Let sleeping dogs lie

Are you a Trump supporter? Or are you just bidding your time waiting for the race to play out further? It could be others will force you into a decision in the coming month. There is wisdom in the adage "let sleeping dogs lie".
In 1780 British Major Patrick Ferguson  paid the ultimate price when he forced the neutral Overmountain men to choose sides. The Overmountain men were men who settled with their families on the western slopes of the Appalachian Mountains. The settlements were in violation of the Treaty of Lochaber, signed in 1770 between the British and the Cherokee but these adventuresome souls had defied British law and purchased land from the Cherokee chiefs who fancied themselves to be real estate agents. They were not part of the original 13 colonies, nor were they loyal to Britain. They were content to sit out the Revolutionary War with the dream of one day establishing their own independent nation but that change when Major Ferguson, following a skirmish with a few Overmountain men who had aligned themselves with the Americans posted the threat  “If you do not desist your opposition to the British Arms, I shall march this army over the mountains, hang your leaders, and lay waste your country with fire and sword.”
With that brash threat Ferguson went from being an object of curiosity to an existential threat, a threat the Overmountain men could not tolerate. So they assembled an army, trapped Major Ferguson and his army of Loyalist irregulars and killed him on the North Carolina Piedmont in what became know as the Battle of King's Mountain. The loss of Ferguson's army exposed the western flank of Cornwallis and his British regulars and hastened his ultimate defeat all because Ferguson was too dumb to let sleeping dogs lie.
On July 8 I wrote a post, GOP donor would ban Trump from debates. "Whose party is it? Since when do big donors think they have the right to decide who shall and who shall not have the right to run in the presidential primary?" I wrote. At that time it seemed that Republican donors were outraged at Trump's strong language. Now their motivation is clearer. They are the Republican Establishment and they see Trump as a threat to their Washington hegemony. This was never was about Trump's language and its possible alienating propensity on minority voters. This is about their loss of power, this is about the loss of their ability to foist immigration and trade policies on the country that redound to their advantage at the expense of the average American. Donald Trump may not be a populist but for them the he is a threat to their privilege.
It looks that soon we are going to be forced into choosing sides. Like the passive Overmountain men we will be forced to chose sides. From CNN;

An anti-Trump ad deluge after Labor Day?
It's no secret the Republican establishment is unnerved by Donald Trump and his lead in national and key state polls.
And now, after weeks of assuming his support would be fleeting, there is a debate about how to take aim at Trump -- and just who should finance such an effort.
CNN's Maeve Reston noted that most GOP strategists see risks in having the attacks come from the other candidates or their directly affiliated super PACs. So, she reports, there is conversation about what other group might raise money for anti-Trump TV ads.
"There are a lot of donors out there who see it as much too dangerous, obviously, for the candidates, or their allied super PACs, to go after Trump," said Reston. "So they're looking to more establishment PACs to potentially take him down in post-Labor Day ads."

Obviously Trump has said enough in the past 30 years that would normally exclude anyone from elective office even at the municipal level so we can expect to hear most of it. His detractors do not have to answer for their misspoken words. They pay other people to dish the dirt while they appear on PBS expressing concern for the nation, concern for the GOP, concern for black lives, concern for women's health, and concern for the environment. They are the reasonable people, the good people, the bipartisan crony capitalists who are willing to work with those from across the aisle to further their considerable affluence. They are the money changers in the temple.
Like the Overmountain men we fence straddlers may not have a real choice. It may come down to who down to who we dislike the least and when push comes to shove the donors may learn the wisdom of letting sleeping dogs lie.

Ben Carson ties Donald Trump

The new Monmouth Poll coming out of Iowa is full of surprises. When asked, " Regardless of who you support, what do you think the country needs more in the next president: someone with government experience who knows how to get things done OR someone outside of government who can bring a new approach to Washington? " Sixty-six percent answered someone outside of government. That shows in the respondents' selection of candidates. All of the top three candidates are outsiders. Donald Trump and Ben Carson are tied at 23% each and Carly Fiorina runs third with 10%. Ted Cruz run fourth with 9 % and the inevitable Jeb Bush is in sixth place with just 5%.
Clearly Trump draws Tea Party support which I would have found surprising just a month ago. Trump leads Carson 27% to 22% among Tea Party supporters, with Cruz at 16%. Among non-supporters of the Tea Party, Carson takes a 25% to 19% lead over Trump. The Tea Party gave the Republicans the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014 while the establishment fumbled the 2012 election and lost with Romney. In 2016 the Tea Party will win or lose the presidential election and presently it looks like a win.
Here are the details.

Ben Carson	23%
Donald Trump	23%
Carly Fiorina	10%
Ted Cruz	9%
Scott Walker	7%
Jeb Bush	5%
John Kasich	4%
Marco Rubio	4%
Rand Paul	3%
Mike Huckabee	2%
Rick Santorum	2%
Chris Christie	1%
Bobby Jindal	1%
Rick Perry	1%
George Pataki	<1%
Lindsey Graham	0%
Jim Gilmore	0%

The dumbed down GOP presidential field makes Trump look brilliant.

Yeah, maybe we could mine the New York harbor while we are at it. Scott Walker has been a huge personal disappointment. I had hoped he would be a strong candidate because I much admire his accomplishment in Wisconsin but he has shown himself to be exceedingly inept on the campaign trail. What candidate in his right mind would propose walling off Canada while supporting the Keystone XL Pipeline? Walker adds animation to the caricature used by Trump as a politician who is willing to say anything to get elected. From The Hill;

Given that the northern border poses a potential risk for terrorists to bleed into the U.S., the Republican presidential candidate said that he would not rule out a wall to increase security there.
“That is a legitimate issue for us to look at,” Walker said on NBC’s “Meet the Press."
“Some people have asked us about that in New Hampshire. They raised some very legitimate concerns, including some law enforcement folks that brought that up to me at one of our town hall meetings about a week and a half ago,” he added

Yes, and some in law enforcement think they need tanks and automatic weapons to keep the peace but one would hope a president would be smarter than that. Not to be outdone in the area of mindless pandering on immigration, Governor Chris Christie would track immigrant just like Fed EX tracks packages. From CNN:

"I'm going to have Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx, come work for the government for three months. Just come for three months to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and show these people," the New Jersey governor said at a town hall event here.
Christie added that while FedEx can track boxes, the U.S. can't track undocumented immigrants.
"You go online and at any moment, FedEx can tell you where that package is," he said. "Yet we let people come into this country with visas, and the minute they come in, we lose track of them."
Christie added, "We need to have a system that tracks you from the moment you come in and then when your time is up," he said. "However long your visa is, then we go get you and tap you on the shoulder and say, 'Excuse me, it's time to go.'"

One shouldn't have to remind Christie that visas are issued to people not boxes. Would he just put a barcode on their foreheads or go high tech and place and RFID chip in their ear lobes?
And people wonder why Trump leads the GOP field!

Did Obama sign off on IRS misconduct?

Judge Emmet Sullivan of the Washington District Court has captured most of the attention concerning FOIA lawsuits against the IRS but today a second judge from the DC circuit has ruled that the IRS must disclose any White House requests for taxpayer information. Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered the IRS to produce any documents pertaining to presidential requests for taxpayer information. Specifically;

All documents, including but not limited to emails, letters, telephone logs, and reports pertaining to any investigation by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration into the unauthorized disclosure of§ 6103 "return information" to anyone in the Executive Office of the President.

Cause of Action, a Washington watchdog group, first filed suit in 2013 pursuant to a FOIA request. The IRS located 796 pages of documents and produced 790 but refused to produce 6 pages citing of all things a concern for taxpayer privacy. Good try but no cigar. “This court questions whether section 6103 should or would shield records that indicate confidential taxpayer information was misused, or that government officials made an improper attempt to access that information,” the judge wrote in denying the IRS’s request to dismiss the case. The IRS has argued the existence of any request from the White House to peruse a taxpayer's tax information would violate the taxpayer's right of privacy.
Why the foot dragging? Are the DOJ lawyers merely probing the limits of Judge Jackson's patience who was appointed by Obama? It could be disclosure would implicate Obama in the IRS scandal. The law, cited in Exhibit 1 in Cause of Action's suit spells out exactly the procedure the White House must follow to obtain taxpayer information from the IRS.

