CONSERVATIVE RIGHT- "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.": September 2016

Friday, September 30, 2016

Why a Terrorist Attack Could Make Trump President

J.C. Peters

Let's not beat around the bush. This is no ordinary election; it's a battle for America. We have two very different presidential candidates that are selling two very different visions of the kind of America we had in the past, the kind of America we have right now, and the kind of America we should have in the future.

In the blue corner we have Hillary Clinton, who basically wants to continue on the path we have been on for the past eight years, while acknowledging that a lot remains to be done. And in the red corner we have Donald Trump, who argues we are very much on the wrong path and that Americans -- well, a majority of Americans anyway -- were better off in the 1950s, when American-made products still ruled the global economy and blue collar workers could be part of the middle class, when American military might was unrivaled, Mexicans lived in Mexico and Muslims lived, well, somewhere else.

For the last couple of weeks, Republicans have been asking themselves in growing desperation how it is possible that Hillary Clinton is still favorite to win the election after all the lying, the private email server scandal and the air of corruption surrounding her time as Secretary of State (with aides allegedly providing access to the Secretary for big Clinton Foundation donors).

As Donald Trump Jr. put it: "They [the media] have let her slide on every indiscrepancy [sic], on every lie, on every DNC game trying to get Bernie Sanders out of this thing. If Republicans were doing that, they'd be warming up the gas chamber right now."

The reason is this, Donald Jr.: voters don't like Hillary Clinton, they don't believe Hillary Clinton and they don't trust Hillary Clinton, but there is one thing about her they know to be true: electing her will keep your dad out of the White House.

In other words, when all is said and done, this election is not about accepting Clinton and her vision for America, it is about rejecting Trump and his vision for America.

But.

There is nothing Donald Trump could do that would make him seem more trustworthy, more measured, more experienced, less confrontational, less offensive. Same goes for Clinton. Those trains have left the station.

The only thing left for Mr. Trump to do, is to convince voters that his vision for America is the right vision. That we have every reason to fear an increase of terrorist attacks if we allow Syrian refugees -- and people from other predominantly Muslim countries -- to continue to "pour into the country." That we have grown weak, allowing our military to be hollowed out in a time we need more, not less, military might. That it is time to return to an America first policy.

Should Mr. Trump succeed in doing just that, the tables would turn and all hisdiscrepancies would be forgotten. He would be the favorite to win, no matter what he would do or say, no matter what damaging information would surface about his past business dealings, because voters would still subscribe to his vision for America.

For that to become reality, though, something would have to happen that is so big, it would force everyone to recalibrate -- or at least consider recalibrating -- their existing world view. The kind of event that makes people say: "Look, I've always been against/for that policy, but after this happened I have to seriously reconsider."

A mere political scandal or grand gesture will likely not be enough to fundamentally upset voter's minds so late in the game. Historically, the effect of that kind of October Surprise has generally been overestimated. But when it's something that could be sold as a real game changer, all bets are off.

Think Pearl Harbor, which swayed American public opinion in favor of entry into World War II. The attacks of 9/11, which generated overwhelming public support for the passage of the PATRIOT Act and the ensuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (of course, nowadays it's next to impossible to find anyone who admits they supported the wars back then, but in the early days public support for the war in Afghanistan was over 90 percent and for the war in Iraq over 70 percent). And the collapse of Lehman Brothers, on September 15, 2008, which turned a deadlocked presidential contest into a solid lead for Barack Obama.

If a 9/11-style terrorist attack were to happen late October, early November, in other words days before the election, how would that play out? Remember the mood during those first days, weeks following 9/11? The incidences of violence against Muslim Americans, the heightened sense of insecurity, vulnerability, nationalism, the broad support for the invasion of Afghanistan? Hold on to that.

Here are the responses of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump just after the New York bombings of September 17, 2016.

"I have been briefed about the bombings in New York and New Jersey and the attack in Minnesota. Obviously we need to do everything we can to support our first responders, also to pray for the victims. We have to let this investigation unfold. We have been in touch with various officials, including the mayor's office in New York, to learn what they are discovering as they conduct this investigation. And I will have more to say about it when we have some facts."

"This is something that will happen, perhaps, more and more all over the country. Because we've been weak. Our country's been weak. We're letting people in by the thousands and tens of thousands. We're allowing these people to come into our country and destroy our country, and make it unsafe for people. We don't want to do any profiling. If somebody looks like he's got a massive bomb on his back, we won't go up to that person ... because if he looks like he comes from that part of the world, we're not allowed to profile. Give me a break."

Remembering how you felt in the days after 9/11…whom would you vote for in the immediate aftermath of a terrorist attack?

Now assume you are an undecided or NeverTrumper.

Hillary Clinton cannot afford any more terror on Obama's watch. Trump's chances might just depend on it.

