The General Election

[TGHusker]

Personally, I am shocked that a Fox News analyst (Doug Schoen) would pull his support for Hillary Clinton.

 

Shocked, I say.

Knapp, You should be shocked without the sarcasm. He has the understanding that this is a big deal.

 

He's not just a Fox analyst but a long time Dem pollster. Yes one of the token dem analysts on the website but still a well thought of Dem analyst.

 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/10/30/democrat_doug_schoen_is_reconsidering_his_support_for_hillary_clinton_because_of_fbi.html

 

 

His own bio says he has been a long time Dem political consultant and Clinton supporter (Bill and Hillary)

 

Douglas E. Schoen has been one of the most influential Democratic campaign consultants for over thirty years. A founding partner and principle strategist for Penn, Schoen & Berland, he is widely recognized as one of the co-inventors of overnight polling.

Schoen was named Pollster of the Year in 1996 by the American Association of Political Consultants for his contributions to the President Bill Clinton reelection campaign.

His political clients include New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Indiana Governor Evan Bayh, and his corporate clients include AOL Time Warner, Procter & Gamble and AT&T. Internationally, he has worked for the heads of states of over 15 countries, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and three Israeli Prime Ministers.

http://douglasschoen.com/bio/

 

 

 

From the Real Clear politics link:

DOUG SCHOEN: As you know, I have been a supporter of Secretary Clinton... But given that this investigation is going to go on for many months after the election... But if the Secretary of State wins, we will have a president under criminal investigation, with Huma Abedin under criminal investigation, with the Secretary of State, the president-elect, should she win under investigation.

 

Harris, under these circumstances, I am actively reassessing my support. I'm not a Trump --

 

HARRIS FAULKNER, FOX NEWS: Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You are not going to vote for Hillary Clinton?

 

SCHOEN: Harris,

I

'm

deeply concerned that we'll have a constitutional crisis if she's elected.

 

FAULKNER: Wow!

 

SCHOEN: I want to learn more this week. See what we see. But as of today, I am not a supporter of the Secretary of State for the nation's highest office.

 

FAULKNER: How long have you known the clintons.

 

SCHOEN: I've known the clintons since '94.

 

FAULKNER: Wow! But their friend here has said he's reconsidering.

 

SCHOEN: I have to, because of the impact on the governance of the country and our international situation.

 

FAULKNER: So the news in that is are there other people, I would imagine, like Doug Schoen

[knapplc]

You say "this is a big deal."

What is a big deal?

[TGHusker]

I don't think I have to repeat the obvious. The dems are in a panic and the FBI has reopened the investigation.

[knapplc]

The Dems are in a panic. No.

 

The FBI has reopened the investigation. No.

[TAKODA]

[zoogs]

In the spirit of bipartisanship, you make a solid point on Reid, TG. That sort of speculation was openly partisan and pretty irresponsible. It's not so different from the conspiracy-stoking behavior we criticize so much in Republicans. Goes to show it doesn't belong to one side of the aisle -- and it certainly isn't exclusive to uncouth nonpoliticians.

 

And Trump should be investigated and his issues exposed just as much as Hillary's.

False equivalency. Hillary ran a private email server. A mistake, but hardly one with harmful intentions. We can point to a whole slew of areas the federal government needs to improve on regarding its approach to both technology and transparency.

 

Trump has a history of going out of his way to hurt people for his own gain.

 

She's a lifelong politician ensconced in the ranks of the elite and savvy the political game, for better or for worse. She's fought for causes she's believed to be effective for others and made mistakes along the way. He's an abusive, vindictive, cruel human being that's never fought for anything other than his own brand.

 

The difference in record is staggering.

[TGHusker]

The Dems are in a panic. No.

 

The FBI has reopened the investigation. No.

 

Panic: Well a whole lot of Dems who praise Comey in July are speaking negatively of him today.

 

OK, if you want to be technical (I'm getting a headache ) , FBI add a supplement to the investigation. As indicated by this letter from Comey.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/28/us/politics/fbi-letter.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/10/28/world/ap-us-campaign-2016-the-latest.html

[knapplc]

You're getting a headache because you're trying to spin Comey's letter into something it isn't. Or believing Conservative spin. Either way, that's your fault, not mine.

