ACLJ Wins Significant Victory in Case Against IRS

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The American Center for Law and Justice won a major victory against the Internal Revenue Service when an appeals court ruled the organization has yet to prove it’s ended discriminatory practices against conservative groups seeking tax exempt statuses.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously reversed a 2014 lower district court ruling that previously dismissed the lawsuit originally filed against the agency in 2013.

The federal court found that the IRS committed some “unconstitutional acts against at least a portion of the plaintiffs,” including numerous conservative, Tea Party, and pro-life groups.

Certain organizations were on “Be-On-The-Lookout” or “BOLO” lists where applications for tax-exempt status “were subjected to extended delay” and “were not receiving the same processing as those of other organizations,” CNN reported. (Read more from “ACLJ Wins Significant Victory in Case Against IRS” HERE)

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Veteran Assaulted in Sam’s Club for Wearing Trump Hat

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A 67-year-old Hispanic Army veteran was assaulted as a result of his choice of apparel: a “Make America Great Again” hat in support of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

The incident took place July 30 at a Sam’s Club in Brandon, Fla.

Ricardo Garcia told WTVT in Tampa that he was in the meat department of the store when he had to sneeze.

A gentleman standing to his side said, “Bless you.” Another man near him said, “I can not give you a blessing, because you’re wearing that stupid hat.”

Confused, Garcia asked, “What’s wrong with the hat?”

When the man remarked it was a Trump hat, Garcia said he jokingly told him the hat was his, not Trump’s.

WTSP reported the man said, “Ah, you go for Trump, I don’t like it.” To which Garcia responded, “Well, you can go for Hillary and I don’t like that, but that’s the way it is.”

Garcia then turned away from the man to avoid a confrontation, when he suddenly felt an impact to his head. The impact knocked the hat from his head and turned his glasses sideways.

Garcia said the man stood, staring at him, as if to say, “What do you want?”

The store manager was alerted to the incident and 911 was called.

Officers from the Hillsborough County Police Department arrived on the scene, where they located 36-year-old Patrick Marcus Mickens hiding in another aisle of the store.

After interviewing Garcia and Mickens, officers arrested Mickens and charged him with battery on an elderly person.

Mickens was later released on bond.

Garcia, who is originally from Puerto Rico, said he was privileged and honored to live in the U.S. “We should not be afraid to be in our country,” he said. (For more from the author of “Veteran Assaulted in Sam’s Club for Wearing Trump Hat” please click HERE)

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Never Trump Conservatives Find a Candidate Willing to Oppose Trump

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The Never Trump conservatives have finally found a candidate willing to enter the presidential race.

Evan McMullin, the former policy director for the House Republican Conference and a CIA staffer, announced his bid on his website Monday morning.

“In a year where Americans have lost faith in the candidates of both major parties, it’s time for a generation of new leadership to step up,” McMullin said in a statement to ABC News.

“It’s never too late to do the right thing, and America deserves much better than either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton can offer us. I humbly offer myself as a leader who can give millions of disaffected Americans a conservative choice for President.”

“Evan has spent his entire career in service to our nation and today he’s continuing on that path as a candidate for president — he is running first and foremost out of a deep love for this country, and because he understands the true brand of American leadership that is required to be Commander-in-Chief,” McMullin’s campaign wrote in a message to supporters.

The deadline to file for president has already passed in more than two dozen states, according to the New York Times, so the independent bid is clearly aimed at thwarting Trump, not actually winning the White House.

McMullin, who is a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints, is likely to have the greatest impact in Utah, where Trump is currently polling at 35 percent to Hillary Clinton’s 25 percent and Gary Johnson 16 percent, according UtahPolicy.com.

Utah is a solid red state whose six Electoral College votes Republican presidential candidates have been able to count on.

