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The Unskewed Polls founder thinks Hillary Clinton will win, which makes us wonder whether the girl who carved a B on her face is also with her. Neo-Nazis say they’re planning to “observe” polling places, because, hey, they’re simply people committed to overturning democracy concerned about preserving it. And prospective cabinet members are already lobbying Hillary’s transition team, while reporters are already readying puff pieces titled, “Hillary’s Go-To TK.” This is HUFFPOST HILL for Wednesday, November 2nd, 2016:
TRUMP ‘VOTER MONITORING’ GROUP GAINING STEAM - Christina Wilkie: “More than 2,700 people have registered so far to serve as volunteer poll watchers for Stop the Steal, a pro-Donald Trump group run by noted dirty trickster Roger Stone. The longtime Trump ally said last month that those volunteers would be sent to polling places in nine cities with high minority populations on Election Day. And that constitutes illegal voter intimidation, according to at least four federal lawsuits against the Trump campaign, Stop the Steal, Stone and state Republican parties. Stone told HuffPost via email that the lawsuits are ‘without merit’ and that his group would conduct only ‘neutral, scientifically based EXIT POLL [sic] in order to compare the actual machine results with the exit poll results in 7,000 key precincts.’ But as of Wednesday, that ‘scientific’ exit poll was just a webpage with an icon for each of the four presidential candidates, ostensibly designed for the volunteer exit pollers to click on when they get an answer from a voter.” [HuffPost]
Also this: “Neo-Nazi leader Andrew Anglin plans to muster thousands of poll watchers across all 50 states. His partners at the alt-right website ‘the Right Stuff’ are touting plans to set up hidden cameras at polling places in Philadelphia and hand out liquor and marijuana in the city’s ‘ghetto’ on Election Day to induce residents to stay home. The National Socialist Movement, various factions of the Ku Klux Klan and the white nationalist American Freedom Party all are deploying members to watch polls, either ‘informally’ or, they say, through the Trump campaign.” [Politico’s Ben Schreckinger]
OBAMA TURNS SOUR ON FBI - The audacity of nope. Ryan J. Reilly: “President Barack Obama has weighed in on the controversy surrounding FBI Director James Comey’s decision to insert the bureau into the presidential campaign just days before the election. Obama, in an interview published Wednesday with Versha Sharma of NowThis, said he’s made a ‘very deliberate effort’ to make sure that it doesn’t look like he’s ‘meddling’ in the process at the FBI. ‘Setting aside the particulars of this case, I know that [Hillary Clinton] is somebody who has always looked out for the interests of America and the American people first, and I do think that there is a norm that when there are investigations, we don’t operate on innuendo, we don’t operate on incomplete information, we don’t operate on leaks, we operate based on concrete decisions that are made,’ Obama said.” [HuffPost]
‘UNSKEW POLLS’ GUY THINKS HILLARY WILL WIN - Eliot Nelson: “Dean Chambers, who made a name for himself ‘unskewing’ the polls in 2012 to give Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney more favorable results, has come to view political polling with a bit less suspicion and believes that Hillary Clinton is the favorite to win the White House. ‘I would look at the RealClearPolitics no tossups map, they’re saying 273 [electoral votes] for Hillary,” Chambers, who founded the now defunct UnSkewPolls.com, told The Huffington Post in an interview. ‘My best guess is that’s probably pretty close.’ In that scenario, predicted by RealClearPolitics’ polling aggregator, Clinton ekes out a narrow win by carrying Colorado, Wisconsin, Michigan, Virginia and New Hampshire.” [HuffPost]
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NEVER MIND! TRUMP RESTARTING JOINT FUNDRAISING EFFORT - It is going to be so interesting to read the post-election FEC reports from Trump’s campaign operation. Drew Doggett: “In a surprising move, Trump’s national finance chairman, Steve Mnuchin, announced Oct. 25 that Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee that can raise huge sums of money, will cease formal fundraising operations. While the campaign will continue to take in individual donations, Mnuchin claimed they stopped hosting official fundraisers and soliciting big donors. But today, the Trump National Doral Hotel in Miami hosted a fundraiser for the Victory Fund with Donald Trump in attendance, according to an invitation obtained by the Miami Herald. When we reached out to Trump National Doral, an employee confirmed that the event did, in fact, benefit Trump Victory.... According to Political Party Time’s database, the Trump Victory fundraising apparatus benefitted from only 66 official events this cycle, compared to the Hillary Victory Fund’s 410.” [Sunlight Foundation]
CONSERVATIVES RAISING $$$ TO KEEP COURT UNDERSTAFFED - In 18 years, Siri will be our High Court. Cristian Farias: “Now that Republican strategy on Supreme Court vacancies is shifting to a permanent blockade of future nominations, at least one conservative powerhouse is raising money to help make that a reality.… [The Heritage Foundation]’s overture to donors includes a number of common talking points among conservative court watchers, including an appeal to stop the liberal push ― presumably by a President Hillary Clinton ― ‘to pack the courts with activist judges’ that might ‘create laws rather than interpret them.’ But tucked in this plea for funds, which The New Yorker noted in a recent column, was a game plan of sorts that builds on what many Republican senators have been signaling of late: that it would be perfectly acceptable to leave the Supreme Court and other courts short-handed for as long as needed.” [HuffPost]
