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OCTOBER 8,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 10:25 P.M. ET:   

ANOTHER ONE – FROM ABC NEWS:   Two Palm Springs police officers trying to resolve a family dispute were shot to death Saturday when a man they had been speaking calmly with suddenly pulled out a gun and opened fire on them, the city's police chief told reporters.  A third officer was wounded. The shooter was not immediately apprehended.  "It was a simple family disturbance and he elected to open fire on a few of the guardians of the city," police Chief Bryan Reyes, his voice breaking, told reporters.  The chief, near tears, identified the slain officers as Jose "Gil" Gilbert Vega and Lesley Zerebny.  Police said Zerebny recently returned to the force from maternity leave after giving birth to a now-4-month-old daughter. Vega, the father of eight, was a 35-year veteran who planned to retire in December. The wounded officer's name was not released.  Another in a string of multiple-murders of officers.  I wonder if Obama or Hillary will take notice.  Maybe these lives don't matter.

BERNIE'S PEOPLE UPSET, MAY NEED ZOLOFT – FROM REUTERS:   NEW YORK (Reuters) - Supporters of former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Saturday expressed anger and vindication over leaked comments made by Hillary Clinton to banks and big business that appeared to confirm their fears about her support for global trade and tendency to cozy up to Wall Street.  Clinton, who needs Sanders's coalition of young and left-leaning voters to propel her to the presidency, pushes for open trade and open borders in one of the speeches, and takes a conciliatory approach to Wall Street, both positions she later backed away from in an effort to capture the popular appeal of Sanders's attacks on trade deals and powerful banks.  The excerpts of remarks by the former secretary of state, made in 2013 and 2014 in closed-door meetings where audiences paid to attend, were published online on Friday by WikiLeaks, which sourced them to the email account of John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman.  Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the speech transcripts. Clinton has previously declined to release any such transcripts.  If Bernie's crowd is angry with Hillary, I consider that a plus for Hillary.  The problem is, Hillary is so dishonest, we don't know what she actually believes.

THIS WAS EXPECTED – FROM THE HILL:    A producer from the reality series “The Apprentice” used Twitter on Saturday night to warn that the now infamous leaked audio of Trump is just the beginning.  “As a producer on seasons 1&2 of #theapprentice I assure you: when it comes to #trump tapes there are far worse,” tweeted Bill Pruitt.  Pruitt is not the first to suggest there will be more revelations about the GOP presidential nominee's past behavior. According to reports by Fox News’ Ed Henry, top Trump adviser Ben Carson suggested there would be more “bombshells” to come.  Rumblings are increasing that top Republicans either want Trump to step down, or have the party formally distance itself from him.  But with election only a month away, Republican options are limited. 

October 8,  2016     Permalink

LATEST FOX POLL – AT 1:16 P.M. ET:  This came out just before the Trump and Clinton scandals broke yesterday.  From Fox: 

Hillary Clinton is ahead of Donald Trump by 44-42 percent in a new national Fox News Poll. That’s a two-point edge among likely voters for Clinton. She was up by three points last week (43-40 percent) and by one point in mid-September (41-40 percent).

Third party candidates Gary Johnson (6 percent) and Jill Stein (2 percent) are in single digits.

In the head-to-head matchup, Clinton tops Trump by 48-44 percent. It was 49-44 percent last week. Her lead is within the poll’s margin of error in both the two-way and four-way race.

The GOP nominee has the advantage in interest and enthusiasm. Among those backing Trump, 57 percent are “extremely” interested in the election, and 70 percent support him “strongly.” Among Clinton backers, it’s 50 percent “extremely” interested and 57 percent “strongly.”

Trump is preferred among men (+9 points), whites (+16), voters who attend religious services regularly (+17), and whites without a college degree (+21).

COMMENT:  Now we have the new scandals, and the debate tomorrow night.  The polls next week might look entirely different.

October 8, 2016       Permalink 

TRUMP DEFIANT – AT 12:18 P.M. ET:  It isn't exactly Churchill's, "We shall never surrender," but Donald Trump this morning is insisting that he will never quit the presidential race.  The fact that this discussion is held, however, should be frightening enough for him.  From Fox: 

Donald Trump said Saturday there is “zero chance” he’ll quit the White House race after the release of a damaging audio tape and the ensuing calls from fellow Republicans and others for him to step aside and even let running-mate Mike Pence become the party’s presidential candidate.

Trump, trailing Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by single digits with four week to go before Election Day, told The Wall Street Journal: “There is zero change I will quit. I’m getting unbelievable support.”

The 2005 audio tape, and an accompanying video tape, released by The Washington Post and NBC on Friday, recorded a conversation between Trump and "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush in which Trump described an attempt to have sex with a married woman.

Trump also brags about women letting him kiss and grab them because he is famous.

"When you're a star they let you do it," Trump says. "You can do anything." He later used a crude term for part of a woman's anatomy.

Also on Saturday, Trump told The Post that we would not drop out of the race.

