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OCTOBER 14,  2018

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

START OF A MOVEMENT? – FROM COLLEGE FIX:  BOSTON — Hundreds of demonstrators converged in Boston’s Copley Square on Sunday to show support for Students for Fair Admissions just as the organization begins its battle in federal court against the Ivy League institution.  Students for Fair Admissions has sued Harvard, alleging discrimination in admissions practices, specifically against Asian Americans. The rally, hosted by the Asian American Coalition for Education, along with other organizations, was titled “Rally for the American Dream — Equal Education Rights for All.”  As the demonstration unfolded, dozens of American flags waved in the air. Appeals to famous Martin Luther King Jr. expressions peppered speeches. A giant banner thanking President Trump for advocating for meritocracy was unfurled nearby, although no speakers mentioned the president directly in speeches.  “Harvard is an American gem,” said Edward Blum, founder of Students for Fair Admissions. “We are not here to bash Harvard. We are here specifically because their admissions practices are discriminatory. Your race shouldn’t help you or hurt you.”  Do not underestimate the importance of this case.  Asian Americans are rightly fed up with admissions practices that discriminate against them because they are so damned good.  Diversity, you know, trumps all.  This case is bringing Asian Americans alive politically.  It may reach the Supreme Court, with dramatic consequences.

SOME PEOPLE STAY TOO LONG – FROM FOX:  Hillary Clinton vehemently denied in a recent interview that her husband’s extramarital affair with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky was an abuse of power and added that former President Bill Clinton was right not to resign amid a scandal that led to his impeachment on perjury and obstruction charges.  “Absolutely not,” the former first lady said during a CBS "Sunday Morning" interview when asked if Bill Clinton should have stepped down.  “It wasn't an abuse of power?” CBS News correspondent Tony Dokoupil asked.  Clinton responded: “No. No.”  Hillary Clinton, who went on to be elected to the Senate and served as President Obama’s secretary of state, said the relationship was not an abuse of power because Lewinsky “was an adult.” At the time of the affair, Lewinsky was 22.  And the outrage is that the political left will buy that argument.

SO SAD – FROM CNBC:   Sears Holdings plans to file for bankruptcy protection after midnight in the East Coast, culminating the collapse of what was once America's largest retailer, people familiar with the situation tell CNBC.  As part of the bankruptcy plan, Sears will immediately close roughly 150 of its stores, people familiar with the matter have said. It has approximately 700 stores.  It is unclear how the closures would impact Sears's workers, who totaled roughly 90,000 in February 2018.  Sears will aim to stay in operations through the holidays, during which it will seek a buyer. That buyer could include its CEO, Eddie Lampert, or others who wish to make a higher bid.  An American institution.  At one time you could find a Sears catalogue in almost every American home.  And guys love buying Craftsman tools.  I can see a Sears sign from my window.  I guess it will soon go dark.

October 14, 2018       Permalink

A MODERATE DEMOCRAT SPEAKS – AT 1:37 P.M. ET:  There are moderate Democrats.  I think I saw one at the local mall yesterday.  I asked for his autograph, but was turned down.

Now a prominent moderate, Doug Schoen, speaks out against what is happening at the extremes of his party.  From Fox: 

As Democrats campaign for the Nov. 6 midterm elections, they have plenty of legitimate criticisms to level at President Trump and Republicans who control the House and Senate. But Democrats were hurt in recent days by amazing and disgusting comments made by Hillary Clinton and former Attorney General Eric Holder.

As a Democrat, I want my party to win as many seats as possible in the House and Senate and to capture as many governorships and other state offices as it can. But the Clinton and Holder remarks do not advance that effort – they hurt it.

Former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Clinton said Tuesday that “you cannot be civil with” the Republican Party because it “wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about.” She added that “if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and or the Senate, that’s when civility can start again.”

But even worse than Clinton’s comments were those of Eric Holder, who said at a recent campaign event in Georgia that Democrats should abandon the advice of former first lady Michelle Obama, who said at the 2016 Democratic National Convention that her party and mine should respond positively to negative attacks from the GOP.

Mrs. Obama said that “when someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level. No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high.”

Holder argued just the opposite, saying: “When they go low, we kick them. That’s what this new Democratic Party is about.” He later said he wasn’t advocating violence – not literal kicking.

I beg to differ with both Clinton and Holder.

The only way the Democrats can regain the majority in either or both houses of Congress is by being civil, and pointing out the differences between Democrats and Republicans on the issues.

And...

We should have learned from the Senate confirmation hearing for now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh that resisting for the sake of resisting doesn’t work. In fact, Democratic attacks on Kavanaugh may well have backfired, recent polls show.

