PrairiePundit

Washington Post: At least one dead, buildings flattened as Harvey hits Texas coast More Photos 1  of 11 Heavy damage to houses in Rockport. (AFP/Getty Images) The storm caused destruction in the small city of Rockport, where the mayor confirmed one fatality, and it dumped what could be catastrophic amounts of rain on the battered central Texas coast. Officials say they expect to find further victims as search and rescue operations proceed. More than 200,000 people across the state were without power, and some wastewater and drinking water treatment plants were offline. Some areas have had significant property damage along the coast but so far the response from all levels of Texas government has been significant.  There are no reports of looting or rioting as Texans go about the business of cleaning up and preparing to avoid flood waters from the rain dump.  The T...

NY Times: Trump’s Pardon of Arpaio Follows, but Challenges, the Law Legal experts said they were troubled by President Trump’s move to excuse the lawlessness of an official who had sworn to defend the constitutional structure. It was Obama's disrespect for the law that moved Arpaio to crack down on the plague of illegal immigrants in his area.  Legal experts should have been more concerned about Obama's lawlessness when it came to his failure to faithfully execute the laws.  The case that the Obama administration brought against Arpaio was in the service of Obama's lawlessness.  Trump was right to correct this injustice.

George Neumeyer: Among the self-appointed commissars of the culture, the hatred for Trump assumes the dimensions of a psychiatric disorder. But like the Soviet commissars of old, they don’t treat their own delusions. They instead rant and rant about the mental health of “dissenters,” those deplorables who refuse to conform to the dogmas of the commissars. As the unreconstructed liberal columnist Anthony Lewis once sputtered, America needs a “new people.” It must come as bitter news to the commissars that most Americans, according to the latest polling, have no interest in joining their frenzied assault upon Robert E. Lee. The commissars have had to content themselves with ugly little victories in university towns and urban hellholes. Just visit Baltimore if you want to see what the left’s “fundamentally transformed America” looks like. Its hoodlums and political class are barely distinguishable. Both are drunk on decades of lying PC victimology, out of which has come a criminal s...

Washington Post: Mueller’s team issues subpoenas to lobbying firms as part of Russia probe The special counsel’s investigation is zeroing in on the finances of Michael Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, and Paul Manafort, former chairman of the Trump presidential campaign. He seems to be ignoring an important aspect of Russian interference with the election and focusing too much on Trump aids while ignoring potential Democrats collusion with Russia.  Could it be because he has hired too many Democrat partisans for the probe instead of pursuing an impartial investigation?

NY Times: Gary Cohn, Trump’s Adviser, Said to Have Drafted Resignation Letter After Charlottesville The president’s chief economic adviser was anguished over Mr. Trump’s comments about violence in Charlottesville, but ultimately decided to remain in his job. I think Cohn has been a good member of the Trump team, but I don't see what his concern was over the President's response to events in Charlottesville.  Liberals attempted to mad dog Trump over his true statements that both sides were at fault.  I suspect Cohn's liberal New York friends may have been mad dogging him too in hopes of forcing him out. If you look at a tick-tock of events in Charlottesville it is clear that the Antifa liberal fascists went there to force a confrontation and did so.  The unfortunate results of the violence they participated in resulted in a guy with alleged mental health problems acting irrationally and being charged with vehicular homicide. Trump condem...

NY Times: Trump Pardons Former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio Mr. Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff who built a national reputation for his efforts to hunt and detain undocumented immigrants, had been convicted of criminal contempt. I think Arpaio was a victim of Obama's hatred of enforcing immigration laws.  Obama's antipathy for enforcing those laws had a deleterious effect on Arizona and its legal citizens of all ethnicities.  The prosecution would have only made sense if Arpaio was detaining people in this country legally or were citizens. He was the victim of Democrat politics that favored law breakers.  If Obama had been doing his job of faithfully executing his office and enforcing the laws, Arpaio would not have been put in that position in the first place.

