[guest post by Dana]

This seems as good of a time as any to remind readers that Harry Reid really is a nasty piece of work.

As recently as last month, Reid gloated about the false accusation he made against Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign. This in spite of evidence showing that Reid was outright lying. But to a corrupt bastard like Harry Reid, proof means nothing. Only winning. And he has certainly shown that there is no line he will not cross in order to do just that.

This was Reid last month when asked about his Romney accusation:

People bring that up, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. Why? Because I knew what he had done was not be transparent and forthright about his taxes and to this day he hasn’t released his tax returns. … Did I want to do that? No. I had the information, I tried to get somebody else to do it. I tried to get somebody in the Obama ‘reelect,’ I tried to get one of the senators, I tried to get one of the outside groups, but nobody would do it. So I did it. And with that, like everything, I think in life, here’s something I learned from my father, if you’re going to do something, don’t do it half-assed, don’t play around. With the Mitt Romney stuff, I didn’t play around. …

And when asked about defending an accusation that was proven to be untrue, Liar-Liar-Pants-On-Fire-Reid justified it this way:

“Romney didn’t win, did he?”

Of course there are numerous examples which demonstrate Reid’s dishonesty and seared conscience, so it’s no surprise that in a desperate move, he fired off a letter to James Comey today accusing him of violating the Hatch Act:

And to think that just a few short months ago, Reid had nothing but praise for Comey:

“He’s been a fair, impartial director of the FBI.”

Oh, what a difference an email or two, or 650,000 makes…

In response to an anti-Trump PAC making a similar accusation against Comey, John Sexton explained a Hatch Act violation:

For this to be a violation of the Hatch Act it would be necessary to prove that Comey was not performing his duties as FBI Director but was raising this to impact the election. Obviously this coalition doesn’t have any proof that’s the case but by making the accusation they help the Clinton campaign controversialize the announcement as a partisan act.

Further, although a former White House ethics lawyer also filed a Hatch Act complaint with regard to Comey, a Georgetown University law professor doesn’t think Comey violated it:

I do not think he has committed a crime,” he told the Post, referring to the latest email investigation. (But) I do think he has abused his office.

Perhaps Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep. Trey Gowdy summed up Reid most accurately.

From Sen. Cotton: “Harry Reid is a disgrace to American politics, among worst men ever in Senate. He can’t go soon enough, and many Democrats privately agree.”

And during an interview with Brett Baier, Gowdy offered this: “Thank God he’s leaving, is my initial reaction. My second reaction is: I did not know Mormons used drugs. And anyone who is capable of sending out that press release has to be under the influence of something.”

–Dana

[guest post by JVW]

Yeah, we spend a lot of time at each other’s throats these days, so in the spirit of Halloween Harmony let me pass along this awesomely imagined Tweet courtesy of Occupy Democrats Logic. This will probably get them kicked off of Facebook again.

To quote Homer Simpson: It’s funny because it’s true (or at least plausible).

– JVW

Sure, the report is based on anonymous sources, and as such is not really to be trusted . . . but come on. I think we can all agree that, whether you’re a Trump fan or not, it’s just good clean American fun at this point to point and laugh at Chris Christie. So let’s suspend our disbelief, the way we do for an action-packed but implausible Hollywood blockbuster, and enjoy this story for the sheer schadenfreude of it all.

Plus, a lot of it rings true. Why, just listen to the first quoted source in the piece:

“Trump cares about who’s the most loyal and who kisses his a– the most, not who’s the most qualified and what’s the best political decision,” said a source close to the campaign. “If it was up to him, it would have been Christie.”

That’s our Donald all right!

Christie contacted Trump and made his final, impassioned ­appeal on July 12.

“Christie said he thinks he deserves it and he earned it,” a second Trump source said. Convinced, Trump made the ­offer.

Christie “said all the BS that Trump likes to hear, and Trump said, ‘Yeah, sure I’m giving it to you.’”

That didn’t sit well with Manafort, who had arranged for Trump to meet Pence in Indianapolis on July 13, and fly back together to New York the next day for a formal announcement.

After Trump tentatively decided on Christie, Manafort told Trump his plane had a mechanical problem, campaign sources said, forcing Trump to spend another night in the Hoosier State. Pence then made his case to be Trump’s No. 2 over dinner as Trump’s advisers argued that Christie’s Bridgegate troubles would sink the campaign.

“Trump had wanted Christie but Bridgegate would have been the biggest national story,” a third Trump source said. “He’d lose the advantage of not being corrupt.”

Trump agreed to name Pence the next day and broke the news to Christie, saying it would “tear my family apart if I gave you VP,” a source said.

Christie did look particularly grumpy after Pence got the VP nod, but we all figured it was because he lost out. Who knew that he’d actually been promised the job by the Con Artist in Chief himself?

