BloggeRhythms

While many of the Republican elite try determinedly to force Trump’s departure from the presidential race, neither he nor many poll results indicate that will likely ever happen. The elitists objectives are certainly logical though. Because if he wins, they and the party as they presently know it are finished, something they clearly wish not to take place at all.

Some evidence supporting Trump’s confidence comes from today’s latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey of Likely U.S. Voters that shows Trump with 43% support to his rival’s 41%. Unchanged from yesterday. 

On Monday, she had a seven-point lead, 45% to 38% – “following the airing of an 11-year-old video showing Trump making graphic sexual remarks about women. But as voters began responding to Sunday night’s debate, her lead dropped to five points on Tuesday and four points on Wednesday. Trump edged ahead yesterday.” 

For the 87% of voters who now say they’ve made up their minds, Trump scores 48% to her 46%, while among those saying they still could change their minds between now and Election Day, it’s Trump ahead 37% to 36%. 

At the same time, according to Michael Smith and Jeffrey M. Jones @gallup.com/poll: “With the presidential election less than a month away, 28% of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. This continues the low satisfaction levels that started near the end of the George W. Bush administration and have persisted under President Barack Obama. Satisfaction remains significantly below the historical average of 37% since Gallup began measuring it in 1979.

“The finding that fewer than one in three Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. could appear ominous for the Democratic Party's chances of holding on to the White House in 2016. But satisfaction today is similar to what it was four years ago, when Obama won a second term.” 

“On the other hand, Republican Donald Trump has been able to focus heavily on his claims about what has gone wrong with the direction of the U.S. under Obama. With seven in 10 Americans expressing dissatisfaction with the nation's course, Trump has a large audience who agrees with his contention that the country is on the wrong track, even if many may not agree with his explanations for why that is the case. Trump's challenge is to convince Americans that he would be able to make things better in the future if elected.”

Other than poll results, some very important indicators were found in an article by Deena Shanker @bloomberg.com, who titled her piece: “It’s Official: This Election Is Driving Americans Nuts”

In trying to establish her point, Ms Shanker writes: “There’s good news for Americans who find themselves waking up in a cold sweat at 3 a.m. to check the latest polls: You are not alone.” 

And then, by focusing on voter stress, she inadvertently underlines three of Trump’s key campaigning points by noting: “More than half of you—on both sides of the aisle—say the 2016 election is a major source of stress, according to a new survey from the American Psychological Association. “Historically, work, money, and the economy are the top three,” said clinical psychologist Lynn Bufka, part of the APA’s Stress in America team, which has been conducting surveys of what freaks us out the most for 10 years. “Now it’s right up there.” 

Aside from Trump’s continuing assault on the decline in the nation’s economy at present, his cause was further helped by the POTUS’s continuing foreign policy failures, whereas according to Arshad Mohammed and Jonathan Landay @reuters.com: “U.S. President Barack Obama and his top foreign policy advisers are expected to meet on Friday to consider their military and other options in Syria as Syrian and Russian aircraft continue to pummel Aleppo and other targets, U.S. officials said. 

“Some top officials argue the United States must act more forcefully in Syria or risk losing what influence it still has over moderate rebels and its Arab, Kurdish and Turkish allies in the fight against Islamic State, the officials told Reuters. 

“One set of options includes direct U.S. military action such as air strikes on Syrian military bases, munitions depots or radar and anti-aircraft bases, said one official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.” 

And if that isn’t enough for today, Zachary Tracer, Tatiana Darie and Katherine Doherty @bloomberg.com, headlined their column: “More Than 1 Million in Obamacare to Lose Plans as Insurers Quit” 

“A growing number of people in Obamacare are finding out their health insurance plans will disappear from the program next year, forcing them to find new coverage even as options shrink and prices rise. 

“At least 1.4 million people in 32 states will lose the Obamacare plan they have now, according to state officials contacted by Bloomberg. That’s largely caused by Aetna Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and some state or regional insurers quitting the law’s markets for individual coverage.” 

Presently, while fallout from quitting insurers has emerged as the latest threat to the law, it’s not clear what all the consequences of the departing insurers will be. 

