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We’re just four days away from this godforsaken election being over and four days away from the media trying to fill a huge traffic hole with completely unfounded Elizabeth Warren Cabinet speculation. A Macedonian town has produced a massive amount of pro-Trump misinformation online, but still hasn’t provided the candidate with that one weird trick to win the election. And Paul Ryan will run for re-election for Speaker, despite a possible insurrection from the Freedom Caucus. If he doesn’t win, let’s all do what we can to rally around the only other candidate palatable to the entire House: Speaker-Elect Cassette Single of Whitney Houston’s 1991 Super Bowl Performance of “Star Spangled Banner.” This is HUFFPOST HILL for Friday, November 4th, 2016:
MAKE MACEDONIAN CONTENT FARMS GREAT AGAIN - “Yep,” Jebediah said, rocking gently on the porch, fanning himself as he gazed out out at 500 different guys named Petko typing away on TrumpForRiches.Biz. “You ain’t no man if you ain’t got land.” Craig Silverman and Lawrence Alexander: ‘“This is the news of the millennium!” said the story on WorldPoliticus.com. Citing unnamed FBI sources, it claimed Hillary Clinton will be indicted in 2017 for crimes related to her email scandal. ‘Your Prayers Have Been Answered,’ declared the headline. For Trump supporters, that certainly seemed to be the case. They helped the baseless story generate over 140,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook. Meanwhile, roughly 6,000 miles away in a small Macedonian town, a young man watched as money began trickling into his Google AdSense account. Over the past year, the Macedonian town of Veles (population 45,000) has experienced a digital gold rush as locals launched at least 140 US politics websites. These sites have American-sounding domain names such as WorldPoliticus.com, TrumpVision365.com, USConservativeToday.com, DonaldTrumpNews.co, and USADailyPolitics.com. They almost all publish aggressively pro-Trump content aimed at conservatives and Trump supporters in the US.” [BuzzFeed]
Check out Eliot’s Reddit AMA from this morning, where he discussed the election, the media’s coverage of it and his book, The Beltway Bible. Sadly, no one asked about 100 duck-sized Tim Kaines.
CHRISTIE AIDES FOUND GUILTY IN BRIDGEGATE TRIAL - It sure was heads-up of Chris Christie to torpedo his own career before this did him in. Amanda Terkel: “A federal jury on Friday found two of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) former aides guilty of all charges in the Bridgegate scandal that has continued to plague the governor. Bill Baroni, who served as Christie’s top official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Bridget Anne Kelly, who was the governor’s deputy chief of staff, each faced seven counts of conspiracy, fraud and related charges. The most serious charges carry a maximum of up to 20 years in prison. Sentencing is set for Feb. 21. Kelly cried as the verdict was read, according to a reporter who was in the courtroom.” [HuffPost]
JESUS HERBERT WALKER CHRIST ON THE CROSS, THIS ELECTION NEEDS TO END - Fingernail takes are the hottest takes. David Gilmour: “A leaked email thread in which Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, is invited to a ‘Spirit dinner’ at the New York home of Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović has put the religious right and fringe conservatives into a spin. #SpiritCooking became a trending hashtag on Twitter on Friday and dominated hyper-conspiratorial headlines as right-wing websites, like the Drudge Report and InfoWars, assert that Podesta and Abramović are satanists who are into witchcraft, sex rituals, and the occult.... The ‘aphrodisiac recipes’ offered up require a few less than appetizing ingredients like blood, fingernails, semen and ‘fresh morning urine’—as written in Abramović’s ‘cookbook’ composed in 1996. Sure, it’s weird, but art is like that sometimes. This video, recorded a year later, shows Abramović writing the recipes on walls as part of a performance.” [Daily Dot]
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RYAN RUNNING FOR REELECTION AS SPEAKER - Rachel Bade and John Bresnahan: “It’s official: Paul Ryan is running for speaker.… ‘I am going to seek staying on as speaker,’ Ryan told WTAQ’s Jerry Bader, while stumping for GOP candidates in Wisconsin. ‘There’s a lot of unfinished work to do and I think I can do a lot to help our cause and our country. I’ve led us to offer a very comprehensive agenda to take to the country and I want to execute and implement that agenda.’ ‘This is the typical chatter you have every two years,’ Ryan added of recent suggestions on Capitol Hill that he’ll bow out of GOP leadership. ‘They call it “palace intrigue” in the Hill rags.’ … Nine Republicans voted against Ryan when he became speaker in Nov. 2015. A smaller margin in the House overall makes Ryan’s margin in the speaker floor vote — which won’t occur until January — even slimmer.” [Politico]