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

Fox News Sunday reported this morning that Anthony Weiner is cooperating with the FBI, which has re-opened (yes, lefties: “re-opened”) the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s classified emails. Watch as Chris Wallace reports the breaking news during the panel segment near the end of the show:

And the news is breaking while we’re on the air. Our colleague Bret Baier has just sent us an e-mail saying he has two sources who say that Anthony Weiner, who also had co-ownership of that laptop with his estranged wife Huma Abedin, is cooperating with the FBI investigation, had given them the laptop, so therefore they didn’t need a warrant to get in to see the contents of said laptop. Pretty interesting development.

Targets of federal investigations will often cooperate, hoping that they will get consideration from a judge at sentencing. Given Weiner’s well-known penchant for lying, it’s hard to believe that a prosecutor would give Weiner a deal based on an agreement to testify, unless his testimony were very strongly corroborated by hard evidence. But cooperation can take many forms — and, as Wallace indicated on this morning’s show, one of those forms could be signing a consent form to allow investigators to review the contents of devices that they could probably get a warrant for anyway. We’ll see if Weiner’s cooperation extends beyond that.

Any way you slice it, it’s not good news for Hillary Clinton.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

[guest post by Dana]

In light of Hillary Clinton’s email scandal of the past year and this latest October surprise from James Comey, columnist John Kass at the Chicago Tribune has made the first call for Democrats to ask Hillary Clinton to step down. At this point in time, she has become a liability who runs counter to all that the Democratic party stands for (obviously in words, not deeds):

If ruling Democrats hold themselves to the high moral standards they impose on the people they govern, they would follow a simple process:

They would demand that Mrs. Clinton step down, immediately, and let her vice presidential nominee, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, stand in her place.

Democrats should say, honestly, that with a new criminal investigation going on into events around her home-brew email server from the time she was secretary of state, having Clinton anywhere near the White House is just not a good idea.

…

What if she is elected? Think of a nation suffering a bad economy and continuing chaos in the Middle East, and now also facing a criminal investigation of a president. Add to that congressional investigations and a public vision of Clinton as a Nixonian figure wandering the halls, wringing her hands.

The best thing would be for Democrats to ask her to step down now. It would be the most responsible thing to do, if the nation were more important to them than power. And the American news media — fairly or not firmly identified in the public mind as Mrs. Clinton’s political action committee — should begin demanding it.

Of course the Democrats won’t ask her to step down, at least not yet. I’m not sure what would actually have to be in the latest batch of emails that would compel them to implore her to step down for the “good” of the party. The Democrats’ bar for acceptable behaviors and activities is already basement-level. Further, there is no way Hillary Clinton, who believes herself owed this moment, would ever consider stepping down. Too much of her “livelihood” would be at stake:

She’ll stick and ride this out and turn her anger toward Comey. For Hillary and Bill Clinton, it has always been about power, about the Clinton Restoration and protecting fortunes already made by selling nothing but political influence.

…

The Clintons weren’t skilled merchants. They weren’t traders or manufacturers. The Clintons never produced anything tangible. They had no science, patents or devices to make them millions upon millions of dollars.

All they had to sell, really, was influence. And they used our federal government to leverage it.

With the Clintons, it’s never been about what’s in the nation’s best interest, but rather their decision-making determinations have been based upon their own greedy and amoral best interests.

Read the whole thing.

–Dana

Caleb Howe published a comprehensive summary of recent polls this morning, generally showing tightening in the race between Trump and Clinton. Since then, today’s numbers from the ABC/Washington Post tracker have come out, and show a (very small) further movement towards Trump, with the race tightening from a two-point gap yesterday to a one-point gap today — a statistical tie:

The Post-ABC Tracking Poll continues to find a very tight race, with Clinton at 46 percent and Trump at 45 percent among likely voters in interviews from Tuesday through Friday, followed by Libertarian Gary Johnson at four percent and the Green Party’s Jill Stein at two percent. The result is similar to a 47-45 margin in the previous wave released Saturday, though smaller than found in other surveys this week. When likely voters are asked to choose between Clinton and Trump alone, Clinton stands at 49 percent to Trump’s 46 percent, a margin that is still statistically insignificant.

The tightening of recent days is well shown in this graphic:

The tracking poll also gives us one of the first snapshots of voters’ reactions to the FBI re-opening (yes, lefties: re-opening!) the email investigation. Most don’t care, but some do:

A majority of all likely voters say they are unmoved by the FBI’s announcement Friday that it may review additional emails from Clinton’s time as secretary of state. Just over 6 in 10 voters say the news will make no difference in their vote, while just over 3 in 10 say it makes them less likely to support her; 2 percent say they’re more likely to back her as a result.

If you have been looking for a dramatic finish, this poll could be read to suggest that you may just get one.

That lawyerly statement is about as far as I am willing to go, though. I wouldn’t get too excited. Show me evidence that Trump has a chance of winning North Carolina, and then we’ll talk.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]