San Francisco’s last Republican mayor left office a month before the Beatles landed at JFK.

“…SAN FRANCISCO – The homeless encampments and drug addicts have become more visible to tourists, at times overshadowing the many landmarks that make San Francisco unique. Groups that hold their conventions here continue to take notice. ‘And it’s not just groups but also a lot of individual travelers. We hear a lot from individual travelers that have come here and have had negative experiences on the streets and say they don’t want to come back to San Francisco,’ said Joe D’Alessandro, President and CEO of the San Francisco Travel Association…”

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This day in history turned the tide of the Civil War. Pickett’s failed charge into Union lines on Cemetery Ridge.

Thure de Thulstrup’s Battle of Gettysburg, showing Pickett’s Charge

Hugh Hewitt Comes out in Favor of Judge Raymond Kethledge:

“…The search for Gorsuch 2.0 is underway at the White House. The best choice for the opening is Judge Raymond Kethledge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. The 51-year-old judge from central casting — just like Neil M. Gorsuch — is not as well-known as front-runner U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh. But the longtime Michigan resident brings political upside to the process that Kavanaugh and several other contenders cannot.

The president sounds like a man who wants a second term, which means keeping his most high-profile and decisive campaign promises. During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump pledged his Supreme Court nominees would be thoroughgoing “originalists” in the mold of Justice Antonin Scalia. So the first question is: Has the nominee ruled steadily in a fashion consistent with the original intent of the Constitution and its amendments and faithful to the statutes passed by the executive and legislative branches?

Kethledge’s record shows that in his case, the answer is a resounding “yes.” He has stood strongly with free exercise rights, siding for example with a church and its volunteers against the Labor Department’s bureaucrats, writing a separate concurrence to emphasize “The Department should tend to what is Caesar’s, and leave the rest alone.” He has an exemplary record on Second Amendment rights, concurring with his colleague Judge Jeffrey Sutton’s declaration of the right to bear arms as “fundamental” in a crucial en banc case on the amendment. Kethledge has also dissented in a Fifth Amendment takings case from the decision of his colleagues to punt back an aggrieved party to state court in a way he concluded indicated that the court had “lost our constitutional bearings” on property rights. . . .

Kethledge is also not another Harvard Law or Yale Law attendee , and with eight of those remaining on the court — Ruth Bader Ginsburg got her J.D. from Columbia , but her first two years were spent in Cambridge — the University of Michigan Law School credential sends an important message to the country…”

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Jonathan Tobin:

“…The more they emphasize the consequences of replacing Kennedy with a more consistent conservative, the greater the depression their voters will feel when the next Gorsuch takes the oath of office in time to join the Supreme Court for the opening of the fall term in October.

The irony here for Democrats is that the “resistance” is fueled by their conviction that Trump has violated key norms and threatens the institutions of democracy. Yet if there is one aspect of his presidency that has been completely normal, it is his approach to judicial appointments. He has stuck to the list of qualified conservatives that he made public before his election. No one can pretend that his appointments are any different, in terms of their beliefs or credentials, from those that might have been put forward by any other Republican president. Rather than heralding an era of radical Trumpian madness, Gorsuch and the other Trump judges are just normal constitutional conservatives and a reminder that, his Twitter account notwithstanding, the Trump presidency is for the most part an exercise in conservative rather than extremist governance.

That’s why it’s going to be hard for Democrats to persuade any GOP senators to join them or to keep their own caucus in line, setting them up for failure and the recriminations that will follow.

Democrats aren’t happy about a post-Kennedy Court that will protect religious freedom and freedom of speech in ways they abhor and perhaps even chip away at Roe. As President Obama liked to say, “elections have consequences.”

