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NOVEMBER 1,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET:

A NEW AMBASSADOR – FROM MEDIAITE:    What was rumored earlier today now appears to be a done deal: Former Fox News host and current State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert has reportedly been offered the job as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.  The report about the former Fox News host was broken by a current Fox News-er, White House correspondent John Roberts.  Smart woman who's done well at State, speaks beautifully, went to Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, a good choice for ambassador.  The Dems will have a fit and will declare her a female impersonator because she's a conservative.

A DIGNIFIED CLERGYMAN – FROM FOX:   Jeffery Myers, the Pittsburgh rabbi who was leading services on Saturday when 11 of his congregants were gunned down, said in an interview Thursday that he was pleasantly surprised during his meeting with President Trump, and saw a warm side to the president "America doesn’t get to see."  Myers met with the president and his family on Monday. He said he was introduced to Trump by Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. They spent about 20 minutes together and were joined by the first lady Melania, Ivanka and Jared Kushner.  Myers told CNN that the president was warm and consoling.  "The first question that he [Trump] asked me was, 'Rabbi, how are you doing?'" Myers said. "And I must say, through the time that we were together, I was pleasantly surprised by a warm and personal side to the president I don’t think America has ever seen."  After the meeting, they placed a small stone on 11 stars outside the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill, where the shooting occurred.  The rabbi, who has conducted himself with grace and charity, will get plenty of hate mail over his kind comments toward the president, but I'm glad he had the courage to express them.

MOVING BACKWARD – FROM THE HILL:   Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) are calling for an African-American lawmaker to be granted the No. 1 or No. 2 spot in the House if Democrats win back the majority next week, setting up a potentially messy and dramatic leadership battle on the left.
CBC Chairman Cedric Richmond (D-La.) is circulating a new “Dear Colleague” letter, which was obtained by The Hill and first reported by Politico on Thursday, making that position clear to fellow Democrats. The jockeying is heating up ahead of the Democratic leadership elections that are scheduled for Nov. 28.
“Over the past couple of weeks, several of our colleagues have respectfully shared letters of intent expressing interest in various House Democratic Caucus leadership positions,” Richmond wrote in the letter.
“It is within that context that I’d like to reiterate that if there is any change in our top leadership positions the Democratic Members of the CBC endorse African-American representation in at least one of the two top positions of elected House Democratic Caucus leadership.”  I understand the desire to see one's group advance, but this is just awful.  It is a racial quota.  Imagine how other aspiring groups will feel.

November 1, 2018       Permalink

ANOTHER, MORE POSITIVE TAKE – AT 3:18 P.M. ET:  I know I've been a'moanin' and a'groanin' about Arizona.  The idea that the state that gave us Barry Goldwater and John McCain could possible send major-league nutjob Krysten Sinema to the Senate is unthinkable.  She has a history of anti-Americanism, hard leftism, and general kookiness.  She protested American action in Afghanistan while wearing a pink tutu.  That, as they say, is not business garb. 

Recent polls showed Sinema ahead of great Republican candidate Martha McSally, Sinema's polar opposite.  Martha was the first woman in American history to fly in combat.  She's an Air Force Academy graduate, and has been a fine congresswoman.

President Trump does not have Arizona on his places to visit in the days before the election.  I interpreted that to mean that the GOP has given up on Arizona.  A political nightmare.  A disgrace to civilization.

But now comes a piece of great reporting from National Review that says, in effect, wait a minute, and let's look at the facts.   From NRO:

I don’t want to say Arizona’s Senate race is a done deal.

But 1,230,433 Arizonans have voted early, as of this morning. For perspective, that’s approaching the 1.5 million total votes cast in the state in the 2014 midterm elections.

There are currently 3.7 million registered voters in Arizona. Of those who have voted early so far, 525,647 are registered Republicans and 413,005 are registered Democrats. Of the remainder, 8,250 are classified “minor parties” and 283,531 are classified “other” or unaffiliated.

If you assume that registered Republicans voted for Senate candidate Martha McSally and registered Democrats voted for Kyrsten Sinema in equal proportions, that gives McSally a 112,642-vote margin. That’s a sizable margin one week away from the election.

