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Hillary Clinton’s 272 EV Firewall

Time for Dems to freak out again in the aftermath of the latest “email scandal that isn’t really a scandal” whipped up by FBI Director James Comey.

But as Matt Rettenmund at Boy Culture points out, Clinton has a solid firewall of at least 272 electoral votes. Look at that map – do you really think she’s not going to win at least all the blue states above?

That’s without Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada and Iowa.

I’m still thinking she takes Nevada and North Carolina, which is another 21 EVs.  Just saying…

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Tony Award Winner Leslie Odom Jr. Sings Sara Bareilles’ Ode To This Election – “Seriously”

When public radio show This American Life asked singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles to write a song envisioning the subtext of our outgoing President Barack Obama as he views this election cycle, and specifically Donald Trump’s ‘deplorable’ behavior, Miss B delivered in spades.

Titled “Seriously”, Tony Award winner Leslie Odom Jr. for Hamilton provides the depth, acuity and appropriate irony. Watch below.

Text of the song:

Let’s start with hope
I threw it in the middle like a skipping stone
The ripples won, son of a gun
Some would not have thought so
But I stand here Commander in Chief
And I take that seriously

But along the way
A rogue ripple turned tidal wave
In reaction to what I tried to do
A rebirth of a nation’s hatred
Red, white and blue
Is black in there too?
Seriously?

One man
Rewriting the book on bad behavior
Maybe cheats the neighbors
Feels he gets what they pay for
We can’t
Pat him on the back and send him on through
No man’s ignorance will ever be his virtue

Is this the best we can be?
Seriously?

Let’s talk of fear
And why I don’t bring it in here
It’s a dangerous word, it spooks the herd
And we all bleed in the stampede
Fear makes a false friend indeed
And I take it seriously

So hear me now
Before the truth gets drowned out
By a demagogue flexing
A demagogue flexing
He’s history repeating

Angry?
Am I angry?
You ask am I angry?
And I’m at a loss for words
After all we’ve done
Every battle hard won
Every hair gone gray
In the name of this place
In a history plagued
With incredible mistakes
Still I pledge my allegiance to these
United divided States
Seriously

Let’s end with “why?”
It’s a question I
Want to ask of us as a populace
Why not take our time or the weight of this story
Seriously?

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News Round-Up: October 28, 2016

Some news stories you may have missed.:

• NBC is considering a Will & Grace revival!

• Talk about dying on the Vine! Twitter is pulling the plug on it’s six-second cousin.

• GLAAD says it’s time we adopt the acronym LGBTQ versus the current LGBT when referring to the community.

• The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of a Virginia transgender student over the right to use bathrooms that align with his gender identity.

• Jennifer Lopez will star in a live TV production of BYE BYE BIRDIE for NBC.

• Raven-Symoné leaving ‘The View’ for ‘That’s So Raven’ spinoff

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Campaign Ad Celebrates Female Pioneers In Politics

From USA Today:

A new ad from a political action committee is focused on the possibility of Hillary Clinton making history as the first woman president of the United States.

The ad — titled Man Smart (Woman Smarter) and featuring the song of the same name — opens with a shot of Michelle Obama and her quote: “So much history yet to be made.” It then rolls through a “who’s who” of pioneers in women’s political history including the first woman Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman vice presidential candidate, Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the first African-American woman secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

The ad then pauses on a still of an open presidential lectern in the White House with the words “It’s time” suspended above. Next, we see a black-and-white still of a smiling Clinton. “Vote Hillary. #FirstWoman,” the ad concludes.

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FBI Announces Emails That “Appear To Be Pertinent” To Clinton Email Case

Anthony Weiner and estranged wife Huma Abedin

FBI Director James Comey sent a brief letter to select members of Congress to inform them that, in the process of investigating former Congressman Anthony Weiner’s “sexting” scandal, emails potentially related to Hillary Clinton have been discovered.
Weiner is married to Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Clinton. Apparently, the laptop used by Weiner to send inappropriate texts to a teenage girl was also used occasionally at home by Abedin.

According to one federal official the emails in question number in the thousands.

From the New York Times:

In a letter to Congress, the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said that emails had surfaced in an unrelated case, and that they “appear to be pertinent to the investigation.”

Mr. Comey said the F.B.I. was taking steps to “determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.” He said he did not know how long it would take to review the emails, or whether the new information was significant.

Mr. Trump seized on the F.B.I. action on Friday at a rally in New Hampshire. To cheers of “lock her up” from his supporters, Mr. Trump said: “Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we have never seen before. We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office.”

