And Now For the BIG, BIG NAME!!!!!

It's not final, but it seems that the name of the man Bill Kristol called a big name Republican has leaked.  This big name Republican is going to run as an independent against Clinton and Trump.  And here's the big name:

David French


The truth is that the big name Republican has about as small a name as one could possibly have.  In fact, I've never heard of him and I've heard of just about every Republican on the national stage for the last few decades.

To be fair to Mr. French, he may not be the guy who will be running as the dummy to Kristol's ventriloquist, so if that is the case, I mean no disrespect.  But if French is actually planning to run, then he is making himself into a joke. 

Here's the question:  what state will Mr. French carry when running against Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Gary Johnson?  French comes from Tennessee, but he's little known there.  French is not independently wealthy (or so I am told), so he will have to raise millions, indeed hundreds of millions, to launch a real campaign.  And then there's this:  it's already past the filing date in Texas and other states' filing deadlines are fast approaching.  There is no way that French and Kristol are going to be able to gather the needed signatures to get on the ballot even if they devote themselves to it.  It is a massive effort that requires hundreds or thousands of volunteers.  Unless Kristol and French have exceedingly large families, there's no way they are going to make most of the filing deadlines.  To be fair, there is one possibility:  Hillary Clinton may send her own people to get French on the ballot since she figures that having him on the ballot will siphon a few votes away from Trump.

This whole effort by Bill Kristol is totally a joke.  Kristol has managed to throw away any claim he ever had to being a principled conservative.  It's too bad, but it is also inevitable.

Charlie Tries To Cook The Books

There's an article out today written by political "guru" Charlie Cook.  In the piece, Cook argues that the recent polls that show Donald Trump tied with or slightly ahead of Hillary Clinton don't really mean that Trump is doing all that well.  According to Cook, the Republican party wounds have healed and the base has consolidated behind Trump while the same thing has yet to happen among the Democrats.  Once that consolidation takes place, says Cook, Hillary will move to something like a 7% lead over Trump.

When I read this article, I started to laugh out loud.  I mean, Charlie Cook has a long track record as a political pundit/prophet, but he hasn't done particularly well this year.  At the start of the campaign he loudly proclaimed that polls would be useless in predicting the outcome of the Republican nomination fight.  Of course, about the time Cook made that prediction, Donald Trump took the lead in the polls and held that position for nearly all of the remainder of the primary season.  So Trump led the polls and won even though Cook promised us that the polls would be meaningless.

A few months later, when we were just about a month ahead of the first caucus in Iowa, Cook explained once again what would happen in the Republican nomination fight.  Here's how he put it:

"Republican voters in populous left-leaning 'blue zone' states have a disproportionate influence on the nominating process. These voters tend to give the nod to a more moderate, electable choice".

Cook then went on to predict that Trump would surely lose.  Once again, Cook was completely wrong.

The truth is that if one judges from his recent track record, Charlie Cook doesn't have a clue what is going on.  Maybe the Democrats will coalesce around Hillary in the way that moths are drawn to a bug zapper.  Maybe the Sanders' supporters will stay home or even support Trump.  Maybe Bernie will run as an independent after the rigged Democrat convention takes place.  Maybe Bill Kristol will disclose that some "big name Republican" is going to run as an independent.  (Okay, that's ridiculous, but I had to say it.)  Maybe Trump will soar to a huge lead over Hillary.  Charlie Cook surely doesn't know (although he can be fairly sure that Kristol's big name will never appear.)

Trump 1; Media 0

Donald Trump held a press conference today to discuss his fund raiser for veterans' group held a few months back.  Trump detailed what was raised and what and to whom cash has been distributed.  Trump also got lambasted by the reporters for calling them out for the distorted coverage of the whole matter.  The general line from the reporters was to ask Trump if he should be subject to media scrutiny with regard to matters like the gifts to the vets.  Trump's response was to call them out for their one-sided attack on him.  The key line from Trump was to ask the media where are the stories on how much (or how little) Hillary and Bill Clinton have given to veterans' groups.  The truth is that Hillary and Bill have given nothing to vets.  Indeed, they have given essentially nothing to charity.  All their supposed donations have been to themselves; they gave "donations" to the Clinton Foundation and then, after taking a big tax deduction, used that cash to pay for their own expenses.

The truth is that the mainstream media gives precious little coverage to the Clintons' complete lack of charity.  There is also little coverage of the Clintons' turning a supposedly charitable organization (the Clinton Foundation) into a cover for raising cash to cover expenses and to pay their staff.  Here's all you really need to know.  In the last tax return that the Clintons made public, they say that they gave about $3,008,000 to charity.  That's three million to the Clinton Foundation and eight thousand to real charities.  Have you heard those figures previously?  Unless you read them here, I doubt it.  The media just doesn't even bother to cover this disgrace.

It was great to see Trump taking on a corrupt media.  It won't change the way that they act, but it will allow the truth to penetrate through to the American people.  That someone is out there with the truth is refreshing to say the least.

Wait, Who Said What Lie?

I heard a rather breathless reporter tell a radio audience this morning that Donald Trump was going to disclose today if he "actually" raised money for veterans a few months back when he held his event to do so.  It seems that "questions" have been raised whether or not the cash was gathered and what Trump has done with it. 

The report is part of the media attempt to paint Trump as someone who lies as often and about as serious topics as Hillary Clinton (who is also known as the Duchess of Dishonesty.)  Let's do a comparison to see how that story line is working out:

1.  The last lies by Hillary were exposed late last week.  Hillary lied when she said that her email system was "allowed" by the State Department rules and federal law.  Nope, the State Department Inspector General made clear that what Hillary did was not allowed under department rules and federal law.  Hillary also told America over and over that she and her people were fully cooperating with the investigation into the email mess.  Nope, the IG disclosed that Clinton and all her people stonewalled the investigation.  Even the Clinton campaign spokesman had to admit that the IG was correct.  That means Clinton was telling a lie.

2.  The supposed lie by Trump that the reporter spoke of this morning arose from an event that Trump held at the time of one of the early debates among the GOP candidates.  Trump said that he had raised six million dollars for veterans.  The truth is that Trump's event ran like nearly every other charity's.  It got pledges not bags of cash.  Most of the time when big donors attend events, they don't come with cash or checks; instead they make a pledge that they will donate a certain amount and then give the cash in the days or months that follow.  Trump's event got six million in pledges, but like most charities, Trump said that he had raised six million dollars.  Now I don't know how much of the cash has been collected or disbursed.  We will find out later today when that data is released.  From what is available to the public so far, we do know that Trump gave the million he promised himself.  It took him about two months before he actually gave the cash that he had pledged earlier.

It's worth noting that there is nothing to indicate that Trump's charitable contribution to the vets' organizations is going to benefit his campaign in any way (other than publicity of course.)  That is a big difference from the "charity" that Hillary and Bill Clinton give to the Clinton Foundation.  The Clinton Foundation has operated in many ways like a political slush fund rather than a charity.  Over eighty percent of the funds raised have been used for "expenses" like multi-million dollar travel expenses (much for Hillary and Bill) or like the salaries of close Clinton aides who suddenly became experts on charity and got paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries.  Indeed, according to their tax returns, the Clintons gave essentially no charity other than to the Clinton Foundation.  It's a sweet deal for them:  they give cash to the Foundation and get a tax deduction; they use the donated funds for "expenses" like travel and salaries for cronies and staff; and they send less than 20% to groups actually helping those in need.  In other words, calling the Clinton Foundation a "charity" is an enormous lie.  But for the media, they want to focus on Trump's fundraiser for the vets.

The Kristol Lack Of Clarity

Bill Kristol is trolling Twitter with hints that there will soon be a third party candidate for president.  Ooooooh, how exciting!  Except, not really.  The deadlines for getting a third party candidate on the November ballot have already started to pass.  At the end of the next ten days it will already be too late for states with about ten percent of the electoral votes.  That means that an independent would have to run as a write in candidate in those states.  There are states with more than that amount which have filing deadlines in the following month.  Since there is no campaign or party structure to support the independent candidate, it is highly unlikely that he or she will be able to meet the requirements to get on the ballot in the bulk of these early-deadline states.  That would leave this new third party independent off the ballot in states that could provide close to half of all the electoral votes needed for victory in November.  Another way to put that is simply this:  IT'S TOO LATE FOR ANOTHER CANDIDATE TO HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN.

So we have Bill Kristol and the remnants of the #NeverTrump movement trying to beat Trump with their Independent so that they can hand the White House to Hillary Clinton.  It's hard to understand why long-time Republicans are so intent on putting Hillary in control.  Of course, it may be that Kristol is just sending out these tweets to try to stay relevant now that his group has failed so miserably among Republicans.   I hope that is the reason.  After all, spite and self-promotion are still better than delivering the nation to Hillary.  One move is just petty and stupid while the other borders on insanity.

Thinking About Gentleman Jimmy

I was struck this morning by the topsy turvy world of American politics, especially in the last month.  It made me think of New York City mayor James J Walker.  Gentleman Jimmy, as Walker was known, headed the city during Prohibition.  He was bounced from office after he lost his bid for re-election to Fiorello LaGuardia (yes, that's the man for whom the airport is named).  Decades later they produced a Broadway musical about LaGuardia and it included a song about Gentleman Jimmy.  The song had one key line:  "Will they love you in November as they do in May?"  In many ways, that summarizes our current political landscape.

