PrairiePundit

NY Times: Ohio, Long a Bellwether, Is Fading on the Electoral Map It is a jarring change for Ohio’s political veterans, who have long relished having their state at the center of the country’s presidential races. If Hillary Clinton was leading in Ohio we would see stories about how no Republican had ever won if they did not carry Ohio.  But the state is not fading, It is Hillary who is fading from contention despite a GOP governor who will not endorse Trump.

Washington Post: Clinton claims that Bush tax cuts played ‘a large part’ in sparking 2008 recession Hillary Clinton put the Bush tax cuts at the top of the list of reasons for the 2008 crash, but that's wrong. I was beginning to wonder if the fact check mafia would ever challenge her on this gross lie.  Besides being nonsensical, it was also part of the Democrat cover up for their role in causing the crisis.  Bill Clinton's administration housing policy started it by easing credit requirements for getting a mortgage. Unqualified borrowers were approved for loans they could not pay and banks were forced to make the loans or lose their charter.  Then when the system collapsed they, of course, blamed teh banks and came up with the Dodd-Frank law as a means of pushing the bogus story about the cause of the problem. It is another example of why she should not be trusted with the US economy.  She is just not that smart and she tends to lie a lot.

NY Times: I Muted Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton During the Debate. I Still Knew the Score. The idea was simple: to test the theory that what presidential candidates say during debates is less important than what they look like while they’re saying it. I have done that a lot this year mainly because both candidates suck.  When you watch Hillary on mute while giving a speech she tends to mimic Hitler's hand gestures and an angry scowl.  In a debate, she tries to be more charming when she lies. I turned the debate on briefly and there she was lying about the cause of the Great Recession.  She was making the nonsensical claim that it was caused by tax cuts.  That is absurd on its face.  In fact. it was caused by her husband's housing policies and compounded by his banking policies that forced the bank to make bad loans to people who  would not otherwise qualify for a loan in the real world.  When those people started defaulting it had a...

Fox News: Reps: Clinton aides who got immunity deals directed email scrubbing The tech specialist who scrubbed Hillary Clinton's email archive and was recently found to have sought help on Reddit for how to hide a certain "VIP's" email address was acting at the behest of Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and IT specialist Bryan Pagliano, a top House Republican charged Wednesday. "The clincher: just last week, he's going online and trying to delete these Reddit posts," Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio said of Colorado-based tech specialist Paul Combetta, who reached a limited immunity deal with the Justice Department. "He's trying to cover up his tracks, he's trying to cover up the cover up." After a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Jordan pointed to the FBI's timeline of the investigation released to Congress and to the public online. The FBI records show July 2014 was a pivotal month for Clinton's aides and support staff because tha...

Washington Free Beacon: It’s not quite D-Day, but an array of armies, militias, tribal fighters, and Western support troops are massing for their “longest day” in Mosul. Islamic State terrorists have held the historic city of Mosul for nearly two and a half years, and they have dug networks of tunnels and filled moats with crude oil to lay waste to a city that has been called an open-air museum. “Essentially, they’ve built a hell on Earth around themselves and they’re going to be in that whenever the Iraqi security forces come in there and push them out,” Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the allied coalition, said Friday via video link from Baghdad. Terrorist troop strength has been worn down by relentless attacks from the Iraqi regular army and by coalition bombing in Mosul and surrounding Nineveh Province. The number of terrorists inside the city is somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000—half the estimated number from two months ago, according to military observers. Nonetheles...

War on the Rocks: To see the future of ground combat , look no further than the tactics of Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine. Full-spectrum electronic surveillance quickly identifies Ukrainian forces by their emitted signals. Once identified, a remotely piloted vehicle or helicopter verifies the Ukrainians’ position. Shortly thereafter, massed artillery and rocket fires destroy the Ukrainian force. The war in Ukraine is not an aberration. The U.S. Army’s adversaries have carefully prepared to defeat America’s preferred tactics and systems. In the next 20 years, the Army should expect its adversaries to become adept at achieving effects based on fewer intercepted electronic signals, with greater speed and lethality, over greater distances. The old ways of warfare will largely be doomed. Lately there have been many suggestions for tactical or strategic solutions to challenges like these that the Army will face on the future battlefield. While these are useful, they address on...

