Next time you play Poker, Bridge, Canasta Trump Talks Too Much!
think of this kitty.
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This from a dear friend and fellow memo reader regarding my comments in my previous memo: "Sir, great counsel for Trump, I have said often that he has never met a camera he did not like. He has to stop overexposing himself -- meaning given himself greater opportunity to say something stupid.A----.
Another response from a friend and fellow memo reader regarding Daniel Pipe's article I previously posted and I could not agree more with the response:
"Dick,
Surprised at Daniel Pipes take on Trump. He apparently believes his own citation, to wit: “Finally, Trump is "an ignorant, amoral, dishonest and manipulative, misogynistic, philandering, hyper-litigious, isolationist, protectionist blowhard" in the words of Republican donor Michael K. Vlock.” While hyperbole is the currency of election campaigns, this is over the top in my view. There is not a shred of credible evidence to support at least six of these personal characteristics which he attributes to Mr. Trump. He may be manipulative but he is clearly not ignorant. He has proven to be hyper-litigious but he is not amoral. And all of the supporting evidence for his relationships with women suggests he is anything but misogynistic. He is clearly a blowhard but he’s not an isolationist. He doesn’t want to do away with free trade, he just wants free trade to be fair, which any fool can plainly see it is not now, the Iran Treaty being only the latest example. Finally, though it went unmentioned in Pipes article, he has in the past written eloquently on Israel and the importance of America’s support for that nation. If he thinks for one minute that Hillary’s stance on Israel vis a vis Trump’s is good for Israel, he’s not been listening for the past 7+ years to the Obama/Clinton views/statements/actions toward that tiny beleaguered nation. If for no other reason, I’d have thought he would hold his nose perhaps but vote for anyone but Hillary and that leaves only Trump at the moment. In my view, in his desertion of the only hope for recovery from the Obama years, Pipes is no better than Cruz and as such deserves no credence whatever. I’ll certainly give him none. Too bad for me since I’d always thought his writing to be well thought out. E-"
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It is sad the press and media have allowed themselves to fall into a trap of not reporting facts and, instead, engaging in shading. This tragedy also has a carry over effect because it 'kosher's' dishonesty and encourages slanting. Growth in technology allowing more and more social media impact simply accelerates this pernicious trend..Trump is not against Muslims and/or immigration. He simply believes immigrants should enter legally and specific to Muslims, who come from regions where many are engaged in a war against our nation and its values, Trump wants them properly vetted so that our citizens can be safe. This is common sense not prejudice.
If I allowed my children to have a party at our home I would want assurances the invitees would not destroy our home, put me at risk by drinking if they were under age and would conduct themselves in a proper way as were I to visit in their home. If I knew their friends had police records , belonged to a gang that enjoyed a questionable reputation etc. it would seem logical I would have second thoughts and would want greater assurances.
We have become cowed by fear of being branded politically incorrect and no longer believe we have a right to protect out borders, to enforce our laws etc. What nonsense. (See 1 below.)
Just as I wrote this a news report, another terrorist attack at a Munich Mall and elsewhere in the city has/is taken/taking place and Cliff May is being interviewed.
This is the new global war Obama and Hillary, deny is taking place because it undercuts their incompetent response to Islamist terrorism and their desire not to interfere with their ideological rigidity and stupidity.
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I also happened to catch Obama's press conference with the Prime Minister of Mexico. Obama is a master at responding to questions and knocking down facts of others by supplanting them with questionable, even slick, Obama "facts and responses" of his own. He also talks slowly and responds with lengthy replies so as to limit the number of questions.
He has mastered all the Alinsky techniques, perhaps. adding a few of his own fine tuned methods of evasion.
What I found particularly interesting is that, in answer to a question, Obama denied the rumor that we knew in advance about the Turkish Coup. Interestingly enough by denying we knew in advance, Obama simply conveyed to me our State Department was caught with its pants down once again because we should have had some inkling, at the very least, if our ears had been to the ground.
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An extensive report (too lengthy to post) about the consequences of another Lebanese War from my friend Jonathan Schanzer who belongs to Cliff May's Organization. (See 2 below.)
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I am in the process of arranging a variety of meetings for Kim Strassel when she visits Savannah, Tuesday , Nov 1 and 2.