To pull even the early vote, Sinema would need to be winning the unaffiliated and minor-party voters by a roughly 70-30 split. Because there is a Green-party candidate (named, appropriately enough, Angela Green) and some of the state’s 6,463 registered members of the Green party no doubt voted for Green, Sinema would need to win the non-major-party vote by an even wider margin to pull even, maybe 71-29 or 72-28.

What we don’t know in this equation is how many Arizonans will vote on Election Day. If the turnout is low like in 2014, with about 1.5 million votes cast, Sinema would need to win the Election Day vote by an overwhelming margin, something like a 73 percent to 27 percent split. But if Arizona’s statewide turnout is higher, like in 2010, when about 1.75 million people voted, Sinema could attempt to make up that 112,642-vote margin out of another half-million voters. That would require a 62-38 split in Sinema’s favor — less difficult, but still not easy. An NBC News poll found Sinema leading among self-identified independents, 58 percent to 32 percent. 

COMMENT:  So it isn't over.  Martha has a substantial chance of winning.  I don't actually know why the president isn't speaking in Arizona this week.  Maybe the Republicans are confident of victory there.

Lesson:  Go over all the facts before coming to conclusions.  We'll see Tuesday night what the final numbers show.

November 1,  2018     Permalink

CRITICALLY IMPORTANT – AT 12:46 P.M. ET:  I apologize for missing this, and now it's after Halloween.  But please save it and give it to any college student you know, so that student can be fully prepared for next year.  It's so important to national unity.  From Campus Reform:

Princeton University’s Undergraduate Student Government (USG) issued a checklist to students on Thursday to ensure that their Halloween costumes fostered an "inclusive experience for all students."

USG distributed its checklist to Princeton’s undergraduate students in an email obtained by Campus Reform. The email contained several questions that students were to "take some time out and ask [themselves]" before attending the Ivy League school’s annual Halloween function, dubbed "Princetoween."

"Is your costume ‘funny,’" read one note, "because you’re dressing up as someone from a particular race, gender, ethnicity, or culture?"

Students were to ask themselves whether "my costume [is] making fun of a group of people," or whether it "reduce[s] cultural differences to jokes and stereotypes."

"Are you altering your skin color, facial/body features to make it darker or indicative of a particular race, ethnicity, or cultural group?" another question reads.

"Is your costume ‘funny'," another asked, "because you’re dressing up as someone from a particular race, gender, ethnicity, or culture?" Another question warned students to consider whether their costumes "have the potential to create an unsafe or hostile environment."

"As always, we want to make sure that you all respect and take care of each other," the list concluded.

COMMENT:  Yeah, we've seen the way college students take care of each other...as long you're part of this year's fashionable group.  If you're on the outside, you're a racist, a fascist, and a misogynist.

And watch those costumes!  It's a far more important issue than nuclear proliferation or protecting the Constitution, which was written by dead white men.

November 1,  2018     Permalink

OCTOBER 31,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

DECENCY – FROM FOX:  Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has reportedly turned down nearly $600,000 that had been raised in his name after sexual misconduct allegations were leveled against him during his confirmation process.  A GoFundMe page through which the funds were raised had a message saying Kavanaugh would not accept the money in order to avoid judicial ethics violations, the Washington Examiner reported.  “I've spoken to a former clerk for Judge Kavanaugh who told me that Kavanaugh’s supporters loved the outpouring of support from this GoFundMe," said conservative blogger John Hawkins, who launched the page Sept. 24. "Judicial ethics rules caution judges against permitting the use of the prestige of judicial office for fund-raising purposes. Justice Kavanaugh will not accept any proceeds from the campaign, nor will he direct that any proceeds from the campaign be provided to any third party."  Obviously, the correct decision.

OUR BRILLIANT COLLEGE STUDENTS – FROM DAILY CALLER:   Students at American University in Washington, D.C., tried to guess who said what about immigration to The Daily Caller News Foundation.  Most of the students guessed the quotes read to them came from President Donald Trump. The quotes actually came from former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.  Many students were surprised to find today’s Democrats speaking with such enthusiasm when it came to cracking down on illegal immigration only two decades ago.
“Negative immigration quotes are only associated with the Republican administration or Donald Trump administration,” a young woman told The DCNF.  I never thought we should ever have lowered the voting age to 18.  I advocated raising it to at least 25.  And you can see the reason.

