antidote to the loss of major private insurers from Obamacare is the creation of a government-backed insurer to provide competition on exchanges that have none. Nobody knows how much that would cost or if it could even be successful. Obama may be hoping that Americans have failed to notice the $330 billion in taxpayer dollars already spent on Obamacare, with zero results. In the same speech made in Miami, the President said we should regard Obamacare as “a starter home. It’s a lot better than not having a home. But over time, you hope you can make improvements.” But healthcare isn’t a starter home. Whether the nation’s health care system operates efficiently is vitally important. Millions of lives hang in the balance. Obamacare sign-up season starts November 1, a week before the presidential and congressional elections. The shocking numbers released by the Obama administration confirmed state-by-state reports that have been coming in for months. Officials are stressing that subsidies provided under the law, which are designed to rise alongside premiums, will insulate most customers from sticker shock -- yes, with taxpayer money, let us not forget. Officials add that consumers who are willing to switch to cheaper plans will still be able to find bargains -- yes, with even higher deductibles and copays and even less choice of doctors and hospitals, let us not forget. • • • LOW-INCOME AMERICANS HURT. The spike in premiums generally does not affect the employer-provided plans that most workers and their families rely on -- although these plans have seen rate increases as insurers raise private company-provided rates to cover the losses they suffer by providing Obamacare insurance. And, according to Caroline Pearson of consulting firm Avalere Health : "Enrollment is concentrated among very low-income individuals who receive significant government subsidies to reduce premiums and cost-sharing." But 5 million to 7 million people are either not eligible for the income-based assistance, or they buy individual policies outside of the health law's markets, where the subsidies are not available. The administration is urging the latter group to check out HealthCare.gov. In some states, the premium increases are eye-popping. In Arizona, unsubsidized premiums for a 27-year-old buying a benchmark "second-lowest cost silver plan" will jump by 116%, from $196 to $422, according to the administration report. Oklahoma has the next biggest increase for a similarly situated customer, 69%. Increasing lack of choice is another problem. The total number of HealthCare.gov insurers will drop from 232 this year to 167 in 2017, a loss of 28%. But, keep in mind that this number is 'fudged' because insurers are counted multiple times if they offer coverage in more than one state. So Aetna, for example, would count once in each state that it participated in. And, switching insurers may not be simple for patients with chronic conditions. Despite the Democrat 'siren song' that those with pre-existing conditions cannot be refused insurance coverage, they can be trapped in a plan whose costs and choices become an Obamacare 'prison cell.' And, Pearson explained : "Enrollees may need to change doctors or drugs when they are forced to switch insurers." • • • DEMOCRATS CAUGHT IN OBAMACARE COLLAPSE. Even Democrats are increasingly acknowledging that Obamacare (laughingly titled "The Affordable Care Act") has an affordability problem. Former President Bill Clinton said recently that people who are ineligible to get subsidies to buy Obamacare insurance are “getting killed." Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton said this month that “the reality is the Affordable Care Act is no longer affordable to increasing numbers of people.” President Obama himself said in a speech last week that “there are going to be people who are hurt by premium increases.” Every one of these Democrats made the argument that Obamacare is working well for most people, and that the problem of rising premiums is specifically focused on a minority of consumers who earn too much money to qualify for federal subsidies -- they are talking about the part of the middle class who are refused coverage on the job because their employers have stopped offering too-expensive healthcare coverage because of Obamacare -- and the part of the middle class that Turmp and the GOP in Congress want to protect, if the Obama veto over any Obamacare change did not exist. So, Democrats are exposed. They point out that 85% of Obamacare enrollees receive financial help -- people are eligible for assistance under the health law if they make below about $47,000 for an individual. But, the other 15%, about 1.6 million people, do not receive financial help. There are also about 7 million people with individual coverage outside of the law’s marketplaces who are totally exposed to premium increases. • • • HILLARY'S SOLUTION - SPEND MORE. Hillary Clinton has fought back, saying that by repealing Obamacare, Republicans would be taking away coverage for the 20 million people who gained insurance under the law. She says repealing Obamacare would do away with protections like preventing insurance companies from denying people coverage because they are sick, which meant that in the past, some people could not get coverage at any price. Yet, even Clinton at the second presidential debate admitted to the affordability problem when a questioner complained of rising health costs under Obamacare : “I’m going to fix it, because I agree with you. Premiums have gotten too high.” Read that to mean more taxpayer subsidies, more tampering with the market for health insurance, and more efforts to move to a one-payer federal government controlled nationalized healthcare system. Meantime, Obamacare rate increases are what Democrats all over America are bracing for whne the bill qrrives in the mail of millions of Americans one week before the election : Changes in