heroes of the moment

Wednesday 9 November 2016

Before Inauguration, A Trial: Trump To Appear In Court Over Trump University

U.S. Faces a Startling New Political Reality After Donald Trump’s Victory

The American political establishment was reeling from shock on Wednesday as leaders in both parties began coming to grips with four years of President Donald J. Trump in the White House, a once-unimaginable scenario that has now plunged the United States and its allies and adversaries into a period of unprecedented uncertainty about the policies and impact of Mr. Trump.

In the mean time, while awaits 20th Januuary, In less than three weeks, Trump is scheduled to take the witness stand in a federal civil trial over alleged fraud in the Trump University real estate seminar program, according to Politico.

Presided over by U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego, the trial is one of two class action lawsuits filed by former students of Trump University alleging they were lured into paying up to $35,000 for real estate investment seminars that did not have the instructors or depth of subject matter promised.

The class-action case, Low v. Trump University LLC, 10-cv-00940n, is in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of California and is set for trial Monday, Nov. 28.
The New York attorney general also has a suit pending, in New York state court, accusing Trump University of fraud for deceiving students.

Just as many elements of Trump's candidacy and path to the White House
were unprecedented, so too is this degree of legal entanglement: never before has a president-elect had to defend himself in court as he also begins the enormous transition required to assume the presidency in January.

In addition to the suits over Trump University, Trump declared in an October speech in Gettysburg that he plans to sue the more than a dozen women who accused him of sexual harassment and assault. Additionally, New York state is conducting an investigation into his charitable foundation.

This article was written by Annie Rees from Talking Points Memo and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

Monday 7 November 2016

Poll Position: Where Clinton, Trump Stand on Election Eve

What do the polls say now?

As of Monday morning, polls show a modest lead for Hillary Clinton. She's ahead of Donald Trump in the RealClearPolitics four-way national average (which also includes Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein) by 2.2 percentage points and by 1.8 points in the two-way average.

Clinton also leads in state polls. If every state voted according to its RCP average, she would win with 297 electoral votes to Trump's 241, easily surpassing the needed 270.

Does either candidate have momentum?

A few weeks ago, Clinton led in national polls by as much as seven points. And while her lead has declined, she has nonetheless led in the RCP average for the past 98 days - since the nominating conventions came to a close. She has benefited from three strong presidential debate performances and Trump has had to deal with the release of an audio recording of him making lewd comments about women.

So it's worth asking -- what has changed of late?

It appears the effects of the debates and that recording (if it had any influence on voter preference) have worn off and Trump has gained support among reliably Republican voters. This shows up in the RCP average -- Clinton had about 45 percent of the vote two weeks ago and her standing now is virtually unchanged. Trump, on the other hand, was at 39.9 percent in the RCP average two weeks ago, but he now sits at 42.7 percent in the four-way race. No major party presidential candidate in 2012, 2008 or 2004 improved their national standing by more than two points in the two weeks prior to the Monday before Election Day, yet Trump has improved his polling by about three points in that interval.

Nonetheless, his short-term trend may not be significant enough.

Does momentum or current polling signal definitively that either candidate will win?

No.

The candidate who leads in pre-election polls typically has the advantage heading into Election Day -- which makes Hillary Clinton the favorite (but not a lock).

For example, Obama led in the RealClearPolitics average by 0.9 points heading into Election Day 2012 and went on to win the White House by 3.9 points. The RCP national average also put Obama ahead by 7.3 points in 2008, and he won by 7.6 points. George W. Bush led by 1.5 points in the 2004 RCP national average of polls, and he won by 2.4 points. I could go into elections that predate RCP, but the point is that a polling lead typically indicates an Election Day advantage. If Clinton and Trump perform at their current polling levels (or if Clinton over-performs) she will win.

There are still possible paths to a Trump victory, however.

It's possible that there is some late movement toward him that the polls haven't fully picked up on. Good pollsters often survey voters over multiple days, so if movement occurred very late in that time frame it's possible that public pollsters won't fully detect it before Nov. 8.

The polls could also systematically underrate Trump by misestimating the composition of the electorate. In the 2014 Senate elections, polls in the final week underestimated Republican candidates by about three points on average. And in the 2012 presidential election, national polls showed Obama leading by one point, and he won the popular vote by four points (although state polls were more accurate than national polls in that race). So it's possible that the polls could be off and Trump could win the presidency. But it's impossible to know ahead of time if the polls will err -- and if they do err, it's impossible to forecast whether they might be biased toward Trump or Clinton.

