Saturday, November 5, 2016

Clinton sent daughter material that was later classified


The State Department on Friday released a 2009 email chain that shows then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton forwarding to her daughter material that the department classified last year.

At issue is a December 2009 email that President Barack Obama's trade adviser, Michael Froman, sent to senior White House and State Department staff members. After it made its way up to Clinton, she sent it to "Diane Reynolds," an email pseudonym for Chelsea Clinton.
"See below," Clinton told her daughter. The entire email chain has been blacked out on confidential grounds, the lowest level of classification.
The chain was among the State Department's last release of documents from Clinton's private server before Tuesday's presidential election.
The department classified portions of two other emails released Friday.
They concerned phone calls Clinton had planned in November 2010 with the United Arab Emirates' crown prince and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. At the time, WikiLeaks' release of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables was roiling U.S. relations with governments around the world.
The emails were written by Clinton's deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin. The department designated portions of each "confidential." State Department spokesman Mark Toner said neither document was marked classified when it was sent.
Friday's release, four days before Election Day, included 74 emails totaling 285 pages. The FBI provided the emails to the State Department after uncovering them as part of its investigation of Clinton's email practices.
Many emails are near duplicates of documents the department released after receiving 55,000 pages from Clinton in 2014.
Some reflect minor additions, such as Clinton asking an aide to print out the exchange on paper.

Newt Gingrich: Bigger than Hillary -- The establishment cesspool of dishonesty and corruption

WikiLeaks documents expose media collusion with Clinton camp

Crooked Hillary

She should be in Jail. 
The only precedent in American history for the mess we will be in if Secretary Hillary Clinton wins on November 8 is the election, investigation, and resignation of President Richard Nixon.
The parallels struck me when Callista and I visited the Nixon Presidential Library two weeks ago. We were signing our new books (Treason by me and Hail to the Chief by Callista).
The Nixon Library has undergone a remarkable renovation. Touring it is a powerful educational experience. Since my first congressional race was in 1974 as Nixon was forced from office, the Library brought back many memories. (I lost that year in a Republican collapse over the scandal.)
The process of investigating Watergate and within 21 months of his reelection forcing President Nixon to resign (August 9, 1974) is the only precedent for the problem we will face if Secretary Clinton wins.
In some ways this is an unfair comparison.
Unlike Clinton, Nixon had a great foreign policy record. Working with Henry Kissinger as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, President Nixon opened up our relationship with China and balanced our relationship with the Soviet Union. His diplomacy with Beijing was an astonishing and totally unexpected breakthrough.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
Nixon entered office with millions of Americans bitterly opposed to President Lyndon Johnson's handling of the Vietnam War. Nixon and Kissinger developed a policy to free South Vietnam and establish peace in the region. They ensured the return of several American prisoners of war including John McCain.
Domestically, President Nixon worked hard to achieve a sweeping reelection victory in 1972. He learned from 1960, when he lost so narrowly that only vote theft in Illinois and Texas enabled Kennedy to win.  Nixon won very narrowly eight years later in 1968, in a three way race with Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Governor George Wallace.
In 1972, Nixon carried 49 states. That number has only been equaled in modern times by President Ronald Reagan's 1984 reelection. What most Americans don't realize is that President Nixon actually won reelection by a greater margin than Reagan (60.7 percent for Nixon compared to 58.8 percent for Reagan).
After the massive victory in 1972, Nixon might have expected a very successful conclusion to his then 26-year career in public life as a Congressman, Senator, Vice President and President.
Yet the overwhelming victory was not enough to protect him from the mistakes of his team and himself.
Looking back, the Watergate scandal was about a burglary of the Democratic Party headquarters located in the Watergate Building. This was one of the most self-destructive acts in American history. Nixon was going to win by a landslide. There was no point in breaking into the Democratic headquarters.
Nixon should have repudiated the burglary.  If he had allowed the burglars and their immediate bosses to pay for their enthusiastic stupidity everything would have ended. Nixon would have served out his four years and history would have been very different.
However, Nixon's loyalty to his team and his deep paranoia about his political enemies, including the news media, led him to obstruct justice.
America is a hard country in which to sustain dishonesty and corruption because there are simply too many people with consciences that compel them to report illegality and the betrayal of the rule of law. By lying to government officials and plotting to hide the truth, Nixon placed himself at the center of much bigger scandal than the original break in.
Nixon found himself drawn deeper and deeper into a cover up. It was discovered that he had maintained an audio taping system in the Oval Office. Then it was discovered that 18 and a half minutes had been deleted. The tapes are available today at the National Archives (they are public property just like Clinton's emails).
For 18 months the American government was increasingly paralyzed by what Nixon's own former White House counsel, John Dean, called “a cancer on the Presidency.”  It was clear that Nixon would be impeached and he chose to resign rather than face a bitter fight for survival.
Ironically Hillary Clinton knows this history well because as a young lawyer she served on the House Judiciary Committee as it established the groundwork for impeaching President Nixon.
Why did she ignore it? Why has she ignored it for virtually her entire public career going back to Arkansas over 30 years ago?
Lord Acton warned nearly 200 years ago that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
More than two thousand years ago the Greeks warned that hubris preceded Nemesis. Greeks believed hubris occurred when someone was too proud and that the goddess Nemesis would punish them for their arrogance.
From Whitewater to 33,000 deleted emails to the corruption of the Clinton Foundation to all the problems exposed by Wikileaks, the Clintons personify the Greek model of hubris and Lord Acton's warning that power corrupts.
Now Nemesis may be intervening in Hillary Clinton's career.
We now know that the FBI has stumbled on to some 650,000 emails on the Abedin-Weiner computer.
This must be something like the intervention of a Greek goddess. Who else could imagine that former Congressman Anthony Weiner's sexting a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina would lead the FBI to a computer that may have over 650,000 emails from Hillary's closest aide, Huma Abedin (Weiner's wife).
As a novelist, I wouldn't have the nerve to suggest such a wild plot.
Now the FBI has reopened the email case.
The FBI also has five field offices looking into the corruption of the Clinton Foundation. The memo by Bill Clinton’s closest aide, Doug Band (written to convince Chelsea he was making money for her parents), has been described as the Rosetta Stone of the Clinton criminal operation.
Andy McCarthy, the former federal prosecutor who tried the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case, has suggested the Clinton system is a classic RICO crime case. Mayor Rudy Giuliani, himself a very successful federal prosecutor before becoming mayor, has outlined count after count in a variety of federal statutes which he believes would prove criminal behavior by the Clintons.
President Obama sent a clear signal when Josh Earnest, his spokesman, said the President retained great confidence in FBI Director Jim Comey.  This endorsement of Comey directly undercut the Clinton campaign’s effort to undermine and delegitimize him. It may be the first sign that continuing disclosures about the Clintons are forcing Obama to distance himself from a very flawed candidate.
The Nixon precedent is very sobering and relevant.
If carrying 49 states and getting 60.7 percent of the vote couldn't protect Nixon from an 18-month ordeal leading to his resignation, what defense would a narrowly elected Hillary Clinton have?
Compare Nixon's 18 and a half minute tape gap with 33,000 deleted emails.
Remember that for Nixon there were no charges of personal corruption, personal enrichment, or conspiracy to exploit public office for financial gain.
On every level, the Clintons have greater vulnerabilities, greater exposure to investigation, and greater legal liabilities than Nixon.
Will Americans really vote to send a criminal family to the White House?
Will Americans vote to have a presidency drowning in investigations and crippled with constant legal assaults?
How could a President Clinton ever achieve anything with her time and energy focused on legal survival?
Why would the Congress cooperate with someone it thought was a liar and a crook?
Why would the anti-Clinton half of America ever cooperate with a president they believed should be in jail and not in the White House?
These are very serious concerns and this is why voting for Hillary Rodham Clinton is a vote for four years of corruption, investigation, and gridlock.
Newt Gingrich, a Republican, was speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. He is the author of the new novel "Treason" (Center Street, October 11) and co-author, with his wife Callista Gingrich, of "Rediscovering God in America: Reflections on the Role of Faith in Our Nation's History and Future" (Center Street, May 17, 2016).

