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Trump Campaign Aide: “We Have Three Major Voter Suppression Operations Underway”

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Evan Vucci / AP Photo

A senior Trump official has said that the campaign currently has “three major voter suppression operations under way,” one of which involves delivering anti-Clinton messages through Facebook “dark posts,” Bloomberg reports.

The aide, who remained unnamed, told Bloomberg that in addition to having rolled out anti-Clinton spots on African American radio stations in San Antonio, Texas, the campaign will now target that voter demographic on Facebook by delivering an animated clip that mimics Clinton’s 1996 line in which she called African Americans “super predators.”

Facebook dark posts — which are essentially unpublished posts that appear in News Feed but not on the page itself — allow campaigns to communicate directly with certain individuals so that, according to Trump marketing specialist Brad Parscale, “only the people who want to see it, see it.”

The unnamed official said that the ultimate goal was to minimize Clinton’s total vote potential.

“We know because we’ve modeled this,” the official said. “It will dramatically affect her ability to turn these people out.”

A Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News in a statement that the company's tools "allow advertisers to reach the audiences they want. Groups using Facebook advertising to encourage people to support or oppose a particular candidate or initiative is not unique to our platform, this campaign, or this election.”

The Trump camp has made other efforts to turn black voters away from Clinton, including spreading messages in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood about the Clinton Foundation’s questionable efforts in the Caribbean country.

The other two demographics the Trump campaign is aiming to influence are white liberals and young women.

Trump’s team has leaned heavily on Clinton’s WikiLeaks emails and her backing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership to repel former supporters of Bernie Sanders, and they have been targeting young women by repeatedly engaging the women who have alleged that they were sexually assaulted by Bill Clinton.


Feds Usher In Sweeping New Privacy Rules For Internet Providers

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Brendan Mcdermid / Reuters

Federal regulators Thursday established for the first time broad privacy rules giving customers a greater say in how internet providers like Comcast and Verizon share information about their online habits. The new rules, which were fiercely opposed by the telecom industry, come as the overwhelming majority of American adults believe they’ve lost control over how their personal information is collected and used by technology companies.

Under the rules, internet providers must first get your consent before they can use “sensitive” information, or share it with a third party. The types of data covered include key aspects of our digital footprints, such as web browsing history and geo-location, as well as older forms of sensitive information like social security numbers and health and financial records. For the FCC, this model of “opt-in” consent equips customers with a higher degree of control, even as find we ourselves in an age of constant, invisible, and ubiquitous data collection.

The regulations also compel broadband providers to notify customers about the kinds of information they collect, the purpose of that data collection, and to identify the types of third parties that have access to customers’ information.

Only broadband providers will be affected by the rules, not search engines or social networks. But lawmakers and consumer advocates say the regulations are a significant step forward in protecting online privacy. While the Federal Trade Commission has limited power to create privacy rules as it oversees the giants of Silicon Valley, the FCC can impose such regulations on telecom companies after the passage of network neutrality in 2015.

For supporters of the FCC, the move represents a much-needed corrective for companies that connect us to the internet, and establishes broad consumer protections that did not exist as Facebook and Google swelled into empires.

“Before today there were no protections,” said FCC chair Tom Wheeler, who led efforts to set the rules in place. “We are extending to the internet the same kinds of protections that we have for decades extended to the telephone network: The network can’t use the information without the consumer's permission.”

The privacy regulations passed, in a 3-2 vote, with the two Republican Commissioners dissenting. Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly described the rules as running counter to established privacy regulations and an aggressive overreach posing a burden on internet providers.

Commissioner O’Rielly also criticized the opt-in approach, in which internet companies must get our approval before they can share our data. Citing statistics that indicate people overwhelmingly use a technology's default settings, O’Reilly argued that these new regulations would effectively make privacy decisions for customers, since we’re likely to not pay attention to the default privacy setting or skip past them.

“This isn’t consumer choice it’s recognition of consumer apathy,” O'Reilly said.

Walter McCormick, the president of USTelecom, which represents AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink and many others said in a statement to BuzzFeed News, “This is a disservice to the goal of providing consumers with consistency in privacy expectations when they use the internet and poses a threat to continuing web innovation.”

But Chair Wheeler framed the privacy rules as upholding a simple principle: consumer information on the web belongs to individuals, not the networks that deliver that information. “It is the consumer’s information,” he said repeatedly. “How it is used should be the consumer’s choice, not the choice of some corporate algorithm.”

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who voted in favor of the rules, described them as a desperately needed privacy tool, the first in almost a decade to protect individuals against the rush of data collection.

“[Consumers] want privacy, but more importantly they want control,” she said. “They want to control the whiplash from some of these digital forces and take some ownership of what is done with their personal information.”

Michelle Obama And Hillary Clinton Ask Voters To Think Like A First Lady

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Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — During her first joint appearance with Hillary Clinton here on Thursday, speaking at points as if from one first lady to another, Michelle Obama tried to explain something fundamental about what it means to live on the national stage that is the White House residence.

“We know the influence our president has on our children,” she told a crowd of 11,000 packed into the arena at North Carolina's Wake Forest University. “How they turn on the TV and they see the most powerful role model in the world. Someone who shows them how to treat others. How to deal with disappointment. Whether to to tell the truth. They’re taking it all in.”

Obama spoke in slow and sober tones.

Clinton, seated paces behind her on stage, nodded in agreement.

“As Hillary said," the first lady went on, "when you’ve raised children in the White House, as Barack and Hillary and I have, you are reminded every day of the impact that you have. You start seeing the images of every child in this country in the face of your child.”

The 25-minute speech from Obama — the Clinton campaign’s self-described “not-so-secret weapon” on the campaign trail — came as a reminder of the power of the presidency to shape not just policy, war, and peace, but the millions of children who grow up, the first lady said, looking every day to the family that inhabits 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

It's a reality that Clinton understands like few others can, Obama told voters in this critical battleground state. In the '90s, Clinton raised her daughter Chelsea, now 36, through her teenage years in the White House.

“So when people wonder how Hillary keeps her composure through the overwhelming pressure of not just this campaign but in her career," Obama said, "or how Barack and I have dealt with the glare of the national spotlight these last eight years — that’s the answer."

“With every action we take, with every word we utter, we think about the millions of children who are watching us, who hang onto our every word, looking at us to show them who they can and should be. And that’s why every day, we try to be the kind of people, the kind of leaders, that your children deserve, whether you agree with our politics or not.”

It was a strikingly apolitical message from the first lady.

Obama has become one of the campaign's most effective and popular surrogates on the campaign trail, holding one or two events each week where she often makes an aggressive case against Donald Trump. On Thursday in Winston-Salem, she did not even mention his name.

The event came as Clinton faces new questions about the Clinton Foundation and speeches she gave to financial firms, raised by revelations in the ongoing WikiLeaks releases of hacked emails from campaign chairman John Podesta. Notably, Obama's speech amounted to a forceful testimonial to not just to Clinton's credentials and fitness to serve, but her character and values, citing the middle-class upbringing she received in the suburbs of Chicago from her mother and father, who owned a drapery business.

“Let me tell you," Obama said, "this is not about Republicans versus Democrats. None of that matters this time.”

“This election is about something much bigger. It’s about who will shape our children and the country we leave for them, not just in the next four or eight years, but for the rest of their lives,” she said, urging voters to think on Election Day about looking “into the eyes of our children, as we send them off to school each morning, as we tuck them into bed.”

The joint appearance also served as a public affirmation of the relationship between two women who just eight years ago were pitted against each other in a bitter Democratic primary. "First Ladies," Obama said at one point, turning behind her to face Clinton, "we rock!”

This month, Trump himself called their relationship into question. “I see how much [Michelle Obama] likes Hillary, but wasn’t she the one that originally started the statement, ‘If you can’t take care of your home, you can’t take care of the White House or the country,’” Trump said, referencing a 2008 comment that some interpreted as a knock on the Clintons. (Barack Obama, at the time, said that it was not.)

Here on Thursday, the two women walked out on stage arm in arm to a standing ovation. Later, between speeches, Clinton handed the mic off to Obama with a tight hug.

“People wonder,” the first lady said, as if to clarify, “And yes, Hillary Clinton is my friend.”

Plane Carrying Mike Pence Skids Off Runway At LaGuardia Airport

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Pence's campaign airplane sits partially on the tarmac and the grass after sliding off the runway in New York.

Mary Altaffer / AP

An airplane carrying Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence skidded off the runway Thursday evening at New York City's LaGuardia airport. No one was injured.

The incident occurred as a storm brought rain and wind to the New York City area, leaving the runway slick. CNN producer Elizabeth Landers was aboard the plane and said after a "pretty rough landing" the back of the plane started "to fishtail" for 20 or 30 seconds.

"It was long enough to feel that this was not a straight smooth landing on the runway," Landers said.

The airport was closed until further notice after the incident.

The plane eventually came to a stop on grass near the runway, Landers said, adding that Gov. Pence immediately came to the back of the plane to make sure everyone was OK.

Speaking to CNN Friday morning, Pence retold the "10 seconds of uncertainty" during the rough touchdown.

"When we landed, we began to feel the pilots braking very aggressively," he said, but added that it appeared first responders were on the ground before the plane had even come to a stop.

"It happened so fast that it was all over before it began," he said, adding that it "was more dramatic to look at it from the outside of the plane."

Mike Pence talks with firefighters after his campaign plane slide off the runway Thursday.

AP

Pence reported seeing mud on the front windows and cockpit of the plane, and the pilot could smell burning rubber, according to the the Associated Press.

Landers said the runway was visibly torn up, apparently from where the wheels of the plane made contact with the asphalt. The damage to the runway was visible in live video footage broadcast from the scene.

Earlier Thursday, Pence shared a photo of himself playing football on the tarmac in Iowa, saying that a ground stop at LaGuardia had delayed their trip.

The FAA will investigate the incident at LaGuardia, CNN reported.

Pence later tweeted that he was "thankful everyone on our plane is safe."

Hillary Clinton also tweeted Thursday night that she too was glad her rival's running mate was safe.


Supreme Court To Hear Critical Challenge Over Transgender Rights

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Visitors enter the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, U.S. October 5, 2016. REUTERS/Gary Cameron

Gary Cameron / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will hear a major case involving the Obama administration's policies in support of transgender rights, the court announced on Friday.

