Conservative Blogger
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Texas voters claim machines switching their votes
A rash of reports are emerging on social media from Texas residents who claim machines have switched their votes from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton – though local officials are pushing back and saying many of these incidents are due to human error.
Early voting began Monday in the Lone Star State, and almost immediately reports began trickling in of votes being changed. The controversy began when Lisa Houlette, a Texas resident in Randall County, posted her story on Facebook.
Arlington resident Shandy Clarke said a similar thing had happened to a family member who went to vote Republican Monday.
But Randall County’s Election Administrator Shannon Lackey told FoxNews.com that these sort of claims occur every election cycle and that there is nothing wrong with the machines. She believes such incidents can be chalked up to human error.
“Our machines are state and federally certified. We do three logic and accuracy tests, which were done before military voting started in September,” she said.
Lackey said her office is dedicated to impartiality and fairness, and she even chose not to vote in the state’s primaries so there could be no accusations of bias. She also noted that at repeated points in the voting process, users see where their vote will be cast, and they can change it at any point.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
Neighboring Potter County Judge Nancy Tanner released a statement Tuesday claiming there is nothing wrong with the machines.
TEXAS SEES SURGE IN EARLY VOTING AS POLLS SHOW TIGHTENING RACE
“They do not flip your vote. They do not flip parties. Humans do that,” she said.
Still, she referenced “one incident in Randall County where a voter voted straight ticket and when they hit the vote button, it flipped parties.” Tanner maintained that the machine was checked and there was nothing wrong with it.
In Collin County, elections official Bruce Sherbet told The Dallas Morning News that there were complaints, but they were called in after the voters had left the polling place, and so it was not possible to determine what had happened.
Officials did acknowledge one minor software issue in Chamber County, when officials temporarily moved to paper ballots Monday after a glitch was found in machines.
12NewsNow reported that an error caused votes for one appeals court race not to be entered when a voter tried to vote for a straight-party ticket. That glitch has since been fixed, and there was no indication the error favored one party over another.
Meanwhile in North Carolina, WFMY reported that there had been "a smattering" of complaints about machines wrongly indentifying voter choices, but those ballots were corrected before being cast.
Yet some conservatives have seized on the claims as proof the voting system is rigged.
“You see the garbage that goes on and it has to stop,” Eric Trump, son of Republican candidate Donald Trump, told Fox & Friends Wednesday when asked about the situation in Texas. “We have to get it right, we’re better than that as a country.”
A new American Values Survey, reported by The Washington Examiner, found that just 4 in 10 voters are very confident their vote will be counted accurately. Donald Trump has repeatedly asserted that he fears the vote will be “rigged” and has held back from promising to accept the election results, telling Fox News’ Chris Wallace at the third presidential debate: “I will keep you in suspense.”
Trump touts 'new deal for black America' at campaign rally in Charlotte
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump unveiled what he called a “New Deal for black America” and revealed a handful of new proposals aimed at revitalizing impoverished urban areas on Wednesday in hope to sway minority voters.
Part of Trump’s so called “new deal” included new tax incentives for inner cities, new micro-loans for African-Americans to start companies and hire workers and plan to reinvest money form suspended refugee programs in inner cities.
“I will be your greatest champion,” Trump told a predominantly white Charlotte crowd. “I will never ever take the African American community for granted. Never, ever.”
Trump also pledged to take on gang members and remove them from inner cities. He also claimed that the national murder rate was as high as it’s been in 45 years.
“Some of our inner cities are more dangerous than the war zones we’re reading about and seeing about every night.”
Earlier in the day, Trump was in Washington touting his business empire in the ribbon-cutting ceremony for his new hotel. He made the case that all Americans should look to his corporate record for evidence of how well he’d run the country if elected president.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
As Trump opened his hotel, his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton was blasting his business practices on the campaign trail in the key battleground state of Florida.
She used campaign events in Florida to attack the GOP nominee for having "stiffed American workers," saying he built his empire with Chinese-manufactured steel, overseas products and labor from immigrants in the country illegally.
"Donald Trump is the poster boy for everything wrong with our economy," she told several thousand supporters in Tampa, Florida. "He refuses to pay workers and contractors."
As the Nov. 8 election looms, the newest Fox News Poll shows Clinton leading Trump by just three points. In an effort to play some political defense, Trump’s running mate Mike Pence was touting the campaign in Utah in hopes to keep votes from choosing Independent Evan McMullin over the two mainstream candidates.