Right now, it's fair to say that neither of the almost certain nominees of the two parties are loved.  No one loves Hillary Clinton except for possible Chelsea.  (I think it's safe to rule out Bill based upon years of observation.)  On top of that, Clinton is viewed by more than two thirds of Americans as dishonest and untrustworthy and her favorabilility numbers are likewise far under water.  On the other side, there are those who strongly like Donald Trump, but the polls say that there are more people who don't like him.  So to twist the song line, will the electorate like either candidate better in November than they do in May?

The future trend for Clinton seems rather clear.  Her favorability numbers have been sinking for over a year.  Prior to announcing her candidacy, Hillary was viewed favorably by roughly two thirds of the American people.  Over the last year and a half, that number has consistently declined so that it's now roughly two thirds unfavorable and one-third favorable.  In a match up against Trump, Clinton even gets votes from people who nevertheless view her unfavorably.  Still, the trend is clear; the more people see Hillary, the less they like her.  Now we have the added burden of the Inspector General's report on her email system.  The IG's report exposed clearly that Hillary and her team have been blatantly telling lies while trying to justify what she did while Secretary of State.  Clinton said repeatedly that everything she did was "allowed".  The IG report demonstrates that Clinton's claim was false all along.  What Hillary did was not "allowed"; the IG makes clear what she did was not even "legal".  Hillary also claimed repeatedly that she did nothing more than what her predecessors had done.  Again, the IG report makes clear that this is not the case.  Earlier secretaries of state were not perfect, but comparing their email missteps with Hillary's is like comparing j-walking to murder; both are wrong, but only one is serious.

Then you have to add in the ever more strident attacks from Bernie Sanders.  Bernie and his followers are angry; that is clear.  Bernie thinks (and rightly so) that the whole primary battle was rigged in favor of Hillary.  He is making moves that could easily blow up the national convention in Philadelphia.  His latest move is to ask that certain Clinton delegates get removed from convention committees because they are supposedly too strident (he calls them "attack dogs".)  It's an interesting ploy.  If the Clinton delegates are removed, then Hillary looks weak by kowtowing to Bernie.  If the Clinton delegates stay, then Bernie keeps talking about how the system is rigged.  Ultimately, Hillary will win the nomination, but this battle with Bernie is going to leave her with millions of Bernie supporters who -- to put it mildly -- hate her.

Put all this together and Hillary's trajectory does not look good.  (And that ignores what the FBI may do with the possible indictment.)

On the other side is Trump.  His trajectory is much less clear.  Trump has seen big moves in his favorability numbers over time.  The difference between Trump's numbers and Hillary's, however, is that Trump has seen rises in favorability as well as falls.  In the last month, Trump has risen substantially in most poll categories.  There's still a great deal that will affect Trump, however.

First, we will have to see if Trump can avoid a real split in his party.  At the moment, he's looking good on that score.  Sure, we have big names in the party like Jeb Bush who say that they are not going to vote for Trump.  The problem Bush faces, however, is that he offers no reason for his action that will resonate with voters.  Other Republicans with much bigger names (like George H.W.Bush, George W. Bush and Mitt Romney) are not coming to the convention in Cleveland, but only Romney has hinted at active opposition to Trump in the election.  The #NeverTrump movement has all but disintegrated.  Right now, it's down to Bill Kristol and four people who meet every other Tuesday at a Denny's outside of Washington (or at least so it seems.)  Once Speaker Ryan gives his inevitable endorsement of Trump, the plan by the establishment remnants to resist Trump will be over.

Next we will have to see if Trump can overcome some of his negatives.  Trump doesn't have to stop being himself (as if he could), but he should refrain from gratuitous attacks on those who ought to be allies.  It will be interesting to see just how the GOP convention gets set up and how the campaign goes after that.  We know exactly what we will get from Hillary Clinton; Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a complete question mark.  If Trump can pull off an extravaganza, he could raise his numbers substantially.  Believe it or not, there are still millions of Americans who only know Trump from what others say about him rather than from what Trump himself does or says.  Trump has the ability to win over millions of voters; we will have to wait and see if he uses that ability.

All of this is a long way of saying that the election season still has a long way to go.  Still, if one had to bet right now, the smart money ought to be on Trump.  More precisely, the smart money ought to be on Hillary losing.

The Coming Disarray in Philadelphia

The Democrat convention in Philadelphia is likely to be a spectacle worth watching.  If things go the way they seem to be headed, the TV audience will be drawn to the event much in the same way people rubberneck on the highway next to a major accident.  It's terrible to see, but we all have to look.

Bernie Sanders is setting things up for a series of major battles on the platform.  No one really cares about what is in the platform, but nevertheless, it will produce fireworks.  For example, the platform drafting committee will likely be split between supporting a $15/hour minimum wage (Bernie's position) and the lower one ($12) which is Hillary's position.  The Hillary forces will win the floor vote, but Hillary will be stuck opposing a higher minimum wage before the whole country.  There will also likely be a platform battle over America's alliance with Israel.  The Bernie delegates named to the platform drafting committee include a majority that is clearly anti-Israel.  In a floor fight, Hillary will prevail, but there will be millions of people watching at home as the Democrats denounce our closest ally in the Middle East; that is not a good thing for Hillary in November.  We could also see battles over climate change, single payer national health, and limitations on big banks.  Just imagine Hillary forced to rally the convention in favor of the Wall Street banks.  It will reinforce all that Sanders ever said about Hillary being bought and paid for by Wall Street bankers.

Without a doubt, these platform battles will be scheduled in afternoon sessions in Philadelphia to avoid messing with the prime time infomercial that the convention is supposed to be.  Most likely, the Sanders forces won't let that happen.  They will rally their troops from the demonstration across the street and cause all sorts of chaos in the name of pushing the Democrats to truly "progressive" positions. 

In a way, it is a lovely thought to imagine that Hillary will be done in by the very progressive forces that she has claimed as her own for so long.  Bernie Sanders, you see, actually believes most of this stuff while Hillary has pushed it for years because she saw it as her path to power.  No matter what, however, it will be these battles over the proper progressive position that are likely to do in Hillary's chances for the White House.

At least, let's hope that is so.

So Now the Terrorists Are Getting Creative

The Washington Times is reporting today that Syrians and Palestinians are buying illegally citizenship in Honduras and using the resulting papers to sneak into the USA.  Here's the beginning of the Times report:

Syrians and Palestinians managed to buy illegal citizenship documents from Honduras then tried to use them to enter the U.S., a Honduran newspaper reported over the weekend, exposing a scheme that analysts say could post a danger to the U.S. visa system.
La Prensa uncovered a criminal network that paid Honduran officials to illegally register foreigners as legal residents, which gave them access to documents that could then be used to gain broader access to the western hemisphere.

Is there still anyone in the USA who really believes that the terrorists are not trying to use our own broken immigration system against us?

The entire Times article can be read here.

Terry McAuliffe Learned From the Masters

Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe is under FBI investigation with regard to allegedly illegal contributions from a Chinese billionaire to his campaign as well as to the Clinton family foundation.  When the news first broke the other day, McAuliffe told reporters that he had never met the Chinese billionaire in question.  Now, a video has surface of the two of them attending a fund raiser for his campaign.  The fund raiser was a small gathering at the home of two of McAuliffe's friend in New York:  Bill and Hillary Clinton.  So the gov spent an evening having dinner with just a few people at the ex-president's house, but now he claims he never met the guy who gave him big bucks around the same time.  This is so dishonest that Hillary herself could have said it.

Do The True Facts Matter At All?

I just saw an article at the top of my Yahoo News feed that grimly announces that over thirty UNESCO World Heritage sites are threatened by the rising waters and intensifying storms which are the result of climate change.  It made me wonder; does anyone pushing the climate change narrative ever care about the true facts?  Do they care even a little bit?

Let's examine the business of intensifying storms.  Here is the actual fact according to the federal government:  The USA just passed the longest period in recorded history without being hit by a major hurricane.  Major hurricanes are defined as category 3 or worse.  If global warming is actually causing "intensifying storms", there should be more of these massive storms.  All the small hurricanes should have intensified into category 3 or 4 or even 5.  In a typical year, there are between 10 and 16 Atlantic hurricanes.  On average 4 hit the USA, although not all of those are major hurricanes.  Still, after over 200 years of recording the weather, America has now been without a major hurricane strike for the longest time ever.  That is concrete proof that hurricanes, at least, are not intensifying.  Of course, hurricanes are not the only type of storm that affects the USA.  We also have tornadoes that rip through the heartland every year.  But guess what?  The number of tornadoes has been declining to much lower levels and the number of really strong (or should I say really intense) storms has fallen sharply.  That's more actual proof that in North America at least, storms are not intensifying.

Then there's those rising sea levels.  For the most part, the rising seas are supposedly due to the melting of the polar ice cap, particularly the one in Antarctica.  The actual facts there, however, show that the quantity of ice in Antarctica is growing, not diminishing.  More ice at the pole means less water in the ocean.  That translates into lower sea levels.  That measurement of ice at the south pole is taken by satellites that carefully and continuously monitor the ice levels.  It's not an opinion or a feeling or a belief.  These are actual facts.