Upon written request by the President, signed by him personally, the Secretary shall furnish to the President, or to such employee or employees of the White House Office as the President may designate by name in such request, a return or return information with respect to any taxpayer named in such request.

It is a fact that Romney donors had their tax information publicly disclosed during the campaign. It is also a fact that it is a crime to disclose taxpayer information. Obama did say he had a phone and a pen. If he used that pen to sign off on this he may want want to use his phone to call his lawyer.

All lives matter

Glenn Beck's deal this weekend with a Birmingham church choir. Wonder if they'll be accused of being racist.

Back and forth about Donald Trump

    I don't know what to make of Donald Trump. Personally I can't stand the guy; I've heard him repeatedly on Fox and each time, I couldn't wait until he got off.
  But then I hear him dress down Jorge Ramos or Bush and I laugh. And laugh and laugh and laugh. And it's not just because he's so anti-PC or rude.
  It's like watching a train wreck at night where no one dies but all you can do is say "ooo" at the fireworks and drama.
  Then again, I don't understand the appeal he has for so many die hard conservatives who can't stop talking about him and are as slavishly adoring as Obama's fans are. They don't care where he stands on issues or the fact that he's changed positions so many times that he can't even keep his current positions straight.
  Yet Donald Trump has certainly made the Republican field better, pushing the other candidates to reveal themselves and on some occasions, their cowardice regarding certain issues and making commitments to standing up against the Republican establishment, which I think conservatives despise more than Leftists.
   I don't believe for one minute that Trump's favorite book is the Bible: thus, pandering to a select group with lies to trick them into voting for you? Sounds familiar.
   We have a divisive extremely divisive man in the White House now. Do we really need another one?
  But then he puts one of those insufferable blowhards on the skewer and Donald Trump is the puppet master again, orchestrating a circus reality show of national proportion which somehow serves as a distraction from the nastiness of the world around us.
  And somehow that distraction seems to have a cleansing effect in a red pill kind of way.
  So back and forth I go.
  But at the end of the day, the real question is this.
  What in the world is Ted Cruz up to with The Donald?

A Trump movement?

I was a little surprised when my friend said with no indication of jesting said that he would like to have one of those Trump caps. The ones that say, "Make America Great Again". We have been down some very dusty roads together over the last 30 years and shared some good times too. What the hell, I thought as I logged on to Amazon. It's the least I can do. I ordered him a "Make America Great Again" cap. I did not order one for myself but that day may come.
The exciting thing about Trump is that he is exciting. I actually relish his press conferences. Hell yes, he's bombastic and he can be testy and sometimes seems to complain too much but he is never dull. Yes, I'm aware that he tries to include Mexico and China in every answer. I'm aware that he has yet to spell out what in the federal budget he would cut, how he feels about the EPA Clean Power plan to cripple the country and will he back Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood but sooner or later he will be forced into a decision on these issues well before the Iowa caucuses. I am also aware that others in the field have switched positions on a variety of issues and if trying not to keep too many balls in the air is Trump's tactic it is wildly successful. Popular pundits who get paid big bucks to know about politics sagacious state that he has tapped into something. Oh please. Remember when your mother would take you to the doctor who would stick a thermometer in your mouth and listen to your chest with his cold stethoscope and then tell your mother "There's a lot of that going around" before giving you a shot of penicillin? Political analysis is about that deep when it comes to Trump. As of late Trump has taken up the pundits' theme as he claims he is part of an undefined movement. He may be right. No one knew that the anti Vietnam War protests were much of a movement until a little known senator from Minnesota, Eugene McCarthy won 42% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary essentially driving a sitting president into early retirement. Trump maybe be leading a second wave of anti-establishment angst that produced the Tea Party in 2010 which would qualify for tapping into something.
Don't give that "he's all style and no substance" cant. I wish to hell someone else would try to cultivate that style. Why is Jeb Bush trailing Trump by 21 points in the latest Quinnipiac poll? Because he is self righteous, boring ,pedantic and looks like he just swallowed a fly. He is Obama in white face.
Donald Trump tells the people what they want to hear? Better than John Kasich telling the people his dad was a mailman six times in 15 minutes or Rick Santorum's recounting his grandfather's sorry career as a coal miner for two primary cycles. By all means tell people what they don't want to hear. Tell them that you were an Eagle Scout in every speech. Tell them you dad was a bartender. Tell them how you overcame the temptation to do drugs. Then wonder why you are at 2 percent in the polls.
But how long can he keep this act up? Who knows? Chris Christie was able to keep it up for a good four years. Just bluster. Zero accomplishments. In that Quinnipiac poll Trump, Carson, and Fiorina take 45% of the vote. One percent prefer someone else and 11% don't know. That means the remaining 14 candidates, all professional politicians, share just 43 percent. Why? Because those three have something to say. Something that hasn't been focus group tested. Something that challenges the power elite's claim to legitimacy. Something that seems heartfelt.
Ted Cruz and the Donald are set to appear at an event organized by the Tea Party Patriots, the Center for Security Politics, and the Zionist Organization of America to oppose the Iran nuclear deal. A few more bold steps such as this and I may order that cap.

Trump surges in New Hampshire

Aside from headline that Donald Trump is leading the Republican pack with 35% is the fact that Jeb Bush is tied with Scott Walker at 7% and both of them trail John Kasich with 11 % and Carly Fiorina with 10%. Here is the breakdown of the PPP poll.

Trump	35
Kasich	11
Fiorina	10
Bush	7
Walker	7
Carson	6
Christie	4
Cruz	4
Rubio	4
Paul	3
Perry	2
Graham	1
Pataki	1
Santorum	1
Gilmore	0
Huckabee	0
Jindal	0

Notice that the non politicians, Trump, Fiorina, and Carson get 51% of the vote. Clearly Republican voters are fed up with their party and traditional politicians but that dissatisfaction probably runs deep in the Democratic as well. Unfortunately the Democrats do not have a non politician in the field to test that hypothesis.

Clinton Fatigue

This is undoubtedly the best political ad so far this season.

Obama's bear market?

Although I expected a market sell off today, having checked the Asian markets before going to bed, the initial 1000 point drop did surprise me. The Shanghai composite index is presently down almost 5% as of 9:30 PM EST so the US markets face another challenge tomorrow. It could be that all the mania is a technical correction as some Wall St. sages suggest or it could be a harbinger of the inevitable collapse of China's much adored economy. When Obama visited that reactionary police state in 2009 he did encourage more internet freedom but at home he and many in the business community who should have known better spoke in hushed whispers of awe of that ever so remarkable economic engine of growth that escaped the worldwide recession. Fortunately for China it had not developed a Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac which played a key role in undermining our own credit markets and also it had the good sense to shoot dishonest and inept bureaucrats so it prospered as the US declined and appointed more dishonest and inept bureaucrats. China was after all the world's largest producer of solar panels, an accomplishment of which Democrats and Obmabots could only dream.
It could well be China has had its day in the sun. In June of 2011 in a post entitled China Will Get Old Before It Gets Rich, spelling out some of the structural challenges facing China.

If indeed China can maintain its annual 7% growth rate it is game over for the US. While China has not gotten itself involved in the inter-generational Ponzi schemes that are Social Security, Medicare, and defined benefits public pensions it too has problems of its own making. Beijing’s one-child policy, introduced in 1979, was largely effective—though it had the abhorrent side effect of encouraging a disdain for female infants, a prejudice that has led to abortion, neglect, abandonment, and even infanticide. Applying mainly to urban couples of Han descent, the policy reduced population growth in the country of 1.3 billion by as much as 300 million people. There is price to pay for this radical social engineering. By 2015 there will be more older than younger Chinese workers. Males outnumber females 120 to 100. Roughly 30 million Chinese men will not be able to find wives. Within a generation the average Chinese worker will be older than the average American worker.

