2016 Election

[Ryan Ruck]

Still has those priorities straight I see...

[American Patriot]

lol

[Ryan Ruck]

Just saw this on TV.

Seems someone is running a General Election campaign...

[Ryan Ruck]

Besides the presidential race, the Republican establishment is running rampant and making inroads elsewhere too.

GOP Elites Get Their Guy In Georgia. Will They Get Him In Kansas?

July 27, 2016

Long live the great anti-establishment/anti-elitist revolution within the GOP! Right?

Not…

Continuing the streak of the near-establishment shutout of conservatives, Drew Ferguson defeated conservative Mike Crane in the runoff for the open House seat in Georgia’s third congressional district. The Chamber of [Crony] Commerce spent $650,000 in support of Ferguson and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. (F, 38%) held a fundraiser for him, even though this was an open seat where party leaders should have remained neutral. Ferguson had the entire state establishment behind him, the same people who opposed the religious liberty bill that Mike Crane had championed. But of course Ferguson ran as a conservative to muddy the waters for voters.

Thus far, conservatives have failed to elect a single conservative to the U.S. Senate this year and elected no more than five new conservatives to the 435-member House this year. What is becoming evident is that, thanks to the rigged system whereby the liberal, do-nothing Republicans use their superior funding and connections to lie to the voters and present themselves as conservatives, it is impossible for conservatives to knock off incumbents and extremely difficult to win even with an open seat.

Now, the corrupt party apparatus is taking their show on the road and going for the final knockout. They are challenging the few existing conservative incumbents in primaries with well-funded puppets of the Chamber of Commerce and the Big Agriculture lobby.

Next Tuesday will be the Waterloo for conservatives in Kansas’s first congressional district where a pawn of the lobbyists is challenging Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan. (A, 91%), one of the most conservative members of the House. His challenger, Roger Marshall, actually outraised Huelskamp precisely because he will be a tool for the big government trough, but he is running as an inimitable conservative. He even has the nerve to call Huelskamp a career politician when he has really been a career warrior against the elites – the same people backing Marshall. Huelskamp’s two-faced challenger is supported by a PAC that donates to Planned Parenthood. He also supports the Internet sales tax, one of the worst ideas promoted by the GOP establishment and K Street.

Hence, while our challengers struggle to raise $50,000, their challengers can easily count on hundreds of thousands from anti-free-market lobbyists who happen to also sell out to the cultural Marxists. They turn around and use that money to campaign as conservatives and paint our guys as sell-outs! You tell me how we can win with this rigged system. If the only incumbent to lose this cycle (outside of those redistricted out of their home base) is Tim Huelskamp, that should serve as a cathartic moment for a movement that is currently homeless.

This party is simply not working for us and it never will. We all know what needs to happen and it’s time to face the truth. As I laid out in detail last month, the only way to elect a critical mass of conservative in each election cycle and chart a new course in the political system is to reform the current primary process, which is an enduring legacy of the early 20^th century progressives, and adopt the Utah convention model. Failure to do so will result in the same cycle of failure in which the establishment uses their money, power, connections, and media support to manipulate the electorate and lie about their identity.

Many of you are revolted by the extremism on display at the Democrat convention. But just remember, if we continue electing the Chambercrats to oppose them, we as may as well bring a feather to a gunfight.

[Ryan Ruck]

Levin: Why Aren't Conservatives LIVID About Trump's Minimum Wage Flip Flop?

July 27, 2016

During a lengthy press conference Wednesday, Trump recanted his former intentions to leave minimum wage alone, instead saying he would raise it to $10 an hour.

Trump has been back-and-forth so often on minimum wage policy it's surprising that he doesn’t have whiplash. At any rate, Mark Levin wasn’t afraid to call Trump out on the flip-flop during his radio program Wednesday night.

“This is economic illiteracy,” said Levin. “Raising the minimum wage eviscerates jobs for the ‘little people’ – the unskilled and no-skilled.”

Listen to Levin break down the issue to perfection:



“This is pandering … borrowed from the Left,” argues Levin. “But the Rockettes, they don’t care. Hey, hey, dance along and be quiet – what do you wanna elect Hillary?”