McMullin is said to be backed by the group Better for America, which is funded by John Kingston, a former supporter of Mitt Romney, the Times reported. (For more from the author of “Never Trump Conservatives Find a Candidate Willing to Oppose Trump” please click HERE)

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‘Anti-Police’ Activist Finds New Appreciation for Cops After He’s Robbed

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A black activist who described himself as “very-anti police” has a newfound appreciation for police officers after he was robbed at gunpoint in July.

Ali Muhammad was a victim of black-on-black crime, reports TheBlaze, and because of the quick response of the police and their capture of the assailant he has a “whole new perspective” on law enforcement.

Describing the incident, Muhammad said he was approached by a young black male who told him to hand over his earrings and his backpack at gunpoint. Muhammad handed his belongings over to the thief, and then called 911.

He proceeded to follow the thief down the street from a distance and observed him rob two women as well. “One lady, she was in tears. She said she couldn’t believe it,” Muhammad told WTVT-TV. “He had the gun in her mouth.”

911 dispatchers told Muhammad to stop following the suspect and within 10 minutes of receiving Muhammad’s 911 call Tampa police officers were scouring the area for the thief.

The suspect, 18-year-old Antwan Robertson, was eventually located and captured by police.

Muhammad’s belongings were returned to him, along with some faith in law enforcement.

“I congratulated the police,” Muhammad said, telling WTVT that while he’s “very anti-police” he’s “not against police relations and community relations.”

“Police can be hostile and very belligerent,” he added to the station. “Friday night, I met some officers who [were] about business, and that was getting a bad guy off the street.” (For more from the author of “‘Anti-Police’ Activist Finds New Appreciation for Cops After He’s Robbed” please click HERE)

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Concealed-Carry Permit Surge Could Play Decisive Role in These 2016 Battleground States

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The number of concealed-carry permit holders has skyrocketed over the last four years, noticeably in key battleground states and among women, according to a new report.

Two swing states have the highest number of permit holders in the country, with 1.58 million in Florida and 1.2 million in Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, 549,000 have permits in Ohio, another 556,136 in Michigan, and 530,092 in North Carolina. Indiana has issued 728,976 permits. These are all states that President Barack Obama—who supports gun control—carried at least once in his presidential election campaigns.

Fifteen percent of Indianans have concealed-carry permits. Pennsylvania has 12.2 percent of the population holding permits, and another swing state, Iowa, has 11.5 percent of the population carrying concealed-carry permits.

Depending on how significant guns are in the election, the increase in women permit holders and minorities could also be significant. Women have traditionally broken for Democrats in past elections.

“In eight states where we have data by gender, since 2012 the number of permits has increased by 161 percent for women and by 85 percent for men,” a report by the Crime Prevention Research Center says.

In Florida, women had 18 percent of permits in 2012. That rose to 24.1 percent in 2016. The rise went from 18 percent to 22.7 percent in Indiana from 2012 to 2015. In North Carolina, the number of permits for women went from 21.3 percent in 2012 to 27.5 percent in 2015. The study was based on the most recent available data for each state.

The increase among women with permits is even pronounced in the very blue state of Washington, the report said. Between 2005 and 2014, in Washington, “the growth rate for women getting new permits [was] twice as fast as that of men.”

“Women benefit more from having a gun than a man because of the large strength differential between a male-to-woman attacker compared to male-to-male attacker,” Crime Prevention Research Center President John Lott, a noted economist and researcher, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “Women with a gun would be able to better resist an attack from men. There has been a lot of fear about guns that have caused people to make the wrong decisions about guns, but that is changing.”

Lott is the author of the new book, “The War on Guns.”

From 2007 through 2015, permits issued by state and local governments increased by 215 percent, to more than 14 million Americans. Much of that increase was among minorities, with permits increasing about 75 percent faster among nonwhites than whites, according to the report. Lott said this is similar to the argument for women having guns.

“People who live in poor urban areas are less likely to be victims of a crime if they can protect themselves,” Lott said.

The Second Amendment will likely play a paramount role in the 2016 election for gun owners because of a Supreme Court vacancy, said John Malcolm, director of judicial studies at The Heritage Foundation.

