HALF-FULL REPORT 07/15/16

Donald Trump has chosen Indiana Gov. Mike Pence to be his running mate. A former Congressman with national ambitions, Pence was once a conservative darling. But he lost a support in Indiana and a cred with conservatives last year when he first backed a state Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and then backtracked after pressure from gay activists and big business. He was likely to lose his bid for re-election this year. The Donald has spared him that embarrassment.

“Pence’s mincing, pro-forma endorsement of Cruz combined with his gushing praise for Trump sent the signal he was pliable,” said Jonah Goldberg.

Soon to be dropped down the Memory Hole is this Pence speech extolling the benefits of NAFTA.

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The list of speakers at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next week was released yesterday.  There are six Trumps on it, four billionaires, four reality tv stars, two soap opera stars.

The prominent politicians on the list – Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark – all expect Hillary to beat Trump, hope to use their convention speeches to jump start their campaigns for 2020.

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A New York Times/CBS poll yesterday indicated support for Hillary has fallen from 50 percent in April to 40 percent now.  A Quinnipiac poll showed Trump leading her in Florida and Pennsylvania, tied in Ohio.

So why does virtually every GOP pro think she’ll clobber Trump in November?  In part because the same polls that show a tight race also indicate he can’t win.  Analysis after the rest of the week’s news.

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The effort by anti-Trump Republicans to block his nomination fizzled badly in the Rules Committee yesterday.

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A “Tunisian born Frenchman,” Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, drove a heavy truck into a crowd in Nice, France celebrating Bastille day, then opened fire, killing at least 84, two of them Americans, and at least 10 children. It would have been worse were it not for this guy.

Terrorism expert Sebastian Gorka wonders: In the wake of Nice attack, will Obama call for banning trucks?

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There appears to be a coup going on Turkey tonight.  Details are sketchy at this writing, but this is probably good news.  Ever since Ataturk, the military has been the bulwark of Turkish secularism.  Overthrowing Erdogan would be a good thing.

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Theresa May became Britain’s prime minister Wednesday (7/13). She replaces David Cameron, who resigned after losing the Brexit vote.  Ms. May, like most Tory MPs, also supported Remain.  But she promised faithfully to implement the referendum vote to leave the European Union, and she appointed the most flamboyant Brexit supporter, Boris Johnson, to the most important post in her Cabinet.

Ms. May, 59, Britain’s longest serving Home Secretary, is “unpredictable and moralistic,” said the Guardian, a left-wing British newspaper, “but in time of national crisis, her calm consistency and sense of moral duty may be just what is called for.”

Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn, a Commie who is disliked by ordinary Britons, hangs on as Labour Party leader despite having lost, badly, a post-Brexit vote of no confidence. The Labour Party is in crisis, and the civil war between the leftist elite and the ordinary working people who voted to leave the EU intensifies. (constituent of my favorite British politician, Dan Hannon, described Brexit as a clash between “the smirking class and the working class.)

Expect Ms. May to take advantage of Labour’s turmoil by calling for elections sometime this fall. (A British government serves for five years, but the Prime Minister may call for new elections at any time during that term.)  The Tories currently have a slim majority in Parliament (330 of 650 seats). Labour has 230, the Scottish National Party 54. The remaining seats are scattered among eight minor parties. A fattened Conservative majority would make it easier for Ms. May to deal with the smirking class in Britain and the bureaucrats in the EU.

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President Obama now wants to have the U.S. military work with the Russians in Syria. The Pentagon thinks it’s a bad idea. The net result is that dictator Hafez Assad, who Obama once pledged to oust, will win Syria’s bloody civil war.

“Having proven unable to stop Putin and Assad, Obama now wants a seat at the table to mitigate the massacre,” said Richard Fernandez of the Belmont Club. “Obama’s foreign policy has consistently been to optimize defeat. “To give the president his due, he normally discovers he’s in a war too late to win. By the time he realies his predicament it’s usually hopeless and the only course left is to surrender with grace.”

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An international tribunal at the Hague has ruled against China’s claim to the Spratly islands in the South China sea. China has said it will ignore the ruling. The Obama administration has asked the Asian nations the tribunal ruled in favor of not to provoke China by “aggressively” pursuing their claims.

For background on the Spratlys, reread this article by Dr. Jack Wheeler.

“Obama’s fecklessness in pushing back against China is only escalating the conflict in the Western Pacific,” said Arthur Herman of the Hudson Institute.

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It’s starting to dawn on foreign policy “experts” that North Korea is building nuclear weapons because it plans to use them.

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The Obama State Department sent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to an Israeli group working to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A State Department official deleted emails about the secret campaign against the Israeli prime minister.

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Laptops recovered from ISIS jihadists are filled with 80 percent porn, said LtGen. Michael Flynn, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

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In a breach of decorum so shocking the New York Times felt compelled to denounce it, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made a public attack on Donald Trump.

She “needs to drop the political punditry and the name-calling,” the Times said. “Washington is more than partisan enough without the spectacle of a Supreme Court justice flinging herself into the mosh pit.”

Why would the Times criticize one of its heroines?

