Another Deadline For Joe Biden & New Criteria For Next GOP Debate

Ridin With Biden

The Los Angeles Times reports on another deadline for Joe Biden to consider when deciding whether to announce a candidacy for the Democratic nomination. He has until November 20 to register for the New Hampshire primary.

As I recently noted, he can wait until October 13, the date of the CNN Democratic debate, to declare his candidacy and still qualify for the debate.

There is speculation that Biden might hold off on officially entering the race and wait to see if Clinton is forced from the race due to the scandals or if her campaign no longer looks viable should she lose to Bernie Sanders in Iowa and/or New Hampshire. The November 20 deadline might also not be of concern to him if he plans on going this route as he is expected to concentrate on South Carolina, as opposed to Iowa and New Hampshire, should he enter the race, which in normal years would be a risky strategy.

Turning to the Republican campaign, CNBC has changed the rules for qualifying for their October 28 debate. Instead of setting an arbitrary number (and then expanding it by one) as in the first two debates, CNBC has announced they will decide by a fixed standing in the polls. As they will round up, a candidate averaging 2.5 percent can make it into the evening debate:

National polls will be used to determine a candidate’s eligibility and placement on the stage. To be eligible to appear in either segment, a candidate must have at least 1% in any one of the methodologically sound and recognized national polls conducted by: NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN and Bloomberg, released between September 17, 2015 and October 21, 2015.

To appear in the 8pm debate a candidate must have an average of 3% among these polls. The polls will be averaged and will be rounded up to 3% for any candidate with a standing of 2.5% or higher. Candidates who average below that will be invited to the 6pm debate.

The Wall Street Journal has speculated on who will make the cut:

A Real Clear Politics average of national polling suggests that the candidates who would make the cut for primetime are Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie. Candidates who rank at 2.5% or above in the polls have their numbers rounded up to 3%. Rand Paul’s average in the polls RCP tracks is 2.3%.

Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum, George Pataki and Lindsey Graham—all of whom took part in the undercard debate earlier this month—all rank at 0.5% or less, alternately winning 1% or 0% in the polls.

This formula might help speed up the elimination of the weaker candidates from the race. I do hope that Rand Paul manages to remain in. While I disagree with him on many other issues, I did like seeing him challenge the other candidates on military intervention and the drug war in the second Republican debate.

Update: CNN is now reporting as of October 1 that Biden is not expected to participate in the first debate and plans to delay his decision until later in the month. He might be able to delay but I suspect that the longer he does wait the harder it will be to launch a full scale campaign.

Bernie Sanders Winning The Battle For On Line Support

Bernie2016

In another example of how much grass roots support he has, Bernie Sanders has now reached one million on line donors. The Wall Street Journal reports:

With hours to go before the third quarter campaign finance filing deadline, the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said it reached its goal of one million individual online contributions.

He is the first candidate of the 2016 campaign to announce it had reached this number – and he reached it faster than President Barack Obama did in 2008 and 2012.

The Sanders campaign has touted its goal of hitting one million online donations by tonight’s deadline to spur more individuals to donate.

With hours to go before the third quarter campaign finance filing deadline, the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said it reached its goal of one million individual online contributions.

He is the first candidate of the 2016 campaign to announce it had reached this number – and he reached it faster than President Barack Obama did in 2008 and 2012.

The Sanders campaign has touted its goal of hitting one million online donations by tonight’s deadline to spur more individuals to donate.

Sanders has benefited from his on line presence and social media to rapidly go from a long shot to a real contender for the Democratic nomination. Alternet reports that Sanders Has an Army of Die-Hard Facebook Fans, While Clinton’s Campaign Is Trying to Buy Popularity

Bernie Sanders might still be trailing Hillary in all the national polls, but late last month he took the lead in a more newfangled — if possibly meaningless — measure of political strength: Facebook love. According to data obtained by Quintly, a social media analytics firm, Sanders’ presidential campaign page began the day of Saturday, August 22 with 1,197,290 likes to Clinton’s 1,199,797. By the end of the day, he had 1,218,879 to her 1,205,437. His lead has only increased since then.

