Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Winners and losers from the vice-presidential debate

Kaine Pence Debate
Legal Insurrection
Washington Post  "Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine stood toe-to-toe for 90 minutes in the lone vice presidential debate of the 2016 election. I watched, tweeted and took some notes on the best and the worst of the night that was. There was a lot more bad than good." . . .
Excerpts below:


Winners

Mike Pence: From the very beginning, Pence was the more comfortable of the two men on the debate stage. Pence repeatedly turned to the camera when he answered questions, making clear he understood that the real audience wasn't in the room but watching on TV. The Indiana governor was calm, cool and collected throughout — a stark contrast to the fast-talking (and seemingly nervous) Kaine.
"* Orioles vs. Blue Jays:" . . .

Losers
Tim Kaine: Someone must have told the Virginia senator he needed to always be on his front foot in the debate, always be the aggressor. It didn't work. Kaine started the debate talking so quickly and trying to load so many Trump attacks into every answer that it made it virtually impossible to grasp any one attack. In the middle of the debate, Kaine seemed to relax into it — delivering an effective attack on Trump's comments on women. But that Kaine was the exception, not the rule. When he wasn't trying to stuff 10 pounds of attack in a five-pound bag in his answers, he was relentlessly interrupting Pence.  Every single time Pence started to level an attack against Hillary Clinton, Kaine immediately began to talk over him. I'm not sure if that was on purpose or not, but it didn't come across well — at all. "
Elaine Quijano: I root for the moderators in these debates because they have a next-to-impossible job. But Quijano lost control of the debate within minutes of it starting and never really got it back. She seemed to dole out 20 seconds here and 30 seconds there for Pence or Kaine or both to respond to each other with no rhyme or reason. She never was able to get Kaine or Pence to, well, stop talking. Then there was the fact that she didn't seem to follow the flow of the debate; Kaine and Pence would be feuding about, say, tax returns, and Quijano, after getting the two men to stop talking, would say something like, "Let's talk about North Korea."
"* The American public: ' . . .
"Republican National Committee press office:" . . .
 "* The debate stage background (again):" . . .
A debate-watching, live-tweeting Donald Trump had an eyebrow-raising night . . .

Politico: Insiders: Pence outclassed Trump  " 'Is there anyone outside of the Trump family who isn't wishing we could flip the ticket?' asked a Colorado Republican."
The Politico column comes with this photo as is:
caucus template.jpg

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Tim Kaine's claim in the Tuesday night debate: "The Clinton Foundation rates higher than the Red Cross in charity rankings."

Snopes
"Shaky Foundation  The Red Cross was ranked as an "A-" to the Clinton Foundation's "A" by CharityWatch, but the larger Charity Navigator doesn't rate the latter organization."


"WHAT'S TRUE: The charity ranking site CharityWatch grades the Clinton Foundation as an "A" and the Red Cross as an "A-."
"WHAT'S FALSE: The larger and more highly regarded Charity Navigator has refused to evaluate the Clinton Foundation after an early 2015 dispute over bad press and allegations of a lack of transparency; on 1 September 2016, Charity Navigator reinstated the Foundation's rating." . . .

Must See: Amazing Stock Footage Of the Siege of Bastogne

War History Online  "The Ardennes Offensive was a last ditch attempt by the German army to halt the Allied advance across western Europe. The plan called for a surprise attack and a swiftly moving advance encompassing mechanized forces that would brush aside enemy resistance and which had, as its end goal, the harbor city of Antwerp in Belgium.

"The town of Bastogne, straddling as it did the point of convergence of all the main roads upon which the advance of the German armor depended on, was to become the scene of one of the most heroically endured sieges of modern times.
. . .
"American grit and determination had prevailed against enormous odds, and the unexpected determination had cost the German offensive dearly. The fighting spirit of the American soldiers that had turned impending defeat into astounding victory may best be summed up by the comment made by Colonel C. Abrams  upon hearing that 26 German divisions had encircled Bastogne:
“ 'They’ve got us surrounded again – the poor guys.' "

Raw combat footage with no sound.