I have arranged a meeting for Kim here at The Landings from 4-6 at on Nov.1, at which she will make some comments and then sign her book . That will be followed by another meeting at our home at which Kim will do the same. More details will follow.
This is some skinny on her book:
Kim Strassel is one of the preeminent political columnists writing today. She is a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board and has written an insightful, alarming look at how the Left, once the champion of civil liberties, is today orchestrating a coordinated campaign to bully Americans out of free speech.
For nearly 40 years, Washington and much of the American public have held up disclosure and campaign finance laws as ideals, and the path to cleaner and freer elections. This book will show, through first-hand accounts, how both have been hijacked by the Left as weapons against free speech and free association, becoming the most powerful tools of those intent on silencing their political opposition. "THE INTIMIDATION GAME" provides a chilling expose of political scare tactics and overreach, including:
- How Citizens United set off a wave of liberal harassment against conservative politicians
- The targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS
- How Wisconsin prosecutors, state AGs, and a Democratic Congress shut down political activists and businesses
- The politicization by the Obama administration of a host of government agencies including the FEC, FCC and the SEC
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Hanson on Trumps' chances. (See 3 below.)
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For those who like movies about corrupt political dynasties: "BELOW IS THE LINK FOR THE TRAILER OF DINESH D’SOUZA’S NEW MOVIE ON HILLARY. IT SHOULD BE SHOWING IN ONE OF YOUR LOCAL THEATRES BUT LIKE HIS FIRST MOVIES ON BARACK OBAMA IT IS BEING SUPPRESSED. THIS WORK BY DINESH IS WORTH A LOOK.....
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Dick+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1)
The campaign to register a million Muslim voters to prevent a Trump presidency
Muslim officials begin canvassing for the anti-Trump movement, stating that previously unregistered Muslim citizens could be the deciding factor in key swing states such as Virginia and Florida.
By Ian Simpson
REUTERS - U.S. Muslim leaders hope to register a million voters from within their community to help combat what they say is the anti-Muslim stance of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
The United States has only about 3.3 million Muslims, but campaign organizers say Muslim voters could have an outsize impact in swing states that are key in the November general election, such as Virginia and Florida.
"We want the Muslim community to understand that if you give up your rights voluntarily, no one will come and give it back to you," said Osama Abu Irshaid, a member of the board of the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, which is spearheading the drive.
Imams have been asked to encourage their congregations to register to vote. Organizers have sent canvassers to college campuses, bus stations and gas stations in Muslim neighborhoods.
The campaign began in December and is part of an effort among U.S. Muslims to combat an "unprecedented rise in Islamophobia," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
CAIR's database showed that 300,000 Muslims had registered since November, he said.
Awad said anti-Muslim sentiment had grown since the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California last year, which authorities have said was inspired by Islamist militants, and due to comments by Trump. He has called for a ban on Muslim immigrants.
Campaign volunteers were outside the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in suburban Washington this month to get worshippers to register.
"I was thinking quite a long time to register but this time especially ... I really believed that I have to," said Sadat Najmi as he filled out a registration form.
Najmi, a U.S. citizen since 1988, said Trump had motivated him to sign up for the first time.
U.S. Muslim backers of Trump said they were trying to build their own coalitions in swing states.
Baltimore businessman Sajid Tarar said he launched American Muslims for Trump because he favored Trump's stance on combating radical Islam.
"ISIS, al Qaeda, Taliban, they have killed more Muslims than anything else, and that's a message Muslims need to hear and understand," he said, referring to various militant groups.
Michael Cohen, co-chair of the National Diversity Coalition for Trump, which aims to mobilize minority support, said Muslim Americans were equally worried about violence at home and abroad.
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2)The Third Lebanon War
The next war will be more destructive and complicated, FDD study predicts
Washington, DC - The next war between Israel and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah will be more destructive than previous conflicts, thanks to a massive Hezbollah arms build-up that includes a 150,000-rocket arsenal, and is likely to begin with a minor flare-up that escalates to an all-out confrontation, according to a report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), issued today.
Its authors, Jonathan Schanzer, Tony Badran, and David Daoud, note that Israel is now torn between the desire for continued calm on its northern border and concerns that Hezbollah must be confronted before it becomes too strong.
Israeli decision makers are also concerned that the window for dealing Hezbollah a critical blow may be closing -- before Iran takes advantage of the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement (JCPOA) and develops a nuclear weapons capability. This could potentially restrain Israel in a future conflict with Iran's top proxy, Hezbollah.
