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I need a bourbon.
Shot: ‘The View’ Bashes Trump for Meeting Kim Jong-un: Went ‘Too Far!’ —NewsBusters, today.
Chaser: ‘View’ Hosts Trash ‘Hypocrite’ Mike Pence for Not Giving North Korea Due ‘Respect’ at Olympics —NewsBusters, February 12.
Hangover: The View’s Behar: Obama Critics Hate ‘Reaching Across the Aisle’ to Iran, Cuba —NewsBusters, March 21, 2016.
Ed Driscoll strung together this trio of posts.
Steven Green:
“…The most difficult voters to win are the other side’s loyalists. They’re also the most valuable, since stealing one of those is effectively winning two votes. The vote you won for yourself and the vote you took from the other guy. Sustained efforts at winning over party loyalists results in a landslide, obviously. But doing so may also result in that most elusive gain: Realignment.
If Trump can crack the black vote by 15% or more, then we might just witness a once-in-a-generation political realignment.
While it’s uncertain if it can be done, Trump would be stupid not to try. Black Americans were sorely disappointed by Barack Obama, and millions live in the Rust Belt states Trump is attempting to revitalize. That makes this the perfect moment to try, and whatever other flaws Trump may have, he’s not stupid…”
Rochelle Riley:
“…He doesn’t really have to do much.
He does it by inviting the presidents of some of nation’s historically black colleges to gather in the Oval for a photo op, and watch them do it, because their schools are struggling or dying.
He does it by freeing the Johnsons — freeing the history of Jack and commuting the sentence of Alice.
Anyone who thinks that Trump didn’t gain some black votes by those actions last week doesn’t understand the power of connecting with the disconnected.
In Detroit, and other urban areas – where we can’t get more than 14% to 20% of registered voters to turn out for a municipal election — and where many people still love Kanye West (though he thinks slavery was a choice) or R. Kelly (who is avoiding jail by inexplicable means) — Trump may be resonating.
And now he’s considering pardoning Muhammad Ali, who doesn’t need his support, but that won’t stop Trump from claiming that he saved his reputation…”
Donald Trump is wooing black voters and killing the Democratic party
Attorney General Jeff Sessions says the Trump administration will reject requests for asylum on the basis of domestic violence or gang violence. I think this is a good decision. Sessions is a mixed bag. He did not display strong leadership when he first arrived at the administration, but he has improved with time and makes consistently good choices. The article is worth a read.
Good information that many are unaware of.
Austin Bay:
“…The April 27 hug between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was a photo op with diplomatic promise but also great risk.
Here’s the major risk: The North Korean Kim regime has a hideous record for murder, intimidation and crime, and it is a genuine threat to peace. But for the restraint of South Korea and the U.S., the Kim dictatorship’s bloody violations of the 1953 armistice could have easily ignited another combat phase of the Korean War. The January 1968 Blue House Raid, in which North Korean commandos attempted to assassinate South Korean President Park Chung-hee, is all but forgotten. It must not be. The regime has engaged in the mass starvation of its own people. The regime is still deeply involved in organized crime, with drug-trafficking and money-laundering operations its forte.
This criminal regime cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons and the means to use them…”
This seems like common sense to me.
“…A new study from a prominent researcher finds that higher minimum wages have increased poverty in poor neighborhoods, a finding that could shake up the debate over the federal wage floor and slow the liberal push for a $15-an-hour minimum.
The study, led by the University of California, Irvine economist David Neumark and published by the business-backed Employment Policies Institute, finds that, over the course of decades, higher minimum wages don’t reduce poverty in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Rather, the analysis finds that a $1 increase in the minimum wage raises poverty rates and government dependency by about 3 percent.
The report also finds evidence that cash welfare fails to lower poverty…”
Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Glenn Catbagan signals as an F-35B Lightning II ascends on an aircraft elevator aboard the USS Essex during a composite training unit exercise in the Pacific Ocean, June 2, 2018.
Fred Barnes is an old hand at politics. He sees a tightening midterm election.
“…Strategists treat the “generic ballot” as a magic number. It asks which party you intend to vote for. At one point, Republicans were minus-18. That’s landslide time. Now they’re minus-3 or tied with Democrats.
Republicans have underpolled on this question for decades. This leads to a twist. If they’re at minus-7 or better, they’ll probably lose fewer than 23 seats and relegate Democrats to the minority for two more years. That’s what GOP savants say, anyway.
Ah, but there’s more. Republican intensity—how hyped up they are about the election—has gotten stronger than the anger of all those agitated Democratic resisters. That’s a pretty amazing development. So is the emergence of the 89-90 percent of Republicans who say they’re fine with Trump, according to a GOP survey of likely voters.
Issues? The double whammy of a surging economy and huge tax cut are bound to boost Republicans. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi is sticking to her story that the tax bill merely sprinkled crumbs around the country, but no one else is…”
Batavia, New York. Elba Farm Security Administration farm labor camp. An old man who has lived all of his life near Broadway, New York City, and who was taken off relief and sent to the Elba FSA camp to work in the harvest. He said, “There is so much suffering in the world today that mine doesn’t seem so much, and I’m doing my best to help bring in Uncle Sam’s crops.”
