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

RASMUSSEN SEES DEAD HEAT – FROM RASMUSSEN REPORTS:   Following Monday night’s debate, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are running virtually even in Rasmussen Reports’ first daily White House Watch survey.  Our latest national telephone and online survey of Likely U.S. Voters finds Clinton with 42% support to Trump’s 41%. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson earns seven percent (7%) of the vote, while Green Party nominee Jill Stein holds steady at two percent (2%). Three percent (3%) still like some other candidate, and five percent (5%) remain undecided. Trump had been moving ahead over the two previous weeks and held a 44% to 39% lead over Clinton last week at this time. It was the first time he had been ahead since mid-July.  Bottom line, the debate was costly to Trump.  He'll have to do better next time.  If he does, the history of debates shows that he can catch up.

ELECTION DANGER – FROM UPI.COM:   WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- As many as 10 state election databases have been hacked, not only the two previously reported in Illinois and Arizona, according to a report by CBS News.  The hacks come as officials in the Justice Department and Homeland Security warn state and local officials of the threat posed by hackers seeking access to the nation's election database.  The CBS report did not identify exactly how many states have been hacked, nor which ones. But according to multiple anonymous national security officials, as many as 10 have experienced some sort of hack.  This is chilling.  Elections are the heart of our democracy.  Yet, there seems to be a strange lack of interest in the story.   See our related post at 8:24 a.m.

EUROPE'S SLOW-MOTION SUICIDE – FROM THE DAILY MAIL:   A ruling by European human rights judges has forced police to warn gangsters that their lives might be in danger - at vast expense to taxpayers.  An ex-justice minister last night revealed how senior officers are having to spend time and money issuing the villains and drug lords with 'threat to life notices'.  This is despite the fact they are putting themselves in peril through their own actions and it is diverting resources away from protecting 'innocent, law-abiding citizens'.  The European Court of Human Rights has decided that not passing on intelligence that another gangster wants to hurt them infringes their right to life.  Soon the Court of Human Rights will probably order reparations for gangsters to compensate them for loss of reputation.

September 29, 2016