J.C. Peters is a legal philosopher and historian who frequently publishes about U.S. constitutional law, American and European history and foreign policy issues. He is also the author of the forthcoming political thriller The Dog and its Day, about an assassination attempt at the Republican presidential candidate, now available on Amazon and other major online retailers. For more information, please visit TheDoganditsDay.com

Does Trump Really Want to Win?

(Steven Hayward)

From the very beginning I’ve wondered whether Trump was really running for president thinking he’d be a real contender, or whether this was just a yuuuge business branding exercise. Because once again the Trump presidential campaign is looking more like a college frat prank that got out of hand.

I thought that Trump’s Twitter feed had been brought under control, but in the middle of the night last night Trump couldn’t resist continuing what John called yesterday “Trump’s off-message detour” with a series of tweets about the expanding Miss Universe Alicia Machado. Every moment spent prolonging this sideshow is a moment lost with a decent attack message on Hillary Clinton.

Later this morning, he adds this:

States Sue Obama Administration in Last-Ditch Effort to Stop US From Giving Up Control of Internet

Republican attorneys general from Nevada, Texas, Arizona, and Oklahoma are suing the Obama administration in a last-ditch effort to stop the U.S. from giving up control of the internet’s domain name system.

“Trusting authoritarian regimes to ensure the continued freedom of the internet is lunacy,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. “The president does not have the authority to simply give away America’s pioneering role in ensuring that the internet remains a place where free expression can flourish.”

The AGs … asked a judge late Wednesday to step in and stop the transition to an international oversight body, after GOP lawmakers failed to stall the move as part of a short-term spending bill.
Paxton was among the four Republican AGs who filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court Southern District of Texas, Galveston Division.
The U.S. government has been in charge of domain names for more than three decades, thanks to a Commerce Department agency's oversight of an obscure, but powerful, Los Angeles-based nonprofit called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The lawsuit argues that if the transfer takes place, as it’s scheduled to on Oct. 1, people will “lose the predictability, certainty, and protections that currently flow from federal stewardship of the Internet and instead be subjected to ICANN’s unchecked control.”

The suit argues the looming transfer violates the property clause in the U.S. Constitution which prohibits handing over government property without Congress’ approval. The suit also claims the handoff would violate First Amendment rights and says ICANN, the nonprofit owners in control, would be unchecked and could start to censor speech. […]
Republicans in Congress, though, have long-objected to the transfer, which they called a “giveaway” to the rest of the world. They argue that handing over control to a non-government entity would give countries like Russia and China the ability to control online speech – something supporters categorically deny.
The new lawsuit also claims ICANN “has a documented history of ignoring or operating outside of its governing bylaws.”
“Nothing protects the Plaintiffs from additional occurrences of ICANN oversight failures,” the suit says.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai warned Americans on the “Sean Hannity Show” Wednesday that giving up control to ICANN should be worrisome for anyone who values “free expression and free speech rights generally.”

Memo to Trump: No cable news or Twitter until debate homework is done

By Joe Concha - 09-30-16 09:38 AM EDT

The poll numbers on Monday night's debate are now all in. And for Republican nominee Donald Trump, they ain't pretty.

NBC News sees 52 percent of those polled saying Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won, compared to just 21 percent for Trump. CNN has it at 62-27, Clinton. YouGov clocks in at 57-30, Clinton. PPP sees a slighter tighter, albeit still double-digit margin of victory for Clinton, with a 51-40 split.

Other polls basically tell the same story: Trump survived, but it wasn't even close.

The moderator can be partially blamed for the result and rightly so, sure. Trump's top vulnerabilities - tax returns, birther comments, comments about women - were all broached. Clinton's top vulnerabilities - mishandling of emails/classified information, destroying evidence, Clinton Foundation controversies, transparency issues - weren't even brought up by NBC's Lester Holt.

But given the open format Holt provided that let the candidates go at each other back and forth, Trump's inexperience showed by not broaching those topics himself. And when Holt did introduce cybersecurity as a primary topic, Trump whiffed badly by not going after Clinton putting top secret and/or sensitive information at risk, instead going off the rails about 400-pound hackers and his 10-year-old son's computer prowess instead.

Those sympathetic to the Trump cause will say his inexperience simply showed in missing those kind of opportunities. And while that's true to a small extent, another big factor showed as well.

He got badly outworked by Clinton on the preparation front.

Simply put, Trump spends far too much time watching cable news. The evidence behind making such a statement is proven by the fact he's seemingly always attacking its content. CNN's Don Lemon and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski have now taken the Megyn Kelly mantle as the biggest targets in the past few months, with the Lemon getting it again Thursday night.

Wow, did you see how badly @CNN (Clinton News Network) is doing in the ratings. With people like @donlemon, who could expect any more?
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016

Attacking the media can work well in the primary season; not so much in the general. So for Trump moving forward, this basic rule from parent to student needs to apply if he wants to avoid a debate repeat: No TV, no Twitter until your homework is done.

