What Am I Going To Stir It With? Hateful and Liberal Thought Regarding Israel.

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As I have said many times, Hillary is generally conflicted when it comes to what she says because she has few convictions beyond wanting to be on the right side of where the votes are.

As for Democrats they find supporting Israel no longer something they believe is politically correct and likely to win them votes as their party becomes more radicalized. (See 1 below.)

Meanwhile, Trump believes his potential loss will be attributable to a campaign that is stacked against him.

As I have also said, he will own his own defeat although I have no doubt , as in most every campaign, their will be some voter skulduggery. (See 1a and 1b below.)

Trump does not know when to stop and his latest comment reminds me of an off color joke  about a kid who is from the wrong side of the tracks who meets a girl, at his school,  from the right side of the tracks and who invites him for dinner.

The kid goes home and tells his parents and they begin to strategize how can their "shlub" of a son make it through the dinner.  So they tell him to just say "thank you maam and no thank you maam."

He goes off to dinner wearing his best suit and is greeted by the butler at the door.  The kid makes it through dinner by responding as he was prepped and his girl friend is beaming.

Then the mother asks the young boy would he like some tea and he replies as he had all evening; "yes maam."  Then the mother asks him would he like a spoon and he replies: "What am I going to stir it with my schmuck."
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The sad state of public education likely to get sadder. (See 2 below.)
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I was invited by a very dear liberal friend to speak to a group of mostly liberals about why I am voting for Trump in view of the recent op ed I had been asked to write and which was published in the local paper..  The group is very eclectic, very intelligent, very biased but they gave me a very respectful reception and asked some penetrating and good questions. Though, my responses were measured, I doubt I changed their minds but I hope I made them think a little.

One attendee certainly got me to think about what he said because I agreed he made an accurate observation when he said he thought the articles I write, content wise, were sound but he noticed that over the last 8 years I had become more hateful in the way I expressed them.

I told him I thought his observation was correct but I would have used the word angered and disturbed and not hateful instead and that my wife agreed with him.

I pointed out how disgusted I had become because of the 8 years of Obama failed and divisive leadership and it , no doubt, colored my feelings and it had probably seeped into my writing and expressions.

Were what I write seeking a larger audience, were I younger, were I paid perhaps I would give more of a damn about what people think about whatI write but, in the final analysis, writing is therapy for me.  It is a release valve way of expiating but I will try and be less "hateful" in the future!
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Dick
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1)

What Dems Really Think About Israel

By JONATHAN S. TOBIN 

Unfortunately for the Trump campaign, what we’ve learned from the Wikileaks document dump about Hillary Clinton isn’t damning enough to alter the dynamic of the presidential race. Most of it is the sort of inside baseball stuff about the Clinton campaign that in another era might only come out later when books by authors like Theodore S. White and Richard Ben Kramer were published about the election. This kind of material tells us what the former secretary of state and her staff really think, and makes her look like the unprincipled and hypocritical power-seeker that has led voters to see her as dishonest and untrustworthy. Even if that’s not sufficient to outweigh Trump’s flaws in the minds of a majority of Americans, it’s fascinating stuff for political junkies. It’s also worth examining for what it tells us about how the likely winner will govern and the future of her party.

The juicy tidbit the Russian-assisted hack gave us about the Clinton campaign’s deliberations regarding how to broach the mention of Israel during the primaries should be viewed in that context. According to the hacked emails, top figures in the Clinton effort were at odds about whether she should even mention Israel while trying to woo Democratic primary voters.

In May of last year, Jake Sullivan, the former State Department staffer and top Clinton foreign policy advisor, sought to include a mention in a campaign speech about supporting and standing up for Israel. Clinton’s campaign strategists vetoed the idea, pointing out that the only people who cared about the issue were “Republican primary voters.” In particular, campaign manager Robby Mook flatly stated: We shouldn’t have Israel at public events. Especially dem [Democratic] activists.” The matter was resolved when they all agreed that it was okay for Clinton to speak of Israel “when she’s with donors” but not in public.

The good news to be gleaned from this chilling exchange is that there were at least some influential voices inside the Clinton machine that thought Israel was important. Some in the Clinton camp wanted to highlight their candidate’s support for the Jewish state and opposition to terrorism targeting its citizens. Much like Thomas Friedman’s celebration of the fact that Wikileaks reveals Clinton to be a supporter of global free trade rather than the Bernie Sanders clone she has pretended to be, pro-Israel activists should be somewhat encouraged. If her comments to her presumably pro-Israel donors are what she really thinks as opposed to a campaign profile that largely ignored the Middle East that might give friends of the Jewish state some hope that she will, as Prime Minister Netanyahu has hinted, at least be less hostile than President Obama.