Sanders’ success comes despite some suggestions that the Clinton campaign has been padding its totals on Facebook with purchased likes. Back in April, Vocative, a data mining media site, reported that Clinton’s presidential campaign page was more popular among Facebook users in Baghdad than any American city. And a further side-by-side comparison of both candidates’ page data shows that, over the last month, 95% of Sanders’ growth came from within the United States, while for Clinton that number is only 74%.

Oftentimes, so-called “click farms” are based out of developing countries and employ legions of low-paid workers to create fake Facebook profiles and then like the pages of clients. Clinton has seen strong growth over the last several weeks in followers in developing countries. To cite a single example, her followers in Myanmar tripled, to 18,150. (By contrast, Sanders’ share of foreign followers is much smaller and comes mostly from Western Europe.) This doesn’t necessarily mean Clinton’s campaign was paying click-farms directly — sometimes customers buy ads from Facebook, which promises to generate a certain number of likes, and those end up coming from click farms — but that didn’t stop some Reddit users from accusing her of buying likes to stave off Sanders…

Whether or not her campaign bought followers directly, there is a precedent for an organization led by Hillary Clinton purchasing Facebook likes: the State Department spent $630,000 on them between 2011 and 2013, when she was secretary of state, according to an inspector general’s report

In deciding which post appears in a user’s news feed, Facebook relies heavily on engagement, so that even if a user liked both Clinton’s and Sanders’ pages, if a Clinton post attracted a dozen likes and comments and a Sanders post attracted hundreds, the Sanders post would appear at the top of the news feed while Clinton’s might not be seen at all…

In the meantime, Sanders’ posts are continuing to be shared by users who like his page, exposing their friends to him, who then may like his page, causing his popular posts to appear at the top of their news feeds, cementing their loyalty — and the cycle continues.

I have certainly noticed how this cycle continues, with Sanders’ supporters sharing stories to both their personal pages and a huge number of pro-Sanders Facebook groups, leading to continued spread of stories. Once people start sharing a story, their friends share it to spread it further. While prior to the Sanders campaign it was rare for a blog post here to receive even one hundred Facebook likes, it has now become common to have thousands of likes. The most popular story I have noticed has been a post from late June entitled Former Clinton Adviser Predicts Bernie Sanders Will Beat Hillary Clinton. This post has now exceeded 21 thousand Facebook likes. After I noticed how this number was climbing I temporarily added a comment at the end of the post asking visitor where they found the link and readers responded with multiple different places. (The blog was not set up to share on Facebook back when I was supporting Obama over Clinton in 2008, bringing in heavier traffic from Obama supporters, so I cannot compare this to previous campaigns.)

This coverage for Sanders on social media is very likely helping to spread news of his campaign when mainstream media coverage is more limited. This type of publicity should also help Sanders compete with a campaign which has more money to pay for advertising. I also bet that many of those contributing and spreading information about Sanders on line are not people who generally turn out to vote for the Democrats. This is a resource which the party cannot afford to ignore.

Both Congressional Republicans And Hillary Clinton Are Untrustworthy

Hannity McCarthy Benghazi

We have known all along that the Benghazi investigations being conducted by Republicans were primarily politically motivated. We got further evidence of this from an interview of Kevin McCarthy conducted by Sean Hannity (possibly the only time something meaningful came out of a Hannity interview):

Sean Hannity was pushing hard, asking House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy to name some promises his Republicans had actually delivered on. He scoffed when McCarthy said the party would start undoing the Affordable Care Act — “you have the power of the purse!” He talked over McCarthy when the leader and candidate for Speaker of the House suggested that the party did not need to cut funds for President Obama’s “amnesty,” because courts had taken care of it. Only halfway into the interview did McCarthy finally catch a break.

“Everybody though Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” McCarthy asked. “But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.”

The reality is both that the Republicans are playing politics with Benghazi and that Clinton cannot be trusted. The two certainly are not mutually exclusive.

Clinton apologists often claim that the current scandals are all based upon Benghazi, but while there is nothing to Benghazi, there are other real issues. Clinton apologists are now using this interview to attempt to discredit valid criticism of Clinton, but Benghazi and Clinton’s other actions are separate matters.

Regardless of what the Republicans are doing, it was Clinton’s own actions which caused the current scandals. It was Clinton, not the Republicans, who violated the rules. It was Clinton who deleted business-related email claiming to have only deleted personal email. It is Clinton who has been exposed by fact checkers of lying in virtually every statement she has made.

