Tickets to see Trump are being scalped at $90 per pair.

As everyone who came of age in the 60's knows sometimes you don't need a weatherman. Hillary drew only about 200 people in Columbus to listen to her spiel on women's issues Thursday.

Not exactly a packed house for @HillaryClinton women's event in Columbus. pic.twitter.com/uDB4U0MZ8M

— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) September 10, 2015

Meanwhile the Donald booked the 20,000 seat American Airlines Center in Dallas for a rally this Monday. The tickets that were given to the lucky early birds are now selling on Ebay for $90 per pair.

click to enlarge

I'll miss the food deserts

Today, September 11, almost all Americans of voting age resurrect vivid memories of the past. Reflection on horrific events such as 9/11 give us an erie frozen in time aura. We remembers exactly what we were doing, where we were, and who we were with when the news of the collapsing towers in Manhattan or the shots in Dallas invaded our consciousness. Our world will never be our old world again. We cannot go home. As reflection deepens, grief gives way to nostalgia as we remember the artifacts and institutions of yesteryear. We smile fondly on the memories of steam powered passenger trains and bustling train stations, of Western Union telegrams and the quaint key punched utility bills. They were the fruits of ingenious and great ideas that graced the edifice of time, served their purpose and exited forevermore.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
It is perhaps fitting that today, September 11, we learn that another grand concept has exhausted its purpose. Most scientific progress is incremental. We can trace the metamorphosis from the dial telephone to today's smartest smart phones. Yes, they are marvels but in many ways the progress follows a predictable straight line. Then there are the unpredicted innovations, things such as communication satellites, Xerox, and penicillin . One gasps and utters, what will they think of next? I confess when I first heard of food deserts those were my exact sentiments. What will they think of next?
As surely as you will forever remember exactly what you were doing when you heard that Cecil the Lion had been killed you will forever mourn the passing of the food deserts. Mary Katharine Ham delivers the coup de gras at Hot Air. It not that food deserts do not exist. That is settled science. The point is you really shouldn't give a damn. The brutal truth is they are logical progeny of sloppy academic research and lazy journalism.

Conventional wisdom suggests that if you live in an area devoid of fresh, healthy food, you won’t eat well. These so-called food deserts, the logic goes, are a root cause of the obesity epidemic...
The study looked at over 1,000 Philadelphia residents who formerly lived in areas considered food deserts but have since seen grocery stores built within 1.5 miles of their residences. Six months after supermarkets were built, the researchers found only 26.7 percent of those who lived near one of the newly built grocery stores ended up using the grocery store as their main food source. Within that 26.7 percent there was no significant improvement in body-mass index or intake of fruits and vegetables.
The findings led the authors of the study to write that “this indicates that simply providing new food retail stores is insufficient to encourage the adoption of new stores as residents’ main food source.” Residents who didn’t adopt the new stores, it is assumed, continued to use the old, less-healthy alternative.
According to Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post’s Wonkblog, six months may not be enough time to measure the effects of introducing new supermarkets to neighborhoods. But she notes that previous studies showed no evidence that expanding access to healthy food reduces obesity rates.

Bet you didn't see that one coming. Who knew that building more grocery stores wouldn't decrease obesity? It's a bit counterintuitive, a curve ball. Just as having a steady supply of locally grown, organic, sustainable, fruit flown in from Brazil all winter long is no guarantee of a slim, svelte population. Who knew?

Older women love global warming.

