Pollsters dumbfounded by Trump

Polling experts agree on one thing when it comes to Donald Trump’s presidential run: They’ve never seen anything like it.

The businessman’s dominance of the Republican presidential race is forcing experienced political hands to question whether everything they know about winning the White House is wrong.

The shocks have come in quick succession, with the businessman first rocketing to the top of national polls, and then taking double-digit leads in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

In another act of political magic, Trump managed to flip his favorability rating from negative to positive in one poll during the span of a month — a feat that Monmouth University’s Patrick Murray called “astounding.”

“That defies any rule in presidential politics that I’ve ever seen,” Murray, the director Monmouth’s Polling Institute, told The Hill.

Trump’s favorability rose from 20 percent to 52 percent among Republican voters between July and August, Monmouth found.

While a later CNN/ORC poll did not find a similar shift in Trump’s favorability, the Monmouth data was yet another sign that he is a candidate to be reckoned with.

“Throw out the rulebook when it comes to Trump, that’s not even in the parameters of what we see as unusual,” Murray said.

Trump’s dominance of the race has flustered the Republican field, with many of the candidates trying their best to bring him back to earth.

But as the attacks on Trump have intensified, so has his level of support.

Polls released Tuesday show Trump lapping the field in New Hampshire, where he leads his nearest Republican rival by 24 percentage points. The story is the same in South Carolina, where the latest poll gave him a 15-point edge.

While political scientists and other experts continue to insist Trump will not win the Republican nomination, he’s converted at least one high-profile skeptic.

GOP pollster Frank Luntz had dismissed Trump from the start, and declared after the first presidential debate that his campaign was doomed.

But after convening a focus group Monday evening where Trump supporters showed an unflappable allegiance, Luntz changed his tune.

“This is real. I’m having trouble processing,” he said, according to Time.

“I want to put the Republican leadership behind this mirror and let them see. They need to wake up. They don’t realize how the grassroots have abandoned them,” he added.

Polling experts, including Marist’s Lee Miringoff, say Trump is weathering political storms that would doom other candidates because his appeal is more about attitude than ideology.

While many of Trump’s supporters identify as strong conservatives, some of the policies he’s proposed — including increased spending on the border and higher taxes on the wealthy — have prompted accusations from rivals like former Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush that he isn’t a true conservative.

Miringoff said doesn’t expect those attacks to stick.

“This is the next step of the Tea Party — someone who can tap into the sentiment that people have about all the frustration and turn it into ‘We are going to make America great again,’ ” he said. 

“This is not a policy paper.”

But even if Trump is rewriting the political playbook, can he go the distance?

Via: The Hill

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Obama's approval rating falls in new poll

Over half of Americans have soured on President Obama’s overall presidency, a new poll says.

The new CNN/ORC sampling released on Friday said that 51 disapprove of Obama’s role in the Oval Office, compared to 47 percent approving.

It said that 52 percent believe Obama’s policies are leading the U.S. down the wrong path.

Obama’s ratings have fallen since last month, it added, when 49 percent approved of his presidential performance and 47 percent did not. 

Respondents rated Obama’s strategy for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) the most harshly, the CNN/ORC survey said.

It found that 62 percent of Americans believe the president is not properly countering the terrorist organization.

Nearly the same amount — 60 percent — also believe the U.S. is taking the wrong approach with Iran, it said.

Obama’s renewed push to close  the U.S.-run detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba also meets with majority opposition.

CNN/ORC’s sampling said that 53 percent believe the prison should remain open, while 44 percent think it deserves closure once its prisoners are transferred elsewhere.

Obama fared better among respondents on the issue of climate change, with 47 approving of his handling of the issue, a boost of six points since May.

Americans are frustrated with both political parties overall. Republicans received higher disapproval ratings of 54 percent. In addition, 55 percent said their policies are wrong for the nation. Democrats, meanwhile, received 47 percent approval versus 48 percent disapproval.

CNN/ORC conducted its latest survey by telephone Aug.13-16 nationwide. It sampled 1,001 adults with a 3 percent margin of error. 

Via: The Hill

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[VIDEO] 15,000 government emails revealed in Ashley Madison leak

Thousands of clients using the affair-oriented Ashley Madison website listed email addresses registered to the White House, top federal agencies and military branches, a data dump by hackers revealed.

The detailed data, released Tuesday, will likely put Washington, D.C., on edge. The nation’s capital reportedly has the highest rate of membership for the site of any city.

Indeed, more than 15,000 of the email addresses used to register accounts were hosted on government and military servers.

Buried in the list are emails that could be tied to multiple administration agencies, including the State Department and Department of Homeland Security, as well as several tied to both the House and Senate.  

