GO BLUE!

It is after 11 bells on Halloween. All my favor-ite little ones are inside now, gettin' sick on candy if not asleep. Down comes the Halloween image on the header and up goes the sky blue of Manchester City for their match in late afternoon against 'Lona, a blue that is also a close approximation of Hillary Clinton's campaign blue and of the same genus as Pitt's blue.

Tomorrow is also one week from the most momentus Election Day in at least 150 years in America, a day that I think will be blue, but it's a close thing. In support of all Sky Blue goes up, Halloween orange and black comes down. Now, I really mean it, good night.

"FBI Making Inquiry Into Ex-Trump Campaign Manager's Foreign Ties"-NBC

It is ABOUT TIME. 

What in the name of all that is orange is going on on Rocky Top?

On October 8, three weeks ago, scholar-"Volunteers" Trump, fuck you from the University of Tennessee were the ninth-ranked school in the country in the discipline of Gridiron Art and Science. They traveled that day to College Station Texas to play the "Aztecs" of A&M, themselves number 8 in the country. The "Schol-Vols" lost credibly, in two overtimes, 45-38.

Previous to that they had beaten #25 JawJa "between the hedges" and the week before that had dispatched their yearly tormentor Florida, #19. That was coach Butch Jones signature win in his two-plus seasons in Knoxville. And previous to that they had beaten then unranked, now #23 VaTech.
Damn impressive.

The week after the the hard loss to A&M they got knocked silly by Alabama 49-10 in Knoxville. Those who get their corn from a jar could rightly have hoped for a less comprehensive defeat but c'mon, 'Bama's Bama. So that was two losses in a row following five straight W's.

Okay! Time to get the cobwebs out, if 'Bama hadn't knocked them out, and get back to bidness. They had a bye week and then went into Columbia, South Carolina "Must Be Destroyed," for a scrimmage against the two-touchdown dog "Gamecocks," 3-5, whose signature win was no signature win. It was a game meant as a curative for Tenn. Instead then #18 Tennessee laid a volunteer egg and broke it on their faces, falling 24-21.

Following their third straight loss and now with a signature facial of egg sperm they are out of the top 25.

Comes now star running back Justin Hurd who announced his transfer and has left the team with immediate effect. Tennessee is 5-3, same record as Pitt, and have four eminently winnable games remaining in which they will be favored in all. A 9-3 record is the chalk and that's pretty good chalk! But now with out Hurd who the Eff knows.

Butch Jones, ex of Cincinnati, is the Tennessee coach. Pretty good resume, Butch, but this was to be the "Vols" year--a veteran team, good coach, big win over the "Alligators." good win against the "Silver Britches" and then them 'Cocks made Butch their bitch and spewed their bodily essence all over him and the Tenn. season. And now Hurd is gone.

Jeezie-peezie, Tennessee-ee. Y'all gotta butch up in the remaining four, yinz do. Do NOT lose to Tennessee Tech, Kentucky or Mizzou on Rocky Top or to Vandy at Vandy. If you's do, the long knives gonna be out for Butch.

Good grief. Night, y'all.

*

Smaller story but I'm sure you'll be interested. With almost a full day to go this blog has had more Trump, fuck you's, 8,508 right now, this month than in any other month since Google has been providing "Stats." The previous high, 8,483, was in April, 2012. I thank ye, pageviewers, I thank ye.

*Final number for October: 8,813.