“The Second Amendment will be on the minds of gun owners who vote because of the Heller decision, and the Supreme Court,” Malcolm told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “Antonin Scalia was the author of the Heller decision. Now we have a four-four split and the next president will appoint the justice to decide if Heller is good law.”

Heller was the 2008 case that affirmed the Second Amendment guaranteed the individual right to bear arms.

Gun rights are likely to play a role in the Ohio vote and in other swing states, but it might be limited if single-issue voters already know how they’ll vote, said Paul Beck, a political science professor at Ohio State University.

“Reaction from voters toward the candidates and their stances is largely already baked in,” Beck told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “This is one issue that really separates the two parties.” (For more from the author of “Concealed-Carry Permit Surge Could Play Decisive Role in These 2016 Battleground States” please click HERE)

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Rigged Election? A History of Presidential Candidates Who’ve Made Allegations

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The current election is not the first time a candidate has charged that the game was rigged. The new book, “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections,” delves into the common thread regarding the most controversial presidential elections in history.

The focus is on elections that dragged well beyond Election Day, decided by another branch of government. Here’s excerpts from three of the elections featured in the book.

1824: John Quincy Adams vs. Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson believed the presidency was his. He clearly made the most impressive showing, carrying a majority of electoral votes in 11 states—Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Tennessee. In an election defined by regional preference, Jackson was the only national candidate.

John Adams won the formerly Federalist strongholds of the six New England states, plus New York. William Crawford carried only Delaware, his home state of Georgia, and Virginia. It was enough to put him in third place.

On Dec. 1, the Electoral College announced the results. Jackson won the most Electoral College votes, winning 99 votes to the 84 votes for Adams. However, he didn’t have a majority, or 131, of the electoral votes that he needed. Despite coming in last place in the popular vote, Crawford would actually beat Henry Clay in the Electoral College, 41 voters to Clay’s 37 votes. …

After arriving in Washington on Dec. 7, 1824, Jackson wrote a letter to political supporter and former military ally John Coffee in Tennessee informing him of rumors that Adams and Clay had struck a deal, or would do so if they haven’t already. …

Before the vote, a Philadelphia newspaper, the Colombian Observer, published an anonymous letter on Jan. 28 claiming Clay would back Adams in return for being named Secretary of State. Clay strongly denied this. In fact, there were two meetings between Adams and Clay, on Jan. 9 and Jan. 29, 1825. Nevertheless, there was not a lot of reason to believe Clay was divided. He and Adams saw eye to eye for the most part on infrastructure, on tariffs, and the National Bank. …

The House convened on Feb. 9, 1825, each state having a single vote that would be determined by a majority vote inside the delegation. Clay directed Kentucky, Missouri, and Ohio—the states he won—to the Adams camp. Most of Clay’s supporters, as well as the remaining Federalists, backed Adams in the House, enough to give him a single vote victory. The House delegations of three states that Jackson carried, Illinois, Louisiana, and Maryland, went to Adams. This gave Adams a majority of 13 out of 24 states.

Though not the first president elected after a drawn out process, Adams was the only president to assume office without a majority of the electoral votes. In a dour response, Adams said he regretted that there could not be a do-over for submitting the “decision of this momentous question” again “to obtain a nearer approach to unanimity.”

On Feb.14, Clay accepted the offer of the President-elect Adams to serve as his Secretary of State—presumably making him the next heir apparent since the last four men to lead the State Department became president.

Jackson and his supporters immediately called this a “corrupt bargain” between Adams and Clay. The caucus system was supposed to be gone, but Jackson and his supporters claimed Clay essentially resurrected it to thwart the will of the people and install Adams. Jackson said referring to Clay: “The Judas of the West has closed the contract and will receive the thirty pieces of silver. His end will be the same.”