It is now 2015 and the young, energetic work force is no longer young. As its workforce ages one wonders how China will treat maternity. It will need all hand on deck to assemble iPhones and solar panels and it will need to reproduce to keep that workforce viable. Maybe a two day maternity leave will be the norm but an aging workforce is just one of many problems China must address and soon. Its banking system, over which the government exerts such control as to give Elizabeth Warren orgasmic tremors, has no deposit insurance. No FDIC. Most of its loans are to government companies. If many government companies fail, then banks fail and the depositors lose everything.
The state controlled banks lend almost exclusively to state controlled companies so the few entrepreneurs who can raise cash from friends must compete with subsidized state run companies. Intellectual property rights are all but nonexistent. Real pollution, not the made up carbon dioxide bs, is a serious menace to public health. There is no heavy rail transportation in much of the country and Obama's beloved high speed rail is priced well beyond affordability for most Chinese. There is very little domestic trucking or roads to drive on and virtually no domestic air transportation. Although China has made immense progress since the days when it could not even feed itself it is still a developing country. It cannot reform its banking system or its industry until it reforms its government and until then it can only go in one direction. Down.
Developing countries go belly up pretty frequently with little impact on the global economy but China is to big to fail in the Dodd-Frank meaning of that phrase. Its demise will bring real tears and may not bode well for the US economy.

The Democrat War on Black Americans

  Here's another video from yet another frustrated Black mother who has had it with the Black Lives Matter crowd who repeatedly venerate thugs and criminals who are taken down by police. This week, the "mourning" was for a repeat criminal who was shot dead because he shot at police when they tried to serve an arrest warrant on him.
  The trigger for Peggy Hubbard's video was that also this week, a 9 year old girl was sitting on her mother's bed doing her homework when a "stray" bullet killed her while another "stray" bullet wounded her mother. Her grandmother held her in her arms as she died, begging her to "just breathe. Just breathe."
  Imagine your child cozying up in your room, on your bed~safe and secure~while she obediently surrounds herself with her books, paper and pen and does her homework for the last time.
   Yet no Black Lives Matter protesters mourned this child, who will never graduate, never marry, never have children or be a grandmother herself.
  Peggy Hubbard has some thoughts on the subject. Note that the video is NSFW, filled with cuss words, appropriately so, to my mind.
  I might quibble with Ms. Hubbard in several areas.
  ~White people do care about the incarceration and death rates of young black males, and not just because their violent behavior spills over to the white community.
  ~Just as her contention that all lives matter applies to everyone, Ms. Hubbard's admonitions regarding incarceration apply to all races.  You did it, you claim it, don't expect everyone else to feel sorry for you and come visit you in prison.
  ~If more families were like Ms. Hubbard's, we'd all be better off. As she says, she and his father told her son that you will face consequences for the choices you make, not us. They taught their son how to behave while he chose a different path, contrary to what he'd been taught.
  ~Black Lives Matter is funded by a white dude named George Soros, even though Leftists are squealing that Soros can't control the foci of all the many dissident groups he funds. Fomenting hatred has spawned hateful protesters who stormed a Soros office, demanding they be paid the $5000 a month they were promised and starting the Twitter hashtag #cutthecheck.  I'm not saying this means that illegal behavior is not the responsibility of the person who committed it; by pointing out the Soros connection, I'm saying that there is a War on Black Americans in this country and it's being encouraged by white Democrats, who believe the hatred empowers their own notion of a less free, more controlled country. Controlled by them, of course.
  ~The Democrats who are encouraging this War on Black Americans do not want truth and honesty such as having to show ID to vote; they want to manipulate the system to their own advantage, cheating and intimidating so they can win. Since they enjoy a monolithic vote from a minority which never seems to grow primarily because of abortion, Democrats can do whatever they want to this minority and not be held accountable.
  ~The government giveaways to single mothers help control the behavior of both black mothers and fathers, as they are dependent on the government to "provide for" their children, rather than take that responsibility on themselves. It's a slippery slope.
  ~ Democrat ideals are perfectly on display at the various Democrat run cities around the US: Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, Washington DC. Not much more needs to be said than that, though Colonel West sums it up here. Democrats consistently encourage positions that work against the public interest of black Americans.
  So here's Ms. Peggy Hubbard who has already has over 5 million views, speaking eloquently from her heart:

From my heart!
Posted by Peggy Hubbard on Thursday, August 20, 2015

Obama looks "goofy" riding his bike

  Here's a treat we haven't seen before: adoring video of a skinny Obama wearing a space helmet cycling on Martha's Vineyard, escorted by an angry faced but considerably sturdier Michelle.
  The reporter does the unforgivable, laughing affectionately and murmuring, "He looks so goofy with that helmet on." Check out the happy family photo shots from the Daily Mail.
  Yeah. We noticed. Before.
 

Why don't we see more of Trump on television?

One wonders if there is not a conspiracy in the media to kill the Trump phenomenon. Yes, death by overexposure. If you are a normal cable news junkie chance are you have digested about 3 hours of prime time Trump just this week. The rally in Mobile was carried by Fox, CNN, and MSNBC. Sweet Home Alabama! This guy gets more prime time face time than Bill O'Reilly, Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow without dropping a dime just because he has the nerve to say anchor baby. Earlier in the week segments of his press conference were copiously featured on all three cable networks and his town hall was so exciting that Mica called Joe to tell him to tune in. Joe was already watching so she called her parents and guess what? They were already watching.
Trump is the best thing to happen to CNN since Malaysia Airlines flight 370 went missing and if he can do for manufacturing what he has done for cable news America will be selling Ronco Ready Grills in Hong Kong. Network television is also sharing in the Trump bonanza. Two weeks ago Michael Calderone wrote on the Huffington Post, " Trump called into four public affairs shows Sunday: CNN’s “State of the Union,” NBC’s “Meet the Press,” CBS’s “Face the Nation” and ABC’s “This Week." On Monday morning, he did phone interviews with NBC’s “Today” and MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
The entire Republican field has not and cannot raise the kind of cash necessary to purchase one quarter of the air time Trump has been given free gratis. Media critics may not be comfortable with this symbiotic relationship but advertisers drive the bottom line not pundits.
The latest Reuters / Ipsos poll shows Trump with a commanding 32 to 16 percent lead over second place Jeb Bush. For now the Donald driving the media to the bank. He may not be a prophet but he is very profitable.

Sell the post office to someone who can run it

I have advocated for some time that everyone who pays federal taxes, not those who file just to collect earned income welfare should receive one share of Amtrak stock and one share of Post Office stock. As soon as someone managed to buy up a controlling interest in each entity they could operate it as they saw fit. Obviously the group or individual who would buy up the stock would be doing it to earn a return on the investment meaning the new management would do all that it could to please customers and earn loyalty through price and efficiency. Today I'm more adamant than ever in that opinion for a very personal reason.
A neighbor called today to tell my wife that the reason the neighborhood did not get mail delivery yesterday was because the letter carrier had seen a menacing dog in the area therefore mail delivery was suspended on two blocks for that day.
No one is that goddam stupid! I yelled at my wife.
Oh yes they are. A call to the post office confirmed the preposterous policy but offered the consolation that I was welcome to come into the post office and pick up my mail. Forty-four cents for a letter and they can't deliver it because someone saw a dog somewhere? Hell I'm in the neighborhood 24/7 more or less I haven't seen the dog but evidently the threat is in the eye of the beholder. I perceive the homeless looking postal workers I see to be more menacing than any dog. It would not be the end of the world if Fed Ex or UPS took over the USPS.

