Preview of tonight's debate

By Branco at Legal Insurrection:

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Yet another continuing funding resolution

art credit: quotesgram.com

The Uniparty is poised to strike again. 

From Rick Moran at American Thinker:

[Sen. Mitch] McConnell urges passage of 'bi-partisan' funding resolution. 

With less than 6 days to go before the government runs out of money, Congress will vote this week on a stop gap measure that would fund the government through December.

What is not in the Continuing Resolution [CR] is far more significant than what it contains. Not included are any controversial policy riders. Funding the battle [against] the Zika virus is included, but at reduced levels.

 . . .

The fact that the CR funds the government at levels agreed upon last year is irrelevant. Those levels are unacceptable because they add tens of billions to the deficit. The military is upset because the reduced funding agreed to will hamper operations and readiness. 

About the only people who are truly happy with this CR are the bureaucrats who will once again be able to expand their power through additional funding.

If this is "bi-partisanship," give me gridlock every day.

Amen to that. Read the rest here, including extracts from Sen. Mitch McConnell’s statement.

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Newt Gingrich, Van Jones to debate at Baldwin Wallace University

photo credit: mrc.org.

You see Van Jones all the time on CNN, but some of us still can't get past his role as President Obama's Green Czar. Jones resigned over the Labor Day weekend in 2009 following criticism and outrage over his radical positions. (Here's the archived report on Politico.)

From cleveland.com today:

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Two prominent political commentators will take a quick hiatus from cable TV next week to debate the election at Baldwin Wallace University instead.

Newt Gingrich, the former U.S. House Speaker who has emerged as a prominent supporter of Republican nominee Donald Trump, and Van Jones, the former environmental adviser in President Barack Obama's White House who now supports Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, are scheduled to appear at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 29 at BW's Ursprung Gymnasium, 136 E. Bagley Rd. in Berea.

The two, who previously co-hosted "Crossfire" on CNN, will discuss the impact Clinton and Trump's policies could have on Ohio and its economy, according to university officials.

The university booked the two to appear last year as part of the BW School of Business Leadership Lecture Series. It just so happened that both have emerged as prominent voices on this year's election, particularly Gingrich, who was discussed as a possible vice-presidential candidate for Trump.

. . .

The university already has distributed 2,000 tickets — the gymnasium has room for about 1,500 more people. Tickets are free, but are limited to four per person.

To register, click here, or visit https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?show=67441.

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Excellent reminder of why we stand for the National Anthem

photo credit: sportsleader.org

Well, this was refreshing to read. From Legal Insurrection:

Kneeling during the national anthem has taken the sports by storm since San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick began it during preseason to protest police treatment of black people. Other NFL players have done it along with high school football players.

But Virginia Tech basketball coach Buzz Williams will not have that behavior in his house. Instead, he chose to show his players why we stand for the national anthem. We do it to honor the men and women who sacrificed so much so we can enjoy our freedom at home.

There’s a 4½ minute video of coach Williams on the website. Various versions have been up on YouTube for over a year, but the recent disrespect exhibited by the SF quarterback makes it timely. The video on the LI website shows over 34 million views! It's inspiring.

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If they don’t report, how do you decide?

art credit: bradhoffmann.com

Another black mark for Fox News. In a long line of black marks. 

Last year, Megyn Kelly disgraced herself at the first GOP primary debate, with assists from Bret Baier and Chris Wallace. Gretchen Carlson sued Fox for sexual harassment and won. Roger Ailes resigned under a cloud. Then Greta Van Susteren resigned abruptly. Last month, Andrea Tantaros sued Fox for sexual harassment. Some critics are fed up with Sean Hannity for his blatant bias and support of Donald Trump.

So yesterday evening, the 10pm Hannity show was scheduled to broadcast the town hall taped earlier in the day in Cleveland Heights. Donald Trump was speaking as the guest of Pastor Darrell Scott, who is a Trump surrogate; Scott is especially eloquent on minorities, inner cities, the media, and related issues. (This blog has posted some of Scott's interview via YouTubes here and here.)

Fox News bumped the Hannity town hall last night. Instead, they went wall-to-wall with “Fox News Alert” coverage of Charlotte, North Carolina, with shots of earlier rioting interspersed with current shots of not much going on (the Governor declared a state of emergency at 12:30 am and the violence continued into the night; I don't know if Fox was still bumping regularly scheduled programming). 