The Democratic Party itself is lost now, without a message, a direction, a strategy, or agenda to confront a Republican Party that is seen as in many ways as having let the American people down.

We need change – but it must be constructive change. This Democrat believes that the comments that Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton made are wrong, counterproductive, and deserve to be rejected by the leadership of the Democratic Party.

American voters generally don’t support extremists. In 1964, Republican presidential candidate and Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater famously said “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” He won 52 electoral votes, compared to 486 for Democratic President Lyndon Johnson. While Goldwater was a conservative, Democratic extremists on the left have not and likely will not overcome the reluctance of voters to support one extreme or the other.

COMMENT:   Read the whole thing.  I don't agree that the Republicans have let the American people down.  Quite the contrary, the party has delivered.  But that error does not detract from Schoen's accurate point that Democratic anger and fist-banging is getting the party nowhere.

October 14, 2018       Permalink

ANOTHER GENIUS HEARD FROM – AT 12:46 P.M. ET:  There's a very tight governorship race in Georgia.  The Dem candidate, African-American woman Stacey Abrams, is tied with the GOP candidate, Brian Kemp.  Now Abrams announces how she'll win.  You gotta read it.  From Dailywire: 

Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said this week that illegal aliens will be part of the Democratic Party’s "blue wave" in the upcoming midterm elections.

Abrams made the remark while campaigning with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Tuesday at the Clayton County campaign office, the Free Beacon reported.

"The thing of it is, the blue wave is African-American. It is white. It is Latino. It is Asian-Pacific Islander," Abrams said. "It is made up of those who've been told that they are not worthy of being here. It is comprised of those who are documented and undocumented."

The Free Beacon contacted Abrams' campaign "to ask what role undocumented immigrants will play in the midterms if they are not legal voters."

Her campaign did not respond.

COMMENT:  You can't make it up.  You just can't make it up.  Abrams might well win, with vast minority support and help from the liberal transplants from the north, working in Atlanta.

October 14,  2018     Permalink

OCTOBER 13,  2018

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

AND NOW FOR THE INEVITABLE BOOK CONTRACTS – FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:    Washington Post’s deputy editorial page editor Ruth Marcus is writing a book on the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whom she believed shouldn’t have made it to the bench.  Marcus, who announced the book deal with Simon & Schuster on Saturday, has been a skeptic of Kavanaugh throughout his confirmation, even before decades-old allegations of sexual assault.  After Clarence Thomas was subjected to his ordeal, there was also the inevitable book contract.  The result was a book called "Strange Justice," by Jill Abramson and Jane Mayer.  Jill Abramson went on to become executive editor of The New York Times, a post from which she was later dismissed.  Jane Mayer, a reliable liberal mouthpiece, writes for The New Yorker.  Clarence Thomas outlived the book to become a distinguished and respected (in sane circles) member of the Supreme Court.  I suspect Justice Kavanaugh will weather this new literary storm and also serve with distinction.

A CHILD WITH CHILDISH IDEAS – FROM PJ MEDIA:  On Saturday, Democratic Socialist starlet Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for the abolition of the Electoral College. On Thursday, she revealed her plan to undermine the U.S. Supreme Court. It's not very original...  At a screening for Michael Moore's new film "Fahrenheit 11/9," a member of the audience asked Ocasio-Cortez what she would do if the Supreme Court confirmed all of Democrats' fears.  "If, in a few months from now, the Supreme Court looks like ... a court that would overturn Roe [v. Wade] and make the president above the rule of law, what is to be done?" the audience member asked. This question echoed one real concern — overturning Roe, which would allow states to outlaw abortion — and one false concern — taken from twisting Judge Brett Kavanaugh's record on presidential immunity.  Ocasio-Cortez, never one to defend American institutions at the risk of her activist ambitions, took a page from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's book.  "I think we take back the House, we take back the Senate, we take back the presidency, and we pack the Supreme Court of the United States of America," she quipped. Then, as if this answer were clear and straightforward, she flippantly added, "Next!"  What a genius.  She is regularly called the future of the Democratic Party.  She has the intellectual maturity of a 12-year-old.  That's only one year better than many journalists.

MORONS WITH AIR TICKETS – FROM DAILY MAIL:   A Somalian whose deportation from Britain was dramatically halted after airline passengers staged a mutiny demanding his release can be exposed today as a convicted gang rapist who was being kicked out of the country because of his sickening crime.
Officials escorting Yaqub Ahmed on a flight from Heathrow to Turkey were forced to abandon his deportation when around a dozen holidaymakers who felt sorry for him angrily intervened shortly before take-off.   At one stage during the astonishing episode, filmed on mobile phones, one traveller complained: "They’re separating him from his family," while others chanted, "Take him off the plane."  When harassed security guards caved in and walked 29-year-old Ahmed off the Turkish Airlines flight, he was seen thanking those on board for their support as they cheered and applauded.   One person was heard declaring: "You’re free, man!"  But the passengers who thought they were doing a good deed were unaware that the man they were defending had been sentenced to nine years in jail for his part in a vicious gang rape of a teenage girl – and that another member of his gang later fought for Islamic State in Syria.  I hope those passengers have a miserable vacation, and I also hope they don't come here.  I have no doubt that they think of themselves as morally superior. 