streiff: The Washington Post Asks If Hillary Clinton Was An Enabler To Bill’s Serial Sexual Assaults ... In an ABC News interview, she called Flowers “some failed cabaret singer who doesn’t even have much of a résumé to fall back on.” She told Esquire magazine in 1992 that if she had the chance to cross-examine Flowers, “I mean, I would crucify her.” ... Six years later, Bill Clinton acknowledged a sexual encounter with Flowers. ... Former White House press secretary George Stephanopoulos recalled in his memoir discussing a woman’s allegation published in Penthouse Magazine. He said that after her husband dismissed it as untrue during a meeting, Hillary Clinton said, “We have to destroy her story.” ... She later admitted that it was a mistake to not settle the Paula Jones case, which led to the discovery of Clinton's affair with Lewinsky.  Actually, it was poor judgment on her part and was, in fact, a colossal mistake.   Don't forget that during the 1992 campai...

Washington Examiner: Wells Fargo Bank will pay a $4.1 million settlement as part of an agreement to settle allegations that the bank illegally repossessed 413 cars owned by members of the U.S. military, according to a press release issued Thursday. "Auto lenders cannot repossess the cars of the brave men and women who risk their lives to defend our freedom without providing them the required legal protections under the SCRA," said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Gupta was referring to the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, which protects service members from select civil proceedings, including a bank's attempt to repossess a car that was purchased before a person entered military service. As part of the agreement filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the Wells Fargo Dealer Services has also agreed to change its policies in order to adhere to the ...

Washington Examiner: Republicans in the House have proposed legislation that would eliminate the "Clinton defense," a reference to Hillary Clinton's argument that she should escape prosecution because she did not intend to violate the law when she set up her private email system and mishandled classified information. "Someone could argue the law could be called, 'We meant what we said the first time,'" Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe told the Washington Examiner in explaining his proposal, the "Classified Information Protection Act." His bill is a response to the decision of military personnel to try using the same defense when they face charges under the Federal Records Act and the Espionage Act for exposing classified information. Some of them have argued that like Clinton, they never intended to violate the law. ... This clarifies what a disgrace Clinton was when it came to the handling of classified material.

Early in his testimony Leon Rodriguez said there had been no violent acts by refugees admitted after 9-11, but upon questioning he admitted that there had been "many" convictions of refugees who plotted violent acts.  While it was not mentioned in the testimony I get the impression that most, if that all, of those convicted, were Muslims.

Fuel Fix: The move took many by surprise. OPEC members agreed Wednesday to a preliminary deal that will cut the cartel’s oil production for the first time in eight years, boosting hopes in Houston that crude prices will quickly climb above $50 a barrel and accelerate the industry’s nascent recovery. RELATED: Winners and losers in OPEC’s plan to cut production Crude prices jumped to nearly $48 a barrel on Thursday, a day after Mohammed Bin Saleh Al-Sada, president of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and energy minister of Qatar, announced the deal in Algeria. If finalized at OPEC’s November meeting, the agreement would limit output from the cartel’s 14 countries to about 33 million barrels per day – a drop of roughly 750,000 barrels per day from what OPEC said it pumped in August. RELATED: Oil prices jump on OPEC’s preliminary deal to cut production If OPEC can make good on production cuts it could bring global supplies in line with demand by the end of the year, ...

Fox News: A nearly 34-ton armored fighting vehicle-- that swims? Marines will have a new Amphibious Combat Vehicle to storm the beaches in future battles. Unveiled this week at the Modern Day Marine, the Amphibious Combat Vehicle, or the ACV 1.1, was created by BAE Systems and IVECO Defence. The vehicle combines a high degree of protection with amphibious and land capabilities. The new armored assault vehicle can launch from a ship at sea and then travel by water, ready to launch attacks on the shore. Once it reaches ground, it can chase enemy forces at 70 miles per hour and unleash some serious firepower. Currently, the Marines use options like the AAV-7A1 amphibious assault vehicle to move from ship to shore. The AAV-7A1 has been in service for about 45 years, and has undergone upgrades, but there is room for improvement and a new vehicle to meet the current and future requirements of today’s Marine Corps. The ACV 1.1 could join the Marine Corps’ Assault Amphibious Vehicle ...