Hillary trails 8 of 11 Republicans in North Carolina

News coming from North Carolina is all bad news for Hillary. Public Policy Polling which is headquartered in the Tar Heel State states;

Clinton trails 8 of the 11 Republican hopefuls in hypothetical match ups, although most of the margins are close. The strongest performers against her are Ben Carson who leads 47/40 and Marco Rubio who has a 45/41 advantage. Carson and Rubio have been the strongest performing Republicans in the general election in all three of the polls we've done since the debate.
Doing the worst against Clinton are Rand Paul who trails 44/40, Chris Christie who trails 40/39, and Jeb Bush who ties Clinton at 42. In between, all with leads of 1-3 points over Clinton, are Carly Fiorina (42/41), John Kasich (41/40), Ted Cruz (45/43), Mike Huckabee (46/44), Donald Trump (45/42), and Scott Walker (44/41).

Although technically North Carolina is still classified as a swing state that is the result of a single election. Prior to 2008 North Carolina was a typical red state. In 2008 it went for Obama, retired Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole replacing her with Kay Hagan and elected Democrat Bev Purdue as governor. Since that aberration Republicans have won every major election and the state went for Romney in 2012. Taken with the results of a recent Quinnipiac poll showing Hillary losing to a host of Republicans in Colorado, Iowa, and Virginia it appears the finely tuned Clinton machine is slinging oil by the quart.
Turning to the Republican primary Donald Trump widened his lead to 24%, Ben Carson placed second with 14% and Jeb Bush grabbed 13% to show.

Donald Trump	24%
Ben Carson	14%
Jeb Bush	13%
Ted Cruz	10%
Marco Rubio	9%
Carly Fiorina	6%
Mike Huckabee	6%
Scott Walker	6%
Rand Paul	3%
Chris Christie	2%
Rick Santorum	2%
John Kasich	1%
Rick Perry	1%
All others	<1%
Undecided	3%

Trump has a net favorability rating of + 7 with 47 % having a favorable opinion of the Donald and 40% an unfavorable. Ben Carson has the best favorable ratio with a 66% /11% while Chris Christie has the worse at 23% / 55%.

Black votes matter

I tried to make the point in a previous post that the results of the Republicans losing the Hispanic vote is nothing compared to the Democrats losing the black vote. By losing the black vote I do not necessarily mean the Republicans must win it, just that black voter turnout decline. Notice that in 2008 and 2012 that the black voter participation rate was higher than that of whites. Also notice that in 2010 and 2014 the black rate was markedly lower than the white rate. Two explanations are plausible. One, blacks do not care about down ballot races as much as whites do or the higher turnout in the presidential elections was due to Barack Obama being on the ballot.
The traditional Democratic Party composed of blacks and northern white ethnics, commonly referred to as the white working class is no more making the party extremely dependant upon the black vote.

From the 2008 to the 2012 presidential elections Democrats maintained their core coalition but in 2012 but their support among both white working-class and middle-class voters began to shrink. After getting 40 percent of the white working-class vote in 2008, Obama got only 36 percent in 2012. And after winning college-but-not-post graduate voters and middle-income voters in 2008, he lost both groups to Mitt Romney, by 51 percent to 47 percent and 52 percent to 46 percent, respectively. Now the Party of Jefferson and Jackson finds itself in a position that it wins or loses at the whim of black voters who it seems hell bent on alienating.



Ask yourself if the speaker in this video is more or less likely to turnout for Hillary in the 2016 election.

Trump has We Be Sisters. What does Bush have?

It's not surprising that Donald Trump's flamboyant persona would resonate well in the black community but Lysette "Diamond" Hardaway and Rochelle "Silk" Richardson of We Be Sisters have taken that adulation to an art form. These ladies are a scream and they scream and they laugh at their own jokes and in the end they make a hell of a lot of sense. They explain their motivation and their enthusiasm for Trump to Dana Loesch of Blaze TV but notice that in this video and in all of their videos the underlying theme is they want what is best for the country. These ladies want no part of parochial interests. To them it's all about America, first last and always. They view Donald Trump as the man who can best bring the American dream to everyone. In another day they would be in a Norman Rockwell painting.



The Stump for Trump duo introduce themselves on their website thusly and that is all the personal information they will reveal.
WeBeSisters is the creation of biological sisters Diamond and Silk. We are Democrats who want to see America be great again and that's why we be on the stump for Trump.   Before you go asking the nonsense question, let us give you the straight up answer... NO, we are not paid by Mr. Trump or anyone connected to his campaign!  
The only insight into their personal lives I can discern is that Silk likes chardonnay and margaritas. A WHOIS search reveals "Registrant Name: Registration Private Registrant Organization". They can be contacted through there website or a Fayetteville, North Carolina post office box.
When former Dunkin' Donut employee turned MSNBC host, Steve Kornacki tried to pry into their personal lives it resulted in this video.



My favorite video is this one when Trump announced his immigration plan.



 

Hillary's in deep trouble

  I don't know what to think these days. I can't stand Trump but he makes me laugh. I can't stand Hillary but she makes me laugh, for different reasons.
  I'm sick of the Republicans who don't make me laugh but happy that Trump is bringing up issues that the others won't bring up.
  The prospect of a First Lady who wears $200,000 gowns--bought with money her family actually earned--is amusing.
  The idea that Hillary Clinton hired a small Democrat hack firm to care for her server and routing it through their servers which were stored in the bathroom of their loft apartment in Denver is so ludicrous that it's inconceivable.
  Listening to talk today, it's posited that any government email is sent and received inside a system that isn't connected to the internet and that any government email cannot be sent to an outside email system because all non-government servers ie yahoo.com or clinton.com are rejected unless some government authority intervened specifically to make that possible.
  IOW, did Obama approve Hillary's server?
  Today, Hillary would not answer the question if she ordered her server wiped: instead she indicated that, meh, she had turned it over to the authorities and it was their problem now.
  Once again, her arrogance was breathtaking and yet somehow I laughed loudly when I heard her verbally flip off the reporters, not because she meant to be funny but that her attitude absolutely stank like a skunk loose at a garden party, especially when she marched out imperiously, indignant that anyone would dare question her.
  This thing is so deep it can't be measured yet: the FBI says they can retrieve the material, maybe more than the emails, a problem when you hire a two bit IT company.
  Today she specified again that the emails were not "marked" classified or top security, raising the specter that her aides had wiped some of the specifications, yet some have been discovered.
  And let's not forget the weekend  "basement operation" her aides conducted in September 2014:

She told me, ‘Ray, we are to go through these stacks and pull out anything that might put anybody in the [Near Eastern Affairs] front office or the seventh floor in a bad light,’” says Maxwell. He says “seventh floor” was State Department shorthand for then-Secretary of State Clinton and her principal advisers.
“I asked her, ‘But isn’t that unethical?’ She responded, ‘Ray, those are our orders.’ ”
A few minutes after he arrived, Maxwell says, in walked two high-ranking State Department officials.

  I mean, GEEZ, as long as we're doomed, we might as well laugh, eh?
  And, GEEZ, it's so bad for her that even MSNBC is turning on her, acknowledging she's a liar. 
  I mean, GEEZ, the world is coming to an end. 
 UPDATE: Sorry about the auto play. Sheesh. Here's the same thing: 

Are the Democrats trying to throw the election?

Other than that was there anything else that makes you think Adolph Eichmann was not a decent man? Hillary's Democratic rivals seem to have taken the opposite tack. They nitpick about the particulars aspects of her free college for everyone plan or carp that she is not really serious about raising minimum wage but simply cannot address the subject of her secret server and the hazards to national security her actions may have caused. Are these guys serious candidates or just shills recruited by the Clinton campaign the give the voters the perception of a meaningful primary election campaign? Are they too afraid to speak to the obvious scandal that will soon engulf their party. Afraid of whom? Bill Clinton? Barack Obama? Are they afraid to antagonize Hillary voters or donors? One has to conclude they are not serious candidates.
Do a Google search of Bernie Sander, Martin O'Malley, Jim Webb along with Hillary email and you will find nothing except Lincoln Chafee making the concession that Mrs. Clinton’s ethics are something “we should be talking about.” How courageous! He's a regular rabble rouser.
Watch Martin O'Malley refuse to comment on Hillary's email server even when asked.