As everyone who own a television knows by now Donald Trump has increased his lead in the race for the Republican nomination. In the CNN / ORC poll Trump leads with 32%, Carson places with 19%, and Bush shows with 9%. Looking into the internals of the poll one can discern a noticeable enthusiasm gap of 10% to the advantage of the Republicans. Among voters who describe themselves as being extremely enthusiastic about voting, it's 40% to 30%. Among self identified conservatives that number is 42% while liberals and moderates score 22% and 21% respectively. Tea Party supporters score 40%.
Respondents to the poll were asked to select the issues which they though were "extremely important", "very important", "moderately important", or "not that important". The economy scored 52% as " very important".  Medicare and Social Security was the another top concern with 50% while terrorism was viewed as extremely important by 49%. At the bottom of the list of concerns was global warming with just 23% thinking it was extremely important.
Who are these people? I wondered. Drilling deeper into the data I found that 25% of women think it's extremely important but only 21% of men share that worry. The data for non whites was not available but only 18% of white respondents though it was extremely important. Income wise, among those making less than $50,000 27% had developed the phobia while only 21% those on the top side of $50K had. Is it a fear drilled into facile young minds on colleges campuses? Evidently not. Those with no college are more apt to be the true believers with 26% while only 21% with some college voiced maximum concern. Data for younger voters was not available but among those over 50, 25% fretted about the coming apocalypse. Makes sense. The less time you have on earth the more you should worry about what's going to happen in the distant future.
Who does believe this poppy cock? Democrats. Thirty-three percent of Democrats answered extremely important and among respondents who oppose the Tea Party that number hits 38%. Wouldn't they be happy if a President Trump would appoint Sarah Palin as Secretary of Energy?
So now we know. The typical global warming alarmist is a woman over 50, non white, with a high school degree or less who gets by on less than 50 grand per year, votes Democrat and dislikes the Tea Party. She might be mistaken for a typical Obama voter.

If you're in favor of the massive migration to Europe, watch this first

  In general, I'm not a fan of Alex Jones and his crowd, but this video pretty much sums up what's going on in Europe with the invasion of millions of people claiming to be Syrian refugees.
  Have you noticed most of them seem to be young aggressive males?
  Have you noticed they are demanding money, housing, benefits?
  Have you noticed many of them are assaulting police in these countries they are asking to take them in?
  Have you noticed they all want to go to Germany? And did you know benefits are richer in Germany than any other country?
  Have you noticed how violent many of them are?

Have we seen this play before?

This is excerpted from a Real Clear Politics post written in 2006 by former Democratic Congressman Brad Carson of Oklahoma.

But then again, I really shouldn't have been so surprised, as nearly everyone at the party was part of what the writer Michael Lind calls the overclass, educated at the best universities and earning hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Their children attended private schools. Everyone had a fine retirement package and subsidized health care, and each was immune to the vicissitudes of middle-class economic life. From their cloistered positions, the solution to nearly all perceived problems - from globalization to crime -- is education, which was their own personal visa into the merit-obsessed overclass. For this group of people, immigration is not about inequality in America, but instead all about a cheap nanny, inexpensive lawn care, or proof of multicultural bona fides. Even to bring up the subject of immigration is to seem impolite, if not crass.
...
To be fair, there are some Democrats who acknowledge the harmful effects of illegal immigration on the incomes of native workers - workers who are already stressed by structural changes in the economy. But few Democrats clamor to limit the supply of low-skilled foreign workers. Instead, many Democrats are pushing an increased minimum wage or card-check unionization or - again - more funding for education. They argue that these policies would have a more direct effect on the incomes of lower-skilled workers. And these policies might, in fact, be sufficient to resist the effect of illegal immigration, and, in any event, all are desirable policy and should be enacted at once. But there is no political consensus for such policies, and it is difficult to imagine that the Republican-dominated Congress would even consider them. It is irresponsible to hold on to the illusion of their possibility. Immigration reform may be a second-best solution, but the first-best is out of reach, and worse outcomes are likely if we hold on to misplaced fantasies of egalitarian social policies. Besides, the growing number of low-skilled workers, swelled by illegal immigration, makes these progressive interventions that much more expensive and, hence, unlikely.

It could have been written yesterday. Again the Democrats are pushing an increased minimum wage and more funding for education and all the establishment Republicans can do is oppose the same. Is it any wonder Trump is winning and Bush is in the midst of a political near death experience? Rather than more spending on education he advocates for more central control via Common Core while his establishment cohort, John Kasich (whose father was a mailman ) is open to a modest increase in the minimum wage. While Donald Trump may seem impolite, if not crass.his message is timely and then some.