Yet the Democrats’ more immediate concern should be the way their inevitable defeat in the coming confirmation fight will depress their base and strengthen the forces pushing their party farther to the left in the run-up to 2020. It remains to be seen whether this is a prescription for a revived opposition party or a gift to an otherwise embattled Trump administration. Nevertheless, Democratic activists are going to be judging every member of their party’s caucus on their conduct in the next few months. As their less-than-scintillating performance on the first day of the struggle illustrated, their conclusions are likely to be harsh…”

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Opinion letter to the editor from a gentleman named Andy Weiss:

“…When Democrats lost the election in 2016, there emerged a movement to get rid of the Electoral College, because they deemed it unfair, since they had more popular votes. Now I see some are proposing the elimination of lifetime appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court because a majority of conservative judges is threatening.

It seems to me the Founding Fathers were far smarter than present-day politicians when they set up this republic. In 2016, Americans were fed up with politicians and elected a president who is not beholden to any special interest group. It’s time the Democrats man up and admit they lost fairly, because they keep trying the same old failed policies. You can’t change the rules if you don’t like the outcome…”

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There seems to be a large gap between elite (media, Washington political types, academia) and mainstream opinion on the issues relating to immigration. As usual, Trump found the pulse of the country despite the wild and inaccurate media reporting.

Byron York:

“…If a new poll is correct, it appears the Trump administration, after an enormously damaging few weeks, has ended up squarely on the side of the majority of American voters.

The new survey is a Harvard-Harris poll, by former Clinton pollster and strategist Mark Penn. It was conducted June 24-25, with 1,448 registered voters.

On the issue of separations, Penn began with a threshold question: “Do you think that people who make it across our border illegally should be allowed to stay in the country or sent home? Sixty-four percent (83 percent of Republicans, 47 percent of Democrats, and 66 percent of independents) said they should be sent home. Thirty-six percent said they should be allowed to stay.

Then, Penn asked: “Do you think that parents with children who make it across our border illegally should be allowed to stay in the country or sent home?” The presence of children made little difference in the result: 61 percent (81 percent of Republicans, 40 percent of Democrats, and 66 percent of independents) said they should be sent home, while 39 percent said they should be allowed to stay.

The vast majority — 88 percent — opposed separating illegal immigrant families while they are in the U.S., and they blamed the Trump administration for the policy. On the other hand, 55 percent (76 percent of Republicans, 39 percent of Democrats, and 55 percent of independents) said illegal immigrant families should be held in custody “until a judge reviews their case” — essentially the new Trump family detention policy.

The end result was that a substantial majority said illegal border crossers, and the children they brought, should be returned to their home countries. To that end, 80 percent (84 percent of Republicans, 79 percent of Democrats, and 78 percent of independents) favored hiring more immigration judges ‘to process people in custody faster.’…”

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Joel Kotkin:

“…No state in the union has been more adamant in opposing President Trump’s policy on immigration than California. The Golden State widely sees itself — and is widely seen in progressive circles — as the harbinger of America’s multi-cultural future, a “sanctuary state” that epitomizes ethnic ascendency.

Yet in reality, the picture is far less pleasing, most of all for racial minorities, particularly the poor and working class. The state policy agenda, dominated by concerns over climate change, has been something of a disaster for the very minorities that state progressives so fervently claim to serve.

This claim is at the center of a new report by David Friedman and Jennifer Hernandez, released this week by Chapman University, which spells out the ways the California “boom” has hurt the prospect for historically disadvantaged ethnic minorities such as African Americans and Latinos.

In the past decade, Democratic progressives have benefited enormously from African American and Latino voters, who support them by wide margins. As California has become dominated by racial minorities, now over 60 percent of the population, it has drifted towards a status of a one-party progressive state.

But, as the report makes clear, Democratic protestations of solidarity have not worked out well on the ground. “The imposition by the state’s Democratic Party leaders of highly regressive climate schemes have engendered disparate financial hardships on middle and lower income workers and minority communities,” they write. This, they continue, “represents a significant departure from more traditional Democratic Party values.”

The authors demonstrate that California’s draconian climate regime — mandating more than twice the actual emissions reductions from 2015 levels by 2030 compared with the European Union under the Paris Agreement — has been blatantly injurious to working class populations. This includes greenhouse gas policy-induced electricity rates that are nearly 60 percent above the national average, the nation’s highest rent and housing prices and a general decline in the blue-collar industries, such as manufacturing that have historically provided the best path to upward mobility…”

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A good summary of the Supreme Court decision and the false stand of lower courts and politicized attorneys general.