Why aren’t conservatives speaking out about principles anymore? Thank you Mark Levin for not throwing in the towel on conservative values and policies.

[Ryan Ruck]

Jesus fucking Christ. Didn't anyone hand the orange clown the memo you're supposed to kiss babies on the campaign trail, not insult them and their mother. God. It doesn't get more Politics 101 than that.

Trump At Rally: 'Get The Baby Out Of Here'

August 2, 2016

Donald Trump asked a woman with a crying baby to leave his rally in Ashburn, Virginia, on Tuesday.

The GOP nominee initially suggested that he did not mind the disruption.

“Don’t worry about that baby. I love babies," Trump said after hearing the baby crying during an aside about the trade imbalance. "Don’t worry about it. I love babies. I hear that baby crying, I like it. What a baby. What a beautiful baby. Don’t worry, don’t worry. The mom’s running around like—don’t worry about it, you know. It’s young and beautiful and healthy and that’s what we want.”

Trump then returned to his non-baby-related remarks, only to hear the baby make more noise.

“They have ripped us to shreds, ripped us absolutely to shreds," Trump said of China, before turning back to the woman with the child.

“Actually, I was only kidding, you can get the baby out of here," the Republican nominee said to laughter and applause. "That’s all right. Don’t worry. I, I think she really believed me that I love having a baby crying while I’m speaking. That’s OK. People don’t understand. That’s OK."

Serious question time...

Let's pretend that Trump was a Dem plant and wanted to throw the election.

What would he be doing differently from what he's doing now?

Anyone?

[Ryan Ruck]

GOP Elites Get Their Guy In Georgia. Will They Get Him In Kansas?

Well, the RINO Counter Revolution continues it's march... Tim Huelskamp lost.

[vector7]

Donald Trump Shadowing Clinton on Campaign Trail – Media Avoiding The Contrasting Optics…

Posted on August 10, 2016 by sundance
Yesterday Hillary Clinton was campaigning in Miami, later she attended a fundraiser in Miami Beach. At Clinton’s rally several hundred enthusiastic supporters were reported in attendance.
Today, literally less than a few miles north, Donald Trump holds his campaign rally in the BB&T Center, Sunrise FL, home to the Florida Panthers. Thousands of enthusiastic supporters are in attendance:

This is a continual pattern that appears to be entirely by design. Trump is shadow-campaigning Clinton to draw a contrast to the visible support and work around the media.
The Main Stream Media is a filter-block to the Trump campaigning. The “Media Polls” are entirely structured to give a false impression. [ Not all the polls, the “media polls“ ].
Think about this statement carefully:

If you take away the “Media Polls” what evidence exists that Hillary Clinton is even remotely close to a similar level of support in this election?

Shadow campaigning is what allows Trump to highlight the contrast; not only the optics, but also the level of support within both campaigns.
If the “Media Polls” were accurate, then both attendees to the same exact neighborhood would hold a similar attendance level.
Actually, Clinton should be out-drawing Trump by 10 – 15% (at least occasionally) if the media polling were factual. She’s not, because the “media polling” is no more accurate than the bias exhibited in the print and broadcast presentations by the same media outlets:

Donald #Trump arrives at the arena. Crowd chants "USA, USA" pic.twitter.com/rujQJKurJP
— Rajini Vaidyanathan (@BBCRajiniV) August 11, 2016