battleground Senate states -- Illinois 43% / Wisconsin 16% / Florida 14% / Indiana -3% / Missouri 18% / New Hampshire 2% / North Carolina 40% / Pennsylvania 53% / Arizona 116% / Ohio 2%. • • • GOP REPEAL AND REPLACE ELECTION CAMPAIGN PUSH. GOP incumbents are seizing on the Obamacare rate hikes in their final campaign push. Senator Roy Blunt's (R-Mo.) campaign committee released an ad Friday hitting his opponent, Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander, for a "liberal agenda to expand Obamacare." The GOP message to Obama : we are not giving up the repeal fight. In a lengthy speech on Thursday, Obama urged GOP leaders to "stop pretending" they have an alternative to the law and get to work with the next President to approve some much-needed fixes. But Republicans are making clear that they remain opposed and will not accept changes in the next Congress. Donald Trump, campaigning in Tampa, Florida, emphatically declared Obamacare “over.” Trump added that Hillary Clinton "wants to double down and make it more expensive and it's not gonna work....Our country can't afford it, you can't afford it." He promised his own plan would deliver "great health care at a fraction of the cost." Trump’s running mate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence echoed Trump’s words, saying on Twitter : “Higher premiums, less competition & fewer choices lie ahead for ObamaCare. Hillary Clinton wants more of the same.” The Washington Examiner reported that Pence had a laugh at President Obama's comparison of his signature Obamacare law to the exploding Samsung phones. Pence, speaking at a campaign rally in Ohio Saturday, was referring to Obama's address celebrating the healthcare law's third anniversary of coming online. Obama said that when a company comes out with a smartphone has a few bugs, then they fix it or "upgrade it. Unless it catches fire, then they pull it off the market." Pence pounced on the comment, saying that if Trump is elected President "we are gonna pull [Obamacare] off the market." House Speaker Paul Ryan offered a zinger : “But at least you can return the phone. Families are stuck paying these higher premiums, and Democrats only want to double down on Obamacare. There is a better way. Republicans are offering a plan to repeal Obamacare, and replace it with real, patient-centered solutions that fit your needs and your budget. We don’t have to accept this kind of sticker shock.” Senator Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) summed it up, urging the White House to admit that Obamacare is not working : "We’ve reached this point because Obamacare is built on the lie that Washington’s bureaucrats are smart enough to plan health care for millions of Americans. At every turn -- whether it’s co-ops collapsing, premiums skyrocketing, or big insurers bailing -- the American people have paid the price. More spin won’t solve this -- it’s time for the White House to admit that this law isn’t working." • • • Dear readers, with so many key issues being ignored by the mainstream media, and Hillary Clinton's refusal to seriously discuss any of the important issues, Donald Trump announced Monday that his campaign will broadcast a nightly program on Facebook Live that will run until Election Day. The program will air at 6:30 p.m. from Trump Tower in New York City. The half-hour coverage will go live right before Trump’s 7 p.m. rallies. Trump said : “This is an HISTORIC movement. Together, we will once again make a government by, for, and of the people! Help us close out the final weeks of this campaign strong and WIN.” The Facebook Live tool is a way for the campaign to harness Trump's large social media following and bypass traditional media, which the GOP nominee and his surrogates frequently bash as dishonest and biased toward Hillary Clinton. Trump’s Facebook page gives his presidential campaign a significant platform. The campaign hosted a Facebook Live on the third and final presidential debate in Las Vegas, which had 9 million viewers -- just a few minutes into the first program on Monday, more than 60,000 viewers had already tuned in. The debut of the show heats up speculation about a Trump television network. The Financial Times reported last week that Trump's son-in-law met with investors about possibly starting a network. And Trump campaign chairman Steve Bannon didn't rule out the possibility of a Trump media venture if he loses the presidential race to Clinton. • And, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday emphasized the new report from The Wall Street Journal that a PAC headed by Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe (D), a Hillary Clinton ally, directed nearly $500,000 to a Democrat candidate married to the FBI Deputy Director who oversaw the investigation into Clinton’s private email server. Giuliani called the report a “shot to the solar plexus” to Hillary. Donald Trump demanded an investigation into the revelation, calling it "shocking....We've never had a thing like this in the history of this country." According to the WSJ, Virginia Governor McAuliffe, a longtime ally of both Bill and Hillary Clinton who put up guarantees so they could buy their Chappaqua estate, donated the money to the state senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, wife of FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. Trump also repeated his frequent criticism of "much of" the media....Without the dishonesty and deceit of the media, Hillary Clinton would be nothing. The media isn't just against me, they're against all of you. That's really what they're against. They're not against me, they're against what we represent. Like Hillary Clinton, they look down on the hard working people of the country.... The media is entitled, condescending, and even contemptuous of the people who don't share their elitist views." Trump promised : " I am your voice. I will never let you be the forgotten people again."