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Donald Trump’s campaign staff think he’s losing ― truly, it’s amazing just how deep the globalist conspiracy runs. Trump is trying to ingratiate himself to liberals by appealing to Michael Moore fans, helping us identify the awful, awful Michael Moore *and* Donald Trump fans whom we should catapult into space. And with the latest accusations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas going public, let’s hope Joe Biden evinces some personal growth and yells only enlightened things at his television this time next year. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Thursday, October 27th, 2016:
Greetings from Maine: We’re in the Pine Tree state to cover Donald Trump’s speech in Lisbon tomorrow. Intel from the guy at the rental car counter is that all the Trump people rent needlessly huge cars.
HOO BOY - This is a ‘90s throwback absolutely nobody asked for. Marcia Coyle: “The anticipation of meeting a U.S. Supreme Court justice for the first time turned to shock and distress for a young Truman Foundation scholar in 1999 when, she says, Justice Clarence Thomas grabbed and squeezed her on the buttocks several times at a dinner party…. Thomas, in a statement through the Supreme Court’s spokeswoman, denied Smith’s allegations. “This claim is preposterous and it never happened,” Thomas said. [National Law Journal] National Law Journal is subscription-only. Read the HuffPost summary here.
CANDIDATE WHO’S BEEN LEADING THE ENTIRE TIME HAS SHOT AT WINNING - That’s according to mathematics and such, kids. Janie Velencia: “Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is either slightly ahead or way ahead of Republican Donald Trump with just 13 days until Election Day, according to new polls released Wednesday…. According to the HuffPost Pollster aggregate, Clinton is leading by about 7 points in the four-way race, 46.6 percent to 39 percent.” [HuffPost]
Clinton’s message now: Don’t get cocky.
TRUMP SET FOR WORST PERFORMANCE IN RECENT HISTORY - Hey, hey, my performance is *great,* trust me. Natalie Jackson and Ryan Grim: “Donald Trump’s greatest fear is probably public humiliation ― and there’s a decent chance he’s headed for a historic one. The most unpopular presidential candidate in modern history is George McGovern, whose 1972 race against Richard Nixon ended with him raking in a puny 37.4 percent of the vote. There’s at least one surface similarity to today’s politics: Though it didn’t happen in anywhere near as public a fashion as the GOP flight from Trump, the Democratic establishment abandoned McGovern, the darling of lefty activists.The political fallout was immense. McGovern haunts Democrats to this day. Hillary Clinton worked on his behalf in Texas that year and often uses his annihilation as a warning to progressives not to push too far, lest you wind up with a Nixon. The party transformed itself in subsequent years, culminating with the centrist presidency of Bill Clinton.” [HuffPost]
TRUMP’S PEOPLE KNOW HE’S LOSING - Boy, this is going to lead to a lot of red hat days. Ariel Edwards-Levy: “With less than two weeks until Election Day, Donald Trump is, for the most part, still insisting to his supporters that he’s in the lead. While he conceded in one radio interview Monday that he was ‘somewhat behind in the polls,’ Trump said the same day that ‘I really believe we are winning’ and claimed that ‘Democrats are making up phony polls.’ Members of his campaign, though, are openly admitting that the businessman is lagging behind. Trump’s campaign manager, pollster Kellyanne Conway, also conceded that the GOP nominee was trailing, saying Sunday ‘we are behind.’ Although Trump says he no longer believes the polls, his internal data apparently mirrors what publicly available surveys are showing. The campaign’s San Antonio-based research team is spending $100,000 a week on polling and is running simulations of the election, according to Bloomberg Businessweek ― and it’s coming up with results that look like most of the public forecasts, all of which give Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton an 85 percent or higher chance of victory.” [HuffPost]
Of course, Trump still won’t promise to concede the election if he loses it.
