Clinton: ‘Most Ethical (and Lied About) Politician’ in America?

“Hillary Clinton is one of the most ethical (and most lied about) political leaders in America,” the headline of a popular Peter Daou article reads.

Clever headline. I took the bait and clicked.

It was such a dare-devilishly bombastic headline, I admit, I figured it would take me to a joke website. I thought I would see, in huge bold letters, “just kidding, dummy,” and a gif of a furious Asian woman giving me the finger.

Why Asian, you ask? I have no idea.

Hold on… what’s this? It’s a real news website. With a real article?

Right below the headline, right before the deep dive into loony-land, was a quick preamble:

“This essay was first published on BNR in January, 2016 and amassed more than half a million shares,” the author proudly tooted, “making it the most popular article about Hillary Clinton of the campaign. It is reprinted below in full and updated for the general election. (UPDATE: This version has another 140,000+ shares, demonstrating the enduring demand for content that challenges pervasive anti-Clinton narratives.)”

Very impressive. Edging toward a million shares. No small feat. We wonder, though, how many of those shares were caused by what I’m going to call “The Onion Effect.”

Sure, there are people who genuinely believe Hillary Clinton is an honest politician (an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one, but whatever).

But Hillary’s gleaming record of honest and principled behavior is not why I discovered the aforementioned article on my Facebook feed. Rather, it began with three friends finding it so unbelievably absurd they couldn’t help but share. Then, it just steamrolled from there, multiplying until, at one point, it flooded my page.

Which is why, I imagine, a good chunk of it at least, it’s reached such a huge streak of eyeballs.

It’s similar to what happens to an Onion article when the editorial staff hits a homerun. Of course, Hillary can take all the credit for the birth of this new term. But, remember. You heard it here first: The Onion Effect. You’ll know it when you see it.

It’s usually accompanied, appropriately enough, by a string of these:

“The stench of corruption,” a seemingly less blurry-eyed Pat Buchanan writes on Chronicle magazine’s blog, “is reaching Bhopal dimensions.

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“What appears about to happen seems inevitable and predictable.

“If Hillary Clinton is elected, the email scandal, the pay-for-play scandal involving the Clinton Foundation, ‘Bill Clinton, Inc.,’ the truthfulness of her testimony, and reports of Clinton-paid dirty tricksters engaging in brownshirt tactics at Trump rallies, are all going to be investigated more thoroughly by the FBI.

“And if Clinton is president, there is no way her Justice Department can investigate the Clinton scandals, any more than this city in the early 1970s would entrust an investigation into Watergate to the Nixon Justice Department.”

Tricky, tricky situation Mrs. Tricky Dicky Jr. has found herself in. Quite the pickle, indeed.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s back up for a moment.

Just in case you didn’t get the full story as to why… precisely… the FBI has reopened the case now (despite knowing about the emails on Weiner’s computer for weeks), we invite Michael Covel of Trend Following to explain.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any bizarre, life throws you a curveball. And the hits keep coming for the most ‘honest and misunderstood’ poli-tick.

Read on.

Michael Covel

Just when you thought the soap opera couldn’t get any more bizarre…

On Friday, FBI Director James Comey informed Congress he was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails.

In a shocking twist in the case, agents investigating former congressman and resident pervert Anthony Weiner for “sexting” with a minor recovered one of his laptops containing thousands of emails.

Among them were State Department-related emails from Weiner’s estranged wife, Huma Abedin, a close aide to Clinton and a subject of the original investigation. This startling discovery jolted Comey into action just days before the election, turning the presidential race on its head.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or Democrat. This move is important because it could lead to a lot of market volatility in the next couple of weeks. I’ll show you the best way to deal with that volatility in just a moment.

But first, let me show you how the media missed the real story…

Predictably, Comey’s move made Clinton and her comrades in arms in the mainstream media go nuts. They had called Comey, who was nominated by President Obama, a paragon of integrity and virtue when he let Clinton off the hook just a few months ago. But now he was instantly relabeled a partisan hack trying to singlehandedly decide the election in Trump’s favor.

What the mainstream media have purposefully missed in their attacks on Comey is that he really had no choice…

See, The New York Times reports that these new emails were discovered by New York-based FBI agents weeks ago. So why the delay in announcing it? Well, that’s where things get really interesting…

According to The Wall Street Journal, the New York agents notified FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe of their blockbuster findings on Oct. 3. But they couldn’t access the emails they found because searching through them wasn’t covered under their existing warrant for Weiner.

They needed a new warrant. So what did McCabe do?

Nothing. He sat on his hands. He never requested one. And nothing happened for weeks. Why is this so important?

Well, McCabe is the FBI official who oversaw the initial Clinton email investigation. He’s come under fire recently because his wife received $500,000 while running for the Virginia state senate from the political action committee (PAC) of longtime Clinton ally and current Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe.

Clinton herself headlined a major fundraiser for that same PAC shortly before the group steered the cash to McCabe’s wife. So Mrs. McCabe received a huge sum of money from a close Clinton ally around the same time Mrs. Clinton was under an investigation led by Mr. McCabe.

The whole episode smells awful.

It’s, therefore, no shock to anyone who hasn’t had a full-frontal lobotomy why McCabe was in no rush to request a warrant for access to emails that may derail Clinton’s ambitions before Election Day.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the only reason a warrant was eventually requested in recent days was because “a member of the [Justice] department’s senior national-security staff asked for an update on the Weiner laptop. At that point, officials realized that no one had acted to obtain a warrant.”

Look, Comey’s not stupid. The Washington Post reported that he was only notified of the discovery of these new emails last Thursday. He knew the guy running the Clinton investigation was likely dragging his feet until after election.

He also knew that if he did nothing given this new discovery and it turned up damning evidence against Clinton, Republicans would rake him over the coals for taking part in a conspiracy.

So he did what any bureaucrat would do in that situation: He covered his you-know-what. He notified Congress of the new discovery, which let the cat out of the bag.

The stock market in the short term didn’t like Comey’s move. Stocks dipped when the news hit Friday afternoon. Polls had strongly indicated a Clinton victory over Trump. Those ever-so-bright analysts that keep Wall Street rolling said markets had already priced in that outcome.

But with this bombshell, all bets are off. Markets don’t like uncertainty.

One thing that is very clear to me: There will be more surprises before Election Day. Who knows what WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange or hacker Kim Dotcom has up his sleeves. There are only six days left. That means the most scandalous opposition research dumps are likely still to come for both candidates.

And that means we’ll see more market volatility like we saw on Friday. Trying to predict the next shoe to drop and the market’s reaction to it is a fool’s errand. You’d be crazy to try.

The only reliable way to maintain your sanity right now while making money in the markets is to ride the trends.

Things are about to get nuts.

Regards,

Michael Covel
Founder, Trend Following

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