Religious principles, hypocrisy and the Left

   Hypocrisy appears to be the hallmark of an effective politician these days.
   Let's start with the issue of gay marriage.
  Now, personally I sort of wonder why Kim Davis wants to keep a job that requires her to do something she feels is morally unacceptable yet I highly resent one man on the Supreme Court determining that gay marriage is a constitutional right, forcing others to comply in all ways even though they believe that the act is morally wrong.
  The culture is changing. Of this, there is no doubt but somehow those who support cultural issues refuse to accept Christians' right to disagree. They want everyone to celebrate, not just accept.
  I might use a young friend as an example. 
  This person projects a family friendly, somewhat patriotic image. 
  This person writes frequently in national venues about finding inner peace in yoga and how wonderful it is to be a parent. 
  Yet this person finds this execrable post amusing enough to hee hee about. 
  How amusing that a human being is sitting in jail, conflicted over a moral decision that has impinged on her livelihood and well being. The article declares a series of tweets as "smart" and "funny" and "genius," then goes on to relate a series of moronic, sophomoric cursings taking Davis to task for being willing to go to jail for her beliefs.
  If you're for gay marriage, however, you're smart and clever and justifiably morally outraged that those who disagree won't celebrate Justice Kennedy's decree.
  Likewise, John Kasich announced yesterday that Kim Davis should just "do her job." On one level, I agree with him that a government worker should render unto Caesar what is his.
  What I can't agree with is the stinking hypocrisy of Kasich pompously decreeing Kim Davis should just do her job, even while we Ohioans have to live with the memory of Kasich's piously overruling the voters to expand Medicaid in Ohio, claiming that God would want him to do that.
  Oh, yeah? Don't you think Kim Davis thinks God wants her to do what she's doing? Opportunity Ohio remembers that Ohioans had reasons for not wanting to expand Medicaid and it was not about denying health and welfare to the needy. We're the ones who stand in line behind 20 year olds at the grocery store, watching them whip out cash to pay for alcohol and using their discreet EBT card to buy the steak.  
   Meh. It was just about politics, not religion or principles.
  Opportunity Ohio:

If Medicaid expansion for Governor Kasich was a politically calculated move to enhance his chances of reelection, he has traded a perceived short-term victory for Ohio’s future.  Aside from a purely budgetary standpoint, it should be noted that 75 percent of Medicaid recipients in Ohio self-identify as Democrat voters, while only 13 percent are Republican voters.  This statistic should serve as a warning as Republicans further the culture of government dependency fundamental to liberal-progressive policies.  Maybe this time around Governor Kasich will be able to siphon off some independent and Democratic votes with his progressive policies, but future Republican gubernatorial hopefuls shouldn’t count on it.

  In response to the Kim Davis controversy, Obama's simpering spokesman Josh Earnest declares that:

“[T]he success of our democracy depends on the Rule of Law. And there is no public official that is above the Rule of Law. Certainly not the president of the United States, but neither is the Rowan County clerk. That’s a principle that is enshrined in our Constitution.”

  Yeah, because Obama follows all laws, upholds the authority of the three branches of government and respects those who disagree with him.
  If only Kim Davis had been a Muslim we all know this would have ended differently. We must respect religious differences, after all.
   Moving on down our hall of hypocrites, there's Hillary's insistence that she really did do her job--though incompetently-- by hiring and paying a company to house her server in a bathroom and an IT guy who not only did not have security clearance but who's declaring that it would be unfair if he had to tell the public that what he's actually been doing could land him in jail. Hillary's family all accessed the family server because Hillary thought it would be easier.
  On her, not the country. 
  Now the FBI is looking into how many foreign governments accessed State secrets.
  Meanwhile the "oblivious" Joe Biden has declared that the last 7 years have been murder for workers, that there is no "level playing field," and that certainly the rich don't pay enough in taxes to support the likes of the Democrat workers who vote for stuff like closing coal factories and energy rates "necessarily sky rocket."
  These are the same folks who boldly declare the best way to deal with the mysteriously evolving global warming is to institute communism around the world because then the underlings can't actually protest that they're getting screwed over.
  Like in China, where the big shots just do what they want and use a disagreeing populace for body parts. 
  On to immigration.
  In an excellent piece by Richard Fernandez, these threads are pulled together in "Marx materializes at the border":

One of the characteristics of Leftism is that it always works best for the “masses.” The Vanguard are somehow always exempted from its strictures, as they have important work to do. Individuals who sincerely decry “carbon footprints” see nothing wrong in flying by private jet to denounce the use of fossil fuels. The bigger the private jet, the more credible the environmentalist.