“I’d never withdraw,” Trump, a New York real estate mogul and former reality TV star, told the newspaper in a phone interview. “I’ve never withdrawn in my life. No, I’m not quitting this race. I have tremendous support.”

Meanwhile, top Republicans are distancing themselves from Trump, with some going as far as to call for him to end his White House bid.

The two-highest-ranking Capitol Hill Republicans -- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan -- chastised Trump for his lewd comments on the tape about women.

“I am sickened by what I heard,” Ryan, Wisconsin, said Friday night after the tape was released and before Trump apologized. “Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified.”

COMMENT:  The election is one calendar month from today.  Trump is clearly despised in many circles, and he's earned it.  But, as we've noted, Hillary Clinton has also earned the "despised" title.  She won't win the election, if present trends continue.  Trump will lose it.  And Americans will wake up to a crook in the White House, a new president married to a former president who himself is a serial sex harasser and a disbarred lawyer. 

October 8, 2016       Permalink

AWFUL – AT 11:31 A.M. ET:  I've rarely seen a worse weekend in American presidential politics.  We have two disgraces running for the presidency.  They are both unqualified by virtue of a lack of virtue.  No character.   And we have a presidential debate tomorrow night.  We should be ashamed.

Donald Trump is a professional sleazeball.  Hillary Clinton is a professional corruptionist.  And one of them will succeed in the office of the president a professional amateur.  Welcome to American leadership.

There are rumblings on the Republican side that Trump must drop out, after the release, by the Washington Post yesterday, of a devastating video that depicts him vividly describing his sexual exploits and targets.  Those who dismiss it as vulgar locker-room talk have never heard men in a locker room.  Yes, men talk about sex and about women, and about body parts, and women know that.  But rarely does the banter reach the level exhibited by Trump in that video.  That's not locker-room talk.  That is a psychological problem. 

The e-mails and transcripts regarding Hillary Clinton, released yesterday by Winkle, are just as bad, portraying Hillary Clinton as the phony she is – one who lies to the public as a matter of course.  "Oh, but they all do it, don't they?"  Well, politicians are manipulative, but it depends on the degree.  Most have limits.  Hillary has none.  She's Trump without the sex.

The Hillary story has been buried by the Trump story.  Once again we see the impact of a dishonest and biased press.  And there is serious talk on the Republican side of replacing Trump.  I don't think it will reach that point, but we can expect to see more and more Republicans distancing themselves from their presidential nominee, taking back their endorsement, and concentrating on Senate and Congressional races.  Indeed, the race for the Senate may be the most important one this year, as Republicans try to counter the expected election of Hillary Clinton.

In 1968 the Republicans nominated the stale, disliked Richard Nixon.  He was elected, to not much applause.  Nixon had a flawed character.  But we have never seen, in presidential politics, anything like the Trump video.  And we wonder if there are more coming.

October 8,  2016     Permalink

OCTOBER 7,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET: 

TRUMP – It's the talk of the town, a Trump tape from years ago featuring Trump's vulgar comments about women.  It is stunning in its sleaziness, and there is no defense.  Some Republicans, like Representative Jason Chafffetz of Utah, are withdrawing their support for Trump, and Speaker Paul Ryan disinvited Trump from an upcoming event.  Hillary Clinton tweeted her sense of horror at Trump's taped comments, demonstrating that her hypocrisy generator is alive and well.  She's married, after all, to Mr. Vulgarity himself.  Trump released a brief video offering a half-hearted apology for his behavior, but otherwise remaining his usual defiant self.  Is this a turning point?   Is this the body blow that will finish Trump?  I don't know.  The next presidential debate is Sunday night, and maybe that will make a difference.  But for the first time we're hearing talk, just talk, of replacing Trump on the ticket.  This is serious.

HILLARY – Wikileaks released a new batch of Clinton emails, and the transcript of some of her private speeches.  Clinton had the good luck to see these new releases on the same day that Donald Trump is enveloped in scandal.  The releases, though, reveal Clinton as a soulless manipulator, openly bragging that she says one thing in public and another thing privately.  She also is caught calling for open borders, not the most popular idea, and sucking up to Wall Street, which will not help her with the Bernie Sanders crowd.  A new batch of Clinton material is expected from Wikileaks soon.  With these revelations, and Trump's sex scandal, we can truly say that America has been given the worst choices for president of any recent election.  Whoever is elected will also be despised.  New polls still show Clinton ahead, and a likely winner.  If the GOP had nominated any of its other choices, things might well be going heavily the other way.  I hear people talking of the 2020 election already, as if this one is worthy of being forgotten.

I AM SHOCKED – FROM DAILY CALLER:  Liberal activist groups are mobilizing their supporters to stack Sunday night’s debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump with questions designed to be hostile to Trump.  The debate is a “town hall style” event, with questions coming from the audience. But those questions and the questioners will be pre-screened so as to not be out of left field or redundant. As part of the process for picking questions and topics, CNN and ABC News have “agreed to consider the Top 30 questions voted up” on the website “Presidential Open Questions.”  Liberals are attempting to vote up questions that they think would entrap Trump.  I'm just shocked that our liberal friends would do something like this.  It must be a mistake.  We know that the Clintons are renowned for their fairness and openness.

