Clinton vs Trump: Early results

09 November 2016

It looks like the Democrats will win one more seat in the Senate, with Governor Maggie Hassan defeating incumbent Kelly Ayotte.

Regardless of who won the presidency last night, uniting the country “won’t be easy,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters on Wednesday. “As Americans we’re rooting for the success for our president in uniting and leading our country.”

President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump talked on the phone “very, very late” overnight, including a discussion about meeting in person on Thursday. The Obama administration won’t be doing anything differently to ensure the successful implementation of its legacy policies ‒ including the Affordable Care Act (better known as Obamacare), the Iran nuclear deal and climate change ‒ but will brief the president-elect and his transition team on those priorities.

“Part of a smooth transition is ensuring that they have the latest available information about some of these policies,” Earnest said.

He then urged Americans without health care to go to healthcare,gov, where the “vast majority” can get insurance for “$75 a month or less,” and he warned both the incoming administration and Congress against taking health care away from 22 million people, protections for preexist conditions or against women paying more, and other aspects that would be overturned if Obamacare is repealed.

Feel the burn?

Addressing Hillary Clinton supporters in New York City, John Podesta took the stage to announce that Clinton was not conceding in the near future. “They’re still counting votes and every vote should count,” he told the crowd.

“Everyone should head home, everyone should get some sleep, we’ll have more to say tomorrow.”

The Clinton campaign's decision to not concede on Tuesday was bolstered by a victory in Maine that earned her 4 more electoral votes.

Trump has announced plans to address the nation after being named president-elect by several news networks.

The US dollar isn’t the only thing plummeting during this election. The Mexican peso has shrunk by over 13 percent against the dollar, marking the peso’s biggest move in either direction in 20 years, according to Reuters.

As a result, Mexico’s central bank has announced it will hold a joint conference with the Finance Ministry on Wednesday morning.

Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin has conceded Utah's six electoral votes to Trump.

Until late on Tuesday night, McMullin still had an 11 percent chance of winning the state, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Clinton has been named the winner of Nevada, giving her an additional 6 electoral votes.

Georgia has been called for Donald Trump, giving him an additional 16 electoral votes.

Maricopa County’s infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a sheriff no longer. He lost his bid for a seventh term to Paul Penzone, whose platforms centered on shutting down many of Arpaio’s controversial choices, such as making inmates live in a tent city during the summer.

Arpaio’s defeat at the polls marks the end of his two decades as the Maricopa County Sheriff and comes on the heels of criminal charges filed against him for failing to follow court-ordered changes to his operations.

Oregon has been called for Clinton, giving her an additional 7 electoral ballots.

Trump has also been declared the winner of swing state North Carolina with 51 percent over Clinton’s 46 percent.

farage

Hillary Clinton has been declared the winner of California and its 55 electoral votes, along with Hawaii and its 4 votes.

Trump has been declared the winner of Idaho, giving him an additional 4 electoral votes.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama’s half-brother Malik has taken to Twitter to express his opinions about the ongoing election.

Voting has stopped everywhere except Alaska. At 11pm ET, polls closed in California (55), Hawaii (4), Idaho (4), North Dakota (3), Oregon (7) and Washington (12).

Several key swing states have been called, with Clinton picking up Virginia and Colorado, but Trump has won Ohio. No Republican has won the White House without also winning the Buckeye State since the party was established in 1854. Trump leads Clinton 168-131. The next set of polls are set to close at 11pm ET.

Minnesota’s state House will have a fresh face joining it. Ilhan Omar, 34, has become the first Somali-American lawmaker in the country after defeating an incumbent who held the position for 44 years in August, The Hill reported. She will be representing an area in East Minneapolis with the country’s highest Somali population.

Representative Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) has ousted Republican incumbent Mark Kirk to recapture President Barack Obama's old seat for the Democrats.

The vote count in Colorado has delayed because of a server crash in Pueblo County, KOAA reports.

Polls have closed in Arizona (11), Colorado (9), Kansas (6), Louisiana (8), Michigan (16), Minnesota (10), Nebraska (5), New Mexico (5), New York (29), South Dakota (3), Texas (38), Wisconsin (10), Wyoming (3).

The key states in this round are Colorado and Michigan, both of which are considered to be battlegrounds. The current tally is Clinton 68, Trump 66.

Trump wins South Carolina's nine electoral votes.

Clinton has won 44 electoral votes from Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont and Washington, DC.

Trump has won 51 electoral votes from Indiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Marco Rubio has won his reelection in the Florida Senate.

One person was arrested for attempted voter fraud, it has been confirmed. The Donald Trump supporter was arrested in Texas for trying to vote twice, claiming that he “worked for Trump and was testing the system.”

Polls have closed in many states, including the battleground states of Florida (29 electoral votes), New Hampshire (4 votes) and Pennsylvania (20 votes).

Trump has been named the winner of West Virginia, which currently sees him leading Clinton 24-3.

Polls have closed in two key battleground states: North Carolina (15 electoral votes) and Ohio (18 electoral votes). They have also closed in West Virginia (five electoral votes), which is considered a "safe" state for Trump.

Voting continues for another hour in eight North Carolina precincts, though due to a computer glitch that forced poll workers to consult paper printouts for registered voters. An additional six precincts, also in Durham County, remain open, albeit for a shorter amount of time.

Polls in Georgia, the rest of Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia have closed.

Trump is projected to have won Indiana (11) and Kentucky (8), while Clinton is projected to have won Vermont (3).

08 November 2016

Instances of violence have been reported across the country. One voter tweeted that his polling station in Winter Park, Florida had been evacuated due to a bomb threat. 

A shooting broke out near a polling location in Azusa, California. Slauson Middle School and Memorial Park have been placed on lockdown according to KABC. However, it remains unclear whether it is related to voting. Three to five people were reported to have possibly been injured in the shooting according to reports.

The first sets of polls have closed in Indiana, but the rest of the state is still voting. The first results will not come in until 7pm ET.

More than 27,000 people on Facebook have RSVPed that they’re “going” to an event called “Thanks Obama” on January 19 in Washington, DC. Attendees will “stand at the White House gate and just clap for the President on his last day of work” as a way to “truly and sincerely say, ‘Thanks, Obama’."

Another 75,000 are “interested” in the event.

Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, owns a polling firm.

Former President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush declined to vote for anyone for president, the New York Times’ Jonathan Martin reported. They did vote for down-ballot Republican candidates in Texas, however.

It’s been a long, nasty election cycle, and Americans are celebrating that they’ve voted and that the craziness is finally drawing to a close. The #PostVotingStressRelief hashtag is trending on Twitter. Apparently more than a few people have been stress-eating...

And animals are always a great way to relieve stress.

Is it the election or its end that’s driven us to drink?

A Nevada state judge has rejected Trump’s complaint about early-voting violations.

North Carolina’s Durham County Board of Elections has requested that voting be extended by 90 minutes over an alleged computer system glitch that created long lines there. The board is putting together evidence to prove the extension is needed, according to AP.

Earlier, one precinct in Durham County reported that it ran out of its authorization-to-vote forms from 9:30am to about 11:00am.

The Democratic Coalition Against Trump has filed a complaint with the New York State Board of Election after Eric Trump posted a picture of a ballot, which is officially illegal across the state. He has since deleted the tweet.

“Once again the Trump family has acted like the laws don’t apply to them,” said Scott Dworkin, the coalition’s senior director, according to the Guardian. “When another celebrity did the same thing, he was vilified by the media. We shouldn’t turn a blind eye to Eric Trump’s serious misstep.”

Lines in Brooklyn earlier today.

Donald Trump’s campaign has filed a lawsuit in Nevada claiming that polls were kept open in Clark County two hours beyond the designated closing time.

Both Donald Trump and his son Eric Trump have been mocked online for allegedly “double checking” the ballots of their wives, who voted in neighboring booths.

Two election clerks at a Broward county polling station have reportedly been fired.

Lines are stretching across New York City as turnout shows no signs of dropping.

Donald Trump is leading in predominantly Democratic Pennsylvania with 99,286 votes, based on early-vote estimates, cited by Slate. Clinton reportedly has 85,367 votes.

Trump has briefly commented on the early returns from battleground states.

“Very good – everything’s very good,” he said while proceeding to vote. “It’s just very good, generally speaking.”

Donald Trump has arrived at a precinct close to his Trump Tower apartment in New York City.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) has warned of “a difficult legacy for those who have the responsibility as president in the future,” as the race for the Oval Office reaches its final stage.

Speaking in Berlin, he stressed that “it will be hard” for the next US president to heal rifts “that have become even deeper” between the political camps.

Two topless women with protest slogans written in black marker across their chests and backs have been arrested at Donald Trump’s Midtown voting precinct.

Long lines reported at Coolbaugh Township, Pennsylvania. 

A polling location at the University of Texas at Austin opened 26 minutes late due to “technical difficulties,” contributing to a line of reportedly over 200 voters.

Poll have opened in California.

Clinton’s VP pick Tim Kaine was among the first to cast his ballot at a polling location in Richmond, Virginia.

Just before the presidential election kicked off, RT crew hit the streets of New York City challenging voters to figure out which candidate said what during the campaign.

Green Party US Presidential candidate Jill Stein has filed a Federal Elections Commission Complaint against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, accusing them of having illegally coordinated with Super PACs in violation of campaign finance laws.

RT’s Nebojsa Malic is reporting live from Arlington, Virginia.

Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe show on Tuesday that if the Republican candidate loses the election he will concede, unless he decides the election wasn’t “fair.” 

“All we’ve wanted a fair fight […] and I think that’s what we want not just for this election, but for all elections, so that everybody has a chance to have their voice be heard and not have it manipulated,” he said.
“If [Trump] loses, and it’s legit and fair, and there’s not obvious stuff out there? Without question [he will concede],” he said.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has cast her vote at a polling station in Chappaqua, New York, alongside her husband Bill Clinton.

Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department says more than 500 voting monitors in 67 jurisdictions in 28 states have been deployed for the election day to monitor “possible violations of the federal voting rights laws.” 

The New York Police Department (NYPD) said it will deploy over 5,000 officers on Election Day, which will make it the biggest public security operation on voting day ever, according to NYPD chief Carlos Gomez.
“In preparation for tomorrow's presidential election, the NYPD has developed a very comprehensive security plan. Well over 5,000 uniformed officers will be assigned to […] various times of election duty throughout the day,” Gomez told ABC News on Monday.

US filmmaker and 'Snowden' director Oliver Stone told RT he sees both Trump and Clinton as “bad” for leading the United States since they both are “surrounded by scandals.”

Voting to elect the 45th president of the United States has officially begun, with polling stations across America opening their doors from 6am EST (11:00 GMT). Voting has already begun in New York, Connecticut, part of Indiana, part of Kentucky, Maine, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, South Carolina and Pennsylvania, as well as Massachusetts, Georgia, Michigan, Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland and part of Tennessee.
Polling stations will stay open all day and will begin closing at 6pm EST (23:00 GMT), but the last polling stations in western Alaska are scheduled to close as late as 1am EST (06:00 GMT) on Wednesday. The first results are expected to come in from Indiana and Kentucky.

