TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2016

Today’s Good News And Bad News

From Our Local Political Junkie We’ll Call “Cincy Dave”

BAD NEWS FOR COMEY
Beyond the obvious violation of normal protocol, policies and procedures in sending a letter to various members of congress about the investigation of Anthony Weiner’s computer and any potential ties to Hillary, FBI Director James Comey may be in serious legal trouble himself. A complaint has been filed against him for violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from interfering with elections. Whatever Comey’s intentions were in releasing the letter, he could still be prosecuted. Comey is said to hate politics and wanted to stay out of it as much as possible, but in choosing to deal with congress there is one thing he missed completely. As Eric Blair, A.K.A. George Orwell, put it so well many years ago, “ In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.” Comey’s cowardice in failing to stand up to partisans in congress and thereby affecting the election makes him and the FBI look bad. Needless to say, he is unlikely to last anytime at all in a potential Hillary administration. If the results of the election favor Hillary, he should be gone before the end of the year. More here: 

Although we have heard about the investigation of Hillary’s emails, ad nauseam, we haven’t heard much about another FBI investigation that is also currently ongoing. That would be the investigation of the other candidate’s ties to Russia – the very candidate that invited the Russians to hack into the emails of his opponent. Could this be the antidote to the email controversy? In addition to the FBI investigation, computer scientists have discovered that Trump had maintained a high speed data link to a bank in Moscow that is closely associated with Vladimir Putin. It is also believed that Trump is heavily in debt to the Russians so there could be a lot more here than what is now known. Maybe there should be a congressional investigation about that server. When the information about the Trump server became known, Trump abruptly shut it down, to be replaced by another one. As Trump himself might say, “I don’t know, folks, but something is going on – I don’t know.” More here:

DEMS FILE COMPLAINTS UNDER THE KKK ACT
State Democrat Parties have filed complaints against Republican Parties in 4 states, including Ohio, for violation of the KKK voting rights act. The complaints accuse Trump’s campaign, the Republican Parties of Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Ohio and Trump confidant Roger Stone, as well as his Stop the Steal super PAC, of violating the Ku Klux Klan and Voting Rights Acts with a “coordinated campaign of vigilante voter intimidation.” The defendants, the filings allege, “are conspiring to threaten, intimidate, and thereby prevent minority voters in urban neighborhoods from voting in the 2016 election.” They each cite a Bloomberg report in which an unnamed official is quoted saying, “We have three major voter suppression operations under way” that targets minorities. In addition, it also alleges that Trump himself has advanced “his campaign’s goal of ‘voter suppression’ by using the loudest microphone in the nation to implore his supporters to engage in unlawful intimidation at [each state’s] polling places.” More here: 

CHRIS CHRISTIE
One-time presidential candidate, NJ Governor Chris Christie, was offered the VP slot by Trump but Trump withdrew the offer a day or two later. According to a report by the New York Post, Trump offered the job to Christie but Trump’s campaign manager at the time, Paul Manafort, did not like the choice and it was also opposed by Trump’s family. Manafort arranged for Trump to meet Mike Pence the next day and then lied to Trump after he got there, telling him that his plane had mechanical problems, thereby forcing him to stay another day. Another day was all it took for Pence to secure the position as Trump’s running mate. In the course of a few months, Christie went from being a viable presidential candidate, to a vice presidential candidate to now being a gofer for Trump’s happy meals and KFC orders. Even worse, he may face charges in the bridgegate scandal for blocking traffic on an interstate bridge to punish a political opponent. As they say, “the bigger they are, the harder they fall”, and he is a big one. Too bad he didn’t get a chance to take on Wm. Howard Taft’s record for the fattest president.

MEGYN KELLY
Trump’s nemesis on Fox News, Megan Kelly, will probably be around for a while. Fox is apparently offering her over $20 million per year to stay, a sum which other networks are unlikely to exceed. She is one of the few on Fox that ever deviate from the party line, and has occasionally laughed at some of their guests’ more ridiculous pronouncements. Trump’s prime-time complaint about Kelly “bleeding from her wherever” will probably live on in political infamy. Recently, Newt Gingrich had a little disagreement of his own with Kelly, telling her on-air that she was obsessed with sex, and her telling him to go deal with his anger issues. It is likely that she will eventually take over from Bill O’Reilly as the top show on Fox. 

DONNA BRAZILE FIRED
Acting DNC Chair Donna Brazile was fired from CNN for feeding a primary debate question to Hillary last summer in Flint, Michigan. It was a completely expected question anyway – “what are you going to do about the poisoned water in Flint?” – because the whole reason the debate was held there was to highlight the Flint water crisis. CNN has loaded its lineup with former campaign staffers from both parties, including one of Trump’s former campaign managers, Corey Lewandowski, and Obama’s former political advisor, David Axelrod. Lewandowski was even reportedly still advising the Trump campaign while working at CNN and getting paid by both. It doesn’t do any good for CNN’s reputation and both parties think CNN favors the opposing party anyway. There are probably not enough real journalists to go around these days, so they prefer to have recognizable names and people who they think can get (and apparently give) inside information.

TODAY’S STATE POLLS
The pollster that no one ever heard of before who conducted the Alaska poll is either the best pollster on earth or the worst. Our bet is that they are the worst. We think it is nearly impossible that Hillary will win Alaska. A Democrat has won Alaska exactly once since they became a state in 1959 and that was in the ’64 rout of LBJ vs. some guy named “Barry.” In Florida, the mixed results show how close the mother of all swing states may be this year.

— More Good News And Bad News Tomorrow —