Friday, November 4, 2016

Wikileaks Web Address

https://wikileaks.org/

Self Research into crooked Hillary Clinton before it's to LATE.

Hillary Political Cartoons





Fox News Electoral Scorecard: Key states tilting toward Trump after FBI's October surprise


The FBI’s October surprise appears to have improved Donald Trump’s overall standing in the electoral map, with the latest Fox News Electoral Scorecard showing several states shifting in his favor since last week.
The Fox News Decision Team announced updates to the scorecard Thursday afternoon, reflecting the following changes based on recent polling and other factors:
  • New Hampshire moves from “lean Democrat” to “toss-up”
  • Ohio moves from “toss-up” to “lean Republican”
  • Indiana moves from “lean Republican” to “solid Republican”
  • Missouri moves from “lean Republican” to “solid Republican”
Despite the changes, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton maintains the clear advantage, and Trump’s path to victory remains a tight one.
But the latest ratings show Clinton’s advantage diminishing.
If Clinton were to win all the states leaning toward or solidly in the Democratic column, she’d have 283 electoral votes – more than the 270 needed to win.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
If Trump were to win all the states leaning toward or solidly in the GOP column, he’d be short at 192 electoral votes. But winning all the toss-up states would put him just 15 electoral votes shy of 270.
One more win in North Carolina, Michigan or Pennsylvania could get him to victory.
The updates and fresh polling comes in the wake of the FBI’s decision Friday to revisit the Clinton email investigation after new messages were found on the laptop used by ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
The Clinton campaign and its allies have downplayed the significance of the messages while questioning the FBI’s announcement so close to Election Day.
Trump, meanwhile, has seized on the news as well as other developments to press his case in the final stretch.
Speaking Thursday in Jacksonville, Fla., he cited reporting by Fox News that an FBI investigation regarding the Clinton Foundation has become a “high priority.”
He also touted new polls in Ohio and elsewhere showing him ahead.
Clinton and President Obama have, for their part, made an impassioned case to voters to not elect Trump.
“You want a voice who’s bragging about how being famous lets you get away with what would qualify as sexual assault, and calls women pigs, and dogs, and slobs?” Obama warned voters Thursday in Miami. “And when he pays attention to women, it’s because he’s grading them on a scale of one to ten. What kind of message are we sending if that’s our voice?”
In the latest states to shift, Ohio is the most highly sought prize. Trump has been leading there for weeks and his recent national bounce moves the state back into his column. Early ballot requests also suggest a Republican advantage.
The Electoral Scorecard also recently moved Florida and Nevada from “lean Democrat” into the “toss-up” column as well, while North Carolina shifted from “toss-up” to “lean Democrat.”