In other words, Clinton has kept Trump from catching up to her in the polls so she is still the favorite to win -- but there is some uncertainty. That's why predictive models at sites like FiveThirtyEight, the Upshot and the Huffington Post (despite differences in assumptions and how they're built) all give Clinton a win probability over 50 percent (64 percent, 84 percent and 98.1 percent, respectively) but don't say that a Democratic victory is a 100 percent certainty.

Which states should I watch on Election Day?

It's important to watch the swing states. RCP rates close states as tossups, but a few of those stand out as especially important.

It's important to watch states that are both reasonably close and have many electoral votes -- such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina and Michigan. North Carolina and Florida are very close -- Clinton leads by one point in Florida and Trump leads by 1.5 in North Carolina. If Trump were to win both of those states as well as Ohio, Iowa, Georgia and Arizona, he'll be at 259 Electoral Votes. If Trump managed to add Pennsylvania or Michigan (he currently trails in both), he would win. But if Clinton wins Michigan, Florida and Pennsylvania along with every state we rate as "Likely Clinton" and "Leans Clinton," she will become the next president.

From a more academic perspective, it's interesting to watch states like Utah, Arizona, Iowa and Maine. Trump has the lead in both Utah and Arizona, but his expected win margin in both states may be less than Mitt Romney's in 2012 or John McCain's in 2008. Yet Trump has pulled Iowa and Maine to the right of where they were in previous cycles.

This illustrates one of the central tradeoffs of Trump's candidacy. His policy and persona appeal to non-college-educated whites (who make up a significant proportion of the population in Maine and Iowa) while turning off Hispanics (in states like Arizona) and some traditional Republican groups like Mormons (in states like Utah) and college-educated whites.

Here's what Clinton, Trump spent to turn out votes

With a day left before the presidential vote, opinion polls show Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican rival Donald Trump in a tight race for the White House.

No matter what voters tell pollsters, though, what matters is how many actually turn out and vote for the candidate of their choice. For that, both campaigns need to get their supporters to the polls.

Trump is counting on his signature rallies to fire up his followers in the critical swing states he needs to capture the 270 electoral votes required to win. On Monday, he had a packed schedule that included appearances in Sarasota, Florida, Raleigh, North Carolina, Scranton, Pennsylvania, Manchester, New Hampshire, and Grand Rapids, Michigan. For her part, Clinton was scheduled to make final stops Monday in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allendale, Michigan, and Raleigh.

The Clinton campaign is also relying heavily on the traditional "ground game" of local field offices staffed with paid and volunteer workers tasked with calling supporters, knocking on doors and helping to arrange transportation for the candidate's faithful.

Since the start of last year, Clinton has outspent Trump heavily in all categories of campaign expenses, according to the latest data from the Federal Election Commission, which has logged spending through Oct. 19.

The data are not complete, and comparisons aren't always precise. Campaign finance expenses, for example, can be categorized differently by each campaign. And there may be occasional duplicate entries; the totals for the more than 100,000 individual expenditures, for example, are slightly larger than the summary amounts recorded by the FEC.

Still, the spending patterns offer some insight into the strategies pursued by the two rivals. As of Oct. 19, Clinton had raised some $513 million and spent $450 million on itemized expenses. The Trump campaign had raised $255 million and spent $239 million.

Much of that money was spent on media campaigns devoted to television, radio, print and digital ads, with a last-minute surge in spending that hasn't yet been recorded.

To compare field operations, CNBC broke out expenses that are typically devoted to operating and staffing local offices, state by state. Those include spending on rent, payroll, administration, mail marketing, polling and telecommunications.

Aside from overall levels of spending, each candidate has pursued different strategies navigating the Electoral College math that offers a path to victory.

Here again, the FEC data offer an inexact picture of state-by-state spending; expenses are logged based on the address of the payee, not necessarily the state a campaign may have been targeting. A United Airlines ticket, for example, is logged based on the company's corporate headquarters address in Chicago, even if the ticket was used to travel to Des Moines, Iowa.

Two expense categories, rent and payroll, though, offer a glimpse into the extent of the campaigns' field operations because those are typically paid to landlords and staffers in those states.

Both candidates spent most heavily in New York state, where they maintain national headquarters. But their spending patterns varied in the battleground states that offer the tightest races as they approach Tuesday's finish line.