Monday evening Hillary Clinton campaigned in Kissimee Florida; you might remember the rally attended by Orlando terrorist’s father Seddique Mateen. Tomorrow, Donald Trump is going to the exact same Kissimee neighborhood, again – shadow campaigning, only Trump is using The Silver Spurs Arena.
[Kissimee Florida is not a large town – although it’s a metro suburb of Orlando.]
However, you’ll note how the media is entirely ignoring the continual comparative optics. American corporate media have their narrative, their media polling, and they are entirely sticking to the promotion of that reality.
When we say “media polling” we are specifically referencing: CNN/ORC (Turner), ABC (Disney), New York Times (Carlos Slim), CBS (David Rhodes), NBC (Mark Murray), Wall Street Journal (Rupert Murdoch), FOX News (Daron Shaw), WaPo (Jeff Bezos), Reuters, and the fellowship of Monmouth Polling (Patrick Murray).
Each of these Wall Street media outlets, or organizations that is paid by Wall Street media outlets, are generating polling that is no different in ideological intent to the broadcasts and journalism they espouse on a daily basis. They each have a vested interest in the creation and promotion of false data to support Clinton.
Again, if you remove these specific media polls from the bloodstream of U.S. political discussion what evidence exists that Hillary Clinton is even remotely viable as a presidential candidate? Factually, very little evidence exists.
That’s not to say that some polling by Quinnipiac or Rasmussen, if the methodology and samples are appropriately distributed, are not correct – they very well can be. Heck, even PPP polling who intentionally describe themselves as left-leaning (sample Dems), is more dishonestly accurate than the above “media polls”.
The psychological use of media to construct a false narrative is the heaviest it has ever been. This election is breaking multiple records beyond the candidate factors.
Forcing this visible contrast, between false and reality, appears to be the reason why Team Trump are shadow-following Hillary Clinton and her campaign. Watch the upcoming campaign geography of Hillary Clinton and then follow the campaign geography of Donald Trump and you’ll see the approach.

@seanhannity 20,000 at the Trump Rally in Fort Lauderdale. BBT Center is packed! pic.twitter.com/izpZuXz1P6
— aeronautic1 ن (@aeronautic1) August 11, 2016

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...asting-optics/

[American Patriot]

Where are the pictures of Clintons rallys?

[Malsua]

like this? Taken in the past few days.

[American Patriot]

llol. I was more referring to the "shadow campaign" and assuming there were similar venues in the same buildings to compare numbers of people, byt that will do. lol

[Ryan Ruck]

Sorry but rallies aren't a very good indication of candidate success. Despite the likelihood of some polls being manipulated to shape public opinion, they all can't be wrong since polling companies, if they want to remain successful, rely on showing accurate results.

After all, we all remember the administration of President Paul after his huge rallies, right?








The fact is that right now aggregate polling is showing most all of the swing states going Clinton. In order for Trump to win he would, in most scenarios, nearly have to run the table on the swing states and when there are states like Utah, Arizona, and Mississippi being put into play for Clinton that's not happening. Hell, Clinton is actually pulling resources out of Colorado and Virginia because they think they're in the bag.

And Trump is doing almost nothing in the swing states to combat Clinton. Instead he's spending time and resources in Connecticut which hasn't gone R since Reagan!

[Ryan Ruck]

Clinton Well Ahead In Several Battlegrounds, New Poll Shows

August 12, 2016

New polls released Friday show Hillary Clinton with significant leads over Donald Trump in three key battleground states.

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls show Clinton with commanding advantages in Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia — and also a 5-point edge in vote-rich Florida. They were conducted Aug. 4-10, suggesting that Clinton's convention bounce has been sustained more than a week after she accepted the Democratic presidential nomination.

In Colorado, Clinton leads Trump by 14 points, 46 percent to 32 percent. In North Carolina, which Mitt Romney won four years ago, Clinton's lead is 9 points: 48 percent to 39 percent. In Virginia — home state of Clinton's running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, Clinton has a 13-point lead.

Clinton's campaign and a supportive super PAC, Priorities USA, have at least temporarily suspended television advertising in Colorado and Virginia, as Clinton has built large and consistent leads in those states this summer.

The race in Florida, according to the NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll there, is closer. Clinton leads Trump, 44 percent to 39 percent.

Not only does Clinton lead in each of these states, but the polls also show Trump is a drag on GOP candidates downballot. In Colorado, incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet has a 15-point lead over his Republican challenger, Darryl Glenn, 53 percent to 38 percent.