Illegal immigrants surging to US-Mexico border in race against Election Day

Border Patrol: Surge in illegal immigrants ahead of election
Americans aren’t the only ones motivated by Tuesday’s election. The presidential race has immigrants from around the world racing to the U.S.-Mexican border, as the cartels exploit a powerful narrative: get into the U.S. while you still can.
“Smugglers are telling them that they need to come across now while there’s a chance,” said Art Del Cueto, a Border Patrol agent in Tucson, Ariz., whose views were echoed by another agent in Texas.
“People think if one candidate wins, certain things will happen, like a giant wall being built and then they can never get through,” said Chris Cabrera, an agent in the Rio Grande Valley. “Another faction believes that if the other candidate wins, they’ll get amnesty if they’re here by a certain date.”
Those two competing narratives – triggered by the rhetoric of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, respectively -- are driving immigration numbers the Border Patrol hasn’t seen in years in some sectors.
“We are overwhelmed,” said a veteran agent in McAllen, Texas. “We are seeing 800 to 1,000 apprehensions every night.”
In fiscal 2016, the Border Patrol apprehended 117,200 immigrants from Central America, almost one-third of all apprehensions border-wide -- and 5,000 more than during the so-called surge of 2014. The agency also apprehended 5,000 Haitians, up from just 700 last year. The number of immigrants claiming to be from Africa and Asia also is up.
"There are always going to be push and pull factors that influence an individual’s decision to make that trek," said Tucson Border Patrol Sector Chief Paul Beeson.
The poverty and violence plaguing many of these countries helps push immigrants north, Beeson said. Pull factors include available and good-paying jobs in the U.S. and immigration policy that provides work permits and freedom for immigrants while the courts adjudicate their ‘asylum’ claim.
“When you stop somebody, you ask their name and the first thing they tell you is – ‘I’m here for asylum, I can’t go home because they’ll kill me.’ … When it takes a good five or six minutes just to get their name out of them, they have a rehearsed story,” said Cabrera. “Once they get those papers saying they can pass through our checkpoint, we’ll never see them again.”
Del Cueto said the agents are “not getting any backing” from D.C. and “we need to start enforcing every single immigration law we have on the books.”
Del Cueto and Cabrera belong to the National Border Patrol Council, which represents the Border Patrol’s 18,000 field agents who are prohibited from talking openly to the media.
While Central American immigrants have posed the biggest resource challenge for Texas, they say a surge of Haitians are pouring into ports of entry in California and Arizona.
Last year, the U.S. saw a 500 percent increase of Haitians admitted to the U.S., double that in San Diego where right now 2,000 are waiting outside the port in San Ysidro. According to Homeland Security sources, another 2,000 are in Mexicali and several hundred are in San Luis, just south of Yuma where Del Cueto says immigrants are sleeping in a church parking lot. Further east in Nogales, Mexico, 150 are waiting to cross into the U.S. They are camped next to the border fence, waiting for Customs and Border Protection officers to process them as refugees.
Some had jewelry and one woman had an iPad. The men surrounded the women, who huddled around a pile of boxes containing water and food.
“We’ve been in Nogales 20 days,” said one middle-aged man in a striped shirt in broken English. “We need help crossing the border.”
He said each immigrant paid a $4,000 to $6,000 smuggling fee. Once here, he said the Mexican government had given each a number based on their arrival.
“We are seeing an uptick in the number of Haitians that are looking for an immigration benefit,” said Beeson, who admits the surge is taking agents off the front lines.
Following the earthquake several years ago, Haitians were allowed to immigrate and stay in the U.S. under a program known as ’Temporary Protected Status.’ Earlier this year, the U.S. ended that protection, leaving some Haitians in the pipeline traveling through Mexico, where according to officials there, roughly 8,000 are on their way to the border.
While Trump and Clinton have very different visions of immigration reform and border security, Stratfor’s Cott Stewart doesn’t see the border threat changing until conditions do south of the border.
“There’s really no easy answer to it because there are just deeper issues,” said Stewart, from the defense and security think tank. “You have pervasive corruption where you see all levels of government are involved in, you know, drug dealing and other criminal activity. … So these things all tie together and make it a very difficult place for people to live and survive and because of that it’s very understandable why people would want to migrate from those conditions up to the United States.”