Russia’s readiness to develop ties with the United States after the US presidential elections will depend to what extent Washington would be ready to do so, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying on Tuesday. When asked whether Washington should take the first step in restoring relations with Moscow, he noted that “the political will is more important here.” Peskov described the US presidential election as “undoubtedly, an important event” being watched in Russia “as well as other international events.” At the same time, the Kremlin is currently focused on its working agenda, he added.

Latest national voter surveys show Hillary Clinton entering Election Day with a small but steady lead.

The Fox poll shows Clinton leading Trump by at least four points. 

According to the Bloomberg poll, Clinton is up by three percentage points.

Two new Quinnipiac University swing state polls show that voter results in Florida and North Carolina – two critical states – are “too close to call,” but with Clinton getting 46 percent to Trump's 45 percent in Florida, and 47 percent to Trump's 45 percent in North Carolina.

NASA astronaut and US national Shane Kimbrough, who currently lives aboard the International Space Station, filed his ballot in Tuesday's presidential election. The voting process for astronauts is complicated – it starts around a year before their trip to space, when they choose the elections in which they want to take part. Half a year prior to the election, they get a special “Voter Registration and Absentee Ballot Request – Federal Post Card Application” form. NASA astronaut David Wolf was the first American to vote in space while aboard the Russian Mir Space Station. 

Donald Trump traveled across five states in the final day of his election campaign, promising to inflict a crushing defeat on his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. The Republican candidate finished his campaign late after midnight in the State of Michigan.

“Today is our independence day. [...] Today the American working class is going to strike back,” Trump said in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a state that has voted Democrat for decades, but where the Republican sees an opportunity for support among white working-class voters. 

Dixville

A small NH towns of Dixville, Hart's Location and Millsfield release 1st voting results, AP reports.

Hillary Clinton got off to a very early lead in the 2016 presidential election, winning over the voters of Dixville, New Hampshire, by a 4-2 margin over Donald Trump.

But Donald Trump won the most votes in neighboring Millsfield.

Polls in the tiny New Hampshire towns opened just after midnight Tuesday and closed as soon as everyone had voted.

Hillary in Philadelphia

Hillary Clinton, from a podium emblazoned with the official US presidential seal, made her last campaign appeal at a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Monday night.

“Our core values are being tested in this election,” she said, stressing that “the real question for us is what kind of country we want to be, and what kind of future we want to build for our children.”

“We love this country, we love what it stands for, not that we are blind to its flaws, its challenges,” she said, adding that “America's best days are still ahead of us, if we reach for them together.”

Trump Patriots endorsement

Donald Trump revealed two new endorsements Monday night during a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire. New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and head coach Bill Belichick expressed their support through a phone call and letter, respectively.

“Congratulations on a tremendous campaign,” Trump read from the letter Belichick had written, which complimented Trump for “amazing” leadership in the face of a “slanted media.”

07 November 2016

Trump in Scranton

“Imagine what we can accomplish in the first 100 days,” Donald Trump encouraged a crowd of supporters in Scranton, Pennsylvania on Monday.

But Hillary Clinton may have been even more present in people’s imaginations, as Trump hit at her hard on the last day on the campaign trail.

“She's the face of failure,” he said. “Look at the mess, and look at the corruption.”

Trump promised “real change,” beginning with repealing and replacing “the disaster known as Obamacare.” He warned his audience that they would see a “double-digit premium hike, so high I won't even tell you what it is.”

“Real change also means restoring honesty to our government,” he said, calling Clinton “the most corrupt person ever to seek the office of the presidency of the United States.”

“Deliver justice at the ballot box,” Trump said. “Let’s swamp them.”

One of the more memorable moments was when the crowd extemporaneously chanted, “CNN sucks!” at the mere mention of the mainstream media during Trump's remarks. Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post shared a video capturing the moment on Twitter.

With less than a day until voters hit the polls and cast their vote for the new US president, many are taking to Twitter to share their final thoughts and get every drop of election humor out of their system via the trending hashtag #ElectionFinalThoughts

While some have used the trend as part of a last ditch effort to promote their candidate or disparage their opponents, others have used it to issue their final grievances and concerns for the US after the election.

Amid calls for civilian poll monitors and civilian poll monitor monitors, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it would send 500 staffers to monitor voting in 28 states. This number is a drop from the 2012 election when 800 staffers were assigned to monitor poll sites for voter suppression, USA Today reported.

While some are concerned about voter fraud, many are worried that minority voters may be subject to harsher barriers and discrimination on Tuesday. The NAACP has filed lawsuits against North Carolina and Wisconsin, alleging that both states intentionally tried to subvert votes from African-American communities.

“As always, our personnel will perform these duties impartially, with one goal in mind: to see to it that every eligible voter can participate in our elections to the full extent that federal law provides,’’ Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a press release on Monday.

Obama in Durham

President Barack Obama rocked a crowd for Hillary Clinton in Durham, New Hampshire on Monday, speaking from a podium featuring the US presidential seal for one of his last times. His well-known soaring rhetoric was paired with harsh criticism for Donald Trump

“Unlike her opponent,” Obama said, without mentioning Trump, “she actually respects working Americans.”

“Unlike her opponent,” he repeated, “she knows what's going on in the world.”

Obama ended by saying, “God bless the United States of America!” and slapping his podium on its side a few times. He had earlier acknowledged to the crowd that his time in the spotlight was almost over.

In one of her last rallies as a presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton made appeals to both Bernie Sanders supporters and moderates unconvinced by Donald Trump at a rally in Allendale, Michigan on Monday.

After promising to be “a good steward of your tax dollars,” Clinton vowed not to raise taxes on “anyone making less than $250,000 a year,” adding that for small businesses, “we're going to cut your taxes.”

“Instead, we're going where the money is, to the millionaires and billionaires and big corporations,” she said.

Clinton mentioned her former opponent Sanders a few times while promoting a plan they “worked on together” to make public colleges and universities tuition-free for anyone making less than $125,000 a year, as well as debt-free for everyone else.

“I can’t wait to roll up my sleeves” with Sanders to get it done, she told the crowd.

Clinton also spent much of her time shunning Trump’s “dark and divisive vision for America,” ending her speech by saying, “Love trumps hate.”

Some voters in Rochester, New York are celebrating having a female candidate on the presidential ballot for the first time by paying their respects to the past. Voters have placed “I voted” stickers on the grave of Susan B. Anthony, the first woman to cast a ballot in the US – despite it being illegal at the time.

The Democrat and Chronicle reported that the gestures began last week when someone left a handwritten note and Hillary Clinton button on Anthony’s grave in Rochester. Since then, other voters have left stickers on her tombstone as a gesture to commemorate her activism and sacrifice to the women’s suffrage movement.

The US Supreme Court will not re-impose new restrictions on partisan poll watchers in Ohio on Election Day, upholding the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision. Democrats had sought the measures as a way to prevent voter intimidation, but the Supreme Court said that current laws are enough.

"Ohio law proscribes [prohibits] voter intimidation," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in a statement that cited the relevant case law.

Campaigning for Clinton in Ann Arbor, Michigan, President Barack Obama didn't say anything new. He hit Trump for his positions and temperament, and praised Clinton's focus and qualifications.

At one point, he was interrupted by a woman who screamed: "I love you!"

"I love you to, but I've got business to do," Obama replied without missing a beat.

Off planet vote: A NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough has cast his vote in the presidential election from outer space. He filed in his ballot from the International Space Station over the past few days, according to the Associated Press. NASA Astronauts are registered to vote in Texas, and since a 1997 law can vote from space. NASA’s moto is “Vote while you float.”

A colleague, Kate Rubins, cast her absentee ballot from ISS a week ago before returning to Earth.

“You will have a true friend and champion in Donald Trump… whether you vote for me or not,” the Republican nominee told a crowd in Sarasota, Florida on Monday, pitching his candidacy to Latinos and arguing the Puerto Ricans, Haitians and other communities in the state “hate what the Clintons did to them.”

At one point, Trump asked how many in the crowd voted early. When majority raised their hands, he made as to leave the stage.

“You’ve almost all voted? All right, goodbye everybody,” he said, taking a few steps away before coming back to the podium. “Well, that’s what the Democrats do,” he said, illustrating his claim the other party takes voters for granted.

“You have one magnificent chance to beat the corrupt system and deliver justice for every forgotten man, forgotten woman, and forgotten child in this country. Do not let this opportunity slip away,” Trump urged the audience. “I’m asking you to dream big. We’re just one day away from the change you’ve been waiting for your entire life.”

RT America's Manuel Rapalo is on the ground in Columbus, Ohio, reporting on early voting in the Buckeye State.

In what could be a bigger problem for Trump than having his Twitter taken away, conservative outlet Fox News says Clinton has a 4-point lead on the GOP candidate on Election Day Eve. In a four-way race, the Democrat has 48 percent of support among likely voters, while Trump receives 44 percent, Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson gets 3 percent, and Green nominee Jill Stein has 2 percent.

Two Democratic electors from the state of Washington are refusing to vote for Hillary Clinton, even if she wins the popular vote.

Robert Satiacum, a member of Washington’s Puyallup tribe and Bernie Sanders supporter, said he will not be casting his ballot for Clinton.

“She will not get my vote, period,” Satiacum told Associated Press. “She doesn’t care about my land or my air or my fire or my water.”

The Puyallup tribe is one of the largest contributors to Clinton’s presidential campaign in the state.

Another Democratic elector from Washington, Bret Chiafalo is considering being a “conscientious elector” and ignoring the result of his state’s popular vote, “I have no specific plans, but I have not ruled out that possibility."

Electors are not legally bound to vote for their party’s nominee in several states, though they can be fined $1,000 if they go down a different path. Washington state has 12 electors. A candidate must get a majority of the 538 Electoral College votes – at least 270 – in order to win the presidential election.

The latest FiveThirtyEight poll gives Hillary Clinton a 64 percent chance of winning the Electoral College vote, making her the 2-1 favorite.

Clinton and Donald Trump are spending a full day of campaigning visiting several states, including North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

In Philadelphia tonight, Clinton will be joined by President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, husband Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea.

The Trump campaign said the Republican will also be in Florida, New Hampshire and Michigan.

04 November 2016

President Barack Obama interrupted his own rally to chastise Democratic supporters while campaigning for Hillary Clinton in Fayetteville, North Carolina on Friday.

During his speech a man in a military-style outfit with a Trump sign shouting “Trump” over and over. Supporters turned on the protester with one man nearby reaching out in an attempt to silence him.

Obama tried to regain control of the crowd by repeatedly yelling “Hold up! Hold up!” before telling the crowd “Sit down and be quiet!” and said the protester, an older gentleman “he was not doing nothing” and he just supporting his candidate. He told Democrats if they lose focus, they’ll be in trouble on Election Day, “Don’t boo, vote!”