NEO-NAZIS HAD THE BEST WEEK IN WASHINGTON - Dana Liebelson and Matt Ferner: “Last month, several American white nationalists traveled to an anti-immigration conference in Wismar, Germany, and told attendants that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign represents a win for the movement—even if he loses the election.... There’s no doubt that Trump’s run for the nation’s highest office has energized white nationalists. In recent weeks, the KKK’s official newspaper has endorsed Trump, white supremacists have announced plans to monitor polling places, and Johnson launched a robo-call claiming that Evan McMullin, an independent presidential candidate who is competitive with Trump in Utah, is gay. (On Wednesday, he stopped the campaign and apologized.) But white nationalists aren’t just gearing up for Election Day. As the German conference shows, they’re also eagerly planning their next moves.” [HuffPost]
HOUSE RACIAL CAUCUSES LOBBYING CLINTON FOR CABINET POSITIONS - Though they have regretfully not included Cherokee-American Elizabeth Warren in their deliberations. Scott Wong, Rafael Bernal and Mike Lillis: “If she’s elected president next week, Hillary Clinton has pledged that 50 percent of her Cabinet will be female — but she’s under enormous pressure to ensure racial diversity as well. The congressional Hispanic, Asian and black caucuses recently held separate meetings with Clinton’s transition team to put forward names of minority candidates for Cabinet and high-ranking administration posts, The Hill has learned. Former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who is heading the transition team, attended some of those meetings.” [The Hill]
OREGON GOVERNOR IS THE LEFT’S NEW DARLING - Jennifer Bendery: “If [Kate] Brown was thrown by her abrupt ascent to the governorship, it didn’t show. In the 20 months since, she’s pushed through the kind of agenda that most progressives can only dream about. She oversaw the state’s historic minimum wage increase. She enacted one of the nation’s strongest mandatory paid sick leave laws. She signed bills requiring background checks on private gun sales, phasing out coal-fired power plants and instating a first-in-the-nation law that automatically registers residents to vote when they get or renew a driver’s license. She also signed a ‘ban the box’ law, barring employers from asking job applicants about criminal records, and helped create a first-of-its-kind LGBT veterans coordinator. Already a Democratic stronghold, Oregon has exploded into a progressive’s paradise on Brown’s watch.” [HuffPost]
LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE DONE, JAMES COMEY - Actually, we’re curious to know what the risotto John Podesta cooks with thinks of the whole affair. David Mack: “The teenage girl who allegedly received indecent messages from Anthony Weiner said she is ‘upset’ with FBI Director James Comey after she found out via the media that her case had been tied to the use of Hillary Clinton’s private email server, BuzzFeed News can exclusively reveal. Comey has been criticized for going public with the latest investigation into Clinton’s emails so close to the election and despite a lack of clear evidence, but the 15-year-old told BuzzFeed News she feels aggrieved that the Bureau gave her no warning that her case would be thrust into the national spotlight and tainted with electoral politics. ‘The FBI asked for me to speak to the media as little as possible. I have tried to stay quiet, but Comey has upset me,’ the teenager told BuzzFeed News. ‘The last thing that I wanted was to have this become political propaganda.’” [BuzzFeed]
About those Donald Trump child rape allegations you’ve likely read about on social media.
TRUMP CAN’T EVEN EARN THE OBSERVER’S ENDORSEMENT - Guess Trump will have to revive Trump magazine for an extra endorsement. Michael Calderone: “The New York Observer, a weekly newspaper and website owned by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, will not be backing a presidential candidate ahead of Election Day. Editor-in-chief Ken Kurson told The Huffington Post Wednesday that the ‘Observer is not going to make an endorsement in the general.’ The Observer was one of four publications to endorse Trump during the Republican primary, along with the Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, the Santa Barbara News-Press and The National Enquirer. The Santa Barbara News-Press is also among the handful of newspapers to endorse Trump in the general election. The New York Post, which backed Romney nearly two weeks before the 2012 election, has not yet weighed in for the general even as its tabloid rival, The Daily News, doubled down Monday on its support for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.” [HuffPost]
BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR - Here are some disruptive pandas.
FULFILLING MLK’S DREAM - Mark Joseph Stern: “Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, a Republican...declared that [expanded voting access] ‘cheapen[s] the work’ of civil rights heroes and that ‘just because you turned 18 doesn’t give you the right’ to vote. Merrill explained his thoughts in an interview with a progressive voting rights initiative called Answering the Call. Asked about automatic registration for people who turn 18, Merrill responded, ‘I don’t think that just because your birthday comes around, that you ought to be registered to vote.’ He then listed a litany of voting rights advocates—including John Lewis, Martin Luther King, and Rosa Parks…” [Slate]
COMFORT FOOD
- Is this what quantum mechanics looks like?
- Russians discovered a secret Nazi Arctic base ― no Nazis were found.
- Dog reacts to a meme.
TWITTERAMA
[Ken Bone shivering in the rain at bus stop]
[car pulls up, window rolls down]
Joe The Plumber: Hey kid ― hop in.
@dceiver: WIlliam Shatner: (raising his skinny fists to heaven) KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANfirmation bias
HRC: I don’t know...
OBAMA: It’ll work
HRC: Really?
OBAMA: Hillary, if I say “NORF CAROLINA C’MON AND RAISE UP” you WILL win the state
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