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OCTOBER 18,  2018

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

NIKKI NAILS IT – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:  Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo got a chilly reception at a Midtown charity dinner Thursday night as both were greeted with boos and scattered clapping while being announced.  But the interaction – or lack of it – between both political rivals during the 73rd annual Al Smith Dinner was even colder.  As de Blasio arrived on stage and headed towards his seat, Cuomo turned his head and jumped out of his seat. He then briskly walked away to greet other dignitaries nearby who were already sitting down. ..Most other guests received huge cheers, including former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and outgoing United States Ambassador Nikki Haley, the keynote speaker at the event which is meant to serve as a good-natured roast.  Haley, who has told President Trump she plans to step down by year’s end, lampooned many of the guests but seemed to save her best material for de Blasio.  “Mayor, remember as a member of the UN delegation, I do have diplomatic immunity,” she said. “You’re all familiar with diplomatic immunity? It’s an exemption from prosecution, but as Mayor de Blasio calls it: a sanctuary city.”  Nikki did it again, showing a funny side she doesn't show at the UN.  I hope she has a great future.

THE ELECTORAL DAY – Only routine campaigning today, as candidates prepare for the two-week mark, which will happen Tuesday.  Then things get intense, and the money gets spent.  Conventional wisdom as of today is that the Dems will take the House, but the GOP might well pick up a few seats in the Senate.  There were no surprises in the polls today.  The best commentators are reminding voters that midterm elections, where participation is often 40% or so of registered voters, are all about turnout.  And that may depend on which side is angriest.  Polling is difficult in individual state and local contests because it's so expensive.  I urge you to look only at LV polls – polls of likely voters.  They are more likely to be reasonably accurate.

ON TOP AGAIN – FROM IBD:  Competitiveness: It might not make a lot of mainstream newspapers, so let us inform you: The World Economic Forum just ranked the U.S. as the world's most competitive economy for the first time since 2008. A lot has happened since then, but mostly the U.S.'s No. 1 ranking is a result of the surprise election of Donald Trump.  It's also yet another bit of evidence for why policies truly matter. The last time the U.S. stood atop the WEF global ranking of 140-plus countries, President Obama had just been elected. But he had yet to sign the growth-killing Dodd-Frank and ObamaCare bills, or a wasteful "stimulus" of nearly $1 trillion.  For the next eight years, the U.S.'s competitiveness ranking slid, pretty much until Trump was elected and reversed the slide with tax cuts, deregulation and trade renegotiations that pushed U.S. GDP growth roughly 50% higher than it was under Obama.  It's hard to believe that the American people would throw all this away by electing a Democratic Congress, but suicide is always a national option, and many nations have chosen it.

October 18, 2018       Permalink

TRUMP THREATENS USE OF TROOPS –  AT 10:28 A.M. ET:  And none too soon.  There is an organized army of "refugees" approaching our southern border.  Strange, but it's happening right before our election.  The president has stark choices to make.  He's hinting at making the right one.  We cannot permit our border to be stormed.  From Fox: 

The U.S. military will "CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER" with Mexico if officials there don't soon stop the northward push of a massive migrant caravan, President Trump warned Thursday, amid reports the procession had swelled in size to about 4,000 people.

Trump's latest threat against the caravan -- which originated in Honduras and is bound for the U.S. in a bid to escape pervasive poverty and violence – comes as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo heads to Central America to discuss the issue.

“I am watching the Democrat Party led (because they want Open Borders and existing weak laws) assault on our country by Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, whose leaders are doing little to stop this large flow of people, INCLUDING MANY CRIMINALS, from entering Mexico to U.S.,” Trump tweeted Thursday morning.

He added: “In addition to stopping all payments to these countries, which seem to have almost no control over their population, I must, in the strongest of terms, ask Mexico to stop this onslaught - and if unable to do so I will call up the U.S. Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!”

COMMENT:  The president is right.  But he must expect a journalistic onslaught if our troops have to stop "migrants" at the border.  I think the great mass of Americans, though, will support him.

The timing of this "great march northward" is not accidental.  A full Congressional investigation is called for.  If the Dems take over Congress, that will never happen.