Melania Trump, Cruz hit trail as surrogates for Donald



Melania Trump and Ted Cruz both made their post-convention debut as Donald Trump surrogates on the campaign trail Thursday -- though the Texas senator and former primary contender did so without mentioning the GOP nominee by name at his initial appearance.
Cruz joined Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence on the campaign trail in Prole, Iowa, a month and a half after he posted a tepid endorsement of Trump on Facebook.
“This election has been one wild ride, but the stakes in this election have never been higher,” Cruz told the audience. He noted that maintaining GOP control of Congress and “putting a Republican in the White House” amounted to the “whole enchilada.”
Standing at a podium with a Trump-Pence logo, Cruz praised several Iowa Republicans, including Rep. Steve King and Sen. Charles Grassley, but did not name Trump.
Cruz did mention Trump at a later stop in Michigan, telling the crowd in Portage, "You oughta vote for Donald Trump and Mike Pence and Republicans up and down the ticket."
In Iowa and Michigan, Cruz delivered his pitch to the base, while Melania Trump made her first solo appearance in suburban Philadelphia, where Donald Trump is trailing Clinton.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
“He knows how to make real change. Make America great again is not just a slogan,” she said, adding that as first lady she would be an advocate for women and children.
Despite her husband’s reputation for frank, sometimes crude talk, the native of Slovenia focused on family issues saying that the “culture has gotten too mean and rough.”
Prior to her address, the Pennsylvania state Democratic Party sent out a copy of an old Michelle Obama speech that was labeled as an “advanced copy” of Melania’s speech, a reference to allegations of plagiarism that emerged after her Republican National Convention speech.
Cruz and Melania Trump are the latest in a growing pool of surrogates campaigning for Trump, as Hillary Clinton deploys influential Democrats ranging from President Obama to Bernie Sanders to the trail.
“Surrogates can be very helpful in the final days of the campaign when it is far more important to energize and excite voters than to persuade them,” Republican campaign strategist Chris Jankowski told FoxNews.com.
“I think it would have been wiser to have heard more from Ivanka and Melania all throughout September and October. This speech may have some impact ... but I am doubtful that it will have enough of an impact,” Sarah Lenti, a Colorado-based Republican consultant, added.
In battleground states where the margins are narrowing, the surrogates are making the biggest showing.
Michigan, which has not voted for a Republican candidate for president since President George H. W. Bush in 1988, is such a case.
A Fox2/Mitchell poll released on Wednesday showed Clinton’s lead in the Great Lakes state has narrowed to 3 percent.
The week began with Trump rallying on Monday, while Donald Trump Jr. arrived mid-week to make stops at Michigan State University and Grand Valley State University. Ivanka Trump appealed to suburban women voters during a “Michigan Women in Business Roundtable” event.
Not new to the role of surrogate, Obama fired up a Florida crowd with a feisty speech that went off-script as much as Trump.
“This is the guy who spent 70 years -- his whole life -- born with a silver spoon, showing no respect for working people. He’s spent a lot of time with celebrities,” Obama told the audience in Miami.
But Trump, the president said, does not hang out with working people unless they’re cleaning his room or mowing the fairways.
“You’re going to make this guy your champion if you’re a working person?” he asked the crowd.

'Self-recruited' Trump volunteers break mold for how campaigns are run

Alaska resident Mike Robbins putting up a sign in Anchorage, Alaska.
Alaska can be an afterthought in presidential elections, a frigid electoral landscape that often sees the race decided before its polls even close.
But this time, volunteers from the deep-red state with its three Electoral College votes started campaigning for Donald Trump long before the campaign kicked in staff members – and without the help of the state or national Republican Party.
“I woke up one day and said, ‘I have to do something.’ I was losing sleep over it,” said Mike Robbins of Anchorage, who owns several radio stations.
That was back in January. Robbins went on to hold fundraisers to buy shirts and signs, enlist hundreds of volunteers and wage a social media blitz on Trump’s behalf. He became an alternate delegate for the national convention, blanketed Anchorage with Trump signs and bumper stickers and welcomed the campaign’s Alaska director in August with a highly organized machine already in place.
This scenario has played out in states across the country.
Despite tensions between Republican leaders and Trump – and concerns that the GOP nominee’s campaign lags Hillary Clinton’s in raw organizational strength – one factor Trump has going for him is an army of volunteers who began boosting his ground game, in some cases, before the professionals got heavily involved.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
FoxNews.com talked to volunteers in five western states who were among Trump’s main source of on-the-ground support at a time when neither the Trump campaign nor the RNC had dedicated staff.
This is in marked contrast to Clinton, who had early support from the Democratic National Committee and a huge volunteer network already in place due to highly organized state Democratic committees.
​"We have 80 offices throughout the state that we activated last fall, all with volunteers ready to go," said Michael Soller, communications director for the California Democratic Committee. ​
Five days before Election Day, Clinton still maintains the clear advantage in most assessments of the electoral map. A Democratic National Committee spokesman said field organizers are updating their robust voter file, an important election tool. “We don’t take any vote for granted. We have a robust ground game focused on making sure all of our voters get to the polls, not just for Hillary Clinton but for Democrats up-and-down the ticket,” the spokesman said.
But voter enthusiasm is a factor – and the Trump campaign points to the energy of its supporters.
“We recognize that we’re running a grassroots movement,” said Jessica Ditto, Trump’s deputy communications director. “People are fired up about it. They feel like they are enlisted in the campaign.”
For the most part, Trump’s campaign did not assign a paid staff member to organize volunteers in individual states until March or later. By then, many supporters were hosting their own fundraisers, call centers and speeches.
“When I was first hired in April and word got out, within 24 hours I had 1,000 emails -- how these folks found me and got to me, I don’t know,” said Tim Clark, California director of the Trump campaign. “The next day it was another 1,000 [emails] and it’s been that way ever since. I’m not recruiting volunteers because our volunteers are self-recruited.”
Clark says he was thankful to have a relatively easy job: pockets of Trump supporters already existed across the state, formed through Meetup and Facebook groups. He just stitched them together into a bigger statewide group.
“They were already talking to each other online, putting up their own signs and training each other,” he said.
Across the West
Over in southern Texas, Miriam Cepeda has been a one-woman Trump operation since March. Back then, everywhere she went people were supporting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Trump only really had a presence in Austin, Houston and Dallas.
“I appointed myself to take care of Rio Grande area,” said Cepeda. “No one was speaking on behalf of his campaign or encouraging people [in south Texas]. I took the bull by the horns and ran with it.”
A 25-year-old graduate student, Cepeda crisscrossed cities across the Rio Grande Valley, marketing Trump until the campaign noticed her and made her an official part of its network.
“I posted signs, started a list of volunteers, sent out emails, located donors, started Facebook and Instagram pages,” she said.
In New Mexico, Cecilia DeBaca, 63, decided she wanted to support Trump when she heard him talk last year about the restrictions of political correctness.
“You can’t say Merry Christmas, can’t sing Christmas carols,” DeBaca said. “You can’t say anything anymore.”
So she started talking to everyone she could about Trump – at Walmart, gas stations, grocery stores and the pharmacy. DeBaca also went to the Trump website and found out how to start making phone calls for the campaign. Then she contacted her local Republican Women chapter and led efforts to set up booths at public events to lead voter drives and engage bigger audiences.
Undeterred that her state has been blue since President Obama took office, DeBaca said she has had almost a perfect record convincing strangers to vote Trump.
She and her husband both became state and national delegates.
Up the West Coast in the northern Seattle area, business strategy consultant Luis Valdes has “put up signs, held fundraisers -- anything to help Mr. Trump.”
He started campaigning after the national convention. Back then, Valdes didn’t see any Trump presence in the historically blue state. Valdes said he started going to festivals, events and job sites where he could talk to large groups of Hispanic voters. A refugee from Cuba, Valdes is now an American citizen and understands oppression.
“I explain, ‘Don’t try to make this country into the one you just left,’” Valdes said.
Trump has been to Washington state three times, more than any other GOP candidate in recent history. While the state is still considered to favor Clinton heavily, Trump backers may have made some inroads. During a recent drive from Portland to Seattle, Trump signs dotted the freeway, Valdes recalled.
“Right now I’m driving up I-5 and I just passed an overpass with about 15 people who were holding Trump Pence signs and waving flags,” he said. “Along the whole way I only saw a few Hillary signs.”