Gloucester County School Board in Virginia asked the justices to hear the case, which was brought by Gavin Grimm, a transgender male student who is now a senior at the high school in the district.

The school district passed a policy limiting restroom use to students' biological sex, and Grimm — backed by the ACLU — sued. Although he initially lost at the district court, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals found in Grimm's favor.

The question in Grimm's case raises the question whether — as the ACLU and the Obama administration assert — the school's policy violates Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The Obama administration has interpreted the sex discrimination ban in Title IX to include a ban on anti-transgender discrimination.

"We are grateful that the Supreme Court has granted the School Board’s petition in this difficult case," the school board said in a statement. "The Board looks forward to explaining to the Court that its restroom and locker room policy carefully balances the interests of all students and parents in the Gloucester County school system."

Grimm's ACLU attorneys called it "disappointing" that the court would allow the policy to remain in place while Grimm is finishing out his time in the school district.

"These sorts of discriminatory policies stigmatize and isolate transgender students like Gavin just because of who they are," ACLU attorney Joshua Block said in a statement. "We look forward to presenting Gavin's case to the Supreme Court as the next step in the fight to ensure fairness and equality for trans people across the country."

The 4th Circuit ruled narrowly in Grimm's favor, holding that the Obama administration’s guidance supporting transgender coverage was permitted under the regulations implementing Title IX because those regulations were ambiguous on the point. Because they are ambiguous, the Obama administration could adopt the position backing transgender inclusion.

That reasoning is referred to by a prior Supreme Court case name, Auer deference.

The school board asked for the court to reconsider Auer deference in total, as well as determining whether the administration's position should be allowed under the Auer deference standard — the narrow, 4th Circuit ruling — or, more broadly, on whether the interpretation is correct — in other words, that sex discrimination includes anti-transgender discrimination.

The questions the school board asked the justices to hear:

The questions the school board asked the justices to hear:

Via scotusblog.com

The Supreme Court on Friday announced that it would not be reconsidering the Auer deference standard, but would only be considering the second and third questions raised by the case.

Over the summer, the Supreme Court issued a stay of the lower courts' actions, keeping the policy in place while the justices decided whether to take the case. The decision to take the case keeps that stay in place until the case is resolved — a fact referenced by Grimm and his lawyers on Friday.

"While I’m disappointed that I will have to spend my final school year being singled out and treated differently from every other guy, I will do everything I can to make sure that other transgender students don’t have to go through the same experience," Grimm said in a statement.

Should the case result in a tie, the lower court ruling in Grimm's favor would stand — but it would set no national precedent for other districts or for the administration's pro-transgender interpretation of sex discrimination bans.

Read Friday's orders from the Supreme Court:

Read Friday's orders from the Supreme Court:

LINK: The Stories Behind America’s Transgender Progress In The Law


Federal Appeals Court Says Michigan "Ballot Selfie" Ban Will Stay In Effect For Now

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Shannon Stapleton / Reuters

A federal appeals court on Friday evening ordered that Michigan's "ballot selfie" ban remain in effect for the upcoming election.

The complaint "raise[s] interesting First Amendment issues," Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote for a split three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Noting that "[t]iming is everything," however, the court concluded that the person challenging the ban will "have an opportunity to litigate th[ose issues] in full—after this election."

The law in question bans Michigan voters from showing their completed election ballot to anyone other than someone assisting a voter or a child accompanying the voter. The ballot of a person who violates the law "shall be marked 'rejected for exposure.'"

Earlier this week, a federal district court judge halted enforcement of the ban in the upcoming election in response to a First Amendment challenge brought by Joel Crookston.

On Friday, however, the 6th Circuit issued a stay of that injunction. The "first and most essential" reason for granting the stay, Sutton wrote, is that "Crookston offers no reasonable explanation for waiting so long to file this action."

"Michigan’s ban on ballot exposure dates to 1891, and today’s version of these laws has been on the books since 1996," the court noted. "Crookston’s belated challenge to Michigan’s election procedures prejudices the State’s interest in holding orderly elections."

In addition to that, however, the court also questions the merits of Crookston's First Amendment challenge — a view that could set up a conflict with a recent ruling from the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals striking down New Hampshire's similar ban.

"[W]e are skeptical as well of the district court’s assessment of Crookston’s odds of success on the merits," Sutton's ruling for the 6th Circuit states. "The Secretary’s ban on photography at the polls seems to be a content- neutral regulation that reasonably protects voters’ privacy—and honors a long tradition of protecting the secret ballot."

Judge Guy Cole dissented from the panel's decision, writing of the effect of the court's decision, "As millions of Americans across the country prepare to vote, their counterparts in the state of Michigan will be put in the position of choosing between their freedom of expression and their right to vote."

Judge Ralph Guy joined Sutton's opinion for the court, but wrote separately to explore some of the ~larger~ questions of the "ballot selfie" ban debate. Among the multitude of issues he raised:

  • "[H]ow much delay does taking a selfie cause?" ("If all a person wants is a picture of the ballot that can be done by securing a sample ballot and taking a picture of it. But that is not a selfie for the obvious reason that there is no 'self.'")
  • "[H]ow many might avail themselves of the opportunity to take a selfie[?]" ("I don’t really know. But I do know that the number of persons who feel compelled to record their every waking moment and broadly share it with others is immense.")
  • How many pictures would one take? ("[W]ith digital photography, if you don’t like the way you look in the first one, you take another and so on ad infinitum.")
  • "Does the allowance of taking a selfie also include use of the ubiquitous selfie stick?"

Guy concluded that the fact that the state didn't have sufficient time to raise these questions are "one of the main reasons why I join the opinion granting a stay."

Where Does Trumpism Go After Nov. 8?

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Joe Raedle / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump often speaks of his supporters as a movement. And it’s true; Trump supporters have emerged as a potent new force in American politics, a nationalist populist movement that doesn’t fit into the familiar conservative vs. establishment dichotomy that has characterized Republican politics, nor the leftist vs. moderate liberal split in the Democratic Party.

But it’s always been unclear what happens to this movement if Trump loses — which he seems almost certain to do, even despite recent developments in the HIllary Clinton email story. Does Trumpism exist without Trump? Where do his supporters turn after Nov. 8? The future is at hand.

Conversations with Trump supporters in several different states at recent rallies showed a few patterns. Nearly all believe the election is being rigged and that Trump reserves the right to contest the results. Most are disappointed or angry with Republicans for not fully backing the nominee, and some, though not all, say they’re done with the Republican Party. And most promise that they’re not going away.

“I don’t think the Republican Party will ever be again what it was,” said Linda Hudson, 65, a South Carolinian who attended Trump’s rally in Fletcher, North Carolina, this week. “I probably would still continue to vote because I feel strongly about that, but I will not participate in anything else. I think me, like a lot of people, we’re just disgusted with what’s happened this go-round.”

“He’s fighting for his voters,” said Stacy Whitted, 46, of Chesapeake, Virginia, at a rally in Virginia Beach. “So I don’t want him to concede. I believe it’s rigged. And I think he should fight because he’s fighting for his voters who wanted him to win.”

But if he loses, Whitted said, “I think it’s going to fire us up even more and try to push Hillary out. Get her in prison. Just kidding.”

“I think it will continue within the Republican Party but I think the Republican Party will change, and I think that the establishment who think they’ll be able to take hold again will be very surprised,” said Rachel McKinney, 81, of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, at Trump’s speech at Gettysburg last week.

Trump’s rallies at this point resemble a concert for a beloved band, or a sci-fi/fantasy con. There are themed outfits: Hillary for Prison shirts, Trump Army shirts, Trump That Bitch shirts, and of course, Make America Great Again hats. There are slogans: “build the wall,” “lock her up,” and a newer addition, “drain the swamp.” What the Trump crowds resemble most of all is a kind of subculture, a bubble that exists within its own reality. Instead of trying to expand out of this bubble during the general election as the nominee, Trump has done the opposite, intensifying his appeals to his most ardent supporters while continuing to offend nearly everyone else.

And Trump has grown more and more conspiratorial as time has gone on, particularly in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape and sexual assault allegations against him that may have erased any hope he had of becoming elected president. At every rally now, he speaks of a rigged system and a rigged election, with globalist elites and a corrupt media working in tandem to bring him down — and not just him, but his supporters. Trump’s connection with his audience is undeniable. And when he tells them that not just he, but they are the victims of an elite conspiracy, they believe him.

"The media isn’t just against me, they’re against all of you,” Trump told a crowd in St. Augustine, Florida, on Monday.

In Sanford, Florida, the next day, he spoke in apocalyptic tones about what could happen to his movement without him, and seemed to rule out the idea that some other Republican could inherit what he’s started.

“This is the last time we're going to have a chance,” he said. “Four years, it's over. It's over. In four years, you don't have a chance. All these characters who want to run in four years, they can forget it. They're wasting their time.”

Trump’s rallies are their own ecosystem. And they have their own facts, and they distrust the media even when those facts come from mainstream outlets. At several rallies this past week, Trump has mentioned the story of a $675,000 donation to the Virginia state senate race of an FBI official’s wife by an ally of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is close with the Clintons — a story which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. In Tallahassee on Tuesday, one man standing near the press pen glared at the reporters and said, “Why doesn’t the media report on that!”

As this week’s story in Bloomberg Businessweek makes clear, Trump’s team is taking steps to harness the movement digitally to unclear future ends. Chatter about a possible media venture continues, spurred by the Trump campaign’s new regularly occurring Facebook Live show. Populist nationalist movements in other countries have emerged as a persistent thorn in the side of establishment political parties. But in a country like France, the National Front has a well-established history and infrastructure. Trumpism, so far, is more formless. But its adherents promise its staying power.

Steve Bannon, the Breitbart chairman currently serving as Trump’s campaign CEO, has for years targeted the Republican party establishment, and Trump’s becoming the party’s standard-bearer has not changed this. If anything, Breitbart, which has become a semi-official organ of the Trump campaign, has grown even more aggressive towards the party’s sacred cows like Paul Ryan, who it recently accused without evidence of supporting Hillary Clinton. Bannon and Breitbart’s political project seems less to stay within the party than to create something very different. If Trumpism is recognized as a populist nationalist movement, that’s partly because the phrase itself is Bannon and Breitbart’s preferred nomenclature.