October 18, 2018       Permalink

PRESIDENT SLIPS – AT 10:08 A.M. ET:  The president dropped three points in this morning's Rasmussen tracker, a rarity.  It's impossible to know, especially based on only one day's finding in a three-day rolling poll, if this has any significance.  We'll watch the coming numbers, but presidential approval often translates into a few points in the results of some congressional races.  From Rasmussen: 

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 47% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty-two percent (52%) disapprove. 

The latest figures include 34% who Strongly Approve of the way Trump is performing and 43% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -9.

COMMENT:   Meanwhile, the new Fox poll shows Mr. Trump gaining four points over the last month.  Fox also shows him at 47%.

October 18,  2018     Permalink

OCTOBER 17,  2018

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

EXPLOITATION – FROM THE GUARDIAN:  Several women who were erroneously named as sexual assault survivors in an open letter by the North Dakota Democratic senator Heidi Heitkamp are considering taking legal action over the blunder, according to social media. “Heidi Heitkamp’s political agenda has interfered with, or downright ruined, our lives,” said one of the affected women in a Facebook post announcing the possibility of a lawsuit.  She continued: “Survivors of assault who had taken care to avoid the subject were suddenly bombarded by questions asking them to explain to their loved ones why their name appeared on this list.”  The letter, published in local North Dakota newspapers Monday, was intended to call out Heitkamp’s 2018 Senate opponent Kevin Cramer for critical remarks he had made about the #MeToo movement, calling it a “movement toward victimization”.  Do you ever get the feeling that women are exploited, against their will, by Democratic politicians and "feminists," and that their only value is political?  This incident is proof positive.  Oh, and have you seen any leading Democrats inquiring about the health of Professor Ford recently?  Professor who?  She's outlived her usefulness.

BETO, WHO ARE YOU? – FROM YAHOO:   A day after he aggressively challenged Ted Cruz in their last scheduled debate, Democratic Senate hopeful Beto O’Rourke is out with new ads in which he criticizes his Republican opponent by name, breaking with his usual message of hope and unity as he tries to make up ground in the final weeks of Texas’s closely watched U.S. Senate race.  According to the Texas Tribune, which first reported the ads and obtained video of two of the new spots, O’Rourke is airing at least three new television ads around the state, each focused on a different issue: immigration, education and health care. In each 30-second ad, O’Rourke speaks directly to the camera, offering a contrast between Cruz’s approach to the policy and his own.  In the immigration spot, O’Rourke, a Democratic congressman from El Paso, criticizes Cruz for blocking immigration reform in the Senate and for opposing legal protections for so-called Dreamers, immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. Beto is an amateur, but the fact is that negative ads work, and Cruz must punch back hard.  I think the GOP has been entirely too confident about this race.  Beto has a huge bankroll from out-of-state sources, and he's using it.

WELCOME, MOTHER MUSHROOM – FROM CHANNEL NEWSASIA:  HANOI: A dissident Vietnamese blogger known by the pen name "Mother Mushroom" was on her way to the United States Wednesday (Oct 17) after being released from prison where she was serving 10 years for anti-state propaganda, multiple sources said.  Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh was freed from jail Wednesday and put on a flight en route to the US to join her children and mother, a US embassy source, friends, and a Vietnam official said.  "Quynh was sent to the US earlier today," a Vietnamese government official confirmed to AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.  Family friend Nguyen Lai said on Facebook "congratulations" to Quynh, adding she would soon be in a "free country."   Quynh, one of Vietnam's most well-known activists whose recognisable pen name "Me Nam" comes from her daughter's nickname "mushroom", was jailed in June 2017 in a case that drew ire from the United States, the European Union and the United Nations.
She is an outspoken critic of Vietnam's one-party state and gained notoriety with her writing about the environment, politics and deaths in police custody - a no-go topic in communist Vietnam.  Let us not forget that there are no human rights in Vietnam.  And the people who care the least about that are American "journalists" and veterans of the "anti-war" movement, whose actions helped destroy our effort to create a free nation.  Many of those "activists" are teaching in our universities.