Here's Comey's letter:

Dear Messrs Chairmen:

In previous congressional testimony, l referred to the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had completed its investigation of former Secretary Clinton's personal email server. Due to recent developments, I am writing to supplement my previous testimony.

In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation. I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.

Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work, I believe it is important to update your Committees about our efforts in light of my previous testimony.

Sincerely yours,
James B. Comey
Director

 

At no point does he state that the Clinton email case is reopened. At no point does he say she is still, or currently, or in the future, under investigation. At no point does he even say he has emails from Clinton herself. Everything not in this letter is manufactured hysteria.

 

Talk of a constitutional crisis, Democrat "panic" and anything other than the facts are hype, not reality.

 

Reality is that emails with Clinton's name were on a computer seized as part of another investigation (speculation is that it's the Weiner case).

 

 

There's a lot of "I want this to be a scandal" right now. It may end up being a scandal. It isn't a scandal RIGHT NOW.

[knapplc]

[zoogs]

The things that swing election projections really make me fear for the future of our democracy.

 

The idea -- and it's looking more and more like a conceit -- of our self-governing republic is that we'd have a vigorous debate of competing policy.

 

That does happen, but it's not what moves the needle.

[Lil' Red]

Donald J. Trump proudly acknowledges he did not pay a dime in federal income taxes for years on end. He insists he merely exploited tax loopholes legally available to any billionaire — loopholes he says Hillary Clinton failed to close during her years in the United States Senate. “Why didn’t she ever try to change those laws so I couldn’t use them?” Mr. Trump asked during a campaign rally last month.

 

But newly obtained documents show that in the early 1990s, as he scrambled to stave off financial ruin, Mr. Trump avoided reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxable income by using a tax avoidance maneuver so legally dubious his own lawyers advised him that the Internal Revenue Service would likely declare it improper if he were audited.

Link

[zoogs]

Color me shocked that Trump is turning out to look like a scam artist more than a successful businessman.

 

And:

 

In any event, Mr. Trump can no longer benefit from the same maneuver. Just as Congress acted in 1993 to ban stock-for-debt swaps by corporations, it acted in 2004 to ban equity-for-debt swaps by partnerships.

 

Among the members of Congress who voted to finally close the loophole: Senator Hillary Clinton of New York.

[Danny Bateman]

The Dems are in a panic. No.

 

The FBI has reopened the investigation. No.

 

Am Dem. Can confirm. Not panicking. Just hope the Senate turns over.

 

Your second statement is true.

 

Had zero idea who Doug Schoen was when he made it in the news this morning.

[Danny Bateman]

 

Sitting U.S. Senator ^^^^

I suppose we can have a good discussion about whether things intended for private consumption should be held against a candidate. But if we're all going to parse over Wikileaks, who themselves were illegally attained, I don't see how this is any different. Americans seem to value transparency over privacy, at this point, in their hierarchy of values.

 

Not a good look, regardless.

[zoogs]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/10/was_a_server_registered_to_the_trump_organization_communicating_with_russia.html

 

 

The Times hadn’t yet been in touch with the Trump campaign—Lichtblau spoke with the campaign a week later—but shortly after it reached out to Alfa, the Trump domain name in question seemed to suddenly stop working.

 

...Four days later, on Sept. 27, the Trump Organization created a new host name, trump1.contact-client.com, which enabled communication to the very same server via a different route. When a new host name is created, the first communication with it is never random. To reach the server after the resetting of the host name, the sender of the first inbound mail has to first learn of the name somehow. It’s simply impossible to randomly reach a renamed server. “That party had to have some kind of outbound message through SMS, phone, or some noninternet channel they used to communicate [the new configuration],” Paul Vixie told me. The first attempt to look up the revised host name came from Alfa Bank. “If this was a public server, we would have seen other traces,” Vixie says. “The only look-ups came from this particular source.”

I'm not one to chase down wild theories, but I believe some of us here have both more interest and experience with reading through investigatory reports. What do you guys think -- is there any "there" there?

 

Also from Slate, a guide: How to choose between two uniquely corrupt candidates?

 

On the rare occasion I find myself struggling with the choice we're faced with, I find guides such as these fairly helpful.