Fans Retaliate after Marching Band Disrespects National Anthem

Todd Starnes

Photo/Deadspin

"To say the East Carolina University Marching Band struck a wrong chord with fans would be an understatement.
"Furious North Carolina football fans booed the band after several members refused to play the National Anthem – while others took a knee.
"East Carolina’s blatant disrespect of the Star-Spangled Banner happened Oct. 1st at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.
"Local reports indicate about a dozen members of the Marching Pirates disgraced themselves on the football field.
"At halftime – outraged fans got to have their say.
"The stadium was filled with booing as the band prepared to perform its halftime show."
Video at the link. . .
ECU Chancellor Cecil Station defended the students’ actions – calling it a part of “civil discourse.”  
Disgrace! UNC Students Disrupt National Anthem "This is the coming of age for a generation of young people who've been taught to hate America." 

And a First Lady who carries a grudge against her country with her husband who is ashamed of it.

Leaked DNC Voicemails Reveal Special Favors And Deal Making With Rich Donors

Can you imagine Clinton's own George Stephanopoulos covering this?

Big Blue Vision  "In the middle of the primetime speeches last night at the Democratic convention, something big happened.
"WikiLeaks released even more damning evidence against the party.
"This time, it was voicemails.
"Here’s some of what was found in those voice mails and it isn’t good for the Democrats.". . . 
The release of a trove of embarrassing hacked internal emails and private voice mail recordings reveal not only the unseemly dealmaking involved in recruiting high-dollar donations for political campaigns but also the role fundraising officials play in approving and denying access to President Barack Obama and other top officials.

WikiLeaks' 'October Surprise' fails; Assange promises more to come

"More to come better be good. This stunt only works once." Lucianne

Have we been rickrolled?

Fox News



"Anyone who stayed up late or got up early anticipating an "October Surprise" from WikiLeaks heard no bombshells from the organization's founder in an overnight appearance via video.  
"Assange said he will publish documents regarding at least three governments before the end of the year.
“The documents themselves are revealing, but also the government/state reactions to the releases are revealing also,” he said.

"Assange denied that he was specifically targeting Clinton with his document dumps, insisting that some of his statements have been misconstrued. He added that WikiLeaks will publish leaked documents on war, oil, Google and mass surveillance in addition to the U.S. election."

Reuters: WikiLeaks' Assange signals release of documents before U.S. election   "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Tuesday the group would publish about one million documents related to the U.S. election and three governments in coming weeks, but denied the release was aimed at damaging Hillary Clinton."
Image result for wikileaks hillary cartoons

MSNBC Host Asks Millennial Women If They Feel Connected To Clinton, Entire Crowd Yells “NO!"



Yet, I doubt these millennials even know about all this.

The U.S. Diversity Force

The Patriot Post


"The United States Air Force was created in 1947 and tasked with defending America’s national security from the skies. In Barack Obama’s 2016 version of the Air Force, however, “diversity” is king. At a time when the USAF faces a critical shortage of 700 pilots and 4,000 support personnel for aircraft, Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein and CMSAF James Cody recently announced, as Air Force Magazine reports, “13 new diversity and inclusion initiatives … for certain promotion candidate pools, membership on command selection boards and nominations for recruiter duty.” That’s not all. “Additionally, Air Force ROTC will receive $14 million over five years to fund 200 new scholarships for ROTC candidates from ‘underserved and underrepresented’ population centers.”
"Now don’t get us wrong — we’re all for finding the best qualified people, and if scholarships and better targeting help find them, then great. But that’s not what this is about. It’s the same morale destroying PC social engineering that Obama is constantly foisting upon our Patriot Armed Forces. Whether it’s “Gay Pride” propaganda, removing “So Help Me God” from military oaths, or tossing out retired AF personnel for mentioning God, “progressive” assaults on our military are growing under this commander in chief. Hillary Clinton will only implement more of the same."

