October 27, 2016

Poll: Most Americans see the country on the right track

Source: MSNBC

10/27/16 11:20 AM—UPDATED 10/27/16 12:04 PM
By Steve Benen

Those who see the 2016 cycle as a “change election” point specifically to right-right/wrong-track polls. As we discussed last week, it’s a deeply flawed metric, but many pundits continue to say there’s a broad public appetite for radical change – for proof, they point to the fact that most Americans consistently say the country is headed in the wrong direction. But sometimes, the wording of a question can produce unexpected results. Take this new CNN poll, for example.

While right-track/wrong-track polling has been common for many years, this poll asked respondents, “How well are things going in the country today – very well, fairly well, pretty badly or very badly?” A combined 54% majority said things are going very well or fairly well.

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Read more: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/poll-most-americans-see-the-country-the-right-track?cid=eml_mra_20161027

October 27, 2016

Trump’s ‘Celebrity Candidate 2016’ Will End — Even Without A Concession Speech - Gene Lyons

Practically speaking, it doesn’t really matter if Donald Trump accepts the results of the November election. No concession speech—can anybody imagine the big blowhard delivering one?—is legally required. The Electoral College will certify the vote in December and the new president will be sworn in on January 20, 2017 whether Trump likes it or not.

That goes for his more fervid supporters too.

According to a recent CBS News poll, upwards of 80 percent of Texas Republicans claim to believe that only voter fraud can prevent Trump from winning. Florida Republicans too. Numbers like those prompted the Washington Post’s conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin to urge anti-Trump Republicans not to make the mistake of staying home on November 8.

“The bigger the margin by which he loses,” she writes “the more preposterous Trump’s claim that the election is fixed. Indeed, it’s more important for Republicans — if they want to get back their party — to vote against Trump than it is for Democrats.”

Rubin’s surely correct about the absurdity of the GOP candidate’s posturing. However, I think it’s a mistake to take rank and file grumbling about voter fraud too seriously. Large percentages of Texas Republicans also claim to believe that President Obama is a Kenyan-born Muslim, climate change a Chinese-sponsored hoax, and a thousand similar absurdities. They’ve regarded every Democratic president since 1992 as illegitimate.

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http://www.nationalmemo.com/celebrity-candidate-2016-will-end/

October 27, 2016

Donald Trump may find a place in history — by losing just that badly - By George F. Will

When told that the New England transcendentalist Margaret Fuller had grandly declared “I accept the universe,” the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle dryly remarked: “She’d better.” Much ink and indignation has been spilled concerning whether Donald (“I am much more humble than you would understand”) Trump will “accept” the election’s outcome. The nation, like the universe of which it is the nicest part, will persevere even without the election result being accepted by the fellow who probably will be the first major-party presidential nominee in 20 years to receive less — probably a lot less — than 45 percent of the vote.

When the Jimmy Carter/Walter Mondale ticket lost 44 states in 1980, Mondale used his elegant concession remarks to herald “a chance to rejoice”: “Today, all across this nation — in high school cafeterias, in town halls, and churches, and synagogues — the American people quietly wielded their staggering power. .?.?. Tonight we celebrate above all the process we call American freedom.” Today, such political grace notes are rare as the nation slouches toward its first dyspeptic landslide — an electoral-vote avalanche for a candidate regretted by a majority of the electorate.

Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860 with the lowest percentage of the popular vote (39.9) of any electoral winner in history. He received fewer than the combined votes for two Democratic rivals, the Northerner Stephen Douglas and the Southerner John Breckinridge. This did not prevent Lincoln from becoming the nation’s greatest president. Majorities, however helpful, are not necessary. In 14 of the 39 elections since 1860 the winner did not get a majority of the popular vote, including Woodrow Wilson (twice), Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton (twice), Democrats all.