In North Carolina, the poll shows Democrats ahead in both key statewide races. Attorney General Roy Cooper has a 7-point lead in his campaign against GOP Gov. Pat McCrory, 51 percent to 44 percent. And GOP Sen. Richard Burr trails Democratic challenger Deborah Ross for the first time in a nonpartisan public poll — though Ross' lead is within the margin of error, 46 percent to 44 percent.

The polls surveyed 899 registered voters in Colorado, 862 registered voters in Florida, 921 registered voters in North Carolina and 897 registered voters in Virginia. The margins of error are plus or minus 3.3 percentage points in Colorado, Florida and Virginia, and 3.2 percentage points in North Carolina.

[Ryan Ruck]

The Polls Aren’t Skewed: Trump Really Is Losing Badly

August 9, 2016

We’ve reached that stage of the campaign. The back-to-school commercials are on the air, and the “unskewing” of polls has begun — the quadrennial exercise in which partisans simply adjust the polls to get results more to their liking, usually with a thin sheen of math-y words to make it all sound like rigorous analysis instead of magical thinking.

If any of this sounds familiar — and if I sound a little exasperated — it’s probably because we went through this four years ago. Remember UnSkewedPolls.com? (The website is defunct, but you can view an archived picture of it here.) The main contention of that site and others like it was that the polls had too many Democratic respondents in their samples. Dean Chambers, who ran the site, regularly wrote that the polls were vastly undercounting independents and should have used a higher proportion of Republicans in their samples. But in the end, the polls underestimated President Obama’s margin.

Now the unskewers are back, again insisting that pollsters are “using” more Democrats than they should, and that the percentage of Democrats and Republicans should be equal, or that there should be more Republicans. They point to surveys like the recent one from ABC News and The Washington Post, in which 33 percent of registered voters identified as Democrats compared to 27 percent as Republicans. That poll found Hillary Clinton ahead by 8 percentage points.

But let’s say this plainly: The polls are not “skewed.” They weren’t in 2012, and they aren’t now.

The basic premise of the unskewers is wrong. Most pollsters don’t weight their results by party self-identification, which polls get by asking a question like “generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a….” Party identification is an attitude, not a demographic. There isn’t some national number from the government that tells us how many Democrats and Republicans there are in the country. Some states collect party registration data, but many states do not. Moreover, party registration is not the same thing as party identification. In a state like Kentucky, for example, there are a lot more registered Democrats than registered Republicans, but more voters identified as Republican in the 2014 election exit polls.

A person’s party identification can shift, and therefore the overall balance between parties does too. Democrats have typically had an advantage in self-identification — a 4 percentage point edge in 2000, a 7-point advantage in 2008 and a 6-point edge in 2012, according to exit polls — but they had no advantage in the 2004 election. Since 1952, however, almost every presidential election has featured a Democratic advantage in party identification.

Here’s the margin that Democrats have had in self-identification since 1952, according to the American National Elections Studies and, starting in 1972, exit polls.




And it’s not crazy to think Democrats will have an advantage in party identification in 2016. With a controversial nominee, many Republicans might not want to identify with the GOP, and may be calling themselves independents.

You should also be skeptical of other attempts to reweight pollsters’ data. One website, LongRoom, claims to “unbias” the polls using “actual state voter registration data from the Secretary of State or Election Division of each state.” The website contends that almost every public poll is biased in favor of Clinton.

Think about what that means: The website is saying that a large number of professional pollsters who make their living trying to provide accurate information — and have a good record of doing so — are all deliberately biasing the polls and aren’t correcting for it. Like many conspiracy theories, that seems implausible.

I’d also point out that election offices from different states collect different data. Some states don’t have party registration; other states don’t collect data on a person’s race; some states collect data on neither. There are some companies that try to fill in missing data for each state, though it costs a lot to get that data. Isn’t it more plausible the people who get paid to know what they are doing are right, while some anonymous website on the internet with unclear methodology is wrong?

Of course, unskewing is simply one of many ways of pretending Clinton hasn’t jumped out to a large post-convention lead against Donald Trump. You could also ask us to imagine a world without polls. You could allege, without any evidence, that outright election fraud will take place. Or you point to Trump’s rally sizes, though George McGovern in 1972, Walter Mondale in 1984 and Mitt Romney in 2012 all had large crowd sizes and lost.