“Win or lose this isn’t gonna go away,” said Barry Casper, 56, at Trump’s rally in Newtown, Pennsylvania, last week. “A lot of things are not going to go away. All the Wikileaks stuff is going to stay alive. Have you been to any of the rallies? Well then you know. I’d never seen that and I’m a lot older than you, and I’ve been around politics since 1980.”

Two women at Trump’s rally in Fletcher, North Carolina, last week said they were now beyond the two main political parties.

“I’m done with the Republicans,” said Diane, 67, from South Carolina.

“I’m done with all of them,” said Alice, 61, from Asheville, North Carolina.

Elio Hernandez, 66, a Trump supporter from Naples, Florida, who emigrated from Venezuela 45 years ago, said he doubted his future as a Republican “unless they change.”

“I would never be a Democrat,” he said. “But being a Republican today with the way the party is being and they don’t support — I think they are part of the establishment where the money’s coming to them they don’t care about what happens to you.”

24 Totally Normal Hours On The Trail With Hillary Clinton

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Brian Snyder / Reuters

Saturday, 12:13 p.m., White Plains, N.Y. Saturday on the trail begins like any other for Hillary Clinton. She steps onto the tarmac. She smiles. She waves. It's as if the events of the prior 24 hours, unfolding in dramatic and at points surreal turns, have either never occurred or are simply of no ultimate consequence to the candidate.

This, from the outside at least, is the Clinton campaign under siege. She and her aides, by now, after a long 18 months, are somewhat at home when in crisis. ("Happy warrior" is how a Clinton official described the candidate's state of mind on Saturday morning here in Westchester.)

Though little is still known about the new investigation from FBI director James Comey, made public in a letter to Republican members of Congress, the probe will undoubtedly affect Clinton's standing in the race, with another round of email headlines landing on the front page of nearly every battleground state paper.

But on Friday, as news of the inquiry hit the presidential race just 11 days before election time — while the press scrambled for information with few details and without inflight internet, while Donald Trump assailed the latest “criminal scheme” — Clinton held her smile, and the day proceeded as planned. There were two rallies in Iowa. (“I am so excited and happy to be back here!”) There were special guests. (Celebrity DJ Samantha Ronson. Star photographer Annie Leibovitz. Childhood friend Betsy Ebeling.) And there was no mention of the FBI inquiry until the day was done.

Friday, 12:57 p.m. Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook takes questions about early vote returns aboard the “Stronger Together” Boeing 737 — flying through the Midwest without wifi. On the ground, Rep. Jason Chaffetz tweets that the FBI has informed him of emails that “appear to be pertinent” to the Clinton investigation.

1:21 p.m. News breaks aboard the plane, now making its initial descent into Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Mook declines to address what looks like word of a new (re-opened?) FBI inquiry. Reporters refresh Twitter. “Gogo inflight experience is temporarily unavailable.”

1:39 p.m. Reporters unload onto the tarmac and take out their cameras and phones, waiting for Clinton. Twenty minutes pass.

On TV, back in Washington, NBC News’ Pete Williams is talking about the investigation (“to be purely technical about it, it’s really not being reopened”). Senior officials, he says, identified the emails as part of an “unrelated” case.

2:06 p.m. Clinton pops out of the front cabin. Big smile. Reporters shout over the drone of plane engines. "SECRETARY CLINTON, SECRETARY CLINTON? THE FBI?" She waves in the direction of the press. A few steps behind, a woman of the same age follows — Clinton's best friend since childhood, Betsy Ebeling, joining along for what would have otherwise been a normal day. ("Poor Betsy!" the reporters agree.)

2:07 p.m. The press spots the wiry-haired Leibovitz emerge from the plane, toting her camera. "I only had a minute," she says, rejoining the reporters. So there was a photoshoot? Amid the FBI news? Later, an aide says yes, this is safe to "deduce."

2:23 p.m. Motorcade arrives at NewBo City Market in Cedar Rapids. Pumpkins decorate the courtyard. Still nothing from the campaign on what is going on. Clinton takes the stage and exclaims, "Wow! What a beautiful day in Cedar Rapids!"

3:14 p.m. News alert from the New York Times: “New emails tied to the FBI's Clinton inquiry were discovered during the investigation into Anthony Weiner's sexting.”

3:18 p.m. A cheerful Clinton speaks for 30 minutes about Trump, his female accusers, and her many policy proposals. "I have a plan for just about everything… You know, maybe this is a woman thing. We make lists, right? I love making lists. And then I love crossing things off! So I want you to imagine that together we’re gonna vote on Nov. 8 for an agenda that will become a list that we will work on!"

Clinton poses for photos after the Cedar Rapids event.

Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty Images

3:44 p.m. Campaign chairman John Podesta releases a statement, criticizing Comey. "It is extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election. The director owes it to the American people to immediately provide the full details of what he is now examining.”

3:49 p.m. A second news alert, this one from the Associated Press: "BREAKING: US official: Emails related to Clinton investigation came from sexting probe of Anthony Weiner."

4:02 p.m. Reporters file back to the bus in disbelief. TV news packages get re-tracked. "Three, two, one... It started out as a regular day on the campaign trail..."

4:06 p.m. A newcomer jumps out of the campaign staff van at the Eastern Iowa Airport: Samantha Ronson, the popular DJ and famed ex-girlfriend of Lindsay Lohan, is tagging along. Wearing a cowboy hat and pastel plaid shirt, she mounts the back staircase along with the press and sits down in the staff cabin.

4:24 p.m. Flight to the next event. Senior aides materialize in the aisle. Mook is gesticulating and laughing. Reporters in the back cabin start to prepare for another press conference, but instead watch as Mook and Clinton's communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, walk only as far as the table in the staff cabin, where they serve themselves a slice of apple pie.

4:33 p.m. Wheels down in Des Moines.

On the tarmac, reporters learn that Clinton and her campaign aides only found out about the Comey news through public reports. (After the Leibovitz photoshoot, another aide notes later.) The campaign hasn't said more about what is going on, it seems, because they simply don't know. When a reporter asks if Clinton is "rattled," the aide flashes a look as if to ask, Do you know the woman?

5:18 p.m. Clinton deplanes. More smiles and waves. Betsy follows. Then Palmieri. And then, finally, Huma Abedin, Clinton's closest aide and separated wife of Weiner, the man at the center of the probe. All four women pile into a chevy suburban with darkened windows.

“BTW,” the pool report notes, “Annie Leibovitz was on the tarmac this time.”

5:28 p.m. A picture of Donald Trump flashing two thumbs up arrives via text message on the phones of Trump supporters. “BREAKING: FBI Reopens investigation into Crooked Hillary. She should be in JAIL. Time to DRAIN the SWAMP! Contribute $1 in the next hour.”

5:54 p.m. Clinton takes the stage in the gymnasium at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Des Moines. "This election is 10 days away,” she says, then corrects. “Eleven, but we’re more than halfway through today." Not that she or anyone else is counting.

6:04 p.m. More about women and lists. "We love making lists, and then we wanna get things done and cross them off. So I have this image of like this great big list on the White House lawn..."

6:41 p.m. The campaign’s press wrangler gathers reporters in the back of the gym. Minutes later, the group ends up in the high school choir room, transformed by advance staffers into a briefing room with black pipe-and-drape, six American flags, a “Stronger Together” lectern, a “Stronger Together” banner, and rows of “Stronger Together” posters.

7:01 p.m. Clinton walks in behind a small phalanx of aides: campaign manager Mook, communications director Palmieri, press secretary Nick Merrill. No Abedin.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

From the lectern, she delivers a succinct message, asking Comey to come forward with more details about the investigation he’s launched 11 days out. It is all she will say for the time being, aides indicate, about the development.

7:08 p.m. Clinton takes three questions. ("Your guess is as good as mine," she says, when asked if the campaign knows anything more about the FBI inquiry.)

7:12 p.m. Clinton heads for the exit. A reporter shouts one final question.

"Are you worried this could sink your campaign, Secretary Clinton?"

The candidate is almost out the door as she lets out one big, long laugh.


Human Rights Campaign Revokes Illinois GOP Endorsement After Racist Remark

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Seth Perlman / AP Photo

The Human Rights Campaign on Saturday announced that it had revoked its endorsement of Republican Mark Kirk, after the Illinois senator attacked his opponent's mixed racial heritage during a debate.

It is the first time the influential human rights organization has withdrawn support from a candidate in its 36 years of operation.

When Rep. Tammy Duckworth — whose mother is Thai and whose father is American and served in the US Army — called herself a “daughter of the American Revolution,” Kirk made an inaccurate comment about her mixed heritage.

“I had forgotten that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington,” he said during the debate.

Kirk did not immediately offer an apology for his comment, but tweeted one on Friday.

Seth Perlman / AP Photo

In an open letter posted on Medium, HRC president Chad Griffin wrote that his organization initially endorsed the sitting Sen. Kirk “because he has been a strong supporter of our cause time and time again, scoring a 100 percent on HRC’s most recent Congressional Scorecard.”

Indeed, Kirk has been considered one of the best Republican advocates for LGBT rights. He was the first Republican senator to co-sponsor the LGBT Equality Act in January and in June he joined other senators in signing a letter blasting the Food and Drug Administration’s discriminatory blood donation policy for men who have sex with men.

But Griffin wrote that Kirk’s comment Thursday night went “beyond the pale for our standards of leadership.”

“Senator Kirk’s comments about his opponent’s heritage were deeply offensive and racist," Griffin wrote. "His attempt to use Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth’s race as a means to undermine her family’s American heritage and patriotism is beyond reproach.”

The HRC leader said that the group would now throw its support behind Duckworth, whom he said has been a strong ally to the LGBT community.

“We look forward to working with her in the Senate to secure full federal equality for all LGBTQ Americans,” Griffin wrote.

Illinois Senator Mark Kirk Made A Racist Remark About His Opponent’s Heritage

First Republican U.S. Senator Co-Sponsors LGBT Equality Act

Harry Reid: FBI Director "May Have Broken The Law" With Email Announcement

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Clinton and Reid in Las Vegas in August.

Steve Marcus / Reuters

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid joined Hillary Clinton's campaign Sunday in fighting back against the "inappropriate," "unprecedented," and "puzzling" move by FBI Director James Comey to go public with an investigation into new emails related to the probe into her use of a private email server.

