“…Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has reportedly turned down nearly $600,000 that had been raised in his name after sexual misconduct allegations were leveled against him during his confirmation process.

A GoFundMe page through which the funds were raised had a message saying Kavanaugh would not accept the money in order to avoid judicial ethics violations, the Washington Examiner reported.

“I’ve spoken to a former clerk for Judge Kavanaugh who told me that Kavanaugh’s supporters loved the outpouring of support from this GoFundMe,” said conservative blogger John Hawkins, who launched the page Sept. 24. “Judicial ethics rules caution judges against permitting the use of the prestige of judicial office for fund-raising purposes. Justice Kavanaugh will not accept any proceeds from the campaign, nor will he direct that any proceeds from the campaign be provided to any third party.”

The page launched one day after the New Yorker published allegations from Deborah Ramirez, who claimed Kavanaugh exposed himself to her while they were in college, and a week after Christine Blasey Ford accused him of trying to force himself on her, also decades ago…”

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kavanaugh-turns-down-nearly-600g-raised-online-for-his-defense-reports

Lee Smith:

“…Blurring the lines between journalists/analysts and officials/operatives is not simply a matter of convenient nomenclature. It’s part of a conscious strategy to legitimize the nature and structure of information operations by obscuring their political character. How dare Trump strip John Brennan’s security clearance! He’s infringing on the former CIA director’s free speech rights—as a journalist.

Branding political operatives and intelligence officials as “press” is also intended to shield these newly minted “analysts” from possible prosecution. Evidence of their crimes and abuses may be found in the steady stream of classified intelligence illegally leaked to a complicit press corps for the purpose of marketing the Russia collusion narrative. By relabeling government officials as “journalists,” the media is protecting both its clandestine confederates and itself…”

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/273097/american-press-middle-east

Conrad Black:

“…This was the lot of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who put in their tax increase and health care, respectively, in their first two years, and then were severely defeated at their first mid-terms and never moved more than a Christmas card through Congress thereafter. Republican congressional leaders Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole frustrated Clinton, and John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell drove Obama to attempt government by questionable executive regulation, leading to the extreme politicization of Supreme Court nominations.

Trump has revoked almost all Obama’s executive orders, gutted the coercive part of Obamacare, and got his two conservative nominations onto the Supreme Court. Obama’s lasting effect—apart from having admirably smashed the color bar on eligibility for the presidency—has been minimal, as has been Clinton’s. So much for the loudly proclaimed ambitions of both of them to be “transformative” presidents. At transformation, they were a bust. Trump is already ahead of them. America and the world are waiting to see if this president can hold the momentum past the midterms.

The polls consistently have underestimated him, and I don’t believe the polling organizations are unbiased. Nor have they adjusted their echelon of opinion-sampling to allow for the phenomenon of tens of millions of fervent Trump voters largely from demographic groups not in the habit of voting in such large numbers, at least not since the Reagan years. There is also the widely noted phenomenon of the resistance of Trump voters to reveal their preferences, so called “shy Trump voters”—they mistrust anyone who telephones them at home, especially on a robo-call, asking their voting opinion.

Given the polling experiences of the 2016 election, I believe that the 30 toss-up House of Representatives elections and the five toss-up Senate seats are really at least 20 Republican congressmen and four Republican senators, and that Trump gets to hurl himself at the throat of the political class he set out to dispossess for another two years. The Republican gain in the Senate will balance the reduction of the Republican majority in the House, and there will be no remaining credibility for the monstrous fraudulent confection of the Trump-Russian collusion canard that distracted the country for more than a year…”

https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/29/trumps-winning-demeanor/

Highlights:

“This president has radicalized so many more people than ISIS ever did,” said Julia Ioffe (she later apologized, but went on to say “a silent majority” of Trump supporters think racism is okay).

“The biggest terror threat in this country is white men … radicalized to the right,” said CNN’s Don Lemon.

“The same type of propaganda that you would have seen in Germany in 1938 [under Adolf Hitler], the dehumanization, turning people into infested vermin,” said former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt.

“Evil, nasty authoritarianism,” decried Howard Dean.

Steve Schmidt again: Trump’s “erratic behavior, his ignorance, could pose a profound danger to every single person in this country and literally every inhabitant of the planet earth.”

Yet more Schmidt: “This whole caravan in the last week of the election is a giant lie. This is Trump’s Reichstag fire,” a reference to Hitler’s disgusting tactic of blaming the Jews for setting the German parliament on fire when Nazis did it.

“We’re going to see if his reign lasts for 30 days or two years, or a thousand-year reich,” said legal analyst Elie Mystal, referencing Hitler’s propaganda that his would be a “thousand-year reich.”

“It’s not even a question of whether it’s presidential behavior or not, it’s not minimally human behavior,” said MSNBC analyst John Heilemann.

If President Trump is held responsible for the attempted bombing (which he immediately condemned), then who is responsible for the 2017 congressional baseball game shooting, when a Bernie Sanders supporter targeted Republicans? Republicans did not blame Sanders for that attack, but it seems many on the Left lack their good sense.