Thursday, November 3, 2016

loretta lynch cartoons


Recordings aggravated FBI, DOJ feud in Clinton Foundation probe



Secret recordings of a suspect talking about the Clinton Foundation fueled an internal battle between FBI agents who wanted to pursue the case and corruption prosecutors who viewed the statements as worthless hearsay, people familiar with the matter said.
Agents, using informants and recordings from unrelated corruption investigations, thought they had found enough material to merit aggressively pursuing the investigation into the foundation that started in summer 2015 based on claims made in a book by a conservative author called “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” these people said.
The account of the case and resulting dispute comes from interviews with officials at multiple agencies.
Starting in February and continuing today, investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and public-corruption prosecutors became increasingly frustrated with each other, as often happens within and between departments. At the center of the tension stood the U.S. attorney for Brooklyn, Robert Capers, who some at the FBI came to view as exacerbating the problems by telling each side what it wanted to hear, these people said. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Capers declined to comment.
The roots of the dispute lie in a disagreement over the strength of the case, these people said, which broadly centered on whether Clinton Foundation contributors received favorable treatment from the State Department under Hillary Clinton.
Senior officials in the Justice Department and the FBI didn’t think much of the evidence, while investigators believed they had promising leads their bosses wouldn’t let them pursue, they said.

FBI's Clinton Foundation investigation now 'a very high priority,' sources say

Clinton and Weiner?
The FBI's investigation into the Clinton Foundation that has been going on for more than a year has now taken a "very high priority," separate sources with intimate knowledge of the probe tell Fox News.
FBI agents have interviewed and re-interviewed multiple people on the foundation case, which is looking into possible pay for play interaction between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. The FBI's White Collar Crime Division is handling the investigation.
Even before the WikiLeaks dumps of alleged emails linked to the Clinton campaign, FBI agents had collected a great deal of evidence, law enforcement sources tell Fox News.
"There is an avalanche of new information coming in every day," one source told Fox News, who added some of the new information is coming from the WikiLeaks documents and new emails.
FBI agents are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case," and will be going back and interviewing the same people again, some for the third time, sources said.
Agents are also going through what Clinton and top aides have said in previous interviews and the FBI 302, documents agents use to report interviews they conduct, to make sure notes line up, according to sources.

