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JULY 27,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET:

SANDERS SKIPS OUT – FROM HEATSTREET:   The nomination was barely sealed up at the Democratic National Convention before Bernie Sanders, who had campaigned against Hillary Clinton for the party’s nod, went back to being an Independent.  Sanders, who considers himself, officially, an Independent in Congress because his views lean further left than the Democratic party’s platform, caucuses with Democrats. But until declaring an intention to run for the presidency in 2015, he had rarely, if ever, identified as a member of the Democratic Party (he’s been in politics since 1979).  And now, despite pleading with his base to support Hillary, even though they’re concerned that she’s too moderate, Sanders will return to Vermont and to his seat in the Senate, and he’ll do it with no official party affiliation.  What's going on?  What kind of political process do we wherein a guy can come in, rent a major political party, almost wreck it, and then leave?  This is a very unstable situation.  Both parties must tighten their rules.  They are private organizations and can establish their own standards for candidates. 

GOOD POINT – FROM AP:  Fox News' Tucker Carlson was bothered by Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine occasionally using Spanish phrases in his speech; time spent in Honduras made Kaine fluent in the language. Carlson said Kaine was, in effect, endorsing bilingualism. "I think this is symbolically important and something we should think about," he said.  We should think a great deal about it.  We are an English-speaking nation.  We make provisions for people who are not yet fully functional in English, but we have limits.  A major leader's speech should be in English.  Translations can be provided.  Of course, I'll be accused of bigotry and cultural oppression for writing this, and I don't really care.

OH NO! – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   Donald Trump confused Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, with former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, accusing one of them Wednesday of hiking taxes."Her running mate Tim Kaine, who by the way did a terrible job in New Jersey — first act he did in New Jersey was ask for a $4 billion tax increase and he was not very popular in New Jersey and he still isn’t,” Trump told a press conference in Doral, Fla.  Reporters corrected him and Trump acknowledged the gaffe.  “What? I mean Virginia,” Trump said.  This kind of thing can't go on.  Every time Trump holds a news conference, he makes some kind of embarrassing mistake.  He has to understand that the press is a Hillary press, and is out to sink him.  Unfortunately, he cooperates.

July 27, 2016       Permalink

I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU... – AT 10:14 A.M. ET:   Have you been watching the convention?  You think there's anything odd there?

I mean, change the hair styles and fashions, and that convention could be taking place in 1968, and no one would know the difference.  It is almost nostalgic, including Bill Clinton's stroll down memory lane with his beloved spouse, presented to us as a saintly, gracious queen.  As one observer asked, if she's that great and wonderful, how come he abused her so much over the years?

And how about "inclusion"?  That's the big word this week in Philadelphia.  Tell me, do you feel included?  I certainly don't.  I get the feeling I'm excluded.  I got the sense that only certain groups popular on the left are included.  There is kind of an unseen list. 

And what about the "mothers of the movement" segment, featuring black mothers of young people who've been killed in police actions.  Of course we feel for them.  But there was absolutely no attempt to note that each of those cases was different.  Some may well have involved fully justified police action.  But, hey, let's not get bogged down with details.  And where were the widows, parents, and children of police officers?  Some Democrats were asked that, but the answers were always evasive.  Having a few token cops apparently sufficed.  We all know what the real answer is.  The Black Lives Matter movement, well represented at the convention, would never allow those police families on that stage.

I note that no speaker thus far has mentioned ISIS.  Who cares?  Not relevant to the agenda of the hard left, which dominates this disgraceful, irrelevant convention. 

The overall impression I get is one of overwhelming immaturity.  Those are not adults on my screen.  They're screaming babies, the kind who use words like "microaggressions." 

As for the role of the media, we're getting exactly what we expected.  Let the fawning continue. 

July 27, 2016       Permalink 

ISIS BOASTS OF NEXT TARGETS – AT 9:46 A.M. ET:  London and Washington are targeted.  Will we wake up?  From London's Mirror: 

Images threatening attacks in London and other major world capitals have been posted on jihadi messaging app Telegram as counter-terror police issue advice to religious institutions in the UK.

London is on the next list of target cities for twisted jihadis, it has been claimed.

Images threatening attacks in London and other major world capitals have been posted on messaging app Telegram, according to analysts at SITE Intelligence Group.

One picture chillingly shows New York’s Statue of Liberty engulfed in flames but with the caption “Washington soon” - referring to the US capital 225 miles away.

The threat comes as security at British churches is being ramped up amid a new terror alert after ISIS knifemen forced a French priest to kneel before slitting his throat on camera.

The source of the threats against London and Washington and whether they are credible is unknown.