*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfAxWtcfDUk

Met my old lover in the grocery store
The snow was falling Christmas Eve
I stood behind her in the frozen foods
And I touched her on the sleeve

She didn't recognize the face at first
But then her eyes flew open wide
She went to hug me and she spilled her purse
And we laughed until we cried

We took her groceries to the check out stand
The food was totaled up and bagged
We stood there lost in our embarrassment
As the conversation lagged

We went to have ourselves a drink or two
But couldn't find an open bar
We bought a six-pack at the liquor store
And we drank it in her car

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
We tried to reach beyond the emptiness
But neither one knew how

She said she's married her an architect
Who kept her warm and safe and dry
She would have liked to say she loved the man
But she didn't like to lie

I said the years had been a friend to her
And that her eyes were still as blue
But in those eyes I wasn't sure if I saw
Doubt or Trump, fuck you

She said she saw me in the record stores
And that I must be doing well
I said the audience was heavenly
But the traveling was Hell

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
We tried to reach beyond the emptiness
But neither one knew how

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to time
Reliving, in our eloquence
Another "Auld Lang Syne"

The beer was empty and our tongues were tired
And running out of things to say
She gave a kiss to me as I got out
And I watched her drive away

Just for a moment I was back at school
And felt that old familiar pain
And, as I turned to make my way back home
The snow turned into rain

My mind races. It flits from subject to subject. It alighted on Dan Fogelberg just now, dead of prostate cancer nearly nine years, and on his "Same Old Lang Syne," 1980. The lyrics tell a true story.

*Frigging UPDATE: Sometimes my damn mind races too fast. I incorrectly included a link to the wrong damn song. The correct video, a truly wonderful tribute, is in the link above.

City played at West Brom Saturday, right? Won 4-Trump, fuck you-0. Now, TOMORROW, THREE DAYS LATER, they have to play Barca in the UCL. DAMN it. The soccer schedule is so damned crowded. 

Trump's insouciance over nuclear weapons is a powerful line of attack. But listen there is also this: Trump is an "unwitting agent of Russia" according to the former CIA director. We have never had that before. The Clinton campaign should have pounded that nail into Americans' consciousness hardest of all and should pound it unrelentingly now. It is American sovereignty that is stake in this election, more so, much more so, than America's physical survival.

And this: the American form of government as we have known it will cease to exist under President Trump. The delicate balance of powers, the separation of powers, the independence and existence of the judiciary as a co-equal branch of government--these will be broken or bent out of shape so as to make the whole structure unrecognizable.

In at least these two senses therefore, this is the most important presidential election in over 150 years. I have already chosen the post title for November 9 if Trump wins: "AMERICA GETS ITS STRONGMAN."

"New Clinton ad revisits famous ‘Daisy’ campaign as Democrats try to move past damaging FBI news"-WaPo

It's about time.

A Happy Halloween to all peoplez and especially to my favorite peoplez, the
close-to-the-ground types. Have fun tonight kids.

Orange is your color, Trump, this is your day, too. Fuck you.

These Dangerous Times.

Bigger story which I missed until right now, maybe you saw it:
"Jew.S.A." You know, "U.S.A."
Months ago, at the beginning of the year, when I was still on speaking terms with my brother the racist, Trump supporter, I emailed him that "I don't recognize my country anymore." As I recall that painful statement was made in our preliminary communication on politics and referred to the Snowden Revelations (I think that deserves biblical capitalization.) in 2013. Truly, I didn't. Bugging Angela Merkel's phone? Dima Rousseff's? The mega-monitoring of our metadata? The FISA Court? Had no idea. No fucking idea. Didn't recognize the FISA Court as an American court of law even after I read the details. Hurt me. Shamed me. Didn't recognize the country.

Anyway. At the beginning of 2016 I didn't know what Donald Trump's appeal was. My brother knew! Didn't tell me. I didn't know Trump was a racist! I don't own a TV, saw only one of his rallies, back in August 2015, read about his campaign announcement of course, "Mexicans are rapists.", but I thought that was comically crazy, like the dictator of San Marcos in Bananas dictating that "From now on the official language of San Marcos will be...Swedish. And all citizens of San Marcos will be required to wear their underwear on the outside," I had never heard racism directed at Mexicans. Mexicans??

I didn't hear the dog whistles. I sensed their existence without being able to hear what tune Trump was singing to his degenerates, like my brother. He never told me. I wrote, here on Public Occurrences, that it was like Trump was speaking in "code," the word I used, that only he and his supporters understood. A lot of other people were in the same boat. We wrote or spoke theories as they came to us but even as I, at least, went from one to the other, I sensed I hadn't quite got it.