The interview with White House Trade Director Peter Navarro on the contretemps with Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau is a good example of the president’s style of negotiating and I think a masterpiece of the “Art of the Deal.” It sends a message to Trudeau, but more importantly, it sends a message to Kim Jong Un, who is set to meet the president next Tuesday. The message to Un is: look what happened to one of our closest partners when he crossed the U.S. in negotiations. To view the clip click on the link.
An interesting article on missing Obama Administration records.
Thomas Lipscomb:
“…the Obama administration itself engaged in the wholesale destruction and ‘loss’ of tens of thousands of government records covered under the act as well as the intentional evasion of the government records recording system by engaging in private email exchanges. So far, former President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Attorney General Lynch and several EPA officials have been named as offenders. The IRS suffered record ‘losses’ as well. Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy called it ‘an unauthorized private communications system for official business for the patent purpose of defeating federal record-keeping and disclosure laws.’…”
Jonathan Turley on Former FBI Assistant Director McCabe and McCabe’s exposure to criminal charges for leaking.
“…An old expression holds that it is unlucky to be “third on a match.” It comes from the Crimean War and World War I, when a sniper would spot a match being passed between soldiers and have time to shoot the third soldier in the sequence. Of course, there was no guarantee that it would take two lights to get a clear shot. In this case, McCabe has watched two prior figures go down on the same match. This is precisely why leaking, like smoking, is so hazardous in trench warfare…”
The response from President Trump to a CNN reporter during the president’s press conference following the G7 is why the president maintains relatively high popularity. Click the link to view.
“Who are you with, out of curiosity?” Trump asked.
“CNN,” the reporter responded.
“I figured,” Trump said. “Fake News CNN. The worst. But I could tell by the question. I had no idea you were CNN. After the question, I was just curious as to who you were with. You were CNN.”
Trump told the reporter that his relationship with the G7 leaders is “great” and assigned it a rating of a ’10’ on a scale of 0 to 10.
“So you can tell that to your fake friends at CNN,” Trump told the reporter.
The media just can’t help themselves. The reporting is all negative. Trump alienated our allies. Trump is the worst. Trump is dumb. Trump is having mental problems. The world hates the U.S. now. The old world order is over. Trump disrespected U.S. media. You name it, the fake news has reported it, and it’s all a disaster.
I think the meeting went fine. Trump told our allies the days of taking advantage of the U.S. are over. They can play fair on trade, or they can take a hike. The U.S. annual GDP is larger than all the other G7 countries combined. We have run huge trade deficits with most of the countries present. Trump is exactly right that the U.S. will prevail in any economic trade war with any or all of the G7 countries.
Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration, August 1939.
Polling and national sentiment do not seem to support a huge blue wave in the upcoming election. Momentum seems to be with Trump, and is based on his successes with the economy, foreign policy, judges, and thumbing his nose at the media and elite society. I think the giant fizzle that is the Mueller investigation also supports Trump.
“…The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 70% of Likely Republican Voters say they are more likely to vote this year than they have been in past election years. That compares to 64% of Democrats and 51% of voters not affiliated with either major political party.
Among all Likely Voters, 62% say they are more likely to vote this year. Only six percent (6%) say they are less likely to do so, while 30% say they are just as likely to vote this November as in any other year.
By comparison, in July 2014, 57% said they were more likely to vote that November compared to past elections. Enthusiasm was higher two years ago during the presidential campaign, with 67% who said they were more likely to vote…”
Joel Kotkin:
“…Yet as they consolidate control, California Democrats must face some profound contradictions, as the Marxists would say. The gentry—tech oligarchs, real estate speculators, and venture capitalists—stand comfortably with the left on symbolic race, gender, and environmental issues. But these party bankrollers could be hard-pressed if they face the prospect of higher taxes to pay for a state single-payer health-care system, massive housing subsidies, and Governor Brown’s choo-choo, not to mention the state’s ever-soaring pension costs. As Amazon is learning in Seattle, progressive politicos have figured out where to find the biggest piles of cash. Aggressive taxation of tech companies is already becoming a trend in Silicon Valley.
A stronger, motivated grass-roots Left could constitute the greatest immediate challenge to Governor Newsom. Many Californians, particularly millennials and minorities, face a lack of high-wage jobs, soaring rents, and essentially insurmountable barriers to homeownership. A majority of Californians, according to some surveys, express dissatisfaction with the state’s bifurcated economy. The disappearance of upward mobility makes these voters susceptible to embracing such things as rent control, higher minimum wages, free college, and free health care. They will support ever higher taxes on businesses and on generally white, affluent Californians. The call for new spending will become more problematic once the state comes back to earth from its Silicon Valley and real-estate inflation highs, which for now keep the operating budget in the black.
At some point, Newsom and the Democratic nomenklatura will have to deal with pervasive conditions of diminished opportunity, racial polarization, and fiscal weakness. When these realities eventually impinge, the state’s progressive rulers may find themselves on the defensive, and—if confronted with a plausible opposition—vulnerable, at long last…”