How would the TSA handle Donald Trump's "Ban all Muslims" policy?

TSA: State your name.
Terrorist: My name is Ach...drew Jones.
TSA: Achdrew Jones?
Terrorist: Yes.
TSA: Religion?
Terrorist: Mus...thodist. Methodist.
TSA: You're Methodist?
Terrorist: Yes.
TSA: Thought you were going to say Muslim.
Terrorist: No, no. Methodist.
TSA: You can board. Next! State your name.
Dave: Dave Chappelle.
TSA: Religion?
Dave: Muslim.
TSA: GET HIM!! SWARM, SWARM!!!

Politically Speaking - 11/2/15

Some random thoughts on the current state of politics.

- It's been pretty amazing and yet completely predictable how Hillary Clinton has played the "sexism" card against Bernie Sanders. Bernie's been saying people shout for years, but Hillary somehow spun that into a craven dog-whistle for sexism. It was pathetic, but it worked. Now anything Bernie or his campaign says about Hillary that isn't fawning is somehow considered a sexist attack. RNC take note: learn how to handle crap like this, because it's nothing compared to what the Clinton Machine will throw at your eventual candidate.

- RNC chair Reince Preibus has decided "enough is enough" with the way the GOP debates have been going, compared to the substantive one Anderson Cooper moderated for the Democrats. He has removed NBC from their planned February debate, and this actually serves as a warning to the other networks. The candidates have since held their own meeting to figure out how they want to proceed. Reince has thus far been incompetent in how these debates have gone.

- Jeb Bush's claim that he hadn't seen the PowerPoint on attacking Marco Rubio until it was leaked was weak sauce. And he reboots his campaign with the instantly mockable #JebCanFixIt. He should drop out. Of course, so should Jim Gilmore, Rick Santorum, George Pataki, Bobby Jindal and Lindsey Graham.

Hillary Lied About Benghazi; So What?

We've known for years that the Obama Administration misled the American people about the motivations of the attack on Benghazi. They blamed a YouTube video for sparking outrage across Libya when they knew it was a terrorist attack. We can't let a terrorist attack seven weeks before the 2012 election muddy up the narrative, can we?

After 11 hours of Hillary Clinton testifying before the House Benghazi Committee, we have confirmation of what we've known. And when I say 11 hours, I really mean about 3 hours. The other 8 hours was taken up by Congressfolk pontificating, monologuing, whining, theorizing, making mini-speechs, crafting soundbites, and wasting time by complaining about all the time being wasted.

So was the hearing worth it?

"Thanks to Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi testimony on Thursday, we now understand why the former secretary of state never wanted anyone to see her emails and why the State Department sat on documents. Turns out those emails and papers show that the Obama administration deliberately misled the nation about the deadly events in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012. 

Don’t forget how we came to this point. Mrs. Clinton complained in her testimony on Capitol Hill that past Congresses had never made the overseas deaths of U.S. officials a “partisan” issue. That’s because those past deaths had never inspired an administration to concoct a wild excuse for their occurrence, in an apparent attempt to avoid blame for a terror attack in a presidential re-election year." - Kimberly Strassel, The Wall Street Journal

And also:

"Even by today's standards of rabid partisanship, the breast-beating threat display from Democrats and members of the press alike to which voters were privy yesterday was something to behold.  The message has been clearly received: Republicans, back off from the nest in which Barack Obama’s anointed Democratic successor is incubating... 

Even if you were inclined to be extraordinarily charitable toward former Secretary Clinton and the administration in which she served, one must at least concede that new questions about what the administration knew and when it knew it have been opened up by this committee. It seems, however, that those with a passing attachment to intellectual honesty are in short supply inside the Beltway. 

The Benghazi Committee is owed a public debt if only because it has exposed the decay in Washington’s culture of wagon-circling. Pundits who forever lament America’s sense of alienation from the political class and their growing cynicism towards elected elites appear not to notice when they are exacerbating that condition. While news media and Democrats are praising Clinton’s performance, Americans are waking up to the notion that they might have been deliberately misled about the deaths of their fellow citizens in a terror attack and likely for petty political gain. There is something rotten here." - Noah Rothman, Commentary

On the Republican side, I thought Troy Gowdy and Martha Roby acquitted themselves best. Linda Sanchez and Adam Smith were probably the worst partisans on the Democratic side. When Adam Smith complained about not learning anything, Gowdy shot back with this: "I'll be happy to get a copy of my opening statement for the gentleman from Washington so he can refresh his recollection on all the things our committee found that your previous committee missed."

As for the Republicans in Congress as a whole, they are re-learning the lesson that the GOP from the 1990's learned: you cannot bring a Clinton down with a scandal.  Most of the media reports are praising her performance. And that's what politics is: performance. Democratic donors are thrilled to jump aboard the H-Train now.