Electoral map, polls scrambled in final days amid campaign unrest


The 2016 presidential race is, borrowing a phrase from Donald Trump, once again keeping America in “suspense” – with the polls and the electoral map being scrambled in the final days amid a slew of late-breaking developments.
Just one week ago, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had assumed a confident air on the stump, enjoying a rare period when the political pieces were aligning for her in the wake of damaging allegations against her Republican rival. But the polls are tightening again, as voters assess a range of other factors, including the FBI’s stunning decision to revisit her private email investigation.
Election prognosticators still say Clinton enjoys the advantage going into the big day – in large part because the states President Obama won in 2012 mostly have stayed Democrat-leaning this year, giving her a substantial built-in advantage.
But, even though Trump faces a tough climb to the 270 electoral votes it takes to win, the map is changing in the final days, in several cases in his favor.
The latest Fox News Electoral Scorecard has moved both Florida and Nevada – two states previously rated “lean Democrat” – into the “toss-up” category, citing shifts in the polls.
The same update moved Alaska from “solid Republican” to “lean Republican” and North Carolina from “toss-up” to “lean Democrat.” But in another indicator of how difficult the race is to gauge, a new WRAL News poll showed Trump with a 7-point lead in North Carolina, despite other polls showing Clinton ahead.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
National polls show the race tightening up into a virtual draw. The latest ABC News/ Washington Post tracking poll shows the candidates tied, 46-46 percent.
As with any election year, what matters is what happens in the battlegrounds.
“In the end, the popular vote isn’t what matters. It’s the Electoral College,” pollster Frank Luntz told Fox News. “And that Electoral College map is very difficult for Donald Trump, even though in every other indicator, it’s moving in the right direction for him.”
The Fox News Electoral Scorecard shows all the “solid” and “lean” Democrat states would give Clinton 287 electoral votes, more than enough to take the White House. The Republican-rated states give Trump 174.
To win, Trump would need to lock down the toss-up states as well as pick off territory from the Democratic column.
On the campaign trail, Trump is sounding more confident of his chances, no longer focusing as heavily on warnings that the vote would be “rigged” against him.
“In just one week, we are going to win the great state of Wisconsin and we are going to win back the White House … lotta’ good polls out there today,” he declared at a rally Tuesday night in Eau Claire, Wis., while also citing the North Carolina poll.
Trump has seized on a spate of developments, including the FBI’s investigation of newly discovered emails on a laptop used by Clinton adviser Huma Abedin’s estranged husband Anthony Weiner – as well as the tidal wave of revelations from WikiLeaks-posted emails from the Clinton campaign chairman’s hacked account.

Trump, Clinton make final push for Florida in last days of campaign



Republican nominee Donald Trump turned his attention to the battleground state of Florida Wednesday, making three campaign stops across the Sunshine State.
Trump visited Miami, Orlando and Pensacola, and was scheduled to stop in Jacksonville Thursday.
"'Stay on point, Donald, stay on point,"' Trump teasingly quoted his staff as saying at an evening rally in Pensacola. "No sidetracks, Donald. Nice and easy. Nice and easy."'
A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday showed Trump in a virtual tie in Florida with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Both sides agree the New York businessman has virtually no chance to win the presidency without the state's trove of 29 electoral votes.
"We don't want to blow this," Trump told rowdy supporters in Miami. "We gotta win. We gotta win big."
Conceding nothing in the state, Clinton has also been a frequent visitor. She posed for pictures and shook hands during a surprise visit to a South Florida Caribbean-American neighborhood Wednesday morning.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
The Democratic nominee has built a powerful ground game, backed by a dominant media presence, that dwarfs her opponent's. Clinton has more than doubled Trump's investment in Florida television ads. Overall, the state has been deluged with $125 million in general election advertising -- by far the most of any state.
Later Wednesday, Clinton addressed a boisterous crowd of around 15,000 in Arizona, a traditionally Republican state that she has tried to pluck away from Trump.
"This state is in play for the first time in years," said Clinton, whose husband Bill won Arizona in his successful 1996 re-election bid. Clinton also waded into a local sheriff's race getting national attention, backing Democrat Paul Penzone in the race for Maricopa County sheriff, a post held by immigration hardliner Joe Arpaio.

"I think it's time you had a new sheriff in town, don't you?" she asked the crowd at Arizona State University.
Trump lashed out at "Crooked Hillary" in Miami, predicting that a Clinton victory would trigger an "unprecedented and protracted constitutional crisis" as federal investigators probe the former secretary of state's email practices. But Trump did not take the bait dangled by the Clinton campaign about his treatment of women.
In Pensacola, Trump turned his criticism to President Barack Obama, who had spent Wednesday rallying Clinton supporters in North Carolina.
"He's gotta stop campaigning for Crooked Hillary," Trump said of Obama. "He's gotta go back -- go to the office ... I mean this guy, all he wants to do is campaign for Hillary. It's unbelievable."
Democrats acknowledge that the FBI's renewed attention to her has helped rally reluctant Republicans behind their nominee. That's given Trump an enthusiasm boost in Florida and across Midwestern battlegrounds long considered reliably blue territory.

"I'm definitely nervous," said former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat. "Democrats in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, if you heard it was over, if you thought those states were in the bag, don't believe it."

Perhaps heeding Rendell's warning, Clinton's team is devoting new resources to states like Michigan, which last voted for a Republican nominee in 1988.