Carter’s 50.1 percent of the popular vote in 1976 was the only time in the 40 years after 1964 that a Democratic presidential candidate would win a majority of the popular vote. Ronald Brownstein of the Atlantic notes, “Since the 1828 election of Andrew Jackson that historians consider the birth of the modern two-party system, no party has ever won the presidential popular vote six times over seven elections.” By the evening of Nov. 8, the Republican Party likely will have lost the popular vote for the sixth time in seven elections, and will have lost three consecutive elections for the first time since the 1940s.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-may-find-a-place-in-history--by-losing-just-that-badly/2016/10/26/77d15d8e-9ae8-11e6-b3c9-f662adaa0048_story.html?utm_term=.242f5a4e7fa6&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

October 27, 2016

Clinton slams Trump’s hypocrisy in using undocumented labor to build D.C. hotel

LAKE WORTH, Fla. — As Donald Trump marks the grand opening of his new D.C. hotel, Hillary Clinton sharply criticized him for relying on undocumented labor to make the project cheaper.

“Today he’s in Washington, D.C., to open a new luxury hotel. While the hotel may be new it’s the same old story,” Clinton said at a rally at Palm Beach State College. “He relied on undocumented workers to make his project cheaper.”

Trump’s new downtown D.C. hotel was built thanks to the efforts of a large workforce that included Hispanic construction workers, including some workers who say they are undocumented, The Washington Post reported.

“We know he’s used undocumented workers. And that’s one of the things he’s run his campaign on, about deporting undocumented workers.”

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/26/clinton-slams-trump-for-using-undocumented-labor-to-build-d-c-hotel/?wpisrc=nl_politics&wpmm=1

October 26, 2016

WI Dems Request DOJ Poll Monitors After Voter ID Chaos, 'Rigged Election' Talk

Source: Talking Points Memo

By TIERNEY SNEED Published OCTOBER 26, 2016, 5:31 PM EDT

Democratic U.S. lawmakers from Wisconsin sent a letter to the Department of Justice Wednesday requesting that it deploy federal poll monitors to the state after reports that local officials were providing potential voters with inaccurate information about the state's voter ID law. The letter also raised concerns about "potential voter intimidation at polling places, particularly in light of recent, high-profile rhetoric that alleges 'election rigging.'"

"National figures have suggested that there is widespread voter fraud in our country and have encouraged private citizens to monitor voting behaviors of certain communities for potential misconduct," said the Democrats' letter, which was signed by Sen. Tammy Baldwin, and Reps. Gwen Moore, Ron Kind, and Mark Pocan.

The letter cited reports that voters who do not have the IDs required by the state's voter ID law were having trouble obtaining the free IDs the state was supposed to provide for them to vote. It specifically cited the misinformation being given to them by local officials that was at odds with a court ruling over the summer.

A federal judge in July ruled that the system to get Wisconsin's non-ID holders free IDs to vote had been a "wretched failure" and ordered the state to do a better job of implementing the program. Months later, potential voters were still being told by local officials that they would not be able to obtain the free IDs in time to vote, according to reports by The Nation and the Journal Sentinel, prompting another rebuke from the judge, U.S. District Judge James Peterson.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/wi-dems-request-doj-poll-monitors-after-voter-id-confusion-rigged-election-talk

October 26, 2016

The mainstreaming of racism on Fox News - By Jennifer Rubin

Rubin's ripping; her three blog entries from today:


Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective.

By Jennifer Rubin

We’ve made the distinction before, but it bears repeating: There are professional, fair and conscientious news people on Fox News. No one could watch the final debate and deny that Chris Wallace is among the best in the business. Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly have earned their place among top debate moderators and interviewers. What we are about to discuss does not apply to them, but it threatens to diminish the news legitimacy of their employer and depress their own ratings as the Fox News label becomes tarnished.

The degree to which Fox fake-news programming (e.g. Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, “Fox and Friends”) has mainstreamed and defended blatant racism is shocking. Overshadowed by Newt Gingrich’s outburst on Megyn Kelly’s show last night was Sean Hannity’s birther dog-whistle. He directed his rant to President Obama:

You want to go to Canada? I’ll pay for you to go to Canada. You want to go to Kenya? I’ll pay for you to go to Kenya. Jakarta, where you went to school back in the day, you can go back there. Anywhere you want to go. I’ll put the finest food — caviar, champagne, you name it. I have one stipulation: You can’t come back.