My brother never told me. He didn't even tell me that he was a Trump supporter at first. Told me he liked Rubio and Christie. I was unsure until the day before the primary so I called him. Yes, he was going to vote for Trump. He had planned to all along.

I know my brother's history, I felt like a chump. Of course he was going to vote for Trump. It hurt me. He is my brother and I love him. But he didn't tell me until near the end, he was embarrassed, and he had told me he was not at first and didn't clarify what I, in honesty, shouldn't have needed and didn't want to hear clarified for the umpteenth time in my life from him, that he was still a racist.

I don't know precisely when the scales dropped from my 20/400 eyes, I don't recall there being a Revelation, I don't think it was my brother's, but at some point they really did fall from my eyes pretty much all at once. The danger became clear all at once.

But not the full scope. The typical white American racism toward black people, yes, that was the first racism that was clear. But "Fuck that Nigger!" at Trump's mention of President Obama, at his rally of thousands in public? Their "safe space" to yell, "Fuck that Nigger!" No. I didn't know there was a political market for that in America in 2016.

And Antisemitism of the virulence, the sheer hatred of the degenerate in the video link above, in the "Heil Hitler" salutes of his supporters, screams of "Go to Auschwitz!" No! Lol. NO! I did not know that there was a full Adolph Hitler 1932, David Duke, market for that in America. In ANY year, much less in the second decade of the 21st century.

And "Lock her up!", more recently "Burn her at the stake," I don't even know what that is, "genderism," "misogyny"?, woman hatred? Woman hatred, really?

The violence, they're talking revolution and assassination, a coup d'etat. Talking more and more. America was born violent, we are among the most violent people on the planet, always have been, so that is no surprise. Insanity. America was born a bastard with latent mental illness that has flared periodically throughout our history. A crazy, violent degenerate like that guy above, not "Only in America," but yes, in America, too. I recognize him as American, he wasn't teleported here from Berlin in the 1930's and taught American English, he is a native-born American Nazi. Didn't know there was a critical mass of trailer trash in American politics just waiting for a demagogic, garbageman to come along and mold them into a political movement that has a damn decent chance of mutating this country out of existence as we know it in nine days.

Didn't know. Embarrasses me to the depths. Don't recognize my country.

I am prepared to accept a Trump victory as the will of the people. I am prepared to forget these degenerates if HRC wins. I am also prepared to meet violence with violence if the degenerates lose and they attempt assassination, revolution, or coup.

Good night.

"Clinton Forges Slim Lead With Early Turnout in Swing States"-NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/?action=click&contentCollection=Politics&region=TopBar&module=HomePage-Title&pgtype=article


HOW DOES THE NEW YORK TIMES FUCKING KNOW?!

Hillary Clinton has established a slim edge over Donald J. Trump in early-voter turnout in several vital swing states, pressing her longstanding advantages in state-level organization and potentially mitigating the fallout from her campaign’s latest scrap with the F.B.I.
...
At least 21 million people have voted so far across the country. In the states that are most likely to decide the election — among them Florida, Colorado and Nevada — close to a quarter of the electorate has already cast ballots. While their votes will not be counted until Election Day, registered Democrats are outperforming Republicans in key demographics and urban areas there and in North Carolina...

They DON'T KNOW. That headline is based on "registered Democrats outperforming Republicans," NOT for whom the early voters voted for president. That sirs, is a HORSESHIT headline. 

"Justice Department Obtains Warrant to Review Clinton Aide’s Emails"-NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/us/politics/justice-department-warrant-clinton-abedin-fbi.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Agents will have probable cause to search only the messages related to the Clinton investigation.
No, no, no, you fucking DOUCHE BAGS. The warrant does not give them probable cause. The warrant gives them judicial permission to SEARCH. The prosecutors must supply in their affidavit in support of search warrant to the judge probable cause.