Congressman Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota) has written to the top brass at ABC, NBC and Fox threatening a hearing on media bias in the 2016 presidential race, ABC's White House news reporter tweeted Friday afternoon.

In quirky campaign news from New Hampshire, Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte's Facebook page appears to be running sponsored ads for Chelsea Clinton who is due to campaign for her mother in the state on Friday.

Ayotte is a first-term senator who is in a tight race for reelection with popular Democratic Governor Maggie Hassan.

In more election fever, Wall Street bankers are warning clients that a Trump win next week could cause stocks to tumble by 3 to 5 percent.

One of the forecasters, Citigroup, said a Clinton victory wouldn’t move stocks significantly.

“Our September client survey showed that the Street convincingly believes that Hillary Clinton will be the next American president," wrote Tobias Levkovich, Citi's chief US equity analyst, according to CNN Money. "However, if Donald Trump were to win, that outcome would have been unexpected and thereby may cause a jump in the equity risk premium."

Bankers believe that a Trump victory would be a surprise, a condition not favored by the financial markets and despite most poll figures reporting a neck-and-neck campaign race.

Citi believes that Clinton still has a 75 percent chance to win.

"Heightened polarization does not bode well for governance, regardless of who wins the election," wrote Tina Fordham, Citi's chief political analyst. "The FBI announcement could increase the risk that if Trump loses he does not accept the result. If a Clinton victory transpires and she presides over a Republican-controlled or divided Congress, the risk of continuous investigations and possible future impeachment is non-negligible."

In New Jersey, attorneys representing the Democratic and Republican parties are arguing before a federal judge over accusations that Republicans are coordinating with Trump to suppress or intimidate minority voters.

The legal challenge comes as several Democrats around the country have claimed the Trump campaign is pushing for support to intimidate voters on Election Day.

An attorney representing Democrats told the judge in Newark on Friday that Trump has "repeatedly encouraged his supporters to engage in vigilante efforts" in the guise of ferreting out potential voter fraud. The attorney says that the Republican National Committee is participating.

An attorney for Republicans told the judge that party volunteers are engaging in normal poll-watching, and that Democrats haven't found one instance where someone was intimidated or prevented from voting.

Courts in Ohio and Nevada have also asked Trump and his longtime political adviser Roger Stone to appear in court to answer charges of voter intimidation and suppression.

A federal judge ordered Republican nominee Donald Trump, his longtime political advisor Roger Stone and the Ohio Republican Party into court to face charges of violating the Voting Rights Act and the remaining provisions of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which makes it illegal to conspire to deprive citizens of their civil rights, specifically voting rights.

The lawsuit showed even Ohio Republicans are reporting Trump supporters are using illegal intimidation tactics in Cuyahoga County, the home of Cleveland’s large minority population, according to OccupyDemocratic. The accusations involve Trump supporters visiting the county elections board to identify themselves as poll observers even though they are not credentialed.

Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani confirmed on Friday that the FBI leaked information to the Trump campaign.

The former New York City mayor had bragged about his ties to the FBI before for months, and mentioned in interviews that “outraged FBI agents” had told him they were frustrated with how the Clinton investigation was handled.

Two days before FBI Director James Comey announced last Friday that the agency had discovered more Clinton emails in an unrelated investigation, Giuliani said the Trump campaign had “a couple of surprises left.”

“You’ll see, and I think it will be enormously effective,” he said in an interview with Fox News.

Giuliani confirmed that notion this Friday during an appearance on 'Fox & Friends'.

“I did nothing to get it out, I had no role in it,” he said. “Did I hear about it? You’re darn right I heard about it, and I can’t even repeat the language that I heard from the former FBI agents.”

The Clinton campaign said polls in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio are trending toward Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Trump will visit New Hampshire on Friday for a Noon rally.

Just a few weeks ago, Clinton had a big lead in the Granite State Hampshire. Three new polls released Thursday now show the two candidates in a virtual dead heat at 44 percent.

Four electoral college votes are at stake in the state, and could be critical to either candidate.

“Once again, the four electoral college votes in New Hampshire could potentially decide the winner of the 2016 presidential election. In a race that is essentially a dead heat, the candidate’s get-out-the-vote operation becomes all the more crucial,” Professor Frank Tatly, co-director of the Center for Public Opinion at UMass Lowell, which carried out one of the polls with WHDH.

Clinton will also campaign in the state on Sunday, and President Barack Obama will attend a rally for Clinton at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on Monday. Trump will be back in the state on Monday for an evening rally.

03 November 2016

In a rally in Greenville, North Carolina, Clinton focused on the need for unity and tolerance saying, “There is such a stark difference on the issues that matter between me and my opponent. I just don’t believe we’re at our best when we stoke fear about each other.”

She also addressed her goals to improve the quality of life within African-American communities saying, “There are too many young African American dying either in police incidents or random gun violence, you know their names: Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland” and promised to “make significant investments in communities that have been left out and left behind.”

In her first public speech since the controversial Republican convention appearance, Donald Trump’s wife Melania talked about her childhood in Slovenia, entrepreneurial dreams, and becoming an American citizen.

“Donald promised to campaign on behalf of those who feel the system is broken and does not work for them, those who just want a fair shake, an opportunity for a better education, a better-paying job, a better future,” Trump told the cheering crowd in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.

“This is not an ordinary campaign,” she said. “It is a movement, in which people feel included, inspired and involved.”

“Make America Great Again is not just some slogan. It is what has been in his heart since the day I met him,” Trump added.

“Melania Trump” quickly began trending on social media, with Trump supporters praising her speech and style while critics called her a “gold digger” and attacked her appeal for civility as hypocritical, in light of her husband’s public remarks.

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump campaigning in Jacksonville, Florida on Thursday told supporters Clinton lied to the FBI and lied to the American people “many, many times.”

“She lied 39 times, ‘I don’t call, I don’t call’,” said Trump accusing her of being a high-level public official engaging in a massive criminal cover-up.

“If she is to win it will create a massive constitutional crisis. She is likely to be under investigation for many, many years,” said Trump. “This is not what we need. We need someone who is going to go to work and bring back ours jobs." 

Trump mentioned he saw Air Force One on the tarmac as he arrived and asked the audience why Obama wasn’t in the White House “bringing out jobs back.”

“Why is he campaigning while she [Clinton] is under criminal investigation?” said Trump “I think he actually has a conflict.”

Trump said one in four lost jobs in Florida because of NAFTA.

“America has lost 70,000 factories since China entered the World Trade Organization,” said Trump. “We are looking at the greatest jobs theft in the world. From now on it’s going to be America."

Trump will be campaigning in another swing state, North Carolina in the afternoon.

Obama is campaigning for Hillary Clinton in Miami, Florida five days before the election, devoting most of his speech to the criticism of the Republican candidate.
“Trump is not putting anything in, but he’s taking a lot out,” Obama said, criticizing Trump for avoiding paying taxes and thus not helping to create jobs.
He also said that anyone who says that America should torture people can’t be president.
Obama warned that the progress made with Affordable Healthcare Act “will go out of the window” if Trump wins.
The president criticized Trump for falling fast into a rage on Twitter, while the GOP candidate was… tweeting.

Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton has maintained a slim lead over republican rival Donald Trump, with five days remaining before the US presidential election on November 8, the polls suggested.

A poll jointly conducted by the New York Times and CBS put Clinton 3 percentage points ahead in the race.

45 percent likely voters said that they’ll support her in the election, with 42 percent giving their support to Trump.

The research was conducted between October 28 and November 1, involving 1,333 registered voters.

Another survey by the Washington Post and ABC found that Clinton was 2 percentage points (47-45) ahead of the Tuesday’s vote. It was carried out between 1,767 on October 29 – November 1.

02 November 2016

Obama in Chapel Hill, North Carolina for Hillary Clinton

At a rally in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on Wednesday, President Barack Obama revved up supporters for Hillary Clinton, encouraging them to vote not only on the issues and policies at stake, but also the character of the nation.

“Reject the divisive mean-spirited politics that would take us backward,” Obama told the crowd, without mentioning Donald Trump by name.

“Life is about, how do you treat people,” Obama continued. “We teach kids in the sandbox to share, cooperate, don't hit each other.”

The president also stressed the importance of voting, saying, “It's easier to vote than ever in North Carolina.” Choosing not to vote, he said, only supports those who wish to “suppress your vote,” citing a federal appeals court case this summer that struck down a Republican-backed North Carolina voter ID law, which the court found “target[ed] African Americans with almost surgical precision.”

“If Hillary wins North Carolina, she wins,” Obama said. “That means that when I say the fate of the republic rests on you, I wasn't joking.”

Donald Trump has officially rejected the endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Klan’s official quarterly publication, The Crusader, ran a front-page endorsement of the Republican nominee in its latest issue. The journal describes itself as “The Premier Voice of the White Resistance.”

“Mr. Trump and the campaign denounces hate in any form. This publication is repulsive and their views do not represent the tens of millions of Americans who are uniting behind our campaign,” Trump’s campaign said in a statement.

“Pretend that we’re down,” GOP nominee Donald Trump told a crowd of some 4,000 people in Miami, pointing out that while the polls show him leading Hillary Clinton buy 4 points or more in Florida, his supporters should not grow complacent.

“Never before have journalists abandoned all pretense of fairness to take sides and try to pick a president,” said Trump, calling out NBC reporter Katy Tur by name.

Trump also noted his “crooked” moniker for Hillary Clinton had caught on.

“She is a candidate of the past. We are a movement of the future,” he said.

Trump tells early Clinton voters to change their vote

During a rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin on Tuesday, Donald Trump reiterated a recent stump speech talking point, explaining that voters in some early-voting states are allowed to change their vote if it has already been cast. Since the FBI announced last Friday it was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's handling of classified materials, polls have shifted in Trump's favor.

Connecticut, Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin allow some form of re-voting for early voters who change their minds. Voters should check with their local electoral authorities.

Also in the news this week is a lawsuit brought by Democrats in four states accusing Trump and his allies of voter intimidation.

Here are Trump's full remarks from Tuesday:

01 November 2016

Clinton campaigns in Florida

In Dade City, Florida on Tuesday afternoon, Hillary Clinton was introduced by former beauty queen Alicia Machado.

“Hillary’s been fighting for average people like me and you,” said Machado. “To all the Latinos, this is our election! Let’s work our vote so we can finally say Señora Presidenta!”

This set the tone for Clinton, who focused on accusing Trump of “demeaning, degrading and assaulting women.”

“For my entire life, I’ve been a woman,” Clinton said, arguing that Trump “doesn’t see us as full human beings.”

“America is great is because America is good,” the Democratic candidate argued, painting herself as uniquely qualified to be commander-in-chief and someone who can unify the country.

Republican candidate Donald Trump leads at 46 percent among voters, with Democrat Hillary Clinton at 45 percent. The one point lead follows the revelation the FBI is taking a renewed look at Clinton e-mails, according to Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll on Tuesday.

Trump’s slight lead comes despite Clinton having a lead in early voting, which shows her at 54 percent compared with Trump at 41 percent.