So tell me then, why is UNESCO spreading fear and misinformation about the impending destruction of World Heritage Cites?  Shouldn't actual facts matter to the UN body?  Sadly, the answer is clearly that UNESCO cannot be bothered with the facts.

Sanders Has Democrat Establishment in Full Panic Mode

Politico has long been the voice of the Washington establishment.  If a senator or congressman or party bigwig wants to get a story in the news, they leak it to Politico which runs it.  Today, there is a story in Politico about how Democrats in the House and Senate are angry at Sanders for his proposed debate with Donald Trump.  What is important about the article, however, is not the supposed anger of congressional Democrats, but rather what the story really means.  The Democrat establishment in Washington is in full panic mode as Hillary Clinton keeps taking blow after blow after blow.

If you read the Politico piece, it is clear that the Democrats view a debate between Trump and Sanders as a very bad thing for their nominee Hillary Clinton.  Oh, a few of them say the obligatory covering remarks about how Sanders can take on Trump on behalf of working men and women, but the almost universal view is anger at Sanders inserting himself into this debate.  They may claim that Sanders is just trying to stay relevant, but the truth is that the debate puts Sanders on the stage of the biggest political event so far this campaign season while it relegates Hillary to watching from the sidelines with absolutely no one paying attention to her.  It's no wonder the Democrat bosses are upset; their choice for nominee is being treated as an afterthought.  The audience for a Sanders battle against Trump will be huge (sorry, I had to say that), and no one will see even one kind word said about Hillary.  Think about it.  Trump will castigate Hillary as crooked and will point out her many misdeeds.  Sanders is not going to come forward to defend Mrs. Clinton; why would he?  Trump will call out Hillary Clinton for taking cash from so many large Wall Street banks and foreign governments and individuals.  Sanders will just say, "amen" and no one will defend Hillary.

The truth is that the Democrats power elite in Washington is beyond upset at the thought that tens of millions will spend two hours watching both candidates bash their favorite.  And what will the take on Hillary be?  Most likely, people will just see Hillary as weak and cowardly.  She wouldn't debate Bernie after promising that she would.  Instead, she just ran and hid.  It's a terrible image for someone who wants to be president.

Only the Mainstream Media Could Celebrate This

The revised estimate for first quarter GDP growth was released this morning.  The new estimate is annualized growth of 0.8% or growth during the quarter of 0.2%.  The media is busy celebrating this number because it is slightly higher than the previous estimate released a month ago.  Are they kidding?  Our economy is standing on the brink of recession and looks likely to fall over that cliff; the media is celebrating because we are two inches from the edge instead of 1 and three quarters inches.

In the 71 years since World War II, the average annual growth of the US economy has been around 3.5%.  That average includes recessions, so during the years when the economy grew, the growth rate was actually higher on average.  President Obama is the first America president during that time who never once was able to preside over an economy that met the average.  Every one of the Obama years has seen growth below 3.5%, and it was usually much below that rate.  While some may scoff at this statistic as unimportant (mostly people in the media or the Democrat party), consider this.  If Obama had been able to just meet the average growth rate for the economy, the GDP would be about 20% higher than it is now.  That would mean an additional three and a half trillion dollars of goods and services produced in America each year.  It would mean millions upon millions of additional jobs.  It would mean that the federal government would have roughly an extra three quarters of a trillion dollars of additional revenues each year, and that would be enough to change our never-ending deficits into a surplus that would reduce the national debt.  Social Security and Medicare would be much better funded.  Most important, the average income of the America family would be much higher.  Because Obama and his policies have run the economy into the ground, every middle income American family has been severely hurt, every poor American has seen his or her chances of getting out of poverty greatly diminished and the country as a whole has been damaged.

Keep in mind that the Obama policies that have so hurt our economy are the same ones that Hillary Clinton says she wants to keep in place.  We have eight years of proof that these policies just don't work, but Hillary is still out there promoting them.  We would have to be insane to choose her as our next president.

Worth Noting

I've been writing for two days about how bad things are going for Hillary Clinton, and I've gotten a fair amount of push back through email.  Just now, however, I think I have the ultimate confirmation of the collapse of the Clinton campaign.  I turned on MSNBC and heard the hosts of With All Due Respect (or whatever they call their 6 PM EDT show) say that Clinton had been ineffective in responding to the Inspector General's report on her email.  Then they added that that Clinton and her campaign had responded to questions about the report with spin that was non-responsive to the questions and with out and out lies.  One guy then added that even though the show is on cable, he can't really say what he thinks of Clinton and the email mess without having problems due to language.  This is what they are saying on MSNBC, a network that normally looks at Hillary as a saint.  Hillary is in big, big trouble.

Yet Another Hillary Email Lie. She Didn't Turn Over All Her Work Emails

There's another bombshell in the Inspector General's report on Hillary Clinton that makes clear that once again Hillary has been telling lies.  Certainly, proof of Hillary Clinton's dishonesty ought to shock no one, but this lie is about one of her main defenses in the email mess.  For about a year, Hillary Clinton has been telling the American voter that she turned over all her work related emails to the State Department.  Only personal stuff about yoga and Chelsea's wedding were deleted.  At least that has been the central tenet of the Clinton defense.  Now, we learn that this clearly is not the case.  Three very important emails from/to Hillary were referenced by the Inspector General in the report.  The first of the missing emails comes from November 2010 and in it, Hillary says that she is concerned that if she has to use the government email system her personal correspondence could become accessible to outsiders (through the Freedom of Information Act).  The email was sent when Hillary was told of about the need to use the official system to maintain security.  The other two emails are from 2011 and they tell Hillary Clinton that her system had to be shut down because of attempts by outsiders to hack into it.  Hillary is thus informed that there are very real security concerns about the jury-rigged system she had set up for herself.  These emails go to the very heart of the email controversy, and they are very clearly work related.  These three emails also put Clinton in a very bad light.  The first makes clear that from the very beginning, Hillary knew that she was violating State Department rules.  The other two make clear that Clinton knew that she was putting national secrets at risk with her system.  Still, somehow these three emails just didn't get turned over to the State Department.   The Inspector General had to get the emails from the files of others.

Without a doubt, we will soon hear the Clinton counterattack on this subject.  They will trot out their story that at the very beginning of Clinton's time at the State Department, she lost some of her emails because of changes in the computer system.  This is a defense that Hillary used when emails to and from Sidney Blumenthal turned up on his system but they were somehow missing on hers.  This defense does not work.  The lost emails all are dated March of 2009 or earlier; none of these three are even close to that date.  We will surely hear that this is no big deal because the IG was able to get the email from the files of others.  That truly is brazen.  Clinton had a legal obligation to keep and turn over these emails.  She broke the law by not doing so.  Then she lied in claiming that she had turned everything over.  Fortunately she was thwarted in her effort to hide the truth from the public.  Now we are supposed to forgive her because she failed in her efforts?  That would be like having someone attack you in an attempt to kill you and then to have those actions ignored because you survived the attack.  Nope, it's still attempted murder, and it's still a crime.

It's only a matter of time before Hillary completely collapses.

What's Wrong With The Media?

It's a silly question, I know, but I still have to ask it, "What's wrong with the media?"  There are a whole series of reports in recent days about Israel and Hamas trading fire; missiles come towards Israel from Gaza and the Israelis bomb military installations in response.  There are also many articles about whether or not the Palestinians/Israeli peace talks can resume (the simple answer is no).  Then there are articles about some English historian who turned down a prize in history given by an Israeli foundation because of "political reasons".  It's not that these stories are unimportant; they're are worth reading.  It is, rather, that there is an enormous story about news that threatens the lives of over half million people in Syria, and the media is nearly silent about it.  What has happened is that the forces of Iran and the terrorists at Hezbollah have captured most of the land east of Damascus in Syria which has been used to grow food for the opposition holding out on the east side of that city.  These opposition fighters are not ISIS or as Qaeda fighters.  They are Sunni Moslems who rose up against Assad when he started killing people who opposed his rule.  Some 600,000 people in the eastern half of Damascus and its suburbs are part of this opposition, and they are encircled by the forces supporting Assad.  Now, the Assad side has taken the vast bulk of the farmland in the area and cut off the food supply for over half a million people.  The result will be mass starvation.

So on the one hand we have the usual stories about Israel and the Palestinians which get major coverage.  On the other hand, we have a development that threatens death by starvation on an almost unimaginable scale, and the media ignores it.  What is going on here?  Just how brain dead are the editors and reporters?

Watching Hillary Collapse

Yesterday must have been the worst day for Hillary Clinton since she had to drop out of the race in 2008.  In one 24 hour period, Hillary got hit with three blows that should have set off alarm bells in every Democrat's heart; their nominee is collapsing.