PLEASE STOP TELLING PEOPLE WE’RE CROOKS, ELECTION OFFICIALS PLEAD - Of course, that’s what they would say. #Illuminati Emily Tate: “Although voter fraud is extremely rare, Trump’s claims have resonated with many of his supporters. In Louisiana, voting officials have been inundated with calls and emails from outraged residents who demand explanations for the real estate mogul’s claims. ‘We have never seen this amount of calls. We spend an inordinate amount of time … responding to people,’ Republican Tom Schedler, secretary of state for Louisiana, said at an event hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center on Thursday.” [HuffPost]
DELANEY DOWNER - The U.S. economy has improved a lot in recent years, but not for everybody. As of September, there were some 600,000 jobless Americans who have been looking for work for at least 99 weeks…. Diane Zapasnik and her husband were among the 2 million very-long-term jobless in 2011, and they still haven’t recovered from the experience. Zapasnik, 59, said they lost their house and now live in a trailer. They’re counting down the days until they can apply for Social Security retirement benefits…. ‘We’re not being talked about at all,’ Zapasnik said. ‘It’s almost like the past couple of years we’ve been swept under the rug. So many families are just dying.’” [HuffPost]
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IS IT BETTER OR WORSE THAT THEY COME RIGHT OUT AND SAY IT? Joshua Green and Sasha Issenberg: “Instead of expanding the electorate, Bannon and his team are trying to shrink it. ‘We have three major voter suppression operations under way,’ says a senior official. They’re aimed at three groups Clinton needs to win overwhelmingly: idealistic white liberals, young women, and African Americans. Trump’s invocation at the debate of Clinton’s WikiLeaks e-mails and support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership was designed to turn off Sanders supporters. The parade of women who say they were sexually assaulted by Bill Clinton and harassed or threatened by Hillary is meant to undermine her appeal to young women. And her 1996 suggestion that some African American males are ‘super predators’ is the basis of a below-the-radar effort to discourage infrequent black voters from showing up at the polls—particularly in Florida.” [Bloomberg Businessweek]
Best election ever: “Betsy McCaughey defended Donald Trump by saying that the multiple women accusing the Republican presidential nominee of sexual assault are simply ‘man-shaming.’ McCaughey, the former lieutenant governor of New York, is most famous for inventing the myth of the Obamacare ‘death panels’ and for defending Trump’s lewd remarks using Beyoncé lyrics.” [HuffPost]
THE FORECAST CALLS FOR ARMED INSURRECTION - Gun-toting anti-government types never get up to anything scary and violent, right? Right?? Ashley Parker and Nick Corasaniti: Jared Halbrook, 25, of Green Bay, Wis., said that if Mr. Trump lost to Hillary Clinton, which he worried would happen through a stolen election, it could lead to ‘another Revolutionary War.’ ‘People are going to march on the capitols,’ said Mr. Halbrook, who works at a call center. ‘They’re going to do whatever needs to be done to get her out of office, because she does not belong there.’ ‘If push comes to shove,’ he added, and Mrs. Clinton ‘has to go by any means necessary, it will be done.’” [NYT]
GRAB ‘EM BY THE NECKERCHIEF - Those Cub Scouts were going to learn the world is run by souless hacks someday anyhow. Mike DeBonis: “If you’re a Republican candidate sharing a ballot with GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, there is truly no escaping the top of your ticket. That’s what Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.) learned earlier this month, when he was pressed on his presidential vote by a Cub Scout less than a week after a recording emerged capturing Trump discussing kissing and grabbing women without their consent. ‘I’m going to be supporting the Republican nominee, no matter what crazy things he says,’ Yoder said, according to cellphone video taken at an Oct. 11 appearance in Lenexa, Kan.” [WashPost]
Trump’s people are really unsure how to talk about their guy.
YOU GUYS LIKE MICHELLE OBAMA, RIGHT? Here’s a thing you can read about some stuff she said. Sam Levine: “Echoing her moving speech from the Democratic National Convention in July, Obama framed the election as a crucial choice that would shape the future for America’s children. ‘Hillary doesn’t play,’ Obama said. ‘This is not about Republicans versus Democrats. None of that matters this time around. No, no,no, this election is about something much bigger. It’s about who will shape our children and the country we leave for them, not just for the next four, eight years, but for the rest of their lives.’” [HuffPost]
NEWS ABOUT INSPIRING COLLEGE PROFESSOR EVAN BAYH - Interesting revelation about the lobbying firm “adviser.” Ryan Grim, Ben Walsh and Zach Carter: “Evan Bayh, the former Democratic senator from Indiana and current Senate candidate, has at least $1 million in holdings with a Bermuda-based insurance company, Athene, that has a business model that a class action lawsuit is challenging as a bait-and-switch scam. Athene’s business plan, the suit claims, is to buy up the annuities of retirees that had previously been invested in bonds and blue chip stocks, and instead pump their money into the risky bets of a private equity firm. That firm turns out to be Apollo Global Management ― where Bayh is a highly paid senior adviser ― which actually owns Athene, so if the gamble pays off, Athene’s parent company gets rich. If it flops, the retirees take the hit.… Bayh has been working for Apollo as a senior adviser for public policy since early 2011, shortly after he retired from the Senate. On the personal financial disclosure he filed with the Federal Election Commission earlier this month in order to run for Senate in 2016, he states that he has received between $5.7 million and $20.9 million worth of assets in the firm. He lists his holdings in Athene as valued at between $1 million and $5 million.” [HuffPost]