Now, do we think it’s coincidental that he picked Kenya, folks? Do we think Hannity is not ringing the birther bell, suggesting (affirming, actually) for the benefit of his alt-right audience that, in his mind, Obama is a foreigner, probably Muslim and definitely not “one of us”?

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/10/26/the-mainstreaming-of-racism-on-fox-news/?utm_term=.487f4211e66b&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1

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Look where anti-immigrant advocates have taken the GOP

By Jennifer Rubin October 26 at 2:50 PM

Republicans understood, or some of them did, after the 2012 presidential election that the GOP could not continue to put off Hispanic voters. The GOP nevertheless nominated an openly xenophobic candidate bent on demonizing Hispanics. The very fact that the border problem is minor (net immigration now flows from the United States to Mexico) compared with the visa overstays (many from Asia) suggests Donald Trump is fixated on keeping certain illegal immigrants out — the ones he calls “murderers” and “rapists.” If the GOP had a problem with Hispanics before this election, we can only imagine where it will be after the election.

Remember: Texas and Arizona, two red states with large Hispanic populations, are now in play and are winnable by Hillary Clinton, in part because of her strength with Hispanic voters. Trump this month has not had more than a four-point lead in polling. In Arizona, Clinton is ahead in the RealClearPolitics average. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is leading comfortably in his reelection race.

Then there is Nevada, a state Trump won in the primaries and that is absolutely winnable in the general election. Nevada political guru Jon Ralston reports:

Of Culinary (Union)’s 57,000 members, more than 30,000 are Hispanic and nearly 7,000 are African-American. And on the eve of the election, nearly 60 percent – 34,000 – of the union’s members are registered to vote, a record total for Local 226. . . .

This is no fly-by-night operation, either. They may be blue-collar workers, but they have sophisticated charts and algorithms designed to maximize the possibility that the doors they knock on will produce voters for their candidates. The Culinary hall is festooned with color-coded charts and tallies of doors knocked, while down the corridor red pins are stuck in a map to show where they have contacted voters.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/10/26/look-where-anti-immigrant-advocates-have-taken-the-gop/?utm_term=.a2c63e4dccb4&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1

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Sane Republicans should pack their bags and flee the GOP

By Jennifer Rubin October 26 at 11:30 AM

If we do not experience some cataclysmic event, Donald Trump will lose badly and many Republicans will lose their seats. Trump may or may not concede, and the nutty cheering section (from Bill O’Reilly to Breitbart) can cry foul and blame whomever they please. (Surely not themselves!) But it will hardly matter. There will be much discussion on the right, some thoughtful and some ridiculous, about what went wrong, who is to blame, how to fix the GOP, etc. But is all that really necessary?

Surely there is a sufficient body of people in the center-right who are entirely and thoroughly disgusted with the existing GOP. The once Grand Old Party has come to embody the heinous qualities that liberals unfairly attributed to all Republicans (e.g. hostile to women, the poor and immigrants) and as a political matter has atrophied and accommodated itself to charlatans, snake-oil salesmen and alt-right bigots. Don’t try to reason with this crowd; just up and go.

Center-right Americans committed to a strong national security policy, free markets with a humane safety net and corrupt-free politics can just leave the GOP and start something new. No furrowed brows and sweating over whether to fire Reince Priebus would be needed. No need to figure out how to expel the evangelical charlatans who believe in nothing but their own power. No need to figure out how to keep talk-radio hecklers and fake Fox News figures from spreading nonsense and making the party dumber by the year. No need to wrest control of early primaries from states that favor fringe candidates.

Plant a flag, announce your principles and then decide whom you want to invite. Save all the energy that otherwise would be wasted on another useless autopsy report and arguing with people who threw away every conviction to support Trump.