There was more enthusiasm among Trump supporters for their candidate in the poll at 53 percent, compared with Clinton at 43 percent.

Reflecting the difficulty voters have with both candidates this election season voter enthusiasm is over 10 percent lower than it was for President Obama who scored a 64 percent voter enthusiasm in 2012, with Romney narrowly behind with 61 percent, according to the poll.

Trump holds 78 percent of the white evangelical Protestants, 77 percent of conservatives and 68 percent among rural voters and 59 percent among white men, according to the poll.  Clinton has 81 percent support among liberals, 67 percent of those identifying with no religion, 60 percent of those in urban areas, and 72 percent among non-whites.

The poll said Trump has an 18 point edge among political independents, “significantly higher than Republicans have held in recent elections.”

31 October 2016

Ohio Governor John Kasich is one of the last former Republican presidential candidates still standing against Trump. On Monday, he reportedly put his money where his mouth is when filling out his absentee ballot: He wrote in Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) for president.

However, the vote is merely symbolic, as McCain isn't on the state's list of certified write-in candidates, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Henry J. Gomez.

Actress Jessica Biel, wife of selfie-taking renegade Justin Timberlake, shows her husband how to legally take a picture to prove that her vote has been cast.

Timberlake has since removed an Instagram post in which he showed a marked ballot when he voted early in Tennessee. Such pictures are illegal in the Volunteer State.

The Trump-Pence campaign has gotten into the Halloween spirit.

Other politicians have gotten in on the act, too.

Even President Barack Obama joined in on the fun... in a "dad joke" kind of way...

A new CBS poll of voters in Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Colorado, shows Clinton with a lead in most battleground states, but Trump supporters much more enthusiastic.

Clinton leads Trump by 8 points in Pennsylvania and 3 points in North Carolina and Colorado, while Trump is ahead by 2 points in Arizona. Trump supporters in North Carolina and Arizona say they are “more enthusiastic” than in previous elections by a 2:1 margin, while only 31 percent of Clinton partisans describe themselves as such, compared to 30 percent who are less so.

The internet poll was conducted last week on a sample of 4,074 registered voters.

Trump has a decades-long history of “abusing the judicial system, ignoring judges, disregarding rules, destroying documents and lying about it,” claims a report published in Newsweek on Monday.

“Over the course of decades, Donald Trump’s companies have systematically destroyed or hidden thousands of emails, digital records and paper documents demanded in official proceedings, often in defiance of court orders,” writes Kurt Eichenwald, a prominent Clinton partisan.

According to a Politico/Morning Consult poll, 45 percent said Clinton emails worse than the Watergate scandal; eight out of 10 Republicans said it was worse than Watergate. The Watergate political scandal, over a break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel, led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974.

Of those polled 61 percent worried the Clinton email scandal could affect her administration if elected, compared with 47 percent who think the same could happen to GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump over the court cases on Trump University. 

28 October 2016

Vice President Joe Biden will reportedly turn down Clinton if she asks him to serve as secretary of state.

“I don’t want to remain in the administration,” he told KBJR. “I have no intention of staying involved."

It's not a good 24 hours for the Trump-Pence campaign's planes...

“They are reopening the case into her criminal and illegal conduct that threatens the security of the United States,” Trump said in Manchester, New Hampshire, 10 minutes after learning about the reopening of the case. “We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office.”

“I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the Department of Justice have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made,” he said. “This was a grave miscarriage of justice that the American people fully understand, and it is everybody’s hope that it is about to be corrected.”

“With that being said, the rest of my speech is going to be so boring. Should I even make the speech?” he joked before turning to his prepared remarks.

Trump has often complained about the election and the political system being “rigged,” and Republicans across the country have sought to implement voter ID laws to prevent fraud that Democrats argue rarely exists. Indeed, a seminal study by Loyola Law School Professor Justin Levitt in 2014 found there were 31 possible incidents of in-person voter fraud over 14 years of voting history, comprised of approximately 241 fraudulent ballots.

On Friday, however, three people have been arrested for election fraud. In Virginia, Vafalay Massaquoi, 30, was charged with four felony counts of voter registration fraud, WRC reported. The Commonwealth's Attorney accuses him of using fake names to fill out voter registration applications while an employee of a local advocacy group.

In Florida, Gladys Coego, 74, of Westchester, a temporary worker for Miami-Dade County’s elections department, was arrested after police said she submitted at least two fraudulent votes for mayoral candidate Regalado; detectives believe she may have illegally marked other ballots as well, the Miami Herald reported. Tomika Curgil, 33, was also arrested in the Miami area for an unrelated voter fraud incident. She is accused with filling out voter-registration forms for five people without their consent, submitting 17 forms for nonexistent people and submitting forms for people who are dead, all on behalf of United for Care, a campaign to legalize medical marijuana in the Sunshine State.

If you’re a Republican senator in a blue state and you want to keep your job, it may not be a good idea to mock your opponent’s military service and heritage. But Senator Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) did just that during a debate with Representative Tammy Duckworth on Thursday night after she touted her family’s history of military service.

Kirk responded, “I had forgotten that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.”

Duckworth, a military veteran who lost both her legs during the Iraq War, replied that she was “proud of both my father’s side and my mother’s side as an immigrant.”

Clinton defended Duckworth on Twitter on Friday morning.

Biden, Hillary's secretary of state

Vice President Joe Biden is Hillary Clinton’s top choice for the secretary of state appointment if she wins the presidency, Politico reports, citing “a source familiar with the planning.”

Biden and Clinton both lost to President Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary, and they have differed on policy while serving together in his administration, but the former secretary of state may be impressed with Biden’s restraint, as he was expected to seek the White House in 2016 by many.

Some speculate that the Clinton camp wants to bait Donald Trump into attacking Biden, but that's not what happened hours before Politico broke its news. In an interview with Showtime's "The Circus," published Thursday, Trump said Biden has been an "absolutely fine" vice president. That despite Biden saying he would like to take Trump "behind the gym." 

Other less notable names floated for the position, according to Politico’s source, include former undersecretary of state Wendy Sherman, a leader in the Iran deal negotiations; former deputy secretary of state Bill Burns, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Nick Burns, former undersecretary of state of political affairs under George W. Bush; Kurt Campbell, former assistant secretary of state to Clinton for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; Strobe Talbott, former deputy secretary of state under President Bill Clinton and current president of the Brookings Institution; and James Stavridis, retired Navy admiral and current dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Johnson explodes

Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson snapped during an interview with the Guardian on Thursday. The interview followed a separate heated segment with an HBO crew, and it seemed Guardian reporter Paul Lewis anticipated further escalation in intensity from the third party candidate.

Attempting to break the ice, the very frigid ice, Lewis asked Johnson if he was frustrated with constantly having to answer the same questions from the media.

"Well, I'm an idiot, you know. Really. I'm the dumbest guy that you've ever met in your whole life," Johnson shot back, smiling intensely.

"I'm trying to work out if that's sarcasm or not," the reporter replied.

Johnson lost control around the 5-minute mark in the Guardian video, after he was challenged on his policy of repealing the income tax and replacing it with a consumption tax.

"I don't want to argue, really," Johnson said. But he couldn't help it.

"Look!" Johnson flared, "I came out for the legalization of marijuana. Let me just use that as an example, and I will tell you that I had people in my face for years and years and years talking about how stupid and idiotic it was that we should allow marijuana to be legal."

27 October 2016

The airplane carrying Trump's running mate Mike Pence appears to have made a hard landing at New York's LaGuardia airport and skidded off the runway. There are no reports of injuries.

Trump cancel the election

Further blurring the line of what’s appropriate or not in a presidential election, Republican nominee Donald Trump told a rally audience in Toledo, Ohio on Thursday that “we should just cancel the election.”

“And just thinking to myself right now,” Trump said in a deadpan manner, “we should just cancel the election and just give it to Trump, right?”

“What are we even having it for? What are we having it for?” he added. “Her policies are so bad. Boy, do we have a big difference.”

Trump had been comparing his policies to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s in regards to small businesses and tax rates.

Many on Twitter did not find Trump's suggestion funny. Some even feared a dictatorial takeover of the United States.

Pence plays during plane delay.

The Democratic National Committee has filed a motion against its Republican counterpart, saying that the GOP violated a 35-year-old consent decree that bans “ballot security” measures that could be used to intimidate voters. The RNC violated the 1981 decree “by supporting and enabling the efforts of the Republican candidate for President, Donald J. Trump, as well as his campaign and advisors, to intimidate and discourage minority voters from voting in the 2016 Presidential Election,” the DNC wrote in its motion.

“Trump has falsely and repeatedly told his supporters that the November 8 election will be ‘rigged’ based upon fabricated claims of voter fraud in ‘certain areas’ or ‘certain sections’ of key states. Unsurprisingly, those ‘certain areas’ are exclusively communities in which large minority voting populations reside,” the motion continued. “Notwithstanding that no evidence of such fraud actually exists, Trump has encouraged his supporters to do whatever it takes to stop it… and has been actively organizing ‘election observers’ to monitor polling stations in ‘certain areas.’ Trump has even encouraged his ‘watchers” to act like vigilante law enforcement officers.”

"Dignity and respect for women and girls is also on the ballot in this election," Clinton told a rally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on Thursday, referring to Trump’s various misogynistic remarks about and actions towards women. Joining her at the campaign event was First Lady Michelle Obama. It was their first joint event.

“Folks marched and protested for our right to vote. They endured beatings and jail time. They sacrificed their lives for this right,” Obama told the audience. "Casting our vote is the ultimate way we go high when they go low.”

Demonstrators have entered Clinton's HQ in Brooklyn, New York protesting against North Dakota Access Pipeline as police confronted protesters at the construction site.

In Maryland, the Green Party’s candidate for the open Senate seat, Margaret Flowers, stormed the stage and demanded to be included in a debate between Democratic nominee Chris Van Hollen and Republican Kathy Szeliga on Wednesday night. University of Baltimore police officers quickly escorted her from stage as she asked: "How do you serve democracy or serve the public if I'm excluded?"

Green presidential nominee Jill Stein, who was excluded from all three presidential debates, condemned the move.

For all his anti-immigrant rhetoric, there appears to be one group that Trump is hoping to court: Indians. His campaign released an ad in which he speaks Hindi (roughly, and with a thick New York accent). He also adopts the main slogan that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi used during his 2014 campaign: “Ab ki baar Modi sarkaar,” which means “This time, a Modi government,” according to the Washington Post. Trump did substitute his own name for Modi’s.

If Justin Timberlake were a voter in New York, it would be unconstitutional to prosecute him for that infamous selfie he took in a Tennessee polling station, according to the defendants of a new lawsuit. The three defendants hope a court will overturn a New York law that prohibits voters from showing their completed ballots to anyone, which includes posting on social media. Showing a marked ballot is a misdemeanor punisahble by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine, the New York Daily News reported.

"Taking a photograph of a filled out ballot is a powerful political statement that demonstrates the importance of voting. Without the photograph, the message loses its power," the lawsuit, filed by lawyer Leo Glickman in Manhattan Federal Court on Wednesday, reads.