People, though, should stick to reality. Right now, Clinton is leading in almost every single national poll. She leads in both our polls-plus and polls-only forecasts. That doesn’t mean she will win. The polls have been off before, but no one knows by how much beforehand, or in which direction they’ll miss. For all their imperfection, the polls are a far better indicator than the conspiracy theories made up to convince people that Trump is ahead.

[Ryan Ruck]

Whites And Men Flee Donald Trump As Hillary Clinton Opens Up A Massive 15 Point Lead

Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump 48%-33% in the new McClatchy-Marist poll, but what is shocking is that Trump is losing the support of men.

August 4, 2016

Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump 48%-33% in the new McClatchy-Marist poll, but what is shocking is that Trump is losing the support of men.

According to McClatchy, Clinton kept her lead with other groups of voters, but significantly cut into Trump’s lead with white voters and men:

Men had been the bedrock of Trump support. Last month, he was up by 14 percentage points among men; he’s now down 8. Clinton remains strong with women, as she’s up 20.

Trump collapsed almost everywhere that he’d built decent support. Even among white voters, which favored Republican White House candidates in recent elections, Trump was lagging, ahead of Clinton, but only just barely, 41-39.

…..

Clinton wins moderates, 50-27 percent. She is far ahead with black voters, 93-2 percent, and with Latinos, 55-26 percent.

Hillary Clinton remains strong with the constituency that powered President Obama to two victories, but now she is adding men and white voters to her column. The reasons why these voters are abandoning Trump include a Democratic convention that sent a strong pro-America message that resonated more with white and male voters than Trump’s doom and gloom, and Democrats have been helped by Clinton’s selection of Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate. Kaine is a family man of faith from a Southern state whose white middle-class dad vibe no doubt plays well with white and male voters.

The Clinton/Kaine ticket embraces vets, while Trump insults their families. Clinton talks about creating jobs with optimism. Trump rails about how much America has become a collection of losers who suck. The candidates are offering messages that are the complete opposite of their opponent.

If Trump loses with men and wins white voters by a small margin, Democrats will win in a landslide.

The numbers will tighten before Election Day, but Democrats are heading in the right direction after the political conventions.

[Ryan Ruck]

David Duke’s Getting More Support From Black Voters In His Race Than Donald Trump Is In His

August 5, 2016

Former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke was interviewed by NPR's Steve Inskeep this week, and he reiterated his affection for the man at the top of his party's ticket.

Duke is running for the U.S. Senate from Louisiana, and he pledged that, if elected, "nobody will be more supportive of [Donald Trump's] legislative agenda, his Supreme Court agenda than I will. I'm 100 percent behind it." He criticized Republicans and "so-called conservatives" who were balking at Trump.

"There's a lot of political correctness in this country," Duke said, later adding that critiques of Trump as bigoted or racist were "nothing more then epithets or vicious attacks." When he announced his bid, Duke said that he was pleased to see Trump "embrace most of the issues that I’ve championed for years."

To the chagrin of the Republican Party in the state, which quickly denounced Duke's candidacy, there's no primary to weed Duke out of the mix before the November election. Every candidate running is on the ballot then, with the top two headed to a runoff if no one gets 50 percent of the vote.

In a recent poll conducted by the University of New Orleans’ Survey Research Center, Duke gets the support of about 13 percent of the state, with more opposition from older voters — who likely remember his past runs for office, the pollsters note — than younger ones. That level of support mirrors his favorability rating in the poll; 14 percent view him favorably to 82 percent who don't. (Only 4 percent of respondents weren't familiar enough with Duke to have an opinion.)

But here's the weird thing, as the New York Times' Campbell Robertson pointed out on Twitter on Thursday. Duke, a former leader of the Klan, gets support from 14 percent of black voters — a figure that eclipses the support Trump gets nationally or in nearby Georgia in a new poll from that state.