Dilbert Cartoonist Scott Adams: The Week I Became a Target

 - Dilbert by Scott Adams

Scott Adams Blog  "This weekend I got “shadowbanned” on Twitter. It lasted until my followers noticed and protested. Shadowbanning prevents my followers from seeing my tweets and replies, but in a way that is not obvious until you do some digging.
"Why did I get shadowbanned?
. . . 
"But it was probably because I asked people to tweet me examples of Clinton supporters being violent against peaceful Trump supporters in public. I got a lot of them. It was chilling.
"Late last week my Twitter feed was invaded by an army of Clinton trolls (it’s a real thing) leaving sarcastic insults and not much else on my feed. There was an obvious similarity to them, meaning it was organized. 
"At around the same time, a bottom-feeder at Slate wrote a hit piece on me that had nothing to do with anything. Except obviously it was politically motivated. It was so lame that I retweeted it myself. The timing of the hit piece might be a coincidence, but I stopped believing in coincidences this year.
"All things considered, I had a great week. I didn’t realize I was having enough impact to get on the Clinton enemies list. I don’t think I’m supposed to be happy about any of this, but that’s not how I’m wired.
"Mmm, critics. Delicious :-)" . . .

Rasmussen Poll Proves No One Believes Phony MSM Fact-Checkers

Daily Wire


"A Rasmussen poll of 1,000 likely voters released Friday proves that New Media has done an excellent job of exposing these mainstream media fact-checkers as the left-wing frauds they really are. Rasmussen found that just 29% of those polled trust fact-checkers. A whopping 62% believe (accurately) that "news organizations skew the facts to help candidates they support."
Eighty-eight percent (88%) of voters who support Trump in the presidential race believe news organizations skew the facts, while most Clinton backers (59%) trust media fact-checking. Among the supporters of Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, sizable majorities also don’t trust media fact-checking.
These findings are no surprise given that voters think it's far more likely reporters will try to help Clinton than Trump this election season.
"These lying fact-checkers have no one to blame but their lying selves. These are the lying liars who gave the Obama Administration cover for every lying lie they told to jam the currently-imploding ObamaCare down our throats. These are the lying liars who told us that Carly Fiorina didn’t begin her career as a secretary (she did); that Romney was a liar for claiming Obama had never visited Israel as president (Obama didn't); that Hillary is healthy (she isn't); that some American Muslims didn’t celebrate 9/11 (they did), and on and on and on…" John Nolte. 
Hat tip to The Conservative

Obama labor regulations will cost $80 billion and 411 million paperwork hours

Image result for government regulation cartoons
There’s a New Government Regulation Every 2 Hours and 48 Minutes

Rick Moran  . . . "For 8 years, President Obama has promised millions of new, good paying jobs. Instead, we have what Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge blog has termed a "waiter and bartender recovery." It's impossible to square Obama's rhetoric with the reality of his anti-business regulations.
"How much worse will Hillary Clinton be for the economy? It's hard to imagine, but there is no doubt her appointees will be even more liberal than Obama's. Clinton has become a creature of the hard left and is expected to payoff the radicals with numerous government appointments. That doesn't bode well for business as people who despise capitalism move into positions of authority to oversee the economy. "
Image result for government regulation cartoons

The U.S. isn’t one of the top 10 most free countries in the world, study says

Rick Moran:  US falls out of top 10 'most free' nations
"America's transformation continues under President Obama and the only question is what exactly we are transforming into.
"A nation that is poorer, less respected, weakened abroad and divided at home."  . . .

McClatchyDC via Drudge.
"The U.S. was ranked highly in all categories except safety and security, where it has dropped to number 33. In fact, in the study’s key findings, it said the U.S. is “an increasingly dangerous place.' ”

  "With costly healthcare, a stereotype of obesity and a culture of creatively fatty foods, “healthy” probably isn’t the first word that comes to mind when you think of the United States.