Trump has outspent Clinton in states where he is polling well, including states like Texas, Oklahoma and Tennessee. But he's also spent more than Clinton on rent and payroll in states considered "safe" for Clinton, including Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Clinton has also spent more heavily in traditionally blue states like California, Washington and Connecticut. Her rent and payroll spending, though, has also been bigger than Trump's in several key battleground states like Florida and Pennsylvania. But Trump has spent more on those expenses in Ohio, considered a must-win for his presidential bid.

Health

Saturday 5 November 2016

THE RACE HEAT UP... SEE WHO'S LEADING. CLINTON OR TRUMP

POLL- Clinton leads Trump by 5 points, swing states tighten -Reuters/Ipsos
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Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton leads Republican Donald Trump by 5 percentage points, according to a Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll released on Friday, keeping her advantage in a national survey while races tighten in several swing states.

The Oct. 30-Nov. 3 opinion poll showed that 44 percent of likely voters in Tuesday's election support Clinton while 39 percent support Trump.

Clinton's lead has varied from 4 to 7 percentage points every day over the past week in the Reuters/Ipsos poll, while other opinion polls have shown the race becoming increasingly competitive. Real Clear Politics, which averages together most national polls, estimates that Clinton's lead has dropped from 5 points at the end of last week to less than 2 points on Friday.

This is similar to 2012, when the Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll showed President Barack Obama with a 3 to 7 point advantage over Republican challenger Mitt Romney in the final days of the campaign while Real Clear Politics showed Obama's lead nearly vanishing ahead of the election. Obama was re-elected with a 4-point advantage in the popular vote.

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Clinton, despite her national lead, appears to have lost ground in a number of states, according to a separate polling effort that takes a more granular look at the race.

The Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project shows races in Florida, North Carolina and Michigan have tilted away from Clinton over the past week and are now considered too close to call. These swing states are hotly contested because their voters can swing either to Republicans or Democrats and can be decisive in presidential elections.

The project estimates that Clinton still has a 90 percent chance of winning the election, however.
With four days before Election Day, Republicans are increasingly optimistic about Trump winning.
Some of this appears to be tied to Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey telling U.S. lawmakers on Oct. 28 that his agency was investigating a new trove of emails as part of a probe into Clinton's handling of classified information while serving as U.S. secretary of state.

While Comey said the emails might not be significant to the investigation, Trump and Republican leaders have seized on the news, calling it evidence that Clinton is unfit for the White House.

Since the FBI announcement, the Reuters/Ipsos poll has seen a surge in Republican expectations. More than half of Republicans now say they think Trump will win the election - up from a low point last week when Republicans were more likely to think Clinton would win.

The Reuters/Ipsos national tracking poll was conducted online in English in all 50 states. It includes 2,021 people who were considered to be likely voters from their voting history, registration status and stated intention to participate in the election. It has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points.

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EPL, LALIGA, BUNDESLIGA, SERIEA, FRENCH LEAGUE1. ALL THE FIXTURES THIS WEEKEND.

English Premier League

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Wednesday 9 November 2016

Before Inauguration, A Trial: Trump To Appear In Court Over Trump University

Monday 7 November 2016

Poll Position: Where Clinton, Trump Stand on Election Eve

Here's what Clinton, Trump spent to turn out votes

Saturday 5 November 2016

THE RACE HEAT UP... SEE WHO'S LEADING. CLINTON OR TRUMP

EPL, LALIGA, BUNDESLIGA, SERIEA, FRENCH LEAGUE1. ALL THE FIXTURES THIS WEEKEND.

English Premier League

Manchester City

4:00 PM

Middlesbrough

West Ham United

4:00 PM

Stoke City

Bournemouth

4:00 PM

Sunderland

Burnley

4:00 PM

Crystal Palace

Chelsea

6:30 PM

Everton

Arsenal

1:00 PM

Tottenham Hotspur

Manchester City

4:00 PM

Middlesbrough

West Ham United

4:00 PM

Stoke City

Bournemouth

4:00 PM

Sunderland

Burnley

4:00 PM

Crystal Palace

Chelsea

6:30 PM

Everton

Arsenal

1:00 PM

Tottenham Hotspur

Liverpool

3:15 PM

Watford

Hull City

3:15 PM

Southampton

Swansea City

4:00 PM

Manchester United

Leicester City

5:30 PM

West Bromwich Albion