Yes, let Hillary's lawyers answer the questions. They may eventually get their day in court but in the meantime do not expect Democrats to admit their probable candidate is a felon. Pathetic cowards!

Trump's remarkable immigration reforms

Ann Coulter may have been indulging in hyperbole a bit when she compared Trump's position paper on immigration to the Magna Carta but it is bold. Up until today Trump could be criticized for failing to be specific about his immigration reforms but no more. No one is preventing the other Republican candidates from putting their immigration plans to paper and until they summon the courage Trump has every right to call them wusses. Like many in the blogosphere I have been critical of Trump but that aside it's time to critique the plan not the man and in my estimation the plan is not wanting.

The greatest political document since the Magna Carta - http://t.co/l7nq8gN7i5

— Ann Coulter (@Ann Coulter) August 16, 2015

And kudos to Trump for releasing a position paper that is readable. At a mere 6 pages it's a model of Chesterfieldian concision. It eschews socispeak, does use nouns as verbs, is written at about a eighth grade reading level making it accessible to Democrats but what it lacks in pedantic bilge and platitudes is more than compensated by its substance. It lays out the 3 principles of reform.;

1. A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.
2. A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced.
3. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.

I love point 3, "Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans" and if Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio or John Kasich feel differently they should tell the voters.
Next Trump spells out exactly how he would make Mexico pay for the wall.

Mexico must pay for the wall and, until they do, the United States will, among other things: impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages; increase fees on all temporary visas issued to Mexican CEOs and diplomats (and if necessary cancel them); increase fees on all border crossing cards – of which we issue about 1 million to Mexican nationals each year (a major source of visa overstays); increase fees on all NAFTA worker visas from Mexico (another major source of overstays); and increase fees at ports of entry to the United States from Mexico [Tariffs and foreign aid cuts are also options].  We will not be taken advantage of anymore.

Maybe not every item will prove doable and of course all items would require congressional approval but as much can be said for about any plan submitted by any candidate. Democrats can call it blackmail, I prefer hardball but again where is Hillary's position paper?
There is a section on the rule of law and the constitution.

America will only be great as long as America remains a nation of laws that lives according to the Constitution. No one is above the law. The following steps will return to the American people the safety of their laws, which politicians have stolen from them
Triple the number of ICE officers.
Nationwide e-verify.
Mandatory return of all criminal aliens.
Detention—not catch-and-release.
Defund sanctuary cities.
Enhanced penalties for overstaying a visa.
Cooperate with local gang task forces.
End birthright citizenship.

The plan makes it clear that immigration policy must be to the advantage of American workers not American employers. It would raise the prevailing wage on H-1B visas noting " More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the program's lowest allowable wage level, and more than eighty percent for its bottom two. Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry-level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the U.S., instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas." Taking a swipe at Marco Rubio it states " Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities."
The plan would also end the J-1 visa jobs program for foreign youth and establish an inner city resume bank for low income American youth. Lastly the plan would raise the standards for admission of refugees and asylum-seekers and moderate future immigration. " Before any new green cards are issued to foreign workers abroad, there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers."
The Republican Party has to be totally out to lunch to reject this plan. One might grouse that birthright citizenship is a creation of the courts and could not easily be undone but by and large this bold, radical plan is commonsensical to the average voter. Meanwhile I eagerly await the Donald's position paper on tax reform.
 Update: From Senator Jeff Sessions;
"This is exactly the plan America needs. Not only would the plan outlined in this paper work, but more quickly than many realize. Most importantly, this plan reestablishes the principle that American's immigration laws should serve the interests of its own citizens.
For too long, "immigration reform" plans in Washington have served the special interests at the expense of working Americans. By contrast, this plan puts the needs of working Americans foremost, and develops an effective strategy for improving their wages and job prospects. Crucially, this plan includes an emphasis on lifting struggling minority communities, including our immigrant communities, out of poverty -- by preventing corporations from bringing in new workers from overseas to replace them and drive down wages. When the labor market is oversupplied, it tilts the balance of power away from workers and towards employers.
In combination with a smart, fair trade policy this proposal would reinvigorate the middle class. Polling shows this plan will appeal broadly to all segments of the electorate: prioritizing the just demands of loyal, everyday Americans who have been shunned by a governing elite."

Tricky Prickly Hillary emerges from the shadows to promise more disappearing messages

   A hopeful UK Telegraph headline highlights the robotically executed and scripted crazy talk speech we featured yesterday of Hillary mocking the American people's concern about her deceitfulness and illegality regarding her federal communications as an State Department employee of the American people. 
  She's opened a Snapchat account (to which her admirers cheered) and bragged, "I love it. I love it. Those messages disappear all by themselves," indicating what kind of "transparent" administration she would run if elected.
  The Guardian writer thinks that Hillary "steals the show" at this Democrat lovefest which is nothing new for the Clintons considering they stole furniture from the White House when they left, probably because they were "flat broke." Headline:

Hillary Clinton steals the show at Iowa Democrats meet  
Former Secretary of State delivered the best speech of her presidential campaign at the Iowa Wing Dings dinner

  The left wing sychophants at the Telegraph titled this vindictive animatron speech as "the best" she's ever given, accompanied with no apparent awareness or animus by this photograph:

Getty Images

  Sorta reminded me of the Democrat controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton's ethics when working against this guy:

    Anyway you may remember this 2008 Obama ad featuring a 1984 style anti-Hillary. It's pretty remarkable, not only considering that Obama has turned out to be the phattest Newspeaker in American history but also in its accuracy in depicting Hillary still today.

  And really, what's not to love about this woman? 
  She's about as warm as pet rock and about as close to human as one can get without actually being human which is a tv show about vampires and such who try real hard to be human.
  Now that I think about it, Hillary should actually watch that show. Maybe she'd learn something.

Trump will lose the Hispanic vote. Who cares?

One cannot read the mind of Donald Trump. It is assumed that he wants to be president but is he, like Lindsey Graham, running simply to advance a policy position? Graham's message is the country needs a stronger defense posture and Trump's appears to be the country need fewer foreign imports and fewer foreign workers. When the Donald told Chuck Todd that all illegal immigrants had to go he staked out the boldest and most courageous position the GOP could possibly take. Expect all hell to break loose when those remarks are reported later today but when all is said and done Trump will have moved the GOP's position dramatically to the right and to a position from which retreat is all but impossible. Yes, Jeb Bush and John Kasich can sputter and fume but considering that Trump's polling numbers in some polls is double their combined totals to little avail. They will eventually issue voluminous position papers which no one will ever read as they try to maintain relevancy because that's what politicians do but Trump owns that position and like it or not so will the Republican Party. Should Trump eventually flame out as expected he will have succeeded in his mission because Cruz, Walker, and others will find it to their benefit to hold that red line.
Expect unmitigated joy from Democrats, the Hillary camp, and the Washington media. Trump has just ceded the Hispanic vote. So what? Unless the Democrats can turn out the black vote with the intensity it did in 2008 and 2012 without Obama on the ticket winning the Hispanic vote is meaningless. The elections of 2010 and 2014 suggest they cannot. In the most recent election Democrats carried 90 plus percent of the black vote in both Maryland and Illinois but it was a small black vote and at the end of the evening both states had done the unthinkable and elected Republican governors. A low black voter turnout also figured in Michelle Nunn's defeat in Georgia. Republicans do not have to carry the black vote they simply have to make black voters angry enough to stay home as Romney, with the help of Chris Christie, did to white Republican voters in 2012.
News flash! Black neighborhoods are not bastions of liberalism. Blacks may be loyal Democrats but intuitively they are more conservative than many whites. Yes, those who need EBT cards and Obama phones will be there on election day but many will not.
When I was 12 years old I carried papers in a black neighborhood. After these many years I'm still in contact with two or three of the kids I met then. Although it's risky to extrapolate too much from the few opinions I glean from conversations with these men I think it's accurate to say open borders and gay marriage are not winning issues amongst the brothers and they are not reticent to give Obama credit for advancing them. If they stay home on election day do not attribute their absence to apathy. Quite the opposite! Even I was a bit surprised when my wife got a call from the wife of one of those men who does mentoring work in his church. She wanted to know what radio station Rush Limbaugh was on. The Democratic Party is so beholden to black voters it needs to win 90% of a heavy black vote to win.
Yes, but the Hispanic vote? The all important Hispanic! The Republicans will lose it. If Hispanics wanted to control national elections than they should have migrated more homogeneously. In the 2012 elections the Hispanic vote was pivotal in only 4 states; Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and New Mexico for a total of 49 electoral votes. Had Romney carried all 4 of those states, which he did not, he would have still lost. It was the white vote that eluded Romney.
If Trump's real mission is to change the direction of the Republican Party on immigration he has probably already won.