First, of course, we got the report from the State Department Inspector General that found that Clinton had violated the law with her email system.  The IG report also made clear that Clinton's violation was not inadvertent; she knew what she was doing and was warned that she ought not do it.  Clinton, however, responded in essence that she needed her system to keep her correspondence private.  The IG report also put the lie to Clinton's claim that she was cooperating with the investigations into her email system and that she had directed her staff to also cooperate.  According to the IG, neither Hillary nor her staff would cooperate, something that the Clintonites now concede.  (It's hard to continue to lie when the IG calls you on it.)  The IG report and its consequences have led to some rather unhappy reporting by big media Hillary backers like the New York Times and the Washington Post.  These mainstream media biggies understand just how damaging the report is to Hillary.  We have an impartial Democrat appointed by president Obama calling Hillary a liar and a crook (in other language, of course) and then providing chapter and verse in support.  At least the IG didn't call the report "Crooked Hillary Broke the Law."

Second, we have a move that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump made.  They agreed to debate each other prior to the California primary.  Hillary had previously agreed to debate Sanders prior to California, but she pulled out two days ago when it came time to actually schedule the debate.  Hillary adopted her imperious personality and brushed off a debate with Bernie as nothing more than a bother and a waste of time.  Hillary, you see, is just too important as the presumptive nominee to bother with Bernie Sanders.  Trump, however, completely upended Hillary's procession towards the nomination by saying he would meet Sanders for a debate.  Bernie almost instantly agreed.  So where does that leave Hillary?  She's now on the outside looking in at what is likely to be a debate with an extremely large audience.  Among Democrats, Hillary is the one who ran from a debate; Bernie is a fighter who took on Trump.  Among Independents, both Trump and Sanders are letting the people decide by having the debate; Hillary is the one who thinks herself above the need to speak to them.  This plays into the second weakness of the Clinton campaign.  The first, of course, is that Hillary is dishonest and untrustworthy and that may be enough.  The second, though, is that Hillary is in this race for herself and not for the people of America.  Hillary cares about only one thing:  Hillary.  This debate mess shows that clearly.  Most likely, Hillary is going to reverse course and try to get into the Sanders/Trump debate.  That will be a pretty image.

Third, we have today's poll in California that has the race between Hillary and Bernie there as a statistical tie.  Two weeks ago, Hillary was up by double digits.  None of these polls are significant by themselves, but the trend is clear.  California is moving in Bernie's direction.  With the addition of the IG report confirming that Hillary broke the law etc. there may be some more movement towards Bernie.  A loss for Hillary in California won't take the nomination away from her, but it will confirm just how terrible a candidate she really is.

Put all these together and it's disaster time for Hillary Clinton.

The Two Key Points of the State Department Inspector General Report on Clinton's Emails

The Inspector General of the State Department is out with a report today on Hillary Clinton's email mess.  There are two key points to the report.  First, the IG condemns Clinton's email system as improper and in violation of Department rules and regulations.  It goes on to explain that Clinton resisted using the State Department system because she wanted to keep her messages private.  This result is not surprising since everyone in America (other than Hillary and her spokespeople) already accepted this conclusion.  The second point is, for me, the more interesting one.  Both Hillary Clinton and her chief aides refused to cooperate with the investigation by the Inspector General.  Politico (which is another of those Clinton groupies) sneaks that information into its report when it says deep in its article on the subject, "The document [the IG Report] also included some details of an exchange between Clinton and Abedin, who both chose not to cooperate with the IG’s investigation."  The Clintonites clearly want to hide the fact that Hillary and her staff REFUSED TO COOPERATE with the investigation.

Think back for a moment.  How many times in the last year have you seen a smiling Hillary Clinton tell us all that she just wants all the facts to come out, that there's nothing to these investigations (she calls them a security review) and that she and all her people will fully cooperate with investigators?  The number is certainly more than twenty times that she's said that.  But surprise, surprise, surprise!  Hillary Clinton was telling lies!  Imagine that.  Hillary was being dishonest.  She was saying one thing and doing something else.  Is Hillary ever honest?  I don't think so.

Free Speech or Fascist Tantrums?

In the last few days, the assault on free speech continued unabated.  At DePaul University, a speech by a conservative was disrupted by two protesters who threatened violence and the campus security would not even intervene to stop the melee.  It's doubly interesting because the university administration would not let the event proceed in the first place unless the group sponsoring the speaker paid for that security to be present.  The protesters said they were "preventing hate speech".  When the speaker led the audience to the president's office to protest the disruption to their event and the inaction of the security, it was, you guessed it, campus security that kept them from entering the building housing the president's office.

Outside the Trump rally in New Mexico, protesters waved Mexican flags and shouted at those attending the rally.  Okay.  But then the protesters started throwing rocks and attacking the local police.  Perhaps the best quote came from a protester who said she was against Trump using her family as a scapegoat.  She confirmed that her family were here illegally.  The Trump rally went off without a hitch, and the small protest made no difference.

Why is it that our universities tolerate those who would stop free speech?  To use a favorite Obama phrase, that's not who we are.  Our Supreme Court held that Nazis could march through a community in Illinois filled with Holocaust survivors; it's called free speech because we are supposed to be free to say what we want.  That ruling was forty years ago.  Imagine what would happen today in two comparable situations:  1) The local Islamic students society on some campus disrupts the ROTC graduation chanting that these soon-to-be military officers are being trained to kill Moslems; and 2) a group from the campus ROTC chants "they include terrorists" and marches through a meeting of Moslem students speaking on behalf of bringing in Syrian refugees to this country.  There's no doubt that the ROTC students would be savaged by the university administration and local media.  There's also no doubt that nothing would happen to those who disrupted the ROTC graduation.  In other words, we no longer have free speech; we have only "approved" speech.  If those in power like what you have to say, you're ok; otherwise, it's fine to shut you up.

Are The Clintons Ever Honest?

As of now, the only people who think Hillary Clinton is honest and trustworthy are those who pay no attention at all to the news.  There are more who will say that they think Hillary is honest, but those people are either on the Clinton payroll or they themselves are dishonest.  Hillary's low numbers on honesty are a major problem for her campaign.  In fact, one would think that the Clinton campaign would focus its efforts always on making Hillary and her campaign appear honest.  That is why today's news from Trump Tower is so surprising.

There was a tiny demonstration today in front of Trump Tower, the apartment building in New York where Donald Trump lives.  The protesters said that they were veterans who did not want to be used as props by Trump in his campaign.  The point was that they did not like the Trump effort to raise funds for vets that he held during one of the GOP debates since, they claimed, Trump had not yet actually given the money that he pledged at that time.

It's unclear when Trump gave the money, but it is certain that he has made the contribution he promised.  That, however, is not the key point.  The most important thing about the protest is that it was organized by the Clinton campaign.  That's right, the Hillaryites gathered the vets, helped them get signs and may have even paid them to picket in front of Trump Tower (that's not yet clear).  And what did the Clinton campaign have to say about arranging that protest?  Just as one would expect from liars, the Clinton campaign denied any involvement in arranging the protest.  Then, within an hour, when the reporters heard from sources in the protest that the whole thing had been set up by the Clinton campaign, the Hillaryites changed their story.  They went from "no involvement" to "yes, involvement".  Hillary got caught in the lie and just flipped the story.

Events like this are pretty bad.  The last time that presidential campaign secretly organized protests at the rallies of rivals was in 1972 when the campaign of GOP candidate Richard Nixon did it.  Nixon won that election, but then he went down in the Watergate scandal.  The efforts to undermine the campaigns of his opponents (just like what the Hillaryites did today) figured prominently in the Watergate hearings.  Hillary worked on the staff of the senate Watergate committee before she was fired.  It seems she learned all the wrong things.  She should know better.

More important, however, Clinton has been caught in a lie yet again.  The mess just reinforces the views of millions of people that Clinton is completely dishonest.  It makes me wonder.  Are the Clintons ever honest?

More Lies About Trump's Trade Views

Yahoo is the source for Yahoo News and Yahoo Finance which are supposedly sites that report news.  The reality, however, is that these sites are totally slanted in favor of the Democrats and Hillary Clinton.  We got another example just now when Yahoo Finance ran an analysis of the trade policies of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.  The article first incorrectly states Trump's position and then bases its analysis on these misstated views.

The reporter for this analysis, Nicole Sinclair, first tells us that Donald Trump has proposed a 45% tariff on goods imported from China.  Then she says that "experts" tell us that such a tax would cause a recession.

Trump indeed did call for a 45% tax on Chinese goods, but that was only to be imposed if the Chinese were to violate the treaties and laws that call for fair trade.  Here's how Trump put it at one of the GOP debates:

"The 45 percent is a threat that if they don't behave, if they don't follow the rules and regulations so that we can have it equal on both sides, we will tax you."

That's not a call for a 45% tariff like Yahoo claims.  It's a threat of a major penalty on China if it continues to violate the treaties and laws that govern trade. 

Think of it this way.  Suppose Trump said that he wants to impose an additional five year prison term on illegal aliens who commit multiple violent felonies while in the USA.  That would only apply if an illegal alien committed at least two violent crimes.  Under the standard that Yahoo and Nicole Sinclair use, they would report this by saying that Trump wants to put all illegal aliens in prison for five years.

I have no problem with the issues being fully debated and the American people making their choice for president.  I do, however, have a problem when a news source like Yahoo reports false "facts" and then analyzes them.

Time to Reid The Tea Leaves

Joy Ann Reid is described as a national correspondent for MSNBC.  That means that Ms. Reid is certainly a resident of the liberal government/media bubble in DC and New York.  Even if she is physically located outside that bubble, her mind is firmly ensconced inside it.  Today she wrote a piece for the Daily Beast that makes this plain.  According to Reid, the support for Donald Trump comes almost entirely from white male voters.