In three national polls released this week, Trump averages 2.3 percent from black voters. In Georgia, he got 5 percent. (In polls conducted before the conventions in Ohio and Pennsylvania, Trump got zero percent of support from black voters.)

The Survey Research Center poll has some caveats that should be noted. It's landline only, because it's an interactive voice response poll where a recorded question is asked and respondents push buttons to record their answers. Our pollster Scott Clement points out that nearly half of Lousianans use only cellphones. The poll also only asked about Duke, instead of comparing candidates head to head.But it's not like 14 percent support is good. The contrast here is mostly because Trump's levels of support among black voters are so bad. As the Louisiana Senate race continues and Duke's past is put in front of voters, it's hard to believe that 1 in 10 black voters would still consider him to be acceptable.

But it's not like 14 percent support is good. The contrast here is mostly because Trump's levels of support among black voters are so bad. As the Louisiana Senate race continues and Duke's past is put in front of voters, it's hard to believe that 1 in 10 black voters would still consider him to be acceptable.

Duke's embrace of Trump, though, offers some indication of why black voters are so skeptical of the well-known Trump. Democratic presidential candidates have won the black vote by 77, 91 and 87 points in the past three elections, according to exit polls, so he was never likely to do terribly well. Trump's statements on racial issues — and his failure to immediately denounce Duke in an interview in February — have clearly compounded that existing partisan disadvantage.

In that NPR interview, Duke pledged his loyalty to a President Trump. If Trump gets only a small fraction of the vote from nonwhite voters, there won't be a President Trump for Duke to support.

[Ryan Ruck]

Gingrich: Trump Is Making Himself More Unacceptable Than Clinton

August 3, 2016

Newt Gingrich, an ardent supporter of Donald Trump, said Wednesday "It is obvious from the polling data and everything we are seeing that Trump is making himself unacceptable next to Hillary Clinton.

The former House speaker, who spoke with me on the phone, went on to say Trump "has to become more disciplined or he runs the real risk of losing this election."

Gingrich emphasized that he still remains a Trump supporter, saying "Don't misunderstand me. I am still 100 percent for Trump."

And he also dismissed the idea of an intervention to force Trump to change course or tactics, saying, "The idea of an intervention on a 70-year-old man who is a billionaire and with these achievements is fairly ridiculous."

He declined to describe any advice he has offered to Trump in recent days, but it should be noted that Gingrich is among ‎Trump's closest and most persuasive advisers.

But Gingrich is convinced Trump can withstand the current chaos and thrive in the fall campaign.

"I believe Trump has until just after Labor Day. He is resilient. I believe America resets itself every 60 days. In a world of Pokemon Go, none of these things last."

Trump and his senior political advisers are also becoming increasingly estranged as the general election kicks off in earnest. One example -- Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort is no longer trying to steer the Republican nominee off harmful or controversial topics, and is now just trying to focus on the mechanics of the campaign.

Manafort isn't exactly hiding this either. "The candidate is in control of his campaign," he told Fox News. "That's number one. And I'm in control of doing the things he wants me to do in the campaign."

The lack of guidance on messaging is showing.

In a single day, Tuesday, Trump said he's "not there yet" on endorsing House Speaker Paul Ryan; he attacked John McCain for not doing enough for veterans; he said he regrets not serving in Vietnam and accepted the gift of a Purple Heart from a veteran, saying, "I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier;" he suggested the election was rigged and complained he had been "viciously attacked" by the Khan family; and he was forced to address a baby's crying during his rally.

The dissonance between Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence, is also increasing.

On Wednesday, Pence complimented McCain and show and gave Ryan a hearty endorsement during an interview with Fox News.

"I strongly support Paul Ryan, strongly endorse his reelection," Pence said. The fact that he's there for Ryan -- even if the top of the ticket is not -- is something Pence addressed on Fox News' "Happening Now."

"I talked to Donald Trump this morning about my support for Paul Ryan and our longtime friendship," Pence said. "He strongly encouraged me to endorse Paul Ryan..."