Trump on Mexican Illegals: "They have to go."

NBC released this preview of tomorrow's Meet the Press.
Donald Trump will probably succeed in driving the media cycle again this week. One has to admire his abruptness. "Chuck, either we have a country or we don't have a country". As president Trump makes it clear that he would reverse Obama's executive amnesty. He is speaking not only of the order that is now tied up in a Brownsville, Texas court but also the "Dreamer" amnesty.

 

The last time Trump addressed the immigration problem Jeb Bush found his remarks to be "extraordinarily ugly." Since then Jeb's polling numbers may aptly be called "extraordinarily ugly". Both the CNN / ORC and the Suffolk polls show him treading water at 5% in Iowa  although he does marginally better in two other polls.

The real Hillary revealed in this video

  This is unbelievable video, revealing exactly who and what Hillary Clinton is and why she's such a bad candidate: sounding bitter, partisan and outraged as a queen whose chocolates were dropped before they could make it to her mouth, Hillary claims not to be a partisan and that any criticism of her is partisan, unfair and illegal.
  Gosh, this woman looks like a nutbag and I'm inclined to believe DC Whispers that this woman is on the edge, mentally and politically.

And here's more this cynical crack on the rule of law and her profligate abuse of it is breathtaking.

The Republican firing squad

Everyone who has worked in the construction industry for sometime has or has heard a story about a large project, a power plant, a bridge or a dam that was mismanaged to the point that work all but halted. Eventually after several superintendents had been hired and fired an outsider showed up and without ceremony announced that he was prepared to fire until he got it right and did just that. After a week only few journeymen and no foremen were left. He then began to hire new people, turned the project around, completed the work and moved on. The thinking behind this drastic action is that good help is irreparably damaged by bad management. The American public is now at the point where it is prepared to fire until it gets it right. Support for non sequiturs such as Trump, Carson and Fiorina is driven more by desperation than outrage or personal attraction to the aforementioned candidates.
There is a broad consensus that the federal government is mismanaged. The Secret Service has acquired a frat boy image as upon at least three occasions alcohol or sex have figured into minor scandals. Drug Enforcement Administration agents have been accused of consorting with prostitutes who were paid by the drug cartels. Veterans have died waiting for medical treatment while the hospital administrators who were responsible for their deaths got bonuses instead of jail time. Administration official regularly lie to congress with impunity. The EPA spills toxins in pristine rivers, the ATF expedites gun running, and Congress registers as a small business to bilk the taxpayers into paying for its healthcare. Those are just some of the minor scandals but the maltreatment inflicted by the IRS upon Tea Party is a major scandal as is the Hillary Clinton secret server scandal.
The IRS and Hillary scandals are unique in that civil service employees were either complicit or conspired with elected and appointed office holders to break the law and I'm not talking about the security guard who works third shift in some federal office building. I am talking about FBI Director James Comey and the appointed under and deputy secretaries of state who have imperiled national security by knowingly allowing sensitive information to remain unsecured for more than a year. When officials in the State Department learned Hillary's lawyer, David Kendall, had top secret information on a thumb drive their response was to send him a safe notwithstanding the fact that he had no legal right to have top secret documents in his possession. Where does incompetence end and criminality begin?
Director Comey is the consummate political insider and the latest in a long string of unremarkable FBI directors. He was appointed as a US attorney by Bush in in 2002 and basks in the warm glow of bipartisan approval. After all he is responsible for getting felons like Martha Stewart of the streets but he lacks the rectitude to uphold his oath of office lest he offend Hillary. The man is a damned disgrace as are countless others in the diplomatic and intelligence communities who have abdicated their responsibilities and and betrayed their oaths of office for the sake of political expediency and to safe guard the Washington establishment's hegemony. Do not wait for national security Republicans such as Peter King or John McCain to question this bipartisan conspiracy of silence. They are charter members.
Donald Trump is where he is in recent polls because reality TV viewers really think he would fire nincompoops like Under Secretary of State Patrick Kennedy at the drop of a hat or ask the Senate to remove James Comey. Again the public is ready to fire until it gets it right but will eventually chose someone with a background in politics. The first wave of the Tea Party washed through Washington in 2010. The only acceptable candidates to the Republican base are those who came into office in that first upheaval or since. Forget John Kasich. He is an integral part of the Washington-Wall Street axis. Chris Christie did his best to further his career at the expense of Mitt Romney with his Obama hugs and he will not be forgiven. That leaves Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Scott Walker which is 5 more viable candidate than the Democrats have. One of them will be president. Let's hope they will fire until they get it right.

Judge Orders State Department to Report What the FBI Finds on Hillary's Server

Our favorite federal judge, Judge Emmet Sullivan, has once again has put the weight of the federal judiciary behind efforts to recover all Hillary Clinton emails. Today he issued another court to the State Dept which reads in part;

On August 7, 2015, the State Department indicated that it would, by August 14, 2015, provide additional information about all servers, accounts, hard drives, or other devices in the Department’s possession or control that may contain information responsive to Plaintiff’s Freedom of Information Act request in this case. The State Department shall file a status report with such relevant information no later than 12:00 p.m. on August 14, 2015. Further, in light of the State Department’s August 12, 2015 status report, the August 14, 2015 report shall indicate the extent to which the State Department is working with other government agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice, to search Mrs. Clinton’s private email server for information relevant to this lawsuit.

In other words whatever the FBI tells State, State had better tell him. This is the latest action in a FOIA suit brought by Judicial Watch against State seeking information, including emails, on the unique employment arraignment of chief of staff Huma Abedin enjoyed under Hillary's supervision which allowed her to hold an outside job with Teneo which was founded by Doug Band, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton. The corporate client list for Teneo has included Coca-Cola and MF Global, the since-folded brokerage firm run by Jon S. Corzine.
Abedin had an email account on the secret server. With involvement of bad actors as the likes of Jon Corzine, who looted his customers' accounts at MF Global, Abedin's role may have been to coordinate the efforts of State and the Bill and Hillary Clinton Foundation to make Bill and Hillary Clinton stupendously, redundantly wealthy. Abedin's cozy relationship with all things Clinton has attracted the attention of State's inspector general and Sen. Chuck Grassley centering around Abedin's alleged "theft of public money" over $33,000 the saintly servant of the people bilked from State as paid leave. The Grassley letter read in part;

On June 13, 2013, the Judiciary Committee asked that you provide, among other things,
all documents and communications between the Department of State and Teneo, and any client or entities they represent. You did not provide the requested documents in your response on July 5, 2013. Since then, the Judiciary Committee has received additional allegations that further inform the original request. The Committee has learned of allegations that, during your simultaneous employment by the Department of State, Teneo, and the Clinton Foundation, you were solicited for and delivered favors for preferred individuals. For example, while employed by the Department of State, you allegedly sent or received approximately 7,300 emails on your official Department of State address that involved Mr. Douglas Band, President of Teneo. In one exchange, Mr. Band allegedly emailed you to request that you reach out to then-Secretary Clinton to encourage President Obama to appoint Ms. Judith Rodin to a White House position.
At the time, Ms. Rodin was a client of Teneo and President of the Rockefeller Foundation, a large donor to the Clinton Foundation, a fact which Mr. Band allegedly noted in his email. In addition, you allegedly forwarded this email and others to your non-government account ending in @clintonemail.com. As a result, investigators were unable to review any subsequent emails on the chain, as they were shielded from the Department’s records systems on Secretary Clinton’s non-government server.

