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The ‘Politically Obsessed’ and the Rest of Us Plus, more evidence of a strong economy. James Freeman

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-politically-obsessed-and-the-rest-of-us-1535564601

The Tuesday winners in Florida’s gubernatorial primary elections will offer Sunshine State voters a stark philosophical choice. Conservative Rep. Ron DeSantis (R) will face Sandernista Andrew Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee.

But Floridians and voters elsewhere may not have much interest in such choices. Pollster Scott Rasmussen writes today:

For many obsessed with politics, the upcoming midterm elections are perceived as a fight between good and evil that will determine the fate of the nation… Most Americans (54%) don’t fit into that narrative. Just 27% Strongly Disapprove of the president and believe things would be better if Hillary Clinton had been elected. On the other side, 19% Strongly Approve of the president and believe things would be worse if Hillary Clinton was living in the White House today. The rest have more mixed views.

This eight-point advantage among committed voters is the reason that Democrats are expected to do well in the midterm elections this November. In the House of Representatives, likely outcomes range from Democrats falling just short of winning control to a Big Blue Wave earning a significant majority.

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Martha McSally Easily Bests Arpaio and Ward in Arizona Senate GOP Primary By Jack Crowe

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/martha-mcsally-easily-bests-arpaio-and-ward-in-arizona-senate-primary/

Representative Martha McSally (R., Ariz.) handily beat state senator Kelli Ward and former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio with more than 50 percent of the vote in the Arizona Republican Senate primary on Tuesday night.

McSally, a former Air Force colonel, was widely considered the establishment favorite and Republicans’ best chance for victory in the upcoming general election.

The candidacies of Arpaio, the outspoken anti-immigration activist pardoned by President Trump earlier this year, and Ward, who courted controversy by appearing on conspiracy-mongering Internet programs such as Alex Jones’s Infowars, represented a swing toward the far-right populism of the Trump era.

In an effort to avoid the selection of a candidate considered toxic among the general electorate, out-of-state GOP groups donated heavily to McSally’s campaign. DefendArizona, a PAC established by establishment Republicans specifically to prevent a populist insurgency, spent more than $4 million to ensure her victory.

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ELECTIONS ARE COMING-ARIZONA

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/08/28/arizona-us-senate-primary-election-results-2018-ward-arpaio-mcsally-sinema-abboud/1047696002/

U.S. Rep. Martha McSally, a two-term congresswoman from Tucson, defeated her Republican rivals, former state Sen. Kelli Ward of Lake Havasu City and former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Fountain Hills, according to unofficial results from the Secretary of State.

Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, who has served three terms and is from Phoenix, also defeated her rival, Deedra Abboud, a progressive activist and attorney from Scottsdale.

The Associated Press called the races for McSally and Sinema.

President Donald Trump, whose presence has loomed over the Senate race, congratulated McSally in a late-night tweet while bashing U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, who announced his retirement last fall.

“Martha McSally, running in the Arizona Primary for U.S. Senate, was endorsed by rejected Senator Jeff Flake….and turned it down — a first! Now Martha, a great U.S. Military fighter jet pilot and highly respected member of Congress,WINS BIG. Congratulations, and on to November!”

With McSally and Sinema the apparent nominees, Arizona voters are on track to elect their first woman senator.

Either party has a good chance of winning, analysts say, worrying Republicans while giving Democrats credible hope of gaining a statewide foothold. CONTINUE AT SITE

MEDIA Comments turned off

If You Want To Know Why Conservatives Don’t Trust Media, Watch CNN Trump’s hyperbole has currency because the media often live up to conservatives’ worst expectations. By David Harsanyi

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/29/why-conservatives-dont-trust-media-cnn/

On July 27, CNN reported that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, would be willing to tell Special Counsel Robert Mueller that the president knew in advance of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his campaign and a Kremlin-linked lawyer who was allegedly selling dirt on Hillary Clinton. This revelation not only contradicted Trump’s denials, but also Cohen’s testimony to Congress. It was quite the exclusive—the closest we’ve come to ferreting out “collusion” since the last time CNN botched a big scoop.

The story, bylined by Carl Bernstein, Marshall Cohen, and former Obama administration political appointee Jim Sciutto, cited numerous “sources” with knowledge of the supposed bombshell. The Washington Post, chasing the same story, soon outed Cohen’s lawyer, the preternaturally mendacious Lanny Davis, as the source of the contention.

But Davis was forced to walk back the claim, first conceding that he “should have been more clear” and that he “could not independently confirm what happened,” and then he sort of apologized. (It’s worth noting that anyone who trusts Davis as a primary source for any story is likely to be either consciously allowing themselves to be duped or irreparably incompetent.)