[Ryan Ruck]

Polls Show Trump Falling Behind in Swing States

Hillary Clinton pulls ahead in Michigan, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania; Hispanic voters in Florida snub Trump

August 4, 2016

A new batch of polls in key swing states show Donald Trump falling further behind Hillary Clinton, as a series of missteps and turmoil within the GOP harm the Republican nominee’s campaign.

Four polls released Wednesday and Thursday morning show Mrs. Clinton opening double-digit leads over her Republican rival, following an orderly Democratic convention replete with tributes to Mrs. Clinton and attacks on Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump’s criticism of the family of a Muslim-American Army captain who died in Iraq, and divisions within the Republican Party over Mr. Trump’s candidacy.

In New Hampshire, a new WBUR poll of likely voters shows Mrs. Clinton pulling 15 points ahead of Mr. Trump, 47%-32%. Her lead has widened considerably since May, when a similar poll of the state’s voters portrayed a statistical tie.

Mrs. Clinton also leads by 11 points in Pennsylvania, according to a new Franklin and Marshall poll, 49%-38% among likely voters. That lead widens to 13 points among registered voters.

In Michigan, where Mr. Trump’s campaign hopes to win due to its large population of working-class white voters, Mrs. Clinton is polling 9 points ahead, according to a Detroit News poll.

And in Florida – a must-win state for both candidates, with its prize of 29 electoral votes – a Florida International University poll of Hispanic voters released Wednesday shows Mr. Trump’s standing at a historic low – with only about 13% of Hispanics ready to vote for him. In a state where they make up 18% of the electorate, Mr. Trump’s poor standing could cost him the state – and the presidency.

[Ryan Ruck]

Ledger Reveals Trump's Campaign Chief Was Earmarked $12.7M From Pro-Russian Interests In Ukraine

August 15, 2016

A pro-Russian political party in Ukraine advised by Donald Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort, designated $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments for Manafort between 2007-12, according to secret ledgers uncovered by an anticorruption center in Kiev and obtained by The New York Times.

While there is no evidence that Manafort has actually received the earmarked payments, he is "among those names on the list of so-called 'black accounts of the Party of Regions,' which the detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine are investigating," according to a statement from the bureau provided to The Times.

The Party of Regions is the political party led by the Russian-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych before he was driven out of power in 2014 and exiled to southern Russia.

It is unclear what exactly the series of 22 payments designated for Manafort were for. Manafort advised Yanukovych for nearly a decade and is widely credited with rehabiliting the Ukrainian leader's image between 2004-2010, but his total compensation for that work remains unclear.

Yanukovych won the 2010 presidential campaign after a failed bid in 2004.

"It was a weird thing for the people in Ukraine, because they could not imagine how an American strategist agreed to cooperate with Putin’s friend. It was confusing. But Manafort played a decisive role in the victory of Yanukovych," Ukrainian political expert Oleg Kravchenko told Politifact in May.

The newly reported payments shed light on the "very dirty cash economy in Ukraine" that rewards party loyalists with off-the-books gifts and favors, Daria N. Kaleniuk, the executive director of the Anticorruption Action Center in Kiev, told The Times.

Other uncovered records, moreover, "give no indication that Manafort has formally dissolved the local [Ukrainian] branch of his company, Davis Manafort International," The Times notes.

Manafort released a statement early Monday morning denying The Times' findings and reiterating that he had not received any cash payments from elements within the Russian or Ukrainian governments.

"All of the political payments directed toward me were for my entire political team," the statement read. "There is no evidence of 'cash payments' made to me by any official in Ukraine."

This is not the first time Manafort has been accused of trying to take advantage of Ukraine's corrupt political environment for financial gain.

Manafort also attempted to set up an offshore real-estate partnership with Dmitry Firtash, a notorious Ukrainian businessman who donated to Yanukovych's pro-Russia political party, according to documents uncovered in 2014. Firtash is wanted by the FBI on bribery charges.