Besides Utah, Pence also was stopping in the swing states of Nevada and Colorado before heading Thursday to solidly Republican Nebraska.
Trump, who also held a rally in the city of Kinston, continued to insist he knows more than the nation's military leaders, especially when it comes to the fight against Islamic State militants in the city of Mosul.
"You can tell your military expert that I'll sit down and I'll teach him a couple of things," he said in an interview with ABC.
Emails show Clinton campaign expressed concerns about Sanders' rise
WASHINGTON – Allies of Hillary Clinton felt threatened by the power of Sen. Bernie Sanders' candidacy and wondered about getting some signal of support from President Barack Obama in the heat of the Democratic primaries, according to the latest emails in a hacked trove from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
Ahead of the Illinois primary in March, liberal operative Neera Tanden asked Podesta, who formerly worked on Obama's transition in 2008, if the president could give any kind of indication that he was supporting Clinton over Sanders.
Tanden asked Podesta whether Obama could "even hint of support of Hillary before Tuesday?"
Obama stayed officially neutral in the primaries until Clinton clinched the nomination in June.
Tanden wrote: "Maybe they don't want to do this, but the stakes are pretty damn high in this election for him."
The email exchange was contained in more than 1,500 emails released Wednesday by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks. The notes were stolen from the email account of Podesta as part of a series of high-profile computer hacks of Democratic targets that U.S. intelligence officials say were orchestrated by Russia, with the intent to influence the Nov. 8 election. Russia has denied the allegations.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
Carrie Pugh, the NEA's political director, had similar concerns and shared them with Clinton campaign officials.
Budzinski said the move in Vermont "doesn't pose serious concern for the NEA overall endorsement" but called it an "optics problem" coming before a major meeting of NEA representatives.
"I am working with Carrie Pugh on options to head this off," Budzinski wrote.
The NEA ultimately endorsed Clinton in October 2015 despite some complaints that leaders hadn't taken Sanders seriously enough and should have waited.
In an email to Podesta in January, Clinton pollster Stan Greenberg weighed in by urging that Clinton better position herself relative to Sanders on the issue of reforming big money politics and special interest giveaways.
The memo hints that Clinton, a prolific fundraiser and longtime Democratic Party insider, had her doubts.
"Her concern about authenticity and credibility on this issue is understandable but not right," Greenberg said.
"There is nothing more important politically than Clinton getting ahead of money and politics," the pollster said. "It is a pre-requisite for getting heard on change and government activism, for competing and beating Sanders and establishing a key contrast with the Republicans."
And both Podesta and New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio warmed to the idea of setting up a "People's PAC" intended as a vehicle for Clinton to direct support toward liberal Democrats in the House and Senate — and potentially draw Sanders' supporters to Clinton.
The idea was floated in a March 2016 email from Huffington Post contributor Brett Budowsky to Podesta, which Podesta forwarded to de Blasio, who responded that the liberal PAC "has a lot of merit."
The People's PAC never came to pass.
"I think it's a good idea but think that our team will see it as a resource diversion," Podesta wrote to de Blasio.
In an email on Jan. 22, 2016, Erika Gudmundson, with Chelsea Clinton's office, discusses ways that the campaign could help Chelsea Clinton draw distinctions between her mother and Bernie Sanders as the campaign grew more competitive.
"The tone has changed — would be great to highlight for her where contrasts should be made," Gudmundson wrote.
Sources: Clinton emails would have been 'whitelisted' for Obama BlackBerry
President Obama’s high-security BlackBerry used a special process known as “whitelisting” that only allowed it to take calls and messages from pre-approved contacts, two former senior intelligence officials with knowledge of the set-up told Fox News – pointing to the detail as further proof the White House knew Hillary Clinton’s private account was used for government business.
As the administration now acknowledges, Obama and Clinton emailed each other while she was helming the State Department. If received on his BlackBerry, the “whitelisting” safeguard means Clinton and other contacts would have had to be approved as secure for data transmission – covering everything from emails to texts to phone calls. The Obama BlackBerry would have also been configured to accept the communications.
“Think of whitelisting like a bouncer in the VIP line at the party. If you are on the list you get in, if you are not, you get bounced to the pavement,” said Bob Gourley, former chief technology officer (CTO) for the DIA, and now a partner with strategic consulting and engineering firm Cognitio.