But it also illustrates that the Clinton brain trust’s evaluation of opinion among rank and file Democrats conforms to the view of many conservatives who saw Sanders’s openly hostile stance toward Israel as a source of strength for his primary campaign. Polls have long shown Democrats are far less sympathetic to Israel than Republicans. But this trend has now gotten to the point that not only do Democrats not even bother to pretend that Israel is as much a reflection of the deep partisan divide in the country as any other issue but they also worry that even a mention of it will alienate their base. So, while it’s possible to argue that the policies of a second Clinton presidency will resemble those of her husband more so than those of President Obama, the internal pressure from the Democratic Party may be pushing her hard to continue her former boss’s desire for more daylight between the two countries.

That’s a significant problem. While Israelis remember Bill Clinton as a good friend, there was plenty of tension within his administration was between those who prioritized the peace process over Israel’s security. The former generally won the day. The truth about Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority was suppressed to maintain the fiction that the Oslo Accords were a great success. With Hamas now running an independent Palestinian state in all but name and Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas still trying to appease both a Palestinian public that applauds terror and his Western donors, the situation even more dangerous today. How can a Democratic president continue to uphold an alliance that her party’s base opposes? Thanks to a Donald Trump campaign that can’t seem to get out of its own way, it looks like we’re about to find out.

1a)  What Liberal Media Bias Can’t Do

By JONATHAN S. TOBIN

Is there any part of Donald Trump’s complaint about the election being “rigged” against him that isn’t a conspiracy theory, which should be dismissed out of hand? Yes. While the notion of election fraud in plain sight on the scale needed to change the outcome is science fiction, Trump is merely stating the obvious when he observes that most of the mainstream media is against him.

We really didn’t need the Center for Public Integrity’s study of how journalists have showered Hillary Clinton with campaign contributions by a 27-1 margin over the few who have given to Trump or the Harvard University study about how negative coverage of the billionaire has been to know this. Liberals have dominated the press for generations. But the question we should be asking is what this advantage actually provides Clinton or any Democrat? The answer is that, while it certainly helps them, it has never taken a race away from a Republican who had a real chance to win.

But while Trump isn’t wrong about the media giving him a hard time, the idea that without the “assault” on him, he’d be—according to Newt Gingrich—up by 15 points is ridiculous for two reasons.

The first is that the massive negative coverage of the GOP candidate is the result of his own statements, not a plot by “20 media executives.” Even if they cover his disqualifying behavior more thoroughly than they do embarrassing Wikileaks stories about Clinton or the associated email and foundation scandals, reporting on the things that Trump says and does is not foul play. It’s true he’d be doing better if no one knew about the tape in which he boasted of sexual assaults, the women who have accused him of misbehavior, or his Twitter tirades or comments about Mexicans or a Gold Star family. How can you blame the media when Trump doesn’t stop talking about them?

The second reason is that the same media he regularly denounces largely facilitated Trump’s domination of the Republican primary field. No other candidate got the kind of wall-to-wall coverage he received. Last winter and spring, the conventional wisdom about the race was that Trump was a master manipulator of the networks, which slavishly broadcast his speeches and devoted more attention to him than any of his rivals in the hope of better ratings. Many conservatives correctly warned that his enablers would turn on him in the general election. But for all of Trump’s outsider appeal, which resonated with the GOP base, his ascent would not have been possible if the same people he now bashes had ignored or dismissed him as an outlier clown rather than treat him as must-see TV.

There’s a broader point to be made about the impact of media bias. It’s that the liberal press has never defeated a strong Republican candidate with broad support. The mainstream press was just as if not more prejudiced against Ronald Reagan than it is againstTrump. In the 1980s, there was no conservative talk radio or Fox News alternatives to the daily newspapers and broadcast networks dominated by liberals. Yet that didn’t prevent Reagan from winning two landslides or being succeeded by his vice president. The liberal media has never been able to prevent the GOP from winning midterm elections during the last 25 years. Nor did a liberal media that despised George W. Bush preclude him from decisively winning re-election in 2004.