The approximately 36 FOIA lawsuits in progress are not all from the Republicans. (Some are from right wing sources and others are from the mainstream media.)

The Obama Justice Department which is now investigating Clinton’s private email server has nothing to do with the Republicans.

The State Department officials who have criticized her actions have nothing to do with the Republicans.

The Republicans are acting irresponsibly in investigating Benghazi when there is nothing there. That in no way exonerates Clinton for her behavior. In destroying email requested by Congress regarding Benghazi, Clinton has also left the Republicans with a way to keep the investigation going for many more months.

Quote of the Day: Jimmy Fallon on Hillary Clinton

Jimmy Fallon

Hillary Clinton went on “Meet the Press” yesterday, and I saw that Chuck Todd actually showed her a video of all the times she’s flip-flopped on issues. At first Hillary said she felt bad about it, but now she says she feels OK about it.–Jimmy Fallon

CNN Allowing Biden To Wait Until Day Of Debate To Declare Candidacy

Clinton Biden Sanders

CNN has announced more specific debate criteria, and it comes out to be extremely Biden-friendly. The requirement is for “an average of 1% in three polls, recognized by CNN, released between Aug. 1 and Oct. 10.” Under this criteria, Clinton, Sanders, O’Malley, Webb, and Chafee already qualify.

This leaves two other potential candidates. Joe Biden has been investigating the possibility of running but has not made a decision. In order for Biden to qualify for the first debate under CNN’s rules, he merely has to “file the necessary paperwork with the Federal Election Commission or declare his intention to do so to appear on stage at the Wynn, according to the criteria.”

Theoretically it means he could drive to the studio the night of the debate and say he plans to file the paperwork. More realistically, even if he keeps his decision quiet, I would think he would want to start practicing prior to the debate. I would also expect  Biden to announce his campaign at least slightly prior to the debate in order to dominate a media cycle with the news of his candidacy. On the other hand, I am not at all surprised that there was no announcement the past week considering the major events occurring, including the visit of Pope Francis, the Chinese State Dinner, and the events at the United Nations.

The Washington Post notes the impact Biden would have on the race:

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Monday showed Clinton leading rival Bernie Sanders 53 percent to 38 percent, a significantly smaller lead than the 34-point advantage she had in July.

But Biden’s entry to the race could present a significant blow to Clinton’s dominance over the field by siphoning off many of her supporters. When Biden was listed as a potential candidate in the poll, her support against Sanders dropped to 42 percent compared to his 35 percent, while Biden took 17 percent.

I  wonder how much Biden’s support will change just by announcing his candidacy. If he doesn’t run, I wonder how many of his supporters could ultimately be picked up by Sanders.

The remaining possibility is Lawrence Lessig, a frequent critic of Clinton’s ethics. Since my last post on him in August, he has formally announced his candidacy. He did reach one percent from Public Policy Polling, but CNN is not including this poll in their calculation. On his blog, Lessig says that other polls are not including him. A supporter has created a petition at MoveOn, but I don’t see how this will affect the debates. So, if a pollster happens to ask your opinion between now and October 10, consider claiming support for Lessig to help him get into the debate.

Related: Sanders & O’Malley Object To Democratic Debate Schedule But Clinton Reportedly Only Wanted Four Debates

SciFi Weekend: Doctor Who; SHIELD; The Flash; John Snow; Jessica Jones; Getting Hooked on Netflix; Black Mirror; Continuum

Doctor Who s09e02

The Witch’s Familiar, the concluding episode of last week’s episode of Doctor Who, The Magician’s Apprentice, works despite the weakness in its plot due to its dual match-ups. One was the Doctor and a supposedly dying Davro,s and the other pair was Clara and Missy.

Pairing the Doctor and Davros was an idea which Steven Moffat has had since watching Genesis of the Daleks according to an interview at blastar:

“When I was very young, I watched Genesis of the Daleks and began a long plan.”

“I was doing what I do in my spare time which is watch old episodes of Doctor Who – because I really know how to kick back and relax,” he explained. “Davros had already returned within the series…and it occurred to me, and I think this is just true, there isn’t a bad scene between the Doctor and Davros.”