For Trump, he has arguably the most target-rich opponent in history to do his homework on for the next two debates. Given all the opportunities missed in Round 1, he'd be wise to put down the phone, stop tweeting, stop watching and lock himself away with an unapologetic debate coach for six to eight hours per day while flying from rally to rally.

Mark Halperin summed up Trump's perception issue perfectly on Bloomberg:

"He plainly lost the debate. The big difference to me between this and 2012 when Barack Obama failed in Denver in the first debate, he confronted mass panic among his supporters," Halperin, also an MSNBC "Morning Joe" regular, explained.

"He had to admit that he lost and that he would do better the next time because Democrats were freaking out. Trump fans are not freaking out. Trump fans saw a different debate than we saw last night. They think he won."

To Halperin's point, most polls about who won the debate showed Obama losing by even wider margin to Mitt Romney in 2012 than Trump to Clinton. But Obama was also comfortably ahead in national polling at that point and could afford to lose a few points across some battleground states. Trump doesn't have that luxury.

The president also was infinitely more prepared in his next debate with Romney. And because of that - along with some help from a Candy Crowley fact-check on Benghazi that she later admitted was wrong - he won that debate, and the final one as well, on his way to reelection.

Trump can do the same by learning from his experience.

He can also stop getting outworked after outworking Clinton so often since the conventions.

No TV or Twitter until your homework is done.

The question is: Are there any adults in the room to actually enforce the rule?

India launches attacks into Pakistani territory and Pakistan threatens nuclear retaliation to ‘destroy India’

Thomas Lifson

While American politics is focused on something mean Donald Trump said to a Hispanic woman 20 years ago, Armageddon may be brewing in the other side of the world. There is no way to sugarcoat this, other than to hope it is an empty nuclear threat from a nuclear-armed power. Sara Kamouni is the U.K. Sun:

PAKISTAN'S Defence Minister has threatened to "destroy" India – after India said on Thursday it had carried out "surgical strikes" on suspected militants preparing to infiltrate from Pakistan-ruled Kashmir.

The strikes, which were a response to shots fired across the de facto border through the disputed Himalayan territory, could lead to a military escalation between the two nuclear-armed neighbours – risking a ceasefire agreed in 2003.

An Indian military official briefs the media on India's strikes into Pakistan.

Vijeta Uniyal at Legal Insurrectionsupplies background and detail:

Last night, the Indian Army carried out a series of covert operations targeting Jihadi bases along its border with Pakistan. According to official Indian sources, the counter-terrorism strikes killed 38 Islamists as well as couple of soldiers of Pakistan's regular army, who were overseeing these Jihadi bases. Indian Special Forces went 2-3 km inside Pakistan's border destroying up to 6 Jihadi camps. No casualties were reported on the Indian side. The strikes come less than 2 weeks after Islamists attacked an Indian Army base in India's Kashmir region, killing 18 soldiers.

India has faced a sustained terrorist campaign in its Muslim majority northern state of Kashmir since the 1990s. Terrorists have killed nearly 5,000 Indian civilians and over 2,000 Indian soldiers since 2001. Tonight's cross-border operation, first of its kind conducted by India, shows the change in country's military doctrine since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office 2 years ago.

Following tonight's strikes India has put its army along the international border with the Islamic Republic of Pakistan on high alert.

An Indian Army spokesman briefed the media on the strikes on jihadi bases inside Pakistan. Here is a video of the press conference. This is for real:

The reality of Chicago’s murder rate

Thomas Lifson

Political correctness is lethal, and the killing fields of Chicago provide ample evidence to those willing to look at it with clear eyes.

The Associated Press manages to provide some surprisingly frank details on the real nature of the outbreak of murder in Chicago, a phenomenon that has become a worldwide emblem of the violence depravity of American society, in the eyes of America-haters. In a piecetitled "Why is Chicago a murder capital? Clues from a bloody month," Don Babwin lays out clearly specific subculture that is responsible for the murders:

To those outside Chicago, the rising murder toll might suggest a city wracked by widespread violence, but August portrays a much narrower picture of constant tit-for-tat attacks among gang members, with bystanders sometimes caught in the crossfire.

Babwin lets the subculture reveal itself through interviews.

Fourteen-year-old Malik Causey loved the way gangs took what they wanted from people on the street, the way members fought for each other, the way they could turn drugs into cash and cash into $400 jeans.

His mother tried to stop him. She yanked him out of houses where he didn't belong. She cooked up a story about Malik punching her so the police would lock him up to keep him safe for a while.

Then on Aug. 21, Monique Causey woke to discover that her son had sneaked out of the house. Before she could find him, someone ended his life with a bullet to the back of his head a few blocks away.

"I went to him and cried and told him he wouldn't make it," Causey said. "But this fighting, jumping on people ... this is all fun for them. This is what they like to do, you know, so how can you stop them?"