Houston Chronicle: Hurricane Harvey barreled into the Texas coast around 10 p..m. Friday as one of the most powerful hurricanes to strike the Texas coast in decades. The storm has now weakened to a Category 1 storm with 90 mph winds and is expected to continue to weaken, becoming a tropical storm later on Saturday. Here is the latest on forecasts, evacuations, closures, damage, flooding and more as the storm nears the Texas coast. ... Across the Rockport area, there were reports of damaged buildings, including a high school. People were believed to be trapped in multiple buildings and some structures collapsed with people inside, according to preliminary reports. A part of the high school's roof is reportedly caved in, Rockport's volunteer fire department told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. The department will not assess damage until rescues are completed, which would be when wind speeds have diminished below 45 mph, the newspaper reported. ... Catastrophic floodi...

Gov. Abbott describes the danger posed by this storm which could result in rainfall of more than 40 inches and the storm surge could make the runoff of the rainfall take much longer leading to flooding in several areas. This is a huge storm.  It is already causing a storm surge from Corpus Christi to Galveston and beyond.  I live over a hundred miles from Galveston and over 200 miles from Corpus Christi and the cloud cover and wind from the storm are already evident outside.  With the storm lingering for a week or so it will make movement very difficult.  Keeping the power on is a major concern and with the heavy rain, it will likely block Direct TV assuming the power is on.

Fox News: The upcoming bribery trial for New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez could have damaging consequences for his party whether or not he's convicted, by sidelining him from Congress just as Democrats gear up to fight the Trump agenda. The senator is now pleading with a federal judge to alter the trial schedule on certain days so he can return to Washington to vote. So far, however, the court has rejected these requests, which the Trump Justice Department has decried as a bid for "special treatment." The timing of the trial, set to begin Sept. 6, is critical. It would fall as Congress returns from the August recess and Republicans prepare to vote on President Trump’s legislative agenda -- potentially covering everything from tax reform to health care to the budget and debt ceiling. Neither party can afford to lose a single member from the Senate floor. Republicans hold a slim 52-48 majority, and it’s possible the absence of a single reliable Democratic v...

Washington Post: CIA director’s close ties to Trump prompt what-ifs inside agency CIA director Mike Pompeo has taken a special interest in an agency unit that is tied to the investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, requiring the unit to report directly to him. Current and former officials said that the arrangement has been a source of apprehension among the CIA’s upper ranks and that they could not recall a time in the agency’s history when a director faced a comparable conflict. I think this is called management.  I suspect the Post is upset because it is harder for people to violate the law by leaking things to it.  When you consider how misleading some of the leaks were, Pompeo's management should be seen as a good thing.

NY Times: Democrats Search for a Response After Charlottesville Violence On Thursday, Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, called for the disbanding of President Trump’s “election integrity” panel, the latest response to racial violence. This is an absurd suggestion.  Violence perpetrated by liberals fascists and statue supporters has zero to do with election integrity.  The Democrats seem desperate for any excuse to avoid disclosure of vote fraud. There is already evidence that there are over three million more people registered to vote than are eligible.  Democrats just want to keep their options open for cheating.

NY Times: Spending Threat Over Border Wall a Gift for Democrats Mr. Trump’s vow to shut down the government if he doesn’t get money for a border wall would allow Democrats to blame the president for any interruption in services. I can guarantee you that if a Democrat were President and Republicans opposed spending he wanted the Democrats would blame Republicans for shutting down government.  With Trump demanding spending, they do not want, they still blame Republicans.  Their hypocrisy is non-stop whatever the situation when it comes to spending and government shutdowns. When Obama vowed a government shutdown if he did not get spending for his terrible health care law the Democrats blamed Ted Cruz and other Republicans. Trump should accuse them of the shut down because they oppose the border fence that voters want.

Red States: Legal Genius Kamala Harris: Trump Should Not Pardon Joe Arpaio Because . . . He Committed A Crime Isn't that the purpose of a pardon?  I am of the opinion that the judicial order he was accused of violating was illegal, to begin with.

Washington Free Beacon: Companies Distancing Themselves From Trump Administration Still Doing Business With Iranian Regime Accusations of hypocrisy as U.S. companies move away from Trump, pursue ties with Iran US companies should not be engaging in commerce with governments that wish the US harm.