The new emails, uncovered during an investigation into disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, husband to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, have rocked the presidential race since Comey informed Congress of their existence on Friday.

Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, said he believes that Comey may have been in violation of a federal law, according to a letter he wrote to the FBI director.

Reid said Comey's actions may have violated the Hatch Act, a federal law that restricts officials from using their role to sway an election. “Through your partisan actions, you may have broken the law,” the letter reads.

The senator alleged Comey was in possession of "explosive information" connecting Donald Trump to Russian officials but was choosing not to release it.

Reid reminded Comey that he supported the FBI Director even when Republicans tried to filibuster his nomination and subsequently delay his confirmation, because, Reid writes, "I believed you to be a principled public servant."

"With the deepest regret, I now see that I was wrong," Reid wrote.

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta also Sunday that Comey had acted prematurely by not waiting until the FBI had more information on the emails, calling the director's announcement “inappropriate” and an “unprecedented step.”

“This is something that has been tossed into the middle of the campaign," Podesta said. "We would have preferred that that not happen, but now that it has happened, we would prefer that Mr. Comey come forward and explain why he took that unprecedented step."

"[Comey] might have taken the first step of actually having looked at them before he did this in the middle of a presidential campaign, so close to the voting," he added.

The renewed email investigation was sparked by a separate FBI investigation into Weiner, after it was revealed that the former congressman allegedly exchanged sexually explicits texts with an underaged girl. Weiner has denied those allegations.

The emails in question were reportedly found on a computer used by both Weiner and Abedin. The couple announced they were separating in August after the New York Post published lewd photos Weiner sent another woman.

CNN reported on Sunday that Clinton and Abedin's lawyers were in talks with the Justice Department and the FBI about the Bureau's approval to search Abedin's emails.

The Wall Street Journal reported that up to 650,000 emails were found on Weiner's laptop and that "metadata on the device suggests there may be thousands sent to or from the private server that the Democratic nominee used." The investigation will take, at a minimum, weeks to sort complete, the newspaper reported.

Carlos Barria / Reuters

Clinton's running mate, Tim Kaine, on Sunday also called Comey’s actions “unprecedented," adding that they were a “violation of normal Justice Department protocol." The Washington Post reported Saturday that DOJ officials had advised Comey against going public for fear of being viewed as meddling in the election.

“Now, this is an unprecedented move...because it happens close to an election which is in violation of normal Justice Department protocol," Kaine told ABC News, "and it involves talking about an ongoing investigation which also violates the protocol and as far as we know now."

In addition to calling Comey’s announcement “puzzling,” Kaine also said he questioned why the FBI director would release information before seeing the emails in question himself.

"Eleven days before an election, why would you talk about an ongoing investigation?,” Kaine said.

“I just have no way of understanding these actions. They’re completely unprecedented. And that’s why I think [Comey] owes the American public more information.”

Brian Snyder / Reuters

The coordinated campaign offensive against the Comey announcement comes a day after Clinton herself told supporters in Daytona Beach, Florida, on Saturday, the announcement was "not just strange — it’s unprecedented.”

The candidate also said that Comey's disclosure was “deeply troubling,” and that “voters deserve to get the full and complete facts.”

Her campaign on Sunday tweeted a video to supporters, calling Comey's original letter to Congress "unbelievably vague" and "light on facts."

Also on Sunday, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace repeatedly grilled Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook on whether the candidate had asked Abedin about the contents of the emails.

Mook said Wallace was “making an inference” that Huma Abedin knew of the emails.

Wallace pressed on: “Well, I’m asking you a direct question. Has Secretary Clinton asked Huma Abedin what was on the laptop that she shared with her husband Anthony Weiner?"

“She hasn’t,” Mook replied, adding that even the notion that the emails were related to Abedin was a hypothetical.

“Why on earth wouldn’t Clinton say to her personal aide was there any stuff on your laptop, and what was it?” Wallace asked

“There’s nothing about Huma Abedin in the letter that was sent out,” Mook said, adding that it was on Comey to release that information.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

The Trump campaign meanwhile on Sunday continued to revel in the chaos Comey's announcement had caused, seizing on the investigation as evidence of Clinton's untrustworthiness.

Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence told CBS News that the FBI's original decision in July finding Clinton hadn't broken the law with her private server use was "deeply troubling."

Pence insinuated that a meeting between former President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch on a plane in June had somehow influenced that decision.

"But we commend the FBI and the director on their decision to keep their word to the Congress and move forward," Pence said of Comey's Friday announcement.

Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

Seizing on the opportunity to open renewed attacks against the Democratic candidate nine days before the election, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told ABC News that a “constant cloud of corruption follows Hillary Clinton.”

Defending Trump’s recent claims that the Clinton email investigation was worse than the Watergate scandal, Conway said, “For the FBI to make this remarkable move, 11 days before the election means there must be something there.”

Comey has said only the emails "appear to be pertinent to the investigation."

“Hillary Clinton could put this all to rest today by asking Huma Abedin to tell us all what is in those emails?,” Conway said, adding the email investigation was not a “vast right-wing conspiracy."

“We know that this is an investigation because her husband is sexting a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. That's how we got back to this place,” Conway said.

Read Harry Reid's letter to James Comey:

LINK: FBI Chief Says He Felt “Obligation” To Reveal New Clinton Email Investigation

LINK: Clinton Calls On FBI To Release All Information On Newly Discovered Emails

In Homestretch To Election Day, Clinton Runs Against Comey

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Brian Snyder / Reuters

DAYTON BEACH, Fla. — She’s used the line at nearly every rally this month. But when Hillary Clinton teed it up the now-famous mantra at a community center here on Saturday afternoon — “when they go low” — she wasn’t just talking about Donald Trump.

“We go high!” the crowd of 900 roared back at Clinton, after she addressed the new FBI activity that blindsided her campaign on Friday.

Over the weekend — on a call with reporters, in press releases, and at stop here in Florida on Saturday — Clinton and her aides took the step of targeting the director of the FBI himself, James Comey, in what has become a 10-day stretch to Election Day without precedent.

“Some of you may have heard about a letter that the FBI director —” Clinton said before voters cut her off sharply with a round of boos.

“Well, if you’re like me you probably have a few questions about it,” she said. “It’s pretty strange — it’s pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information, right before an election.”

The news of the FBI investigation, breaking Friday afternoon with little known about the pretext or purpose of the inquiry, turned the routine canvass kickoff here in Daytona Beach into the venue for Clinton to address voters about the developments of the past 24 hours. Before the candidate spoke, staffers took to the stage with a tape measure, positing a teleprompter just so on either side of the lectern. Packed into the Dickerson Community Center, the hundreds of volunteers waiting to canvass on behalf of Clinton hung onto her every line, booing Comey as if he, not Trump, were the opponent.

On Friday, after Comey sent a letter to members of Congress about the inquiry, the New York Times reported that the investigation stemmed from a separate case — into former Congressman Anthony Weiner, separated from Clinton’s closest aide, Huma Abedin.

Clinton described the letter as an extraordinary and reckless move by Comey so close to Election Day. “It’s not just strange. It’s unprecedented,” she said on Saturday. “And it’s deeply troubling. Voters deserve to get the full and complete facts. And so we’ve called on Director Comey to explain everything right away, put it all out on the table.”

Trump immediately seized on the development at a campaign rally in New Hampshire on Friday, telling voters that the FBI had “re-opened” the investigation it closed earlier this year into Clinton’s email setup. (Comey’s letter does not say the case has been reopened.) "Hillary Clinton's corruption is on a scale we have never seen before,” Trump said. "We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office.”

When news of the new investigation hit on Friday, Clinton appeared unfazed by the crisis unfolding in the final week before Election Day. But 19 months after the discovery of Clinton’s private email server, the candidate and her aides are finishing the campaign the way they started it: under the cloud of an FBI inquiry that taps into the candidate’s biggest vulnerabilities, trustworthiness and favorability.

With Abedin under siege, the candidate and her campaign have assumed a familiar defensive, stalwart posture, powering through with events as planned over the weekend. Philippe Reines, the longtime Clinton hand who came to her defense when the 2013 mayor’s race uncovered a second humiliation, also made his first trip on Clinton’s plane on Saturday since playing Trump in prep sessions for the three presidential debates.

Clinton campaigns on Saturday in Florida.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Asked about Clinton’s state of mind, a Clinton official told reporters that she “took the news like a champ,” describing the candidate as “a happy warrior.”

At her campaign stops this weekend, Clinton tried to embrace the moment. She acknowledged the “ups and downs” of her campaign. She invoked her late mother’s advice: “Everybody gets knocked down. What matters is whether you get back up.” And she promised to “never stop working,” to “never ever quit” — “no matter what they throw at us in these last days.”

The lines reflected a consistent through-line of an often beleaguered campaign. In the absence at points of a cohesive message for Clinton, she an her aides have leaned on one obvious theme: that Clinton is, above all else, a “fighter.”

Last April, the night before Clinton got in the race, senior advisers previewed the campaign message for the first time with a single anonymous quote, provided to the Associated Press: Clinton, the aides said, would run as a “tenacious fighter.” Six months later, after a summer of tightening polls and scrutiny over her private email server, Clinton bounced back with an 11-hour congressional hearing on the terrorist attack in Benghazi, followed by a strong performance in the first Democratic debate. Aides unveiled a new logo on t-shirts, lecterns, and banners: “Fighting For Us, Fighting For Her.”

On Saturday, Clinton fell back into the same theme. Aides argued on that the Comey letter would only motivate Clinton’s base further, as the Benghazi hearing did last fall, leading to a record fundraising drive.

While Trump raises the inquiry on the campaign trail, his aides have accused Clinton of “playing the victim,” as campaign manager Kellyanne Conway put it in an interview Sunday morning on the TODAY show.

“My mother taught me to never ever quit,” Clinton said in Daytona. "That means everybody gets knocked down. What matters is whether you get back up. I’ve been fighting for families and underdogs my entire life. And I’m not stopping now.”

“So no matter what they throw at us in these last days, we’re not gonna back down, we’re not gonna get distracted, we’re not going to get knocked off course.”

'Black Votes Matter': At One Historically Black College, The Movement And The Election Coexist Uneasily

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At left: How many people are voting? At right: How many people are excited to vote for Hillary Clinton?

BuzzFeed News

TALLAHASSEE — Fifty years ago, two Florida A&M students were arrested for sitting next to a white woman on a bus here. The next day, they were rewarded with a cross burned on their front lawn.