Monique Causey and a picture of Malik.

This is utterly horrifying and heartbreaking. A mother is powerless to save her son from the allure of a street culture that proved irresistible. The drug trade offers quick money, and the macho aggressiveness necessary to defend drug-dealing turf leads to the tit-for-tat of murder.

"People are arguing on Facebook over the color of some girl's hair, real simple things ... and they carry guns and when they finally catch each other, that's how it be," said Derrick House, 51, a former gang member and ex-convict who now works trying to prevent violence. "When they see the person they looking for, they don't care who else is out there, old people and kids, they just start shooting."

This subculture's membership is well known to police:

… more than 70 percent of those shot to death appeared on the Chicago police's "Strategic Subject List," which includes 1,400 people considered likely targets of violence based on gang involvement or criminal record.

The real question then becomes how to destroy this subculture. The Constitution rules out simple but drastic measures, and left-wing legal groups are anxious to push theories like disparate impact to prevent reasonable approaches surviving litigation. Cops can convict some of the murderers, but incarceration is hardly a scary deterrent when murder is so common a fate.

The real leverage point for change would be the broader culture. These kids have their minds filled with glamorous imagery and music glorifying gangsta life. But getting the producers of this material to stop is fruitless. Instead, we need to start mocking the gangsters as dummies, too stupid to realize they are throwing everything away. Stop treating them as victims, and let the rest of humanity scorn their subculture as uncool. Of course, it is taboo for whites to scorn anything associated with any blacks. But is this taboo worth preserving when it is killing thousands of young African-American males?

The one thing adolescents can't stand is shaming as uncool. It is time to let the natural human revulsion at this barbarity be expressed instead of repressed by political correctness.

Or you can just call me a racist and move along.

The Debate Schedule Helps Trump

Bruce Walker

Who won the first debate on September 26? Perhaps a better question might be which candidate performed worse. Trump had several opportunities to score better in the debate than he did, and Hillary was her usual plastic phony self, but she avoided any real mistakes. Give her a modest edge in this first presidential debate, but give Republicans a clear edge to do better and better in the next three.

Mike Pence is smart, pleasant, likeable, and experienced. There is every reason to believe he will do better against Tim Kaine than Trump did against Hillary. In fact, Pence will probably do better than Kaine on form because Pence was a successful conservative media personality on radio and television, and this experience shows in how he handles the media.

Because of the age of the two presidential candidates, voters may be more interested in the vice presidential debates than in a typical presidential election year. Equally importantly, this vice presidential debate will give the Republican ticket an upward trajectory from the September 26 debate so that going into the second presidential debate on October 9, assuming that the format of this debate is more favorable to Trump than the first debate, Trump can push ahead of Hillary.

The October 9 debate has a town meeting format, which will allow questions to both candidates from ordinary voters. This is the sort of format in which Trump has done well, while it should terrify Hillary. No moderator is going to ask her about Juanita Broaddrick or Kathleen Willey or any other the other women raped or abused or terrorized by her husband while Hillary sat saying and doing nothing. If Trump raises that subject, he could take flak, but if a woman in the audience asks about these, what can Hillary do? Not much.

In the first debate, Trump faced the first female presidential candidate in her first debate and faced a "person of color" moderator who was clearly in Hillary's corner. Lester Holt, predictably, asked Trump questions intended to show his imagined racism, and Trump could not effectively respond that Holt was focusing on those issues. Hillary prodded Trump as a sexist (forget her husband as a rapist). Reacting too strongly to either of these leftists could have backfired.

When ordinary Americans ask questions of candidates, this may be the first time ever that Hillary, while America watches, will have to explain the unexplainable offenses of Bill and herself against women or the obvious questions about the Clinton Foundation, the email scandal, and her endless lifetime of outright lies. ("Mrs. Clinton, when you told America you were named in honor of Sir Edmund Hillary climbing Mt. Everest, you were lying, weren't you?")

Hillary, who could not have sweated too much imaging what Lester Holt would ask her, may sweat a lot imaging what ordinary voters in this sort of setting may ask her. Trump, much more than Hillary, will be more in his element. He doesn't need to shock, but simply be real and spontaneous, two qualities Hillary utterly lacks. While the two moderators are both confirmed leftists like Holt, they cannot moderate how questions are asked and what is actually asked by participants.

Coming out of the second presidential debate and out of the only vice presidential debate a few days earlier, the Republican ticket could easily be seen as leading the debate series 2 to 1. The last debate is the only one with a truly neutral moderator, Chris Wallace, whose father was an icon at CBS and whose credentials cannot seriously be questioned by anyone.

While Wallace will – and should – press Trump on things he has gotten wrong or fibbed about, Wallace will also press Hillary about the things she has gotten wrong or fibbed about. Just the email scandal and the Clinton Foundation are enough to sink any candidate forced to really answer the questions.

