Hillary Cleared Again, One More Day

E Minus 1: Just over 24 hours before the polls open, FBI Director James Comey told Congressional leaders he has not found anything in a recently-discovered trove of Hillary Clinton’s emails to warrant reopening a criminal investigation. The emails were either personal or duplicates of what the FBI had already seen.

Comey’s announcement came after he had been the target of accusations that he was attempting to tilt the election toward Donald Trump.

But it came too late for Clinton’s comfortable lead in the polls. Clinton took a dive after Comey told Congress 10 days ago about previously undiscovered emails on the laptop belonging to Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her estranged husband, Anthony Weiner. Donald Trump said, “I think it’s the biggest story since Watergate.” It wasn’t, but the damage to Clinton is done.

Yesterday Trump said, Hillary Clinton is guilty, she knows it, the FBI knows it. And now it’s to the American people to deliver justice at the ballot box Nov. 8th.”

Also campaigning yesterday, Donald Trump insulted the US military leaders advising the assault on the city of Mosul in Iraq. Still harping that the impending attack was publicly known well in advance, Trump said in Tampa, yesterday, “Whatever happened to the element of surprise … the element of surprise .. What a group of losers we have!”

As Hillary Clinton has flooded the field with what the press likes to call “surrogates” campaigning on her behalf, Trump has been going it alone, crisscrossing the country in a marathon of personal appearances. A profile of Trump’s final campaign days in the NY Times opens with, “Donald J. Trump is not sleeping much these days.” It continues, “Aboard his gold-plated jumbo jet, the Republican nominee does not like to rest or be alone with his thoughts, insisting that aides stay up and keep talking to him. He prefers the soothing, whispery voice of his son-in-law.”

The Times also reported that Trump’s staff had quietly taken control of his Twitter account to stop him from embarrassing himself. President Obama said in a campaign appearance, “If somebody can’t handle a Twitter account, they can’t handle the nuclear codes.”

The Numbers: This morning, the NY Times “Upshot” gives Clinton an 84 percent chance of winning to 16 for Trump. Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog says the chances are 63.6 percent Clinton, 36.6 percent Trump. The RealClear Politics average of polls has Hillary Clinton leading nationally by 1.9 percent.

Nation: A 5.0 earthquake centered around Cushing, Okla., crumbled the facades of buildings in the city’s old downtown. Cushing is a center for the oil business. Oklahoma has had an increasing number of earthquakes in recent years blamed on the oil drilling technique known as hydraulic fracking.

Footloose: Mary Keitany, a 34-year-old mother of two children from Kenya, won the New York Marathon yesterday, her third straight victory in New York. She had left the pack behind and was running alone. Twenty-year-old Ghirmay Ghebreslassie of Eritrea won for the men.

Permawar: A force of Syrian and Arab militias has begun an assault on the city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State. They’re calling it “Wrath of the Euphrates,” so they better make it good. Like the assault on Mosul in Iraq, it promises to be a nasty fight, supported by Western coalition air strikes. That means the US.

The Obit Page: Janet Reno, the first woman to serve as Attorney General of the United States, has died at age 78. She died of the effects of Parkinson’s disease, which was diagnosed while she was still in office in 1995.

Reno served eight years under President Bill Clinton. She had to deal with the messy and fatal raid on a cult compound in Waco, Texas, and the international custody battle over Elian Gonzalez, a 6-year-old Cuban refugee whose mother died at sea.

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Friday, March 29, 2024

Page Two

The Most Corrupt Justice

Monday, October 2, 2023

Democracy and Video in the Dark

Sunday, February 26, 2023

Page Two: Do the Right Thing

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Page Two: Sound Recall

Monday, September 13, 2021

Page Two: Cuomo Must Go

Friday, August 13, 2021

Trump and the Truth

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The “Great” President

Monday, March 30, 2020

The Wright Stuff

Saturday, February 29, 2020

It's Been Said

"In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn. There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate, and I should have, no excuses."

-Andrew Cuomo, resigning as governor of New York after accusations of sexual harassment

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