***

1876: Rutherford Hayes vs. Samuel Tilden

Democrats used violence, lynching, and riots to scare blacks away from voting, knowing it was possible for Republicans to carry some Southern states. Republicans were intent that two could play at this game, and in some cases actually sought to persuade blacks to vote by shotgun.

The day before the election, U.S. Marshal J.H. Pierce of the Northern District of Mississippi telegraphed RNC Chairman Zach Chandler, asserting that “the election in the northern half of the state will be a farce … Colored and white Republicans will not be allowed to vote in many counties. The Tilden clubs are armed with Winchester rifles and shotguns and declare that they will carry the election at all hazards. In several counties of my district leading white and colored Republicans are now refugees asking for protection.”

On Nov. 7, Tilden won the national popular vote 4,288,546 to 4,034,311 votes for Hayes, and 184 to 165 in the Electoral College. More than 80 percent of eligible voters actually turned out, some reportedly voting more than once, and others having their votes shredded if it was for the “wrong candidate.” …

It was after midnight. RNC Chairman Zachary Chandler—like Rutherford Hayes—had turned in for the night convinced of the party’s loss. But using Chandler’s signature from the RNC headquarters, Daniel Sickles telegraphed the Republican governors of South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana to say, “With your state sure for Hayes, he is elected. Hold your state.”

At 3 a.m., South Carolina’s Republican Gov. Daniel Chamberlain responded on a telegraph machine, “All right. South Carolina is for Hayes. Need more troops.” …

Three days after the election, Nov. 10, President Grant issued an order to General W.T. Sherman to instruct generals in Florida and Louisiana:

No man worthy of the office of President should be willing to hold it if it counted in or placed there by fraud. Either party can afford to be disappointed by the result, but the country cannot afford to have the result tainted by suspicion of illegal or false returns.

***

2000: George W. Bush vs. Al Gore

The first Tuesday of November in 2000 came the same day as the Election Day 1876—on the seventh. Half the country may have had better things to do than follow the Bore and Gush contest before election, but a decisive majority of Americans were glued after Election Day.

Bush would almost certainly have had significantly more votes had the networks not called Florida before polls closed in the heavily-Republican Panhandle, which is in the Central time zone. Gore campaign strategist Bob Beckel said that Bush lost at least 8,000 votes in the Panhandle alone because of the incorrect reporting.

Meanwhile, Republican polling firm McLaughlin and Associates estimated that Bush lost 11,500 votes because the networks reported the polls were closed in the Panhandle. Economist John Lott estimated between 7,500 and 10,000 voters in Republican counties were dissuaded from showing up. …

In the popular vote, Gore beat Bush nationally with 50,996,582 to 50,456,062. That’s a half million votes. Neither candidate had 270 votes in the Electoral College. Gore had 266 votes. Bush had 246. The 20-electoral vote spread was not that different from Hayes-Tilden. …

Democratic lawyers also began targeting the overseas absentee ballots from the military—which seemed to be more likely Republican voters. The attorneys threatened to sue Seminole County, where election officials corrected errors on thousands of applications for absentee ballots—many for military personnel. Democrats also targeted Duval County, which had one of the heaviest military populations in the United States. This prompted Republicans to say Democrats wanted to disenfranchise military voters.

Before this, Democrats had been able to control much of the message of demanding that every vote be counted. But when a memo surfaced from Democratic attorney Mark Herron that laid out a legal strategy for disqualifying military votes, Democrats found themselves on the defense. Despite a public relations problem, Democrats managed to disqualify 1,420 military ballots over various legal technicalities by Nov. 17.

Retired Army General Norman Schwarzkopf, hero of the Gulf War and Bush supporter, issued a strong statement, asserting: “It’s a very sad day in our country when the men and women of our country are serving abroad and facing danger on a daily basis in places like Bosnia, Kosovo, or on ships like the USS George Washington, yet because of some technicality out of “their control, they are denied the right to vote for the president of the United States, who will be their commander-in-chief.” (For more from the author of “Rigged Election? A History of Presidential Candidates Who’ve Made Allegations” please click HERE)

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Being Hillary’s Running Mate Makes Kaine Feel Like He’s Been ‘Kidnapped’

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If anyone has ever wondered what it feels like to run on the presidential ticket with Hillary Clinton, her vice presidential nominee, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine has a blunt answer for you.