Well, on Monday BuzzFeed ran another article in which Davis admitted to being CNN’s source as well, even though the network had initially claimed that Davis had declined to comment for the article—which turns out not only to be untrue but a ham-fisted way to hide the story’s origin.

“We stand by our story, and are confident in our reporting of it,” the network responded. Brian Stelter, CNN’s sometimes censorious media reporter, argued that “pro-Trump web sites are claiming that the CNN story was a ‘lie,’ and that it’s been ‘debunked.’ They might want it to be ‘debunked,’ but it’s not. The critics don’t know who CNN’s sources were.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel Wrestles With Nationalism and Freedom By Peter Berkowitz

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

TEL AVIV — In mid-July, by a vote of 62-55, with two abstentions, the Knesset passed the Basic Law on Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People. The legislation — Basic Laws in Israel enjoy constitutional status although only a simple parliamentary majority is needed to pass or repeal them — reaffirmed principles set forth in the country’s May 1948 Declaration of Independence. Nevertheless, the nation-state law has occasioned bitter controversy here. With a nationalist-infused populism roiling the United States, Britain, and Europe, the Israeli debate over the aspiration, inscribed in the country’s founding, to combine nationalism and liberal democracy has implications that transcend the Jewish state.

On Aug. 13, Haaretz contributor Uzi Baram excoriated the new law and its architects. “The nation-state law is not only an unnecessary law, it is an abhorrent law,” he stated, speaking for many on the left. It “was the product of an ultranationalist government, led by the religious right,” and was intended “to divide the public, exclude minorities and undermine the Arabic language.”

On Aug. 16 in Haaretz, Haim Ramon, a man of the center-left, published a sharp reply that gave expression to a Zionist sensibility that extends beyond Israel’s center-right. A former vice prime minister and minister of justice, he emphasized that Israel’s 1992 Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty “granted equal rights to every person in the state of Israel in the spirit of Israel’s values as a Jewish and democratic state.” But it was incomplete: “whereas the law on human dignity and liberty elaborated the individual’s rights in a democratic state, it did not elaborate the practical significance of the state’s Jewish character.” The nation-state law remedies that deficiency. It “does not come to bury the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty but to complete it.”

Whatever the actual legislative intentions and legal implications, the new Basic Law aggravated a sense of second-class citizenship among Israel’s minorities. This month Arabs, who constitute a little over 20 percent of the citizenry and who rarely serve in the army, and Druze, who represent about 1.5 percent and generally serve, attracted tens of thousands of protesters to separate political rallies in downtown Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square — the country’s premier venue for demonstrations— to decry the law.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

These are the real scandals plaguing our country Michael Goodwin

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

https://nypost.com/2018/08/28/these-are-the-real-scandals-plaguing-our-country/

Not so long ago, editors and reporters dreaded the dog days of August because news took a vacation. Now the news never stops.

The challenge today is to make sense of the gusher of apocalyptic-sounding eruptions, claims and predictions. Here’s my view of what’s happening to our country.

America is being scandalized by four enormous events that are happening simultaneously. By scandalized, I mean that people are shocked and outraged at what they regard as breaches of acceptable behavior or morality.

That wouldn’t be a problem if the vast majority were scandalized by the same things. That’s not the America we have. The vicious polarization stems from the fact that the country is split almost exactly in half over what people are outraged about.

The first scandalizing event is Donald Trump — his candidacy, his election and his presidency. And, on some days to some people, his existence.

They have a point — up to a point. Trump is unlike any president in history, taking the Oval Office after a notorious business career and personal life. And it’s not as if he folded into the mold once he got elected, though his policies are more conventional that his personality.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Lanny Davis is more proof 2018 is year of lawyers living dangerously By Jonathan Turley

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

http://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/404073-lanny-davis-is-more-proof-2018-is-year-of-lawyers-living-dangerously

For lawyers, it has been a year of living dangerously. The scandals swirling around Washington have left a pile of attorneys accused of false statements, leaks or other improper conduct. The latest casualty appears to be Lanny Davis, who just admitted to not only spreading a false story but then lying about being its source.

Only recently, Davis — a Democratic stalwart who has been a close adviser to the Clintons — announced that he would represent President Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, free of charge. Davis has steered Cohen into a 180-degree turn from Trump loyalist to chief accuser. He suggested that Cohen could implicate Trump in crimes touching on obstruction, collusion and campaign-finance violations. He caused a firestorm nationally when he suggested Trump knew in advance about Russian hacking of Clinton campaign and Democratic Party emails and also approved the infamous meeting with Russian representatives in Trump Tower.

At the same time, Davis attacked Trump and his counsel as liars, proclaiming that his defense of Cohen is powerfully simple — “it’s about truth, and the power of the truth is what Michael Cohen now has no matter what … Mayor (Rudy) Giuliani invents for a president who’s been known to lie.”