The next day, and for months afterward, Florida A&M students boycotted the city’s buses, one of the critical pieces in the larger mid-century Civil Rights movement.

Decades later, on the likely verge of a second Clinton presidency, young black activists are more organized, more active, more influential than they’ve been in decades. There is a new civil rights movement, engaging young black Americans — and colliding with an election activists never really intended to get involved in.

Here in Tallahassee, all these things converge. Clinton will do well with young black voters, but not as well as Barack Obama. Clinton has campaigned on reversing decades of criminal justice policy, but that’s not quite convincing to a group of people attuned to the effects of crime policy from those decades. People here are sick of the “enthusiasm” question, but that doesn’t mean enthusiasm for voting is flooding the campus — not one person at a table of FAMU students, clad in orange shirts, raised their hands at the prospect.

“I’m actually not excited about Hillary Clinton,” said Chelsea Maloney, a student here. Clinton had seemed “so against” Obama in 2008. Now, it’s a “little convenient” for her to be so friendly toward him. Clinton, Jacob Smith said, is too manufactured. “If my vote mattered, or the people’s majority mattered, I feel like we’d have different candidates than we have right now.”

Jessica Floyd, Dominique Parks, and Ryan White — all FAMU students on the cheer team, are voting for Clinton — but inspired to do so when Trump became the Republican Party’s nominee. Floyd wishes she could have cast a ballot for Barack Obama; Clinton is the next best thing. But excited? “Uhhhm, kind of yeah, you know, that my opinion matters,” White said.

“It’s important to have a voice because a vote-less people is a hopeless people,” said Floyd. “How are we supposed to articulate what we want if we can’t vote for who we want to be able to? I just think that Donald Trump definitely isn’t for our type of people. I think Hillary will have more compassion.”

“It’s crazy because they’re begging for our vote now,” said Sharon Washington. “But back then we were dying to vote. So I’m, like, at this point, do you deserve the vote? I don’t think so.”

What happens when you win with the support of an energized, but deeply skeptical bloc of voters?

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This might be a little bit controversial, so I apologize,” warns Raynal Sands, a graphic design major from Miami.

“People try to say that she’s cold hearted and things like that, but I absolutely love the fact that she does not back down in the presence of anyone,” Sands says. “To me, it shows that she’s strong and confident. Women — we can’t be fluffy, and all smiley because then we get run over.”

Sands, for one, is convinced Clinton’s the real thing. And so certain was she that Clinton would be the nominee during the primary, she took the semester off and has been working as the campaign’s organizer on campus since. (“If we had 100 of her,” said Tierra Ward, the campaign’s region director, “things would be 100 times better than what they are.”)

But even on this sunny afternoon in Florida, and even with Sands’ enthusiasm, the task of converting student into voter involves a lot of labor. Bill Clinton was supposed to be here, but Shimon Peres died, and he went to Israel instead. So Sands and Dajuh Sawyer decided to make the most of the afternoon, sending their organizers out two-by-two to register voters, clad in t-shirts reading “Black Votes Matter.”

At Truth Hall, they came upon a student from South Florida named Isabelle Louis, with whom Sands has already spoken. A first year student, Louis was not inclined to vote before coming into contact with Sands, who bounded into a classroom to canvass students. This time, she and Sawyer listened as Louis talked about her classes, why she might make a switch, and try aloud to remember if Hillary Clinton had a famous husband. “I don’t really know much. I’m not voting for Trump, I know that.”

Sands sat sideways, speaking softly as she asked Louis if a political education class would be helpful. The workshop, she argued, would help broaden her thinking politically. They also tried to convince her that casting a vote for the right candidate makes a difference. “Once upon a time,” Sawyer added, “women didn’t have the right to vote.” Louis opened up. She thinks she might be like to become an OB-GYN. The freshman, they were stunned to learn, drives a car on campus. The pair managed to turn the conversation about politics into one about her future.

The Clinton campaign in particular has directed much of its work toward historically black colleges and universities — especially in Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina. Organizers on campus focus on convincing students of why their vote matters, often attempting to delve into personal histories, backgrounds and ambitions before getting to the big ask. Sands says that students who are open to voting for Clinton want to know more about what she believes, even as they express confusion about the electoral college.

“It’s a true test of your will to really keep your purpose and what you’re doing this in mind,” Sands says later. “Sometimes you can get discouraged. Sometimes students will look at me and then they’ll just keep walking,” she said.

“I just have to remember I need them to listen to me—” she paused, then changed to a slightly brighter tone. “You need to at least get your question out. You have to humble yourself and know you’re not doing this for friends. You’re doing this because you want them to register have an impact on their communities.”

In October focus groups, the Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher’s polling firm found two factors dramatically increased vote likelihood among groups like young black voters: learning of the “urgent consequences” of a potential Trump presidency (i.e. his ability to appoint judges or his proposal to implement stop-and-frisk, inflaming racial tensions); and connecting “passion and discontent” with personal capacity to effect change in their communities by voting for local candidates. “When presented with the power of political process, they begin embracing their responsibility to make change happen,” an internal memo shared with BuzzFeed News read.

That this campaign — largely driven by personality in its final months, and questions of nationalism and national identity — might be driven by policy on the smallest increments is sort of an irony. Here, there is a near obsessive emphasis on educating the voting-aged members of the student body. “There are two different versions of what America could look like following this election,” said Ward, the regional director. “So it’s more than just, ‘Are you hype?’” ‘Are you excited?’ It’s more, ‘Do you understand what’s at stake in this election?’”

Terrence Woodbury, an analyst, said, “Amongst low-propensity voters there is a much lower threshold of getting them understand what this election means and how it affects their immediate lives,” he said, saying respondents in two focus groups with young protesters in Charlotte said the candidates didn’t impress them or believed that they’re not talking directly to them, or about their issues. “Connecting that reality to the power that they have to shape that is remarkably impactful in increasing their vote likelihood. It’s all the way from, ‘I am absolutely not participating’ to an absolute ‘yes, I’m voting.’”

Hillary Clinton speaks to people at the Bethune-Cookman University homecoming football game in Daytona Beach, Florida on Saturday.

Brian Snyder / Reuters

“It would be tough for Barack Obama to reach them for how they are right now,” said Alan Williams, a term-limited member of the Florida House of Representatives.

In recent days, young activists in the broader movement often referred to as Black Lives Matter have endorsed Clinton, framing her publicly as an ally of the movement’s goals. Peter Haviland-Eduah, the co-policy chair for Million Hoodies for Justice and Brittany Packnett and DeRay Mckesson of Campaign Zero are the most prominent figures to get behind the campaign. According to a Clinton aide, Packnett and Mckesson met with her at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland for nearly a half-hour. Privately, Mckesson has told friends he walked away quite impressed by Clinton in the intimate setting, though both activists have yet to discuss the meeting in much detail; but vowed to keep dialogue with the activists going, and that she would herself begin the arduous work of building a foundation for her campaign to engage in the work on Nov. 9.

Clinton, who has been the target of direct action from the movement during the campaign, spoke openly with Mckesson and Packnett about how she understands that young people are upset. As president, she said that she’s going to keep fighting to improve the lives of black Americans, but said it was important that young people frustrated with the system use their vote to change it.

Alicia Garza, probably the most public face of the Black Lives Matter Network’s two-dozen chapters, has said she’s personally voted for Clinton to stop Donald Trump, but the organization as a whole is not endorsing her. “I believe we must ask ourselves what it takes to make a candidate feel accountable to the concrete policy demands of a movement," she told Melissa Harris-Perry.

Garza’s position echoes a sentiment in the movement that engagement in electoral politics is not a means to solutions to big problem like ending racism or police brutality — and Clinton, nor the White House or federal government is seen as a vehicle for the kind of change some envision. It’s why the Clinton campaign enlisted validators like Gillum. A son of FAMU, Gillum cast his first ballot at another politically charged time for Al Gore. “I talk a lot about how important that it is that we make this election personal,” Gillum said. “A lot of times when you talk to college students, and frankly when most older people talk to college students, they talk about the election standpoint: ‘People had fought and died for your right to exercise your ability to vote—and you ought to do it.’ I think that’s compelling for some people. But I think still for others they need to know what’s in it for them.”

Gillum understands the youth movement, and thinks the protesters believe in the power of the ballot box. “They’re embodying the seriousness of this moment by taking collective action. I believe that collective action in November is going to lead them to the ballot box.” He said he thinks the protesters know they need to put in policymakers in place who understand the movement and why it’s important — for Clinton, it’s the granularity that she grasps.

Clinton’s devotion to rolling up her sleeves on policy should be a good sign for movement groups have shown a recent inclination to work within the system Clinton believes many young black voters to be frustrated by. The policy platform Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, landed on lawmakers’ desks this summer. In September, Black Youth Project 100 held its first “Build Black Futures Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill.” They engaged directly with lawmakers, including Sen. Cory Booker and Rep. Bobby Scott while holding true to its roots: At a Budget Committee hearing, silent protesters held up signs demanding the government invest in young black people.

When Terence Crutcher, Keith Lamont Scott, and Alfred Olango all were killed by law enforcement in September alone, Clinton got sharper. She called on Charlotte to make public video it had in the Scott case. She told Steve Harvey in an interview the shootings were “unbearable, and it needs to be intolerable. Most surprisingly, Clinton, on a black radio show said she was speaking “directly to white people” when she said that “this is not who we are.”

The movement, then and now was built on something of an unspoken principle as it related to protest, mistreatment, justice and blackness: If something happened to one of us it, in effect, happened to us all.

In this way, FAMU’s civil rights’ history is not difficult to connect to the 2016 election. It's seen in where volunteers gather, near the sign commemorating the students who started the bus boycott. It's in the "Black Votes Matter" t-shirts and the collective feeling that Clinton will have to be held accountable once elected.

Skeptical as they may be of Clinton, it's history and a call to unity that is compelling students to turn out for her.

In 1956, black citizens powered through the bus boycott by ride-sharing. The carpooling system was funded by groups and was so effective that it was even prosecuted in court. Without that unity, it's questionable as to when many of the demands of the bus company would have been met.

The thought crossed Sawyer’s mind as she engaged with the young woman unsure if she was voting. She didn't just ask Louis to commit to vote: She strongly suggested she volunteer to bring “five or 10” people to the polls, too.