The inability of the liberal press to determine the outcome of elections isn’t limited to the United States. Britain’s media tilts just as much to the left as America’s, but it didn’t stop Margaret Thatcher. It was also powerless to prevent the Tories’ David Cameron from winning the last two parliamentary elections or stopping the “Yes” side from winning the Brexit vote. Israel’s news media may be even more left wing than that of America (there is one popular pro-Netanyahu newspaper but no Fox-style broadcast outlet with a large audience) and the left hasn’t won an election there in 24 years.

If the polls show Trump is losing, it’s because the voters don’t trust him; not because they’re taking orders or are unduly influenced by liberal journalists. That’s nothing new. Democrats benefit from a liberal mainstream media and it is an obstacle that any Republican or conservative must overcome. But there is simply no example in modern American political history (or that of other democracies) in which a left-wing press demonstrated that it had the power to stop a popular conservative from winning an election. What it can do is to apply the coup-de-grace to right-wingers who have self-inflicted wounds such as those provided by Trump. If, as appears likely, Trump is headed for a decisive defeat, the media may cheer, but he has only himself to blame.

1b)   Trump vs. Trump vs. Clinton

He held his own on the issues, but his ego keeps getting in the way.

Donald Trump’s best chance to be President has always been to make the campaign about something larger than himself—reviving the economy, replacing Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, defeating Islamic State, something to make the case for change to a country unhappy with the status quo. In Wednesday’s debate Mr. Trump showed what might have been had he fought more on the issues, even as he also exposed his Achilles’ heel of a thin skin and petulant ego.

Mr. Trump is never going to out-argue Hillary Clinton on details, but for much of the debate he was able to draw a contrast on philosophical direction that is his best chance to close his polling deficit. He was effective on the Supreme Court and the right to bear arms, as well as embracing the original meaning of the Constitution.

Mrs. Clinton tried to muddy her opposition to the landmark Heller case that upheld an individual right to bear arms in the Constitution, but Mr. Trump nailed her on it. She certainly would appoint Justices who will sharply curtail if not overturn Heller.

The Republican also managed to convey the large differences between the two candidates on the economy. He’d cut taxes, she’d raise them. He’d replace ObamaCare, she’d expand it. He wants to grow incomes with a stronger economy, she wants to redistribute income. Her claim that her plan would “not add a penny to the debt” was preposterous.

We think Mr. Trump is wrong on trade and his assertions on Nafta are nonsense, but he did manage to show Mrs. Clinton’s double dealing on the issue. Mrs. Clinton said she opposed the Pacific trade agreement only after she had read the text, but the WikiLeaks documents show that she had already decided to oppose it for political reasons before it was completed.

Mrs. Clinton also ducked moderator Chris Wallace’s question on the Clinton Foundation and its “pay to play” acceptance of donations from foreigners while she was Secretary of State. Mr. Trump was right to hit her and her husband for claiming to do so much for Haiti when they have mainly helped their friends to favorable contracts.

The question is whether any of this will matter given Mr. Trump’s manifest flaws in temperament. The Clinton campaign must have done some psychological profiling of Mr. Trump to figure out that his great flaw is his inability to ignore or deflect personal criticism. His GOP opponents made the mistake of trying to take him down on substance. But Mrs. Clinton has tried to disqualify him on character, and Wednesday she continued to set one bear trap after another. Mr. Trump usually walked in.

She made him look especially small on the matter of his women accusers, as Mr. Trump lashed back at her and accused the women of being set up by the Clinton campaign. Even if they were, Mr. Trump needs to do far better than he is doing among women voters to win on Nov. 8. And those voters would like to have seen some humility, if not remorse, instead of a boast that “nobody has more respect for women than I do.” After the Billy Bush video, that doesn’t wash.

Mr. Trump’s biggest mistake was his refusal to say he would accept the election results if he loses. “I will look at it at the time,” Mr. Trump said in reply to Mr. Wallace. Asked again by Fox News’ Mr. Wallace—by far the best moderator of this election year with his focus on substance—Mr. Trump made it worse by saying “I will keep you in suspense, okay?”

That again is Mr. Trump’s ego talking, a man who doesn’t like to lose refusing to take responsibility for his campaign. Voters on the right and left want to have faith in the electoral system. Mr. Trump’s statement makes us wonder if Mr. Trump and adviser Steve Bannon are planning to blame everyone else if he does lose. It’s true that Al Gore tried to steal the 2000 election from George W. Bush until the Supreme Court finally intervened, but that is not an example any Republican should want to follow.