  Droughts are for little people. 
  Fernandez discusses the various ways in which Leftists make rules that they ignore in their own lives, not the least of which is the mess that immigration has become worldwide.
  While we have Syrian Christians being slaughtered daily, our State Department--which refuses to enforce the law for South American and Muslim immigrants--says they'll think about the Christian dilemma sometime next year, presumably after they're all dead.
  Won't be much of a problem then, I guess, even as our government advertises in Mexico for people to come to the US for the generous welfare benefits and flies in "persecuted" South Americans to be put up in camps complete with internet, games for children and free everything while banning religious leaders from the "outside" who might unduly influence the refugees or squeal about the government's profligracy.
  This, while Leftist mouthpieces like the NY Times print gauzy family immigration pictures and decry the cruelty of anyone who would reject such sweet little dumplings entry into the US.
  Perhaps the NYT missed these illustrations of the act of love of entering the U.S. illegally:

  Immigration law needs to be reformed. 
  This great country needs to be a haven for the persecuted, but when taxpayers pay for immigrants to become transgender and then it is declared that, even though she of the male appendage broke the law, she of the male appendage cannot be returned to her home country because she of the male appendage might be persecuted for being a she while still having a male appendage.
  Let's just not worry about those Syrian Christians being tortured and murdered. No, really tortured, not just denied a tube of Cover Girl lipstick. 
  Leftists and abortion.
  Abortion videos have revealed a seamy evil scheme to make money off little bodies, those little bodies representing a woman's right to choose death for a perfectly formed fetus who would have had more chance of life if he or she had been a stray cat or dog.
  Or maybe a chimp.
  You're not for women's rights if you favor life for full term babies, male or female.
  Hey, let's go watch some more cute cat videos, eh?
  This is hypocrisy of the highest order and, I must say, hypocrisy that deserves divine judgment.
  Personally I wouldn't want to stand next to any of these people when God decides he's had enough.
  I certainly have.
  May God have mercy on those of us who beg forgiveness for the sins of our leaders.
  Really.

Fiorina calls out Boehner, McConnell. “And if they can’t produce results then unfortunately leadership should go.”

Thank God for Carly Fiorina. With the exception of Ted Cruz the GOP presidential field has been reticent to criticize Republican congressional leadership but the former Hewlett-Packard CEO suggested a change in leadership if McConnell and Boehner fail to defund Planned Parenthood. Speaking in Bedford, New Hampshire Fiorina drew the line. “Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell, I know them both, they’re good men, but perhaps they’ve been captured by the status quo.”
She went on to suggest that Congress should pass legislation that instituted a 20 week ban on abortion, defund Planned Parenthood, and secure the border or else. “I think if they would did those three things I would be satisfied that leadership is producing results,” Fiorina said. “And if they can’t produce results then unfortunately leadership should go.”
And if Obama doesn't like it?
“If President Obama is prepared to shut down the government because he cares so much about Planned Parenthood, then let him do that."
Amen!

They could always order in pizza.

 Does the above photo conjure up an image of the tired and poor huddled masses yearning to breathe free? No, except for the EU flag it might be mistaken for a La Raza demonstration. Reject the popular media's assessment of the European immigration / invasion  as inaccurate either because of bias or mere incompetence. Whatever the reason the popular media's accounts are both inaccurate and incomplete. From Local.com, a website that translates news in several European languages into English.

A protest held by refugees against “monotonous” Italian food was “excessive”, especially at a time when thousands of Italians go hungry, the president of a police organization told The Local.
For two days, a group of about 40 asylum-seekers staying at a refugee centre in the Veneto province of Belluno refused to eat the “pasta with tomato sauce, bread and eggs” meals they were given and called to be fed food from their own countries, Libero Quotidiano reported.
To reinforce their point, they blocked a street with a wooden bench, put their lunch on the ground along with bags of clothes and threatened to leave the centre in La Secca, a hamlet in Ponte nelle Alpi.
They reportedly said “we do not eat this stuff”.
The refugees, said to have been staying at the centre for the past four months, also reportedly slashed the tires of cars belonging to staff working there in protest against living conditions.
The protest, which follows similar ones at centres in Pozzallo in Sicily and Rome, was also partly sparked by “boredom”, the newspaper said, as they “do not know what to do with themselves”.
Police soon broke up the protest and the refugees resumed eating, but Antonio De Lieto, the president of Libero Sindicato di Polizia, a non-profit organization that represents staff of the state police force, told The Local that the action was “excessive”.
“There are thousands of Italians living in poverty and who aren’t even eating one meal a day, let alone two or three,” he said.
“They’re not complaining that the food isn’t good, but that it is not the food of their countries. But when you’re hosted in someone’s home, for example, you eat their food, right? It’s like on the many occasions I’ve been hosted in England, I don’t expect to eat spaghetti.”