Hillary's public record requires her to defend a ghastly legion of calamitous and hideous failures and tacitly to endorse the grand debacle that is Obama. What about Trump's proposed policies? Well, Trump's ideas have yet to be tested in the White House...and Trump ought to remind voters of that on every occasion. So here, in the last debate, with some momentum going into the vice presidential and second presidential debates, Trump, like another New Yorker at bat for the Yankees many decades ago, can point into the stands and knock one out of the ballpark.

USA Today in scathing editorial: Trump is 'unfit for the presidency

USA Today in scathing editorial: Trump is 'unfit for the presidency'
By Jesse Byrnes - 09-29-16 19:36 PM EDT

The USA Today editorial board is opposing Donald Trump's candidacy, taking a position in a presidential election for the first time in the newspaper's 34-year history.

Describing Trump as "erratic," "ill-equipped" to be commander in chief and a "serial liar," the newspaper slammed him for trafficking in "prejudice" and having a "checkered" business record.

"This year, the choice isn't between two capable major party nominees who happen to have significant ideological differences," reads the editorial published Thursday.

"This year, one of the candidates - Republican nominee Donald Trump - is, by unanimous consensus of the Editorial Board, unfit for the presidency," it states.

The editors wrote that Trump "has demonstrated repeatedly that he lacks the temperament, knowledge, steadiness and honesty that America needs from its presidents."

"Whether through indifference or ignorance, Trump has betrayed fundamental commitments made by all presidents since the end of World War II. These commitments include unwavering support for NATO allies, steadfast opposition to Russian aggression, and the absolute certainty that the United States will make good on its debts," they wrote. "He has expressed troubling admiration for authoritarian leaders and scant regard for constitutional protections."

But the harsh editorial was not an endorsement of Hillary Clinton.

"Some of us look at her command of the issues, resilience and long record of public service - as first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of State - and believe she'd serve the nation ably as its president," the editorial read. "Other board members have serious reservations about Clinton's sense of entitlement, her lack of candor and her extreme carelessness in handling classified information."

The paper said it's bottom-line advice was for voters to follow their convictions.

"Whatever you do, however, resist the siren song of a dangerous demagogue. By all means vote, just not for Donald Trump," they wrote."

Trump's running mate Mike Pence penned an op-ed in USA Today outlining his case for the GOP nominee Thursday.

Several other national newspapers have similarly rejected Trump. The Washington Post said in an editorial last week that "it's beyond debate that Donald Trump is unfit to be president. The New York Times over the weekend also officially endorsed Clinton.

A number of smaller papers have also bucked tradition in not endorsing the GOP nominee.

The Detroit News on Thursday endorsed Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, the first time it has not endorsed the Republican presidential candidate in its 143-year history.

The Cincinnati Enquirer similarly backed Clinton last week, the first time it's back a Democrat in roughly a century. Earlier this month, The Dallas Morning News endorsed Clinton, the first time it had recommended a Democrat for president since before World War II.

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Reports: Frustrated Trump Advisers Grumble About Debate 'Disaster,' Campaign Mood 'Dark'

Guy Benson

Separate reports, similar message via exasperated campaign aides: Trump blew it under the brightest lights, and set himself up for failure. Before you read on, why would multiple advisers leak such dirty laundry to the likes of the New York Times and NBC News -- outlets that embody what the GOP nominee derides as the 'disgusting' and 'corrupt' media? Perhaps because they know their candidate won't listen to them unless a negative narrative lights a fire under his rear end, which is apparently what happened before his big (and generally successful) August pivot. If his yes-men keep telling him he won -- look at all of these "polls!" -- then there's nothing to worry about it. But if the media, which Trump tracks obsessively, starts talking about how badly he whiffed, he might get angry enough to change. That, I suspect, is why seven different campaign sources whispered these gripes to the Times. Note the word 'convince' in the first paragraph here:

A delicate approach to the candidate is now in the works. Before his advisers can shape Mr. Trump’s performance for the next debate, on Oct. 9 in St. Louis — which, contrary to speculation, he does plan to attend, a top aide said — they need to convince him that he can do better than he did in the first one and that only a disciplined, strategic attack can damage Mrs. Clinton with voters. Advisers said that Mr. Trump had been prepped to handle Mrs. Clinton’s attacks on Monday but did not effectively execute responses to them...Even as Mr. Trump’s advisers publicly backed him on Tuesday and praised his debate performance, they were privately awash in second-guessing about why he stopped attacking Mrs. Clinton on trade and character issues and instead grew erratic, impatient and subdued as the night went on. In interviews, seven campaign aides and advisers, most of whom sought anonymity to speak candidly, expressed frustration and discouragement over their candidate’s performance Monday night. They blamed his overstuffed schedule, including a last-minute rally in Virginia that was added days before the debate. They blamed the large number of voluble people on his prep team, including two retired military figures with no political background. And they blamed the lack of time spent on preparing a game plan in the first place...