At the Democratic Party’s campaign field office in Grand Rapids, Mich., Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., asked Kaine, “Well, what is it like?”

Kaine replied, “It feels like I got kidnapped.”

Politico’s Burgess Everett wrote Kaine is usually much more chatty when he’s not being dragged about the U.S. in the Clinton campaign.

“Kaine has been a bit more buttoned-up than his normal self in his first two weeks as Clinton’s running mate.” Everett wrote. “He still lingers at events and talks to supporters, but has said little to the traveling press even while recording interviews with local and national outlets — belying his habit as a senator of holding long gaggles with reporters as he deals with the rigors of the presidential campaign trail.”

But Kaine apparently has no trouble joking around about his new political commitment to stand behind Clinton as the supportive running mate. While visiting a Milwaukee brewery on the campaign trail, Kaine reportedly said, “Friday afternoon at a brewery in Milwaukee — who says campaigning is tough?”

The New York Times reported Clinton’s selection of Kaine had as much to do with his popularity as it did with the fact Virginia is a swing state. Having been the former governor of Virginia was also seen as a positive aspect to his being chosen.

“Tim Kaine is in many ways, a perfect vice presidential pick for Hillary Clinton…Kaine is really a passionate social justice liberal with a very moderate demeanor,” says Cheryl Stolberg of the Times. (For more from the author of “Being Hillary’s Running Mate Makes Kaine Feel Like He’s Been ‘Kidnapped'” please click HERE)

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TPP Path to Lame Duck Passage Grows Murky

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U.S. Rep. Candace Miller, R-Mich., released a letter on August 1 signed by five other GOP supporters of the fast track trade authority urging President Obama to not submit the enabling legislation to Congress during a lame duck session.

Calling a “lame duck” consideration of the Trans-Pacific Partnership “an end-run around the American people immediately following an election,” Miller and her colleagues unambiguously opposed moving ahead with the massive trade deal before the next Congress.

The letter asserts, “TPP will set the template for trade for the next generation. It will not only impact the current 12 member nations but also countries like Korea and China that could join in the future. A ‘lame duck’ Congress should not vote on an agreement of this consequence.”

U.S. Reps. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., Ted Yoho, R-Fla., Dave Trott, R-Mich., Bill Shuster, R-Pa. and Tim Murphy, R-Pa., joined Miller on the letter sent to President Obama on August 1.

The letter falls on the heels of U.S. Rep. David Bost, R-Ill., another fast track supporter, announcing his opposition to TPP writing, “Having carefully weighed the pros and cons of this trade agreement, I believe it’s in the best interests of my district to oppose it. We must continue to work to open new markets to our farmers and manufacturers, but it needs to be on an even playing field that has tilted against American workers for too long.”

House Ways and Means Committee member U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., is another of a growing number of TPA supporters who have announced their opposition to TPP, and former House Speaker John Boehner’s replacement U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, campaigned against passage of the trade deal as a hallmark of his election bid.

In the face of heavy lobbying by the US Chamber and others, the GOP Platform rejected lame duck consideration of TPP writing, “Significant trade agreements should not be rushed or undertaken in a Lame Duck Congress.” U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., was a co-chair of the Committee and opposition to TPP has been growing in her state of North Carolina as details of Obama’s exclusion of the tobacco industry from the benefits of the deal become more public.

The importance of fast track supporters who are walking away from supporting TPP becomes clear when it is remembered that the fast track vote in 2015 suffered an astonishing loss of 54 Republican House members in a bloody battle which largely revolved around the merits of the Asian Pacific trade agreement. The TPA passed by a narrow, 218-211 mark leaving zero margin for error for proponents.