At the same time, liberal commentators are stoking the very anger they decry — just directed at Trump. Lest Americans forget, a Bernie Sanders supporter tried to assassinate Republicans at a congressional baseball game practice last year, and he nearly succeeded in killing Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.). Political violence is by no means limited to the Right.

Shane Mekeland, a Republican candidate for Minnesota’s state House, blamed Democrats for inspiring the incivility that led a man to punch him out of nowhere, leaving him with a concussion and the inability to campaign outside without getting a headache.

https://pjmedia.com/video/montage-liberals-call-for-dialed-down-rhetoric-then-brand-trump-evil-nazi-worse-than-isis/

U. S. workers see fastest wage growth in a decade, outpacing inflation

Can you imagine if we had this blistering economy with a Democrat President?

The MSM would be covering nothing else.

Even people who are generally on the side of President Trump have come to accept that the biggest story in many, many years, and the biggest success story in the American economy that anyone can remember, and which vindicates every conservative principle about taxes and regulation in spectacular fashion, is not even news that merits being reported.

“Raises for U.S. workers are creating very confident consumers.”

“…Compensation for U.S. workers grew at an accelerating rate in the third quarter, a sign a historically tight labor market is yielding better pay for employees…

The increase was led by improving pay for private-sector workers. Wages and salaries, which account for about 70% of total compensation, rose 3.1% from a year earlier for private-sector workers. That was the strongest year-over-year gain since the second quarter of 2008.

Total compensation for those workers increased 0.8% on the quarter and 2.9% from a year earlier… Worker compensation is now rising at a faster pace than prices. The consumer-price index rose 2.3% from a year earlier in September, the Labor Department said…”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-american-wage-boom-1541014725

https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1057360816427552768

DON LEMON: “We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men”

“Why is it always our people?” “Why us? Bork, Thomas, Alito, and now Kavanaugh. Why us? Because it’s a noble cause in their eyes to destroy a conservative judicial candidate, and I hope it blows up in their face. I hope politically they pay a price for this … losing is not enough, they need to pay a price at the ballot box.”

—Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

“…The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll released October 29 shows 40 percent of the black voters that were surveyed say they approve of President Trump’s job performance, while 58 percent disapprove.

Trump’s record high approval among black voters comes just days after Candace Owens introduced BLEXIT, “the black exit from the Democrat Party.”…”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/10/29/poll-trump-hits-record-high-approval-rating-with-black-voters-amid-blexit-launch/

Trump goes after Stormy Daniels for more than $300K in legal fees after judge tossed defamation suit

Scott Johnson:

“…Much (if not most) of what we have learned about the real scandals and true Russian collusion underlying the 2016 presidential election derives directly or indirectly from the dogged work of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and his Republican colleagues on the committee. In recognition of his efforts, Rep. Nunes has been punished by the dross of April Doss and others soldiering in the Democrat/Media complex. Rep. Nunes deserves some kind of award for service to the republic such as a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In his October 21 Washington Examiner column Byron York took a look back on what we have learned so far thanks to Nunes and colleagues including Trey Gowdy, John Ratcliffe, Bob Goodlatte, Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows:

• The important role that the incendiary allegations in the still-unverified Trump dossier played in the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign.

• The fact that the dossier was commissioned and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party.

• The unusual circumstances surrounding the formal beginning of the FBI’s counter-intelligence investigation into the Trump campaign.

• The troubling deficiencies in the FBI’s application for the FISA warrant and renewals to wiretap onetime Trump campaign figure Carter Page.

• The anti-Trump bias of some of the top officials in the FBI investigation.

• The degree to which the dossier’s allegations spread throughout the Obama administration during the final days of the 2016 campaign and the transition.

• Obama officials’ unmasking of Trump-related figures in intelligence intercepts.

• The fact that FBI agents did not believe Michael Flynn lied to them in the interview that later led to Flynn’s guilty plea on a charge of lying to the FBI.

• The role of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS in the Trump-Russia probe.

• Nunes and his colleagues learned these things, and told the public about them, over the determined opposition of the FBI, the Justice Department, and Democrats, both on the Intelligence Committee and in the larger House.

• In fact…the FBI and Justice Department fiercely resisted the investigation. They withheld materials, dragged their feet, and flat-out refused to provide information to which congressional overseers were clearly entitled. Sometimes disputes were settled by the intervention of House Speaker Paul Ryan on Nunes’ behalf. Sometimes they weren’t.

• Nunes and the others performed a public service by investigating something no one else was investigating. The Senate Intelligence Committee conducted the big, bipartisan, flagship congressional probe into the Trump-Russia matter. Special counsel Robert Mueller, with full law enforcement powers, investigated Russian meddling, whether any Trump people were involved, and the question of whether the president attempted to obstruct the investigation.

• No one wanted to investigate the investigators, even though their conduct cried out for scrutiny.

• The work is not yet done. These days, a joint group from the House Judiciary and Oversight committees is conducting interviews with several figures in the Trump-Russia matter. In addition, Nunes and other Republicans are still urging President Trump to release additional parts of the Carter Page surveillance application that they say will be contain new revelations.

• None of this has been bipartisan. The work has been done by Republicans and opposed by Democrats. And if Democrats win control of the House, as a number of polls suggest they will do, it will stop immediately.

