CIRCLING THE DRAIN:

[I]n a break from a 128-year-long tradition, the Harvard Republican Club has announced it will not be backing the GOP nominee this year.

"Donald Trump holds views that are antithetical to our values not only as Republicans, but as Americans," the club explained in a statement on its Facebook page Thursday. "The rhetoric he espouses - from racist slander to misogynistic taunts - is not consistent with our conservative principles."

"Donald Trump, despite spending more than a year on the campaign trail, has either refused or been unable to educate himself on issues that matter most to Americans like us," the statement continues. "He speaks only in platitudes, about greatness, success, and winning."

The Harvard Crimson reports that a poll by the Harvard Republican Club earlier this week showed only 10 percent of its members said they would be supporting Trump for president. Ten percent were undecided, and 80 percent said they would not vote for him. [...]

"President Reagan called on us to maintain ... our shining city on a hill. He called on us to maintain decency in our hearts by loving our neighbor," the Harvard Republican Club wrote. "He would be ashamed of Donald Trump. We are too."

Michael Morell, former acting director of the CIA, endorsed Hillary Clinton for president Friday, praising the Democratic nominee's national security acumen and offering a blistering critique of her Republican rival, Donald Trump, who he called an "unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."

"First, Mrs. Clinton is highly qualified to be commander in chief. I trust she will deliver on the most important duty of a president - keeping our nation safe," Morell wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times. 

"Second, Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security." [...]

"I am neither a registered Democrat nor a registered Republican. In my 40 years of voting, I have pulled the lever for candidates of both parties," he said. "As a government official, I have always been silent about my preference for president. No longer."

Morell, who retired from the CIA in 2013, was a 33-year veteran of the agency who worked closely with President George W. Bush during the Sept. 11 attacks and with President Barack Obama during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. He was named acting director when Obama tapped Leon Panetta for secretary of defense and stepped in again when David Petraeus resigned amid a scandal.

Hillary Clinton is riding high in the polls. How high? A poll released by the Atlanta Journal Constitution on Friday found Clinton leading Trump in Georgia, 41 percent to 38 percent. That follows other Georgia polls published this week also showing a close race in the Peach State. A Democratic presidential nominee hasn't carried Georgia since 1992. 

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