“Whitelisting happens by design. The IT professionals who whitelist devices at places like the White House only add the email addresses authorized by management. To do otherwise would be to violate policy in ways that could introduce threats to the system,” he added.
A second former intelligence official, who asked to speak on background, described the same process for the president’s BlackBerry, adding the timing is important. If clintonemail.com were “whitelisted” before March 2015, it would further undercut administration statements.
President Obama initially claimed in March 2015, when the details of Clinton’s secret server were first made public by the New York Times, that he only learned about the system from news reports, along with everyone else. Press Secretary Josh Earnest later walked that back, but maintained at the time that while Obama knew about Clinton’s email address, he was not aware of how the address and server had been set up.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
Both Gourley, and the second former intelligence official said typically these request comes from the White House Chief of Staff or a deputy, and are directed to the Secret Service and the White House Communications Agency (WHCA), which is a military unit assigned to the task.
Earnest dismissed questions Wednesday about their March 2015 statements.
"The president's explanation in March of 2015 and my explanation of what the president knew in March of 2015 hasn't changed, and the truth is this is just critics of Secretary Clinton and President Obama recycling a conspiracy theory that has already been debunked," Earnest said.
Emails hacked from Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta’s account and posted by anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks have provided additional details about the problems Obama’s initial statements caused in March 2015.
One of Clinton's top aides urged colleagues to "clean this up" after Obama claimed he only learned of Clinton's private email system from news reports. According to one March 7, 2015 email, Cheryl Mills challenged the president’s statement to CBS News.
"We need to clean this up - he has emails from her - they do not say state.gov," Mills wrote to Podesta just before midnight.
In emails released by the State Department earlier this year, Mills also asked Lewis Lukens, who was the executive director of the State Department’s executive secretariat, about getting one of the highly secure BlackBerrys for then-Secretary Clinton.
“so I have now read up more on POTUS bb which appears not really to be a bb but a different device) is there any solution to her being able to use encrypted bb like the nsa approved one he has in the vault, and if so, how can we get her one,” she wrote. The request was never granted.
Less than a month after Clinton became secretary of state, and the personal email domain that she would use exclusively for government business was registered, Hillary Clinton's team aggressively pursued changes to existing State Department security protocols so she could use her BlackBerry in secure facilities for classified information, according to new documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
"Anyone who has any appreciation at all of security, you don't ask a question like that," cybersecurity analyst Morgan Wright told Fox News. "It is contempt for the system, contempt for the rules that are designed to protect the exact kind of information that was exposed through this email set up."
Current and former intelligence officials grimaced when asked by Fox News about the use of wireless communications devices, such as a BlackBerry, in a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) -- emphasizing its use would defeat the purpose of the secure facility, and it is standard practice to leave all electronics outside.
A former State Department employee familiar with the Clinton request emphasized security personnel at the time thought the BlackBerry was only for unclassified material, adding their concerns would have been magnified if they had known Clinton's email account also held classified material.
"When you allow devices like this into a SCIF, you can allow the bad guys to listen in," Wright added.
FBI records show that President Obama used at least one pseudonym to exchange emails with then Secretary of State Clinton. The State Department withheld eight email chains that totaled 18 messages between the president and Clinton which remain confidential under the Presidential communications privilege.
Asked if the President’s BlackBerry was configured to accept the clintonemail.com address, a spokesperson for the Secret Service referred questions to the White House Communications Agency and the White House Military Office. Fox News is attempting to follow up with both.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Gregg Jarrett: The perpetual cloud of dirt and scandal that hovers over Hillary Clinton
“Pig-Pen” and his perpetual cloud of dirt.
It follows him wherever he goes and engulfs whatever he does. The beleaguered character in the comic strip “Peanuts” cannot seem to rid himself of the dirt, despite his best efforts. At times, he seems oblivious to the cloud. Or in denial.
Remind you of Hillary Clinton? Metaphorically, that is.
The dirt cloud of scandal has followed Clinton incessantly for years. Not just a single, isolated scandal… but several. Travelgate, Whitewater, cattle futures, Benghazi, private email server, Clinton Foundation, Wall Street speeches, you name it.
It’s one ignominious incident after another. And all of them are of her own making.
Clinton tends to stretch the bounds of propriety, dangling her foot over the legal lines. And her actions beckon political calamity. Thus, the interminable cloud.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
You’ve heard the other claim: that laws are a mere nuisance which don’t apply to her.