NY Times: In Bruce Springsteen’s America, Many Turn Toward Donald Trump A tour of signature places from Springsteen songs about working-class whites shows enthusiasm for the Republican nominee. I do not think Bruce is on board the Trump Train but apparently, many of his fans are.  It gives you an idea of how "influential" celebrity can be when it comes to votes.

True the Vote: ... Arcan Cetin, the Turkish citizen responsible for the recent murders of five Americans at the Cascade Mall in Burlington, WA, registered to vote in US elections on September 27, 2014. Since then Cetin hasn’t missed an election. He’s cast illegal votes for years, including the 2016 Presidential Primary. And he’s proud of it! Check out his Twitter feed from 2015…. You read that right. We’ve just uncovered what could be the highest-profile individual case of noncitizen voter fraud to date. On Sunday night, True the Vote’s research team positively matched Cetin’s descriptions from media reports to a voter registration file for our database. Why did it take so long for this to be found? Because Cetin “swore" -- like everyone else who registers to vote – that he was a U.S. citizen. It wasn’t until law enforcement announced his noncitizen status that we spotted the fraud. That’s how we catch noncitizens registered to vote in this country. Seriously. ... The...

NY Times: For Some Newspapers, Endorsing Clinton Means Losing Subscribers The Arizona Republic on Tuesday joined several other publications that had broken long traditions of backing Republicans for president. The Dallas Morning News has also taken similar hits to its circulation.  I think even liberal papers are also losing credibility because of some of their attacks on Trump.  The Washington Post has lost all objectivity when it comes to the 2016 race. As readers of this blog know, I am no fan of Donald Trump.  There were probably a dozen of so other candidates in the GOP primary I thought would be better suited for the job of President.  I have certainly been critical of Trump, but mainly on the issues and his demeanor.  But, I have also pointed out when the media has made unfair attacks on Trump. Hillary Clinton is also not prize.   Her lies are much more damaging those those of Trump.  Trump tends to exaggerate to make a point.  ...

NY Times: Free Trade Has Hurt Some Workers. Now, They’re Lashing Out. Trade is under attack around the world, because economists failed to anticipate the resulting joblessness, and governments failed to help. Texas became a trade juggernaut  under the policies of Gov. Rick Perry.  It is the leading export state in the nation including tech exports.  NAFTA has become a net positive in Texas, creating thousands of jobs.  Its policies of low taxes and low regulation made it more competitive and its right to work laws made it an attractive place for domestic and foreign companies to expand and create jobs. The free trade loser states tend to be blue states with noncompetitive forced unions and a high tax high regulation economy such as Illinois and New York.  Those states have been losing jobs inside the US for decades because of these policies as manufacturing expansion took place in right to work states. The forced union model has done the opposite of w...

NY Times: Evangelicals Despair Over Trump and Jolting Change In small-town Iowa, many evangelicals say that they have no genuine champion in the presidential race and that the country has turned its back on them. While other Americans are anxious about the economy, jobs and terrorism, conservative Christians say they fear for the nation’s very soul. This was at the heart of the Cruz campaign and yet they in many cases voted for Trump instead and they should not be surprised at this point at what they got.

Comey still does not have a good answer for why he did not seek a prosecution of Clinton.

Power Line: A funny thing has happened as we approach Election Day: the issues have more or less disappeared; or, at least, the press has stopped talking about them. Donald Trump raced to the front of the GOP pack by focusing on illegal immigration. For months, liberals inside and outside of the press denounced Trump’s immigration views, accusing him of being a bigot, etc. But immigration has now disappeared from the news. In the first Clinton-Trump debate, moderator Leslie Holt never mentioned the subject. Why? Democrats understand that most voters side with Trump. Likewise with trade. Here, in my opinion, Trump is vulnerable, but the issue is still too risky for the Left. Therefore, the less said the better. How about our declining military, the Iran deal, Hillary Clinton’s criminal mishandling of classified information, the weakest recovery since WWII, stagnant wages, the war on cops and a suddenly rising crime rate, the Libya fiasco, and Obamacare, a failure by any accounti...

User Actions    Follow Donald J. Trump Verified account ‏ @ realDonaldTrump Why isn't Hillary Clinton 50 points ahead? #DebateNight RETWEETS 18,235 LIKES 33,214 7:47 PM - 26 Sep 2016 18,235 retweets 33,214 likes Reply Retweet   18K Like   33K More Calling Americans deplorable while lying to the FBI will not get you 50 points ahead.  You can check out the ad here .