Manafort has also worked with the Russian oligarch and Putin ally Oleg Deripaska on investment deals in New York and Ukraine, The Guardian reported. Most recently, Manafort and Deripaska were involved in a partnership to buy millions of dollars worth of assets in Ukraine and Eastern Europe via an investment fund Manafort co-founded, Pericles Emerging Markets.

Deripaska has been linked to organized Russian crime by the State Department, according to the Times.

"Someone who has had such close relations with notorious kleptocrats doesn't belong anywhere near any of our presidential candidates," Charles Davidson, executive director of the Kleptocracy Initiative at Hudson Institute, told Bloomberg's Eli Lake in April.

The Times report comes amid increased scrutiny of the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, which exploded late last month after a hack of Democratic National Committee email accounts was tied to Russian military intelligence. Trump denied any involvement in the hack, but called on Russian hackers to "find the 30,000 emails [from Hillary Clinton] that are missing" in a now infamous press conference.

Revelations about the origins of the DNC hack and Manafort's cash ties to pro-Russian interests in Ukraine also follow the Trump campaign's decision to alter the GOP's policy on Ukraine, which has long called for arming Ukrainian soldiers against pro-Russian rebels.

The report, moreover, emerges in light of Trump's own perceived friendliness toward Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. Trump has threatened more than once to pull out of NATO — an organization Russia views as a threat — and has spoken highly of Putin more than once.

"He's running his country, and at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in this country," Trump told MSNBC in December.

On Thursday, Trump told CNBC that during his administration, he would "be friendly with Putin."

Some have said the real-estate mogul is not releasing his tax returns because they may show that "he is deeply involved in dealing with Russian oligarchs," conservative columnist George Will told Fox News late last month.


Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Robby Mook, in a statement on Monday morning in response to the Times report, called for Trump to "disclose campaign chair Paul Manafort's and all other campaign employees' and advisers' ties to Russian or pro-Kremlin entities, including whether any of Trump's employees or advisers are currently representing and/or being paid by them."

As journalist Julia Ioffe noted in a recent piece for Foreign Policy, Trump's own influence among high-level Russian figures may be overstated given the difficulty that he has had throughout his career in securing lucrative real-estate projects there.

In any case, along with Manafort's ties to pro-Russian actors in Ukraine, Trump's seemingly shady financial overtures to Russian oligarchs have resurfaced this year, perhaps as evidence that the real-estate mogul or his top advisers may be tangentially linked to Russian attempts to undermine the Clinton campaign.

[American Patriot]

The way I see it we have a small set of possibilities.

1) Trump Wins

2) Clinton Wins

3) Gary Johnson Wins

4) Jill Stein Wins

Trump is a "Republican", Clinton a Democrat, Johnson a Libertarian and Stein is a Greenie.

All these people calling themselves "Independents" STILL gotta play by the rules. The Rules are, this is a two party system. Anyone who is not a nominee for one of the two major parties isn't going to win. Period. Johnson isn't getting in, and Stein isn't getting in.

Period.

That leaves Trump and Clinton.

Trump pisses everyone off. He is brash, sometimes obnoxious, speaks his mind, is a businessman, the Left says he is going to get us into a war, the right says he is dangerous. The Marxists hate him because he's wealthy.

Clinton is a woman, a lying piece of shit, abso-fucking-lotely HATES the US Military, treats people like she's a fucking Queen and not a statesman/person, has gotten Americans killed, has likely killed or ordered killed Americans, has cheated the system, stolen money, gotten money from foreign interests, sold time in the WHite House and offices.....

Yeah, Trump might be losing. But if Trump loses at this point, America loses.

All the Independents out there who refuse to stand up for one side or the other are stabbing themselves in the eyes, and America in the back. Libertarians KNOW that putting Clinton in there is the WORST possible thing they could do. Trump might not be to their liking, but he's going to do more than talk and say stupid things (Please don't think that he will continue to say idiotic things, because Obama has the lock on saying idiotic things and has completely and totally caused people to be desensitized to HIS bullshit). No one wants to listen to Obama, and Clinton grates on my nerves.

Reading HEADLINES does nothing for this country, you have to HEAR what these people are saying. People simply don't care any more.

America is so totally fucked.....