October 7, 2016       Permalink

A MYTH ABOUT ISIS DESTROYED – AT 11:20 A.M. ET:   Not exactly the downtrodden.  From London's Daily Mail: 

Recruits into the Islamic State group are better educated than their average countryman, contrary to popular belief, according to a new World Bank study.

Moreover, those offering to become suicide bombers ranked on average in the more educated group, said the newly released study titled "Economic and Social Inclusion to Prevent Violent Extremism".

The study, which aimed to identify socioeconomic traits that might explain why some are drawn to the Syria-based extremist group, made clear that poverty and deprivation were not at the root of support for the group.

Almost without exception, fighters joining IS's Syria and Iraq-based forces had several more years of education in their home countries -- whether in Europe, Africa or elsewhere in the Middle East -- than the average citizen.

The data shows clearly, the report said, that "poverty is not a driver of radicalization into violent extremism."

Out of 3,800 recruits described in a leaked Islamic State database, only 17 percent did not finish high school, while a quarter had university-level educations.

Only those from Eastern Europe were below the average, and only marginally so, according to the study.

"Foreign recruits from the Middle East, North Africa and South and East Asia are significantly more educated than what is typical in their region," the Bank report said.

About 30 percent of the recruits told the extremist group what positions in the force they wanted. Around one in nine volunteered for suicide operations, and their educational levels were on par with those who sought to be administrators, the report said.

"The proportions of administrators but also of suicide fighters increase with education," it said.

Most of the 3,800 recruits also reported having a job before traveling to join the Islamic State group, also known as Daesh, according to the study.

COMMENT:  Why should anyone be shocked?  Education isn't a guaranteed good.  It depends on what's being taught and who's doing the teaching.   Many colleges and universities have become cesspools of hate, where professors are frightened of their students. 

It is said that every genocide begins on a college campus.  The horror movements of the 20th century all had substantial support from "scholars."  We're revisiting the nightmare.

October 7, 2016       Permalink

BUT WILL ANYTHING HAPPEN? – AT 9:43 A.M. ET:  We keep hearing that there'll be a revolt of FBI agents in connection with the Clinton e-mail coverup, but will anything actually happen?  From the New York Post:   

Veteran FBI agents say FBI Director James Comey has permanently damaged the bureau’s reputation for uncompromising investigations with his “cowardly” whitewash of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information using an unauthorized private email server.

Feeling the heat from congressional critics, Comey last week argued that the case was investigated by career FBI agents, “So if I blew it, they blew it, too.”

But agents say Comey tied investigators’ hands by agreeing to unheard-of ground rules and other demands by the lawyers for Clinton and her aides that limited their investigation.

“In my 25 years with the bureau, I never had any ground rules in my interviews,” said retired agent Dennis V. Hughes, the first chief of the FBI’s computer investigations unit.

Instead of going to prosecutors and insisting on using grand jury leverage to compel testimony and seize evidence, Comey allowed immunity for several key witnesses, including potential targets.

The immunity agreements came with outrageous side deals, including preventing agents from searching for any documents on a Dell laptop owned by former Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills generated after Jan. 31, 2015, when she communicated with the server administrator who destroyed subpoenaed emails.

Comey also agreed to have Mills’ laptop destroyed after the restricted search, denying Congress the chance to look at it and making the FBI an accomplice to the destruction of evidence.

And...

Comey has turned a once-proud institution known for its independence into one that bows to election pressure, hands out political immunity to candidates and effectively pardons their co-conspirators. He’s turned the FBI into the Federal Bureau of Immunity and lost the trust and respect of not only his agents but the country at large. He ought to step down.

COMMENT:  It's sad, but true.  The FBI has never been a pristine institution.  There have been problems along the way, including the excesses of its first director, J. Edgar Hoover, who also did brilliant things.  But the Bureau had made great progress...until now.  Now, in the minds of many, it lives in a shadow.

October 7, 2016       Permalink

DISAPPOINTING JOBS REPORT – AT 9:28 A.M. ET:  The September jobs report did not meet expectations.  We are barely keeping up with population growth.  From CNBC:

Job creation edged lower in September as the labor market showed there still may be room to run.

Nonfarm payrolls increased 156,000 for the month and the unemployment rate ticked up to 5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Economists surveyed by Reuters had expected 176,000 new jobs and the jobless rate to hold at 4.9 percent. The total was a decline from the upwardly revised 167,000 jobs in August (compared with the original number of 151,000).

"This is within the broad range of expectations," said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com. "The main point is, slow and steady does win the race for this recovery, which began in the summer of 2009."

COMMENT:  Kind of a long recovery, don't you think?  That's seven years by my numbers.   Yearly economic growth is well below the standards of a strong economy.

But not to worry.  The mainstream media will spin every report as a great addition to the legacy of Barack Obama.  Americans will be taught how happy they should be.

October 7,  2016     Permalink