For a month, hackers using the name “Impact Team” have been holding hostage the dating profiles of those who registered on the site. The group threatened to publicly out the potential adulterers if the site’s owner, Avid Life Media, didn’t take down Ashley Madison, which uses the tagline, “Life is short. Have an affair.”

Security researchers said on Wednesday that they believe the data released following the hack at Ashley Madison is authentic.

“This dump appears to be legit,” said David Kennedy, CEO of information security company TrustedSec, which monitors cyber attacks, in a blog post. “Very, very legit.”

Security journalist Brian Krebs reported several of the site’s users told him their real information is in the data dump.

The leaked database is staggering, according to researchers, and larger than expected at 37 million records, or nearly 10 gigabytes compressed.

“For folks that may not know, that is massive,” Kennedy said. “Huge.”

“It's full account information,” said Robert Graham, CEO of Errata Security, in a blog post. That includes full names, emails, phone numbers, addresses and passwords.

“It also includes dating information, like height, weight, and so forth,” Graham added. “It appears to contain addresses, as well as GPS coordinates. I suspect that many people created fake accounts, but with an app that reported their real GPS coordinates.”

Other tech news outlets, such as CSO, have discovered British government officials, United Nations employees and Vatican staff among the millions of people in the leaked database.

However, the site reportedly did not check the validity of email addresses, and it’s likely that many of the government email accounts were faked. For instance, several emails were registered at “whitehouse.gov,” whereas White House officials use “eop.gov” for email communications.

The hackers have indicated their mission is to publicly shame the company, while also teaching its users a lesson.

Via: The Hill

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State Dept. turns up thousands of emails from top Clinton aide

State Department officials have uncovered thousands of emails between Philippe Reines, a top Hillary Clinton aide, and members of the media, they previously said did not exist.

In a court filing last Thursday, the State Department estimated that a recent search turned up more than 81,000 emails from Reines’s official account while at the State Department. And 17,855 potentially fall within a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Gawker earlier this year.

That is a reversal from 2013, when the State Department said a thorough search turned up no responsive records for Gawker’s request. In 2012, Gawker requested all emails between Reines and reporters from 34 media outlets.

The State Department did not explain the reversal in the court document, nor did it return a request for comment.

It will begin releasing a tranche of Reines's emails by the end of September.

After it was revealed earlier this year that Clinton, and potentially some of her aides, used personal email accounts for official business, Gawker sued the State Department over its initial request for communications between Reines and reporters.

Gawker asserted the search must not have been exhaustive if it turned up no emails between the press and a State Department spokesman, who regularly communicated with the media.

In March, Reines said reporters would have to ask the State Department about the apparent discrepancy.

In last week’s court filing, the State Department estimated it would begin releasing some of those emails that do not fall within an exemption on Sept. 30. It will release more every 30 days as they are reviewed.

The agency said it does not know how many of the 17,855 are exempt from disclosure and will have to be redacted or handed over to other agencies for redaction. It said it is willing to negotiate with Gawker to narrow the scope of the request.

The emails at issue from Reines’s official State Department account are separate from the 20 boxes of emails from his personal account that he handed over to the State Department last month, related to the controversy about Clinton’s use of a private email account and server.

Via: The Hill

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[VIDEO] Gowdy: Clinton server 'sure as Hell' inconvenienced others

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said on Sunday that Hillary Clinton was only helping herself by using a private email server during her tenure as secretary of State.

“The notion she did this for convenience raises the question: ‘Convenient for who?’ ” he asked host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”

“It may have been convenient for her, but it certainly wasn’t convenient for anyone else,” Gowdy added of the Democratic presidential candidate. “It sure as Hell hasn’t been convenient for the American people and the intelligence community.”

Clinton announced last week she is turning over her personal email server and its backup thumb drive to Justice Department investigators.

Gowdy, the House Benghazi Committee chairman, argued on Sunday that the probe of her server is not a partisan one.

“The Inspector General is not partisan,” he said. “The FBI is not partisan. She need not blame House Republicans for having her own private server.”

“I get she is frustrated,” Gowdy added. “Her poll numbers are tanking and people she never expected to enter the race are entering the race.”

The South Carolina lawmaker additionally criticized Clinton’s persistent reluctance toward relinquishing the device.

“I wish she had done this in March,” Gowdy said. “We would be much further down this road at this time.”

“Perhaps there was something on there she didn’t really want us to see,” he added. “Had she not had this email arrangement with herself, I would not be on your show this morning.”

Via: The Hill

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[VIDEO] New Planned Parenthood video claims fetal parts were used without consent

The anti-abortion group targeting Planned Parenthood released a sixth video Wednesday — but this time included no secretly recorded footage.