I'm not going to summarize all that Reid had to say.  I see no reason to waste your time with such nonsense.  It's enough that she sees Trump's support as almost completely white and male.  What surprises me most about this view is that it makes me wonder if the liberals in the government/media bubble actually believe this.  Many of them are highly educated, indeed, too highly educated for them to accept such a flawed premise.  Nevertheless, Reid is just parroting a narrative that has been part of the Trump phenomenon from the beginning of the race.  So do they really believe this garbage?  I think they do.

If one were to listen to MSNBC, one would learn that Trump is:

1. racist
2. homophobic
3. misogynistic
4. mentally unstable
5. dishonest

That's why only white men like him.  These white guys all feel threatened that their days in control of the USA are coming to an end.  That is Reid's current message.

The strange thing is that Reid and the others actually believe that they can convince the average American that they should disregard the sad reality of today's America and decide how to vote instead on the slurs and smears hurled at Trump by the liberal media.  You understand.  The guy who lost his job and is now working part time at a much lower paying one should refuse to vote for Trump because Hillary supports letting transgendered individuals use whatever locker room they want.  The people whose jobs disappeared when the Chinese fixed the market to gain market share are now supposed to ignore the candidate who says he will correct that trade mess and vote instead for the one who "supports" supposedly free trade and who says nothing unless it is first polled and focus grouped.

The reality of America is that there are millions of people who will not sit still and watch the country go down the drain in the name of political correctness or some other liberal view of the moment.  Those people include a lot more than white guys.  But hey, Ms. Reid, don't let me have reality intrude into your bubble.  You keep explaining how it's just white guys who support Trump.  Maybe next January you can cover Trump's inauguration and explain how it came to pass. 

Even Disney Is Annoyed

Yesterday, the secretary of Veterans' Affairs compared waiting months to see a doctor at a VA hospital with waiting in lines at Disney World.  It was an idiotic and offensive comparison which has been greatly criticized and condemned.  But here's the really funny part:  Disney itself seems quite angry with the comparison.  The company's spokesman told reporters that Disney tries extremely hard to keep waiting times to a minimum (something that seems not to concern the VA) and it also tries to make any required waiting into a fun experience.

The VA secretary was brought in specially to clean up the mess of the waiting times for appointments.  It sure looks like it's time to get rid of him and try someone else.  Maybe this time president Obama could try to find someone who understands that a sick veteran deserves more concern than someone about to ride in the Teacups.
 

Hillary's Support Really Is Collapsing

The American people really don't like to see their votes disregarded; they won't support a candidate or a party that rigs the system in his or her favor.  That fact is killing Hillary Clinton.  Over the last month, it has been made clear that the Democrats completely rigged their nominating process so that Hillary would win.  We've seen states where Bernie Sanders won the primary, but Hillary still got more delegates.  The story how the system is rigged is so widespread that they even joked about it on Saturday Night Live last week.  The story reached a boiling point when the Nevada state Democrat party seems to have rigged the vote at the state convention and then refused to hold a recount when the numbers did not add up.  The anger of the Sanders' supporters was then used by the party bosses working for Clinton to attack Bernie.

Proof that this mess is causing Hillary's support to collapse came again yesterday in the latest poll from Virginia.  The poll was taken by the pollsters from Roanoke College.  It showed a tie between Trump and Hillary in Virginia.  Each candidate had 38% of the vote.  This was the fourth poll by Roanoke that pitted Trump against Clinton.  In the past polls Hillary had won by between 12 and 17 percent of the vote.  And here's the key:  Trump did not do much better than in the past; the big change was that Hillary went from 48-50 percent of the vote to only 38 percent support.  That means that roughly one-eighth of all voters abandoned her since the last poll.

There's a long time until the election, so anything can happen.  If Hillary and the Democrat bosses continue to treat voters with disdain, however, nothing will help them.  They are guaranteeing a big loss.

It's Not Just Hillary; The Whole Democrat Party is a Tool of Wall Street

One of the big issues raised by Bernie Sanders has been the big bucks paid by Wall Street firms to Hillary Clinton for one of her boring 20 minute speeches.  The going rate for these Hillary oration has been roughly ten thousand dollars per minute.  No one actually believes that the Wall Street bankers cared what Hillary had to say in these speeches; they were buying access to the possible future president of the United States.  They hope to get their money's worth after Hillary gets elected.  But it's not just Hillary who has been bought by Wall Street.  Right here in Connecticut, governor Malloy is about to approve a grant of twenty two million dollars to Bridgewater, the world's biggest hedge fund to "help" it pay the costs of remodeling its offices in Westport.  Bridgewater manages tens of billions of dollars; it can afford to remodel its own offices.  The state is in the process of making major cuts to its workforce because Malloy and the Democrats are paying them about 35% more than workers doing the same job in the private sector.  That's crazy, but it's even worse to lay off these workers so that there will be cash to give to a multi-billion dollar hedge fund to pay for office remodeling.

One has to wonder.  Is it that the folks from Bridgewater gave enormous amounts of cash to Malloy?  We don't know.  Alternatively, do the people at Bridgewater have something on Malloy?  Again we don't know.  There needs to be an investigation.

Which Way Did It Go?

We got a detailed report today about the FBI investigation of Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, and it raises an interesting question.  The FBI is focused on McAuliffe's fund raising for his gubernatorial campaign in 2013 as well as on contributions made to the Clinton foundation where McAuliffe served as a director.  The question is whether the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton led to this investigation into McAuliffe or vice versa?  It may be that the two are unrelated, but I doubt that.  We have an exhaustive look into Hillary's email and her activities with the foundation.  Now we have another big investigation into her close friend (McAuliffe was the chairman of Hillary's 2008 run for president) and director of the foundation.

We will need to wait to see what the FBI uncovers, but none of this is good news for Hillary Clinton and her campaign.  The last thing she needs is yet another FBI investigation sniffing around the Clinton foundation. 

There's been no comment yet from governor McAuliffe.  My prediction is that he announces that the FBI is actually doing a security review of his campaign contributions and that he has told his staff to cooperate fully with the FBI.  Then tomorrow we will learn that all of the records of his campaign were inadvertently shredded.

Yeah, It's the Misogyny -- Sure

There's a column in today's Sacramento Bee by someone named Jack Ohman who concludes that the reason so many people hate Hillary Clinton is because she's a woman.  Ohman goes through black marks on the Clinton resume like being a liar and an enabler for Bill, but he concludes that on honesty she's no worse than Trump and that the charges against Bill are overblown and mostly disproved.  I'm not sure I've ever read the Sacramento Bee before, so I have no idea who this Ohman clown is, but nevertheless, one would think that the paper would at least require minimal fairness and honest from a columnist.

Let's think for a moment about what Ohman has to say.

1.  Ohman left out the nature and quantities of Hillary's lies.  Trump may have pretended to be his publicist twenty years ago while speaking to a reporter.  Hillary lied to the families of the victims of Benghazi as they were at the airport receiving the dead bodies of their loved ones back in this country.  For her entire life in the public eye, it has been one lie after another for Hillary.  She seems incapable of telling the truth.

2.  Ohman left out what seems like criminal behavior by Hillary that put our national security at risk.  Say what you want about Trump, he never put national secrets on a private unsecured system that was hacked by people from other countries and, almost certainly, by hostile governments.  Oh, and of course, Hillary lied about it for years now.

3.  Ohman also left out Hillary's bogus schemes to amass a fortune.  Trump made his billions mostly by building enormous profitable real estate projects.  There were things along the way that certainly were unsuccessful and maybe some small stuff that bordered on inappropriate, but basically Trump made his fortune in real estate development.  Hillary, on the other hand, never made much money working in the private sector or developing any businesses.  For the last thirty years, at least, Hillary and Bill have been public employees.  Somehow, however, the Clintons have managed to amass a fortune larger than the GDP of many small nations.  No one actually believes that Goldman Sachs paid Hillary a quarter of a million dollars for a speech because she is such a good speaker.  After all, we've all heard her speak.  Many people would pay a few bucks just so they wouldn't have to listen to her.  But it's worse.  It wasn't just Goldman Sachs.  Huge number of Wall Street firms and other big business paid Hillary a fortune for one of her horrible twenty minute speeches.  How can Ohman leave out what seems like Hillary's efforts for graft in his summary?

4.  Ohman is also silent about the Clinton Foundation.  That entity is supposedly a charity (and people actually get a tax deduction for giving it cash.)  But the reality is something different.  We know that over 80% of everything spent by the Foundation was not a gift to people in need (other than the Clintons.)  The foundation functions as a giant slush fund for the Clintons.  They used it to keep their political staff employed during the years spent waiting for Hillary to run for office again.  They used the foundation to pay for millions of dollars of travel expenses and the travels were in the most opulent fashion imaginable.

5.  Ohman is also silent about Hillary's total disdain for ordinary people.  It doesn't take much effort to realize that Hillary has no use for ordinary Americans.  She may say the opposite, but it's not enough.  Ohman ignores the reality that Hillary's own dislike for most Americans leads those same people to reciprocate the feeling.