"Probable cause"--to believe that evidence of or the instrumentality of a CRIME exists on the property to be searched and they will cite to the federal criminal statute(s), presumably those on disclosure of classified information.

So the feds have put in a sworn affidavit and submitted the affidavit to a federal judge that it is "more probable than not," the definition of probable cause, that evidence related to or the instrumentality of a CRIME COMMITTED BY HILLARY CLINTON exists on Anthony Weiner's computer.

And now a judge has given them warrant to search based on their their affidavit of probable cause.

And in the vast majority of cases, you can't go behind a judge's warrant either. Once it is signed the search is legal.

The FBI knew about the emails on Weiner's computer weeks ago. They made public their intent to search (legally) on Friday. Didn't get the warrant until Saturday.

Late Friday and early Saturday, law enforcement officials said there was no chance the email review could be completed before Election Day."No chance" completed by Election Day (You capitalize that? I didn't know.).

This is bullshit, utter bullshit..."Utter" bullshit is worse than bullshit. I believe...Stinkier, perhaps. Whatever! It's B.S.

I do NOT think that this is FBI Director Comey deliberately trying to sway the election toward the Republican Party in which he is a registered voter. I do not believe that. Truly, sincerely, no b.s., don't believe it. I truly believe Comey made the decision that he truly believed was the right thing to do. I BELIEVE HE FUCKED THE FUCK UP.

America as we know it will cease to exist on November 9 if Donald Trump is made president-elect on November 8. So if James Comey's sincerely held belief in the right thing to do turns out to be a fuck up after November 8 and leads to Trump's election, it will have ended America. It will be the biggest fuck up in history.

Comes now CNN and says it was a subpoena that was the legal tool used to get Weiner's computer into the FBI's hands. "Manhattan prosecutors" issued a "subpoena"...Any lawyer can issue a subpoena, prosecutors and defense attorneys. Very broad, subpoenas are very broad. There is a "subpoena duces tecum" for the production of documentary evidence...Usually you don't issue a subpoena for a fucking computer; from the Wall Street Journal article I thought the FBI had the physical fucking computer. That, I am almost positive, requires a warrant. I can issue a subpoena duces tecum to Google for documentary evidence on a computer, they just mail it back to me. I can't get the fucking computer. I don't think the "Manhattan prosecutors" got the computer via subpoena, just the metadata. But I also thought that in this fucking brave new cyber world that the metadata too could only be obtained with a warrant, not with just a fucking subpoena.

I don't know, man. These guys are lawyers too. I'm reasonably confident they didn't commit legal bird pumps and throw the presidential election.

"FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe"-WSJ

http://www.wsj.com/articles/laptop-may-include-thousands-of-emails-linked-to-hillary-clintons-private-server-1477854957

Federal agents are preparing to scour roughly 650,000 emails contained on the laptop of former Rep. Anthony Weiner to see how many relate to a prior probe of Hillary Clinton’s email use...
...
The review will take weeks at a minimum...
...
The FBI has had to await a court order to begin reviewing the emails, because they were uncovered in an unrelated probe of Mr. Weiner, and that order was delayed for reasons that remain unclear.
...
The latest development began in early October when New York-based FBI officials notified Andrew McCabe, the bureau’s second-in-command, that while investigating Mr. Weiner for possibly sending sexually charged messages to a minor, they had recovered a laptop with 650,000 emails. Many, they said, were from the accounts of Ms. [Huma] Abedin [Weiner's then wife and long-time close advisor to HRC].

Those emails stretched back years, these people said, and were on a laptop that both Mr. Weiner and Ms. Abedin used and that hadn’t previously come up...[So, completely different 'puter. This was the weiner-puter. How many 'puters have they searched?]

The FBI had searched the computer while looking for child pornography [Weiner is accused of wagging his weiner at under-age girls.], people familiar with the matter said, but the warrant they used didn’t give them authority to search for matters related to Mrs. Clinton’s email arrangement at the State Department.