A former Miss Universe who was accused of not living up to her agreement when she gained a lot of weight after winning the crown went on to a career in porn and was accused of being an accomplice in a murder.  This is the person Hillary Clinton attacked Trump for calling her "Miss Piggy." Meanwhile, those who were the victims of her husband were called by Hillary "bimbos" among other things and she defended Bill with "steely determination." This makes a mockery of her attacks on Trump's sometimes crude statements.

Dan Spencer: While most folks say Hillary Clinton won Monday's presidential debate with Donald Trump at Hofstra University in New York, she may not have won actual votes. According McClatchy, Hillary may even have lost some votes, at least in the battleground state of North Carolina. Nineteen percent of the participants in a focus group conducted by McClatchy and The Charlotte Observer who had been up for grabs before Monday's presidential debate moved away from Hillary Clinton after watching the debate.... ... The media saw the debate as hitting issues they think are important, but voters seem to have a different point of view of what is important to them.   The media tends to overlook Clinton's lies and focus on what they see as Trump lies which more often as not are just his tendency to overstate his case to make a point.

Bruce Cornibe: Hamas-Linked CAIR Wants to Treat Islamophobia as a "Public Health Issue" Mental health professionals will tell you that being critical of a group or a belief system is not a "phobia."   CAIR uses the term as a means of shutting down debate and criticism of radical Islam and those who support it. If the are going to push this phony disease as a health care issue, they should be charged with practicing medicine without a license.

Fuel Fix: A new report from the Department of Energy catalogs just how much renewable energy prices have fallen in recent years. Since 2008 – probably not coincidentally the year President Obama was elected to the White House – government analysts put the cost declines as such: Onshore wind turbines are down 41 percent Rooftop solar is down 54 percent Utility-scale solar farms are down 65 percent With falling prices has come growth that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. Last year solar panels and wind turbines accounted for more than two-thirds of the power generation installed on the U.S. grid, with wind accounting for more than 40 percent of the total, the Department of Energy reported Wednesday. ... Whatever the costs they are still inefficient.  They still have no way to modulate the output or store excess energy at a reasonable price.  They still need fossil fuel alternatives for when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining.  T...

Fox News: It turns out 1996 Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado, cited by Hillary Clinton in the first presidential debate as an example of Donald Trump's mistreatment of women, has a complicated past. Shortly after she won her crown in the late '90s, a judge in Venezuela accused Machado of threatening to kill him after he indicted her then-boyfriend for attempted murder. Machado threatened "to ruin my career as a judge and ... kill me,'' Judge Maximiliano Fuenmayor said at the time. ... She sounds like a tough gal who would not shrink in the face of insults from Trump.  She was accused by the family of attempted murder victim of driving the getaway car, but denied it and was never charged.

Washington Examiner: Secretary of State John Kerry warned Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday that the U.S. is prepared to cut off all engagement with Russia on Syria unless Russia immediately stops its assault on Aleppo. "[Kerry] stressed that the burden remains on Russia to stop this assault and allow humanitarian access to Aleppo and other areas in need," according to spokesman John Kirby in his readout of the morning phone call. "He informed the Foreign Minister that the United States is making preparations to suspend U.S.-Russia bilateral engagement on Syria – including on the establishment of the Joint Implementation Center – unless Russia takes immediate steps to end the assault on Aleppo and restore the cessation of hostilities." The new policy comes two days after Secretary of State John Kerry declared it would be "diplomatic malpractice" not to continue talks. Kerry has been trying to negotiate a peaceful end to the Syrian c...

Betsy McCaughey: Hillary Clinton boasts that her experience traveling to 112 countries as secretary of state qualifies her to be president. Don’t believe it. Evidence shows she left the State Department in shambles and our nation weaker. Her record at Foggy Bottom disqualifies her to be president. Her failures go beyond leaving four Americans to die in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, the ridiculous Russian “reset” and the carnage in Syria that she and President Obama idly watched unfold — and that gets more horrific daily. A string of investigative reports from the Obama administration shows that she botched key management jobs as secretary of state, threatening American lives and our diplomatic secrets. Clinton’s State Department repeatedly rebuffed requests for additional security for the vulnerable compound at Benghazi, Libya. The result? Heavily armed terrorists were able to storm the compound and kill Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. But Benghazi w...