The latest video from The Center for Medical Progress featured an interview with a former lab technician, whose company partnered with Planned Parenthood. The woman, who described herself as an “ex-procurement technician,” claimed that her co-workers sometimes did not seek a woman’s consent before obtaining aborted fetus tissue to be used for medical research.

“There were times when they would just take what they wanted, and these mothers don’t know,” the former employee, Holly O’Donnell, said in the 10-minute video.

The anti-abortion group’s weeks-long campaign against Planned Parenthood has been defined by its secretly recorded footage, which included graphic images of the medical workers handling aborted fetus parts in Petri dishes.

To get the footage, members of The Center for Medical Progress posed as medical researcher buyers to attend meetings with abortion clinic officials. Planned Parenthood has strongly condemned the group's actions, and denied any allegations of illegal activity.

Unlike the previous five videos, this video focused almost entirely on O’Donnell, who described herself as "very pro-life."

While she called out a Planned Parenthood doctor, who she said “had a reputation for going viciously fast,” the video showed only a screenshot of his online bio. It also showed several women entering Planned Parenthood clinics, but did not show their faces.

The newest video raises questions about The Center for Medical Progress's remaining weeks of its campaign against Planned Parenthood. Its founder, David Daleiden, has said he has hundreds of hours of footage, which could be released over the next 12 videos.

The group’s use of hidden cameras has prompted some abortion clinic officials to take legal action to temporarily halt the release of footage. Two have been successful in California, where the group is headquartered.

Via: The Hill

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Target to phase out gender-based signs

ONE LESS STORE TO SHOP AT.

Target announced plans Friday to start phasing out gender-based signs in its department stores.

The retailer said it’s responding to questions customers have raised about signs that offer product suggestions based on gender.

“In some cases, like apparel, where there are fit and sizing differences, it makes sense,” the company said in a news release on its website. “In others, it may not.”

Signs in the kids’ bedding area, for example, will no longer feature suggestions for boys or girls, just kids. In the Toy aisles, Target said it plans to remove the pink, blue, yellow and green paper on the back walls of store shelves that's now used to reference gender.

“You’ll see these changes start to happen over the next few months,” the company said.

The news from Target comes as transgender people appear to be gaining ground in the fight for equality.  

In July, the Defense Department said it’s beginning the process to lift the ban on open service for transgender troops and introduced legislation to add gender identity and sexual orientation to federal statutes, which now only prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. 

Via: The Hill

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Kasich makes quick rise in polls

It could have been embarrassing: The sitting governor of Ohio left off the primetime Fox News debate stage in his home state because of low poll numbers.

But in the two weeks since he launched his presidential campaign, John Kasich has bypassed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and other Republicans who have been in the race longer.

Last week, the main super-PAC backing Kasich’s candidacy announced it raised more than $11 million, tapping into a surprisingly deep well of influential Ohioans for a haul that puts him squarely in the middle of a well-funded pack of GOP candidates.

“Someone in that campaign knows what they’re doing,” said Tom Rath, a Republican strategist in New Hampshire, where Kasich has leaped into third place, according to one recent poll.

And Kasich’s late entrance — he was the 16th Republican to launch a presidential bid — appears to have been perfectly timed to give him a boost in the polls nationally, potentially propelling him onto Fox News’s primetime debate stage this week. 

“The timing was good,” said Doug Heye, the former communications director for the Republican National Committee. “But don’t forget, this is a guy who has had a national presence for a while now, first in Congress, and then as the host of a Fox News show. He’s got that base of people who already knew him from being cabled into people’s homes and many of them just needed a reminder.”

If Kasich can ride the momentum he has onto the debate stage this week, it will be a big early victory for his campaign. Fox News is capping the number of candidates at 10 based on national polling numbers. 

Right now, Kasich is alone in ninth place with 3.5 percent support, according to RealClearPolitics average of polls, more than double the support he had at the beginning of July. Kasich leads Christie and Perry, his two closest challengers for the final spots on the debate stage.

A Quinnipiac University survey released last week shows Kasich in even better shape, taking 5 percent support and sharing eighth place with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). In the same poll from May, Kasich was tied for 10th place with only 2 percent support.

It’s the second national poll to be released since Kasich officially launched his bid for the White House that shows him making gains. A CNN/ORC poll that went into the field the day after Kasich’s announcement also registered an uptick in support, from 2 percent to 4 percent, putting him in an eighth-place tie with Christie and Ben Carson. 

Via: The Hill

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Hillary's email troubles deepen

Federal officials on Friday confirmed they have been asked to investigate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of State, deepening the political controversy surrounding the 2016 Democratic frontrunner.

Clinton and her team fiercely pushed back at reports that two inspector generals have asked the Justice Department to look into whether sensitive information was mishandled in connection with her private account.