FORGET FULL SUPREME COURT, WE ARE NEVER GOING TO HAVE A HOUSE SPEAKER AGAIN - A Republican 2020 wave year AND the Freedom Caucus?!? Put a fork in it, homie, we’re done. Matt Fuller: “Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) suggested Friday that he would not vote for current House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to remain in the job, laying out a number of criteria for the next leader of the House GOP and raising the prospect that other Republicans may soon signal their intention to vote against Ryan on the floor in January. ‘It would be very difficult for him to get my vote based on what I assume his motives are, which are to run for president in 2020,’ Massie told The Huffington Post in a phone conversation. The Kentucky Republican, who voted against Ryan last October and repeatedly led opposition to former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), emailed a statement to HuffPost where he explained what he thinks the next speaker should do ‘to restore the constitutional integrity of Congress.’” [HuffPost]
JUDGE BLOCKS ROGER STONE ANTI-VOTE EFFORT IN OHIO - “Miracle on 34th Street,” but directed by Dinesh D’Souza where mailmen bust into the courtroom at the end with a bunch of fraudulent votes. Christina Wilkie: “A federal judge on Friday issued a temporary restraining order against Republican nominee Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, as well as Trump ally Roger Stone and Stone’s political group, Stop the Steal, barring them from engaging in any ‘harassing or intimidating conduct’ at the polls on Election Day. U.S. District Judge James Gwin’s written opinion also barred both parties and their supporters from engaging in any kind of voter harassment. ‘It wouldn’t be an attempt to particularly identify somebody as being a Trump supporter or not,’ Gwin said. But the decision was a big win for the Ohio Democratic Party, which filed a last-minute lawsuit against Trump’s campaign less than a week ago.” [HuffPost]
DNC, RNC CLASH OVER VOTE MONITORING - Cristian Farias: “The Democratic National Committee clashed with the Republican National Committee in federal court on Friday, seeking a ruling to curtail poll-watching efforts on the ground that may intimidate minority voters. Fueled by incendiary rhetoric by Donald Trump and his surrogates on the campaign trail suggesting the need for ‘ballot security,’ lawyers for the DNC have asked U.S. District Judge John Michael Vazquez to hold the RNC in contempt of a consent decree that since 1982 has bound Republican officials from encouraging measures that can disenfranchise voters on the ground. ‘What the evidence shows, your honor, is that Republicans on the ground are responding to these calls,’ said DNC lawyer Rajiv Parikh, who added that these ‘vigilante-type’ activities are only meant ‘to target and harass people based on race.’ After hearing nearly two and a half hours of oral arguments from both sides and considering hundreds of pages of affidavits and other evidence, Vazquez said he’d rule on the matter later in the day or by Saturday, but indicated he is unlikely to extend the decree past its expiration date of December 2017.” [HuffPost]
JOHNSON SINKING IN POLLS - We tried to formulate some kind of “What’s Allepolls?” joke but it just wouldn’t give. We sincerely apologize. Janie Velencia: “Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson has faded in the hearts and minds of American voters, according to recent polls. After enjoying a record level of support for a third-party candidate for much of the summer and early fall, Johnson has plummeted to 5 percent in the HuffPost Pollster average of polls. That marks a 3-point drop since mid-October. Individual surveys that previously found Johnson with support from 10 to 13 percent of voters show him capturing just 2 to 4 percent support in the final days before the election.” [HuffPost]
RUDY, SLOW YOUR ROLL, BUDDY - Mollie Reilly: “Rudy Giuliani said Friday that he knew the FBI planned to review more emails tied to Hillary Clinton before a public announcement about the investigation last week.... The former New York City mayor and Trump surrogate has recently dropped a series of hints that he knew in advance that the FBI planned to look at emails potentially connected to Clinton’s private server. The agency discovered the messages while investigating former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) for allegedly sexting with a minor. (Weiner’s estranged wife, Huma Abedin, is a top aide to Clinton.) Giuliani has bragged about his close ties to the FBI for months, mentioning in interviews that ‘outraged FBI agents’ have told him they’re frustrated by how the Clinton investigation was handled.” [HuffPost]
BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR - Here’s a guy who is fluent in dog.
COMFORT FOOD
- Adorable Australian girl fat shames her own dad.
- A fantastic Steely Dan/Glenn Danzig mashup is fantastic.
- We enjoyed Jimmy Fallon’s “Mad Libs Interrogation” segment.
TWITTERAMA
TRUMP: Christie?
MANAFORT: too corrupt, don’t wanna be near him [phone rings] да, подождите одну минуту [cups receiver] I have to take this
@olivianuzzi: Bad news: none of the fireworks at the Trump rally misfired and killed me!
@sullivanamy: Did I hallucinate more than a dozen women publicly accusing Donald Trump of unwanted sexual behavior?
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