NY Times: U.S.-Backed Effort to Fight Afghan Corruption Is a Near-Total Failure, Audit Finds An anti-corruption program backed by the United States has had compliance from only one of 83 officials, President Ashraf Ghani Corruption is not all that unusual in Muslim countries and it explains in large part why they are such abysmal failures.  Corruption is a form of theft from the people and is anti-capitalistic. In a successful capitalistic economy, the person with the best product at the best price get the business.  In a corrupt economy, the person who pays a bribe or uses coercion gets the business and has no incentive to sell the best product at the best price. This is another reason that Afghanistan sucks as a place to do business.

NY Times: Russia Implicated in Shooting Down Jet Over Ukraine Russian-backed separatists asked for and received a surface-to-air missile that was used to shoot down a Malaysia Airlines flight in 2014, killing 298 people, a Dutch-led investigation concluded. Will the Russians be sued by relatives of the ensuing crash?  Lawfare may be the only route for seeking justice against this atrocity.

Tim Carney: "But, judges!" This is just about the only argument conservatives can make these days when trying to convince other conservatives to vote for a pro-choice, thrice-married, serial-philandering, Clinton-donating, factually challenged, eminent-domain abusing, pro-corporate welfare, crony capitalist con-man Donald Trump. Most recently, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told conservatives to walk the party line in November because Trump — whom he has called a "pathological liar" — has promised to nominate good judges. Cruz articulated the argument well: "For anyone concerned about the Bill of Rights — free speech, religious liberty, the Second Amendment — the Court hangs in the balance. We are only one justice away from losing our most basic rights, and the next president will appoint as many as four new justices. We know, without a doubt, that every Clinton appointee would be a left-wing ideologue." ... I have described Trump as someone who might n...

Todd Starnes: If Trump's record on women is fair game, then so is Hillary's... She has said far worse things about Bill's "bimbos"  as well as taking money from regimes that treat women like second class citizens and sometimes like chattel.  But, hey, she is a champion for an overweight Playboy model.

Fuel Fix: The oil industry has been saying for months that the worst of the oil bust is over. Now the Fed is too . Tuesday, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas said that jobs in the state increased 3.2 percent in July and 2.6 percent in August — outpacing the nation and improving “significantly” in recent months. “We’ve been encouraged by this because it suggests that the worst of the energy crisis may be over,” said Fed economist Pia Orrenius. Orrenius noted that the jobs uptick was across sectors, from services to good-producers. But, “most remarkably,” she said, oil and gas employment in August also increased. And while by just a tick — 1.2 percent — it was a phenomenon unseen since 2014. ... The Texas economy has shown resilience throughout the oil slump with its unemployment rate being below the national average for the entire slump.  Drilling activity is certainly picking up especially in the Permian Basin of West Texas.

Heather MacDonald: Hillary’s Debate Lies With her comments about crime, policing, and race, the candidate helps push a false—and dangerous—narrative. Hillary Clinton repeated her incessant lie last night that the criminal justice system is infected with “systemic racism.” Race “determines” how people are “treated in the criminal justice system,” she said. Blacks are “more likely [than whites] to be arrested, charged, convicted and incarcerated” for “doing the same thing.” Such a dangerous falsehood, should Clinton act on it as president, would result not just in misguided policies but in the continued delegitimation of the criminal justice system. That delegitimation, with its attendant hostility and aggression toward police officers, has already produced the largest one-year surge in homicides in urban areas in nearly a half-century. ... There is much more. It is important to push back against these liberal lies.  She also lied about the economy and the cause of the...

Joel Kotkin: Cities, noted René Descartes, should provide “an inventory of the possible,” a transformative experience—and a better life—for those who migrate to them. This was certainly true of seventeenth-century Amsterdam, about which the French philosopher was speaking. And it’s increasingly true of Texas’s fast-growing metropolises—Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio. In the last decade, these booming cities have created jobs and attracted new residents—especially young families and immigrants—at rates unmatched by coastal metropolitan areas. Approximately 80 percent of all population growth in the Lone Star State has been in the four large metropolitan areas since 2000. Texas now boasts two of the nation’s five largest metros, the first time any state has enjoyed that distinction. At its current rate of growth, Houston could replace Chicago as the nation’s third-largest city by 2030, and the Dallas–Fort Worth region could surpass Chicagoland as the nation’s third...