My first impulse is to question the taste of anyone who does not like Italian cooking. It's not as if the asylum-seekers are being fed that indigestible dreck from Chef Boyardee. Thirty days on meals concocted to conform to Lady Michelle's Healthy Lunch program might teach them some manners. Wait until they taste English cooking. My second impulse is to question the character of the tempest tossed, wretched, refuse from Syria and Africa's teeming shores who arrive with such a haughty sense of entitlement completely innocent of a scintilla of gratitude. My god, they are worse than they Von Trapp Family.
Related to the offenses inflicted on delicate palates the video below addresses the problem of inadequate housing. It has a cast of aspiring community organizers so be warned the content is necessarily offensive to thinking people.


 

Maybe Pope Francis should stay home and preach the glory of open borders to the European Union.

God works in mysterious ways we are told and perhaps He is telling his servant Francis to mind his problems at home before he travels 3,000 miles to upbraid the Trumpsters for their alleged nativist propensities. Who knew Europeans were nativists and xenophobes. For years the Democrats and their friends in the media, academia, and Hollywood have deplored the low morality and the failure to exhibit globalist egalitarianism on the part of the Americans who bear the adverse consequences of unfettered immigration but now it seems that these American attitudes are really quite continental. In the video below Italians exhibit outrage, and presumably natavistism and xenophobia, at the government's really cool plan to turn their neighborhood into a refugee camp. Imagine paying a mortgage and seeing property values crash while the immigrants live next door at public expense. What the hell. It takes a village.
We have yet to see any videos of His Holiness welcoming the newly arrived citizens of the world nor read any reports of his meddling in Rome's immigration policy but what with having to preach the gospel of global warming and making sure the Castro brothers are not misunderstood by nativist and xenophobic Americans there are limits to even the pontiff's time.



The French don't seem to be any more accepting in their role as gracious hosts to new arrivals who are seeking refuge, compassion, and above all welfare. While Italy is the largest point of entry most refugees realize it is simply too poor to provide the public assistance they have dreamed of. Most would prefer to press on to France, Britain, Switzerland, or Sweden where the citizenry has the requisite affluence to be good globalists.



One might argue that it is simply as a matter common courtesy to display a pretence of gratitude but that seem more than a good refugee can muster in Hungary. When offered food they refuse it. They throw the bottled water given them by Hungarian relief workers on the railroad tracks. Just take us to Austria on the trains your people need and be quick about. Who can blame the Hungarians for building a razor wire boarder fence until they can get Trump to build them a wall and make Mexico pay for it too.

Trump leads Hillary by 18 points among registered voters in Survey USA poll

It's a hell of a way for Democrats to end the summer. The latest Survey USA poll has Trump beating all Democratic comers. Trump beats Clinton 45% to 40%, Sanders 44% to 40%, Biden 44% to 42%, and Gore 44% to 41% and that is the good news. In a sub sample of 900 registered voters who say they pay "a lot" of attention to politics, in other words likely voters, Trump creams Hillary 54% to 36%, Sanders 53% to 39%, Biden 53% to 37% and Gore 54% to 36%. If there is any consolation for RINO Republicans in this poll it may be the fact that Hillary, while losing by 18 points overall, does  manage to get 50% of the Hispanic vote to Trump's 31%. There is a 20 point gender gap but the question to be asked is why does Hillary only get 35% of the male vote while Trump gets 39% of the female vote.
Yes, it is early. Much could change. Trump could implode. Hillary could go to jail. Jeb could ingest enough medications to give the appearance of enthusiasm or John Kasich could master ebonics and win with the black vote but if Hillary were beating the Republican front runner by 18 points in a poll with a +/- 3.3 sampling error I would be sick.

Shut down the government? Yes, please.