After deriding the F.B.I. for weeks as inept and corrupt, Mr. Trump went on to praise the law enforcement agency.

“I have great respect for the fact that the F.B.I. and the D.O.J. are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made,” Mr. Trump said, referring also to the Department of Justice. “This was a grave miscarriage of justice that the American people fully understand. It is everybody’s hope that it is about to be corrected.”

While this all sounds delightfully scandalous for Trump and company, the truth is we don’t know what is contained in these emails. There’s no apparent crime here in that Clinton wasn’t “hiding” these emails.

In that all of Clinton’s aides’ email have already been examined, this “new” batch of communications could all be duplicates of what’s already been examined.

Trump is already announcing “corruption” and “criminal schemes” when in fact, Clinton nor her campaign were not in possession of these emails.

As Pete Williams of NBC News reported just now, the e-mails Comey announced today were NOT originally withheld by Clinton or campaign. Williams says that one FBI source told him, “I don’t sense alarm bells going on within the FBI and the Justice Dept.”

Williams, who is not a pundit but a respected straight-up journalist, has more information than any other reporter. According to Williams, the recently discovered emails are not from Hillary Clinton.

What is odd is that Comey shares so little info about the emails. And by doing so, he creates more questions and angst than answers.

Clearly, he was trying to be transparent by announcing the discovery of the emails. Had he waited until after the election, it would have appeared politically motivated.

But by offering so little info (three short paragraphs) it opens the door to a lot of speculation based on no facts.

What should happen quickly, for all Americans, is that he come forward and clarify what it is the FBI believes they have discovered.

You can read FBI Director Comey’s full letter here.

See NBC News Pete Williams report below:

UPDATE: Hillary Clinton addressed the newly discovered emails immediately, calling on the FBI to release all info regarding the emails as soon as possible.

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New Music: Aston “Circles”

I think the title “Circles” is very appropriate for the state of things here at The Randy Report as we feel like the last two weeks of the election cycle seem set on a constant “spin” cycle.

“Circles” is the lead single from LGBTQ ally and self-described pansexual Aston’s self-titled debut EP.

Sonically, the dance track sounds like the love child of an early Madonna groove that went on a date with classic Bananarama. Pop-y, bright, loose and airy – the vocals and production keep the vibe light and fun.

Via Aston’s official website:

The road to her debut EP was a long and winding one, from the little girl who posed like Marilyn Monroe in the mirror, sang along to Celine Dion and danced to MC Hammer on the TV to a rebellious teenage bride whose ambitions had to take a back seat when the father of her child was sent to prison, leaving Aston to step up and raise her daughter alone.

Those experiences are captured in the high-energy dance-floor beats and rhythms of her music, the self-penned “Freak (Dance with Me),” which expresses her freewheeling views of sexual liberation in its menage a trois scenario: “There’s two boys with one girl/She doesn’t know what to think/But by the end of the night/I bet they’ll turn her into a freak.”

“I never knew how to identify myself until I saw the definition of pansexual,” she says about her own sexual orientation. “It is the word that would best describe me. I don’t look at a person’s gender, gender identity, appearance, age or race. It’s all about the quality of their internal spirit.”

Songs like “Miss Me,” “Need U ASAP” and the tribal percussive “Pulse” ooze sexuality and urge people to free their libidos, taking away the shame of desire and instead, celebrating it. “Smells Like Love,” which starts as a piano ballad before segueing into a feverish ode to animal attraction, is a tribute to her love of Disney, a nod to The Lion King’s “Can You Feel The Love Tonight?” Bullied in school for her overt sexuality, Aston is committed to speaking out against that kind of activity and is a vocal supporter of LBGTQ causes.

Currently available on iTunes. You can catch the lyric video for “Circles” below.

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GDP Grows By 2.9% – Biggest Gain Since 2014

Donald Trump can rant and rave all he wants to about how “disastrous” and “terrible” the U.S. economy is and how we are headed in the wrong direction, but the facts suggest otherwise.

The Wall Street Journal’s headline: “U.S. Economy Roars Back, Grew 2.9% in Third Quarter – Growth rate was the fastest recorded in two years”

Reuters: “Wall St. rises amid robust GDP data”

More from USA Today:

The economy bounced back from a prolonged slump in the third quarter as exports surged, businesses replenished depleted stocks and consumer spending picked up moderately.

The nation’s gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced in the economy, increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.9%, the Commerce Department said Friday, the biggest gain in two years. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast 2.6% growth.

Additionally, exports surged by 10% helping to close the trade gap.