“Whatever you think of the stories – and I think they’re all good – all the time, every time you have the Doctor confronting Davros, in the classic series and in the new series… every time they meet, it’s really quite electric. There’s something about those two characters meeting, so I wanted to have a go at it.”

“What surprised me, looking back at the old stories, was how little screen time they have together. In Genesis of the Daleks they have a couple of scenes, that’s all – brilliant scenes, beautifully written and played, beautifully done. But they’re very short – they’re not long at all. I’d imagined it in my memory as being most of the story, but it wasn’t at all.

“So my notion was to actually stick them in a room together and see what happens after a long while. So that’s, you know, a childhood ambition that hasn’t changed into my 50s.”

Doctor Who s09e02a

The pair spent a considerable part of the episode talking to each other and launching plots against each other. Reminiscent of the question posed by the Doctor last season, Davros even asked the Doctor, “Did I do right Doctor? Tell me, was I right? I need to know before the end. Am I a good man?”

The pairing of Clara and Missy was more amusing. This included Missy’s implied threat to eat Clara if there wasn’t anything else to hunt and Missy’s response when Clara suggested throwing a stone down into the sewers to see how deep they were. “Ah yeah, good idea.” And she pushed Clara in. Plus what is the deal with Missy’s reference to a daughter?

The resolution of the story was weak. Even if we accept that the Doctor can just turn on regeneration energy at will, what was his end-game? He was assisted in escaping by Missy, but at the time the Doctor thought that Missy was dead. His plan might have worked to have the decaying Dalek sewer slime attack the other Daleks, but how was the Doctor planning to escape?

It is also questionable why the Doctor revealed to Davros that Gallifrey still existed. Other questions also came up in the discussion with Davros, such as the idea that the Doctor might have been running from something when he left Gallifrey, and a possible Dalek/Timelord hybrid. Presumably some, if not all, of this will come up in future episodes.

Missy posed an additional threat to Clara when Clara was inside a Dalek. This was actually the third time she was, one way or another, inside a Dalek. We  saw Clara’s mind trapped inside a Dalek in Asylum of the Daleks in Jenna Coleman’s first appearance. Last season there was the journey by a team inside a Dalek in Into the Dalek.

This was an amusing sequence in which Clara tried to communicate but there were many words which the Dalek  translated differently from what she desired, being limited by what it knew. Then she said “mercy” which was not a concept the Dalek should have known. This led to the other somewhat weak aspect of the conclusion as the Doctor went back in time to show mercy to young Davros, therefore introducing the concept of mercy into the Dalek DNA.

The episode also eliminated the sonic screwdriver for now, with the Doctor moving on to wearable technology. There is still the question of the confession dial, which I bet will play a part later this season in typical Moffat style.

The two-part format did allow for many ideas to be inserted into the story, along with a cliff hanger. As plot holes have always been a part of Doctor Who, being present well before Moffat despite the frequent criticism of him for this, it does make sense to have less stories and include more in each one.

ABC has released the first four minutes of Agents of SHIELD, which is returning on Tuesday. Video above with Daisy and other SHIELD agents helping an Inhuman.

TV Guide has some information on Cisco’s new powers on The Flash.

TV Guide also has some set pictures which might provide spoilers on the fate of John Snow on Game of Thrones.

Fox will have a two part trailer for The X-Files on Monday night on Gotham and Minority Report. Minority Report did premiere last week but I’ve held off on watching until I hear more about how the show is. Starting to follow genre shows on Fox doesn’t always turn out very good. The season premier of Gotham left me with hope for improvements in the second season over the first.

Netflix has released the above teaser for Jessica Jones, providing a glimpse of her super powers.

Netflix has released some interesting information on how many episodes viewers had to watch of certain shows before becoming hooked on them. They found the episode at which seventy percent of those viewing would then go on to finish the season. Viewers were hooked with the second episode of Breaking Bad. Some other shows took longer.

Streaming has become a way to provide a future for television shows, in addition to provide access to old episodes of shows. Netflix has ordered twelve new episodes of Black Mirror.

Steven Spielberg has always been a master of fiction. Reportedly Hillary Clinton turned to Spielberg for acting coaches to help her appear more likable. This comes from the book Unlikable by Edward Klein. I’m not sure how much of this book is fact versus fiction.