There is another theory germane to Abedin's role advanced by Walid Shoebat, a former member of the Palestine Liberation Army who converted to Christianity. Shoebat suggests that Abedin is a spy for the Muslim Brotherhood. Other theories suggest she is Hillary"s (and Obama's?) connection to the Brotherhood and the secret server was necessary to keep that relationship private.
It's unknown exactly what Judicial Watch's suspicions are but the country, Bernie Sanders and 17 GOP presidential contenders owe them their thanks.

Bernie Sanders' Monster Mash

  So that Bernie Sanders song I posted earlier this week has really been bugging me because it reminded me of something from the past.
  Now, mind you, Bernie's pushing this song--recorded a long long time ago--as part of his campaign.
  Here's the masterpiece:
Now compare it to this masterpiece called The Monster Mash. See? SEE????

Hillary!'s future and Obama

  So the serial liar Hillary Clinton (what IS it with Democrats and lying?) has been caught lying about the lack of security regarding her personal email server, as noted by The Hill.
  The Daily Beast delicately refers to her lie that she "never sent or received any information that was classified" as an "assertion" that has been "overturned."
  ("Ma! I did NOT eat the last piece of pie! Really!" "Honey, quit it. Everybody knows your assertion has been overturned.")
  In addition, it appears she/her people stripped off the email markings of "top secret" were stripped from her correspondence.
  What's most interesting about the current situation are the political implications of Hillary! turning over her server (flash: all data is gone from the drive) to the government (which belonged to the government anyway) is that it is now in the hands of Obama's Department of Justice's Loretta Lynch.
  Very interesting, considering that now Hillary!'s political future is in the hands of the Obama people.
  Bad blood between the Obamas and Clintons?
  Sure. How can these rivaling narcissistic egos survive on such a small stage of American politics?
  But the good news for Hillary! is that she still leads over Bernie Sanders.
  Seriously?

Four Republicans beat Hillary in Iowa poll

The latest poll from left leaning Public Policy Polling brings more bad news for Hillary. In head to head match ups she loses to Walker, Rubio, and Huckabee by 1 and loses to Ben Carson by 4. The Duchess of Chappaqua can console herself with the knowledge that she beats Jeb Bush by 4, Trump
by 3, Paul by 3, and a gaggle of lesser knowns ( Cruz, Christie, Kasich, and Fiorina ) by 2. Ten days ago nobody knew who Carly Fiorina was now she is within 2 points of the inevitable Hillary!
Perusing the internals of the poll invites the conclusion that Iowa voters don't like anybody very much. Barack Obama has a 43% approval rating which beats Republican Governor Terry Branstad's 42%. Seventy percent them have never heard of Lincoln Chafee but 24% don't like him compared to 6% who do. Saint Martin O'Malley has a 14% favorable and a 25% unfavorable rating which is pretty bad when 61% never heard of him. Naturally Hillary and the Donald are underwater big time as are Chris Christie and Rand Paul but Ben Carson is well respected with a 41% /23% favorability rating.

	Favorable	Unfavorable
Ben Carson	41	23
Lincoln Chafee	6	24
Chris Christie	24	51
Hillary Clinton	38	52
Ted Cruz	30	43
Carly Fiorina	31	29
Mike Huckabee	37	43
John Kasich	23	25
Martin O'Malley	14	25
Rand Paul	22	53
Marco Rubio	37	35
Bernie Sanders	34	31
Donald Trump	30	57
Scott Walker	32	39

I wish they had polled Megyn Kelly.

Hillary will turn over the server. Now we'll learn all about her yoga routine.

Just hours after the Intelligence Community inspector general informed the Senate that two emails that Hillary had turned over to the State Department contained top secret information and after Senate Judiciary Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley had skewered the Justice Department and the FBI for doing very little to secure classified data in Hillary's possession the elderly presidential candidate announced that she would turn over her server to the DOJ. Her attorney was also instructed, by Hillary, to turn over three thumb drives containing data from the server.
Do not believe the spin coming from the Clinton campaign that it had reached this decision on its own. It was an either give us the server or we'll come get it proposition, an offer she couldn't refuse. Read more here, here, and here.
Just yesterday Hillary affirmed under penalty of perjury that she had turned over all emails relevant to State Department business. It would be regrettable if that is not true.

Tump would continue to fund Planned Parenthood

One would think the number one polling presidential candidate would know at least as much as the average person on issues critical to his election but Donald Trump is an exceptional candidate in many ways. He appeared on The Lead with Jake Tapper and promptly endorsed funding for Planned Parenthood.

“The problem that I have with Planned Parenthood is the abortion situation. It is like an abortion factory, frankly,” Trump said. “And you can’t have it. And you just shouldn’t be funding it. That should not be funded by the government, and I feel strongly about that.”

How strongly? Donald.

“I would look at the good aspects of [Planned Parenthood], and I would also look, because I’m sure they do some things properly and good and that are good for women, and I would look at that, and I would look at other aspects also. But we have to take care of women.”

In other words he would maintain the status quo. It's going to take more than Rush Limbaugh to keep this turkey in the race. So far the only declarative statements he has made since announcing his candidacy is that the country has an immigration problem and that Megyn Kelly is picking on him.

Racial unrest fomented by Leftist groups

  As Hoosierman noted, the Black Lives Matter crew shut down Bernie Sanders' speech in Seattle with the rationale that the "white Supremacist liberalism" attendees needed to be taught how racist they are.
  Young Bernie followers feel these disruptive protests make sense; why would they protest Republicans since that would simply be a sound of fury, signifying nothing.
  Instead Sanders~the hope for disillusioned Clintonistas~ needs to be pressured to follow more of the Black Lives crowd.
  Of course, the fact that the BL protesters' behavior was rude, arrogant and self-entitled fits perfectly into the current Leftist playbook, so any concern about the breakdown of the social contract must be shuffled aside in favor of diversity, progress and fairness.
  Now that the Ferguson mess has erupted again, let's revisit the fact that the "protesters" are being paid by billionaire disrupter George Soros.
  We know he's paid at least $33 million to fund the "protesters" and that his goal is societal breakdown to form a more "Open Society." From the WT:

Rather, it’s liberal billionaire George Soros, who has built a business empire that dominates across the ocean in Europe while forging a political machine powered by nonprofit foundations that impacts American politics and policy, not unlike what he did with MoveOn.org.

Mr. Soros spurred the Ferguson protest movement through years of funding and mobilizing groups across the U.S., according to interviews with key players and financial records reviewed by The Washington Times.

  And Soros funds not only the thugs on the streets but also the thousands of trolls who take to Twitter and social media to sway public opinion and, as the WT notes, write articles that they can reference as "proof" that their opinions are are mainstream:

The plethora of organizations involved not only shared Mr. Soros‘ funding, but they also fed off each other, using content and buzzwords developed by one organization on another’s website, referencing each other’s news columns and by creating a social media echo chamber of Facebook “likes” and Twitter hashtags that dominated the mainstream media and personal online newsfeeds.