“Because the myth of Supreme Court impartiality is more important to them than Ginsburg’s feelings,” thinks Ben Shapiro. “The Court, thanks to the left, has become a nakedly political instrument. Ginsburg just revealed that for everyone to see.”

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Bernie Sanders gave Hillary Clinton a tepid endorsement Tuesday (7/12). His supporters were less than thrilled.

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In last week’s HFR I made FBI Director James Comey both my hero of the week (for making a damning indictment of Hillary Clinton’s “extremely careless” handling of classified information), and my putz of the week (for then saying he wouldn’t recommend indicting her).

This week he’s just a putz.

When the FBI interviewed Hillary, she wasn’t under oath.  No recording of the interview was made. He’s resisting demands of Republicans in Congress to see the FBI summary of the interview. The FBI agents who worked on the Hillary email probe have been required to sign non-disclosure agreements.  

The unusual step can have a “chilling effect” on agents, a recently retired FBI agent told Fox News.

“FBI agents believe there was an inside deal put in place after the Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton tarmac meeting,” a source told the New York Post.

Even though the FBI Director said she was “extremely careless” with classified information, the Director of National Intelligence says he still plans to give candidate Hillary classified briefings. House Speaker Paul Ryan is trying to put a stop to that.

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Sen. Tim Scott, R-SC, made a powerful, narrative changing speech on race relations yesterday. It’s well worth your while to listen to.

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Before the feds take away our guns, they should take better care of their own. Federal agencies have lost 985 weapons since 2006 – including Uzi machine pistols, (actual) assault rifles, and grenade launchers, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-UT, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, revealed during a hearing July 6.

The guns lost had been acquired for the Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Prisons. There are now more armed federal agents than there are Marines.

“Maybe it’s easier to get a Glock than a book,” said Theodore Kupfer. “But only if you’re neighbors of the

local branch of the DHS.”

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According to Social Justice Warriors, the Obama administration and the Lying Swine, this couldn’t possibly have happened.

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The bad news in the good polling news for Trump is that a week after FBI Director James Comey delivered what should have been a death blow to Hillary’s campaign, she still leads The Donald in most polls.

Take a look at the RealClear Politics index of polls.  You’ll see that almost all the volatility has been in Hillary’s numbers. In the NYT/CBS poll mentioned above, Trump is at 40 percent – exactly where he was in April.

The Quinnipiac poll indicated GOP candidates for the Senate in Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio are running far ahead of Trump.  In 2012, Mitt Romney ran ahead of nearly all Republican Senate candidates.

The surrealistic size of the leads for Marco Rubio, Pat Toomey and Rob Portman suggest these Q polls are outliers.  In an NBC/WSJ poll yesterday, Hillary led Trump 43 to 37 in Florida, is beating him by 6 percentage points in North Carolina, 8 in Colorado, 9 in Virginia.

Hillary’s lead is actually 2 to 5 points greater than the polls indicate, the pros say, because an election in which the two major party candidates are so disliked figures to be a low turnout election, so Get Out the Vote operations are critical. (Mitt Romney may have lost Virginia and Florida because his expensive, hi-tech GOTV operation flopped.)

Democrats will organize well in every key community (and in many graveyards). Trump and a dead broke RNC have no GOTV operation.

Barring a development I’ll discuss below, this week figures to be Hillary’s worst week of polling.  The Donald’s worst weeks may still be ahead of him.

Americans have known for some time that Hillary is a greedy, corrupt liar. But there are a lot more bad things for people on the fence to learn about Trump.  We can be sure that now the only candidate Hillary could beat has been nominated, the “mainstream” media will focus a spotlight on his shortcomings, while downplaying, or ignoring altogether, Hillary’s much greater sins.  We can be sure a corrupt IRS will leak the tax returns Trump strives so hard to keep hidden.

Trump has no money for ads that would call attention to Hillary’s shortcomings the Lying Swine choose to overlook.  And while I’m sure The Donald enjoys his weekly tongue baths from Sean Hannity, his appearances on Fox News reach absolutely no one not already in his corner. Trump’s is a Scampaign, not a campaign.

Quinnipiac asked what I considered the most important question in this week’s polls: “Agree or disagree: The old way of doing things no longer works and we need radical change.”  Between 70 and 80 percent of respondents in Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio agreed.

“Every election…is a refendum on one simple question: Do you want the status quo or do you want change?” said Trumpkin John Nolte. “Once that question is answered, an almost equally important question is asked: If you want change, is the alternative acceptable?

The response to the first question indicates that a credible candidate who took on the arrogant, selfish, inept, corrupt ruling class Hillary Clinton epitomizes would beat her like a drum. But for most Americans, Trump is not an acceptable alternative.

So congratulations, Trumpkins.  You – with a big boost from the GOPe you claim to despise (I defy you to find an ickier Washington lobbyist than Paul Manafort, current honcho of Team Trump) – have done the otherwise impossible.  You’ve guaranteed the election of Hillary Clinton.

Unless…

The only thing I can see that might turn this around for Trump is if ISIS is able to pull off here a series of mass casualty events like they have in France. As we saw when gays rushed to buy guns in the wake of the Orlando massacre, an existential crisis can change attitudes in a hurry.