Supporters To Donald Trump: Don’t Mess Up This Opportunity

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Trump in Albuquerque on Sunday.

Evan Vucci / AP

LAS VEGAS and ALBUQUERQUE — Nine days before Election Day, Donald Trump’s supporters had a message for him: Keep being Trump, but please don’t screw up this opportunity.

BuzzFeed News attended two rallies Trump held Sunday: one in Las Vegas at the Venetian hotel, and another that filled an aviation hangar in New Mexico, right outside the Albuquerque airport.

His backers were as invigorated as ever, especially in light of the renewed email headlines plaguing Hillary Clinton. “Keep doing what you’re doing,” supporters said they would advise their candidate, who gleefully hammered Clinton all weekend over the email scandal.

But many also said they hope Trump, who is known for his off-the-cuff remarks, keeps his cool and stays on the email script in the few remaining days until Nov. 8.

“Don’t tweet nothing for the next 10 days,” Chad Towe said he would advise the candidate. Towe had driven into Las Vegas from Sacramento earlier this week to volunteer at Trump’s rally.

Hope Villegas, a 43-year-old who lives in Albuquerque, attended the rally there wearing a shirt that said “Deplorable Me,” which featured a Minion-like character with Trump’s hair. She said Trump should “just leave everything alone.”

Priya Anand/BuzzFeed News

“If they come out with some hard hits, because they’re going to, just don’t talk about it,” she said. “But that’s not his nature. He gets hit, he hits back.”

Many supporters interviewed by BuzzFeed News said their main guidance to Trump would be to remain on brand as the election draws nearer. But those people also said he must focus on remaining on message so as to not alienate voters last-minute.

Norman Beerhorst, a racecar engineer who happened to be in town from Indiana for the Las Vegas rally, told BuzzFeed if he could give Trump any advice, it would be to “think about his remarks before he says them.” Like what? The “guy talk,” he said, referring to the video that surfaced earlier this month, in which Trump said he can kiss women without consent and “grab them by the pussy” because “when you’re a star, they let you do it.”

Beerhorst said he “knows a lot of women who were voting for Trump are hesitant now.”

In Albuquerque, Ben Mcelyea, who is retired from the military, echoed a similar sentiment.

“Don’t talk about any scandal stuff. Don’t talk about women. Don’t talk about Anthony Weiner. Just talk about the issues,” Mcelyea said. “Anything can come up. I wouldn’t change anything. You’re in your last week.”

Ron and Christy Anderson of Rio Rancho, New Mexico, said Trump should "stick to his guns" for the next week and a half until Nov. 8.

Priya Anand/BuzzFeed News

“Stay on topic,” said Liz Brown, a 60-year-old from Alamogordo, New Mexico, at the Albuquerque rally. “Talk about Hillary a lot.”

“Keep calm,” said Sunny Rush, 41, from Rio Rancho, New Mexico. “Be persistent with closed borders, vetting, and background checks.”

When Trump last visited Albuquerque in May, the rally became violent as protesters and police clashed. Demonstrators threw rocks and bottles at police officers, and burned shirts. This time, while Trump supporters waited in line, organizers told them not to touch any protesters, and to alert law enforcement if they spotted anyone who clearly wasn’t there to support Trump.

Later, protesters blew siren horns outside the gate, and police formed a barrier around the hangar entrance.

Further down the street, a small scuffle broke out.

There were also some testy moments at the rally in Las Vegas. Matt Fox, who attended the rally but is from Palm Springs, California, shouted slurs at cameras.

Fox told BuzzFeed News Trump should “keep toeing the line that Hillary’s a criminal.”

As for Trump’s messaging over the next week and a half, Mike Henneborn, who works in construction and lives in the outskirts of Albuquerque, said he thinks Trump has improved at “not flying off the handle.”

“When he first started, he used to get a little excited and go off script,” Henneborn said. “He’s done really good at wrangling that in and keeping control of himself.”

Priya Anand reported from Albuquerque. Ellen Cushing reported from Las Vegas.

DHS Secretary Promises Secret Service: We Will Fix Unpaid Overtime Problem

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Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty Images

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — In an agency-wide email to the Secret Service, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson promised to address the salary limits that have prevented hundreds of agents from earning paid overtime during the election, telling agents, "You deserve our full support."

"We must and will fix this," Johnson said in the email, sent on Oct. 28, days after BuzzFeed News and other outlets reported that an annual cap on federal salaries has meant that many agents regularly work overtime free, working around-the-clock hours to protect the candidates and their families in a historically demanding presidential race.

"Throughout this busy election year," Johnson said, "I know that the Secret Service has been working non-stop to protect the presidential and vice presidential candidates and their families, coordinate security for the two conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia and the UN General Assembly, while continuing in your normal protection and law enforcement assignments."

"You have done so with skill, dedication, and professionalism, and without complaint. You deserve our full support."

Johnson also released a public statement on the same day, urging Congress to pass a provision in the House and Senate to raise the Secret Service salary cap during presidential election years, including, retroactively, in 2016. The measure is part of the 2017 Appropriations markup for the Department of Homeland Security. But since Congress has only approved funding at current spending levels, and not through a larger budget bill, the measure has not gone through.

In his email, provided Monday by the Secret Service, Johnson told agents that the unpaid overtime is "another reason why this Department, and its men and women, need from Congress a full-year appropriation rather than funding by short-term continuing resolutions."

The measure would raise the annual cap by about $10,000, from $160,300 to $170,000, during election years. Once overtime drives an agent's aggregate pay beyond the federal limit, they may no longer earn paid overtime, even as they regularly work long past their 50-hour week.

The fix would enable agents to earn more of the hours they work. But during an election, many would still "max out," as agents put it, well before the end of the year. With the demands of the campaign season at an all-time high, many agents assigned to the presidential race stopped earning overtime as early as this spring.

For many inside the Secret Service, the pay controversy is seen most of all as a morale issue. On the road, it is not uncommon to hear agents remark on the fact they routinely work hours for which they will never be paid while traveling with the campaigns, working for long stretches away from families at home. (And agents don't forget it: Every two weeks, a line on their pay stub notes the dollar amount of capped out overtime.)

The salary limit has also been a source of resentment outside election years.

One federal agent recalled maxing out in the wake of 9/11. The devastation of the attack required grueling and important work.

By the end of the year, his overtime worked out to 54 cents an hour.

LINK: Secret Service Agents Protecting Candidates Aren’t Getting Paid For All Their Work

One Week Out, Clinton Talks Emails On The Stump

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Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

KENT, Ohio — Eight days from the election, Hillary Clinton’s closing argument now includes a brief aside: “We are about to enter the final week of this election… But let me start with this: I am sure a lot of you may be asking what this new email story is about…”

Kicking off the first of two rallies here in Ohio, during one of her final swings through the crucial battleground state, Clinton diverted from a speech targeting Donald Trump’s foreign policy credentials to address the new headlines about the FBI and her private email server.

Voters might be wondering "why in the world,” as Clinton put it, "the FBI would decide to jump into an election with no evidence of any wrongdoing, with just days to go.”

"That is a good question,” Clinton said at Kent State University, where more than 2,400 people packed into the atrium and watched from above on balconies two levels up.

The news that FBI Director James Comey would take additional investigative steps related to Clinton’s private email server, months after not recommending charges in a formal inquiry earlier this year, came as a shock to the candidate and her aides last Friday. The following day, at a rally for volunteers in Daytona Beach, Clinton pushed back against Comey himself and promised her supporters that she would not back down in the face of a what she said was a “strange” and “unprecedented” move by the FBI so close to a presidential election.

On Monday, Clinton sought to address the issue in more depth, acknowledging, as she has at points this year, that her private email setup has raised legitimate concerns in the minds of voters. (At other times in the last 19 months, Clinton has been more dismissive of the email flap, offering reporters defiant and defensive responses to questions.)

"First of all,” she said here in Kent, "for those of you who are concerned about my using personal email, I understand, and as I’ve said: I’m not making excuses, I’ve said it was a mistake and I regret it.”

Clinton told the crowd that the FBI is now “apparently” looking at the emails of one of her closest aides, Huma Abedin, the campaign’s vice chair and the separated wife of former congressman Anthony Weiner, whose sexually charged messages to an underage girl, part of a separate ongoing investigation, reportedly led to the FBI's new activity.

“By all means, they should look at them, and I am sure they will reach the same conclusion they did when they looked at my emails for the last year,” Clinton said.

That Clinton is talking about Abedin’s emails in what would otherwise have been a speech focused entirely on Trump and his fitness to serve, comes as a blow to a campaign that, until Friday, had nearly every advantage in the homestretch to Election Day.

The approach, on Monday, seemed designed to reassure supporters that nothing has changed. "There is no case here. And they said it wasn’t even a close call,” she added, making a reference, Clinton aides said, to Comey’s testimony this fall, when he told members of Congress that for those involved in the investigation at the FBI, “this was not a close call.”

How voters will react to the news remains to be seen, though initial polling seems to indicate a mixed, and partisan, response — something Clinton echoed on Monday.

"I think most people have decided a long time ago what they think about all this," she said.

"Now what people are focused on is choosing the next president and commander in chief of the United States of America."

LINK: In Homestretch To Election Day, Clinton Runs Against Comey

LINK: 24 Totally Normal Hours On The Trail With Hillary Clinton


Justice Department Promises To Investigate Clinton Emails As Quickly As Possible

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John Minchillo / AP

Days after a political firestorm erupted over newly discovered emails related to Hillary Clinton's use of a private server, the Department of Justice assured lawmakers Monday that it would conduct the investigation as quickly as possible.

The department sent letters to lawmakers Monday promising to work "as expeditiously as possible" and to "dedicate all necessary resources" to the investigation into the newly uncovered emails. The letter was a response to Democratic lawmakers who, on Saturday, demanded more information about the emails.

The new emails came to light Friday after FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to lawmakers stating that his agency had "learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation" into Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

In an internal memo, Comey further explained that he felt an "obligation" to notify lawmakers about the development. But he provided few other details, leaving observers to guess about the content of the emails discovered while investigating the sexting habits of Anthony Weiner, the former New York congressman and now-estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

Donald Trump seized on the disclosure Monday, telling supporters at rallies that it was further proof that Clinton had broken the law "over and over again."