Interviews with regulators and insurance customers suggest that plans will be fewer and more expensive, and may not include the same doctors and hospitals, but also may mean that instead of growing in 2017, Obamacare could shrink. “As of March 31, the law covered 11.1 million people; an Oct. 13 S&P Global Ratings report predicted that enrollment next year will range from an 8 percent decline to a 4 percent gain.” 

Thus, there presently seem to be considerable indications that major flaws in the administration’s decision-making have begun surfacing far more rapidly in the waning days of the presidential race, further evidenced by Trump’s poll performance. However, the polls themselves may be totally misunderstood as a measure of likely final election results.   

Jake Novak, Senior Columnist.@cnbc.com explains: “Just about all of those wild swings in the polls lately have been in favor of Hillary Clinton, as she's now increased her lead from less than one percentage point in the RealClearPolitics poll average to 4.6 points as of Thursday morning. 

“But there's another word you have to use when you see such massive swings in the polls in just a few days with less than a month to go before Election Day: "baloney." And the reason why they're baloney has nothing to do with conspiracy theories, partisan weighting, or even Russian hacking. It's all about common sense. 

“The most important thing to note in these poll swings is that the actual voters are really not changing their minds. I think, and history has shown this, that most voters (Ken Bone notwithstanding) had their minds made up by Oct. 1. The crazy numbers are simply representative of which candidate's supporters are responding to the polls more. 

“This entire scenario is just the latest example of why it's not wise to call this contest over before it's over. You'd think that after the third, fourth, or fifth crazy thing to happen in this election, the "experts" would get that.”

An example that can serve to confirm Mr. Novak’s point appeared today in a column by Jerome Hudson @breitbart.com, which can also apply as today’s update on Bill Clinton’s wife, as follows:

“Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta’s membership on the executive board of an energy company, Joule Unlimited, which received millions from a Putin-connected Russian government fund, also included “75,000 common shares,” according to an email exchange uncovered by the Wikileaks hacks.” 

And then, in addition to the growing negative exposures that WikiLeaks is now producing on a daily basis, Thomas Lifson @americanthinker.com/blog, focused on another area of Bill’s wife’s vulnerability in a column headed: “FBI revolt reportedly building against Comey letting Hillary’s obvious violations of Espionage Act go unprosecuted” 

“Now, as the election approaches and after months of public silence, an internal revolt of FBI agents against the decision is starting to become public, as yet via anonymous sources.  Malia Zimmerman and Adam Housley report for Fox News: 

“…one person closely involved in the year-long probe [is] telling FoxNews.com that career agents and attorneys on the case unanimously believed the Democratic presidential nominee should have been charged. 

“No trial level attorney agreed, no agent working the case agreed, with the decision not to prosecute -- it was a top-down decision,” said the source, whose identity and role in the case has been verified by FoxNews.com. 

“A high-ranking FBI official told Fox News that while it might not have been a unanimous decision, “It was unanimous that we all wanted her [Clinton’s] security clearance yanked.” 

“It is safe to say the vast majority felt she should be prosecuted,” the senior FBI official told Fox News. “We were floored while listening to the FBI briefing because Comey laid it all out, and then said ‘but we are doing nothing,’ which made no sense to us.” 

“Timing, of course, is everything. We will see no Congressional investigation before the election.  So the only way this deep corruption of the Justice Department and its agency, the FBI, is if brave agents resign and with the help of Super Lawyer DiGenova, bring some legal action.” 

Yet, while Congress may not have the time, or inclination, to investigate before election day, the information is still available to be judged by the voting public whose members have minds of their own. 

Which means that if Jake Novak is correct in his belief that “massive swings in the polls in just a few days with less than a month to go before Election Day” are truly "baloney," Trump's supporters now have considerably more reason to stay committed to him. It also suggests that currently “undecideds” may well come his way too on election day. 

Bringing up the ongoing question again: Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Jerry Brown, and Starbucks chairman and CEO, Howard Schultz, are you guys are reading this?    

That's it for today folks.  

Adios