Timberlake’s ballot selfie has since been removed from Instagram.

Clinton has earned ‒ or rather, NOT earned ‒ the endorsement of a magazine at her alma mater. The Yale Record may be a humor mag, but it takes its nonprofit status seriously. Green Party nominee Jill Stein is another story, though...

Clinton graduated from Yale Law School in 1973.

Kim Dot Com

In a series of tweets Wednesday, Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, creator of the now defunct Megaupload, challenged Congress to "legally" obtain tens of thousands of emails deleted from Hillary Clinton's private servers. Dotcom alleged that NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden could confirm that they were all available through the NSA's "spy cloud" and X-Keyscore, a surveillance program revealed by Snowden's leaks. 

Dotcom further implied that Wikileaks had access to the deleted emails, saying they "should release them."

26 October 2016

As if this election cycle couldn’t get any weirder, Donald Trump Jr., filmmaker and occasional documentarian Michael Moore, and former Twitter troll Milo Yiannopoulos are the cast of characters in a zany political comedy that proves that truth is stranger than fiction.

In Act One, Moore releases ‘Michael Moore in TrumpLand’, a documentary, in which he performs a live stand-up comedy performance ahead of the presidential election in Wilmington, Ohio, a town that heavily supports Trump. Much of the routine supports Clinton, rather than bashes her Republican rival.

In Act Two, Yiannopoulos posts on Facebook that ‘Michael Moore in TrumpLand’ is actually a pro-Trump movie, using audio from the movie without context or follow through to make it appear as if the filmmaker endorsed Trump. Moore responds with a tweetstorm, and views of the movie skyrocket.

In the final act, Trump Jr. falls for the debunked rumor that the movie says that his father will win. Moore laughs.

Calling Trump and “unhinged,”“not stable” and from the outset of his campaign stirred up “envy, resentment, and group hatred,” the Libertarian Party VP, Bill Weld delivered a blistering critic of the nominee, said he would continue through the election but practically endorsed Clinton, without naming her.

Weld advocated against Trump for president “Trump should not, cannot, and must not be elected President of the United States.”

“A President of the United States operates every day under a great deal of pressure — from all sides, and in furtherance of many different agendas. With that pressure comes constant criticism,” wrote Weld in a statement issued Wednesday in Boston.

“After careful observation and reflection, I have come to believe that Donald Trump, if elected President of the United States, would not be able to stand up to this pressure and this criticism without becoming unhinged and unable to perform competently the duties of his office."

DeRay Mckesson, a well-known activist who came into prominence during the Ferguson protests, has endorsed Hillary Clinton, calling her racial justice platform “strong.”
“It is informed by the policy failings of the past and is a vision for where we need to go,” he wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post.

However, Mckesson said that he doesn’t agree with many of Clinton’s policies. He is one of several activists to support a candidate in the 2016 race. His statement provoked a controversial reaction on Twitter.

Donald Trump is leading 2 percent in Florida after a series of rallies in the Sunshine State, a Bloomberg Politics poll shows.

After 5 rallies in the must-win battleground state the he Republican presidential nominee has 45 percent to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 43 percent among likely voters. Even one point is a huge advantage in Florida, according to he former chair of the Florida Democratic Party, Mitch Ceasar.

President Obama has repeatedly slammed Trump for accusations of “rigged election,” even though it's something he warned his voters about back in 2008.

“I come from Chicago,” Obama said, “so I want to be honest, it’s not as if it’s just Republicans who have monkeyed around with elections in the past. Sometimes, Democrats have, too.”

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has offered Trump a sparkling business opportunity, mocking his souvenirs.

Cinton's campaign website now features a promotional brochure for a "Trump Tin Foil Hat."

"In fact if we elect Donald Trump, we could have a president dedicated to the truth: where is Elvis? Where did we film the moon landing?" the brochure reads.

It offers viewers to print guidelines to the diy tin foil hat, topped with Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again.”

Donald Trump is hardly enjoying favorable coverage on American TV as a new study revealed “12 weeks of Trump bashing.”

The Media Research Center (MRC) says between late July and mid-October, 91 percent of network news coverage has been hostile towards Trump.

Based on the analyses of 588 evening shows, the MRC concluded that the networks spent more time discussing Trump’s personal controversies (440 minutes) and alleged sexual scandals (102 minutes) than they spoke, for example, about Clinton’s emails (53 minutes) or the Clinton Foundation (40 minutes).

Dr. Donald L. Trump, a man usually referred to as simply “the other Donald Trump” these days, reportedly said he was going to support Hillary Clinton on November 8.

"I would vote for Clinton, I voted for Obama, because I like what they propose. I like the empathy, the inclusiveness, and the progressive policies that they espouse," Dr. Trump an oncologist from northern Virginia, told CNN, slamming his namesake’s “rabble-rousing” and “hostile” rhetoric.

“The other Trump” has also recalled meeting “the real Donald Trump” once and described his attitude as “arrogance."

25 October 2016

“I feel good, but boy, I’m not taking anything for granted,” Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton told of audience of about 1,750 people at Broward College North Campus in South Florida on Tuesday.

“[This election] it’s so important for Florida...there are so many issues we need to draw attention to,” Clinton said, adding, "we need to create millions of job and protect the environment at the same time."

Polls show the candidate leading in Florida, with RealClear Politics average showing her up by 3.8 percentage points.

“It’s going to be a close election. Pay no attention to the polls. Don’t be complacent,” said Clinton, according to CBS Miami. “I’m asking you most importantly to vote for yourselves because that is what is at stake.”

With Clinton's birthday coming up on Wednesday, supporters congratulated her a day early. The Democrtic candidate said she already got her gift.

“That last debate was like early birthday present, right,” said Clinton.

GOP nominee Donald Trump said his first act as president would be to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Speaking before supporters in Sanford, Florida, he said he would immediately “ask Congress to put a bill on my desk to get rid of this disastrous” program, adding “it will be so easy.”

The announcement comes as average premiums are likely to jump 25 percent in plans before taxpayer subsidies are applied.

It was the first of two campaign stops on Tuesday. Trump is due to speak in Tallahassee in the evening.

Trump has two weeks to galvanize supporters in Florida for votes crucial to his campaign. 

Colin Powell, Secretary of State under George W. Bush, announced his  support for Hillary Clinton in November’s presidential election.

He previously criticized Donald Trump, the GOP nominee, calling him a "national disgrace," according to his emails, hacked and made public earlier this year. Several GOP heavyweights have voiced their support for Clinton, including Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, former President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board Chairman Brent Scowcroft, former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

Trump is reaching out to the Cuban exile community in Florida, securing an endorsement from the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association and visiting Little Havana.

Trump has pledged to reimpose the blockade of Cuba until the island nation is no longer ruled by the Communists. The Obama administration has reached out to Cuba in 2015, seeking to normalize relations after more than 50 years of hostilities.

Singer and actor Justin Timberlake may be in a spot of trouble after posting a selfie from the voting booth on Instagram. Timberlake flew from Los Angeles to Memphis, Tennessee to vote early. However, Tennessee law prohibits taking pictures at polling places.

So far, nobody has been prosecuted under the statute. If the authorities decide to press charges, Timberlake – who hosted a fundraising party for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in August – could face 30 days in jail and a $50 fine.

A federal appeals court struck down a similar law in New Hampshire last month.

Trump, who's been criticizing the Affordable Care Act and promised to repeal it, reacted to the news that the premiums are increasing 25 % in 2017.

New Trump Facebook Live show

Donald Trump may not have won an Emmy for 'The Apprentice,' but he isn’t about to stop making television. The Republican’s presidential campaign has launched a nightly election coverage show that will stream on Facebook Live until November 8.

Featuring campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and advisors Boris Epshteyn and Cliff Sims, the show includes commercial breaks consisting of debate clips. But the kinks clearly hadn’t all been worked out before the premiere episode, which garnered some 1.2 million views, as a frozen Trump puckering during an answer on Obamacare in the last debate filled dead air for several seconds.

Jay Z to perform for Hillary Clinton in Ohio

Rapper Jay Z will perform a concert in support of Hillary Clinton in the swing state of Ohio at an unknown date. A Clinton aide has confirmed that he will appear on stage in Cleveland to “mobilize” black voters, according to BuzzFeed.

The 21-time Grammy winner has previous campaign experience in the Buckeye State. In 2012, he performed as part of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in Columbus, along with Bruce Springsteen.

24 October 2016

Trump's chances of winning are "approaching zero," the  Washington Post wrote on Friday, predicting Clinton would win 323 electoral votes, far more than 270 needed for victory.

"Everywhere you look, Trump is under-performing where Mitt Romney was at this point in 2012. And Romney only got 206 electoral votes and lost by 5 million or so in the popular vote," the paper noted.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren headlined a Clinton rally in New Hampshire on Friday, firing broadsides at Trump using a quote of his from the third and last televised presidential debate.

"Nasty women have really had it with guys like you," said Warren. "Nasty women are tough, nasty women are smart and nasty women vote. And on November 8, we nasty women are going to march our nasty feet to cast our nasty votes to get you out of our lives forever."

Early voting in the battleground state of North Carolina suggests many have taken these words to heart, with 87,000 female Democrats casting their absentee ballots, compared to 60,000 Republican women.

In an appearance on WGIR radio’s New Hampshire Today, Trump called the accusations against him “total fiction.”

“These are stories that are made up,” Trump said. “You'll find out that, in the years to come, these women that stood up, it was all fiction.”

“I don't know these women, it's not my thing to do what they say,” he added. “You know I don't do that. I don't grab them, as they say, on the arm.”

“I believe we are actually winning” Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told supporters in St. Augustine, Florida on Monday.
Trump blamed is worsening campaign struggles on “phony” polls from the “disgusting”media.
“The media isn’t just against me. They’re against all of you,” Trump told the cheering group of supporters. “They’re against what we represent."
He listed a litany of changes he will make if he wins the presidency from cancelling all federal funding to sanctuary cities, removing criminal aliens from the US, suspending immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot occur, making “massive” middle class tax cuts, repealing The Affordable Care Act, ending the Off-shoring Act, and establishing tariffs.

Trump said Obama had increased national debt to $20 trillion in just seven-and-a-half years, and under Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton “it is going to get worse.”

Between her campaign, party and joint fundraising committees, and super PACs, Clinton has raised more than $1.1 billion through the end of September, compared to only $712.1 million for Trump. Nearly $65 million of that money came from just five donors: hedge fund manager S. Donald Sussman ($20.6 million); venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker and his wife, M.K. ($16.7 million); Univision chairman Haim Saban and his wife, Cheryl ($11.9 million); hedge fund manager George Soros ($9.9 million); and SlimFast founder S. Daniel Abraham ($9.7 million).

“It’s very odd to be giving millions when your objective is to actually get the money out of politics,” Sussman told the Washington Post about why he’s donated so much to Clinton. “I am a very strong supporter of publicly financed campaigns, and I think the only way to accomplish that is to get someone like Secretary Clinton, who is committed to cleaning up the unfortunate disaster created by the activist court in Citizens United.”