[Okay, pause: that totally makes sense, legally. You have to confine your search to the four corners of the search warrant, can't go beyond it. They were looking for child porn, how do you look for child porn and find HRC emails? If law enforcement has a warrant to search your house for firearms, let's say, they can go into any place, closets, drawers,  e.g., in your house in which it is reasonable that firearms may be found. If, during that reasonable search for firearms they discover child porn in a drawer, they can seize the child porn. They could not search your computer. If the search warrant says "Go search for firearms," they must confine their search to where it is reasonable that firearms may be. They could not look in your computer or in pill containers in your bathroom. Now here, they are searching a computer for child porn, they must similarly "minimize" intrusion. So, let's say they do a search of weiner's computer by typing in "CP" in his email window. That would be a reasonably tailored search term for the scope of the warrant. Let's say they get back a result from "Cocaine Purchase." They can pursue that unintended find. But how did they go legally from searching Weiner's computer for child porn to finding HRC emails? I don't know. Unpause.]

In their initial review of the laptop, the metadata showed many messages, apparently in the thousands, that were either sent to or from the private email server at Mrs. Clinton’s home...Senior FBI officials decided to let the Weiner investigators proceed with a closer examination of the metadata on the computer, and report back to them.

[Wait. Let's think this through. Of course the computer's metadata is going to show communication between HRC and Abedin. But the metadata search would have to be reasonably related to child pornography, the search scope of the warrant. The FBI was authorized by the judge who signed the warrant to search in reasonable places by reasonable means for child porn. The "closer examination" of the metadata would still have to be related to child porn.]

At a meeting early last week of senior Justice Department and FBI officials, a member of the department’s senior national-security staff asked for an update on the Weiner laptop, the people familiar with the matter said. At that point, officials realized that no one had acted to obtain a warrant, these people said.

[Wait. There was SOME warrant, no? They got a judge to sign a warrant to look in Weiner's computer for child porn, no? "A" warrant means "A warrant related to HRC emails," no? How would they get a warrant for HRC emails even if they discovered them unintentionally on Weiner's computer? Anybody who HRC emailed can have their computers searched? No. They could search Weiner's computer with Weiner's consent but this article doesn't mention that this was a "consent search." This is confusing on the legalities.]

Mr. [Andrew] McCabe [FBI's #2] then instructed the email investigators to talk to the Weiner investigators and see whether the laptop’s contents could be relevant to the Clinton email probe...After the investigators spoke, the agents agreed it was potentially relevant.

[Well. Technically, like legally, the Weiner investigators would not have known if the computer had emails relevant to HRC if they had "minimized" properly. IF there was a search warrant to minimize in conformity to. This article does not state on what legal authority Mr. McCabe based his instruction to the Clinton investigators to find out if the Weiner investigators turned up anything "relevant" to HRC emails. Nor is it clear how that EVER could be done.]

The Polls Are Rigged

I have a question. Which I have already answered above. As basis for my question and answer I submit the following proofs:

I.

AP Top 25

RK	TEAM	REC	PTS	TREND
1	Alabama(60)	8-0	1524	—
2	Michigan(1)	8-0	1435	—
3	Clemson	8-0	1401	—
4	Washington	8-0	1369	—
5	Louisville	7-1	1262	—
6	Ohio State	7-1	1207	—
7	Texas A&M	7-1	1150	2
8	Wisconsin	6-2	1122	3
9	Nebraska	7-1	951	2
10	Florida	6-1	929	4
11	Auburn	6-2	927	4
12	Oklahoma	6-2	835	4
13	Baylor	6-1	693	5
14	West Virginia	6-1	620	4
15	LSU	5-2	586	4
16	Utah	7-2	506	1
17	Western Michigan	8-0	481	3
18	North Carolina	6-2	423	3
19	Florida State	5-3	409	7
20	Penn State	6-2	390	4
21	Colorado	6-2	375	2
22	Oklahoma State	6-2	355	NR
23	Virginia Tech	6-2	345	2
24	Boise State	7-1	203	11
25	Washington State	6-2	139	NR
Complete Rankings

Dropped from rankings: Tennessee 18, Navy 22

Others receiving votes: Houston 65, USC 40, San Diego State 21, Troy 20, Tennessee 17, South Florida 10, Arkansas 7, Wyoming 5, Tulsa 3

Do you see Pitt anywhere? Unless my 20/400 vision fails me Pitt is not there. Not even among "Others receiving votes." 