Buses of activists from the Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference in Chicago; from the Drug Policy Alliance, Make the Road New York and Equal Justice USA from New York; from Sojourners, the Advancement Project and Center for Community Change in Washington; and networks from the Gamaliel Foundation — all funded in part by Mr. Soros — descended on Ferguson starting in August and later organized protests and gatherings in the city until late last month.

  It's not much of a secret that Soros favors overthrow of the current capitalist system we have in the US, appointing the founder of SDS, a dangerous radical student group from the 60s, as president of his foundation. 
  Goals of the Open Society Foundation include revealing America as a brutal racist civil rights violating country that needs not only to be moved to the left but needs to redistribute wealth through social justice programs, the recipients presumably determined by the Leftists who fancy themselves the anointed.
  Soros has close connections with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, discussed here at Human Events in 2010:

The personal relationship between Soros and Obama goes back at least as far as June, 2004, when the billionaire Soros hosted a fundraiser for Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign at his New York home. Soros’ and the Lefts’ “Chosen One,” Obama, was successfully elected to the U.S Senate. And, after the failure of their efforts to oust George Bush in 2004, Soros convened another secretive meeting of 70 like-minded and wealthy donors in Scottsdale, Ariz., to take a look at what had gone wrong and to develop a plan for the future. This meeting would eventually be called the “Phoenix Group” and, in the end, Barack Obama would be the benefactor of the efforts that would emerge from this confab.

In December 2006, as Obama was contemplating a run for the White House, George Soros and Barack Obama met to discuss the young senator’s political ambitions. In a matter of a few weeks, on January 16, 2007, Obama announced he was establishing a presidential exploratory committee although, at that point, he’d logged a total of only 143 days in service as a U.S. senator. “I recognize that there is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity to this announcement,” Obama would concede.

  Make no mistake: these racial unrest events are neither incidental or coincidental. 

Black Lives Matter shuts down Bernie Sanders rally

Occupy Wall Street rebranded as Black Lives Matter shut down a Bernie Sanders rally in Seattle. As Sanders began to speak two women and one man climbed onto the stage and demanded a chance to speak.  They demanded four-and-a-half minutes of silence from the crowd, to honor the four-and-a-half hours Brown allegedly laid dead in the street after being killed but after the silence refused to leave the stage. Eventually Sanders gave it up and went into the audience to shake hands.

Hillary aide Cheryl Mills intends to destroy emails

This could get real interesting real fast.
One would think that there was a sane limit to the Clintonian hauteur that has outraged the public for the last two decades but it appears limitless and indeed is contagious. On July 31 Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the State Department to “request that Hillary Clinton and her top State Department aides Human Abedin and Cheryl Mills confirm, under penalty of perjury, that they have produced all government records in their possession, return any other government records immediately, and describe their use of Hillary Clinton’s email server to conduct government business.”
He also ordered the State Department to provide a status report. Not only are Hillary and her ladies-in-waiting defying that order, Cheryl Mills, through her attorney, has announced her intention to destroy all document in her possession after she has turned over what documents she thinks the State Department needs to see. Her attorney advised the State Department;

Ms. Mills does not believe that she has paper copies of potential federal records in her possession. Following our production on August 10, 2015, we have instructed her to delete any and all electronic copies in her possession.

Judicial Watch, which has been doing the work congressional Republican won't do, filed an urgent response advising Judge Sullivan of the planned destruction of documents / evidence.
Don't these people read the newspapers? This is the same judge who last month threatened to hold IRS Commissioner John Koskinen in contempt of court along with the DOJ attorney who is representing the IRS. This is the same judge who appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the DOJ prosecutors who prosecuted Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens after holding them in contempt. It could be that the law is just for little people as Hillary and co-conspirators think but this is bet they had better not lose.

Frank Luntz focus group pans Trump

And the loser is...Donald Trump. The focus group assembled by Frank Luntz gave the Donald a failing grade. They were put off by his refusal to promise to support the eventual nominee in particular and his arrogant demeanor in general. For my money tonight's winner was Carly Fiorina.





To top the evening off Fiorina shot down Chris Matthews in cold blood.

5:00 debate goes to Fiorina

  I'm a big Rick Perry fan; he did okay, in the sense that he came across as firm and focused. His voice was disconcerting, though, and seemed to rise to a higher pitch when he was intense about a point. Didn't really distinguish himself.
  Santorum: same ole, same ole.
  Graham: looks physically weak but referred frequently to his war experience. This is not a disadvantage but it seemed Graham didn't offer much other than that. Read his final statement.
  Pataki: Meh.
  Gilmore: Don't know much about him, but he has an impressive resume. I liked him. Does he have any steam for his campaign? Meh.
  Jindal: Impressive and articulate. Made some great points about immigration and getting away from regulations.
  Carly: Strong, focused, unrelenting. Impressive leadership skills and came across as having an iron spine, just what you want in a national leader.
  Contrary to some others, I thought the moderators were fair yet pressed the debaters with tough questions.
  These people are great candidates; Republicans have nothing to be ashamed of when presenting these candidates.
ALSO: I like the fact that Carly is willing to take on the issue of Hillary's deceit and corruption in a way that male candidates cannot. Carly's playing well for the Republican party in general, fighting on the same ground Hillary holds.
 

The war on coal is turning Kentucky red.

Things may be about to change. Republicans have occupied the Kentucky governor's mansion for only 4 of the last 43 years but the Democratic leaning PPP poll has Mitch McConnell's primary challenger Matt Bevin leading Democrat Jack Conway 40% to 38% with 22% undecided. It's a slim lead and more than a year before the election but Bevin's strength is surprising. In 2010 Conway was the odds on favorite to win a Senate seat before he was vanquished by a Bowling Green ophthalmologist named Rand Paul.
Candidly, I'm still bothered by Bevin's character or the remarkable lack thereof. There was the false claim to be a graduate of MIT on his Linkedin which might be forgivable but using his teen daughter to rebut the accusation ( "Mitch McConnell is telling a bunch of lies about my dad. Don't be fooled.") is shabby even by Kentucky's standards of political discourse.
Looking further in the poll, it appears it's a bad time to be a Democrat in Kentucky. Alison Lundergan Grimes, McConnell's opponent in the general election may have trouble getting her old job back. In the race for Secretary of State the Lexington heart throb trails unknown Steve Knipper 42% to 47% and Andy Beshear, the half bright son of the popular incumbent governor Steve Beshear, trails another unknown, Whitney Westerfield 36% to 41%. With a little luck Republicans could hold every statewide office after the 2016 elections as the political casualties pile up in Obama's war on coal.

Yes, Hillary IS the subject of a criminal probe.

The Clinton campaign is busy assuring all who will listen that the ongoing FBI investigation is not a criminal investigation. That is simply not true. According to a source cited by the New York Post the FBI and DOJ do very few civil investigations.

“It’s definitely a criminal probe,” said the source. “I’m not sure why they’re not calling it a criminal probe.
“The DOJ [Department of Justice] and FBI can conduct civil investigations in very limited circumstances,” but that’s not what this is, the source stressed. “In this case, a security violation would lead to criminal charges. Maybe DOJ is trying to protect her campaign.”

According to Makin Delrahim, former chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, who served as a deputy assistant secretary in the Bush DOJ, “They’re not in the business of providing advisory security services. This is real.”

FBI investigates Hillary's email server

Dynamite! The FBI is investigating Hillary Clinton. The Washington Post is reporting that the FBI is looking into the security of Hillary's email server. Naturally the Post makes clear that the Hillary is not the subject of the investigation. It's the security of the server that concerns the FBI not the innocent bystanders such as Hillary, Huma, and Cheryl Mills who have been ordered "under penalty of perjury" by Judge Emmet Sullivan to explain what the hell they were up to. The Post reports that the FBI has contacted Hillary's lawyer, David Kendall who has in his possession a thumb drive containing emails from the server.
Incredibly the server was set up by a campaign aide during the 2008 campaign and used for political purposes until it was pressed into service for Madame Secretary.