Almost all of his advisers rejected the idea that the debate was a failure for Mr. Trump, noting that he landed some punches and insisting that Mrs. Clinton looked more polished than she was because of her opposition. But all of them described the debate as filled with missed opportunities. And they openly expressed frustration that Mr. Trump seemed unable to stop chasing chum that Mrs. Clinton tossed at him...There were early efforts to run a more standard form of general election debate-prep camp, led by Roger Ailes, the ousted Fox News chief, at Mr. Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, N.J. But Mr. Trump found it hard to focus during those meetings, according to multiple people briefed on the process who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. That left Mr. Ailes, who at the time was deeply distracted by his removal from Fox and the news media reports surrounding it, discussing his own problems as well as recounting political war stories, according to two people present for the sessions...The team had primed Mr. Trump to look for roughly a dozen key phrases and expressions Mrs. Clinton uses when she is uncertain or uncomfortable, but he did not seem to pay attention during the practice sessions, one aide said, and failed to home in on her vulnerabilities during the debate.

In other words, they're not trying to sabotage him; they're begging him to listen to them, delivering their concerns through a conduit that will get his attention. NBC News is hearing similar things:

Mood in Trump world is darker than unusual. 1 source says debate was a "disaster." 2nd: might hire debate coaches. 3rd: He's a fast learner.
— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) September 28, 2016

Will Trump himself wake up to the reality that the general election is meaningfully different than the primary, and that more or less winging it didn't cut it on Monday? The nuggets about Trump losing focus and evincing little interest during debate preparation sessions indicate that the man Republicans have nominated lacked either the focus or the seriousness of purpose to adequately prepare for arguably the single most watched and most important event of his life. So long as he remains in an "I won!" bubble, he won't adjust his approach for the final two debates. Then again, his blamestormingabout the moderator, his microphone, etc. suggests that he doesn't really believe his adulatory echo chamber's hosannas this time. Campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who has earned her keep as a pollster for decades, can surely sit him down and explain the difference between his beloved internet polls, and these real numbers:

Hillary's debate win margin from six scientific polls:
Morning Consult +23
YouGov +16
CNN +35
PPP +11
Breitbart/Gravis +5
Echelon +26

Wow.
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) September 28, 2016

Stripping away the spin and braggadocio, Hillary won on Monday night, and they know it. How will the campaign respond? Or are reportedly warring internal factions hampering Team Trump's ability to focus and adapt? This guy's already on his third campaign manager. The kids can't seriously believe another change at the top is a wise move, can they?

source close to Trump tells @KatyTurNBC candidate's children unhappy w/Bannon/Conway/Bossie leadership, think campaign is hurting business
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) September 28, 2016

I'll leave you with two links. First, here is Allahpundit once again marveling that in addition to woefully under-preparing for his monumentally important first debate with Hillary, America's most famous alleged "self-funding" billionaire still hasn't cut an unprecedentedly humongous check to his own campaign. With the stroke of a pen, he could finance an operation that would overwhelm Hillary's ground game and come close to matching her on-air. He hasn't, but there are reports floating around that he's contemplating doing so. Tick tock, Donald. Second, we told you about Trump's self-destructive decision to raise Hillary's "Miss Piggy/Miss Housekeeping" attack the morning after the debate. Setting Trump's related conduct off to the side, did Team Clinton bother to vet this woman? This is their new poster-woman-slash-surrogate? This is their new character witness against Donald Trump? Good Lord:

Colin Kaepernick: Who's the real racist?

David Lawrence

Colin Kaepernick is obsessed with race. That does not mean he is against racists; rather, he is himself a racist who measures people according to his prejudices.

He alienated everyone when he said about Clinton and Trump: "Both are proven liars and it almost seems like they're trying to debate who's less racist."

Colin is a simple mind fulminating against racism. He almost makes me want to become a racist just to seem more intellectual than such a fool.

According to Colin, Clinton and Trump are "proven liars. But he is misinterpreting, suggesting that racial inequality is rampant. Obviously, he was not alive in my generation, when blacks had far fewer rights.

He complains about racial inequality and police brutality. He is a multimillionaire who will never experience any of these problems. I am a former CEO who was born right after WWII, when most of my Jewish people were killed.

Kaepernick was a spoiled child who was smothered in football glory. He doesn't know from inequality. He wasn't in federal prison camp with me. And I'll tell you, most of the blacks were actually treated well in jail. He wouldn't know that. He knows only his own bias.

Of course, we know that Kaepernick was wearing socks with cartoon pigs dressed as policemen. Rather than creating peace, he is inflaming tension between cops and the people. He is endangering his own race under the pretense of standing up for them.

Kaepernick is a naïve idiot who recites the typical formulas of racism and blames them on whites and the cops rather than his own malicious viewpoint.