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

John Kasich Pledge Cartoons





Early-absentee voters can still change ballots in at least four states

Ballot remorse? You can change your vote in these 4 states
Millions have already cast ballots in the presidential race -- but for anyone feeling voter's remorse, a little-known election-law quirk allows for a do-over in some states.
At least four states allow voters to change or cancel their early-absentee ballots, including battlegrounds Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The details vary from state to state.
In Wisconsin, absentee voters can change their ballots as many as three times before Election Day.
Wisconsin voters have  gone for the Democratic nominee every presidential election year since 1988. This year, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump trails Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the state by roughly 6 percentage points, according to the RealClearPolitics poll average.
But Wisconsin GOP Rep. Sean Duffy thinks voter concerns about Clinton -- including new revelations last week about her ongoing email controversy -- might encourage early-absentee voters to change their minds.
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“Hard folks on the right and the left are not going to change their mind,” Duffy told “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday. “But you have these people in the middle who are ping-ponging as the information comes out. ... And as they have a gut check … no doubt that’s going to drive them to Donald Trump and put him over the top.”
Wisconsin voters can either request a new, mail-in ballot before 5 p.m. on Nov. 3 or complete a new in-person absentee ballot before 5 p.m. on Nov. 5.
Roughly 22 million Americans have already cast a vote -- through a combination of absentee ballots, voting by mail or at the polls.
The 2016 White House race, with seven days remaining, continues to be a close contest between Trump and Clinton, with Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein significantly trailing the two major-party candidates.
Pennsylvania also allows absentee voters to change their mind by voting in person on Nov. 8 Election Day.
“The really important one is Pennsylvania because that is one of the states that Donald Trump says is a must-win for him,” political analyst Erin McPike told Fox News on Tuesday. “That is the real state to watch.”
In Michigan, absentee voters can change their ballots by getting a new one from their local clerk’s office by 4 p.m. on Nov. 7.
The fourth state, Minnesota, has voted for the Democratic nominee every presidential election since 1976.
The state allows absentee voters to change ballots three ways, but the deadline is Tuesday.
They can, after cancelling their ballot, request a new mail-in ballot, vote in person before 5 p.m. on Nov. 7 or vote on Election Day.

Trump encourages Wisconsin early-absentee voters with 'buyer's remorse' to support him instead


Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump spent Tuesday night at a campaign stop in Wisconsin encouraging voters who filed early-absentee ballots for Hillary Clinton to change their votes to support him.
Trump highlighted the developments since Friday's announcement from the FBI that it would revisit the Clinton email probe while speaking to a crowd in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
"For all those voters who have buyer’s remorse, Wisconsin is one of those several states where you can change your early ballot if you think you’ve made a mistake," Trump told supporters.
"A lot of stuff has come out since your vote," he added. "If you live here, or Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Minnesota, you change your vote to Donald Trump."
In Wisconsin, voters can change their minds up to three times, but the deadline for doing so is Thursday.
Changing votes is very rarely done, the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College told the Associated Press.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
Trump also took time during his rally to hit Clinton presidential campaign Chairman John Podesta and interim chair of the Democratic National Committee Donna Brazile over emails released by WikiLeaks which appeared to show her sending the Clinton campaign a question before a CNN town hall event while she was a contributor at the network.
"Could you imagine if Reince got the question for a debate and found out," Trump told supporters, referencing Republican National Committee Chair Reince Preibus. "It would be a double electric chair."
He also used a line from his hit-TV show "The Apprentice."
"John Podesta, if he worked for me I would fire him so fast, like 'The Apprentice,'" Trump said. "I would say 'John, you’re fired!'”

What about the pledge? Ex-rivals still split on endorsing Trump despite debate vow


Donald Trump took considerable heat when, during the first Republican primary debate in August 2015, he initially declined to pledge support for the party’s eventual presidential nominee.
But now that Trump is that nominee, his former primary foes are the ones who have split on honoring the pledge.
While several ex-rivals now are unabashedly Team Trump – and others have reluctantly backed him as the better of the two major-party candidates – a couple of GOP primary contenders still refuse to endorse the nominee.
The holdouts are:
John Kasich
The Ohio governor is the most defiant anti-Trump politician who was at that initial debate.
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The governor has been at odds with Trump ever since bowing out of the race, declining to show his support for the nominee even when his state hosted the Republican National Convention and Trump’s nomination acceptance address.
Fox News confirmed late Monday that Kasich did not vote for Trump, either.
The governor wrote in Arizona Sen. John McCain on his absentee ballot. (According to The Plain Dealer, that vote technically will not count, since McCain is not among the approved write-in candidates in the state.)
Striking is that Kasich made the nominee pledge twice.
During the Fox News primary debate in Cleveland last August, Trump was the only one to raise his hand when asked which candidates would not pledge support for the eventual nominee. (Trump later reversed course, for a time.) Then, at another Fox News-hosted debate in March, Kasich joined Trump, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz in pledging to support the eventual nominee.
Kasich, though, has voiced deep concerns all along about Trump’s rhetoric and readiness. Demonstrating how fluid those pledges really were, Kasich, Trump and Cruz backed away from the same vow at a March debate weeks later.
Jeb Bush
The former Florida governor went from front-runner to also-ran in a matter of months after Trump stormed into the primary race, frequently making Bush a subject of his debate-stage attacks. Bush has not forgotten.
Bush, after dropping out, endorsed Cruz in March. He later congratulated Trump on securing the nomination in May, but said he will not vote for Trump or Hillary Clinton.
He wrote on Facebook: “Donald Trump has not demonstrated that temperament or strength of character. He has not displayed a respect for the Constitution. And, he is not a consistent conservative. These are all reasons why I cannot support his candidacy.”
The rest of the GOP primary field has come around, some enthusiastically – others, with considerable prodding and months after the race ended.
The supporters are:
Ted Cruz
Cruz stunned the GOP convention crowd by withholding an endorsement of Trump during his Cleveland address. But while this renewed weeks of feuding between the Texas senator and the billionaire businessman, Cruz eventually announced – in September – he would vote for Trump and urged others to do the same.
“Like many other voters, I have struggled to determine the right course of action in this general election,” Cruz said on Facebook. He said that after “many months of careful consideration, of prayer and searching my own conscience, I have decided that on Election Day, I will vote for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump.”
He also referenced the pledge, saying he wanted to keep his word to support the Republican nominee – and he finds Clinton “wholly unacceptable.”
Marco Rubio
The Florida senator now running for re-election has taken the most nuanced stance on Trump. He is supporting the nominee, but told The Weekly Standard in June he would continue to stand by his criticism of Trump from the primary campaign. He later delivered a video message to the GOP convention urging voters to elect Trump and reminding delegates that the “time for fighting” is over.
He continues to stand by his primary campaign criticism of Trump. 
Scott Walker
The Wisconsin governor initially backed Cruz after dropping out of the race himself. He later indicated he would be supporting Trump and in July told Fox News he would in fact endorse Trump, while acknowledging he wasn’t his “first choice.”
Rand Paul
The Kentucky senator, despite his libertarian leanings and tough criticism of Trump during the primary, eventually told WDRB News he’ll back the billionaire. He, too, cited his pledge – a written one, not to run as a third-party candidate – in explaining his support.
Chris Christie
The New Jersey governor, while mired in controversy at home, enthusiastically embraced Trump’s candidacy back in February and campaigned for him. He had been considered for running mate, but the job ultimately went to Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
Ben Carson
The retired neurosurgeon endorsed Trump in March and continues to speak out on the nominee’s behalf.
Mike Huckabee
The former Arkansas governor announced he was “all in” for Trump back in May, and has continued to be a strong supporter of the now-nominee.

