Delaware Dem

Open Thread – Tuesday, September 6, 2016

“Donald Trump has run head-first into an electoral wall,” Politico reports. “In poll after poll, Trump isn’t even close to winning a majority of the vote. While he’s narrowed the gap between his campaign and Hillary Clinton in recent weeks, in the past 21 national polls conducted using conventional phone or internet methodologies over the last five weeks, Trump’s high-water mark in a head-to-head matchup with Clinton is 45 percent.”

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–CNN/ORC–Trump 45, Clinton 43
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–NBC News/SM–Clinton 48, Trump 42

One of these polls is wrong. It is likely the CNN poll, not because I am biased, but it is their first since switching to their likely voter screen for this year, and sometimes that produces screwy results. But it will get TONS of play this week. Trump is now winning the race. And I actually don’t mind it. It will do three things: 1) wake up the Clinton campaign, 2) wake up the media to get off their three week Clinton bashing and 3) wake up Clinton supporters and liberals.

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Monday Open Thread [9.5.2016]

Josh Marshall on the press’ noncoverage of the Trump-Bondi Bribery scandal:

Yesterday I pressed the point of the wildly dissimilar campaign coverage of Trump and Clinton, particularly the continuing saturation coverage of Clinton ‘scandals’ in which she’s actually being exonerated and virtually no coverage of a pretty cut and dry pay-for-play story with Trump, his foundation and his efforts to protect himself legally from the fallout of the exposure of his real estate seminar scam business, ‘Trump University’. But the case with Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is more serious than that. We usually use the phrase ‘pay-to-play’ when talking about money for access, money for government contracts or friendly interventions in the legislative process. The Trump-Bondi case looks like money in exchange for killing an investigation and possible lawsuit against Trump. It would be like Hillary Clinton making a cash payment to Loretta Lynch or James Comey during the email probe.

First, a small point: In the context of chatting about this on Twitter and with colleagues, I took the step of searching The New York Times website to see how much they’d written on the Trump-Bondi story. It first got attention in March and then again in June. So I figured at least a couple short mentions. It turns out the Times, at least according to a full search of “Trump University” and “Pam Bondi”, has literally never published anything on the topic at all. […]

The AG’s office was investigating Trump University and considering joining a lawsuit with other Attorneys General. Bondi asked Trump for money. Trump sent money. The investigation ended. The arrival of Trump’s check just four days after her office publicly announced their inquiry tells quite a tale. […]

That seems like a real problem.

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Sunday Open Thread [9.4.2016]

Kevin Drum:

Have you read the entire FBI report on their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices? No? Well, I have, because that’s the kind of professional I am. And I’m going to provide you with all the most interesting excerpts. […]

If you read the entire report, you’ll find bits and pieces that might show poor judgment on Hillary’s part. The initial decision to use one email device is the obvious one, something that Hillary has acknowledged repeatedly. Another—maybe—is her staff’s view of what was safe to send over unclassified email. But this is very fuzzy. It could be that her staff knew exactly what it was doing, and it’s the subsequent classification authorities who are wrong. This is something that it’s impossible to judge since none of us will ever see the emails in question.

That said, this report is pretty much an almost complete exoneration of Hillary Clinton. She wasn’t prohibited from using a personal device or a personal email account, and others at state did it routinely. She’s told the truth all along about why she did it. Colin Powell did indeed advise her about using personal email shortly after she took office, but she chose to follow the rules rather than skirt them, as Powell did. She didn’t take her BlackBerry into her office. She communicated with only a very select group of 13 people. She took no part in deciding which emails were personal before handing them over to State. She had nothing to do with erasing information on the PRN server. That was a screw-up on PRN’s end. She and her staff all believed at the time that they were careful not to conduct sensitive conversations over unclassified email systems. And there’s no evidence that her server was ever hacked.

There’s remarkably little here. If you nonetheless believe that it’s enough to disqualify Hillary from the presidency, that’s fine. I have no quarrel with you. But if the FBI is to be believed, it’s all pretty small beer.

Read the whole piece now. He goes through the report in thorough detail.

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Thursday Open Thread [9.1.2016]

So, the media, and the American people, got played. All this talk of softening, of a pivot, was pure grade A horseshit, from only the best and most beautiful horses.

Trump did three things yesterday. He wilted like a coward in front of an adversary who told him in no uncertain terms that he can stick his demand that Mexico pay for his wall up where the sun don’t shine. And then he lied about being coward to the American people, because, bullies who are revealed as cowards don’t like to admit it. And then he doubled down on mass deportation gestapo force in a crazed racist speech in Phoenix last night.

Donald Trump “made his immigration policies clear: Mexico will fund an impenetrable, beautiful border wall, and the Republican presidential nominee’s administration will begin its construction on the first day of his presidency,” Politico reports.

Said Trump: “On Day One, we will begin working on an impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful southern border wall. We will use the best technology, including above and below ground sensors. That’s the tunnels. Remember that. Above and below. Above and below ground sensors. Towers. Aerial surveillance and manpower to supplement the wall. Find and dislocate tunnels and keep out criminal cartels and Mexico will work with us. I really believe it. Mexico will work with us. I absolutely believe it.”

“Trump outlined other planks of his policy position, including a promise to return all detained undocumented people to their home countries and zero tolerance for immigrants who commit crimes. It amounted to a massive deportation program.”

He noted: “You can call it deported if you want. The press doesn’t like that term. You can call it whatever the hell you want. They’re gone.”

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