"Hillary is not the victim, the American people are the victims," he said.

For her part, Clinton took on Comey at a rally Monday in Ohio, telling the crowd, "there is no case here."

She also criticized the FBI's move to come forward "with no evidence of any wrongdoing with just days to go" for the hotly contested presidential election.

“I think most people have decided a long time ago what they think about all this,” Clinton said. "Now what people are focused on, is choosing the next president and commander in chief of the United States of America."

FBI Director James Comey in Minnesota on Oct. 16, 2016.

Jim Mone / AP

Comey has faced considerable bipartisan criticism for his handling of the email investigation, with Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) saying in a letter over the weekend that the director's actions "demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be a clear intent to aid one political party over another."

The White House, meanwhile, stopped short of joining the chorus of criticism, with Press Secretary Josh Earnest telling reporters on Monday that he would neither defend nor criticize Comey's decision.

"The president doesn't believe that he's secretly strategizing to benefit one candidate or one political party," Earnest said of Comey. "He's in a tough spot, and he's the one who will be in a position to defend his actions in the face of significant criticism from a variety of legal experts, including individuals who served in senior Department of Justice positions in administrations led by presidents in both parties."

Also Monday, the FBI began loading the emails into a special computer program that will allow agents to analyze their content, the New York Times reported. It remains unclear, however, how much investigators can get done before Nov. 8.

Read the Department of Justice's Monday letter to lawmakers here:

LINK: Clinton Calls On FBI To Release All Information On Newly Discovered Emails

LINK: FBI Chief Says He Felt “Obligation” To Reveal New Clinton Email Investigation

LINK: One Week Out, Clinton Talks Emails On The Stump


Democrats And Latino Leaders Expect — And Pray For — Record Hispanic Turnout

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Andrew Harnik / AP

MIAMI — In true Miami fashion, the rains came quick and heavy — at least four times — as Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony and Gente de Zona performed at a get-out-the-early-vote concert for Hillary Clinton Saturday under the glass-rimmed hotels and residential towers of downtown Miami. The mostly Latino crowd of 7,500 people moved fast, not to leave, but to retrieve their umbrellas. They weren't going anywhere.

And by the time Lopez looked ready to wrap her set, Clinton came onstage. Her lines could have used some workshopping (after J.Lo's "Let's Get Loud" she said, "Well, I say, let’s get loud at the voting booth!") but no one left. They cheered for her, seemed genuinely excited to see her standing with the divorced Lopez and Anthony, and when she echoed Michelle Obama's now-famous line "When they go low..." the crowd thundered back in unison with Clinton "we go high!"

This crowd was packed with young Cubans, Venezuelans, and Puerto Ricans — the Latino vote everyone talks about.

Ten days earlier, Clinton took the stage after her last debate in working-class and predominantly Mexican-American North Las Vegas, sharing a stage with Mexican music legends Vicente Fernandez and Los Tigres del Norte. The older debate watch party crowd went wild as Bill Clinton embraced Fernandez, while she addressed the audience.

Hours earlier, when the sun was still out and Clinton appeared on the big screen, walking towards the debate site, the crowd gave its first big cheer of the night. Local Spanish-language radio DJs helped fuel turnout for the event with PSAs. Ultimately, the campaign's 2,700 RSVPs turned into 6,500 energized attendees.

This is the Latino vote, too.

These kinds of events, and the attentiveness of Clinton's campaign toward Latino voters, may be paying unexpected dividends. The campaign is encouraged by early voting in Clark County, which is 31% Hispanic and where 75% of Nevada residents live, as well as other states with large Latino populations like Colorado and Arizona. While black turnout in the early voting states has been lower (and potentially troubling for Democrats) with President Obama no longer on the ballot, Latino and Asian voters are showing apparent strong enthusiasm for voting so far.

There is excitement from Democrats and Latino leaders, but privately also concern: What happens if Latinos don't turn out after historic attacks on Mexicans and immigrants and Trump on the ballot?

"Yes, I’m worried, I don’t want to say the worry is just for the Latino community, but for the country," said Mi Familia Vota executive director Ben Monterroso, whose group works on registering Hispanic voters and getting them out to vote in key swing states. "If we don’t turnout, what happened?"

He said that while he expects a record number of Latinos to vote, there would still be 10 million out of 27 million eligible Hispanics that didn't register to vote and five to six million people who were eligible but didn't become US citizens. "So we have a lot of work to do. I’m always afraid, as a good organizer, the campaign doesn’t end until the day after election day."

Andrew Harnik / AP

Albert Morales, a Democratic veteran who ran Hispanic engagement efforts for the DNC, credited the campaign's Nevada state director Jorge Neri for "putting on what will probably go down as one of the most consequential events in presidential Latino politics" with Fernandez and Los Tigres del Norte. "Sometimes people need to see that," he said, noting the unexpected turnout. "That when you make an investment there is a return." And while he said he expects record turnout on Nov. 8, he too noted how devastating falling short would be for future elections.

"Of course, it would be harmful," Morales continued, adding that it would be a tough sell for the Ben Monterroso's of the world engaging donors a year from now looking towards 2018. "How do you go to donors and say, 'I need $300,000 for a voter registration effort in South Texas' [after depressed turnout]? Of course it's going to hurt your argument."

But while Latino leaders expect big Hispanic turnout, they are also angry that Democrats and progressive groups have not looked to expand their investment beyond traditional battleground states.

Within the Clinton campaign there is increasing confidence that Latinos will show up to vote in unprecedented numbers, with two staffers telling BuzzFeed News they believe Clinton's margin could reach an unheard of 80%. (Obama's 71% figure was widely seen as impressive.) Along the same lines, Romney's 27% support was considered to be dismal but Trump is expected to achieve a historically awful number from the Hispanics he claims love him. Still, a wide margin is one thing — big league turnout is another.

"If Latinos don’t turn out, it would be horrible," said one of the campaign's top Latino staffers, adding that they expect record voting.

And with Election Day barreling closer, it's not just Democrats who want to see Hispanics punish Trump.

"If after Trump called Mexicans 'rapists,' attacked Judge Gonzalo Curiel, attacked Alicia Machado, kicked out Jorge Ramos and Jose Diaz-Balart from press events, never gave one national Spanish interview and spent his entire campaign hitting immigrants — Latinos still don't go out and vote in massive numbers against him, then my community will have lost its right to speak," said Republican strategist and CNN commentator Ana Navarro.

She said Hispanics will not be taken seriously if they do not react to Latino immigrants being Trump's punching bag for 18 months. And true to the anti-Trump passion she has brought to her 2016 TV appearances, Navarro said Hispanics should vote unless they are healing broken bones in traction, "are in a coma or are being held hostage, or have been kidnapped by Martians — there is not one damn excuse not to go out and exercise the power of your vote. Not one."

"If we let that happen, we are laying the foundation to be at best ignored, at worst attacked in future elections. I can't even bear to think about it."

Black Democrats Have A Simple Explanation For Low Turnout: Obama's Not On The Ballot

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Ethan Miller / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Weeks ago, on a kickoff call for the final stretch of the election with the Democratic National Committee’s Black Caucus, Interim DNC Chair Donna Brazile seemed concerned about the amount of resources at her disposal to turn out the black vote.

“We might not have the resources that we need but we’re still going to send you everything we’ve got,” Brazile said, offering up organizers things like posters and robocalls, or the president urging people to get out of vote, saying she needed voter protection lawyers in all 50 states because she didn't trust Republicans. “I know their track record. I know what they're going to try to do.”

“Please, please, please,” she pleaded. “Just make sure you're doing something that raises the level of visibility of our entire ticket. We need every voter, we need everyone.”

Then, Black Caucus Chair Virgie Rollins followed up. Pleading with organizers to do everything they could to get the black vote out, she reflected on the recent past: Black voters lined up en masse to vote for President Obama’s re-election largely because of the racial pride his candidacy engendered. Since Trump’s candidacy was doing the same for many white voters, Rollins told her organizers to tell people that this election is the “most crucial.”

Brazile’s opening remarks, as well as those by Rollins, were recounted Tuesday to BuzzFeed News by two independent sources on the call as evidence of unease about black turnout even before Clinton and Trump took the debate stage on Long Island. That anxiety has been validated by recent data showing poor early turnout from black voters in vote-rich Florida, a key battleground for Clinton that, if she wins, makes Donald Trump’s path to the presidency quite difficult.

FiveThirtyEight reported the five counties in Florida with the highest percentage of black voters are not on pace with the statewide average of 79.4 in 2012. Gadsden County, near the state's capital, had only reached 60% of all early in-person voting and vote by mail at the same point in 2012.

Republican efforts have tried to quash early voting, the results of which often overwhelmingly favor Democrats. But it’s unclear if it’s had an effect on black turnout in a place like North Carolina, for instance, where just 43.7% of votes cast have been by Democrats (down from 49% in 2012, though Democratic ballots still outpace Republican ballots), and ballots cast by black voters are down 15% from the same day in 2012. While Clinton will likely see gains in some states based on outsize enthusiasm from Latino and Asian voters based on early returns, a diminished black electorate would have potentially damaging consequences in key states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina, as well as the upper Midwest.

Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP, called the state “ground zero in the intentional, surgical efforts by Republicans to suppress the voice of voters.” But many Democrats warned against using voter suppression tactics as a reason for lower turnout, as many said they were turning their focus toward the latter half of this week that historically drives numbers in early voting.

“My thing is you can’t compare 2008 and 2012 black turnout because of the Obama factor,” said a Democratic strategist with ties to the campaign and party apparatus. “The numbers are low [so] there is still that difference, but I do agree that not enough has been done to engage the black community, and people have been telling the DNC and [the campaign] this for months.

“They thought with Trump on the ballot there was no way a majority of black folk would vote for him, which is true. But you still need to get people to the polls for Hillary.”

More than a half-dozen Democrats who spoke with BuzzFeed News Tuesday are expecting to see more in the last week of the election. Jarvis Green, a Washington-based media and communications strategist, said more resources are needed to engage black voters, and that the party should be “more creative” with how it drives souls to the polls and utilizes ground forces and trusted sites like black media and black-owned newspapers. He said it also was incumbent upon Democrats to identify community leaders who know how to reach voters.