Free speech is not free. Kaepernick should be banned from the league before he incites riots.

Surprise! Administration does not vet refugees for extremist ideological views

Rick Moran

How screwed up is our vetting policy for admitting refugees? In April, the administration cut the refugee vetting process that would ordinarily take 18-24 months down to 3 months. They won't pore over social media sites used by refugees to feret out radicals.

Now we learn from the agency in charge of bringing refugees to the US that no effort is made to discover radical ideological leanings of the potential newcomers.

Lifezette:

The United States runs the names of potential refugees through terrorism and law enforcement databases and conducts health screenings but makes no effort to learn whether they harbor extremist views, an administration official acknowledged Wednesday.

Simon Henshaw, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, made the admission during testimony at a Senate hearing on President Obama's Syrian refugee program.

Republicans on the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest have expressed concerns that Obama's decision to admit more than 10,000 Syrian refugees over the past 12 months and his plan to increase that number in the coming 12 months is reckless in light of the threat posed by Islamic extremism.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican who chairs the subcommittee, grilled Henshaw about the procedures for screening refugee applicants. "Do you make any inquiry about practices that we reject in the United States, like female genital mutilation?" he asked. "Do you say, 'Do you believe in that and when you come to the United States will you comply with the laws of the United States on that kind of question?'"

Henshaw said U.S. officials explain American law and customs but do not inquire about refugees' political beliefs.

"On all questions, we make it clear to refugees that we're a nation of laws and that they need to comply with our laws," he said.

Sessions pointed to a Justice Department report indicating that the United States last year experienced 27 "honor killings," a practice that wins widespread approval in some Muslim-dominated countries that practice Sharia Law.

Henshaw drew a distinction between Muslim refugees and other Muslim immigrants.

"I'm not sure those honor killings took place among the resettled refugee community in the United States," he said.

Henshaw said the government operates a cultural orientation program and insisted that refugees make a smooth transition to Americanism.

"Senator, I see no evidence to show that refugee communities are bringing these values into the United States," he said. "I see that they're becoming good American citizens, members of the military, members of our police … people that have U.S.-American values."

Henshaw offered no proof for that startling claim. In fact, most refugees won't become American citizens for years - if at all. And they can talk to the refugees until they're blue in the face about our "customs," but it is the height of naivete to believe that they will abandon their long-held religious beliefs just for our benefit.

The bottom line is that the administration does not feel it necessary to vet the refugees for their ideology. They will never admit it, but they are willing to accept a small number of terrorist attacks in the name of promoting a "compassionate" refugee policy. If some of the refugees turn out to be jihadists, well that's just our bad luck. Just think of all those tens of thousands of people we've helped. A few dead Americans is a small price to pay to resettle so many people fleeing war, poverty, and violence.

To most Americans, that kind of thinking is unacceptable. But the administration feels it more important to speed the process of bringing refugees to our shores than insuring the safety of the US.

Ferguson’s Violent Crime Rate Skyrockets in Aftermath of Brown Shooting

The city that saw Michael Brown's death in 2014 experienced an almost 65 percent increase of violent crime in the year following the fatal shooting.

Ferguson, Missouri experienced 900 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2015, a sizable increase from 545 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2014. This represents a surge of 65 percent, as noted by Heather Mac Donald in National Review.

Compared to Ferguson, the national averages for violent crime were far lower. The national average was 362 per 100,000 residents in 2014, and rose to 373 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2015, according to FBI statistics.

In 2014, the year Brown died, Ferguson had a total population of 21,090. FBI crime statistics revealed that the city experienced 115 violent crimes and two murders.

The year after Brown's death, 2015, the city had a population of 21,059 and saw 190 violent crimes and five murders.

Officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown on Aug. 9, 2014. Prosecutors and the Department of Justice investigation found that despite the clear instructions, "Hands up, don't shoot," Brown tried to grab Wilson's gun. Wilson fatally shot Brown after he tried to charge Wilson.

The Ferguson protests that occurred thereafter contributed to the Black Lives Matter movement, with protesters chanting, “no justice, no peace" in the streets.

The year after Brown's death also saw a rise in robbery and aggravated assault.

Aggravated assault went up 58 percent in Ferguson; there were 60 aggravated assaults committed in 2014 and 95 aggravated assaults committed in 2015. Robberies rose 60 percent as well. Ferguson saw 51 robberies committed in 2014 and 82 robberies done in 2015.

Ferguson witnessed an increase in the rise of violent crime the year before Brown's death, though not at the rates seen after his death. From 2013 to 2014, Ferguson experienced an almost 14 percent increase in violent crimes.

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Do Lives Have Value Only If We Say So?

Now that scientists have developed 3-D ultrasounds, it is no longer tenable to claim that the preborn are not human or that a child inside the womb is somehow less human than a child outside of it. Ever since then, and now with the Center for Medical Progress unveiling to the world exactly what goes on inside Planned Parenthood, the abortion lobby’s defense of abortion has shifted dramatically.

