YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: 11 Freakiest Things About Arizona Senate Candidate Kyrsten Sinema.
UPDATE (From Ed): “Another day, another Kyrsten Sinema video of her trashing Arizona. Kyrsten Sinema In Boston: ‘Let My Arizona … Serve As A Warning Symbol For Each Of You.’”
(Bumped.)
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Origins Of Progressive Agony.
NEW CIVILITY WATCH: Alec Baldwin: We Need To Overthrow The Government. And note this detail:
Fresh off his first appearance of the season as President Trump on “Saturday Night Live,” actor Alec Baldwin headlined the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s inaugural Eleanor Roosevelt Dinner Sunday night at the Manchester Downtown Hotel.
* * * * * * * *
Sunday’s event was previously known as the “Jefferson-Jackson Dinner” before being switched in 2016 to the “Kennedy-Clinton Dinner.” The national controversy over sexual harassment fueled by the “#MeToo” movement earlier this year prompted the name change.
(Via Byron York.)
That said, more than anything, Democratic voters will be looking for a candidate who can take the fight to Trump — and win. Trump, as unpopular as he seems nationally, is an unconventional political force that nobody has been able to beat — not 16 other Republicans (many well-funded and experienced) and not Hillary Clinton. Whatever Trump’s weaknesses, he’s clearly demonstrated an instinctive understanding of politics in the modern media age.
Warren’s experience in politics has involved winning in a very liberal state, enjoying glowing media coverage, and being popular among progressive audiences. When it comes to national politics, she’s a relative novice. So all we know right now is that Warren’s early flirtation with presidential politics went horrifically, raising serious questions about her political instincts, which are hard to teach. She’s got plenty of time, of course, but if this is in any way indicative of how she’s going to run her campaign, she isn’t going to get close to the White House.
“Trump’s Superpower: Making His Opponents Do The Stupidest Possible Thing,” Ben Shapiro writes. As John Nolte tweets, “Other than McCain suspending his ’08 campaign, in all my decades of watching politics, I have never seen a high-profile presidential contender ever bungle anything as badly as Warren did this DNA test. It was a train wreck and dumpster fire all in one. Wow.”
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YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Six Democratic Scandals the Networks Are Burying This Election Year.
LIZ WARREN: Don’t forget that this isn’t exactly the first time she has been caught misleading the public. I did warn folks back in 2006, but nobody wanted to listen.
SKILLS CHECK: One- and Two-Shot Drills.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: St. Lawrence University Alumni, Faculty Want To Revoke Susan Collins’ Honorary Degrees Because She Supported Kavanaugh, In Order To “Dismantle Rape Culture.”
Earlier: Suspicious letter delivered to Republican Sen. Susan Collins residence in Maine.
SATIRE… OR IS IT? Warren Mulls Starting Grassroots Call for Her to Run.
HEIDI HEITKAMP (D-ND) APOLOGIZES FOR OUTING SEXUAL-ASSAULT SURVIVORS.
UPDATE: At the Daily Wire, Ashe Schow adds, “One woman posted in a Facebook group for Bismarck, ND, news that not only did she not give permission for her name to be used by the campaign, but that she doesn’t support Heitkamp and is not even a domestic abuse survivor:”
“This was posted in the Bismarck Tribune,” The woman says in her post, which contained a photo of the ad. “A lot of these people listed, including me, did not give anyone permission for our names to be posted. I don’t even support Heidi Heitkamp and I am not a domestic abuse survivor. Should this even be legal?? Using people’s names as part of your campaign??”
Another woman said the campaign was “literally sharing false information.” She wrote a response to the campaign saying she “NEVER gave my consent or permission, written or verbal, to be involved in anything like this: for, against, or personally affected.” She also said some of the names are spelled wrong and that some are listed twice.
A third woman also said her name was used without her permission, and that she was “FURIOUS” for being included. She said using their names in this way has made them a “target” for their abusers who have seen the list and assumed they told somebody.
On Saturday, CNN’s Harry Enten’s headline was “Trust the polls: Heidi Heitkamp is in trouble.” Fourth quarter desperation is rarely a good look.
BRUCE BAWER IS NOT MAKING THIS UP: New This Fall: The Preschool Hijab!
THE SCIENCE WAS SETTLED, BUT NOT ANYMORE: Harvard Calls for Retraction of Dozens of Studies by Noted Cardiologist.
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UGH: Emergency Meeting Called to Determine Global Risk of Latest Ebola Outbreak. “Instability is hampering efforts to contain the outbreak. CDC staff who were in the DRC to help have been pulled out of affected hot spots.”
HMM: What the media aren’t telling you about Jamal Khashoggi.
The fate of Khashoggi has at least provoked global outrage, but it’s for all the wrong reasons. We are told he was a liberal, Saudi progressive voice fighting for freedom and democracy, and a martyr who paid the ultimate price for telling the truth to power. This is not just wrong, but distracts us from understanding what the incident tells us about the internal power dynamics of a kingdom going through an unprecedented period of upheaval. It is also the story of how one man got entangled in a Saudi ruling family that operates like the Mafia. Once you join, it’s for life, and if you try to leave, you become disposable.
In truth, Khashoggi never had much time for western-style pluralistic democracy. In the 1970s he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, which exists to rid the Islamic world of western influence. He was a political Islamist until the end, recently praising the Muslim Brotherhood in the Washington Post. He championed the ‘moderate’ Islamist opposition in Syria, whose crimes against humanity are a matter of record. Khashoggi frequently sugarcoated his Islamist beliefs with constant references to freedom and democracy. But he never hid that he was in favour of a Muslim Brotherhood arc throughout the Middle East. His recurring plea to bin Salman in his columns was to embrace not western-style democracy, but the rise of political Islam which the Arab Spring had inadvertently given rise to. For Khashoggi, secularism was the enemy.
It seems possible that Khashoggi was murdered in order to embarrass Crown Prince bin Salman rather than to protect him.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: What to Do if the Condom Breaks During Sex.
I had some related thoughts here.
COLLUSION: SENIOR FBI OFFICIAL LIED ABOUT ACCEPTING SPORTS TICKETS FROM REPORTERS.
A senior FBI official accepted tickets to sporting events from reporters and initially lied about it to government investigators, according to a report released Tuesday.
The conduct of the FBI official, who has not been identified, violated federal regulations that prohibit federal employees from accepting gifts from journalists and other “prohibited sources.”
The improper gifts were discovered in text messages reviewed by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) as part of its investigation into the FBI’s handling of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Trump-Russia investigations. (RELATED: FBI Report: Agents Regularly Received Handouts From Members Of The Media)
The same investigation led to the firings of Andrew McCabe as FBI deputy director and Peter Strzok as deputy chief of the FBI’s counterintelligence division. McCabe was found to have falsely denied authorizing leaks to the media in October 2016 about the Clinton probe. Strzok, who led the Trump-Russia probe, was found to have exchanged anti-Trump text messages with his mistress, FBI attorney Lisa Page.
They’re not charging, or naming, the official. Or the reporter. That seems . . . cozy.
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