Tonight we have the rare super blood moon total eclipse. National Geographic describes how to view it.

Continuum Power Hour

The third episode of Continuum, Power Hour, finally started to reveal much more of what is going on (and the reveals are even greater in the fourth episode–but no spoilers for episode four as this has not aired in the United States yet). Kiera and Garza teamed up to find out what the Time Marines are up to. In the process Curtis met a heroic death. After previously warning Alec that his superpower was in computers, not fighting, Curtis himself got drawn into the action.

Julian tried to destroy the Theseus manifesto. Leading a rebellion against the Corporate Congress in which there would be thousands of casualties, followed by failure, just did not seem like a good future for him. He could not escape his fate as, in sort of a time loop, Chen made sure a copy of the manifesto from the future came out, also leading Julian to a toddler Kagami. This leads back to the question of whether the future we know about will still come about, which directly impacts Kiera’s attempts to return home.

After two episodes which were largely setup, the story did progress in the third episode–already half way into the final season. The fourth episode does move the story forward considerably, making it possible to speculate as to the end game of the series. Here are a some teasers which will not spoil the episode, but those who want to go into the episode with zero information might want to look away. Alec responds to Emily being gone, but does not destroy the entire timeline this time. There is an unexpected conversation between characters. A puzzle from the first season is resolved. Keep wondering whether Kellogg should trust his future self.

Pope Francis, President Obama, Multiple Politicians, & Celebrities Snub Clinton Foundation Due To Scandals

Clinton Foundation Scandals

The Clinton Foundation is being snubbed in response to the influence-peddling scandals. Politco reports:

The Clinton Foundation invited everyone from Pope Francis and Leonardo DiCaprio to Bill de Blasio and Janet Yellen to its showcase gathering starting Saturday in New York City, according to multiple sources familiar with the planning.

But those invitations were among the dozens turned down by all manner of celebrities, dignitaries and donors, according to the sources, who said the controversies swirling around the foundation and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign have made some bold-faced names and donors wary of the foundation.

The glitzy Clinton Global Initiative gathering in New York, which has the lofty title “The Future of Impact,” was supposed to have been a celebration of the accomplishments of the $2-billion Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation’s past work as it pivots towards a future with Chelsea Clinton at the helm.

Instead, it’s become emblematic of the foundation’s struggles to regain its luster, while scaling back some of its ambitions and restructuring amid heightened scrutiny of its internal workings, the diminished role of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the prospect that former president Bill Clinton also could be forced to step back.

“They’ve had a lot of rejections from people – both for membership renewals and speaking roles this year between the campaign, Hillary not being at CGI this year, bad press,” said one person who has worked on planning foundation events…

The documents, reviewed by POLITICO, also show that the foundation had hoped to land either Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen or French economist Thomas Piketty to deliver a presentation on income inequality. Both declined, as did Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Rock legend Elton John was invited to receive an award for his efforts to fight AIDS, but he’s not coming, and neither is New York City Mayor de Blasio. He had been invited as a guest rather than as a speaker and notably has refused to endorse Clinton, despite having managed her successful U.S. Senate campaign in 2000…

Likewise, a White House spokesman said President Barack Obama’s decision to skip CGI for the first time since taking office stemmed from his busy schedule ― not the fact that Vice President Joe Biden is actively weighing running against Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were among the foreign heads of state who turned down invitations, according to sources, though they have not attended previous CGI meetings. Among those who are scheduled to appear are Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

To be sure, it’s not unusual for organizers of major conferences with dozens of speakers to be turned down by some invitees, but sources who have worked with CGI say the percentage of regrets seems higher this year. They attribute that to politically charged suggestions that foundation donors ― and particularly foreign donors ― sought or received favors from Hillary Clinton’s state department, as well as media scrutiny of the foundation’s finances and staff.

At least five major companies that sponsored the 2014 Clinton Global Initiative have backed out of sponsoring this year’s meeting.

Let’s hope that Democratic primary voters similarly snub the Clinton campaign. Otherwise there is considerable danger that Hillary Clinton will be similarly toxic among general election voters in 2016, greatly increasing the risk of having a Republican president. It just seems inconceivable that a major political party would consider nominating a candidate who has been exposed for such corruption while a cabinet official.