LEFTIST JOURNALISTS ARE SHOCKED, SHOCKED – FROM DAILY CALLER:   MSNBC reporter Mariana Atencio traveled to Houston to interview voters in a hotly contested congressional district.
...However, in interviews with Latino voters Atencio was stunned to find that they were voting Republican and had a bad opinion of the migrant caravan heading to the U.S. border... “I do believe that if somebody wants to live in the United States, they should go through the official process. So as a result, I tend to ally myself with people who agree with that,” a Texas Latino voter said.  “When you see images like the migrant caravan and President Trump talking about the caravan, does that motivate you to want to vote in a certain way?” Atencio asked.  The voter responded, “Yes, it makes me want to vote Republican. I think if you want to live in this country, you need to abide by its laws.” “That blows my mind,” the MSNBC host said after the segment.  Maybe talking to real voters occasionally would lower the incidents of blown minds.

October 31, 2018       Permalink

THE PRESIDENT DOUBLES DOWN – AT 9:30 P.M. ET:  The president has a way of keeping his promises.  He is toughening his stance about protecting our borders.  The laws of the United States must be obeyed.  From Reuters: 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the United States could send as many as 15,000 troops to the border with Mexico, as he hardens his stance against a caravan of migrants fleeing violence and poverty in Central America.

The numbers cited by Trump are significantly higher than defense officials have disclosed. The Pentagon said on Monday it was deploying more than 5,200 troops to the border but that the number would rise. On Wednesday, it said more than 7,000 troops would support the Department of Homeland Security along the border.

Several groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have accused Trump of politicizing the military ahead of next week’s congressional elections with his plans to use active military personnel to buttress border patrol efforts.

“As far as the caravan is concerned, our military is out ... We’ll go up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel, on top of Border Patrol, ICE and everybody else at the border,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

COMMENT:  Th opinion of the ACLU is insignificant.  It stopped being a civil-liberties organization years ago, and is now part of the amen corner of the American left.

The purpose of the military is to protect the nation and its borders, and to do so by carrying out the lawful orders of the president.  Sending troops to our souther border to back up the work of the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies is not politicizing the military.

October 31, 2018       Permalink

THE CONTEST – AT 10:16 A.M. ET:  Six days to election day.  The president is at 49% in the Rasmussen poll, meaning that all that has been thrown at him in the last week by the Trump-hating press has made almost no difference, at least in this poll, which is the only daily tracker left.

RealClearPolitics is predicting a net gain of two seats for the GOP in the Senate.  The crushing disappointment is Arizona, where it is now widely assumed that Krysten Sinema, who has been described as the best actress in politics today, is overcoming true American heroine Martha McSally for the Senate seat being vacated by Jeff Flake.  Arizona may be the only Republican loss in the Senate. 

It is hard to believe that the state of John McCain will turn to a hard leftist who parades as a moderate.  What is happening to our country?  To Arizona?  In fact, Arizona has been trending from solid red to purple in recent years.  A huge influx of immigrants is probably the main cause.  These folks are subjected to major-league fear tactics, told that if they vote Republican they'll be sent back to Mexico.  In addition, much has been made of Martha's vote against Obamacare.  Arizona has many retirees. 

In the House, RealClearPolitics predicts 204 Dems, 199 Republicans, but with 32 toss-ups.  Almost all the toss-ups are currently held by Republicans, but in districts won by Hillary Clinton.  The Dems may well take the House, but, if the RCP numbers are correct, it won't be by much.  Remember that there are in fact moderate Democrats in Congress.  They are not going to fall on their swords for Maxine Waters.  What we may have is an odd situation in which the moderate Democrats hold the balance of power, and where the House is actually run by Republicans and those moderate Dems.  It's happened before.

In governorships, we have an outside shot at blue Oregon, but I wouldn't put money on it.  The frightening race is Florida, where-hard left and Soros beneficiary Andrew Gillum is running neck-and-neck with so-so GOP candidate Ron DeSantis.  If Gillum wins, he instantly becomes a national ticket possibility, and we may have someone to the left of Barack Obama.

Another fright is Georgia, where Oprah Winfrey is coming in to campaign for leftist Dem Stacey Abrams.  She is not as leftward as Gillum, but she's left enough to bring concern about the future of Georgia. 

We'll keep you informed, but I caution that what we have at this stage is educated guessing.

October 31,  2018     Permalink