The rhetoric between the presidential candidates in the 2016 election has been some of the nasties on record. And it can be even worse among Clinton’s and Trump’s followers. But there is such a thing as too far, such as actually threatening the candidates, which can get the Secret Service involved.

In a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland, a Jeep sports a sticker that may rise to the level of threat, saying “kill the b*tch of Benghazi,” a reference to her tenure as secretary of state when four Americans were killed at the consulate in Libya.

Trump claimed in a tweet that the polls are being made up by the Democrats after most of polls over the last week show him trailing Clinton.

After stumping for (and with) Clinton since the beginning of July, President Barack Obama is turning his focus far down the ballot. In an unprecedented move, Obama will endorse 150 state legislative candidates, in hopes of flipping Republican-controlled state legislatures ahead of the next redistricting battle, which is based on the 2020 census. He will endorse candidates in 20 states via TV and radio ads, mailers, recorded calls and statements.

The endorsements will be “focused mostly on swing districts for maximum impact,” White House political director David Simas told Politico.

Newspapers have overwhelmingly endorsed Clinton this election cycle, but Trump just earned his first endorsement from a major newspaper, the Las Vegas Review Journal. The Sin City media outlet is owned by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who has been a major supporter of Trump.

The current tally stands at 184 papers for Clinton, nine for “not Trump,” six for Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, five for Trump and one for "not Clinton." A total of 34 newspapers have said they will not endorse anyone.

Trump has insulted a lot of people on Twitter, to put it mildly. The New York Times has created an interactive list of all 281 people, places and things on which Trump has focused his wrath since he declared his candidacy for president. They also published it as a two-page spread in their print edition.

22 October 2016

Gary Johnson says Clinton gaffe on Mosul shows double standard

Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson famously asked, "What is Aleppo?" during an interview on MSNBC's Morning Joe program last month. And now the third party candidate is drawing comparison between that moment and how Hillary Clinton referred to the northern Iraqi city of Mosul during the final presidential debate. The Democratic nominee seemingly got a pass from the media for saying it was on the country's border. That, Johnson says, reveals a double-standard in the media. Mosul is about 72 miles from the Rabia border port near Syria.

21 October 2016

Employees at Facebook felt that some of Trump’s posts on the social network were hate speech, thus violating the company’s terms of use. They pushed for the candidate’s writings calling for Muslims to be banned from entering the US to be removed, the Wall Street Journal reported. However, CEO Mark Zuckerberg ruled in December that it would be inappropriate to censor the candidate.

When a post is flagged as hate speech, reviewers consider its context before deciding whether to remove it or not, a Facebook spokeswoman told the WSJ.

“That context can include the value of political discourse,” she said. “Many people are voicing opinions about this particular content and it has become an important part of the conversation around who the next U.S. president will be.”

The Clinton campaign’s newest ad, which may be its last before Election Day, features Khizr Khan, the Gold Star father of an Army captain killed in Iraq who spoke at the Democratic National Convention in July. Trump lashed out at Khan and his wife on Twitter and in stump speeches for weeks after the DNC.

For many Americans, if they don’t laugh about this election, they’ll cry, so memes and comedic routines have abounded. Now satiric songwriter ‘Weird’ Al Yankovic has entered the fray, serving as moderator of Wednesday night’s final presidential debate in the Gregory Brothers’ latest ‘Songify’ clip that they told the New York Times is a “terrifying space opera about bad hombres and nasty women.”

One parody, however, is coming from an unusual corner of the internet. It’s the latest free font out there: Tiny Hands, which is purportedly a recreation of Trump’s own “eccentric” handwriting, according to BuzzFeed News Deputy Editor Ben King. The online news outlet tasked Mark Davis, a graphic designer at Buzzfeed and Font Bureau, with creating the custom font.

Trump spent much of his rally in Fletcher, North Carolina on Friday afternoon attacking Clinton, the Democratic establishment and the “rigged election.” He also promised at least two campaign events for the next 19 days... which would mean he's holding events the day after America votes. He did say later on that the election is 18 days away.

“Can you imagine,” he asked, how the media would treat him if, like Clinton, he had gotten debate questions in advance. “They would reinvent a more sinister version of the electric chair!”

He also accused the Clinton campaign of using Wall Street money to pay for "ad after ad after ad" that are "phony" in states like Pennsylvania. "I never said those things," he added, although many of the official ads use videos of his remarks.

Trump attacked both President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for campaigning for Clinton. The president, he said, pushed Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte into the arms of China and Iran. The first lady, meanwhile, should be back at the White House, keeping home, Trump said, apparently citing remarks that Clinton made when she was first lady.

The Republican nominee once again complained about giving Islamic State a heads up for four months that the US would attack Mosul, Iraq. The jihadist group’s leaders fled the city the next day, while Islamic State became entrenched in the city, making it harder than expected to recapture Mosul.

“We should say we're never going to attack Mosul, and then hit them the next day like we've never hit them before,” Trump said. “I would never do this because I like to tell the truth, but that's what we should do.”

“We have a bunch of babies running our country, they're losers,” he added.

A man in Berkeley, California was collecting egg cartons from a recycling bin when he found nearly 100 voter pamphlets dumped inside. They were addressed to people in various parts of the Bay Area city.

"They were just sitting there on top. I stopped what I was doing with the eggs," Scott Wheeler told KTVU. He said he was “pretty surprised and disturbed and it may even be a crime."

Wheeler called police, the US Postal Inspector and the Alameda County Registrar of Voters.

"It's really serious. This is one of the most important elections in our lifetime. I want to know if this goes deeper," he said, noting that he had recently been de-activated as a registered voter.

The pamphlets were “immediately delivered” to the addressees “so they’ve received their material and they’re able to vote,” Alameda County Registrar of Voters Tim Dupuis told KTVU. He added that Wheeler was removed because a permanent mail in voter card was returned as undeliverable.

The Postal Service is investigating both incidents, according to USPS Deputy Special Agent in Charge Glenn S. San Jose.

The Clinton campaign has apparently trolled Trump in its latest filings with the Federal Election Commission, citing that many of Trump's products are "not made in America."

Trump has admitted that most of the items in his clothing line are made in low-wage countries like China and Malaysia. The Clinton campaign has already used that admission in an attack ad.

20 October 2016

Although she is known for wearing pantsuits all the time, Clinton has gone more formal in her attire for the white-tie Al Smith dinner in New York City on Thursday.

Wikileaks, which Thursday surprised the world by releasing emails between then-presidential candidate Barack Obama and his campaign transition chair John Podesta, has promised more surprises on the horizon. The next ones will affect Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine and Interim Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile.

A day after Trump implied that he would not accept the results of his election and hours after he joked that he would only accept them “if I win,” his national political director, Jim Murphy, has decided he will no longer play an active role in Trump’s campaign, Politico reported.

"I have not resigned but for personal reasons have had to take a step back from the campaign," Murphy said in a statement.

Murphy joined the campaign in June amid turmoil in the ranks that saw campaign manager Corey Lewandowski unceremoniously dumped.

President Barack Obama had a few choice words for Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump and Florida State Senator Marco Rubio. Obama said that Rubio “called Donald Trump a ‘dangerous con artist who spent a career sticking it to working people.’ So this begs the question, why does Marco Rubio still plan on voting for Donald Trump?”

Obama held the Republican Party responsible for the birth of Trump’s political career, saying: “For years, Republican politicians and far right media outlets have been pumping out all kinds of toxic stuff. First of all, there was the whole birther thing. Then they start saying climate change is a Chinese hoax.”

“Donald Trump didn't start all of this,” Obama said, “He just did what he usually does and slapped his name on it.”

Obama accused Rubio of being a career politician who will “say anything” to win votes and encouraged the crowd to vote for candidate Patrick Murphy instead. He told the audience to remember that their vote does count, saying: “Ask the Marine who doesn't have to hide the husband he loves if your vote matters.”

Addressing the calls from both Democrats and Republicans to promise to recognize the outcome of the election, Donald Trump told a rally in Delaware, Ohio on Thursday that he would – sort of.

“I would like to promise and pledge, to all of my voters and supporters, and to all of the people of the US, that I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election – if I win,” Trump said.

New York “lifestyle guru, wellness expert and TV personality” Karena Virginia is the tenth woman to accuse Donald Trump of unwanted advances. Speaking to reporters on Thursday morning, Virginia accused the GOP presidential nominee of groping her outside the US Open tennis tournament in 1998.

debate summary

It was a bitter end for the last presidential debate, without any handshake between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton after 90 minutes of mostly policy-oriented discussion as directed by moderator Chris Wallace. The personal snipes shot deep, however, from “nasty woman” to accusations of encouraging espionage.

If Twitter trends are any sign, with only 18 days remaining until election day, Americans will be talking about “bad hombres,” the Supreme Court, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, thanks to this debate.

Read more details and all the live updates from the debate here.

19 October 2016

Green Party candidate Jill Stein is planning to comment on the debates via Facebook Live.

Libertarian candidate is planning to live-tweet his commentary to the debate.

Twitter users are gearing up for the final presidential debates.

Trump is leading Clinton in several battleground states that President Barack Obama won in the last election, according to the latest Washington Post/Survey Monkey poll. In Ohio, a state that no Republican has become president without winning, Trump is up 44 percent to 41 percent in a four-way race with Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson and Green nominee Jill Stein. The Republican is also up in Iowa, Nevada and Florida. By Gateway Pundit’s tally, this means that Trump will win the White House.

What the conservative news outlet doesn’t mention, however, is that typically deep-red states have suddenly become swing states. Clinton has a 4-point lead over Trump in Georgia, which hasn’t voted for a Democrat since 1992. Although Trump is leading Clinton in Ohio, that 3-point lead is considered a statistical tie. Texas and Utah, which haven’t been blue since 1976 and 1964, respectively, are considered up for grabs. Clinton has at least a 4-point advantage in “enough states to put her comfortably over the 270 majority to win the presidential election in November,” the Washington Post reported, giving her 304 electoral votes based on the survey. Trump would have 138 electoral votes, with the 96 electoral votes from Arizona, Florida and Texas being up for grabs.

Voters this week in Arizona found a glaring error on thousands of early voting ballots.

Yavapai County mailed at least 2,500 ballots informing early voters that the ballots must be returned by November 18, according to KPNX-TV. That’s ten days after the country elects a new president.

The Yavapai County election recorder Leslie Hoffman said the country has sent out roughly 100,000 early voting ballots in all and the office staff just overlooked the incorrect date.

Letters are now being sent out to those who received the 2,500 ballots to inform them of the incorrect date.

Follow RT's debate coverage

Mere hours remain for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton (not to mention the rest of America) to prepare themselves for the third presidential debate. Don't miss a moment of RT's coverage on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and RT.com before, during and after this final head-to-head contest that promises to alter the final weeks of the 2016 election.

Donald Trump will be bringing President Obama's half-brother Malik to the debate on Wednesday night, the New York Post reports.