The authors warn that U.S. policy in Syria, which has allowed Iran and Hezbollah to expand their regional aggression, must shift toward defeating the Iranian-led efforts there.
The authors observe that, for now, Hezbollah is constrained by its regional military commitments. Thousands of Hezbollah forces are currently committed in the ongoing Syrian civil war, and more than a thousand have returned to Lebanon in body bags, making it extremely difficult for the organization to justify a two-front war.
"FDD has long been concerned that the JCPOA has put Tehran on a patient pathway toward atomic weapons capability," said FDD Executive Director Mark Dubowitz. "This report underscores how the deal poses other long-term threats. A nuclear umbrella for Hezbollah would drastically alter the balance of power in the Middle East and undermine American interests."
While conflict is generally viewed by both sides as inevitable, the authors provide recommendations that could delay conflict or help guide it to ensure a more positive outcome.
"Congress has taken important steps in recent months to impose sanctions on Hezbollah and to constrain it in other ways," said FDD vice president for government relations and strategy Toby Dershowitz. "The proactive and sound suggestions included in this report should help guide the policy discussion in a positive direction."
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3)Ten Reasons Why Trump Could Win
3)Ten Reasons Why Trump Could Win
With four more months until Election Day, be prepared for chills and spills.
By Victor Davis Hanson
Hillary Clinton has outspent Donald Trump in unprecedented fashion. Her endorsements bury Trump’s. The Obama administration is doing its best to restore her viability. The media are outdoing their 2008 liberal prejudices. And yet in John Connally delegate fashion, Clinton’s vast expenditures of $100 million plus have so far earned her only a tiny, if any, lead in most recent polls. If each point of approval is calibrated by dollars spent, Trump’s fly-by-night campaign is ahead.
Nor has Trump matched Clinton’s organization or voter-registration efforts. He certainly has blown off gifts from a number of Clinton gaffes and misfortunes, usually by gratuitously riffing on off-topic irrelevancies, from the Trump University lawsuit to the genocidal Saddam Hussein’s supposedly redeeming anti-terrorist qualities. Pollsters, gamers, insiders — everyone, really — have written his political epitaph for over a year. Rarely have conservative voices at mainstream-media outlets vowed not to support the Republican nominee. And yet the longer he stays viable, the more likely it is that Trump has a real chance at winning the presidency, which may already be a veritable 50/50 proposition. So why is the supposedly impossible at least now imaginable?
1. Not a Typical Populist
When critics are not slurring Trump as Hitler or Mussolini, they write him off, in sloppy fashion, as a dangerous populist — at worst an hysterical, demagogic Huey Long, at best a quirky Ross Perot: in other words, a flash in the pan who capitalizes on occasional but brief surges of Neanderthal isolationism, protectionism, nativism, xenophobia, and collective insecurity among the lower middle classes.
That diagnosis is rehashed groupthink. By any definition, Trump is not a classical populist. His traction derives from opposing unchecked and cynical illegal immigration, not diverse and measured legal immigration. And he is rebelling not so much against a flabby, sclerotic status quo as against a radical, even revolutionary regime of elites who are now well beyond accustomed norms. It is hardly radical to oppose the Confederate doctrine of legal nullification in more than 300 sanctuary cities, or a de facto open border with Mexico, or doubling the national debt in eight years, or ruining the nation’s health-care system with the most radical reconstruction in the history of American health-care policy, or systematically running huge trade deficits with an autocratic China that does not adhere to international norms of free trade and predicates expanding political and military power in the South China Sea on its commercial mercantilism. Trump seemed incendiary in the primaries, but as he is juxtaposed to the official Clinton extremist agenda, he will likely be reinterpreted increasingly as more mainstream — a probability enhanced by his selection of Mike Pence as his running-mate.
2. Obama Nihilism
Do not underestimate the volatility of Barack Obama’s popularity. As long as Obama keeps silent and out of the limelight, he nears 50 percent in approval ratings. The moment he returns to the fray (and he always does, as a June bug to a patio light), he instinctively reverts to his natural divisive and polarizing self, as evidenced in his disastrous reactions to the Dallas police shootings, and his politically suicidal post-Dallas courting of Al Sharpton (who used to call on supporters to “off” police) and of the architects of Black Lives Matter. It is likely that Obama, to cement a hard progressive legacy in the next four months, will only double down on his gratuitous pandering, and therefore will see his poll numbers return to the low or mid-40s. That may help Trump seem an antidote rather than an obsequious continuance.