NY Times: Prison Sentence for Trying to Destroy a Culture: 9 Years A member of a jihadist group linked to Al Qaeda was sentenced to nine years in prison, in the International Criminal Court’s first prosecution of the destruction of cultural heritage as a war crime. This is true of every jihadi group.  They are trying to destroy western culture and impose their own failed culture on the world.  Even the non-violent ones are trying to impose their weird culture on the world.  They also resist assimilation when they immigrate to non-Muslim countries.

Washington Post: U.S. charges four people and a firm — all based in China — with aiding North Korea’s nuclear program The unsealing of criminal charges and the imposition of new sanctions are aimed at shutting down a major Chinese node supporting North Korea’s weapons proliferation, officials said. The question now becomes will the Chicoms extradite those charged with helping Nork Korea make banned weapons. They have not aways been helpful in such cases.

NY Times: Unrelenting Assault on Aleppo Is Called Worst Yet in Syria’s Civil War Residents and rescuers described the bombardment as among the worst yet in the five-year war. The Syrians and Russians are destroying much of what is left of Aleppo in order to reimposed Assad's government  reach to what was once an important city inside Syria.  Once utterly destroyed, who is going to pay to put it back together.  The Arab countries are not going to do so and Syria does not have the money anymore.  Russia is burning through its reserves because of the drop in the price of oil.  The West is unlikely to pay for any restoration as long as Assad remains in power.  It has become a fight over the rubble.

War Is Boring: Turkish Tanks Take a Pounding in Syria Rebels armed with guided missiles punish Ankara’s tank force The outdated tanks are at a disadvantage when faced with modern missile technology.  It is a long piece that is an interesting dissection of the troubles Turkey has run into in Syria.

Daily Caller: Hillary’s Solar Panel Plan Is Basically A $206 Billion Handout To China, Report Finds Solar has a long way to go before it can be a dependable source of power for the grid.  Current technology has no good war of modulating the output and there are times when it is not producing at all.  So far, there are no good economic means of storing excess energy.  Why trade dependency of foreign oil for dependency on  foreign solar panels?

Daily Beast: If You Knew Putin Like We Know Putin… Estonia’s president and Lithuania’s foreign minister talk to The Daily Beast about the menace Moscow poses to them, Europe, and the United States. ... (Estonian President) Toomas Ilves : We’ve been facing this dezinformatsiya [disinformation] ever since our independence, in many ways already before that. I remember as an ambassador — in ‘93, ‘94, ‘95 — in Washington, constantly having to defend myself or my country at the State Department in the face of completely outrageous and nonsense claims made against it. People took seriously outright lies. On Donald Trump’s questioning of whether or not the United States would defend an invaded NATO ally, as mandated by Article V of the Atlantic Charter, and his supporter Newt Gingrich’s recent comments that ‘Estonia is in the suburbs of St. Petersburg.’ Ilves : It was just odd, having been the ambassador to the United States in 1994 when the “Contract for America” was introduced [by...

Kira Davis: Trump Hits Hillary On Economy: You’ve Been Doing This For 30 Yrs, Why Are You Only Thinking About This Now? He went on to explain why Democrat tax policy was forcing businesses out of the US.

Eli Lake: ... "The other day, I saw Donald saying there were some Iranian sailors on a ship and they were taunting American sailors. 'If they taunted our sailors, I would blow them out of the water' and start another war?," she asked. ... These incidents have so alarmed General Joseph Votel, the commander of U.S. Central Command, that he told reporters this month that he worried about a miscalculation. "If they continue to test us, we are going to respond, and we are going to protect ourselves and our partners." Clinton presumably wasn't trying to diminish General Votel and the risk he is seeing. A big part of Clinton's pitch to voters on national security is that she understands the world and how it works, whereas Trump is a dangerous amateur who doesn't grasp the basics about everything from the U.S. nuclear posture to our systems of alliances. It would behoove her to take Iran's aggression seriously, and to tell Trump that those are...

