SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:54 P.M. ET: 

NEW YORK WEIRDNESS – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   Mayor de Blasio cruised to an easy victory in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, trouncing little-known former City Council member Sal Albanese and other long-shot hopefuls in a race that was never competitive.  De Blasio, who garnered 74.6 percent of the votes with 99 percent of precincts reporting, was declared the winner less than 20 minutes after polls closed. Albanese trailed far behind, with 15.2 percent in the five-way race.  Hizzoner will now face off against GOP mayoral nominee Nicole Malliotakis on Nov. 7.  “This city has been great over generations because it was a city for everyone. It was never meant to be a city just for the real-estate developers or just for the landlords or just for the titans of Wall Street. It was meant to be for everyone,” de Blasio told a crowd of about 200 supporters and staffers at Roulette Intermedium, an event space in Downtown Brooklyn.  I calculate that fewer than 400,000 voters cast ballots in a city of eight million.  Which means five percent of the citizens made this decision.  This is New York democracy.

POSSIBLE UPSET – FROM THE HILL:   Alabama Democrat Doug Jones is running just a few points behind his potential Republican opponents for a Senate seat in the deep-red state, according to a new poll.  The poll from Emerson College finds former Alabama state Supreme Court Judge Roy Moore leading Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.) by a 14-point margin ahead of the GOP's special election primary runoff on Sept. 26.  But both Republicans would hold only a slim advantage over Jones, according to the poll — Moore leads Jones by 4 percentage points, while Strange leads him by 3 points.   The poll is a surprisingly strong result for Jones, who was expected to have no chance in the December general election for the rest of Attorney General Jeff Sessions's Senate term. Alabama voters traditionally back Republicans in statewide elections, with President Trump winning the state by nearly 30 percentage points in 2016.  This is alarming, and a wake-up call to Republicans.  Clearly, the Republican candidates in Alabama aren't very attractive.  A loss in Alabama would be devastating to GOP attempts to retain control of the Senate next year.  Are you listening, Mitch McConnell?

THE CANADIANS ARE NUTS, TOO – FROM THE WRAP:   The indigenous peoples of Canada were thanked at every gala screening to play the Toronto International Film Festival this year.  Gala screenings are starry affairs with long red carpets, held at Toronto venues like Roy Thompson Hall and the Princess of Wales Theater. This year, before audiences got to see names like Margot Robbie or Jake Gyllenhaal introduce their movies, festival executives read the following statement:  “To begin, we would like to acknowledge the Mississaugas of New Credit, the Haudenosaunee and the Huron-Wendat, the original keepers of this land, for hosting us today and for hosting TIFF on their land every day.”    Wait a second.  Why is it their land?  Maybe there was someone there before them.  I mean, like Brooklyn Dodger fans.  It is so phony.  We really aren't sure who the real indigenous peoples were, going back in history.  Why don't these phony liberals just admit that migration is a fact of life all over the world, and that new people move into old territories, and sometimes become majorities.  I really have never seen any of these intellectual frauds give up his swimming pools to an "indigenous" teenager.

September 12,  2017