Two of Planned Parenthood's best congressional lackeys have demanded that Congress call off its investigation of the giant fetal parts wholesaler citing no evidence of wrong doing. Reps. Elijah Cummings and John Conyers  wrote a letter to the chairmen of the Judiciary and Oversight committees on Thursday calling on them to call off the investigations, or at least expand it to include the group behind the recent undercover videos.  Who can blame them? They have the odious task of defending the indefensible before what may turn out to be of the most viewed hearings in the history of C-SPAN. While the Republican leadership has assumed its usual supine pose claiming that it lacks the votes to defund the fetal parts merchant conservatives want this fight. Republican voters in early primary states will view it as a test of the candidates. Let one of them oppose the defunding effort and they will not be so much as a blip in the next poll. This is the good fight and it will make for good theater too. This is Trump's first and last chance to prove his new found conversion to Republican principles.
Will there be a government shutdown? Yes, of course. While the Washington establishment views any cessation in the flow of funds to its vote buying machine as catastrophic the rest of the country views these temporary flirtations with fiscal sanity at worse to be a mixed blessing. They're good while they last but they don't last long enough. Sure there will always be naysayers but when seventy percent of the population thinks government is failing it's simply good politics to drive that point home. It is not just presidential candidates who must prove themselves. Congressmen have primaries too and it is still early enough to recruit replacements for any weak sisters. This will be the acid test and the electorate is in no mood to start grading on the curve. Bring it on!
 

Correct me if I'm wrong, Jeb, but isn't the word siesta?

Regardless of how you feel about Trump you surely don't want to pit Jeb against Hillary do you? Jeb is, as Trump suggests, a low energy person who evidently attracts low energy supporters.

Hacker turns Hillary's emails over to FBI

  Well, well, now, this is getting interesting. 32,000 of Hillary's emails were hacked and offered for sale for $500,000.
  Thinking twice about that after consulting his lawyers, the hacker has decided to hand them over to the FBI.
  What is unclear is this reference to AOL from RadarOnline:

Radar confirmed that Clinton had privately used the AOL-based account, and had chatted about everything from serious international subjects such as situations in Benghazi and Algeria, to lighter topics such as Valentine’s Day.

Will Hillary get 1 (Obama) judge to rule them all?

  Well, why would "the government" want all Hillary's email problems assigned to a single judge preferably one appointed by a Democrat or one whose communications have been monitored by Obama's NSA instead of 17 pesky judges appointed by less reliable presidents? From Roll Call:

The government cited those statistics in its motion to the District Court asking for one judge to handle all the cases. The motion illustrates how much the trove of emails to and from the Democratic presidential candidate has captured the attention of the media, government watchdogs and criticism from Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Different judges in the District Court are being asked “to impose a variety of search regimes, resulting in a hodgepodge of orders directing how State manages the search and production of the emails,” the government said. “The result is confusion, inefficiencies, and advantages given to some requesters at the expense of others,” the government states.

“The appointment of a coordinating judge not only would avoid these results but would assist State in its efforts to complete production of the documents produced by former Secretary Clinton by the end of January 2016.”

  Admittedly it's a real pain to have to defend yourself in court, to think up different ways to explain what you did. 
  It will be interesting to watch this unfold. Is Obama at the bottom of all this? Or will he bail her out? 
  

Hillary as you've never seen her

  Well, actually you HAVE seen her like this before.   
   After watching her campaign implode, it seems as if she's really tanking out.
  And now this...
  The truth is she's a terrible candidate, not only dishonest and shrill but hypocritical since the "little people" who either refuse to do their jobs or break the law seem to wind up in jail while Hillary has some underling massage her cankles after a long day campaigning to her sycophants.
  As if the $ 25 million the two shysters earned giving 100 speeches to the gullible and the trapped weren't enough for the "flat broke" couple---not to mention the total of $139 million over 8 years--we find out that Hillary did even more favors that somehow managed to benefit her family. Daily Caller:

New emails released from Hillary Clinton’s email server reveal that while she was secretary of state, Clinton did a favor for a for-profit education company that later paid her husband more than $16 million.

  Not that cutting deals for her friends and expecting millions in return is any surprise for the Clintons...
  So here she is, supposedly in "promotional" material for the 2008 race.
  Oh, please, please, let Hillary remain in the race. Please.

Trump leads in national Monmouth poll. Only Ben Carson has a higher favorability rating.

This poll is just now breaking so please excuse the copy and paste. The bottom line is Donald Trump has surged to 30% in the latest Monmouth Poll. On a more provincial note, Ohio wunderkind John Kasich has dropped to 2%. While Trump is at his strongest Jeb Bush has reached his lowest polling numbers in the history of the poll.