“I’m not sure Democratic organizers are paying close enough attention to the sluggish black early vote numbers as those on the ground in states like Florida,” he said. “Conventional wisdom suggests the numbers should be close near the number in 2008 and 2012. That’s wishful thinking, but an aggressive, coordinated push still must be executed as we get closer to Election Day.”

Still, others warned against expecting numbers on par with 2012.

Michael Blake, a New York City assemblyman, said Democrats need to be “proportional with our expectations” given that Obama isn't on the ballot. Still, Blake said he liked the enthusiasm he saw campaigning for Clinton in North Carolina because sporadic voters are showing up overall.

“The level of direct engagement that I saw at North Carolina A&T, for example, of students who were saying among themselves that they already voted or were asking where to vote early — in addition to the three church visits that I made where people had early voting materials located near their churches — showed an attentiveness on the ground that is encouraging and exciting,” Blake said in an email to BuzzFeed News.

One of the complaints among many young Democrats was about the lack of young black surrogates in the states talking to young black voters in particular about why it’s important to vote in this election. The DNC deployed a bus tour with electeds, operatives, and celebrities hitting HBCUs and other communities; Democrats launched I Will Vote; and the Clinton campaign infamously announced a Jay Z concert this week in Cleveland to engage young black voters and remind them of the election.

“I think voter turnout will pick up in the coming days as we get closer to Election Day,” said Jaime Harrison, chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party. “We are seeing good numbers in parts of the South mimicking 2012 numbers. The Clinton campaign has a superior ground operation. I have seen it firsthand in North Carolina.”

Democrats continuing to engage the “Obama coalition,” especially the key bloc of low-propensity black voters that made up his support in 2008 and 2012, has been the central focus of the robust, if informal, campaign of Cornell Belcher. The Washington-based Democratic delivered an ominous, numbers-based breakdown of his analysis about what it takes for Democrats to win elections.

“These Obama voters — you can’t treat them like they’re base Democratic voters because they’re not base Democratic voters,” he said in a recent interview with BuzzFeed News. “They came into the process inspired and excited by Barack Obama. Yes, they’re more in line with Democrats on almost every issue. But before Obama, they had decided that voting was not the primary vehicle for them bringing about change to their communities. It was a whole array of things from volunteering, onward. But Obama made them think about voting and connecting change to politics. And when he steps off the stage, that cynicism returns. Well, we’ve got to speak to that. If we don’t speak to that, we lose them — we lose them, we lose the future.”

Rick Wade, an adviser to the Clinton campaign who served as a principal to try to drive and turn out the black vote for Obama’s campaigns, said the idea of Clinton turning out Obama’s coalition is unrealistic. Sure, Wade said, if the Clinton campaign could build that kind of coalition, it would be a winning formula. “But I’ve never had any expectation that her numbers would meet or exceed” the president’s.

“It will be [her] ground game that will deliver,” said Wade, adding that he’s seen a lot of pro-Clinton enthusiasm and excitement in Florida that he believes will carry to Clinton to victory. However, he warned against using Obama’s turnout number as a “barometer” for Clinton — even as black voters understand what’s on the line and as many cast an anti-Trump vote.

“I still think that we’ll still have very strong numbers,” Wade said. But “it should be remembered” that the inspiration of Obama’s candidacy was “different, and that there the idea of an African-American president and what that presented was really a different kind of inspiration to vote.”

RNC's Lawyers Try To Distance Themselves From Trump's "Rigged Election" Claims

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Reince Priebus speaks at the Republican National Convention.

Jeff Swensen / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — At the end of 2017, the Republican National Committee is slated to be freed from decades-old federal court oversight that limits the party's activities when it comes to "ballot security."

In other words, after nine presidential elections, the national Republican Party is set to have more freedom to engage in poll monitoring activities without an automatic court bar on any voter fraud-related efforts at polling places.

But Democrats are now arguing in federal court that Donald Trump's "rigged election" claims and his efforts to send "watchers" to polling places mean the Republican National Committee can't be trusted with that power. The Republican Party's lawyers responded on Monday by attempting to distance the party from Trump's campaign.

On Friday, a federal judge in New Jersey will hold a hearing on the request by the Democratic National Committee to hold the RNC in contempt and extend the order that restrict's the party's activities — for the next two presidential elections.

In the meantime, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Vazquez also has ordered the RNC to turn over potentially significant information about its Election Day plans regarding any "ballot security" efforts and any coordination to that end with the Trump campaign.

In the RNC's filing earlier Monday, the committee's general counsel submitted a 16-page declaration that, for several pages, explained how the Trump campaign's activities should not be attributed to the RNC.

"On behalf of the RNC, I have made clear to the Trump campaign that the RNC cannot and will not be involved in any way with ballot security activities or Election Day operations," RNC chief counsel John R. Phillippe Jr. wrote.

Throughout the Monday filings, the RNC painted a picture of a wholly independent presidential campaign, with the RNC's lawyers arguing, "The RNC has likewise never authorized the Trump campaign to act on its behalf. Just the opposite. The RNC has repeatedly informed its staff and the Trump campaign that neither Donald Trump nor his campaign speaks or acts for or on behalf of the RNC."

As to Trump's focus on voter fraud claims specifically, Phillippe stated, "In August 2016, when I perceived that Mr. Trump was likely to emphasize vote fraud in his campaign, I started to put an even greater emphasis on training regarding the consent decree than in past cycles."

The strong filings were a marked contrast from the RNC's public response in recent weeks to Trump's claims. In mid-October, Politico wrote, "Party chairman Reince Priebus has not refuted the notion that the election is rigged; the RNC declined requests for comment."

Later, when Priebus did comment, he backed up Trump's claims, saying on CBS News' Face the Nation, "I think he’s trying to also tell his folks to watch out for this fraud that might occur."

Nonetheless, the RNC is arguing in court that it has nothing to do with those efforts.

In a filing late Monday night (first noted by law professor Rick Hasen), however, the DNC's lawyers pointed to what they allege are specific instances in Nevada where they say the RNC is engaged in the very type of "ballot security initiatives" barred by the consent decree. The examples included one statement from a former federal prosecutor who submitted a text message, which she says she received from a woman she had met at a Las Vegas early voting site. In the text, the woman says she is there on behalf of the RNC.

The underlying case — Democratic National Committee v. Republican National Committee — originated out of allegations of election-related wrongdoing by Republicans in New Jersey in 1981. The lawsuit led to an agreement, called a consent decree, that the RNC and New Jersey Republican State Committee would not engage in efforts to "deter qualified voters from voting" through "ballot security activities" focused on minority communities. The decree has been amended and extended multiple times since, most recently in 2009.

Fast-forward to 2016, and Democratic lawyers argue that the RNC has violated the consent decree, which is due to expire on Dec. 1, 2017. The penalty for such a violation is dramatic — an eight-year extension of the agreement.

Trump's focus on a "rigged election" and at encouraging supporters to "watch" voting in "certain areas" led the DNC's lawyers to file a request that the RNC be held in contempt for violating the consent decree. Such a finding, however, would require evidence that the Republican Party is supporting those efforts.

In the DNC's Oct. 26 filing, lawyers claim "there is now ample evidence that Trump has enjoyed the direct and tacit support of the RNC in its 'ballot security' endeavors" — pointing to comments from Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, and campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, that "ballot integrity" and "monitor[ing]" efforts were being coordinated with the RNC.

Via assets.documentcloud.org

In the Monday filing, however, the RNC's lawyers struck back — repeatedly distancing themselves from Trump, with the RNC's chief counsel noting, "The Republican Party's presidential nominee is not a voting member or officer of the RNC. ... In the case of Donald J. Trump, he is not — and never has been — a member of the RNC."

Phillippe references several memos that he has sent regarding his efforts to ensure that the RNC adheres to the consent decree in the upcoming election.

An attempt to avoid the consent decree being extended has led the RNC, as Phillippe wrote in one of those memos, "Because of uncertainty about the Consent Decree’s exact boundaries and the severe consequences of a violation, there are some activities we describe as 'prohibited' that we strongly believe are actually permitted, but which we avoid out of an abundance of caution."

In addition, Phillippe noted an Aug. 13 memorandum that he sent to Trump's campaign lawyer, Donald McGahn of Jones Day, about the campaign's "recruitment" of "election observers" in some parts of the country.

"I am writing to confirm that neither Mr. Trump nor any employees or agents of his campaign are agents of the RNC with respect to such comments or activities," Phillippe wrote.

The original judge who oversaw the case for decades, Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise, died in 2015. As of Oct. 27, Chief Judge Jerome Simandle reassigned the case to Judge Vazquez, who held a telephone conference that afternoon with the parties regarding the DNC's request. Vazquez was nominated to the bench in early 2015 by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate in January.

In addition to setting the 5 p.m. Wednesday deadline for the RNC to turn over relevant information regarding alleged ballot security or voter fraud efforts, the DNC's reply to the RNC's Monday filing is due 5 p.m. Thursday.

Oral arguments on the DNC's motion are set for 10 a.m. Friday.

Hillary Clinton Falsely Claims She Was In New York On 9/11

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Twitter: @charliespiering

Hillary Clinton falsely claimed Tuesday she was in New York City during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The Democratic presidential nominee spoke at a campaign rally in Sanford, Florida, and discussed the importance of tackling terrorism — as well as her readiness to lead.

"I know what happened not far from here at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, I was in New York City on 9/11 as one of the two senators," Clinton told supporters. "I will defeat ISIS."

Clinton, then a senator, was in her Washington, DC, home during the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. She spent the day with other members of Congress in the Capitol, and returned to New York the next day.

Robert F. Bukaty / AP

A photo taken in the aftermath of the attack showed her wearing a dust mask at Ground Zero on Sept. 12, along with Sen. Charles Schumer, Gov. George Pataki, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and New York Police Department Commissioner Bernard Kerrick.

"After a long, sleepless night in Washington, I flew to New York with Chuck Schumer, my partner in the Senate, on a special plane operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency," Clinton wrote in her book, Hard Choices. "The city was in lockdown and we were the only ones in the sky that day, except for the Air Force fighters patrolling overhead."

The Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to a BuzzFeed News request for comment.

In her book, Clinton described the horror she felt from the terrorist attacks as well as her sense of responsibility to helping New Yorkers.

She caught the last train back to Washington that night, she wrote.

"[The damage] was crushing," she wrote. "New Yorkers were going to need a lot of help to recover, and it was now our job to make sure they got it."

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