Monthly Archives: August 2016

Are Polls Missing Covert Support for Trump?

Featured image Rasmussen Reports (which, I believe, Scott Rasmussen sold several years ago) isn’t always “right,” in the sense that its surveys predict election results. But Rasmussen consistently asks interesting questions. Today, Rasmussen investigated whether there is hidden support for Donald Trump that is not showing up in the polls: A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 17% of Likely Republican Voters are less likely this year to let others »

Koch-Reid Cage Match in Nevada

Featured image One of the critical races in the battle for control of the Senate is in Nevada, where the appalling Harry Reid is finally retiring as a rich man, after a long career in “public service.” The Democratic nominee is a Reid surrogate named Catherine Cortez Masto, while the Republican is Congressman Joe Heck. In his last years in the Senate, Reid pursued a bizarre vendetta against Charles and David Koch, »

Trump’s Triumphant Trip to Mexico

Featured image Lately, Donald Trump seems to be recovering his momentum. After appearing mostly flat-footed since the GOP convention, he is back to his old table-upsetting self–today, with a quick trip to Mexico to meet with President Enrique Peña Nieto. The meeting implicitly gave Trump the status of a head of state, and much of the news coverage, like this headline at CNN, puts a positive spin on Trump’s mission: Of course »

The public option rears its head

Featured image It’s been a bad year for Obamacare. James Capretta at NRO cites the following news items from the spring and summer: Aetna announced that it is pulling out of eleven of the 15 states where it currently sells products on the ACA’s exchanges because of continued large financial losses from these products. The company has lost $430 million since January 2014 on insurance plans sold through Obamacare, with more losses »

Colin Kaepernick’s timing

Featured image My view of the Colin Kaepernick caper is straightforward. If Kaepernick truly holds America in contempt for its alleged “oppress[ion] [of] black people and people of color,” then it makes sense for him to refuse to stand for the National Anthem, and obviously he has that right. (People who say they agree, to one extent or another, with Kaepernick’s critique of policing but that he should have found a different »

Climate Change: Is There Anything It Can’t Do?

Featured image So, will global warming increase or decrease disease risk? The answer is Yes. The conventional wisdom about global warming and disease is that warming will cause more of it, even though it is curious to note that huge disparities in disease rates in tropical parts of the globe seem to stop at borders between rich and poor nations. Funny how that works. (And how oblivious the climatistas are to the »

Unsafe in the Gulf

Featured image The Obama administration has declined to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, though it has richly earned such recognition. President Obama doesn’t want to do anything to alienate his putative friends in Islamic Republic of Iran. His putative friends, however, continue to harass American forces in the Gulf and to take actions that humiliate the United States. As his putative friends express their contempt for him, President Obama »

Marco Rubio and John McCain prevail

Featured image As expected, Marco Rubio and John McCain won their respective primaries tonight. Rubio collected 72 percent of the vote. His closest rival won only 18.5 percent. McCain faced stronger opposition in Kelli Ward, a Tea Party style candidate. However, he prevailed by a 54-36 margin. Rubio will face Rep. Patrick Murphy. He crushed the loathsome Alan Grayson 59-18. Murphy, age 33, is a pretty strong candidate, I think. He tries »

State Fair

Featured image The Minnesota State Fair is one of the world’s great social gatherings. It is, by common consent, the most remarkable fair of them all. And, at a time when one might think that cultural currents are moving in a direction antithetical to such traditional entertainments, the Minnesota Fair is booming, more than ever. So it makes sense that my think tank, Center of the American Experiment, will have a substantial »

FBI finds up to 30 deleted Benghazi emails Clinton did not turn over

Featured image I hadn’t intended to write two Hillary Clinton email posts tonight. However, news that FBI investigators recovered 30 Benghazi-related emails from Hillary Clinton’s wiped server is potentially too important not to comment on right away. Government lawyers told U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta today that some of the 30 recovered emails relating to Benghazi — they didn’t say now many — were not included in the 55,000 pages previously »

Judicial Watch submits questions for Hillary to answer under oath [Updated]

Featured image Earlier this month, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan granted Judicial Watch additional discovery on the Hillary Clinton email matter. As a result, Clinton was ordered to answer written questions from Judicial Watch “by no later than thirty days” after their submission. Under federal court rules, Judicial Watch is limited to twenty-five questions. Today, Judicial Watch announced that it has submitted the questions to Clinton. You can read the questions »

John Kerry actually said this

Featured image PJ Media’s Tyler O’Neil draws attention to the remarks of Secretary of State John Kerry in Bangladesh on Monday. Kerry explicitly asked the media to cover terrorism less, so “people wouldn’t know what’s going on.” I think that Kerry’s statement truly represents the deep thoughts of President Obama. This particular deep thought forms part of the Obama administration’s higher wisdom so much of which is not intended for public consumption. »

Diversity on the Rocks

Featured image Is it still okay to make Jewish mother jokes? If not, Woody Allen is in deep trouble, and most of his old films will need to be banned. There are two answers to this question. The diversity mongers of the identity politics left will say that it is permissible to make jokes about people who enjoy positions of power (white males, and of course Jews, because of all the old »

Loose Ends (11)

Featured image • The fracks of life? The surprising news story of the day comes out of Colorado, where two initiatives to restrict hydraulic fracturing production of oil and natural gas have failed to qualify for the November ballot. The Wall Street Journal reports: Supporters of the measures, which could have severely limited oil-and-gas production in the energy-rich state, fell short of gathering the nearly 98,500 signatures each initiative needed to get »

Read more, watch ESPN less [Updated]

Featured image John Skipper is the President of ESPN, Inc. The Washington Post adoringly paints him as one-time Southern hippie who studied literature, wanted to write the Great American novel, and enjoys late night “high level sophisticated conversations about American literature, Faulkner’s place in it, [and] the influence of alcohol and race. . . .” You probably know the type. In a commencement address at the University of Central Florida, Skipper bemoaned »

The eleventh “Minnesota man”

Featured image Late last week the United States Attorney for Minnesota filed a criminal complaint charging former Mohamed Roble with consiracy to support ISIS. He’s both the eleventh “Minnesota man” to be charged in the case and (by my count) the sixth Muhammad to make an appearance. The Star Tribune reports the story here. Roble is another young Somali Muslim who joined in the conspiracy with the nine who have been convicted »

More Iran dividends

Featured image AFP reports that the Islamic Republic of Iran has deployed the Russian made S-300 missile system to protect its underground nuclear facility at Fordow. The Obama administration has expressed its “concern” for public consumption, but it’s an Obama threefer. Russia flaunts its contempt for Obama; the mullahs put American ransom money to work protecting the nukes they will acquire when they choose as they advance their program under the umbrella »