I add the following related bullet point courtesy of the rhetorical question posed by Holman Jenkins in his October 19 Wall Street column (accessible via Outline here):

• President Trump is accused of violating norms, but the Democratic Party is the one that concocted evidence tarring its opponent as a Russian agent and questions the legitimacy of basic institutions like the Electoral College and the Supreme Court. Its leading lights also encourage the mobbing of partisan opponents in restaurants and elsewhere.

If Democrats win, as Byron notes, Nunes’s work comes to a screeching halt. To adapt a thought from Warren Zevon, send lawyers, guns and money; the Schiff will hit the fan…”

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/10/what-we-have-learned-so-far.php

Byron York:

“…Of course, it wasn’t true. Still, Avenatti’s allegation poured fuel on an already raging partisan fire over the Kavanaugh nomination. First there was the Christine Ford allegation. Then came the Ramirez accusation, which, coming after Ford, gave Kavanaugh’s opponents the occasion to claim a “pattern” of Kavanaugh’s alleged abuse of women. Then Avenatti’s allegation — gang rape — sent it into another dimension.

Avenatti’s client was identified as Julie Swetnick, who had lived in the Washington area during Kavanaugh’s high school years. Avenatti sent the committee an affidavit in which Swetnick made her claims. Beyond that, he provided no other evidence to support the allegation — beyond the promise of “multiple witnesses.” Nevertheless, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee took it very seriously.

Putting aside the question of why NBC waited to report the woman’s statement until after the Kavanaugh vote was over. The entire Avenatti episode left Grassley angry that the publicity-seeking lawyer had hijacked the committee’s time and energy at a critical time with claims that were obviously untrue. So on Oct. 25, Grassley formally referred Avenatti (and Swetnick) to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation into their conduct.

“It is illegal to knowingly and willfully make materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements to congressional investigators,” Grassley wrote in the referral. “When charlatans make false claims to the committee — claims that may earn them short-term media exposure and financial gain, but which hinder the committee’s ability to do its job — there should be consequences.”

With Avenatti, there have so far been no consequences, beyond the loss of whatever credibility some cable TV news organizations conferred on him in repeated appearances over the last several months. Now, with the Grassley referral, that could finally change…”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/byron-york-finally-a-day-of-reckoning-for-michael-avenatti

This is why I no longer watch professional sports. I don’t give a fig what these overpaid nitwits think about anything. I won’t reward this behavior with my attention or dollars.

“…The manager of the Boston Red Sox said Sunday it’s unclear whether the team, fresh off a World Series win, will visit the White House as part of its victory celebration.

The Red Sox defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-1 Sunday in the final championship game of the series. Manager Alex Cora told reporters in a post-game news conference if the team is invited to meet with President Donald Trump, there will be a conversation among team members “later on.”…”

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/red-sox-world-series-winners-debate-whether-to-visit-white-house

Liz Sheld:

“…After President Trump won the 2016 election, the media and the Democrats announced that they would do everything in their power to obstruct and ruin his presidency. They did not want Trump to succeed and they did not want America to prosper under Trump. This directive is the backdrop of every aspect of public discourse on Trump and Trump-related matters. And everything, EVERYTHING, is somehow related to Trump.

The news on the Pittsburgh synagogue slaughter falls into this category and the strongest narrative on the tragedy is that Trump inspired this/is responsible because he hates Jews/is antisemitic/didn’t condemn the white supremacists or whatever flimsy excuses the resistance needs to blame Trump. In reality Trump is probably the most pro-Israel president the U.S. has ever had. I’m Jewish, I think he’s done right by Israel.

Those of us who are not in the #resistance are getting lectured on toning down our rhetoric from left wing hysterics shouting all kinds of slanderous and intemperate accusations. GQ columnist Julia Ioffe, in reference to synagogue shooting, claimed that Trump has radicalized more people than ISIS. “I think this president, one of the things that he really launched his presidential run on is talking about Islamic radicalization. And this president has radicalized so many more people than ISIS ever did. I mean, the way he talks, the way he — the way he –” Ioffe said.

So I am supposed to believe that calling Trump supporters Nazis, white supremacists, sexists, homophobes is just the right thing to do but Trump’s rhetoric is pouring gasoline on a burning fire of crazy activists? Or perhaps violence in the name of the leftist agenda is just fine? I think that’s it…”

And

“…Greg Gutfeld makes this point:

• CNN’s Don Lemon: “The president of the United States is racist.”
• MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough: “Even Albert Einstein may have ended up in a Nazi concentration camp with Donald Trump’s viewpoint on immigration.”
• MSNBC’s Donnie Deutsch: “If you vote for Trump, then you the voter, you – not Donald Trump – are standing at the border like Nazis going ‘you here, you here.’”

You want hate? You spend two years calling a guy Hitler, a racist, a traitor, and insane – then you blame him for violence cuz …of nicknames?

Also, big lefty donor Tom Steyer is running Facebook ads comparing Trump to Sadam Hussein.

Sane people know what’s going on here…”

https://pjmedia.com/blog/liveblogevent/live-blog-109/entry-243856/