MEDIA Comments turned off

How Social Media Collusion Censors Speech By Christopher Roach

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/29/how-social-media-

Whether it is Twitter’s “shadowban,” Facebook’s news-sifting algorithm, or YouTube’s concern for user “safety,” social media gatekeeping is now deployed shamelessly in the service of leftist politics. The latest victim is Alex Jones. While he is bombastic, prone to conspiracy theories, and, um, loud, that’s not why they banned him. He supports President Trump and is a critic of elite conventional wisdom. That’s his crime.

The Establishment Is Trying to Prevent a Repeat of 2016
In the early days of the World Wide Web—almost 20 years ago now—the watchword was freedom, whether freedom from censorship, freedom from local governments’ sales taxes, or freedom from government surveillance. The emerging tech companies then expressed reasonable concern that restrictions from these quarters would cripple the industry, defeating the emerging benefits of the instantaneous, nearly anonymous, and highly connected network that is the internet.

Then the election of 2016 happened. It was a wake up call to the tech world’s emerging establishment. It particularly traumatized those who thought Obama’s election was a permanent elevation of his politics, his style, as well as the “emerging majority” that brought him to power.

As they previously have done in talk radio, on social media the far right has shown acumen and effectiveness. While this may seem merely like preaching to the converted, it also encourages supporters and the uncommitted by undermining the dominant Left’s pretentions of inevitability and unanimity. Twitter in particular was a great equalizer. Whether president or peon, the accounts looked the same. It soon was overrun by a highly motivated army of right-leaning critics and trolls, hilarious anonymous memes, Pepe the Frog, Trump’s Taco Bowl, and, ultimately, their collective efforts contributed to his electoral victory.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Under Fire for the Faith in Nigeria Jihad’s genocide against Christians ensues unabated.

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271141/under-fire-faith-nigeria-jack-kerwick

Recently, via social media, I’ve become friends with a Catholic priest in Nigeria. Because of the brutal persecution to which Christians in his country are routinely subjected by Muslims, I will not disclose his name. Just a couple of days ago, he posted on his Facebook page a link to a story regarding a fellow Nigerian priest, a man of God who was doing some shopping at the local market for the poor when Muslim gunmen shot him dead.

Knowing that I’ve made it a mission of sorts to draw what attention I can to the plight of persecuted Christians throughout the world, particularly throughout the Middle East and Africa, my new friend private messaged me, thanking me for my “love.” He also underscored the unadulterated evil of Islamic-on-Christian oppression in his country, adding: “The Muslims want our lives!”

On August 18, Father Michael Akawu, “the first indigenous priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, was gunned down in cold blood while shopping at a “supermarket” in Gwagwalada, a suburb of Akawu.

Father Michael was ordained as recently as February of last year.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Is the Deep State Winning? The stakes if it is. Bruce Thornton

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271142/deep-state-winning-bruce-thornton

By any reasonable standard, the presidency of Donald Trump has so far been a success. After eight years of Barack Obama’s sluggish recovery from the 2008 Great Recession, the economy is “blistering,” as MarketWatch put it, its vigorous growth creating jobs, raising incomes, and lifting the market’s “animal spirits.” Abroad, the “kick me” sign Obama and the progressives hung on America’s back is gone, with allies, rivals, and enemies alike now taking us seriously as the indispensable world power to treat with respect, rather than a daft rich uncle to bully and fleece.

Yet despite all these reasons for feeling good about the country’s getting its mojo back, the current mood is one of crisis and hysteria. We’re consumed by a special counsel’s show trials of marginal Trump associates whose actions had no material impact on the election or the public weal. Appointed to investigate “collusion” with Russia and foreign interference in our election, all that the two-bit Javert Robert Mueller can come up with are paltry financial crimes and duplicitous perjury traps. Consequential developments abroad, such as Turkey’s implosion and a war brewing on Israel’s northern border, are ignored so we can pick over the carcasses of a couple of bottom-feeding swamp-fixers like Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen.

This lack of seriousness and failure to recognize this government’s successes have many reasons. Partly it’s a consequence of just how good we have it. Like most of our political dysfunctions, we are so rich and comfortable that we think we can afford to obsess over payoffs to porn stars and Playboy bunnies, and ignore more important issues. Our attention is hostage to a 24/7 virtual carnival and freak-show on social media, cable news, and the internet. We’re in the third generation of a failed educational system that exists not to teach basic skills, cultural knowledge, and critical reasoning, but to create the new Progressive Man who mouths social justice pieties as he keeps up with the latest fads and fashion. We live in a world of noisy, kinetic distractions, like mice in a maze scurrying to snatch the latest bit of cheese from Apple, Facebook, YouTube, and Hollywood.