“Maybe the heat is getting to everybody,” Clinton quipped during an economic address in New York City in which she decried “inaccuracies” in the reports.

But the reports gave a new opening to congressional Republicans, who seized the opportunity to renew their calls that Clinton hand over her personal server as part of their investigation in the deadly terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

The news overshadowed an economic address by Clinton in New York City, and accentuated a challenging week for her campaign marked by a new poll showing her losing head-to-head matchups with three top GOP White House contenders in the swing states of Virginia, Colorado and Iowa.

Republicans have used the revelation that Clinton used a private server as secretary of State to hammer her as untrustworthy, and that’s an issue where polls suggest she is vulnerable.

This week’s poll by Quinnipiac showed strong majorities of voters in Iowa, Virginia and Colorado — three swing-states Democrats hope to win — do not find her honest and trustworthy. The margin in the Colorado poll against her was almost 2-1.    

The new email troubles started late Thursday, when The New York Times reported that two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to determine “whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account” of Clinton.

A second report by The Wall Street Journal on Friday said the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community told Congress in a letter that at least four emails out of a small sampling of 40 from her Clinton’s server should have been classified as "secret."

Clinton argued the reports were misleading, and media outlets backtracked on an initial report that watchdogs had requested a “criminal probe,” something Justice said was incorrect.

“We all have a responsibility to get this right, I have released 55,000 pages of emails, I have said repeatedly that I will answer questions in front of the House committee,” Clinton said at her address in New York, where she outlined a tax plan and endorsed New York’s move toward a $15 minimum wage.

Via: The Hill

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GOP ESTABLISHMENT CAVES… TO CONSERVATIVES FOR ONCE!!!

While we’re all licking our wounds from being betrayed by Supreme Justice Benedict Roberts, let’s at least savor the fact that conservative criticism actually got the GOP establishment to cave to US for once!!

From the Hill:

Facing enormous blowback, Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) on Thursday reversed his decision and said he was reinstating Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) as a subcommittee chairman.

Chaffetz stripped Meadows of his subcommittee gavel last week after the congressman joined nearly three dozen other conservatives in voting against leadership on a procedural motion that nearly scuttled a major trade package.

Last week’s move was part of a pattern of punishment targeting conservatives who’ve defied leadership on key votes.

But Chaffetz soon came under heavy fire from conservatives, including Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who’s running for president. By Thursday, Chaffetz had backpedalled, saying a number of colleagues had urged him to reconsider his decision.

Sorry Boehner, but I don’t think Mark Levin is gonna back down even after this minor capitulation.

“Having spoken with Mark Meadows several times during the past week, I think we both better understand each other. I respect Mark and his approach. The discussions and candor have been healthy and productive,” Chaffetz said in a statement.

BOOM! Geez, crapping on conservatives is usually the only time the GOP establishment grows a spine! Mark that a score for the good guys, Smokey.

Via: The Right Scoop

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31M Left Underinsured by High Healthcare Costs: Report

Roughly one-quarter of people with health insurance are paying deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses that are so high they are considered underinsured, a new study has found.

The 2014 national health insurance survey by the Commonwealth Fund estimates that 31 million insured people are not sufficiently protected against high healthcare costs, a figure that has doubled since 2003, The Hill reported. 

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The report said that rising deductibles is the biggest problem for those considered underinsured, even with the advent of Obamacare.

"The steady growth in the proliferation and size of deductibles threatens to increase underinsurance in the years ahead," the report warns, according to The Hill.

The survey also found that people who purchase the lowest quality health coverage are also less likely to see a doctor when sick or injured because they fear high out-of-pocket costs.

"People who have high deductibles do tend to skimp on healthcare," the study's lead author, Sara Collins, told reporters, according to The Hill.

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According to the report, half of underinsured adults and 41 percent of privately insured adults with deductibles of at least $1,000 had medical bills totaling $4,000 or more. 

Via: Newsmax

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Reining in America's Greatest Lawbreaker, President Obama

The Hill reports that Republican members of Congress are contemplating actions to combat President Obama's lawbreaking methods of ruling from the Oval Office.

"GOP officials have long claimed that the president has violated the law and the Constitution through administrative actions on issues ranging from immigration to nominations to the U.S. military involvement in Libya," writes The Hill.  Conservative Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah is quoted, "There are a lot of examples of this."

A lot, indeed, and not just recently.  As reported at American Thinker last year in March, nine GOP state attorneys general issued a report on Obama's unprecedented officious lawbreaking.

Obama has now reached the tipping point, however, with his illegal "fix" of Obamacare designed to overcome his lie that Americans can keep their health insurance.  The president's open lawbreaking following his notorious lying puts Democrats' electoral prospects at risk.  It frustrates the unquestioning goodwill and endless love of some members of the political establishment.

Via: American Thinker

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