6.  Finally, Ohman doesn't mention the anger Hillary displays.  Sanders seems angry at those people whom he blames for economic inequality.  Trump seems angry at those who are destroying the American dream.  Hillary, however, seems angry at nearly everyone who isn't named Clinton.  Most likely, she's also angry at Bill even though he is a Clinton.  There's no joy, no happiness with Hillary; there is only unrelenting anger.  Most people just don't like someone who is always angry.  After all, what's to like?

So, to be fair, there are a heck of a lot of reasons to dislike Hillary Clinton.  It's not that she's a woman.  It's the whole disgusting package rolled into one. 

I'll Bet He Doesn't Have To Wait

Secretary of Veterans' Affairs Bob McDonald was annoyed this morning when he was asked by reporters about waiting times for veterans to get appointments at VA hospitals.  Here's what he said in response:

"When you go to Disney, do they measure the number of hours you wait in line? Or what's important?  What's important is what's your satisfaction with the experience?"

In the annals of bad answers by politicians, that one makes the top ten.  The moron compared a veteran seeking medical treatment for what may be a life-threatening condition to a family waiting to ride on some amusement ride at Disney World.  He wants to ignore that there are vets who have waited for month after month to get the treatment they have been promised.  It's not a 45 minute wait for It's A Small World; it's months of wait in order to feel better.

The callousness of the response says all one needs to know about why president Obama and his administration have not been able to solve the problems with the VA.  Clearly, they just don't care about the vets.

The Washington Redskins -- What's In A Name?

It's rather amazing; a poll was done of Native Americans, and it found that more than 90% are not offended at all by the name of the Washington Redskins.  We have all watched as one liberal after another has hyperventilated over the terrible offense that the name of the Washington football team was to Native Americans.  There was pressure on the NFL to force the team to change the name.  There were moves by the federal government to encourage the team to change its name.  But the name remained unchanged, and we were told that Native Americans were all offended and upset by this.  Now we know that it just wasn't true.

Let's put this in context.  The results of the poll show that Native Americans don't care at all about the name of the Washington Redskins.  You probably could have gotten a similar number of people to claim they were offended by the name of the Philadelphia Phillies.  The whole controversy was just created by the liberals and the media (I know, same thing).

It's worth taking a look at the response of the media to this poll.  My favorite is the column in the Washington Post that warns both sides that they better pay attention to the poll results.  Both sides?  Really?  The phony assault on the team name is over and the fraud upon which it was based has been exposed.  It's time everyone recognized that.

It's Just Crazy

At the San Diego Padres game yesterday, the local Gay Men's Chorus had been asked to sing the national anthem before the game.  The group assembled on the field, but then someone in the control room at the stadium screwed up and played a recording of the national anthem instead.  The chorus did not get to sing.  The Padres apologized for the mix up.

So what happened next?  The leaders of the chorus rejected the apology from the team.  Instead, they contacted the local police and asked for an investigation of whether or not a hate crime had been committed.  It's unclear if the hate crime consisted of their being denied the chance to sing or some of the things that random fans yelled when they were leaving the field.

This is just crazy.  I'm sure the chorus was disappointed that they did not get to sing.  They had done so repeatedly in the past without incident.  This time, the control booth at the stadium messed up.  It's not a hate crime; it's a mistake.  The chorus makes themselves look foolish with a response like this.

Now The Line is That Trump Did Not Expand The GOP Voting Base

Yahoo News is reliably pro-Democrat.  No matter the day, there's always a story that shows Hillary in a good light or Trump in a bad light.  It's getting ridiculous.  They seem now either have lost their minds at Yahoo News or else they have just given up on facts and gone all-in on propaganda.  A good example is a story they are running today under the headline "New Data Backs Argument That Trump Has Not Expanded the GOP".  Basically, the story looks at a few states in which Republican voting was way up from 2012 and combines this with polling data that tells what portion of the voters were new voters vs. voters who usually vote Republican in the general election.  Adding the number of these "new" voters in the primary to the results of 2012 then tells us that Trump will not carry any of the states.

That article is nothing but propaganda.  First of all, it ignores a basic fact of the 2012 election:  the GOP turnout was lower than normal.  President Obama actually got fewer votes than he did in 2008, but because millions of GOP voters did not bother to vote, Obama still won.  The data that Yahoo News uses for its story shows in dramatic fashion that those stay-at-home GOP voters went back to the polls in 2016.  In fact, the GOP turnout was so heavy in the primaries that a surge of that size on election day would be enough, by itself, for Trump to win.  Now no one ought to analyze this year's election by taking the 2012 results and modifying one factor.  Nevertheless, if Yahoo News wants to try that, it ought to be honest about it at a minimum.

Let's look at an example:  In Virginia, there were close to 700,000 additional voters in the GOP primary compared to four years ago.  That increase is more than four times the margin by which Obama beat Romney in the state four years ago.  On top of that, it is safe to assume that the margin by which Hillary Clinton wins the African American vote and the turnout of the African American community will decline because Obama is no longer at the top of the ticket.  Combine those two factors, and the prospects for Trump in Virginia look quite good indeed.  But again, none of this analysis really tells us what will actually happen this fall.  What we do know, however, is that Yahoo News is totally wrong in what it is reporting.

The Ignorance of US Media

NBC news reported that Russia is furious that American tanks came were within 45 miles of the border when they took part in NATO exercises in the nation of Georgia.  How could America's military make such a threatening move?  Why would we put tanks and a few hundred men so close to the Russian border?  Is it war-mongering by the Pentagon?

Okay, now let's try actual facts.  Georgia is a very small country on Russia's southern border.  In 2008, Russian forces invaded Georgia and took over the provinces of Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia.  There was world-wide condemnation of the move by the Russians, but they are still there in control of the two provinces.  Sanctions were placed on the Russians which were supposed to force them to withdraw.  Then less than six months later, the new Obama administration decided to back off from the sanctions.  The so called "Russian Reset" was born.  It was the idea of Hillary Clinton and president Obama.  The USA forgave the Russian invasion of its neighbor and lifted all the sanctions.  It was an incredibly idiotic policy.  The Russians realized that Obama would never stand up to them, so they invaded and took over Crimea and part of eastern Ukraine where they remain today.

The supposed upset of the Russians over having a few tanks and a few hundred American troops only 45 miles from the border is just another attempt by Russian president Putin to intimidate president Obama.  The media publicizes the "upset" as if it were real.  Of course, if the NBC reporter had bothered to even look at a map, it would have been revealed that the capital of Georgia, the city of Tbilisi is, itself, less than 50 miles from the Russian border.  Further, because Georgia is so small, roughly 75% of the country is within 45 miles of the border with Russia.  The Russians are not upset because of where the tanks ended up.  They just want to prevent any American military cooperation with Georgia and to make clear that Russia is the undisputed hegemon of the region.

It wouldn't have been hard for NBC to report the story correctly.  It would, however, have required either a bit of knowledge or a bit of work by NBC.  Sadly, the network seems to be clueless and lazy.

The Sea Change Continues

The polls for the presidential race continue to demonstrate that there has been a major change.  As of this morning, Donald Trump now leads Hillary Clinton by less than a point in the average of all recent polls compiled by Real Clear Politics.  This is because two new polls that together show the race tied replace polls from nearly a month ago that had Hillary far ahead.

What has caused this shift?  Most of the pundits (who never seem to get anything right anymore) ascribe the shift to Republicans backing Trump now that he has clinched the nomination.  These same pundits go on to say that once Hillary has clinched, she will get the same effect from her party and will move back in front of Trump.  That line may be comforting to the politicians and media people who live in the DC/New York bubble, but it sure does not look correct.  In the first twenty days of April, Hillary was polling at roughly 50% of the voters.  In the polling of the last two weeks she is polling at roughly 43%.  Trump, meanwhile, was polling at roughly 41% in the April period and that has risen to 43% in the last two weeks.  That means that voters are not moving to Trump so much as away from Hillary.  She lost 7% of the electorate and Trump gained 2%.  If the shrinking margin was caused by Cruz, Rubio and Kasich voters moving to back Trump, the big move would have been Trump gaining, not Hillary losing.

So I ask again, what has caused the shift?  Two things have shifted in a big way during this time.  First, the full extent to which the Democrat nomination has been rigged to favor Hillary has become clear.  There really are many voters who will not forgive the theft of delegates by Clinton and her troops in Nevada and elsewhere.  She is losing some of the Bernie supporters.  Second, Trump has begun to attack Hillary for real.  Much of the recent attacks are of the "crooked Hillary" variety or about Hillary trying to destroy the lives of the victims of Bill's sexual misconduct who had the nerve to speak out about it.  The continuing crooked Hillary rhetoric may seem like nothing to the pundits in the bubble, but it resonates with many in America.  Also, when Trump points out not just what Bill did to woman after woman but also how Hillary led the charge to destroy the victims who spoke out, there are literally millions of voters who are hearing about this for the first time.  Remember, most of this happened twenty or more years ago.  The average thirty-year-old voter was ten or less when these stories were in the news.  This is all new stuff.  In today's world, a woman like Hillary who led an effort to destroy the women who were victims of sexual misconduct by her husband is someone that millennials will not support.  The damage done to Hillary by her war on the woman who were victimized by Bill is truly hurting her.  Indeed, this very damage is most likely the reason for the silly New York Times story on Trump's past with women.  The Times rushed out the story which basically said that Trump likes women, has had a series of affairs over the years, hired a lot of women when others would not and spoke coarsely sometimes to the women he employed.  The response of most people to that story would be this:  "So what?"  Then the story itself was undermined in dramatic fashion when the main woman discussed rushed out to say that her words were twisted and that she likes Trump and is going to vote for him.  If anything, the Times' escapade reinforced the difference between the way Hillary has treated women and the way Trump has.  All the rhetoric in the world will not overcome the reaction once the basic facts get known.

