Image 01 Image 03

September 2016

President Obama is a weak leader, but then most textbook narcissists are. I get that. But Putin? A strong leader? At Wednesdays's Commander-in-Chief forum, Donald Trump cited Putin's approval ratings (because I'm sure Russian polls aren't cooked) as evidence of Putin's "strong" leadership; leadership that Trump suggested is stronger than President Obama's. While that might be true technically, are we really looking to compare the once free-world with a communist dictatorial foe? Apparently so.

Progressive students at the University of Oklahoma are unhappy about the current level of diversity at the school, which just won an award for promoting diversity. In response, some students have taken to Twitter to complain about the problem. Fox News reports, Oklahoma University students mount protest over 'otherization,' use of gender pronouns:
Students at Oklahoma University have taken to Twitter to share what they are describing as incidents of discrimination and harassment and draw attention to the university’s failed efforts to promote diversity and inclusion.
The school newspaper, OU Daily, has the story:

The opening segment of today's Morning Joe was a Niagara of negativity deluging Donald Trump, focused on his comments at the Commander-in-Chief Forum. No discussion of Hillary Clinton's newest lies about her email, and the fact that, in order to create a veil of secrecy for her Foundation malfeasance, she subverted our national security. Two examples of the extreme hostility toward Trump, coupled with a dose of Hillary-worship. Ad man Donny Deutsch detected "envy" of Putin by Trump, saying "I think he wants to be a dictator." A bit later, Mika Brzezinski sympathized with poor Hillary: she's so "incredibly prepared" to be president that she has to "dumb herself down to deal with this idiot on the other side."

When Senator Cornyn ran for re-election in 2014 he received a bevy of endorsements, but one was missing -- that of Texas' Junior Senator Cruz. Cornyn easily won the primary and went on to win the general election handily, maintaining his status as the number two ranking Senate Republican. On CNN Thursday, Cornyn indicated he has zero plans to endorse his Senate companion. Sure, it's only 2016, but Cornyn's numerous attempts to bring Cruz into the fold were repeatedly rebuffed. Their relationship was further strained when Cornyn killed a would-be Cruz filibuster over the debt ceiling.

Wow! Veteran political strategist Mary Matalin is not just "confident" that Donald Trump is going to win, she thinks he has an 85-90% chance of winning. And even that is conservative compared to the 100% chance she originally claimed during her appearance on today's With All Due Respect. Note that Matalin is not a rabid Trump partisan. To the contrary, she quit the Republican party in May, and says that rather than having a dog in the race, she has, in Trump, merely a "mini-puppy." Matalin took an amusing shot at her husband, Dem strategist James Carville. When John Heilemann said he could only imagine the fights she was having with him, Mary mockingly answered "who? Who? Is he my . . . go-to guy in politics? I don't think so."

I continue to keep an eye on the vulnerable Republicans in the Senate because the Democrats only need four seats to retake the majority. Not helpful is that Hillary and her campaign hope to raise $1 billion to help unseat vulnerable GOP senators. Their efforts may not come to fruition as Sen. Jon Tester (MT), the campaign chairman for the Senate Democrats, sounded the alarm on Wednesday. He claimed the party could only regain three seats if they held elections today.

President Obama has TOTUS (Telepromter of the United States) and his wife has Michelle Obama's Mirror. After the Commander In Chief Forum hosted by NBC and moderated by Matt Lauer, a new social media star has been born: Hillary's Ear Piece. It became a trending topic on Twitter last night:

Today Hillary Clinton decided to hold her first formal press conference...the first in 287 days. She used it to attack GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and his performance at the forum both attended Wednesday night. She also complained about the media coverage she was receiving. Not that we need to remind you, but this is also the candidate embroiled in an email scandal wherein as Secretary of State major Clinton Foundation donors reached out to her for YUGE favors and including a few instances that just might be categorized as obstruction of justice. FBI notes showed she had difficulty remembering pertinent information from briefings, didn't know how to classify documents, or that 'C' on emails meant 'confidential'.

Rasmea Odeh is the Palestinian terrorist group member convicted of the 1969 supermarket bombing in Jerusalem that killed two Hebrew University students, Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner. Rasmea was released in a prisoner exchange in 1979 for an Israeli soldier captured in Lebanon. Rasmea eventually made her way to the U.S., where she lied on both her visa and naturalization applications, by falsely stating that she never was convicted of a crime or served time in prison. She told other lies as well, such as not disclosing the time she spent in Lebanon after release from Israeli prison, or that she was a military member of the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Rasmea became a U.S. citizen in 2004 on the basis of those lies. Rasmea Odeh Naturalization Application Photo

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was a KGB spy in the 1980s, recently surfaced Soviet documents reveal. Abbas, who was a long-time aide to Yasser Arafat -- the notoriuos Godfather of Arab terrorism -- was appropriately code-named the “mole” (krotov) by his Russian handlers. Abbas was most likely recruited by the Soviet spy agency back in the early 80s when he was a Ph.D. student at a Moscow university where he was polishing his credentials as an antisemitic conspiracy theorist, needed to rise through the ranks of Arafat’s Palestinian terrorist group PLO. Abbas, leader of PLO's main faction 'Fatah', took office in 2005 and appointed himself as the 'President for Life' of the Palestinian Authority -- refusing to call for any further elections -- very much in keeping with the democratic best-practices of fellow Arab despots.

A few days ago, we reported on "Dr." Joe Scarborough declaring that Hillary Clinton "doesn't have" any health issues. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough took off his neurologist's hat and put on the campaign consultant's cap. Scarborough's advice to Hillary: refuse to answer any more questions about her emails. According to Joe, Clinton should put her answer up on her website, refer journalists to it any time they try to probe her on the matter, and "move on" to a discussion of Syria. Mike Barnicle echoed Scarborough's "move on" advice, suggesting Hillary say that if people are still concerned about her email, they should just vote for "Bozo the Clown." To his credit, Mark Halperin dissented from Scarborough's advice, saying that there are "many new questions" that have been raised about Hillary's email that she still needs to answer.