Additional Non-Personal Email Found Among Among Clinton’s Deleted Email Threating To Further Weaken Her Candidacy

Clinton Email Cartoon Deleted

It has been another bad week for Hillary Clinton. On Tuesday the State Department contradicted Hillary Clinton’s claims about the Justice Department investigation, stating it was prompted by Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email system. The week ended with two separate reports of business related email being among the email which Clinton deleted, claiming it to be personal.

AP reports:

The Obama administration has discovered a chain of emails that Hillary Rodham Clinton failed to turn over when she provided what she said was the full record of work-related correspondence as secretary of state, officials told The Associated Press Friday, adding to the growing questions related to the Democratic presidential front-runner’s unusual usage of a private email account and server while in government.

The messages were exchanged with retired Gen. David Petraeus when he headed the military’s U.S. Central Command, responsible for running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They began before Clinton entered office and continued into her first days at the State Department. They largely pertained to personnel matters and don’t appear to deal with highly classified material, officials said, but their existence challenges Clinton’s claim that she has handed over the entirety of her work emails from the account.

The Hill reported on a second case of business related email which was not turned over, along with the above AP report noting, “they fly in the face of Clinton’s previous claim that she had turned over all of her work-related emails.”

Obama administration officials made new revelations about Hillary Clinton’s emails on Friday, as the ongoing controversy continues to spin against the Democratic presidential front-runner.

In one announcement, a senior State Department official said that the department was handing over “a small number” of new emails related to the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, to a House committee investigating the incident.

Separately, the Associated Press reported that the administration had discovered a new chain of emails that Clinton had declined to turn over, despite her claims to have provided the government with all work-related messages.

The news builds on the growing scrutiny on Clinton, which has threatened to derail her White House campaign.

The AP report in particular is likely to add to mounting allegations that Clinton had repeatedly tried to deceive the public by using a personal email address routed through a private server…

The emails have been implicated in nearly three-dozen ongoing public-records lawsuits against the State Department, and the ongoing fallout threatens to stretch at least into 2016.

The Guardian had more on the email exchange with Petraeus, showing further false from Clinton regarding the email:

The Petraeus emails, however, represent a more serious breach of protocol. The State Department’s record of Clinton emails begins on 18 March 2009 – almost two months after she entered office. Before then, Clinton has claimed, she used an old AT&T Blackberry email account, the contents of which she no longer can access.

The Petraeus emails, first discovered by the Defense Department and then passed to the State Department’s inspector general, challenge that claim. They start on 10 January 2009, with Clinton using the older email account. But by 28 January – a week after her swearing in – she switched to using the private email address on a homebrew server that she would rely on for the rest of her tenure. There are fewer than 10 emails back and forth in total, officials said, and the chain ends on 1 February.

They also commented on the political ramifications:

The revelations could not come at a worse time for Clinton, who has been dogged for months by questions about her email practices.

Her poll numbers have also been slipping in recent weeks. The latest poll of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire show the former secretary of state 16 points behind the frontrunner, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.

Her favorability rating has dropped six points since last March, and a Fox News national poll this week found 58% of responders believed she had lied about how her emails were handled while secretary of state.

I don’t know how much we can trust information from a Fox poll, but other polls have similarly shown a growing distrust of Hillary Clinton.

This is not the first example which has been uncovered of email related to Libya and terrorism which was missing from the email turned over by Hillary Clinton. Missing and altered email was uncovered when compared with Sidney Blumenthal’s email conversations with Clinton.

It is unfortunate that the investigation of deleted email is centered around Benghazi. There is unlikely anything further to find about Benghazi, with no evidence having been found to support the Republican conspiracy theories. It would be more interesting to see if there is any email regarding parties in cases where Clinton was making a decision happened to make large contributions to the Foundation, or happened to pay extraordinarily high speaking fees to Bill at the time. While Congressional Republicans are currently concentrating on Benghazi, information on other topics might come out in further Congressional investigation or in the multiple Freedom of Information Act suits in progress.

Do Democrats really want to nominate a candidate whose ethical misconduct will likely be the subject of headlines well into 2016?

