BloggeRhythms

The third and final presidential debate has now come and gone, without causing any apparent major changes in the election’s predicted outcome. 

According to the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times "Daybreak" poll this morning, Trump still leads his challenger 44.4% to 43.8%.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online White House Watch @rasmussenreports.com, finds him at 43% support among likely U.S. voters to his opponent’s 40%.

“Among the 87% of voters who say they are now sure how they will vote, it’s Trump 48%, Clinton 46%. Four percent (4%) of these voters choose Johnson, two percent (2%) Stein. Among the voters who say they still could change their minds between now and Election Day, it’s Trump 36%, Clinton 30%, Johnson 23% and Stein 11%.”

And then, as reported by John Merline @investors.com/politics: “After more than a week of blistering attacks from Democrats, celebrities and the press, Donald Trump has managed to pull ahead of Hillary Clinton by a 1.3 percentage point margin — 41.3% to 40% — in a four-way matchup, according to the new IBD/TIPP poll released today.

“Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson got 7.6% and Green Party candidate Jill Stein got 5.5%. The results are the first in the IBD/TIPP presidential tracking poll. Daily updates start Thursday and will continue until the election.” 

What’s most important about this particular poll is: “The IBD/TIPP tracking poll has been cited as the most accurate in predicting actual election results in the past three presidential elections.” 

Which means that, despite all the major media hype and misdirection regarding their favorite candidate, Trump once again is appealing to a much broader segment of the electorate than they’ll admit and there’s not very much they can do about it.  

On another subject, somewhat related to the voting public, Nolan D. McCaskill writes @politico.com, about a particularly inane perspective coming from Marco Rubio regarding WikiLeaks, as follows:

“Marco Rubio has been mum on the WikiLeaks hack of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman and advises Republicans to do the same, warning that while Democrats are being hacked today, Republicans could be exposed tomorrow.

“In a statement out Wednesday morning, the Florida senator refused to acknowledge any of the revelations exposed by WikiLeaks’ hack of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s personal email account.” 

“Speaking in Tampa later on Wednesday, Rubio warned that giving credence to foreign hacks against U.S. officials could be “an invitation to chaos and havoc.” 

Rubio said: “Just think about this: Do we really want to be a country where foreign leaders or foreign intelligence agencies can blackmail our elected officials and say to them that unless you do what we want you to do, we’re gonna release emails from your campaign manager, your wife, your daughter, your son, and we’re gonna embarrass you. So unless you wanna be embarrassed you better do what we want you to do. Is that what we want?” Rubio asked. “Because I’ll tell you that’s what Vladimir Putin does. I think there’s plenty of material in which to line up and take on Secretary Clinton. I think this one is an invitation to chaos and havoc in the future.” 

However, what Rubio seems to be ignoring is that if elected officials have done nothing illegal, immoral, or inappropriate there’s nothing to be “embarrassed” about. Which suggests he himself is afraid of disclosure, and likely has something to worry about regarding his own potential problems.

And thus, while it’s totally ridiculous not to make very loud mention of anyone’s misdeeds or inappropriate behavior, because otherwise unfit candidates may wind up in office, Rubio’s now give his own opponents plenty of reason to examine every shred of his existence. Because, he sure sounds like he’s hiding something he's quite concerned about. 

Then this came from a friend this morning as an unconfirmed quote from Arnie.:

 

As his final request, Arnold Palmer has suggested that the golf term "bad lie" would be more descriptive if called... "A Hillary" in the lexicon of golf terms.

Bringing us to today’s update on Bill Clinton’s wife, which may explain why the mainstream media hasn’t nailed down the election for her as yet. 

According to Suzanne Vranica and Jack Marshall @wsj.com: “Newspapers are suffering an accelerating drop in print advertising, a market that already was under stress, forcing some publishers to consider significant cost cuts and dramatic changes to their print and digital products. 

“Global spending on newspaper print ads is expected to decline 8.7% to $52.6 billion in 2016, according to estimates from GroupM, the ad-buying firm owned by WPP PLC. That would be the biggest drop since the recession, when world-wide spending plummeted 13.7% in 2009.”

In the analysis it’s revealed: “That decline is hitting every major publisher, increasing pressure on them to boost digital-revenue streams even faster to make up for lost revenue and, in some cases, even reconsider the format of their print products and the types of content they publish.” 

Which means, perhaps, that those publishers are finally accepting the fact that significant parts of their former readership are sick and tired of being bombarded with slanted, biased political pap and looking elsewhere for the facts and reality.   

Reader abandonment has now reached the point where: “Many newspapers have trimmed costs to cope with the worse-than-expected revenue decline. The New York Times Co. and Wall Street Journal-owner News Corp, likely have further head-count reductions on the way, and the Guardian and the U.K.’s Daily Mail recently eliminated jobs. Analysts such as Jefferies & Co. have pared back their third-quarter estimates for publishers including the Times and Gannett Co.” 

In that regard, reader Peter Lewicki commented absolutely correctly: “One of the factors in the decline of print media, is that there has been a woeful decline in the integrity of straight news journalism, which has steadily been eroded by some journalists and editors to inject their own political and economic biases into what should be neutral reportage of facts and news. This factor is admittedly hard to quantify and track how it has affected readership, but it is indisputably been highlighted in the current election cycle where many in the main stream media's press corps have taken it upon themselves to "fight the enemy." 

Thus, what Mr. Lewicki’s analysis provides is a likely accurate explanation for Trump’s continual successful performance in the polls although the mainstream media has all but put Bill Clinton’s wife in the White House themselves. 

However, what the huge decline in MSM readership confirms is that the voting public simply isn’t buying the fabrication. And as a result of their frustration, they’re getting truthful news elsewhere in ever increasing numbers. 

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