Benghazi as an issue in 2016 is dead. Her email server is not. But really, for a year where the majority of Americans want an outsider, when they view DC as corrupt, is Hillary Clinton not the ultimate corrupt insider?  Between her and Trump, this is so far the most bizarro election ever.

Sean Hannity Loves Donald Trump

I did something I haven't done in a long time. I watched Hannity. I used to keeps tabs on him, and it's pretty obvious that he's there to give talking points. O'Reilly could go off on weird stuff at any time, Rush sometimes surprises me with his take on things, but Hannity is a reliable automoton with his spin on whatever the subject is.

So I watched Hannity last night because I heard he and Ann Coulter were singing Trump's praises. He started with guest Newt Gingrich, where they both talked about why Trump is a credible candidate. Hannity was spoonfeeding for the slower folks at home that Trump gave a speech earlier this week with a lot of specifics. Lots, I tell you.

Then Coulter came on and they started defended Donald Trump's position.

Charles CW Cooke was the other guest, and Hannity or Coulter would not let the guy finish a sentence without interrupting him and blasting him with Trump talking points. Hannity and Coulter tag-teamed him for the whole segment, and Coutler said stuff that was flat-out untrue. Cooke, if you read his writing, is a credible conservative. Coulter, if you read her writing, is a carnival sideshow. And Hannity sided with the sideshow. My favorite line from Cooke was that she was changing her position on issues based on whatever Donald Trump said last.

Remember when Donald Trump said he had a call with Roger Ailes and he said he felt like Fox News would be fair to him now? Well, Sean Hannity is the good little soldier wearing the "Trump 2016" button now.

Trump's Iowa Supports Slips; Still #1

Donald Trump showed weakneeses at the August 6 debate, but still leads polls.

The first post-debate Iowa poll is out, and it does show some movement, some hints for where voters are leaning in that state.

Gravis Poll in Iowa August 4

1. Trump - 31%
2. Walker - 15%
3. Bush - 10%
4. Jindal - 7%
5. Cruz - 6%
5. Huckabee - 6%
7. Carson - 5%
7. Kasich - 5%
9. Fiorina - 4%
10. Rubio - 3%

PPP Poll in Iowa August 10

1. Trump - 19%   (-12)
2. Carson - 12%   (+7)
2. Walker - 12%   (-3)
4. Bush - 11%      (+1)
5. Fiorina - 10%  (+6)
6. Cruz - 9%       (+3)
7. Huckabee - 6% (-)
7. Rubio - 6%      (+3)
9. Kasich - 3%     (-2)
10. Paul - 3%       (+2)

Bobby Jindal actually looked like he was making headway in Iowa, but one has to wonder if his inability to stand out at the kids-table debate has sunk his campaign. Maybe it's too easy to declare campaigns "sunk," but I don't see Jindal going anywhere.

"47 Traitors"? Give Me A Break

When 47 Senators sent a letter to Iran to remind them that they wouldn't have to honor any agreement that Pres. Obama signed off on until they had their own chance to review it and vote on it, the hashtag #47Traitors was born. It's another one of those cynical, divisive, gigantically hypocritical bumper-stick hate slogans that sticks in people's heads no matter how little substance there is. Look at how #WarOnWomen has stuck around.

Did the letter undermine the president? It could have. It was stupid and ill-advised. But is anyone on the Left actually advocating for the senators' imprisonment and execution? Let me rephrase. Is anyone rational on the Left advocating for this? No.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good dose of outrage.

Lest we forget, the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes provides some examples when the Democrats have undermined Republican presidents with foreign leaders:

* In 1979, Senator Robert Byrd traveled to the Soviet Union during the SALT II arms talks to “personally explain the requirements of our Constitution” to Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev. Byrd later wrote: “In Leningrad, I explained that I had come to the Soviet Union neither to praise nor condemn the treaty but to create a better understanding of the treaty in the Senate and to explain to the Soviets the Senate’s constitutional role in treatymaking.”  

* In the early 1980s, Senator Ted Kennedy secretly approached leaders of the Soviet Union with a proposal: I’ll help you with Ronald Reagan’s defense build up if you help me defeat him in the 1984 presidential election. Former senator John Tunney conveyed the offer on Kennedy’s behalf. 

* In April 1985, as the Reagan administration sought to limit Soviet influence in Central America, Senator John Kerry traveled to Nicaragua, met with Communist strongman Daniel Ortega, and accused the Reagan administration of supporting “terrorism” against the government there. “Senator Harkin and I are going to Nicaragua as Vietnam-era veterans who are alarmed that the Reagan administration is repeating the mistakes we made in Vietnam.” Kerry’s trip followed a letter from a group of House Democrats led by majority leader Jim Wright to Nicaraguan strongman Daniel Ortega. The “Dear Comandante” letter declared: “We regret the fact that better relations do not exist between the United States and your country. We have been, and remain, opposed to U.S. support for military action directed against the people or government of Nicaragua. We want to commend you and your government for taking steps to open up the political process in your country.”