October 13,  2018     Permalink 

MAYBE THE TRUTH WILL COME OUT – AT 3:34 P.M. ET:  Keith Ellison is the radical vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee.  He is a former member of the hate group called the Nation of Islam.  He is running to become attorney general of Minnesota.  And he has credible, documented charges of domestic violence against him.  Otherwise, he's a great guy.

The Minnesota race is getting closer and closer, and now a legal action may spell doom for Ellison.  We certainly hope so.  From the Washington Times: 

A county court has ordered Rep. Keith Ellison’s divorce records to be unsealed, allowing more scrutiny into the Democrat’s private life as he fights off the abuse allegations upending his campaign for Minnesota attorney general.

Hennepin County Family Court referee Jason Hutchison released an order Friday saying the records of Mr. Ellison’s 2012 split with ex-wife Kim Ellison will be unsealed Oct. 17, ruling that “open access is the presumption in Minnesota.”

Kim Ellison, who is also an elected official as a member of the Minneapolis school board, has said there was no abuse during their 20-year marriage. Mr. Ellison plans to appeal the decision, according to his attorney.

“Keith and Kim Ellison remain jointly opposed to this effort to exploit the details of their personal life, and the lives of their children, for political gain,” Ellison attorney Carla Kjellberg said in a statement to media outlets.

The Minnesota Star Tribune and AlphaNews sued to have the records unsealed in the aftermath of abuse allegations made in August by Karen Monahan, Mr. Ellison’s ex-girlfriend, who said that he dragged her from a bed by her foot screaming obscenities.

Mr. Ellison has staunchly denied the Monahan allegations, as well as a previous claim by another woman, Amy Alexander, who said he pushed her and broke her screen door in 2005.

The Democrat has accused Ms. Alexander of harassing him and noted that he obtained a restraining order against her in 2006, but a recently unearthed police report shows that officers responded to a 9/11 call in 2005 from a woman who claimed she was assaulted by Mr. Ellison. 

COMMENT:  He is entitled to the presumption of innocence.  We believe that on our side.  But his history is awful and the charges against him include hospital reports of injuries to specific women.

We await facts.  All we want is facts.

October 13, 2018       Permalink

DEMS LAGGING WITH LATINO VOTERS – FROM 1:22 P.M. ET:  The so-called "Hispanic vote" was supposed to be one of the main saving graces for the Democrats in the coming midterm elections, only three and a half weeks away.  It ain't turnin' out that way.  From Politico: 

SAN ANTONIO — Voters are more invested in the 2018 elections than in any recent midterm. But a key piece of the Democratic coalition — Latino voters — is lagging behind other groups in its interest in the 2018 campaign, an enthusiasm gap that could tip the scales in key battleground House districts.

Latinos make up at least 20 percent of the population in more than a dozen districts that top Democrats' House target list in 2018 — more than half of the 23 seats Democrats must flip to take over the House. But a POLITICO analysis of over 20,000 interviews conducted with battleground-district voters by Siena College and the New York Times shows that Latinos rated themselves less likely to vote than both white and black voters.

Two-thirds of white voters surveyed said they were “almost certain” to vote — the highest rating on a 5-point scale — as did 61 percent of African-Americans. But only 55 percent of the Latinos polled said the same about their plans for next month’s midterm elections, according to POLITICO’s analysis.

The findings — echoed by other public and private polling from groups like Latino Decisions, a Latino-focused polling and research firm whose latest survey showed that more than half of Latino voters have yet to be contacted by a campaign or party group ahead of the midterms — could have an outsized effect in a crescent of battleground House districts running from Texas to the West Coast, where the Hispanic vote is especially important.

Democratic operatives are concerned that Latino engagement is “better than it was in 2014, but not as strong as 2016, and we need closer to 2016 enthusiasm level to flip many of these seats in Texas, California, Florida and Nevada,” said Josh Ulibarri, a Democratic pollster who works on races throughout the country.

COMMENT:  It might occur to the Dem operatives that Latinos may not be too inspired by the Democratic message.  Latinos have benefited, as have blacks, from the Trump economy.  Some of those who do vote may not automatically pull the Democratic lever.

October 13,  2018     Permalink