The hard reality of this campaign is that it was set up for a Republican victory. A divided and unhappy country wants to move in a new direction. Even Mr. Trump, after all his mistakes, had essentially tied the race before the first debate. Win or lose in three weeks, the result will be one that he has earned.

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2)

Dumb and Dumber

This is what’s going to happen to U.S. education if Hillary Clinton wins.

By Daniel Henninger

It’s time to send the sniffer dogs into the rubble of America’s 2016 presidential election to see if there’s anything worth saving. We’ve learned some important things. We have learned that at the lower end of the income scale, the white vote is broken, or more accurately, brokenhearted. Many middle-class white voters are angry over a system they say has failed them.

They aren’t the only ones. America’s inner cities, its poorest neighborhoods, are increasingly on edge. One of these days, they could blow on the scale of the 1960s.

Much of this has to do with dismal job prospects, and better growth is part of the answer. But there’s a bigger problem than growth—the diminished state of American education.

Without an education upgrade that matches learning skills with modern jobs, all these people will still lose ground, and personal behavior will continue to degrade.

No better source of information exists on this than employers, especially manufacturers, who say U.S. schools, notwithstanding claims of improved “graduation” rates, are not producing sufficient numbers of workers able to perform at the level they need for the realities of the 21st century workplace. Apparently the universal skill of being able to manipulate a cellphone to take a selfie isn’t enough.

During a September visit to a charter school in a black neighborhood on Cleveland’s east side, Donald Trump said, “I will be the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice,” and an advocate for merit pay “so that we reward our best teachers instead of the failed tenure system that rewards bad teachers and punishes the good ones.”

He at least will say publicly that the U.S. public education system just doesn’t work anymore for too many people.

The natural A-students will be fine. This reality allows many smart people to stop thinking about the country’s most socially destructive problem. But for many others, elementary and secondary school is a drag on lifetime achievement. What the cry from the Trumpian heartland has revealed is that many rural schools also offer the same futureless education as inner-city schools.

These people aren’t irredeemably stupid. Their schools are stupid. Fix the schools and half of America’s myriad problems are solvable.

A new element is the descent of U.S. colleges and universities into PC hell. A basic mission, to prepare students for the new workplace, is being rechanneled into wheel-spinning controversies, such as “hurtful” speech or names on buildings. A Clinton win will empower this insanity.

Some of these institutions of higher learning actually brag about the remedial-education programs they offer first-year students who were waved through 12 years of inadequate public schooling. By 18, it’s too late. They will never catch up.

Take your schools pick: Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. It’s no choice, because the proposed education policies of Hillary Clinton (Wellesley, Yale) are, incredibly, a step back from the baby steps Barack Obama managed.

The National Education Association has spent $14 million so far to elect Hillary. The chances that a President Clinton would buck this industrial-age teachers union, whose raison d’être is killing teacher accountability, are zero. Her web site extols pouring more federal money down the public-schools mine shaft.

The proven alternative is charter schools run by innovative educators or voucher-supported schools run by churches—if they can survive. Talk to a charter-school leader like Eva Moskowitz in New York and she will tell you how they use squads of pro-bono, white-shoe lawyers to fight off nonstop litigation by the teachers unions hitting the streets for Hillary Clinton.

The school-choice movement gets everything thrown at it, such as the 19th-century, anti-Catholic Blaine Amendments in 38 states that thwart support for poor kids attending parochial schools. The Podesta-Palmieri-Halpin emails make clear this hoary religious bias thrives in the post-Obama Democratic Party.

Back in his teleprompter-speech days, Donald Trump appealed to black and Hispanic audiences. Many inner-city black Americans know Mr. Obama didn’t do as much as they expected for their kids’ education. In fact, he spent his entire presidency trying to defund the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program.

That President Obama’s daughters went to private Sidwell Friends in D.C. encapsulates this entire issue. It’s not just Mr. Obama constantly self-referencing about how “folks like me” can substitute a Sidwell for public-school chaos. Most “folks like me” aren’t in charge of the federal government, which has the authority to change the status quo. Instead, Eric Holder’s Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Louisiana’s successful voucher program for poor children.

The moral catastrophe of the schools is one of the issues that lets people pretend to themselves “it will get better” if Hillary wins. It won’t. After she wins, this problem will remain—lack of learned skills, lack of hope, an economy separating them from people like her smug campaign workers. One thing is certain: The anger will grow.

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