The Kenyan-born man, who is also a US citizen, said he is "excited" to attend the debate, and believes Trump can "make America great again." 

Malik announced in July that he would vote for Trump.

18 October 2016

Michael Moore announced on Twitter that he will be holding a special screening of his new film, “Michael Moore in Trumpland.” The documentarian has released very little information about his latest project, but it appears to be connected to his anti-Trump one-man show that he performed in Newark, Ohio.

The screening will be held in New York City’s IFC Center on Tuesday night.

Obama tells Trump to stop ‘whining’ over attempts to discredit the election.

“Stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes,” President Barack Obama told the GOP presidential candidate on Tuesday during White House news conference.

Obama said there is no evidence of widespread election fraud  and Trump’s complaint’s about the election being “rigged” said more about the candidate, especially when the election had yet to take place.

Obama said that if a candidate starts whining before the game is over, "then you don't have what it takes to be in this job."

Obama stressed that elections are run by state and local officials who come from both major political parties.

Donald Trump said if he doesn’t win the presidential election “history will remember 2017 as the year America lost its independence."
In a series of tweets on Tuesday Trump suggested that he will "#DrainTheSwamp" of corrupt Washington.

The posts come a day after Trump discussed his plan for governmental ethics reform which includes tighter restrictions on former members of Congress and ex-White House officials taking jobs as lobbyists.
His remarks also come as he doubles down on his unsubstantiated claims that the election will be "rigged."

Over two hundreds of  of Donald Trump supporters and protesters are rallying outside Trump Tower in Chicago Tuesday morning.

The demonstration was led by the National Organization for Women, a group dedicated to furthering feminist issues, according to NBC Chicago. 

The leaked video of Trump's 'locker room' talk about women a decade ago and revelations from several women that he had sexually assaulted them in the past turned much of public anger against the GOP candidate.

Trump meets girl

The week didn't quite kick off right for Donald Trump or the little girl who ended up in his arms at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin on Monday. Angelo Carusone of Media Matters tweeted out the cringey moment when the girl evaded Trump's kiss to the lips, only to receive a grazing peck to the cheek.

17 October 2016

There was a moment of levity in the 911 call reporting the firebombing of the Orange County Republican Party headquarters in North Carolina on Sunday morning.

Caller:I don’t see anyone, and my kitties are all out here, so that’s telling me this happened sometime in the wee hours.

911 Dispatcher:You said your cats are outside?

Caller:Yeah, I have foster kitties that I take care of, and if there would be anybody around, they would not be here.

The Hillsborough Police Department shared the audio Monday afternoon, noting that the footage had been released with “some redaction and obfuscation to protect the individual reporting.”

Wikileaks and the FBI kept journalists scrambling over the weekend and on into Monday, releasing thousands of pages of documents related to Clinton.

Wikileaks continued its daily publication of hacked emails from the account of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, with 1,000 messages released on Saturday; several hundred on Sunday; and 3,000 on Monday. The transparency organization has now released more than 15,200 Podesta emails of the approximately 50,000 that the group says it has uncovered.

Included in Sunday’s emails was the “holy grail of US journalism: transcripts of Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street firms. Saturday’s batch showed the struggle among Clinton’s campaign staff to stake out a position on Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the controversial trade deal championed by the Obama administration but opposed by trade unions and Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic nomination. While secretary of state, Clinton helped oversaw TPP negotiations, but came out against the agreement earlier in her presidential campaign.

On Monday morning, the FBI published 100 pages of documents from their probe into Clinton's use of a private email server while heading the Department of State. The disclosure is part of the FBI's effort to explain the recommendation not to press any charges against Clinton, made in July by Director James Comey.

16 October 2016

Police are investigating an arson attack on the Orange County GOP headquarters in North Carolina, which destroyed part of the interior and saw a swastika painted on the building. Donald Trump has pinned the attack on “animals” from the Democratic camp.

The incident in the town of Hillsborough, North Carolina, occurred between Saturday night and the early hours of Sunday.

Local government officials say a bottle filled with a flammable substance was thrown through the window and set alight, destroying furniture and causing damage to the inside.

Many Americans long for a knight in shining armor-type candidate who bows to no party to represent them in the White House. But in a system dominated by two parties, voters find themselves in hell, choosing between two not-necessarily lesser evils.

Trump and Clinton are two of the most unpopular candidates for the White House in US history, according to multiple polls. Voters are less supporters than they are deciding who’s the least worst candidate.

This election has been compared to choosing between "diarrhea after mexican food or the runs after thai food," "cancer or heart attack," "cholera or gonorrhea" and more.

15 October 2016

Americans have more reasons to fear their own establishment’s interference with the elections, rather than a dastardly Cold War-style hacking plot that Russia is being accused of, backed by no evidence whatsoever, former MI5 agent Annie Machon told RT.

Donald Trump has suggested that he and Hillary Clinton should undergo drug testing before their next election debate, appearing to accuse his Democratic rival of using performance enhancing drugs.

The Republican nominee compared presidential candidates to athletes and said they should be subject to similar drug screenings. "I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate," he said during a rally at a car dealership in New Hampshire on Saturday.

Game not over: Bernie Sanders could slip ‘write-in’ to presidential election victory

This year, a write-in opportunity seems to be an attractive option for many Americans.

According to Google data, searches for “write in Sanders” have been steadily surging since March and really skyrocketed this final month before the election. Read more here.

14 October 2016

As more women have come forward claiming that Trump has groped them, viewed them naked or otherwise treated them inappropriately, the GOP nominee has flatly denied the accusations.

“I don’t know these women,” Trump told a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina. “These stories are total fiction.”

He added that the accusations weren’t credible because of the way the women looked.

The most recent woman to claim Trump sexually harassed her was Kristin Anderson, an aspiring model at the time of the incident in the early ‘90s. She said he sat next to her at a Manhattan nightspot, slid his hands up her inner thigh underneath her skirt and touched her genitals through her underwear, she told the Washington Post in an interview.

The Trump campaign said that Anderson is making up her account.

“Mr. Trump strongly denies this phony allegation by someone looking to get some free publicity. It is totally ridiculous,” Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in a statement.

The North Carolina Democratic Party has sued the State Board of Elections to extend the voter registration deadline in the Tar Heel State beyond Friday. In Florida, a federal judge has pushed the registration deadline back twice due to Hurricane Matthew.

The storm inundated North Carolina with at least 18 inches of rain over the weekend. Conditions in the state are still life-threatening, though, due to historic flooding.

A day after #RepealThe19th trended on Twitter ‒ promoting the idea of getting rid of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote ‒ #WomenWhoVoteTrump is trending. The new hashtag defends Trump and lets women outline why they plan to vote for the Republican presidential nominee.

There is also backlash against the hashtag, with people saying that it “enable[s] the culture of abuse” against women, and that women who vote for Trump “have no self-respect” and “have accepted 2nd-class status in the world.”

President Barack Obama is in Cleveland, Ohio stumping for Clinton. He began his remarks by outlining his administration’s accomplishments over the last eight years, but warned that “all that progress goes out the window if we don’t make the right choice right here right now. And it shouldn’t be a tough choice,” he said, calling Clinton highly qualified and Trump “unfit.”

When the audience reacted to Obama, condemning Trump’s remarks about how he treats women, the president responded: “Don’t boo, vote!”

“You don’t have to be a husband or a father to know that that kind of language those kinds of thoughts those kinds of actions aren’t right,” he continued. “You just need to be a decent human being.”

He also praised his wife’s remarks from Thursday night, saying that she didn’t just speak for women, but also “for men who know we’re better than this” and who don’t want their sons to grow up thinking that Trump’s remarks. Obama said he “could not be prouder of” First Lady Michelle Obama. “This is why I married her, to improve my gene pool, so my daughters would be smarter than me.”

“Society is based on how well it treats its women,” he added, before calling for the audience to go out to vote early for Clinton in Ohio. "In a democracy, you can’t jail your opponents," he added later.

“You have a chance to reject a dark vision… a politics of fear… Chose the America we know ourselves to be,” Obama said, outlining a positive image of the country. Clinton’s opponent, he added, refusing to name Trump, “has made it perfectly clear he’s going to drag this election as low as it can go… Don’t fall for it.”

Trump supporters get flirty with their candidate

Women supporters of Donald Trump appeared unfazed Thursday at a rally in West Palm Beach, Florida. Two were spotted wearing t-shirts making light of the recent release of a 2005 tape showing Trump talking about using his star power on women who "let you do anything." Several accusations and lawsuits have been filed since, some claiming sexual harassment or assault, but the story also inspired supporters to have fun despite it all.

One shirt reads, "Hey Trump, talk dirty to me!" featuring kissing lips emblazoned on the side. Another read, "Trump can grab my" followed by an arrow pointing down to the woman's nether regions.

13 October 2016

Hillary Clinton commented on the particularly stressful election season for voters, saying Trump’s behavior makes many “want to turn off the news.” She continued, “It makes you want to unplug the internet or just look at cat GIFs . Believe me, I get it. In the last few weeks I’ve watched a lot of cats do a lot of weird and interesting things.”

She concluded saying “we have a job to do and it’ll be good for people and for cats.”

Her statement resulted in an outpouring of reactions on Twitter.

The New York Times has declined to retract or apologize for its story that interviewed two women who say that Trump touched them inappropriately, which Trump’s legal team called “libel per se.”

“The essence of a libel claim, of course, is the protection of one’s reputation,” NYT VP and assistant general counsel David McCraw wrote in a response letter. He then outlined various claims against Trump, as well as Trump’s own words about how he treats and views women. “Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself.”

McCraw also praised the hard work of the Times’ reporters on the story, noting that they both fact checked the women’s accounts and reached out to the Trump campaign for a response, which was included in the story. “If Mr. Trump disagrees,” McCraw wrote, “we welcome the opportunity to have a court set him straight.”

During his “major speech” in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump discussed the uproar over the leaked tape scandal that began on Friday and continued with new accusations that he sexually harassed and groped four women. Those allegations came out Wednesday night.

“And now we address the slander and libels that was just last night thrown at me by the Clinton machine and the New York Times and the other media outlets as part of a concerted, coordinated and vicious attack,” Trump said. “It’s no coincidence that these attacks come at the exact same moment at altogether at the same time as Wikileaks releases documents exposing the massive international corruption of the Clinton machine, including 2,000 more emails just this morning.”

“These vicious claims about me of inappropriate conduct with women are totally and absolutely false,” he said. “And the Clintons know it. And they know it very well. These claims are all fabricated. They’re pure fiction, and they’re outright lives. These events never, ever happened, and the people who said them, meekly, fully understand ‒ you take a look at these people, you study these people and you’ll understand also.”

Trump has threatened to sue the news outlets that spoke to and printed the four women’s stories.

Trump is giving a “major speech” in West Palm Beach, Florida on Thursday. He promised to replace the “failed and corrupt ‒ and when I say corrupt, I’m talking about totally corrupt ‒ political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American people.”

“This is not simply another four-year election. This is a crossroads in the history of our civilization that will determine whether or not we the people reclaim control over our government,” Trump said.