October 17, 2018      Permalink

FREE SPEECH PREVAILS! – Occasionally there is good news from the world of political correctness.  From Daily Signal: 

In a major victory for free speech, the city of Atlanta has awarded former Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran with $1.2 million after violating his First Amendment rights.

Cochran was a highly decorated firefighter who served as the U.S. fire administrator after President Barack Obama hand-picked him for the job. In 2010, he agreed to return to his former position as fire chief of Atlanta at the invitation of Mayor Kasim Reed.

In 2012, he received the “Fire Chief of the Year” award for “pioneering efforts to improve performance and service within the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department.”

But his career came to an abrupt halt in 2015 when Reed suspended him without pay for 30 days and ultimately fired him.

The reason? Cochran’s beliefs about marriage.

Cochran had written and self-published a 162-page Christian devotional—on his own time—that included a few paragraphs on the biblical view on sex and marriage.

He shared the book with a few colleagues, which was when activists complained. The mayor then construed Cochran’s belief that marriage is between one man and one woman as discriminatory and ordered him to attend “sensitivity training.”

The mayor also launched an investigation into whether Cochran had ever discriminated against anyone. Even though the investigation found no evidence that Cochran had ever exhibited discrimination, Reed fired Cochran anyway.

COMMENT:  When political correctness is effectively and intelligently challenged, it often loses.  It's important to mount the challenges.  Otherwise, this society will be run by a bunch of well-trained bullies. 

There are today a number of lawsuits against colleges for violating the rights of students, especially in
Title IX cases.   Many of these cases are being won.

October 17, 2018       Permalink

WATCH OUT FOR THIS CURVE BALL – AT 1:38 P.M. ET:  Maybe we're seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel, or is it an exploding bomb?  From Bloomberg: 

(Bloomberg) -- Special Counsel Robert Mueller is expected to issue findings on core aspects of his Russia probe soon after the November midterm elections as he faces intensifying pressure to produce more indictments or shut down his investigation, according to two U.S. officials.

Specifically, Mueller is close to rendering judgment on two of the most explosive aspects of his inquiry: whether there were clear incidents of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, and whether the president took any actions that constitute obstruction of justice, according to one of the officials, who asked not to be identified speaking about the investigation.

That doesn’t necessarily mean Mueller’s findings would be made public if he doesn’t secure unsealed indictments. The regulations governing Mueller’s probe stipulate that he can present his findings only to his boss, who is currently Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The regulations give a special counsel’s supervisor some discretion in deciding what is relayed to Congress and what is publicly released.

The question of timing is critical. Mueller’s work won’t be concluded ahead of the Nov. 6 midterm elections, when Democrats hope to take control of the House and end Trump’s one-party hold on Washington.

But this timeline also raises questions about the future of the probe itself. Trump has signaled he may replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the election, a move that could bring in a new boss for Mueller. Rosenstein also might resign or be fired by Trump after the election.

Rosenstein has made it clear that he wants Mueller to wrap up the investigation as expeditiously as possible, another U.S. official said. The officials gave no indications about the details of Mueller’s conclusions. Mueller’s office declined to comment for this story.

COMMENT:  Be wary of a leak just before election day.  That doesn't suggest in any way that Mueller would authorize it, but Washington is hardly leakproof.  Even the waterproof watches in the nation's capital leak.

Or, it could turn out to be much ado about nothing.

October 17, 2018       Permalink

SOMETHING NEW?  – AT 11:18 A.M. ET:  Less than three weeks out from the midterm elections, we're getting polls all over the place.  But two new ones are intriguing.  In the generic ballot for Congress, Rasmussen has the Democrats only one point ahead.

And now, today, an Economist/YouGov poll shows the Dems ahead by only five. 

Those are low numbers.  We caution that some recent polls show the Dems up by as many as 13 points, but those polls were based on surveys taken more than a week ago.  A week is several lifetimes in politics.

Obviously, we can't know if the new polls are indicative of a trend.  The pace of polling will soon increase as the election draws near. 

We have no new reports this morning on the most signficant congressional races.  Might have some numbers this afternoon.

The president is at 50 percent in this morning's Rasmussen tracker.  He's been at 50 percent or more for three days running. 

October 17,  2018     Permalink