I think Trump is wrong on his trade policy and his belief in tariffs as a mean of stopping companies from producing goods in other countries.  When it comes to the economics of trade he is just not that well informed. But Clinton's response was even worse.  She blamed the recession on Bush tax policies which had nothing to do with it.  The recession was caused by Democrat housing policies and banking regulations which forced banks to make bad loans to people who were not able to pay.   As those people defaulted it had a cascading effect on the housing market in several states and put great stress on the banking system that had been forced to make the bad loans. The Bush tax policy actually created many more jobs than have been created under Obama. The Democrats tried to cover up their terrible housing policy by blaming it on the banks and coming up with the onerous Dodd-Frank regulations that hurt small banks and small business. But you can tell her first ins...

Daily Mail: Leaked FBI documents show that more than  7,000 'terrorist encounters' occurred within the US in a year - and states bordering Mexico were mostly targeted More than 7,000 terrorist encounters have occurred within a single year in the US, according to leaked FBI documents. Most of the incidents took place in Phoenix, Arizona, the data shows. So why do the Democrats oppose immigration enforcement?  It looks like they are not interested in keeping US citizens safe.

Daily Mail: Cross-dressing ISIS monster is caught trying to sneak out of re-captured Iraqi town wearing drag - and carrying a USB packed with names of jihadists Abu Omar al-Assafi was installed by ISIS to govern Sharqat in northern Iraq after the terror group swept through the country in 2014. This is not a good sign for ISIL and appears to be a potential intelligence coup that could tell what ISIL agents remain in place.

Washington Post: Trump directed millions owed to him to his tax-exempt foundation Donald Trump’s charitable foundation has received approximately $2.3 million from companies that owed money to Trump or one of his businesses but were instructed to pay Trump’s tax-exempt foundation instead, according to people familiar with the transactions. I guess Trump's opponents wanted him to first donate money to their favorite charity, the IRS.   The Clinton Foundation took money from foreign countries and then paid themselves salaries from it and liberals are OK with that?

Stephen Moore: 'Bernie' Clinton's Massive Tax Hike Is Based On Greed And Envy Greed A selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed. ‎ A continual lust for more. Envy A feeling of resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions or qualities or wealth. Someone might want to tell Hillary Clinton that greed and envy are two of the seven deadly sins. She's guilty of both. ... It is a liberal disease.  When it comes to other people's money liberals are the greediest people in the country.  i have been complaining about greedy liberals for a long time.  It is nice to see people like Moore recognize the problem.

Washington Times: Retired electrician Dave Estadt, a registered Democrat who lives in the suburbs of this solidly Democratic city, said he grew more certain in recent days about voting for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump — but he is not there yet. Voters such as Mr. Estadt are helping Mr. Trump significantly cut into Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton ’s poll lead in the crucial Keystone State. He also is the type of voter with whom Mr. Trump will be trying to close the deal in the first presidential debate Monday. SEE ALSO: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump nearly tied in Pennsylvania, Colorado: polls “I don’t agree with everything he says, but I don’t agree with anything Hillary says,” said Mr. Estadt, 64. “She’ll be a continuation of Obama. I think he’s been an absolutely horrible president.” Like many other voters this year, Mr. Estadt called it a choice for the “lesser of two evils.” The race has tightened in Pennsylvania, and both candidates have poured resources i...

Washington Post: Trump’s reference to Bill Clinton affair underscores his own history of infidelity Some say suggesting Hillary Clinton is somehow to blame for her husband’s extramarital affair will hurt Trump with women. Trump has used Clinton's infidelity a few times during the campaign to point out Hillary Clinton's "Bimbo Eruption" hypocrisy on the issue.  Whenever she attacks Trump on women's issues he reminds voters of her own role in covering up Bill's misconduct.

NY Times: Writer Charged With Insulting Islam Is Killed as Extremism Boils Over in Jordan Nahed Hattar, who was recently arrested after sharing a cartoon on Facebook that offended some Muslims, was killed outside a court in Amman. This explains why much of the media is reluctant to criticize the excesses of Islamic radicals but does not give a second thought to criticism of much more benign  aspects of Christians.  Apparently, Islam is much too fragile to survive a cartoon.

Mark Pulliam: Red State, Blue Cities Will the Texas model become a victim of its own success? This is a long piece that explains not only the success of the Texas model, but how it is being undermined by liberal city polices.  It is worth the read.