In a related move, the Daily Signal reports that House conservatives are demanding a special conference of the House Republicans in an attempt to deny President Obama one last bite of the government spending apple through passage of a government funding Continuing Resolution that extends until March of 2017, eliminating the need for a lame duck session at all.

The growing opposition amongst the House GOP Conference toward having a lame duck session on any topic combined with the increasing unlikelihood that TPP could pass during the lame duck, leaves House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., boxed in between his corporate donor constituency and the members of his own Conference who will decide if he gets to be Speaker again in 2017. While it is never wise to bet against the K Street donor class, Ryan’s very political survival may depend upon his disappointing them on TPP, and that assumes he isn’t upset in his unexpectedly competitive Republican primary race in Wisconsin against former supporter Paul Nehlen. (For more from the author of “TPP Path to Lame Duck Passage Grows Murky” please click HERE)

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Finally, EPA May Be Held Accountable for Potential Wrongdoing at the Gold King Mine Spill

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Criminal investigations into the Environmental Protection Agency’s disastrous handling of its Gold King Mine spill are under way. This is a laudable step toward accountability for the agency, which for one year has avoided accountability for conduct that would in all likelihood have resulted in criminal prosecution had the acts been performed by private parties.

One year ago, a backhoe operator working for the EPA had an accident that poured 3 million gallons of toxic water into Colorado’s Animas River, which pollution tests showed to have reached “‘scary’ levels of toxicity.”

The tests showed “arsenic peaked at 300 times the normal level; lead was 12,000 times higher than normal; mercury and beryllium, respectively, reached nearly 10 times and 33 times the EPA’s acceptable levels,” as The Heritage Foundation noted in a report.

No one at the EPA has been held accountable, despite the fact that private parties were convicted of “criminal negligence” when a backhoe accident spilled a comparably insignificant “1,000 to 1,500 gallons of oil” into nearby waters, and when a company discharged only natural elements such as “rock, sand, soil [or] stone” into nearby streams.

Heritage Foundation scholars have argued that the government “should prosecute the subordinate and supervisory EPA officials in this case or stop bringing similar charges against private parties for their negligence.”

When the EPA commissioned an investigative report by the Bureau of Reclamation—115 pages on all things Gold King Mine except who caused the spill and why—Heritage scholars argued “someone should ask the EPA and the Justice Department why the federal government discriminates in favor of government employees and against private parties.”

When the EPA followed up with its own report, which essentially argued, as Heritage scholars wrote at the time, that “the mine erupted on its own (which is like arguing, ‘But, your honor, I was just carrying the gun when it went off all on its own!’),” it seemed like accountability was nowhere in sight.

In a congressional oversight hearing on the Gold King Mine spill, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, asked the head of EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, Cynthia Giles, “Why has nobody in EPA been held liable, been criminally charged?”

Giles answered that that federal law treats “the company who makes and releases pollution” different from “entities that are trying to respond and clean up pollution that other people created,” and argued that at the time of the spill, the EPA was “acting as a responder.”

When pressed, Giles stated, “EPA does not typically assess penalties or pursue enforcement actions, other than to get response parties to clean up the mess that they make, and that is what EPA is taking responsibility for doing.”

Legitimate Path Toward Accountability

One year later, however, the federal agency watchdog known as the inspector general for the EPA has confirmed that a criminal investigation into the agency’s conduct at the mine is under way.

According to an EPA press release, “Based on requests from several members of the House and Senate, the OIG is conducting both a program evaluation and a criminal investigation of the Gold King Mine spill.”

Finally, it’s time for accountability—although this may not be the best path forward to achieve that goal.

Last August, an EPA official “stood in a local high school auditorium after the Gold King Mine spill and pledged to a public audience that the EPA would ‘hold [itself] to the same standards that [it] would anyone that would have created this situation.’”