* In 1990, former President Jimmy Carter secretly wrote to the leaders of the U.N. Security Council nations urging them to oppose a resolution offered by his own country. The existence of the letter was revealed when one of its recipients shared a copy with the White House. Presi-dent George H. W. Bush was “furious” at the “deliberate attempt to undermine” his foreign policy, according to his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft. 

* In 2002, in the heat of the congressional debate over the authorization of the Iraq war, the second-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, David Bonior, traveled to Baghdad with two fellow Democrats to oppose the imminent invasion. Democratic congressman Jim McDermott appeared on ABC’s This Week from Baghdad to denounce President George W. Bush and propagandize for Saddam Hussein. Shakir al Khafaji, a well-known fixer for the Iraqi regime and a longtime supporter of Bonior, arranged the visit. The Democrats vigorously denied that they had accepted Iraqi regime funding for the trip. Documents uncovered in postwar Iraq demonstrated that their claim was untrue. 

* In 2007, newly elected House speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to Syria to meet with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. At the time of the trip, the Bush administration was seeking to isolate Assad, whose regime was supporting insurgents in Iraq who were targeting U.S. troops. Pelosi disregarded the administration’s request to cancel her trip. Instead, she appeared in Damascus and reassured the world that Assad was eager to be a constructive player in the region and wanted peace with Israel.

Back in the real world, in the political cycle, this stuff doesn't matter. Why? Cuz we got #47Traitors trending, man! Woohoo. Champagne for everyone at MSNBC and Media Matters. Just another way to use the ignorance and short-term memory of the electorate against them. If this is our threshold for calling "treason," then all of our leaders have been traitors for a long time. And hey, Republicans did it to Bill Clinton too. As the Washington Post puts it:

The folly here is not in Cotton’s decision to write the mullahs, but in Obama’s petulant response that Cotton and his colleagues were “making common cause with the hard-liners in Iran.” Please. The deal Obama is negotiating is opposed not only by Republicans in Congress, but also by leading Democrats, the government of Israel and most Arab leaders. Are they all “making common cause with the hard-liners in Iran” too? 

Rather than having a temper tantrum, Obama should emulate Clinton and use congressional and international opposition as leverage at the negotiating table to get a better deal with Iran. And rather than rail against those who are speaking out against his deal, Obama should ask himself why so many are going to such great lengths to stop it. The problem is not their criticism, but Obama running roughshod over the concerns of Congress and U.S. allies. The fact is that any deal Obama reaches that does not have broad bipartisan backing in Congress and the support of governments in the region is in fact “dead on arrival” — even if Cotton and company are too polite to put it that bluntly.

And to be fair, if any of the 47 called "treason" on one or more of those actions before this letter, they shouldn't be surprised. Soemthing something "chickens home to roost" something.

In other news:

- Hillary Clinton's press conference on her secret email server was a disaster. It's the same old Clinton, where obfuscation and technicalities should satiate everyone. Does anyone really want her to be President, or is it just a matter of Democrats resigned to the fact she'll win the nomination, and she's better than any Republican? Is that what it is? Even the White House doesn't know how to defend her on this.

- Gov. Martin O'Malley took a baby step forward in perhaps declaring his own run for the Presidency, willing to go on the record with a gentle disagreement on how Hillary's handled the email controversy.

BetFair's 2016 GOP Presidential Candidate Watch

I'm glad BetFair exists. It gives us a little better idea where candidates may stand, as people put money on nominees. So how does it look right now?

1. Jeb Bush - 3.35 (12-5)
2. Marco Rubio - 7.8 (7-1)
3. Rand Paul - 8.2 (7-1)
4. Mitt Romney - 8.8 (8-1)
5. Scott Walker - 10.5 (9-1)
6. Chris Christie - 11 (10-1)
7. Ted Cruz - 15.5 (14-1)
8. Rick Perry - 18 (17-1)
9. Mike Huckabee - 21 (20-1)
10. Paul Ryan - 29 (27-1)

Next five:
Bobby Jindal, Mike Pence, Susana Martinez, Ben Carson, Rick Santorum

I gave my gut feeling on this topic a couple days ago, so it's nice to see confirmation on a lot of the positioning. It's been interesting to watch the Tea Party 4 (Paul, Rubio, Cruz, Lee) go four different directions. Lee's the only one clearly not running for president. Paul and Rubio have been tempering their responses to various issues, while Cruz is content to flamethrow. So far, the approaches by Paul and Rubio have been more effective.

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's having a good showing early. He may find running too tempting a proposition to pass up.