There is no more denying the humanity of the preborn. The only thing abortion supporters can do now is claim that a human life only has value if they say so.

“The unborn person has no constitutional rights,” declared Hillary Clinton on CNN a few months back. Notice she readily admits the preborn is indeed a unique, individual human person.

“So what if abortion ends a life?” writes Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon. Williams goes on to say the preborn child is “a life worth sacrificing.”

In April, pro-abortion students at the University of North Georgia made cookies shaped like children and bit the heads off while laughing hysterically. In June, a San Diego abortionist was filmedsaying that he “loved” dismembering babies.

We Know It’s a Person; We’re Still Killing Him

Many in the pro-life movement have long thought that if we could get people to see that the preborn child is indeed a human life, and not merely a clump of cells, we could win the argument. However something strange, almost surreal, has happened. Abortion supporters have moved the goalposts in a shocking way. They continue to kill even as they acknowledge the humanity of their victims.

“Our arguments were predicated on the hope that by just getting people to realize that a life was being killed, they would become pro-life. What we forgot was that history is filled with examples of the powerful preying on the weak, fully knowing that their victims were alive,” writes Ardee Coolidge of CareNet. “Whether it was the slave owner in the Antebellum South or the Nazi prison guard in World War II, few believed that the slave on the auction block or the prisoner on their way to the gas chamber was not a person. They were persons worth selling and sacrificing. They were alive, but only partly human.”

Just as there is no logical distinction between a child inside the womb or out, there is also no logical distinction between sub-humanizing Jews and black people and sub-humanizing unborn persons. Abortion simply perpetuates the human tradition of putting personal ambitions and desires before others’ lives.

In the 1860 presidential election, Democratic nominee Stephen Douglas argued that, regardless of the morality of slavery or the humanity of black people, it would be wrong to force citizens to accept black people as fully human. He said that despite personal opposition to the practice, state territories should decide for themselves whether slavery would be legal.

He was making the “pro-choice” argument for slavery just as today’s abortion supporters make the “pro-choice” argument for abortion. To Douglas, the slave trader, and the abortion lobby, the value of a human life is subservient to personal freedom. The inherent worth of a human being can be negotiated based on preference and circumstance. Just as the slave’s rights to life and liberty were worth sacrificing in order to provide slave-traders a wealthy, slothful lifestyle, today’s abortion supporters believe the preborn are worth sacrificing so they can maintain their promiscuous, self-centered lifestyle.

Either We All Have Value Or We’re All Up for Interpretation

Abraham Lincoln, Douglas’ opponent, argued that freedom of choice cannot justly be used to take away another person’s freedom or rights. This is the non-aggression principle of governance. One is free to do as he or she wishes, so long as he or she does not infringe on the freedom or natural rights of fellow human beings.

It is crucially important that every unborn human being can claim his or her inalienable, natural rights to life and liberty. If instead the value of an unborn human life is up for interpretation, as the Left claims, then the value of all our lives is up for interpretation.

The callousness of this shift in leftist rhetoric reveals nothing, save for the grace of God, could convince these people to give up killing babies. Even if they become wholly convinced of the humanity of the preborn, which they now are, they will not loosen their grasp on abortion.

As Dinesh D’Souza puts it, leftists know that abortion is the glue holding their failing sexual revolution together: “Liberals understand that abortion-on-demand is the debris of the sexual revolution. If you are going to have sexual promiscuity, then there are going to be mistakes, and many women are going to get pregnant without wanting to do so.” Babies are the “uninvited guests” of the sexual revolution who must be erased so adults can have their fun.

Abortion Supporters Need to Become Human Again

The pro-life movement, with help from scientific advances, has effectively humanized the unborn. Now we just have to humanize abortion supporters. They deny they have consciences. They deny that they feel guilt, and tell women to celebrate and #ShoutYourAbortion, but study after study on post-abortion trauma reveals that women are suffering.

Compared with women who give birth, women post-abortion have significantly higher rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, and a host of other mental ills. These consequences are so prevalent they have a name: Post-Abortion Syndrome, which is considered a strain of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

For healing, we have to help abortion supporters recognize their own consciences, which scream at them to acknowledge the human blood they have shed and the lives they have sent into depression. That conversation is going to be a very difficult, but necessary one. The increase in hateful, shameless pro-abortion rhetoric suggests it has already begun.

We must foster a culture that recognizes the inherent value of every single person. We must throw all forms of devaluing human life into the ash heap of history. We must all understand that the value of a human life is not up for interpretation or subject to personal feelings. Salon, Clinton, and the abortion lobby are finally conceding that the preborn is a human person, but they still believe that other rights come first.

Call me an extremist, but I still hope we can all agree that every human person has the right to not be violently killed, and no right that any other person may claim supersedes it.