Is Fox planning to run the Hannity town hall with Trump tonight or over the weekend? The Fox website states only that “The Hannity town hall event, originally scheduled for Wednesday, did not air due to breaking news coverage of the protests in Charlotte.” No announcement of re-scheduling. 

Sundance recently predicted that as Election Day approaches, and since Hillary’s campaign seems to be cratering, that we will see the media and the Uniparty political class fan the flames of race warfare like we’ve never seen. Maybe Fox’s decision to bump the Trump town hall and spend the entire hour with footage of Charlotte streets, evidently anticipating more rioting, is a beginning of the final ugly phase of the presidential campaign season. I don't know, but I can say that I don't see much difference these days between Fox, other cable news, or the networks.

The Washington Post, no fan of Mr. Trump, published an annotated transcript of the Hannity/Trump town hall here. 

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Election issues 101

art credit: blog.press.princeton.edu

Thomas Sowell is one of my favorite columnists, not the least because of his ability to explain economics in ways that anyone can understand. He writes in plain English, marshals his facts, and it’s all but impossible to find a logic lapse in any of his arguments. While I may disagree with him on this or that, I admire him and respect his opinion. Always. So I am extracting his column from a recent Front Page column on “Essential Reads For The 2016 Election:  Books every American should be familiar with before voting this November”:

If you are concerned about issues involved when some people want to expand the welfare state and others want to contract it, then one of the most relevant and insightful books is "Life at the Bottom" by Theodore Dalrymple. It was not written this year and is not even about the United States, much less our current presidential or other candidates.

What makes "Life at the Bottom" especially relevant and valuable is that it is about the actual consequences of the welfare state in England — which are remarkably similar to the consequences in the United States.

Many Americans may find it easier to think straight about what happens, when it is in a country where the welfare recipients are overwhelmingly whites, so that their behavior cannot be explained away by "a legacy of slavery" or "institutional racism," or other such evasions of facts in the United States.

As Dr. Dalrymple says: "It will come as a surprise to American readers, perhaps, to learn that the majority of the British underclass is white, and that it demonstrates all the same social pathology as the black underclass in America — for very similar reasons, of course." That reason is the welfare state, and the attitudes and behavior it promotes and subsidizes.

Another and very different example of the welfare state's actual consequences is "The New Trail of Tears" by Naomi Schaefer Riley. It is a painful but eye-opening account of life on American Indian reservations.

People on those reservations have been taken care of by the federal government for more than a hundred years. They have lived in a welfare state longer than any other minority in America. What have been the consequences?

One consequence is that they have lower incomes than any other minority — including other American Indians, who do not live on reservations, and who are doing far better on their own.

The economic plight of people on the reservations is by no means the worst of it. The social problems are heart-breaking. As just one example, the leading cause of death, among American Indian boys from 10 to 14 years of age, is suicide.

As regards black Americans, there is much talk about the role of police. If you want a book that cuts through the rhetoric and confusion, and deals with hard facts, then "The War on Cops" by Heather Mac Donald does precisely that.

On racial issues in general, the best economic survey is "Race and Economics" by Professor Walter Williams of George Mason University. Just the table on page 35, showing unemployment rates among black and white teenagers, going all the way back to 1948, should demolish all the rhetoric and spin that tries to conceal the deadly effects of minimum wage laws on unemployment among black teenagers.

The rest of Sowell's column is here. The authors cited by Sowell are also regular contributors to print and online sources. So if book-length discussions are too time-consuming for a busy schedule, you can access columns by Dalrymple on welfare and poverty here, Williams on the consequences of minimum wages here, and McDonald on the war on cops here. And here’s a review of McDonald’s book on cops. 

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Hillary: fashion icon? Who knew?

Time out for a little humor. Doug Powers (on Michelle Malkin's website) reports the following:

The Post put a question mark after “style icon” because they didn’t want to be total sycophantic sellouts.

Maybe they’re on to something, because I was dressed like this earlier when fixing an electrical problem (it’s the only jacket with pockets that can hold all my tools, and the wearable black tape really comes in handy for wire wrapping):

This outfit –and Doug Powers’s editorial comments above – crack me up. But have you taken note of the stunning matching pants? Meow.

REMINDER: Tune in to Fox News tonight at 10pm for Hannity's Town Hall "Trump Talks Minority Outreach." It was recorded this morning in Cleveland Hts. at Pastor Darrell Scott's church.

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