It comes after ISIS terrorists forced an elderly parish priest to kneel before filming themselves slitting his throat on Tuesday.

Father Jacques Hamel, 85, was made to get to his knees before he was brutally butchered at the Church of the Gambetta in Normandy today, says a nun who escaped the attack.

COMMENT:  I think wisdom requires us to assume that these threats are credible.  That is based on the record of ISIS over the last year – one attack after the other.   And we must be on guard against an ISIS attack designed to disrupt our election campaign.

July 27, 2016       Permalink

INCREDIBLE – AT 9:05 A.M. ET:  Is Trump actually gaining during the Democratic convention?  One major survey says yes.

Usually it's the opposite.  The party on the screen normally gains from its convention.  But a new University of Southern California Dornsife/LA Times survey, using new methods, is showing that Trump is gaining while the Dems are meeting, and that, according to this new method, he should win the election by seven points.

We caution that this is only one poll, and that others may show different results.  What is clear, though, is that the Dem convention is not, up to now, having the impact the Clinton people wanted.  We will be waiting, however, for polls that reflect the nomination of Hillary Clinton yesterday, the speech by Bill Clinton, and the upcoming speech by Barack Obama.  The new methodology is described as follow:

The 2016 USC Dornsife / LA Times Presidential Election Poll represents a pioneering approach to tracking changes in Americans' opinions throughout a campaign for the White House. Around 3000 respondents in our representative panel are asked questions on a regular basis on what they care about most in the election, and on their attitudes toward their preferred candidates. The "Daybreak poll" is updated just after midnight every day of the week.

COMMENT:  We'll update you on how this polling method compares with the others.

July 27,  2016     Permalink

JULY 26,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:52 P.M. ET:

THE CONVENTION – Bill Clinton showed tonight that he still has it, whatever "it" is.  He gave a speech about Hillary that was well-crafted, and, to use the word often attached to Clinton, slick.  We learned that Hillary was a young goddess, and is now an older goddess.  Untrustworthy?  Why, she was a model for everything a Girl Scout could be.  Dishonest?  The spirit of Lincoln lives within her.  Reckless, as in e-mail reckless?  Why, she'd never drive at more than 10 miles an hour, just to protect others.  Of course, certain people will buy Bill's retail offerings, but I think they'll fade away with the end of the convention, and the nation will be left with Hillary herself, who has among the highest negative ratings in the history of polling.

OH DEAR, OH DEAR – Maybe the Democrats need an executive search firm.  From Daily Caller: The new interim head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has a colorful history, which includes demanding former President George H.W. Bush confess to an extramarital affair and a belief that “white boys” shouldn’t be allowed to win.  Donna Brazile is set to take over the DNC from Debbie Wasserman Schultz as soon as the Democratic convention in Philadelphia wraps up. Brazile has worked as a political strategist and Democratic party operative for over thirty years, going all the way back to a job on Jesse Jackson’s 1984 effort in the Democratic presidential primary.  Real class.  I'm glad to see the Democrats are pushing for the best.

JUSTICE, FOR A CHANGE – FROM THE COLLEGE FIX:    A Jesuit university employee who was suspended and investigated for the “hate crime” of believing in two genders has been reinstated by the school.  Her identity was also revealed for the first time by the religious freedom law firm that took her case, the California-based Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund (FCDF).  The law firm declined to tell The College Fix how it persuaded Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles to reinstate alumni relations employee Gigi Kurz and remove the black mark from her record.  The FCDF has filed a few defamation suits against institutions that allegedly smeared its clients.  President and Chief Counsel Charles LiMandri even threatened to file suit against a law professor, the college that employed him and a newspaper for an op-ed that LiMandri said defamed him personally.  Kurz was investigated by LMU’s Bias Incident Response Team, which roped in the Los Angeles Police Department, after female students reported Kurz for “denying transgenderism.”

July 26, 2016       Permalink

ANOTHER VOICE POINTS TO A POSSIBLE TRUMP VICTORY – AT 10:33 A.M. ET:  First it was ace analyst Nate Silver.  Now it's equally acey Sean Trende, at RealClearPolitics: 

Now we are in the post-convention phase of the campaign. Trump leads by .2 percent in the RCP Average and has cleared 44 percent of the vote. FiveThirtyEight gives Trump a 46.1 percent chance of winning overall and a 54.5 percent chance of winning on Election Day, if things look then the way they do today. Yet we continue to hear arguments as to why he just won’t win: She’ll move into the lead after her convention, or after the debates, or when people go into the polls and have a final soul-searching moment.