It did not, and New Mexico was forced to sue the agency to seek compensation for environmental and economic damages caused by the spill. The inspector general’s criminal investigation now shows the government has chosen between the only two legitimate options it had at its disposal, which Heritage scholars noted before, either “abandon criminal liability based on negligence” that the government enforces against private parties, or initiate a criminal investigation against “the EPA officials at the scene and up through the responsible chain of command” based on those same standards.

The government chose a criminal investigation, so it deserves credit for ending its discrimination against private parties.

Its choice may not be the best policy option, however. As Heritage scholars have argued elsewhere, “any liability for negligence should be civil, not criminal.” It runs counter to fundamental principles of law to think that a private party’s accidental discharge of sand, stone, or even oil—which can and should be redressed through civil law and penalties—deserve society’s most serious form of condemnation, a criminal sanction.

At least the disclosure that there is an ongoing investigation shows that the Office of the Inspector General for the EPA is performing its responsibility under the law. Congress created the inspectors general system in the late 1970s with the statutory duty “to combat problems of ‘waste, fraud, and abuse within designated federal departments and agencies.’”

New Problems Ahead for Inspector General?

The fact that criminal investigations are pending does not mean the EPA did anything wrong, or that any charges will or should be filed. Nor does it necessarily mean that the EPA’s antics are at an end.

The inspectors general have had more than their fair share of struggles to accomplish their mission under the Obama administration, as federal agencies have repeatedly refused to cooperate with investigations. In 2014, 47 inspectors general wrote a letter to Congress informing legislators of “the serious limitations on access to records that have recently impeded the work of inspectors general at the Peace Corps, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Justice.”

Whether or not the EPA is as recalcitrant, the EPA inspector general should be commended for doing what the EPA itself failed to do: take a significant step toward holding EPA officials’ accountable for what happened to the Animas River. (For more from the author of “Finally, EPA May Be Held Accountable for Potential Wrongdoing at the Gold King Mine Spill” please click HERE)

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Trump Collapsing? Not So Fast.

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Presidential polling this year is like Texas weather. Wait 15 minutes and it’s likely to change.

Yesterday, a McClatchy/Marist poll had Hillary Clinton jumping to a 15-point lead against Donald Trump. A Fox News poll had the Democratic candidate up by 10.

That was yesterday. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll out Friday afternoon indicates Clinton’s lead over Trump has narrowed to less than three points among likely voters, 42% to 39%. This is within the margin of error, suggesting, says Reuters “the race is roughly even.” It also marks a five-point drop for Clinton since Monday.

The Trump staffers who CNBC claimed earlier this week were “suicidal” over the campaign’s sudden collapse can take at least a couple steps back from the edge.

Reuters says “the reasons behind the shift were unclear.” However, in recent days Hillary Clinton was awarded “four Pinocchios” by the Washington Post for her increasingly-reported lie over how FBI Director James Comey characterized her public statements about her private email server. There was also the news of the Obama administration, of which she had been a part, sending $400 million to Iran in the dead of night as an apparent ransom for four American prisoners.

Though the Reuters numbers — and an LA Times/USC poll that shows the race a statistical tie — come as a relief to the Trump campaign, the news is not all sunny. As Robert Eno at Conservative Review noted Friday, Trump is down 6.8 points in the RealClear Politics average (though it does not include the new Reuters poll.) Eno also indicates how the GOP nominee is even running weak in states that have been solidly Republican since the 1980s. For example, Trump is down four in Georgia head-to-head with Hillary, and down six in Florida.

By way of comparison, Eno says that on this date in 2012 Barack Obama had a 2.8 percent lead in the RealClear Politics average over Mitt Romney.

On the other hand, on July 28th, a mere eight days ago, Donald Trump was beating Hillary Clinton in the RCP average. Meaning, applauding or getting agitated over the polls at this point is pointless. We’re better off popping the popcorn, putting up our feet and cheering TeamUSA because this particular race is far from finished. (For more from the author of “Trump Collapsing? Not So Fast.” please click HERE)

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