The election is far from over.  Things may change (and most likely will) repeatedly before the nation votes in November.  It does seem right now, however, that 2016 will see Hillary's war on women costing her dearly.

The Blindness of The Left

Time magazine has a cover story this week about bathrooms and transgenders.  It's filled with all the usual liberal platitudes.  I was struck by this quote from a school superintendent meant to show why transgender students must be allowed to use the facilities of the sex with which they identify.

Each student needs to feel secure and comfortable.  We can't leave out the marginalized.

Think about that.  For Time magazine, it is a short statement why transgenders must have access to the bathrooms, locker rooms and showers they want to use.  But if one looks at this rationally, one has to ask how many students are made to feel insecure and uncomfortable when they share a locker room or shower or bathroom with someone whose body is of the opposite sex?  Is the discomfort of a twelve year old girl to be ignored when she has to shower with someone whose body is that of a boy?  Why is the comfort and security of only the transgendered student to be considered?  Indeed, if transgenders are much less than one percent of the students across America, why is the security and comfort of the 99 plus percent to be ignored in favor of the fewer than 1 percent?  There is no satisfactory and rational answer to that question.  If the goal is the security and comfort of the school children, then only one result makes sense.  Nevertheless, the left keeps pushing for the opposite result and doing so while using language that borders on nonsensical.

 

The Power of Gun Rights vs. Gun Control

Yesterday, the National Rifle Association endorsed Donald Trump for president at their national convention.  It is by far the earliest endorsement that group has ever given.  I saw a bunch of delegates discussing the endorsement on various shows.  It was clear that some of them weren't strong supporters of Trump, but each one was a strident opponent of Hillary Clinton.  That really ought to worry the Clintonites.

Today, Hillary Clinton is going to speak at a gun control event to emphasize her support for limiting gun rights.  No doubt there will be a sizeable crowd, and there will be much applause.  But here's the big question:  in November, how many Americans will vote for Hillary based upon her support for gun control?  And how many Americans will vote for Trump based upon his support for gun rights?  In other words, just how important is the gun issue compared to something like the economy or terrorism?

The answer to this question should give Clinton great cause for concern.  There are some gun issues on which a majority of the public tells pollsters that they agree with the gun control crowd.  Specifically, stricter background checks on gun buyers is supported by large majorities.  The problem for Clinton, however, is that very small numbers of voters put this issue near the top of their priorities.  For the most part, those for whom the support of gun control is key are already strong Democrat voters who support Hillary.  On the other hand, there are a great many more people for whom gun rights is an important issue.  Barack Obama may have called these people bitter clingers (who cling to their guns, etc.), but that's not too far from reality.  There are millions of people for whom keeping gun rights is critical.  And here's the key:  a chunk of those supporters of gun rights might otherwise vote Democrat, but they just won't because of this issue. 

The gun issue is strong enough that it could swing a close election in an important state like Pennsylvania or Ohio where there are large numbers of hunters who worry about Hillary confiscating their guns.  Given the strength of this issue, my prediction is that before the election in November, we will be hearing Hillary Clinton softening her anti-gun positions.  It's too late though.

The Battle of Bernie Is Beckoning

According to the Wall Street Journal, the City of Philadelphia has issued a permit for a four day demonstration by supporters of Bernie Sanders in FDR Park during the Democrat National Convention.  For those unfamiliar with Philadelphia, FDR Park is across Broad Street from the site of the convention.  The organizers of the protest say that they expect at least 30,000 participants for most of the four day convention.

Just think what this means.  If Hillary and Bernie Sanders are still going at it when the convention convenes, having 30,000 Bernie supporters rallying across the street is a recipe for conflict.  Remember, most of the Sanders supporters believe (rightly) that the Democrats rigged the nominating process in favor of Hillary Clinton.  If they feel that the nomination has been stolen from their candidate, they will likely be quite angry.  Just imagine what will happen if those 30,000 protesters decide to march across the street to the convention.  If there are 30,000 people chanting in the parking lot that surrounds the convention site, they will be heard inside.  If those 30,000 people try to get into the building to be heard, there will be unbelievable chaos.

The truth is that if the Democrats have problems with these protesters, they will have only themselves to blame.  For months, the party apparatus has pushed to support Hillary.  Everyone in the party hierarchy from Debbie Wasserman Schultz on down has done whatever possible to help Clinton.  Just a few months ago, the vice-chair of the party, Hawaii congressman Tulsi Gabbard had to resign just to announce her support for Sanders as her candidate.  If these "crooks for Hillary" got caught rigging the system, they deserve what they get.

Hopefully, all of America will get to see just how crooked Hillary and her crew at the DNC really are.

The Clintons Step in it Again

There was a big anti-Hillary Clinton demonstration today in Illinois.  The protesters were mostly Polish Americans angry about comments made by Bill Clinton the other day in which he said that both Poland and Hungary were moving towards dictatorships because democracy was too hard for those countries.  Since both countries are governed by elected leaders who answer to an elected parliament, Clinton was way off base.  He just does not like that both countries selected populist/nationalist leaders who reject the soft orthodox liberalism that the Clintons like so much. 

According to the media, Bill Clinton is some sort of wonder politician who knows just what to say to a crowd.  Despite the media praise, Bill managed to annoy some rather important groups of voters by making these nasty statements about Poland and Hungary.  There is no up side for the statements either.  Particularly in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio, there are large Polish American populations who were already wavering in their support of the Democrats.  With Bill making these sorts of attacks, it is all that much more likely that these blocs will vote for Trump in the fall. 

The truth is that Poland is a reliable American ally in Europe and has been since the fall of the Soviet Union.  Hungary has also been a good friend to America during that time.  According to Hillary, Donald Trump is "not qualified" to be president because he says things which foreign nations will hear and which will cause America problems.  The media ought to ask Hillary today, TODAY, what is the reason for Bill to attack the elected governments of our allies Poland and Hungary.  What possible benefit is there to the USA in such attacks?  Doesn't this prove that by her own standards Hillary is not qualified to be president?

The Best Part is that Bernie Doesn't Care

Bernie Sanders is not backing down in the face of extreme displeasure from Hillary Clinton and her cronies.  Sanders refuses to condemn his Nevada supporters for being upset by the rigged convention in that state that stole a few more delegate votes from Bernie and gave them to Hillary.  Indeed, Sanders makes clear over and over again that he sees the Democrat selection process as rigged.  Of course, that's because the Democrat selection process actually is rigged.  Fifteen percent of the total delegates to the convention are super delegates chosen by party insiders rather than by the voters.  That means that after the insiders chose to support Hillary, Bernie would have had to beat Clinton by nearly three to two just to pull our a victory.  If that's not a rigged system, then nothing is.

In any event, Hillary is furious that Sanders is not conceding.  So says the Hill, the place where the Clintonites go to leak stories to the media.  According to Hillary, Sanders is not just attacking her, but the entire Democrat party, in essence calling it corrupt.  It's strange to see such outrage from Hillary.  Hillary is always outraged about something, but the subject of he outrage is rarely because someone is actually telling the world the truth.  The Democrat's system is, in fact, corrupt.  We should be seeing a very close race between Hillary and Bernie.  Instead, we have a one-sided contest because the rigged system favors Hillary in a big way.

Hopefully, Bernie will keep on fighting until the convention.  Indeed, maybe he could keep going after the convention.  Clearly, Bernie doesn't care about what Hillary thinks.  Nor does he care all that much about the corrupt Democrat party.  Why would he?  The party uses a rigged system to give the nomination to Hillary.  After having the election stolen from him, why would Bernie have any concern about telling people the truth about the corrupt Democrats?

It would be a good thing if Bernie runs as an independent in November.  There's no polling on that race.  Still, I have to believe that Sanders' supporters would mostly stick with him.  That could give him victory in a number of states.  It's unlikely Bernie could win, but then again who would have thought a year ago that we'd be in the present situation?

Sometimes It's Tough To Figure Our

Hillary Clinton's statement got swallowed by the news cycle focused on the Egyptair plane going down, but the Democrat candidate today admitted that Donald Trump is qualified to be president.  To be precise, Hillary told some interviewer that she has "determined" that Trump is not qualified to be president.  Of course, since it is Hillary and we know every word out of her mouth is a lie, that means that she thinks Trump actually is qualified.

It's sort of funny.  Just a few weeks ago, Bernie Sanders said that Hillary Clinton is not qualified to be president.  The Hillary forces went berserk about that comment.  After all, who was Bernie to determine who is qualified to be president.  They told us that only the American people can make that decision.  Now, just a few weeks later, Hillary is out doing exactly what she said was wrong when Sanders did it.  It's just another instance showing that Hillary thinks that the rules just don't apply to her.

