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2016 Election Tag

The screencap says it all . . . on today's Morning Joe, reacting to last night's presidential debate, Mika Brzezinski was nothing short of despondent. Brzezinski repeatedly argued that although Hillary was "amazing," did "great," etc., it is Donald Trump who walked away the winner politically because he was able to "connect" with the concerns of broad swaths of the electorate. Readers are encouraged to view the video to understand the depths of Mika's despair.

I think any fair assessment of the details would say Hillary won the debate points. She was better prepared on issues and had her punch lines lined up. Just like when she debated Obama in 2008. And she did score some good punch lines, because NBC brought up issues that are tough on Trump, like the tax returns and the Obama "birther" issue. Hillary's email problem was barely an issue, and received none of the pushback from Lester Holt that Trump received on other issues like the Iraq War.

A new poll from purple state Virginia has shown that Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson has snagged millennial voters from Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton and GOP candidate Donald Trump. Hillary leads the state in a contest with Trump 52-30, but when you add Johnson her favorability with millennials falls to 34% while Johnson takes 27% and Trump plummets to 23%. What does this mean for the Libertarian Party? Does this show that Hillary needs to concentrate more on millennials?

Green Party candidate Jill Stein attempted to hold a rally on the Hofstra University campus on Monday, but the police removed her after she completed an interview with MSNBC. Stein had not obtained proper credentials. A 15% polling threshold must be met to qualify for the presidential debate stage. Stein planned to virtually attend the debates just outside of Hofstra and livestream her responses on Facebook and through Twitter.

If I see one more story about what Trump/Hillary needs to do tonight, I'm going to .... So really, what do Trump and Hillary need to do tonight?

Trump:

Don't take the bait. Mark Cuban and other attempts at trolling are meant to bait you. Just by being on stage with Hillary helps normalize you. Do something along the lines of Reagan's "there she goes again" when Hillary barrages you. Who cares what the name is of the President of NoOnesEverHeardof-stan. You need to present yourself as a leader, someone who sees the big picture of Making America Great Again but leaving the implementation to people you hire (appoint/nominate), because that is how business leaders who live in the real world are successful. The media has convinced almost half the population you are Hitler. You need to prove you are not Hitler. It's a low bar, try not to trip on it.

Hillary:

Donna Brazile has been a fixture for years on talking-head shows. This Insurrectionist has always thought of her as an affable but relatively reserved soul. Reserved? There's another side to Donna that I was obviously missing! Right from the beginning of her Morning Joe appearance today, in which she swayed gracefully in her seat while greeting "brother Ben" Ginsburg, Brazile was a one-woman show of expressive gestures and phrases. Just sit back, roll the video, and appreciate Donna's very animated performance, which ends with her telling Joe Scarborough "I love you—thank you boo."

What a shock. The FBI dumped about 200 pages of its interview notes from the Hillary Clinton email investigation on Friday evening. The interviews include top aide Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, and even the Romanian hacker Guccifer. Somehow NO ONE, not a single soul, knew that Hillary used a private email server. A few other bombshells include President Barack Obama using a pseudonym in his emails to Hillary, the fact that Hillary did not know how to use a computer, a low key interview with Mills that does not explain why the FBI gave her immunity, and the fact that NO ONE received any training at the State Department on how to handle classified information or email guidelines. I read the 189 pages and below are the parts that stuck out to me.

Heading into the weekend, how about a real rib-tickler to go along with that half-price Happy Hour beverage? On today's With All Due Respect, guest host Donny Deutsch actually said of Hillary Clinton "she does not lie." Hope you didn't spit out that drink! As soon as "does not lie" left Donny's mouth, he had to start semi-backtracking: "well, we've seen instances as far as the email where she was not forthcoming and she actually did lie, but on a day-to-day basis as part of her campaign DNA it's not in there." How ironic of Deutsch to claim that lying is not in Hillary's DNA. The most famous line on Hillary's losing struggle with the truth came from the late, great William Safire, who called Hillary a "congenital liar," i.e., baked into her DNA, Donny.

The Obama administration is working overtime to swear in as many new citizens as possible between now and the election. Critics are alleging that this is nothing more than an effort to create new Democrat voters. FOX News reports:
Email shows federal immigration bosses in OT push to swear in new citizens 'due to election' An internal Obama administration email shows immigration officials may be literally working overtime to swear in as many new “citizen voters” as possible before the Nov. 8 presidential election, a powerful lawmaker charged Thursday.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced on Facebook that he will indeed vote for GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump in November. https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/779403960692072448

Judge James Boasberg announced on Friday that the State Department doesn't have to release all emails contained in the latest batch of Hillary Clinton's emails until after Election Day. He originally gave them a September 23 deadline, but acknowledged today that the department "was struggling to manage the burden of dozens of lawsuits and thousands of requests for records from Mrs. Clinton’s time in office." This batch includes the 15,000 emails the State Department miraculously found after the FBI finished its investigation into Hillary's private email server. Officials originally said the disc contained 30 emails on Benghazi, but let everyone down when they only found one.

Mika Brzezinski used an unfortunate metaphor on today's Morning Joe to describe Hillary and Trump's different approaches to preparing for Monday's first presidential debate. Said Mika: "you think of like the two law students preparing for the bar. The guy is polishing his car to calm down. And the girl is studying up to the last minute." Mika is apparently unaware that Hillary flunked the DC bar exam after graduating from Yale law school in 1973. 67% of the people taking the exam at the same time passed, putting Hillary in the bottom third. Maybe instead of studying, she was too busy . . . polishing Bill's car.

Hillary is having trouble shoring up the millennial vote. In what appears to be an effort to reach a younger demographic, Hillary joined Zach Galifinakis on 'Between Two Ferns', an interview short published on the website Funny or Die. 'Between Two Ferns' interviews tend to be deadpan and self-deprecating, but this was just... bad. Bad for Hillary anyway.