He accused the “Clinton machine” being at the heart of the corrupt political establishment, citing material released by Wikileaks, saying his rival “should be locked up,” echoing the crowd’s chants and his remarks at the second presidential debate on Sunday. “This is a struggle for the survival of our nation, believe me,” Trump said, decrying “Crooked Hillary Clinton” and her ties to the political and media establishments, as well as the scandal over her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. “The Clintons are criminals, remember that. They’re criminals” who will do anything it takes to stay in power.

Over a hundred of protesters are outside the new Trump hotel in Washington, DC, demanding better contracts for the workers in his Las Vegas hotels and better attitude to employees in general.

The protesters have delivered him a letter asking to negotiate the contracts.

More than 60 percent of adult Americans have confessed that they are “very afraid” of corrupt government officials. That fear is holding its leading position for the second year in the row and is followed by terrorism and money-related concerns.

The fears could have come about because of claims that the Democrats’ primary election process was either stolen from Senator Bernie Sanders or rigged by the Clinton campaign. Trump has already said repeatedly that the general election is “rigged,” and that will be proven if he loses.

The Chapman University Survey of American Fears ranks the nation's top 10 fears annually. This year, they included restrictions on firearms and ammunition (38.5 percent), identity theft (37.1 percent), deaths or serious illness of their loved ones (38.1 percent and 35.9 respectively).

Donald Trump’s campaign has pulled its field operation out of Virginia, according to an adviser. That move more-or-less concedes the state to Democrat Hillary Clinton, and comes as Trump faces fresh allegations of sexual assault from several women.

The state was worth 13 electoral votes for the candidate but the modest filed operation was never ramped up with the candidate promising 80 staff positions but only a quarter were hired. Trump also fired his state director, Corey Stewart, after he participated in a protest in front of the Republican National committee headquarters.

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has threatened in a letter from his lawyer to sue The New York Times arguing their story about two women who accused him of ‘touching them inappropriately’ was ‘reckless, defamatory and constitutes libel.’

Trump’s lawyer argues the story ‘was politically motivated,’ and asks for a retraction, an apology and removal of the story.

12 October 2016

The third and final presidential debate will take place next Wednesday, October 19. It will be moderated by Fox News host Chris Wallace. On Wednesday, the six subjects for the debate were announced: debt and entitlements, immigration, the economy, the Supreme Court, foreign hot spots and fitness to be president.

"If people say, 'it was a great debate and I don't remember you being there,' I will have done my job," Wallace said last month after the Commission on Presidential Debates chose him to moderate.

The first sets of polls that took into account both leaked audio of crude comments by GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and his second debate with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton have come out, and things are not looking good for the Republican.

Clinton holds an 8-point lead over Trump, with 45 percent of likely voters preferring her, compared to 37 percent opting for him, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. Clinton’s lead is up by 3 percentage points from last week. Her lead is even bigger in a different poll: A NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey found that, in a four-way matchup, Clinton leads Trump 46 percent to 37 percent. Her lead jumps to 10 points in a two-horse race, with Clinton receiving support from 50 percent of likely voters.

Some Republicans are asking for their money back from Trump campaign in the aftermath of the leaked tape scandal, according to NBC News.

"I cannot express my disappointment enough regarding the recent events surrounding Mr. Trump," one donor, who had both given to and raised money for the GOP candidate, wrote to a bundler raising money for Trump. The subject line of the email was "Trump support withdrawal."

"I regret coming to the Trump support event, and in particular allowing my son to be a part of it," the donor added. "I respectfully request that my money be refunded."

Another donor said he was “mortified” over Trump’s leaked comments, which he described as “very childish and embarrassing in today’s society.”

“How am I suppose [sic] to respect and support Mr. Trump with his attitude toward women? It isn’t just one woman either," the second donor wrote before asking for his money back.

However, Trump’s campaign is “unaware of any donors making such a request,” senior Trump spokesman Jason Miller told NBC News.

Another day, another set of Wikileaks emails: For the third day in a row, the transparency website has released Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s hacked emails. Wednesday saw about 1,200 messages posted on the Wikileaks site, bringing the total number of leaked messages to more than 7,200.

Former Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is still involved in the election process… but now he’s gone for something completely different: the UK parliamentary  by-election. The Vermont Senator has endorsed his older brother Larry as a Green Party candidate in Witney, Oxfordshire. The constituency has a Member of Parliament seat up for grabs after former Prime Minister David Cameron announced his retirement from parliament.

11 October 2016

After being introduced by former Vice President Al Gore, a huge proponent of climate change, at a rally in Miami, Florida, Clinton underscored the difference between herself and Trump on the subject, saying the Republican candidate is “not a big believer” in science.

“We cannot risk putting a climate denier in the White House,” she told the audience.

Clinton was interrupted by hecklers several times during her remarks, including one person who carried a printout of former President Bill Clinton’s face that read the word “RAPE.”

“My friends, please,” the Democratic nominee said calmly, over both the crowd and the demonstrators, “let's focus about what's really important in this election.”

Former Vice President Al Gore made his 2016 campaign trail debut on Tuesday, stumping for Clinton at a rally in Miami, Florida.

"I'm here today with two very simple messages," Gore said at the start of his remarks. "Number one, when it comes to the most urgent issue facing our country and the world, the choice in this election is extremely clear. Her opponent ... would take us toward a climate catastrophe."

"Here's my second message: Your vote really, really, really counts," Gore added. "You can consider me as an Exhibit A of that truth."

After the Supreme Court halted a 36-day recount in Florida during the 2000 presidential race, Gore lost the Sunshine State to then-Governor George W. Bush of Texas by 537 votes, which handed the election to the Republican.

Sunday's debate provided plenty of fodder for comedians, as well as some meme-worthy moments of levity. The Netherlands' Lucky TV decided that the town hall format made it look like Clinton and Trump were singing a duet.

Meanwhile, audience member Ken Bones, who asked a question about energy, has become a national hit. The sweater, sold by IZOD, sold out online on Monday.

Perhaps it will be this year's favorite Halloween costume.

Amid the seeming Republican revolt from Trump as the nominee, President Barack Obama has once again called on Congress to approve his nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Merrick Garland. GOP lawmakers had announced they would hold off on confirming anyone for the seat vacated by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death until after the election, in the hopes that they would win the White House. In the meantime, several cases have ended in 4-4 ties, upholding the lower courts’ decisions in those cases and setting no precedent.

Although it is believed that tweets from Trump’s account sent from an Android phone were written by the candidate, while those sent from an iPhone were written by his campaign staff, the latest tweetstorm against House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) and “disloyal R’s” was sent from an iPhone.

For the third weekday in a row, Wikileaks has released emails from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, bringing the total number of leaked messages to about 6,000. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange claims they are sitting on a trove of 50,000 messages.

10 October 2016

The morning after the second presidential debate brought drama for both the Clinton and Trump campaigns. Wikileaks released its second set of hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman John Podesta. The new release features 2,086 hacked emails out of a trove that Julian Assange says includes 50,000 messages. Wikileaks released the first batch on Friday afternoon, within an hour of the State Department making public emails deleted from Clinton’s private server during her time as secretary of state. At the same time as the State Department’s court-ordered release, however, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence officially accused Russia of orchestrating the hacks, including the Podesta emails.

If Friday’s leaked audio of Trump telling then-‘Access Hollywood’ co-host Billy Bush that his fame and fortune lets him do anything he wants to women ‒ including “grab them by the p****y” ‒ sent relations between Trump and many other Republicans into a tailspin, by Monday it was a death spiral. During a conference call with Republican representatives, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) said he would stop campaigning with Trump, and advised congressional Republicans to focus on saving their own seats instead.

The second presidential debate featured a town hall format, but still provided plenty of fireworks.

On top of Trump telling Clinton that, as president, he would appoint a special prosecutor to look into her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state, there were plenty of other zingers during the hour-and-a-half debate.

Real-time fact-checking has become a cottage industry this election cycle, and Sunday night was no different. Unfortunately for the Associated Press, however, at least one of their fact checks needed some checking of its own: AP said that Trump’s assertion that Syrian President Bashar Assad was fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) was not true. Their comment was retracted just hours later, however.

That didn’t mean that Trump was in the clear regarding Syria and IS, though. When asked if he agreed with running mate Mike Pence’s calls for bombing Syria, he replied: “He and I haven’t spoken and I disagree.” Instead, Trump said, the US should work together with Russia against the jihadist group.

08 October 2016

The Republican Party headed into a tailspin on Friday afternoon, after Trump could be heard making crude remarks in a leaked video of an appearance on the show ‘Access Hollywood’. Along with saying that he moved on a married woman “like a b*****” and tried to “f*** her,” he also appeared to admit to sexually assaulting women.

"I’ve got to use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her,” Trump says. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.”

“And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything,” Trump says later. “Grab them by the p***y. You can do anything.”

Since the video came out, GOP members are jumping ship faster than you can say… what The Donald said on tape.

06 October 2016

05 October 2016

The sole vice presidential debate was held Tuesday night at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. Conventional wisdom says that Governor Mike Pence (R-Indiana) won the vice presidential debate over Senator Tim Kaine (D-Virginia).

Although Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has praised his vice presidential pick’s debate performance on Twitter, sources close to the campaign say Trump is upset Pence upstaged him and threw him under the bus.

With both VP candidates’ reputations for being quiet but controversial, not many people tuned in for their confrontation. It was the lowest rated VP debate since 2000, averaging around 36 million viewers, according to ratings data from Nielsen.

04 October 2016

WikiLeaks will release documents on the US presidential elections before November 8, the group’s founder, Julian Assange, said in an eagerly anticipated address via videolink at the Volksbuhne Theater in Berlin to mark WikiLeaks’ 10th anniversary.

WikiLeaks hopes to be publishing documents “every week for the next 10 weeks,” Assange said.

03 October 2016

Monday was a rough day for both the Clinton and Trump campaigns. While Trump continued to be hit hard by revelations about his 1995 tax return, it appears that Clinton had previously used the same money-saving tactic on her taxes. New information was released that claimed Clinton reportedly wanted to drone Wikileaks founder Julian Assange when she was secretary of state.

In the meantime, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman issued a cease-and-desist letter to the Trump Foundation, claiming the charity is in violation of state registration rules. At a campaign event for veterans, Trump appeared to imply that servicemembers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder aren’t strong, for which he received fierce backlash from current and former members of the military on social media.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has received a post-debate bump in the national polls released after the first head-to-head debate between her and rival Donald Trump on September 26. A week after the faceoff, Clinton climbed to a six-point lead over Trump, according to a Morning Consult-Politico tracking poll. The Republican had a one-point advantage going into the debate.

While the two main candidates duked it out on TV, Green Party nominee Jill Stein held a Facebook Live in response.

With five weeks until Election Day, Clinton leads with 46 percent of the vote nationwide, compared to Trump’s 39 percent, Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson’s 9 percent, and Stein’s 2 percent. A full 10 percent of voters say they are undecided, the Politico poll found.