KOCH BROTHERS RETREATING FROM NATIONAL ELECTIONS - Ken Vogel: “[I]n mid-September, about 200 staffers from the Koch brothers’ conservative advocacy network were summoned to the fifth floor auditorium of the Charles Koch Institute’s Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, and presented with some bleak news: their efforts to reshape American politics were faltering and were being scaled back amid concerns about lower-than-projected fundraising. In recent years, the deep-pocketed network’s forays into federal elections and policy fights had resulted in ‘very little success,’ the managers were told by top Koch official Mark Holden, according to three people familiar with the meeting...there are mounting questions about whether their vaunted political and advocacy operation may have peaked. The answer could resonate well beyond Nov. 8, since the Koch network would otherwise be expected to play a major role in the post-Trump rebuilding of the conservative movement. In interviews, some insiders traced the network’s decline — or at least its decline in growth — to its decision to sit out the presidential race, at first out of disagreement over whether to play in the crowded GOP primary, and then out of distaste for Trump.” [Politico]
PRELUDE TO A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS - Burgess Everett: “Senate Republicans are choosing sides ahead of a brutal conflict over how to handle the lingering Supreme Court vacancy, with Jeff Flake firing back Thursday at a suggestion by Ted Cruz that the party could indefinitely block any nominee from Hillary Clinton. The internal GOP battle over what to do about Merrick Garland — President Barack Obama’s choice for the court — and any future Clinton nominee will dominate the lame duck session of Congress after the election. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is holding the seat vacant for the next president — but Cruz has suggested that Republicans could continue to block Democrats from appointing a new nominee for much longer.” [Politico]
L.A. REALLY KNOWS HOW TO RIG AN ELECTION - What other explanation could there be??? Javier Panzar: “When 818,000 voters in Los Angeles County fill out their ballots this election, they will find themselves in strange political territory: The only Republican names they’ll see will be presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence. In this GOP ‘dead zone’ — spanning parts of five congressional districts, five state Assembly districts and one state Senate district — not a single Republican candidate made it on to the November ballot.” [LA Times]
FCC SETS NEW PRIVACY RULES - Unclear if there is a Podesta booty equality carve-out, however. Brian Fung: “Federal regulators have approved unprecedented new rules to ensure broadband providers do not abuse their customers’ app usage and browsing history, mobile location data and other sensitive personal information generated while using the Internet. The rules, passed Thursday in a 3-to-2 vote by the Federal Communications Commission, require Internet providers, such as Comcast and Verizon, to obtain their customers’ explicit consent before using or sharing that behavioral data with third parties, such as marketing firms. Also covered by that requirement are health data, financial information, Social Security numbers and the content of emails and other digital messages. The measure allows the FCC to impose the opt-in rule on other types of information in the future, but certain types of data, such as a customer’s IP address and device identifier, are not subject to the opt-in requirement. The rules also force service providers to tell consumers clearly what data they collect and why, as well as to take steps to notify customers of data breaches.” [WaPo]
DONALD & ME - Formerly successful attention-getter Michael Moore said some sympathetic things about Donald Trump supporters in his new movie, so of course Trump tried to pretend they were about him. Igor Bobic: “Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday attempted to leverage some positive comments from liberal documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, who recently spoke about the GOP nominee’s appeal to the blue-collar workers left behind by President Barack Obama’s economy…. But in in his film, Moore actually makes a proactive case for Hillary Clinton. He even defended his support for the Democratic nominee in an interview on MSNBC Tuesday, calling her a ‘force for good.’” [HuffPost]
BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR - Here’s a dog who doesn’t care for some sweet, sweet sax.
TRUMP IS ON TO YOUR SCHEMES, MICROPHONES - Somebody’s been re-reading his copy of “Protocols of the Elders of Shure!” Nolan D. McCaskill: “Donald Trump amplified his contentious history with microphones Thursday, blaming the technology for recording what he thought he was saying in private. In an interview set to air Thursday, Trump faulted a hot mic for capturing him speaking cavalierly about forcibly kissing and groping women with impunity because he’s ‘a star.’ … ‘The microphones, I mean to be honest should, you know, should never have been on,’ he said, according to an excerpt of an interview scheduled to broadcast Thursday evening with the global Catholic network EWTN and published by The Washington Post. [Politico]
HuffPost flashback: “Trump Has A Complicated Relationship With Microphones.”
COMFORT FOOD
- Re-reviewing the original iPod.
- How is it that we have a light-bulb-screwing drone before we have the longer-lasting light bulb?
- We welcome any and all incorporations of “Dinosaurs” into our politics.
TWITTERAMA
@daveweigel: Remember, everyone, this is a CHANGE ELECTION, which is why 90%+ of incumbents will be returned to office.
TWITTER: something just isn’t clicking here
HORDE OF RACIST EGGS: [cacophony of immoral filth]
TWITTER: eliminate the looping video service
HALPERIN: Huh?
TRUMP: I said I’m gonna win.
HALPERIN: Wow. WOW.
TRUMP:
HALPERIN: Talk about scoops! Halperin, you’ve done it again.
TRUMP:
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