SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 8:25 P.M. ET:

ENCORE!  ENCORE! – FROM THE POLITICO:  President Donald Trump asked his national security adviser to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to Washington this fall, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday afternoon.  The statement comes after Trump teased a second meeting with Putin on Twitter earlier in the day. Sanders says the president tasked National Security Adviser John Bolton with extending an invitation to the Russian leader.  Either Trump is a brilliant strategist or a glutton for punishment.  After the week he's had, you'd think he'd want to avoid Putin...or meet him secretly behind a lamppost in Berlin.  My guess – only a guess – is that he thinks he'll have kind of positive agreement to announce with the Russian leader, making him right in pursuing his current policy.  Quite a risk.  Quite an ego.

WHAT SOCIALISTS? – FROM THE HILL:  New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has significantly widened his lead over left-wing challenger Cynthia Nixon in the New York Democratic gubernatorial primary, according to a new Quinnipiac poll.   The poll has Cuomo leading by 59 percent to 23 percent for Nixon.  In a Qunnipiac poll from May, Cuomo led Nixon 50-28 percent.  Cuomo comes out ahead of Nixon in all gender, education, age, racial and regional groups, according to the new poll.   "New Yorkers say 59-30 percent they want a gubernatorial candidate with experience in politics over someone new to it," Quinnipac University polling analyst Mary Snow said. "Democrats, non-white voters and women, in particular, lead the charge in that preference."  This is in the same state where our little left-wing Evita won a Democratic nomination for Congress – with eight percent of registered Dems voting for her – and the press proclaimed it a national revolution.  Seems that New Yorkers aren't that keen on hard leftists actually taking office, and who can blame them?

THE GRANDSON TOO? – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   Another figure has been added to the list of unacceptable icons on college campuses.  Following a two-year campaign by student activists, Florida State University will move the statue of Francis Eppes, an influential figure in the university’s history, from a prominent place on the quad to inside a building on campus named after him, WJHG reports.  Eppes was among those who helped found the university, was three-time mayor of Tallahassee, the grandson of Thomas Jefferson, and also a slave owner. Eppes Hall will not be renamed, however, despite the students’ demands.   I know how dramatically this will elevate the intellectual atmosphere on campus.

July 19,  2018