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August 2016

Hillary Clinton gave her first press conference since December of 2015 on Friday which was open only to journalists of color. While she did get at least one question about her ongoing email troubles, the event devolved unsurprisingly into a campaign rally. NewsBusters reported:
Reporters Raucously Applaud Hillary, Softball Questions to Her at Their Own Conference Showing how much the liberal media is in the tank for Hillary Clinton in this election, reporters at the joint conference of National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists on Friday afternoon wildly applauded Clinton’s far-left answers to a slew of softball questions about immigration, the electorate, and even whether she has any black friends.

Some intriguing news has been reported that gives me hope that our bureaucrats are taking the public health threat related to the Zika virus seriously. As you may recall, the last time I reported on the Zika epidemic, 4 Floridians had developed locally-acquired infections (probably from mosquito bites). Now, there are 16 cases and stores in the impacted area of Miami are closing due to the viral spread.
Cafes and art galleries in Miami’s Wynwood Art District would normally be bustling this week, even during some of the hottest days of the year, but with Zika virus spreading in the area, businesses like Wynwood Yard and Gallery 212 are keeping their doors shut. There were 16 cases of mosquito-transmitted Zika reported in the mainland U.S. as of Friday, and health officials have traced most to a square-mile area north of downtown Miami. Empty streets there reminded Gallery 212 owner Michael Perez of when he had to temporarily close a store in New York in 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks. “I’m just like living my life all over again, with this Zika thing,” he said in a telephone interview. “It’s crazy, the streets are bare right now.”
Florida is not only an important beacon of tourism for this nation; it is a critical swing state in this election. Therefore, it should surprise nobody that the normally slow-moving Food and Drug Administration just approved the releasing of mutant Zika-killing mosquitoes in the Sunshine State.

Over the last year, colleges across the country have bent over backwards to accommodate student protests but they're now finding out there are consequences for that. Many alumni donors are making their disapproval known by withholding donations and that should be setting off alarm bells in the office of every college administrator. The New York Times reports:
College Students Protest, Alumni’s Fondness Fades and Checks Shrink Scott MacConnell cherishes the memory of his years at Amherst College, where he discovered his future métier as a theatrical designer. But protests on campus over cultural and racial sensitivities last year soured his feelings.

Back in March, Alabama's governor, Robert Bentley, signed into law legislation that will legalize brewers' direct sale of beer to customers for home consumption. Alabama.com reported at the time:
The new law will:
  • Allow breweries that make less than 60,000 barrels per year to directly sell up to 288 ounces of its beer per customer per day for off-premise consumption.
  • Allow breweries to deliver up to two donated kegs of its beer to a licensed charity event.
  • No longer require brewpubs to open only in historic buildings, historic districts or economically distressed areas.
That "288 ounces . . . per customer per day" limitation has resulted in a proposal from Alabama's alcohol regulators that has raised more than a few eyebrows.  They want breweries to require customers provide personal information so that the breweries can provide that, along with individual sales information, to Alabama's Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Board.

Got to give Gregory Meeks credit. The Dem congressman managed to keep a straight face on MSNBC this morning while telling a string of whoppers about the Iran hostage deal. Among Meeks' laugh lines: 1. the Obama administration did not pay ransom for the release of...

What a long, strange trip this year's presidential election has become. The media (mainstream, liberal and conservative #NeverTrump) have swarmed all over Trump in the past two weeks. Some Republicans who did not previously oppose Trump also are breaking ranks and coming out against him. The media, by and large, has moved on from scrutiny of Hillary. For Trump supporters, it's confirmation of bias against him and the need to tear down the establishment in its broadest sense. For Trump opponents, it's confirmation of the reasons for their opposition. Certainly, "anything can happen." But as of now, the polls mostly look beyond horrible for Trump and have taken a nose dive. In a normal election year, it would not be worth the pixels to run a general election poll, because close to 100% of the readers would be voting for the Republican. But this is not a normal year. So, this will be our first 2016 General Election Reader Poll.

The Washington Post once again called out Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's claims that the FBI confirmed the FBI confirmed all of her public comments have "been consistent and truthful with what I've told them." Hillary responded today by saying she "short-circuited" over response:
"That's really the bottom line here. And I have said during the interview and many other occasions over the past months, that what I told the FBI, which he said was truthful, is consistent with what I have said publicly," Clinton explained Friday. "So I may have short-circuited it and for that, I, you know, will try to clarify because I think, you know, Chris Wallace and I were probably talking past each other because of course, he could only talk to what I had told the FBI and I appreciated that."

A Turkish court has officially issued an arrest warrant for Fehtullah Gülen, an Islamic scholar who resides in Pennsylvania, over the failed coup a few weeks ago. The government insists he and his followers coordinated it even though they have not given out concrete evidence. Officials have sent extradition documents to the U.S. over Gülen at least twice.

Both Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Governor Mike Pence and Trump advisor Newt Gingrich broke ranks with Trump and announced they'd be endorsing Senator John McCain and Senator Kelly Ayotte in their re-election bids. Earlier reports suggested Pence was mirroring Trump's decision to withhold endorsing the Republican Senators, but his aids later clarified:

Will Islamic terrorists launch a major pre-election attack to help elect Donald Trump? That's the scenario Donny Deutsch floated on today's Morning Joe. Deutsch is an ad man/Hamptons playboy. His pronouncements on national security and terrorism might thus be taken with a major grain of salt. But Deutsch was responding to a statement by Wapo's David Ignatius, a serious student of foreign affairs, who said a major attack could be a "game changer" that would aid Trump. Deutsch said if "the terrorists and the radical Islamists want Trump in there. And if the way Trump gets in there is a terrorist attack thus, I get scared." The always-emotive Mika Brzezinski could be heard emitting a major sigh.

A series of unsolved shootings in Phoenix, Arizona has led local authorities to believe they're dealing with a serial killer. Few things capture the eerie side of the American imagination like a a person who hunts and kills other humans. Countless books and films have been based on the subject. Still, it's a horrifying thing when it's actually happening. CNN reports:
Phoenix police: Suspected serial killer linked to 9 shootings, 7 deaths This time, the target was a car with a 4-year-old boy and his young father inside. The same man who has killed seven people has struck again, Phoenix police said Wednesday.

For years we have been documenting the efforts by anti-Israel activists to stoke racial hatred of Israel through the concept of "intersectionality" - the notion that all revolutionary struggles, particularly against racism, are connected. The almost exclusive focus, however, is Israel.  Hence, Israel is falsely blamed for local police shootings of blacks in the U.S. based upon false and misleading claims I debunked in my post, Exposed: Years-long effort to blame Israel for U.S. police shootings of blacks. The movement to connect Ferguson-to-Palestine launched after the Michael Brown shooting, and has been a singular focus of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activists ever since. Ferguson Palestine contingent