II.

Do you see FSU and PSU there? Do you see how many losses FSU has? How many losses does Pitt have?

                         Pittsburgh Panthers 5-3

Same number of demerits, same number of smiley faces. Besides free shoes and 409 votes in this "poll," what does FSU have that Pitt doesn't have?

Does FSU play in a better league, like the NFL or the EPL? They both play in the same league, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Comme ci comme ca the same opponents. We compare schedules.

III.

FSU:

Olé Miss. W, +11. At home. Olé was unranked at the time, the first game of the season. Olé t'ain't ranked no more on accounta they lost FOUR more times. They have the same number of votes for ranking as the Beloveds. 

CHSO. W, +44. At home. ChaSow doesn't play in the ACC, they don't even play in the Big XII, they don't even give as many scholarships in tackle football, they don't even play in the same grouping of scholarly institutions, they play in one designed for lower forms of scholarly life like Trump University and Harvard. 

LOU. Represented a guy named Lou. L, -43. At LOU. A 63-20 Oly ELL. LOU is an ACC college. They were 10th-ranked at the time. Are now fifth. Good ballclub, LOU. 63-20.

USF. Represented a guy named USEFF. W, +20. Allegedly "away." In Borlando, I b'lieve. Although USF is in the same scholastically-elite "Division I" as FSU and Pitt, and 125 other elites, it is not in a "Power 5" conference. USF lacks power.

UNC. L, -2. ACC school. At home. 

MIAMI. W, +1. ACC. Away. Tenth-ranked then. NO VOTES now.

WAKE. W, +11. ACC. Home.

CLEM. L, -3. ACC. Home. Third-ranked then (yesterday) and now.

FSU has played four teams that were ranked in the top 25 at the time. They have played two teams that are ranked now, when they received 409 votes!

PITT:

Villanova. W, +21. Home. 'Nova plays in the same group of retards as ChaSow.

PSU. W, +3. Home. Unranked then, 20th ranked now. PSU got 390 votes! We beat them! We got zero votes. PISSESU me off.

Oklahoma State. L, -7. Away. Unranked then, 22nd-ranked now, 355 votes. 

UNC. L, -1. ACC. Away. Unranked then, 18th-ranked now, 423 votes to 0 votes for Pitt. COMMON OPPONENT ALERT: Pitt lost to the "Trubisky's" by ONE POINT on the Tobacco ROAD while FSU lost to them by TWO POINTS in Tallahassee. Result: 423 votes and #18 for UNC, 409 and #19 for FSU, zero and zilch for Pitt.

Marshall. W, +16. "Conference USA," similar to USF, no-power. Home. 

Georgia Tech. W, +3. ACC. Home.

Virginia. W, +14. ACC. Away.

Virginia Tech. L, -3. ACC. Home. 25th-ranked then, yesterday, 23rd today.

Pitt has played one team that was ranked when they played them, four that are ranked now. Pitt's three losses have been by 7, 1, and 3 points. FSU's by 43, 2, and 3. 

PSU:

Two of PSU's wins have been over schools with no power. They have played two teams that were and are ranked, losing 49-10 at then #4, now #2, Meeshagan, and beating then #2, now #6, Ohio State. PSU has won four in a row. Those last two, the win over OSU and the four-game winning streak, are impressive BUT THEY LOST TO PITT! One loss and five wins later (they have ONE more win than Pitt) and they are 20th with 390 votes to nada and zip for Pitt. 

Gangsters.

How is there a tackle football game going on? And it's half-time. ESPN, are you drinking again?

WSH

10

FOXHalftime

7

CIN