The Worst Part of the Egyptian Airliner Crash

The world witnessed another airliner crash today.  It was an Egyptair flight from Paris to Cairo with 66 passengers aboard.  The plane went down over the Greek Islands.  At the moment, no one knows for certain, but the working theory is that this was a terrorist attack.

The news is terrible, but here's the worst part:  the plane left from France.  This is not a story in which lax airport security in some third world country let terrorists or their bomb on board the craft.  Paris ought to have serious security especially after last year's terror attacks.  This may mean that the terrorists have learned how to make bombs that they can smuggle past detection devices.  It may mean that some other tactic has been devised by the terrorists that is allowing them to pass security.  It may also mean that the airport security forces have been infiltrated and are now suspect in major European cities.  All of these are rather terrible prospects for the future.

 

The Second Wave of Trump Judicial Nominee Nonsense

Okay, we had the first wave of garbage from the media about the list of potential Supreme Court nominees released by Trump.  I've already written about it.  Now we get the second wave.  Are you ready for this scoop?  All the nominees named by Trump are white.  Oh, the horror.  Of course, the best part of it is that the liberal media outlets that are looking down their noses at this list because the nominees are white are the same ones who consistently slander the only black Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, as a moron, a puppet or a "race traitor".  Why would anyone pay attention to them?

First Trump Announces His Supreme Court List, Then We Get The Nonsense

Donald Trump announced a list of eleven people from whom he would nominate his first Supreme Court pick if elected president.  It's a list of good people including many prominent judges from both federal and state courts.  I don't know many of those on the list, but at first glance, they all seem qualified.

That's today's news.  What we got in response to the list, however, is the usual garbage.  There are pundits and other purported journalists who are covering the list with regard to how it fits into Trump's election strategy.  Is this a move to mollify conservatives?  Is it intended to somehow achieve party unity?  There's more like this, but the main point is that the stories have nothing to do with the people on the list.  Why would the media check into those named and provide America with the details?  That would force the media and the pundits to actually do their jobs.  They would rather just speculate on how it ties into the campaign.

Another group of responses to Trump's list has been to express shock that Trump would pick a list of such good people.  It's a variant of the story that says that Trump is a moron so anything that he does well must be a fluke.

The sad thing about all these stories is that miss the basic truth about this selection.  There is surely no doubt that Trump did not compile this list himself.  He told those involved what sort of qualities and qualifications he wanted in a nominee, and they did the enormous amount of legwork needed to come up with the list.  Trump surely reviewed the list and a summary report about each potential nominee.  Most likely, however, he did not even meet with the people on the list.  That procedure is how any president would accomplish this task.  Indeed, what the list does is to provide us with a pretty good idea of what Trump is looking for in a Supreme Court nominee.  He wants judicial experience; everyone on the list is already a judge.  He wants relative youth; most of these folks would be on the Supreme Court for 20 years (assuming good health).  He wants an originalist view of the Constitution.  In other words, Trump wants someone who says that the Constitution needs to be interpreted as it was originally written and not how some judges decide it should be changed centuries later.  He also seems to want to steer clear of the usual legal elites; none of the potential nominees went to Harvard Law School.  One is from Yale Law School and one from Stanford, but the bulk are from high quality but other law schools.

The truth is that this is a list of very good people. 

The New York Times Joins the Clinton Deception

Yesterday, the big political news clearly was Bernie Sanders' big victory in Oregon and the extremely close victory by Hillary Clinton in Kentucky.  Particularly since Hillary won Kentucky in 2008 by more than 30 percent over president Obama, the virtual tie this time was a mark of the distaste the Kentucky voters now have towards her.  Hillary is going to be the nominee of the Democrats; everyone knows that.  Nevertheless, she just cannot seem to beat Sanders in these primaries.

Given that big news, what do you think was the headline on the front page of this morning's New York Times?  I'll give you a hint:  the Times did not bother to even mention the embarrassing results for Clinton.  Nope, the Times ran a headline about Sanders being urged to tone down his supporters' threats.  The Times is now pushing the Clinton deception meant to cover up what actually happened in Nevada at the Democrat state convention.  I've written about this before, so suffice to say that Clinton forces in the state party apparatus stole some delegates by rigging the count in the voting and then these same Clinton forces adjourned the convention when the Sanders' delegates pushed for a recount.  The Sanders' delegates were outraged at this shady and perhaps illegal conduct by the Clintonistas.  Since that event, however, the Clinton campaign and media supporters have tried to spin a story in which the Sanders' people misbehaved.  That's right.  The Clinton crooks stole delegates but the Sanders' people supposedly misbehaved when they objected to the theft.

This sort of behavior ought to warn all Americans what a Hillary Clinton presidency would be like.  Everything would be based upon lies.  If you have a sampler that your grandmother embroidered that says "Honesty is the best policy", most likely if Hillary wins you will need to hide it.  Her motto seems to be "the truth is whatever I say no matter how dishonest."

Debbie Does Dishonest -- Disgusting

The chair of the Democrat National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, is now jumping on board the Clinton campaign's efforts to rig the nominating contest and then condemn Bernie Sanders and his supporters for being upset about the theft.  Over the weekend, the Nevada state Democrat convention was cut short after some shady moves were made by the Clinton forces to keep Sanders from gaining a few extra delegates to the national convention.  Even though the Sanders' group had more votes, it somehow "lost" the selection vote by an extremely close margin according to the chair of the convention.  When the Sanders people asked for a recount to correct the "error", the Clinton stooge who was running the convention ruled against it and adjourned the convention.  Pandemonium ensued.

In the last twenty four hours Sanders has finally commented on the whole mess.  Debbie the DNC chair is now severely criticizing Sanders for not adequately condemning his supporters for causing the upset.  Debbie fully knows and understands that the cause of the upset was the bogus counting of the votes by the Clinton people who control the state party.  It doesn't matter to her, obviously.  Her positions is ridiculous.  It is as if a person was mugged and then chased after the mugger; Debbie is now criticizing the victim for trying to stop the mugging.

We've all known for a long time that Hillary Clinton is completely amoral and dishonest.  Debbie must use her as a role model. 

It's disgusting to think that one of our two national parties could sink to this level.

The Most Important Sentence This Week

Here's the key part of a short amendment that senator Mike Lee is proposing:

None of the funds mad available by the Act may be used to carry out the final rule of the Department of Housing and Urban Development entitled "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing"

It doesn't sound like much, but it is, by far, the most important sentence in Washington this week.  If this amendment gets passed then the crazy overreach by the Obama administration to try to control America's suburbs will be stopped.  In case you don't know, HUD adopted a rule that allows it to condition grants to towns and cities on those entities achieving certain racial, economic and other social integration levels.  Simply put, if you live in a suburb with average suburban zoning, your town will be given a choice:  it can bring public housing for the poor of other areas into town or it can forego all grants from HUD.  Billions of dollars of federal money is to be used to push America's suburbs into building public housing.  Few cities or towns will be able to resist that enticement.

But here's the key:  this HUD rule is not proceeding pursuant to some directive passed by Congress.  There is no law whatsoever that underlies the rule.  HUD just adopted the rule that puts conditions on block grants that Congress itself never approved.

The best way for Congress to take back control of how these funds are dispersed is to prohibit HUD from funding its rule. 

The Media Joke About Bernie Sanders

Did you see the stories in the mainstream media today about how 1) Democrats are ramping up pressure on Bernie Sanders to withdraw from the presidential race and 2) the Nevada Democrat party sent a letter to the DNC warning that Bernie Sanders' supporters are violent and could disrupt the convention in Philadelphia?  That has to be the most idiotic pair of stories I've seen in the mainstream media in a long time, and that is truly saying something.

First we have the supposed pressure on Bernie to withdraw from the race.  Seriously, does anyone, ANYONE, think that Sanders will withdraw?  No way!  He has all the money he needs.  He keeps beating Hillary Clinton (although she will still get the nomination because the system is rigged).  He's having a great time campaigning in front of huge crowds who listen to everything he says while Hillary has trouble getting more than 1000 people to show up anywhere.  He has no reason to withdraw.  Certainly, Sanders doesn't care about whispers from some other Democrats in the House or Senate.  Sanders wasn't even a Democrat until he decided to run for the nomination.  He's not going to get out until he after he beats Hillary in California on June 7.

Then there's the supposed violence of the Sanders' supporters.  It's bizarre.  The Nevada Democrat party rigged the state convention so that somehow Hillary managed to win a floor contest by the narrowest possible margin.  When the count seemed wrong to some delegates, they sought a recount but the chair tried to stop that move.  So what actually happened is that the Clinton forces tried to steal a few delegates by miscounting the votes in Hillary's favor.  When the Sanders' forces tried to stop that theft, the Hillary forces just closed down the convention and now they are blaming it all on the violence of the Sanders' forces.  If Bernie's followers do get violent, it will just be because of the underhanded and dishonest tactics used by the Clinton forces.

The mainstream media is out there today blithely spreading this misinformation as if it were news.  They know the stories are phony, but they push them anyway.  If anyone ever needed proof that the media works for the Clintons, this is it.