3. Two Sorts of Elitists
Both Trump and Clinton are elitists in an anti-elitist year. But elitism is not all the same. The popular furor is not directed at the rich per se, but rather at the perception of cultural snobbishness and hypocrisy among those who romanticize the always-distant poor, as they favor the always-proximate rich, and caricature the despised middle class that lacks the taste of the latter and the appeal of the former. Trump’s in-your-face tastes and brashness are vulgar in the pure Roman sense, and his accent and demeanor are not those of the cultural elite, or even of the dignified Mitt Romney–type moneyed bluestockings. In contrast, Hillary, like Obama, talks down to Americans on how they ought to think, speak, and act. Trump seems to like them just as they are. In turn, middle-class hatred of the elite is not aimed at Trump’s garish marble floors or the narcissistic oversized gold letters plastered over the entrances to his buildings, but rather at the rarified self-righteous. Like it or not, Trump can square the ridiculous circle of a raucous billionaire as man of the people far better than Hillary can handle the contradictions of a Wall Street–created crony multimillionaire pandering to the Sanders socialists.
4. Election Formulas
It is not assured that Clinton can replicate Obama’s formula of record-high minority-voter turnout and bloc voting. More importantly, in a few key states Trump may win 25 to 28 percent of the Latino vote and perhaps 10 percent of the black vote, while Clinton might not capture even 35 percent of the so-called white vote. A surprisingly high minority of blacks and Hispanics do not feel Trump is a nativist or xenophobe, given that illegal immigration is often perceived as putting a strain on scarce social services, imperiling already poor schools, and driving down both wages and the availability of entry-level jobs. Trump’s El Jefeism plays well when juxtaposed to Clinton’s suburban namby-pamby falsity or her unhinged demonization of coal miners and gun owners. The numbers of minority voters in key states who quietly vote Trump need not be great, but rather only must top by 2 or 3 percentage points the disastrous McCain and Romney levels of 2008 and 2012, given the likely historic percentage of white voters that Trump may win. Media elites are in denial over this possibility. Racial hyphenation and bloc voting, along with prophecies of continual white irrelevance, should by their reckoning have long ago doomed Trump in the general election.
5. Crimes and Misdemeanors
Trump struggles with embarrassing misdemeanors, Clinton with high crimes. She may be delighted at not having been indicted, but FBI Director Comey confirmed to the nation that she was an inveterate liar, paranoid, conspiratorial, and incompetent. That she was not charged only made the FBI seem absurd: offering a damning hooved, horned, pitchforked, and forked-tailed portrait of someone mysteriously not a denizen of Hell. Add in the Clinton Foundation syndicate and the fact that lies are lies and often do not fade so easily, and Hillary in the next 15 weeks may average one “liar” and “crooked” disclosure each week — at a rate that even the Trump tax returns and Trump University cannot keep up with.
6. Four Months until the Election
The tumultuous news cycle — Dallas, Paris, Turkey, Baton Rouge — creates anxieties and a general sense that the nation and indeed the world are in chaos — and without any guidance from the White House. Such a vague foreboding that something has to give to avert catastrophe may favor Trump abroad and at home — especially if he can muzzle himself in times of enormous gift-giving from the Clinton campaign. Obama is a lame-duck president who is perceived as weak, vacillating, and ambiguous about his own country’s role in the world — a world that includes Russia, ISIS, China, North Korea, and Iran. The odds are even that at least one of the above in the next few months will feel that it has a rare opportunity to readjust the regional status quo, or at least will have a psychological impetus to try something stupid to humiliate Obama and the U.S. as payback for seven years of his empty sanctimoniousness. Either way, Trump could benefit, given that Hillary is a perceived tool of Obama’s therapeutic foreign policy. Tragically, at home, in the next few months ISIS may re-emerge, and racial relations are not likely to ameliorate, as Hillary straddles a politically correct tiger that she can neither dismount nor safely ride. Self-described leftists are cannibals who always end up devouring their own, given the never-enough trajectory of their equality-of-result creed.