Jonathan Turley:

“…The Supreme Court decision upholding the travel ban is a shot across the bow of all lower courts that they must insulate themselves from the often incendiary comments of this president. The question is not how he views his office but how judges view their own…”

Original Here

Important new analysis of the beginning efforts to entrap the Trump Campaign in the Russia narrative.

Lee Smith:

“…The Federal Bureau of Investigation formally opened its Trump investigation after Western intelligence assets and Clinton-affiliated political operatives repeatedly approached the Trump campaign and tried but failed to damage it through associations with Russia, a growing body of evidence suggests.

Before the FBI began investigating the Trump campaign in an operation code-named “Crossfire Hurricane,” there were at least seven different instances when campaign advisers were approached with Russia-related offers. Most of those contacts — including Donald Trump Jr.’s much-publicized meeting with a Russian lawyer and others in June 2016 — offered the prospect of information damaging to Donald Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Two of these approaches were made by one U.S. government informant already publicly identified as such, Stefan Halper. Another was made by a man who swore in court that he had worked as an FBI informant. Two others were made by figures associated with Western intelligence agencies. Another two approaches included political operatives, one foreign, with ties to the Clintons.

President Obama’s director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has asserted that dispatching Halper to follow the Trump campaign “protected” it from the Russians.

But Mark Wauck, a former FBI agent with experience in such tactics, sees an effort at entrapment…”

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From the majority opinion:

“…Finally, the dissent invokes Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214 (1944). Whatever rhetorical advantage the dissent may see in doing so, Korematsu has nothing to do with this case. The forcible relocation of U. S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Presidential authority. But it is wholly inapt to liken that morally repugnant order to a facially neutral policy denying certain foreign nationals the privilege of admission. See post, at 26–28. The entry suspension is an act that is well within executive authority and could have been taken by any other President—the only question is evaluating the actions of this particular President in promulgating an otherwise valid Proclamation. The dissent’s reference to Korematsu, however, affords this Court the opportunity to make express what is already obvious: Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and—to be clear—“has no place in law under the Constitution.” 323 U. S., at 248 (Jackson, J., dissenting)…”

Original Article Here

Text of the Opinion Here

“Army training will now focus on actual battlefield skills, not social issues”

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Interesting analysis of the trade situation.

Irwin Stelzer:

“…Serious poker players regard this opening round as penny-ante stuff. Fifty billion dollars is less than half of one percent of the GDPs of both countries. But the betting and the risks are getting interesting. Trump has put on the table chips representing a 10 percent levy on $200 billion of Chinese goods, doubled to $400 billion if China retaliates. Also coming soon will be bans on exports of U.S. high-tech products to China, unless the regime ends its theft of intellectual property.

Unless the parties agree to call off the game before the next cards are dealt, we will soon find out which player has the most chips. If Trump is a cool enough player to ignore whining by some American firms, he has the chips with which to win. Here’s why:

• China’s exports to the United States come to almost 4 percent of its GDP, while U.S. exports to China equal only 0.7 percent of U.S. GDP. As consultants the Lindsey Group point out, “A tit-for-tat trade war has an impact on China that is six times that on America.”
• The U.S. economy is in rude good health, while China is the throes of an effort to reduce the massive debt overhang that is beginning to stifle its growth. That creates “a strain on the top leadership as it tries to fend off a trade war with the U.S.,” Diana Cheyleva, chief economist with London-based Enodo Economics, told the New York Times.
• China is having difficulty finding U.S. stuff to penalize. It has exempted LNG from tariffs because it desperately needs imports from the United States to fuel its economy. If it cancels orders now with Boeing, it will have a five-year wait to get on the books of Airbus. Tariffs on U.S. agricultural products drive up food costs in China…”

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The Left will pivot to the next set of Nazis in five… four… three…

Sharyl Attkisson has done good work on this story. She is one of the best journalists at the moment. Not surprisingly, she is independent, no MSM outlet has hired her even though her work is some of the best. She tells it straight, and big media does not want that.

