BloggeRhythms

Another morning’s been spent attempting to obtain a stronger grasp on the probable outcome of the upcoming presidential election. However, not only there doesn’t seem to be any way at present to predict the winner, the race itself appears to be muddier than ever.  

According to Janet Hook @wsj.com: “Hillary Clinton is consolidating a substantial lead over Donald Trump less than a month before Election Day, picking up support from women and swing voters as the Republican nominee navigates a roiling sex scandal, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.

“Heading into the final presidential debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton led Mr. Trump by 11 percentage points among likely voters, 48% to 37%, a big jump from the six-point edge she held in mid-September.” 

And then, at the very same time, Aaron Blake @washingtonpost.com, writes: “Donald Trump has had a very tough three weeks on the campaign trail, from a bad first debate to the “Access Hollywood” video to the recent flood of allegations that he groped and made unwanted sexual advances toward several women. 

“And yet Trump trails Hillary Clinton by just four points in the new Washington Post-ABC News poll — a number that is pretty par for the course for the 2016 election. 

“But the Post-ABC poll also makes this clear about what Trump is up to these days: He's doing almost everything wrong, and he's doing nothing to grow his support and actually put himself in a position to win.” 

So, here we have two poll results from two left-leaning news sources, one of which shows a seven point differential over the other. Further influenced by the fact that the Wall Street Journal, and most likely its readers as well, openly despise Trump and his platform. 

In that regard, on Fox News this morning, Ed Henry wondered if the truth wasn't that significant numbers of voters won’t admit their support for Trump, in fear of casting a negative image of themselves.       

Mr. Henry’s supposition seemed to be confirmed by Kathryn Blackhurst who wrote @lifezette.com: “The Donald J. Trump Campaign for President announced Saturday in a statement that it has hauled in a a total of $360 million from a record-breaking 2.6 million individual donors.

“The millions of individual people who have contributed to Trump’s presidential bid throughout the election season total the largest donor pool of any other Republican candidate in history, the campaign claimed — despite the fact the total amount raised by Trump still trails the $480 million raised and spent by 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney. Most of those contributions came from small donors.” 

So, in this case, while Trump’s raised less in total than Romney, the huge number of donors suggests a far larger number of votes will be cast in his favor. Which is right in line with Mr. Henry’s thinking. 

Another subtle Trump advantage appeared today @foxnews.com/politics, which reports: “Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta is firing back at Julian Assange as his WikiLeaks group releases hacked emails from Podesta and others close to Clinton -- including a new batch Saturday -- that have been an embarrassing distraction for the Clinton campaign. 

“I bet the lobster risotto is better than the food at the Ecuadorian Embassy,” Podesta tweeted Friday, while Assange starts his fifth year at the Ecuador Embassy in the United Kingdom, amid a 2005 rape allegation in Sweden. 

“The tweet also included a picture of Podesta and celebrity chef Daniel Boulud recently preparing the dish at a private Clinton fundraiser.” 

So, here’s a guy, Podesta, who’s being exposed as an enabler for a dishonest, corrupt, incapable presidential candidate. Yet, all he can come up in both their defense's is that his accuser has a relationship with a celebrity chef. If that’s what Democrats consider“firing back,” it’s a good bet that they’d face the nations enemies in conflict by hitting them with their purses. 

While Podesta was trivializing being caught red-handed in nefarious political activities, far bigger mistakes were written up by the AP’s Andrew Taylor @mcclatchydc.com, as follows: 

“The government ran a $587 billion budget deficit for the just-completed fiscal year, a 34 percent spike over last year after significant improvement from the record deficits of President Barack Obama's first years in office. 

“The latest figures show that the government is borrowing 15 cents of every dollar it spends. Government spending went up almost 5 percent to $3.9 trillion in fiscal 2016, but revenues stayed flat at $3.3 trillion.” 

While a flat economy is a major cause of significantly increasing debt, “the picture over the long run is more problematic, at least under a conventional view that if deficits continue to rise the national debt grows, government borrowing would "crowd out" private lending and force up interest rates. And if interest rates go up, the government would have to pay much more to finance the more than $14 trillion in Treasury debt held by investors.” 

Holtz-Eakin, a former GOP-appointed CBO director put it this way: “We're going into a debt spiral and, depending how far down you get in that spiral you have a sovereign debt crisis. That's just running a big risk for the budget and the economy." 

Which means that if Trump could employ his vast business acumen to put the negative magnitude of the debt issue into simplified English for the voting public, he’d help himself, and the nation, immeasurably. Because there are likely millions of voters who couldn’t care less about his manly exploits, but would certainly appreciate being rescued from potential personal financial ruination.   

Bringing us to today’s update on Bill Clinton’s wife, this one from Catherine Herridge and Pamela K. Browne @FoxNews.com this morning, who write: “FBI interview summaries and notes, provided late Friday to the House Government Oversight and Intelligence Committees, contain allegations of a "quid pro quo" between a senior State Department executive and FBI agents during the Hillary Clinton email investigation, two congressional sources told Fox News. 

"This is a flashing red light of potential criminality," Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, who has been briefed on the FBI interviews, told Fox News. 

He said "there was an alleged quid pro quo” involving Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy and the FBI “over at least one classified email.” 

“In return for altering the classification, the possibility of additional slots for the FBI at missions overseas was discussed,” Chaffetz said. 

“As Fox News previously reported, interviews released earlier this month, known as 302s, reveal the serious allegation that Kennedy applied pressure to subordinates to change classified email codes so they would be shielded from Congress and the public. Fox News was told as far back as August 2015 that Kennedy was running interference on Capitol Hill. But Kennedy, in his FBI interview on Dec. 21, 2015, “categorically rejected” allegations of classified code tampering.” 

Thus, there’s continuing evidence that the FBI did indeed become involved in protecting Bill’s wife’s presidential ambitions which seems to confirm that Director Comey’s actions were politically motivated too. 

Thus, as the pincer closes from two sides within the agency the potential damage arising from WikiLeaks also increases substantially. And, as shown above, if Bill’s wife’s campaign’s responses revolve around insults concerning meals shared between Julian Assange and a French chef in Ecuador, things can become quite bleak for her very quickly. 

Which brings 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