Most people shaken by scandal, dial it back. But the hits keep on coming for Clinton.
She’s been likened to a runaway train that can’t (or won’t) activate its brakes. Whatever her reasons, the non-stop drama of controversies have taken a toll: 67 percent say Clinton is lying about how she handled her emails, and two-thirds believe she is downright dishonest.
Her latest scandal kicks up dirt on the FBI for its bewildering (see also, “stupefying”) decision to recommend that Clinton not be criminally prosecuted under the federal Espionage Act for mishandling classified documents and jeopardizing national security as Secretary of State. It seems that Clinton’s close friend shoveled truck-loads of money to the wife of the FBI deputy director overseeing the agency’s investigation of Clinton.
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe was the money man. Through political groups he controls, he saw to it that Dr. Jill McCabe received more than $ 675,000 for her state senate race, according to The Wall Street Journal. It just so happens that her husband, Andrew McCabe, is second in command at the FBI and, as such, likely played a key role in allowing Clinton to escape criminal prosecution. No one has yet proven that Clinton’s fingerprints are on the bags of money. But her longtime friend and ally, Gov. McAuliffe, doesn’t deny he engineered the cash.
A little history lesson is in order. McAuliffe was Bill Clinton’s chief fundraiser back in the day.
He’s a guy who had the magic touch with money.
He could conjure up hundreds of millions of dollars without breaking a sweat.
He personally secured the loan so Hillary and Bill could buy their 11 room Dutch colonial in stately Chappaqua, New York.
Since money is the mother’s milk of politics, he’s a nice friend to have when you get in a jam.
The biggest jam of Hillary Clinton’s life was (and is) the email scandal. More than 2,000 classified documents were found on her personal server in the very home McAuliffe helped her buy – clearly an unauthorized place under the law.
She was facing an indictment for serious crimes which would end her bid for the presidency. Even worse, if convicted she might well be residing in a prison instead of the White House.
Did McAuliffe come to Clinton’s rescue yet again? Is that what the cash to Dr. McCabe was really for? To influence her husband’s investigation of Clinton? Dirtier things have happened in politics.
The FBI issued a statement denying corruption by insisting that McCabe did not begin his oversight of the agency’s investigation of Clinton until after his wife’s campaign ended.
Really?
We are supposed to accept that when he was head of the Washington field office (and later when he was promoted to the agency’s number 3 position) he had nothing whatsoever to do with the criminal probe? Hard to believe.
And even if that is true, what difference does it make that his wife’s campaign had ended? She still got the money. She was still beholden or grateful to Clinton’s close friend and the Democratic party for their financial support of her, wasn’t she?
As her husband, Deputy Director McCabe can hardly be described as an indifferent bystander. Spouses tend to support one another. That is exactly why ethics advisers at the bureau told him to recuse himself from public corruption cases during his wife’s senate race.
The conflict of interest is glaring. But that conflict does not suddenly and magically end at the conclusion of his wife’s campaign.
At the very least, the appearance of impropriety should have been enough for McCabe to disassociate himself from the criminal investigation of Clinton. Moreover, FBI Director James Comey should have demanded it. That they declined to do so adds even more suspicion to those who believe “the fix was in” not to prosecute her.
At least 5 people received immunity in connection with the case. Others took the Fifth.
Clinton herself couldn’t manage to recall much of anything during her relatively brief interview with the FBI. Her name and date of birth seemed about all she could add to the discussion. It’s a wonder she even remembered being Secretary of State.
Days later, Director Comey held a news briefing in which he laid out a case of how Clinton was grossly negligent under the Espionage Act (although he called it something else –“extremely careless”), but announced he would recommend to the Department of Justice no prosecution. FBI agents and lawyers were furious, according to reporting by Fox News.
Comey’s decision makes no legal sense… which only fuels the belief that something or someone else triggered the outcome.
All along Clinton seemed confident she would not be criminally charged. Did she know something we didn’t know?
The strange case of the McCabes may hold the answer. Or maybe it is only one of several political machinations that were brought to bear.
The whole sordid episode is just another chapter in the cloud of dirt and scandal that hovers over Hillary Clinton.
It never goes away.
Like “Pig-Pen”. Without the comedy.
