SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:48 P.M. ET: 

EQUAL JUSTICE, WE HOPE – FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:  The Justice Department is processing a pardon application from former Navy sailor Kristian Saucier after denying him a waiver to apply for a pardon last year.  President Trump repeatedly invoked Saucier during the 2016 campaign after he was sentenced to one year in prison for taking pictures inside a nuclear submarine, arguing Saucier was “ruined” for doing “nothing” compared to Hillary Clinton.  The photos Saucier, now 31, took inside the sub were deemed “confidential,” meaning the lowest level of classification, even though some depicted the vessel’s nuclear reactor. Clinton, by contrast, sent and received more highly classified information on a private and insecure email server.  Give the kid a pardon.  What Hillary did was far worse.

THE GUY HOLDS – FROM RASMUSSEN REPORTS:  The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 49% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty percent (50%) disapprove.  The president has had a bad week.  The anti-Trump press is in full fury, the more so since the tax cuts that have just cut in are proving so popular.  And still, Mr. Trump's poll numbers hold.  Maybe the people are tired of the predictable assaults by the fashionably left media..  Maybe they've just tuned out.  After all, a large number of Americans tuned out the NFL, and then the Olympics.  They're showing they can act and think independently, something the left deplores.

WARNING TO REPUBLICANS – FROM THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE:   Texans have already set a record for early voting in a non-presidential primary election year, and there’s still one more day to go on Friday.  More than 602,000 voters had cast ballots in the state’s largest counties in either the Democratic or Republican primaries through Wednesday. That does not count Thursday’s totals that were not available late Thursday, or Friday’s, when polls will again be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Four years ago, fewer than 600,000 people voted in the entire early voting season.  Harris County has also seen a new record. More than 116,000 people have voted early or by mail already with two days remaining to add to that total. Four years ago, just 105,508 people in Harris voted during the entire early voting period.  Democrats represent a major reason for the records and have been out-voting Republicans since the start of early voting on Feb. 20. There have been 25,000 more Democratic ballots than Republicans have cast. That is a big change from the last two gubernatorial election cycles when Republicans dramatically outvoted Democrats in the primaries by well over 100,000 in each year.  Republicans aren't doing the job.  The upcoming midterm elections may well be decided by which party turns out its voters.  Dems seem much more animated and driven this year.  If Dems take over both houses of Congress, Trump will surely be impeached, despite lack of any basis for it, and we'll have an even greater mess than we have today.  The fact that Mr. Trump is holding in the polls should not give us any special confidence.

March 2, 2018