Sharyl Attkisson:

“…The earth-shattering finding on Strzok by the inspector general (IG) confirms a citizenry’s worst fears: A high-ranking government intel official allegedly conspired to affect the outcome of a U.S. presidential election.

It’s also directly relevant to the FBI investigations of Trump-Russia collusion, which the IG did not examine in this report. There are multiple allegations of FBI misbehavior in that inquiry, including conspiracies to frame Trump, and improper spying on Trump associates. Investigating those allegations takes on an added sense of urgency with news that the FBI’s top counterespionage official expressed willingness to use his official position against a political enemy.

Yet, for all of that, Strzok is still collecting a salary, courtesy of taxpayers, at the FBI Human Resources Department. And here’s the chilling part: If it weren’t for the IG’s investigation, requested by Congress, he’d likely still be helping lead special counsel Mueller’s investigation of Trump today…”

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The press has three main kinds of power. One is to motivate the left. Another is to swing the middle. And the third is to demoralize the right. It’s pretty much lost the last of these, and I suspect the second one is fading too. It’s the fake news and holier-than-thou righteousness from our media betters. It drives normal people away.This article is from the NY Times. 

“…Mr. Trump has also retained support across a range of demographics other than the working-class voters who are most identified with him. This includes portions of the wealthy college-educated people in swing counties, like Virginia’s Loudoun, in the country’s most politically competitive states. Many of these voters say their lives and the country are improving under his presidency, and the endless stream of tough cable news coverage and bad headlines about Mr. Trump only galvanizes them further…”

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Andrew Malcolm:

“…Now, come the Knight Foundation and Gallup Polls dissecting Americans’ thoughts about media.  In general, Americans overall estimate that of the news they’re exposed to via radio, TV and print, nearly two-thirds of it is biased (62 percent).

They believe that nearly half the news they see is inaccurate (44 percent).  And they’re sure that more than a third of the news moving through those media conduits is misinformation, that is, wrong or fake but distributed as if true.

They also believe that 64 percent of news carried by social media is inaccurate. And – maybe you’ve felt this way too – more than 80 percent of adult Americans report feeling angry or bothered by detecting such false reports.  They believe that 65 percent of such news is misinformation and a whopping 80 percent is biased.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of media integrity…”

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It’s not just the media.

Thomas Lifson:

“…A cynic would argue that the tears were artificial, intentionally forced out of tear ducts and emotions faked. Maybe so, but this then raises the question of why they felt driven to such emotional manipulation of the audience.

And what if the emotions were real? What could drive seasoned professionals to such a loss of self-control if manipulation were not the intent?

I think the answer in both scenarios is the same: genuine mass hysteria is gripping the mainstream media. The first source is the political rise, election, and continuing successes of Donald Trump, currently presiding over the best economic times since the Reagan administration. Trump violates all the political norms that they learned, embraced, and enforced in their own rise to media prominence. When norms are violated, anger is the dominant response of members of the group that holds the norms.

But what accounts for the hysteria that results in loss of self-control? I think a second factor is at play. The mainstream media perceive that they have lost the ability to shape public perceptions beyond the 30% or so of the populace that is committed to left-progressivism. The majority of the public no longer trusts or believes what they have to say. And this sense of powerlessness in the face of a hated opponent is literally driving them crazy. Even before the Rasmussen poll showed the futility of their efforts (“54% of Likely U.S. Voters say the parents are more to blame for breaking the law … only 35% believe the federal government is more to blame for enforcing the law”), they must have realized that their efforts were failing. Knowing no other means of persuasion than intensifying the current efforts, they pulled out all the stops: anger and sadness replaced facts and logic, which don’t really stand up to scrutiny anyway.

Andrew Malcolm, writing at Hot Air, describes the awful truth to which they are awakening with horror every day: they no longer have traction…”

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