Emails show Clinton camp scrambling over 2015 threat of Biden run
Newly revealed emails detail how Hillary Clinton's allies scrambled last year to head off a brewing presidential bid from Vice President Biden -- showing just how close he came to running and the role an ex-Biden aide played in the "demise" of that idea.
Biden was well-known to have considered challenging Clinton, the eventual Democratic presidential nominee, to be the party’s standard-bearer before taking himself out of the running a year ago.
However, the hacked emails of Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta that have been released by WikiLeaks pull back the curtain on how seriously Biden was planning for a campaign – and how seriously Clinton’s staffers took that threat.
BIDEN WISHES HE COULD TAKE TRUMP 'BEHIND THE GYM'
The first mention of a Biden run in the Podesta emails came on June 11, when former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary Eleni Kounalakis told Podesta that a wealthy Bay Area broker “swears Biden is running. He said he took him on Air Force Two, and he’s getting emails.”
Podesta then referenced the recent death of Biden's 46-year-old son Beau, who had cancer.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
The Biden speculation jumped into high gear for Team Clinton after Maureen Dowd wrote an Aug. 1 column for The New York Times in which she said Beau, before he died, had pushed his dad to run for president. The column angered many in the Podesta-Clinton orbit, though it didn’t immediately seem to change the calculus.
“I think he’ll hang back unless she explodes and that won’t happen just because your friends at the [New York Times] wish it so,” Podesta wrote to CNBC’s John Harwood the same day the Dowd column came out.
But by mid-month, President of the Center for American Progress Neera Tanden emailed Podesta with news that a hedge fund manager reported “that Biden (or his people – unclear to me who) are calling asking for support. Not doing a hard sell.” Podesta indicated he had heard the development, as well.
Just days later, on Aug. 23, Podesta advised New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio about how to answer potential Biden questions, adding a pro-Clinton spin: “Great guy, serious, grieve with him on the loss of his son, he has to make up his own mind whether to run, no big clamor out there for additional candidates.” Podesta on Aug. 24 told an inquiring Harwood that he now was “not sure” if Biden was leaning toward running.
Biden’s campaign appeared to be gearing up by the end of the month, when, on Aug. 28, a former White House staffer informed Podesta that Democratic consultants out West were being calling by Biden’s Chief of Staff, Steve Ricchetti, asking them to be regional coordinators or consultants for a campaign.
On Sept. 2, Podesta emailed Tanden: “Heard he is now telling union Presidents he is running.”
At that point, Clinton aides seemed to go from information-gathering to a more pro-active approach.
Podesta told Clinton in a Sept. 21 email that he had lunch with President Obama and discussed Biden. He didn’t reveal via email “the color of the conversation,” preferring to speak on the phone. But he did tell Clinton the news was “Nothing that can’t wait.”
Podesta next moved to shoring up those already likely to support Clinton. He spoke to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and told top Clinton aide Huma Abedin on Sept. 23 that Garcetti “won’t commit until Biden is definitive. Probable outcome is he stays neutral followed closely by he endorses Biden.”
Podesta went directly to Clinton regarding ex-UBS CEO Robert Wolf.
“Most importantly, Biden is courting him hard,” Podesta wrote. “He has told Biden he is with you, but Biden has pushed him to reconsider if he gets in or at least stay open to that possibility. Because Robert is known as an Obama confidante, he would probably be seen as a bellwether of Obama’s preference and there is no question that Biden would market it that way if he were to defect. He’s not just one more Obama fundraiser. I think he believes you would be the better President so I think he’s solid, but not rock solid.”
Wolf emailed Podesta 10 days later providing him with an agenda for a meeting the two were scheduled to have. Item 3 is “VP Biden update.”
On Oct. 12 Podesta forwarded an email from a Chicago “super-volunteer” with updates on the area to a group that included Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook. Podesta noted Chicago is “probably a place Biden will try to play so we should pay some attention.”
It’s unclear what happened next, but, just three days later, the Biden threat appeared vanquished. Ron Klain, a former Biden chief of staff who is now an operative for the Clinton campaign, emailed Podesta with a cryptic note of thanks.
“It’s been a little hard for me to play such a role in the Biden demise – and I am definitely dead to them -- but I’m glad to be on Team HRC, and glad that she had a great debate last night,” Klain wrote.
Six days later, on Oct. 21, Biden, with Obama by his side, gave a news conference from the White House declaring he wouldn’t run.
Clinton, in a statement, said: “I am confident that history isn’t finished with Joe Biden.”
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