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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/10/26/sane-republicans-should-pack-their-bags-and-flee-the-gop/?utm_term=.4c82e10c0d39&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1

October 26, 2016

Democrats are coming home to Clinton. That’s very bad news for Trump.

By Paul Waldman October 26 at 1:06 PM

One of the main themes of coverage of the 2016 election has been that the American public hate both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and are trying to figure out which is the lesser of two evils. But that may no longer be true.

If a round of recent polls is correct, Hillary Clinton is consolidating support among Democrats in general, young people, Latinos — in short, all the groups she needs to win, but who at various points in the campaign weren’t yet behind her in as large numbers as they might have been.

She may not wind up as the most beloved presidential candidate in memory, but she’s beginning to look much like other recent Democratic nominees — which would be more than enough for her to win. I’ll explain why I think this has happened in a moment, but let’s do a quick run-down first:

Democrats: In recent elections, both nominees have had overwhelming support among their partisans. But since there are slightly more Democrats than Republicans, if both do equally well, then the Democrat wins. For example, in 2012 Barack Obama won 92 percent of Democratic votes and Mitt Romney won 93 percent of Republicans; in 2008 Obama got 89 percent of his partisans and John McCain got 90 percent of his. You’ll recall who won those two elections.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/10/26/democrats-are-coming-home-to-clinton-thats-very-bad-news-for-trump/?utm_term=.8938ed9877cc&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1

October 26, 2016

Clinton will hold election night rally in New York City: campaign

Source: Reuters

26 OCT 2016 AT 16:03 ET

U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will hold her election night rally in New York City, the campaign said on Wednesday.

The Clinton campaign is headquartered in New York’s Brooklyn borough, and Clinton served two terms as a U.S. senator for the state, from 2001 to 2009. She lives in the New York City suburb of Chappaqua.

Her opponent in the Nov. 8 election, Republican Donald Trump, is also from New York.

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Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/clinton-will-hold-election-night-rally-in-new-york-city-campaign/

October 26, 2016

Oversampling? Trump making same wrong claim about polls that conservatives used in 2012

Source: MCCLATCHY WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump is making the same mistake as President Mitt Romney.

He insists that public polls showing him trailing Hillary Clinton are biased results because they "oversample" Democrats. But that's exactly the same argument that a lot of conservatives used in 2012, wrongly convincing themselves that Romney would win easily and waking up shocked to find they were wrong and the polls were right.

The problem is, they claim something about the way polls are conducted that simply isn't true. That isn't stopping Trump from railing against "oversampling."

"When the polls are even, when they leave them alone and do them properly, I'm leading," he said. "But you see these polls where they're polling Democrats. How's Trump doing? Oh, he's down. They're polling Democrats. The system is corrupt and it's rigged and it's broken."

Other conservatives were also solidly convinced in 2012 that pollsters' "oversampling" of Democrats was hiding the truth that Republican presidential nominee Romney was leading incumbent President Barack Obama — by a lot.

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Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/oversampling-trump-making-same-wrong-claim-about-polls-that-conservatives-used-in-2012/

October 26, 2016

Top executive behind Dakota Access has donated more than $100,000 to Trump

Source: Reuters

26 OCT 2016 AT 15:50 ET

The top executive at the company behind the embattled Dakota Access Pipeline has donated more than $100,000 to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump since June, according to campaign finance disclosure records.

The donations by Kelcy Warren, chairman and chief executive officer at pipeline operator Energy Transfer Partners, support the candidate seen by many as more likely to promote the U.S. oil and gas industry than his opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Warren donated $300 to the Trump campaign during the primaries, and $2,700 to Trump during the general election phase of the campaign, for the maximum contribution allowed by a single individual during an election.

He also gave $100,000 to the Trump Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee that includes the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, the Republican Party of Arkansas and the Connecticut Republican Party.

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Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/top-executive-behind-dakota-access-has-donated-more-than-100000-to-trump/