DOJ official who penned letter on Clinton probe represented her campaign chairman

Is Obama's Department of Justice covering for the Clintons?

The Justice Department official in charge of informing Congress about the newly reactivated Hillary Clinton email probe is a political appointee and former private-practice lawyer who kept Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta “out of jail,” lobbied for a tax cheat later pardoned by President Bill Clinton and led the effort to confirm Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Peter Kadzik, who was confirmed as assistant attorney general for legislative affairs in June 2014, represented Podesta in 1998 when independent counsel Kenneth Starr was investigating Podesta for his possible role in helping ex-Bill Clinton intern and mistress Monica Lewinsky land a job at the United Nations.
“Fantastic lawyer. Kept me out of jail,” Podesta wrote on Sept. 8, 2008 to Obama aide Cassandra Butts, according to emails hacked from Podesta’s Gmail account and posted by WikiLeaks.
CLINTON AIDE'S EMAIL TESTIMONY COULD HAUNT HER
Kadzik’s name has surfaced multiple times in regard to the FBI’s investigation of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for using a private, homebrewed server. After FBI Director James Comey informed Congress on Thursday the FBI was reviving its inquiry when new evidence linked to a separate investigation was discovered, congressional leaders wrote to the Department of Justice seeking more information. Kadzik replied.
“We assure you that the Department will continue to work closely with the FBI and together, dedicate all necessary resources and take appropriate steps as expeditiously as possible,” Kadzik wrote on Oct. 31.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
The DOJ is responsible for approving the bureau’s warrant applications and ultimately for convening a grand jury.
Fox News has previously confirmed the Justice Department was opposed to Comey making public the latest Clinton revelations.
Kadzik had been an attorney with Dickstein Shapiro LLP for 18 years before he represented Podesta in the Clinton/Lewinsky investigation. He was hired in 2000 as a lobbyist for tax cheat Marc Rich, who was controversially granted a pardon by President Bill Clinton during Clinton’s final days in office. Kadzik got the job “because he was ‘trusted by [White House Chief of Staff John] Podesta,’ and was considered to be a ‘useful person to convey [Marc Rich’s] arguments to Mr. Podesta,’” according to a 2002 House Oversight Committee report.
Podesta and Kadzik kept up their relationship after Kadzik was appointed to the DOJ. In a May 5, 2015 email, Kadzik’s son, PJ, wrote to Podesta seeking a job on Hillary Clinton’s newly launched presidential campaign.
“I have always aspired to work on a presidential campaign, and have been waiting for some time now for Hilary [sic] to announce so that I can finally make this aspiration a reality,” PJ Kadzik wrote.
Podesta said he would "check around," but it's unclear what came of the request.
Kadzik was also a dinner guest of Podesta and his wife, Mary, on Oct. 23, 2015 – the day after Hillary Clinton testified before the House Benghazi committee, another email shows.

In a separate exchange about another dinner meeting, on Jan. 12, 2016, Kadzik emailed Podesta: “We on?”
Podesta replied, “Yes sorry. 7:30 at our place.”
“Great. C u then,” Kadzik wrote back the next day.
Though he said he has had "many differences" with Kadzik, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R.-S.C., said on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday that he wasn't concerned about any potential conflicts of interest.
"Peter Kadzik is not a decision maker, he is a messenger," Gowdy said.
Kadzik is still a key official in the department. He “led the successful effort to confirm Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates,” according to his DOJ biography. Lynch has come under increased scrutiny since it emerged she met privately with Bill Clinton in the days before the FBI initially said it would not seek to prosecute Hillary Clinton.

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