Vance Ginn and Elliott Raia: ... The Texas model of low taxes, relatively less government spending, and sensible regulations provides a good guide. During the last two legislative sessions, there’s been a push to pass a “Conservative Texas Budget,” whereby spending growth increases by no more than state population growth plus general price inflation. Fortunately, the state legislature has taken steps to passing two such budgets in a row. These allowed for $4 billion in tax and fee relief in the 2015 session and budget growth of less than 4.5 percent during the upcoming 2018-19 period. Texans are rewarded for this fiscal conservatism. Texas has created almost 30 percent of the increase in U.S. employment since the start of the Great Recession, stayed below a five percent unemployment rate for three straight years, and had lower supplemental poverty and less economic inequality than comparable states — California, New York, and Florida. Moreover, Texas was the top state for net dome...

Ted Cruz: Yesterday's decision to strike down Texas' commonsense Voter ID law undermines the rule of law and frustrates Texas’s responsibility to preserve the integrity of its elections. As the Supreme Court explained in Crawford v Marion County, "flagrant examples of [voter] fraud . . . have been documented throughout this Nation’s history by respected historians and journalists [and] demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election." Voter fraud diminishes confidence in our democratic process, and minority voters are far too frequently the victims of that fraud. The Voter ID law is a commonsense protection to safeguard the rights of every Texan and to prevent illegal voter fraud. The district judge's opinion to the contrary violates Supreme Court precedent, and I trust that the Fifth Circuit will reverse it on appeal. This looks like another bad faith example by the left to thwart voter i...

Long War Journal: Mapping terrorist groups openly operating inside Pakistan ... Pakistan’s denial is laughable on its face . For decades, the country has permitted a number of jihadist groups to openly operate under its aegis. Many of these groups – such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harakat-ul-Muhahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Hizbul Mujahideen, and Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami – were created with the support of Pakistan’s military and the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate. A map depicting the location some of these groups have known to operate from is embedded to illustrate the support Trump spoke about. Pakistan helped create these groups with the idea that they would focus their activities against Indian forces in the state of Jammu and Kashmir to help bring down the country’s most critical enemy in India. Instead, these groups quickly became part of the South Asia jihadist network and allied themselves with the Taliban and al Qaeda. Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was even formed at the behe...

Benny Avni: A new United Nations report detailing chemical arms-related shipments from North Korea to Syria raises one big unanswered question: Who finances such illegal weapons deals? After all, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad has very few financial resources of its own, and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is known to use illicit sales of military wares to help bypass international sanctions targeting his country’s legitimate exports, and to finance his grip on power. In the past, one of Assad’s strongest supporters, Iran, has been suspected of financing arms deals between Syria and North Korea. Separately, the Islamic Republic reportedly has cooperated with North Korea in developing nuclear- and missile-related armaments . Iran’s military involvement supporting the Assad regime in Syria, as well the growing military presence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iranian proxy militias in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and all the way to Afghanistan, has worried rival Sunni regi...

Eddie Scarry: Many in the national media are worried that President Trump's continued broadsides against the press will inspire violence against reporters, even as vocal opponents of the White House on the Left have encouraged assault or directly attacked some journalists. On Trump's rhetoric, New York Times media columnist Jim Rutenberg asked Wednesday night, "How long before someone is seriously hurt, or worse?" Jim VandeHei, founder of the news website Axios, told Rutenberg for his column that Trump is directly "putting reporters at real risk of retribution or violence." Trump has long complained about the media's coverage of him as being "unfair" and "fake" but he turned up his aggression during a campaign-style rally Tuesday in Phoenix. There, he vented about the press being "divisive" following the violence in Charlottesville, Va. "I really think they don't like our country," Trump said of repor...

Guardian: Turd Reich: San Francisco dog owners lay minefield of poo for rightwing rally ‘I just had this image of alt-right people stomping around in the poop,’ says the organizer of an unusual protest ahead of Saturday’s Patriot Prayer rally This is depravity on a juvenile scale.  Left wing tolerance for other ideas stinks.