7. Extremism
Trump seems extremist in speech, but as the campaign wears on, Hillary may confirm that she is more extremist in fact. It may well be that voters would prefer a brash-talking pragmatist to sober and judicious ideologues. Sloppy talk about temporarily limiting immigration from the Middle East is not so injurious as contrived efforts never to utter the phrase “radical Islam.” Clinton, Obama, and Sanders have moved the Democratic party radically to the left; Trump in some areas has pushed the Republican party to the center. The voter terrified of ISIS, record debt, the spiraling cost of his health care, perceived U.S. decline, and the seemingly violent racial Balkanization of the country — but not terrified of gay marriage or tough trade talks with China — may find Clinton, not Trump, the true radical.
8. Polls
If the polls are off a bit in this warped election year, they are more likely to err on Hillary’s side. Republicans who will vote for Hillary or no one rather than Trump will do so in part out of perceived moral principles, and thus they will not be so shy in showcasing their not-in-my-name ethos. But those who see themselves more as pragmatists, who will eventually hold their nose and vote for the embarrassing Trump, are more likely, in Brexit style, to keep quiet about it and stay under the polling radar. I think that to be truly ahead on Election Day Hillary will have to top Trump by 1 or 2 points in the polls — even with traditional Democratic massaging of voter rolls.
9. Converts and Apostate
The relative closeness of polling in key swing states already suggests that the Reagan Democrats and other Trump converts may either be more numerous than the Never Trump establishment or at least more numerous outside of coastal, and electorally irrelevant, blue states like California and New York — and thus more significant as swing-state adjudicators. In addition, traditional media, in which Never Trump views are most frequently aired, are themselves growing ossified and do not reach voters to the same degree as outlets like the Drudge Report, Breitbart News, and talk radio. In my rural California community, when I meet pro-Trump welders, farmers, and tractor drivers of all races and backgrounds, I try to ask them just one question: Did you vote for Romney? So far 0 percent of that cohort of probably over 100 Central Valley residents said they had turned out for Romney in 2012. Again, the new Trump voters may not be numerous nationwide, but they may be able to swing one or two purple states. Also, it may be more likely that a Never Trumper will weaken and quietly vote Trump in November as he grows aghast at the weekly Clinton circus. The Trump buffooneries may well be more than matched by Clinton’s ideological insanities.
10. The Screech-Owl Factor
For all his lack of discipline, the media-seasoned Trump is still the better and more robust campaigner. His liabilities — bouts of outer-space incoherence, unfamiliarity with basic issues, sloppiness in diction, a personal cruel streak — are balanced by a TV host’s sense of audience, timing, and cadence.
Hillary is the far more disciplined politico, but she is not so much uncharismatic as downright off-putting. Even on those rare occasions when she listens to her new voice-coach handlers and speaks quietly and deliberately, she still comes off not as reassuring, much less engaging, but rather as artificially trying her best not to revert to her natural screech-owl elocution. Heartfelt recklessness can sometimes wear better than packaged sobriety.
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Finally, it is suicidal to descend into the muck to battle Trump. Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz all tried and failed, despite the fact that they had every moral justification in hitting back in like kind. Elizabeth Warren is trying to be an anti-Trump street-fighter; but her incoherent venom suggests that Harvard Law professors should stick to academic jousting in the faculty lounge.
Brawlers know the rules of the street far better than establishmentarians. The Senate is not The Apprentice, and politics is not New York real estate. Ask the trash-talking Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg if she came out on top in dueling with Trump — or whether she virtually destroyed a quarter-century’s reputation in minutes and ended up no better than an elderly version of Rosie O’Donnell in a Supreme Court Justice costume. Hillary is stepping up her crude attacks on Trump. But as in the past, such hits are more likely to make the Trump mode suddenly seem normal, and to make Trump a target of those who claim they are more sober and judicious but in extremis prove no more measured than Trump himself.
We have a long way to go till November 8, and the odds are still with Hillary’s establishment money, influence, power, and media. There will be dozens of Trump meltdowns and gaffes to come and always more slams at “crooked” Hillary. And never count out what narcissists like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — or Vladimir Putin — might do, or Obama’s Chicago-like warping of the electoral process. Nonetheless, for a variety of reasons, an unlikely Donald Trump has become a liberal’s worst nightmare, not so much for what he says or represents, but because he still could win — and win in a way, along with the Congress and the prospect of a new Supreme Court, that we have not witnessed in 80 years.
— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals.
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