Update September 27, 2015:

The email was also a major topic of discussion on Meet the Press today. Hillary Clinton tried to write this off as “another conspiracy theory” against her. If so, the “conspiracy” includes the Obama Justice Department, the State Department, most of the mainstream media which is reporting on this,  multiple news organizations, such as AP, which have filed Freedom of Information Act law suits regarding the email, and liberal groups concerned with government transparency and ethics which have criticized Clinton for her actions. In reality, this is a scandal which originates directly from Clinton’s own actions.

Chuck Todd also played a montage of Clinton’s shifting positions on various issues  on Meet the Press and asked if she had shifted her positions out of political expediency. Previously, after Clinton made a statement critical of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Jake Tapper of CNN posted a list of 45 times Secretary Clinton pushed the trade bill she now opposes, noting that “Clinton was one of the leading drivers of the TPP when Secretary of State.”

Additional news reports on the email since the original post  are at CNN and Reuters.

Sanders Leads Clinton By 16 Points In New Hampshire & Narrows Gap to 10 Points Nationally

Sanders Clinton

We could be seeing the biggest political upset in politics since Hillary Clinton was upset eight years ago. Bernie Sanders now has a sixteen point lead over Hillary Clinton in the latest CNN/WMUR poll in New Hampshire:

Hillary Clinton trails Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the race for the Democratic nomination for president in New Hampshire, even if Vice President Joe Biden decides not to make a run for the White House, according to a new CNN/WMUR poll.

Sanders has the backing of nearly half of those who say they plan to vote in the first-in-the-nation Democratic primary next year — 46% support him — while just 30% say they back Clinton. Another 14% say they would support Biden, 2% former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, 1% former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, and less than half of 1% back former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee or Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig.

Clinton trails Sanders across most demographic groups, with broad gender and ideology divides bolstering Sanders’ run. He holds 56% of male Democratic voters compared with just 20% who back her, while the two are much closer among women, 39% back Sanders, 37% Clinton. Likewise, Sanders holds a 56% to 30% lead among liberals, versus a 37% to 31% race among moderates.

Sanders also continues to gain on Clinton in some of the national polls. The Ispos/Reuters Poll shows Sanders down by only ten points:

Hillary Clinton continues to lead among Democrats nationwide, with 40% of Dems. Sanders (30%) has gained ground on the front runner.

National polls are virtually meaningless at this point, but it is worth pointing out how close Sanders is in this poll considering how much noise Clinton supporters make when a poll shows any increase in her support nationally, no matter how briefly this lasts or what the other polls are showing.  Sanders has plenty of opportunity to close the gap nationally should he beat Clinton in New Hampshire and/or Iowa. The debates will also provide a major opportunity for Sanders, even with the limited debate schedule.

State Department Disputes Clinton Claims On Email Investigation

Clinton Email

The State Department has undermined Hillary Clinton’s account of the investigation into her email, showing major discrepancies from Clinton’s recent statements. The Washington Post reports:

Throughout the controversy over her use of a private e-mail system while she was secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton has described her decision last year to turn over thousands of work-related e-mails as a response to a routine-sounding records request.

“When we were asked to help the State Department make sure they had everything from other secretaries of state, not just me, I’m the one who said, ‘Okay, great, I will go through them again,’ ” Clinton said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “And we provided all of them.”

But State Department officials provided new information Tuesday that undercuts Clinton’s characterization. They said the request was not simply about general rec­ord-keeping but was prompted entirely by the discovery that Clinton had exclusively used a private e-mail system. They also said they first contacted her in the summer of 2014, at least three months before the agency asked Clinton and three of her predecessors to provide their e-mails.

Most likely Clinton-apologists, who have been spreading false claims that she was “cleared” by the State Department, will continue to ignore such information which contradicts Clinton’s statements. Hillary Clinton continues to make the false claim that what she did was allowed despite being contradicted by multiple fact-checking articles and government officials.

In other developments, the FBI has reportedly recovered email which was deleted from Clinton’s server. It is unlikely the public will obtain any specific information in the near future. It has already been established that email deleted by Clinton included email related to Libya and terrorism, as opposed to being limited to personal email.

This all comes as Clinton continues to fall in the polls. She received yet another setback this week when top unions have decided to hold off on making an endorsement in the nomination battle.