In the favorable / unfavorable table Trump leads everyone except Ben Carson whom supporters would probably rather canonize than elect as president. 

Hillary's IT guy lawyers up. Will take the fifth.

One may want to turn a deaf ear to Hillary apologists when they explain that Bryan Pagliano was just an IT guy at the State Department. Pagliano worked for the 2008 Clinton campaign and by sheer coincidence went to work for the State Dept just as Hillary became the Madame Secretary. Soon Pagliano will be holding at least one congressional subpoena and his lawyers say he will invoke the 5th. Fast Lerner! While courts may not infer guilt when a defendant seeks protection under the Fifth Amendment voters do not share in that prohibition. They won't want to hear Hillary can't comment because of an ongoing investigation.
Evidently Pagliano set up Hillary's home server while he was working at State. In a letter to Chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi Trey Gowdy his lawyer, Mark MacDougall writes; “While we understand that Mr. Pagliano’s response to this subpoena may be controversial in the current political environment, we hope that the members of the Select Committee will respect our client’s right to invoke the protections of the Constitution.”
Hold that thought, counselor, it appears two Senate Committees also want to talk to Bryan. The Senate Judiciary Committee and the Homeland Security Committee also find him an interesting person if not a person of interest. I wonder if he cooperated with the FBI. Read more here.

Hillary's popularity sinks to new low

The most common take away from this ABC / Washington Post poll is Hillary is probing new depths in popularity but she is still ahead of Trump. Notice in the graphic below only Trump is trending in the right direction. Notice also that Hillary's support among whites is 34% favorable / 53% unfavorable and the next time you hear the inane prattle about how Trump is alienating the Hispanic vote which accounts for about 7% of the vote consider how Hillary has alienated the white vote which accounts for 64%. If it were not for black voters Hillary simply would not be competitive. Meanwhile Jeb Bush's stats have pretty much flat lined which one supposes is better than losing ground.

How many servers did Hillary have?

How many email servers did Hillary Clinton have? It's curious that only Breitbart, who should be commended for exceptional investigative journalism, is the only media outlet to report that both mail.clintonemail.com and mail.presidentclinton.com shared the same 64.94.172.146 IP address. The finding is mentioned by Investors' Business Daily and maybe one or two other sites but one would think it would at least get a mention on Fox or CNN. Sharing they same IP address means both the office of Secretary of State and the Clinton Foundation shared the same network and both servers could have easily resided on the same machine. How very cozy! If they did not share the same printers it is only because Bill and Hillary, co-conspirators if you will, did not use a network printer which would seem a bit odd.
One question the Breitbart post raises but doesn't address is what server was Hillary using prior to 2010-01-22, a year after she began her tenure at state. Her server was online from that date until 2015-07-29 which is interesting as she left State on February 1, 2013. You may view that record here and the Clinton Foundation's record here. . And it get more involved both Hillary and the Foundation shared two different IP address at different times..
Let me quote Breitbart

President Clinton’s server was created in 2002, while Hillary’s was created in 2009, which means that Hillary’s server was simply added to Bill’s Foundation-run server network.
They Had The SAME IP Address When She Was Secretary of State
Hillary’s server and Bill’s Foundation-run server also shared a different IP address during her tenure as Secretary of State.
From September 8, 2009 until June 24, 2011, Bill Clinton’s Foundation-run mail.presidentclinton.com server had an IP address of 24.187.234.187, according to DNS records.
Hillary’s mail.clintonemail.com server had the same exact IP address, 24.187.234.187, from the dates May 21, 2010 until October 21, 2010, according to DNS records.

Furthermore the Breitbart determined that the server were located in midtown Manhattan before it was moved to Hillary's Chappaqua home until it was eventually moved to a New Jersey location by Platte River Networks.
Obviously the FBI knows all of this and probably a great deal more but this is beginning to read like a spy novel. Did Hillary have one, two, or three private servers? Did employees of the Clinton Foundation have access to classified email? Why is the mainstream media mum on this issue. It gets curiouser and curiouser.

An act of love?

Not since Lee Atwater enlisted Willie Horton to gun down Michael Dukakis! This video was created by the Trump people and posted to his Instagram account. It may be the most effective ad of this campaign to date and best of all for Trump; it cost him nothing. The billionaire is running the most frugal campaign in the race by using social media and free air time from a befuddled news media.