At a certain point, the goalposts have got to stop moving. It should be obvious by this point that, yes, there really is a winning Trump coalition with a non-trivial chance of coming together. I don’t think the evidence compels a conclusion that Trump is going to win, but the fact that he really might do so strikes me as undeniable.

Nevertheless, echoing the commentary about the Brexit vote in England, there seems to be vehement resistance to serious suggestions that Trump might emerge victorious. Even among analysts who concede there’s a real chance Trump can win, almost all of them seem to think Clinton will eventually pull it out. This is the equivalent of everyone concluding that the opening possession in a game is determined by a coin toss, but then unanimously declaring that the coin will come up heads.

I think there are two factors at work here. First, as I noted back in June, there’s a real tendency toward groupthink among the pundits. This most likely stems from the fact that both liberal and conservative intellectuals dislike Trump. For many, the prospect of a Trump presidency remains unthinkable. Given this, many go looking for arguments to confirm their pre-existing biases that Trump won’t win. Since no one actually has a crystal ball, it is unsurprising that people are able to find those arguments....

...Second, I don’t think people fully appreciate just how damaged Clinton is as a candidate. It is true, I think, that Republicans have nominated the one candidate whose flaws can neutralize Clinton’s downsides. I think Republicans get this. But I don’t think Democrats realize that they have a candidate whose flaws neutralize Trump’s.

COMMENT:  Very interesting analysis.  As we've noted, we're hearing arguments like this more and more from knowledgeable people.

But let's see what happens Thursday night, when Hillary makes her acceptance speech.  When Trump made his, most of the pundits panned it.  We later learned, though, that the general public felt differently, and Trump got a big bounce from his convention.

This is definitely not the year of the pundits.  It may turn out to be the year of the people.

July 26, 2016       Permalink

THAT HIDDEN VOTE – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  We noted this development last night at "Short Takes."  The discussion is growing.   From the Washington Examiner: 

PHILADELPHIA — Advisors to Hillary Clinton are worried that Democratic white men are lying to pollsters and secretly plan to vote for Republican Donald Trump.

"I worry that there is a bit of a secret Trump vote," said influential pollster Celinda Lake.

She has proof revealed in polls that find more white male support when live people are doing the interviewing and less support for Clinton in anonymous online surveys.

"The pattern is in the online surveys, even if you control for demographics, Trump does three to nine points better than in telephone surveys. So it really does suggest that there is a secret vote for Donald Trump," said Lake.

She said that it happened in polling for President Obama.

"We've had this phenomenon before. We had a secret vote against Barack Obama. White Democrats who thought they were talking to an African American (survey questioner) were more supportive than white Democrats who were talking to whites, or thought they were talking to a white interviewer," said Lake.

She also said that the white male, blue collar worker is a ripe target for Trump. "Trump can also mobilize some voters, some white downscale voters who also haven't voted for awhile," she said.

COMMENT:  Others are making the same argument.  We'll know more about it as polling continues.  But remember, Trump is not the most likeable guy in the world.  He might turn off his own base, just as he has turned off a serious chunk of his own party. 

July 26, 2016       Permalink

WE WAKE UP TO ANOTHER ISIS HORROR – AT 9:16 A.M. ET:  An ISIS attack in France, which has been hit repeatedly, has left a priest beheaded and a nun fighting for her life.  From the New York Post: 

Two knife-wielding jihadists broke into a French church during mass Tuesday — brutally murdering a 84-year-old priest by slitting his throat before they were killed by police, according to reports.

Two nuns and two worshipers were in the church in the town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy when the men came in through a back door and shouted “Allahu Akbar!” – Arabic for “God is greatest” — and killed Jacques Hamel.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out by “two soldiers of the Islamic State.”

An elite police unit responded after one of the nuns escaped and called for help, and after an hour-long standoff, cops killed the assailants and freed three hostages.

One hostage suffered life-threatening injuries in the attack on the church, which was one of several houses of worship that appeared in a hit list discovered on an ISIS suspect in April 2015, sources told the Express of the UK.

One of the attackers was a convicted terrorist who had been monitored with an electronic tag and should have been living with his parents, the paper reported.

French President Francois Hollande pointed the finger at ISIS for the “vile terrorist attack,” which shocked a nation already reeling from strikes by ruthless jihadists.

“We must lead this war with all our means,” he said in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

COMMENT:  I'm sure President Obama is trying hard to determine the "motivation" of the attackers.  Maybe they had to stand in line too long at a department store.  Hmm, that's a good one.

I'd love to see if this latest outrage is even mentioned at the Democratic National Convention.

July 26,  2016     Permalink