It is said that 2.8 million ballots remain to be counted in California – this is an indication of a government system which is massively incompetent. Suppose California decided the election – suppose we did go to a popular vote system – we’d still be waiting for the results two weeks out.

Meanwhile, Michigan is still not officially called – even though they finished counting on November 10th and Trump leads by 13,107 votes. My guess is that Trump will wind up north of 63 million votes while Hillary will finish somewhere around 65 million. That makes Trump the best vote-getter in GOP history (beating out Bush by about a million votes from 2004), and will make Hillary the second best Democrat vote-getter (getting beat by Obama in both ’08 and ’12).

We GOPers should really press for a revival of the California GOP – first off, because we shouldn’t be just resigning 55 electoral votes to the Democrats, secondly to give us a boost in popular votes so we don’t give our Progressives even the slight satisfaction of their guy getting more popular votes. Back out California’s total, and Trump won the popular vote in the rest of the nation (59.7 million for Trump, 56.5 million for Hillary); let’s move our vote total towards 6 million in CA…even if the Dems win, it would make the difference in the total national vote.

Kellyanne Conway notes that the MSM seems to be suffering from a sort of PTSD about the election.

Don Surber notes that Trump remains expert at trolling the MSM and making them go after things which are trivial.

The main thing about Senator Sessions being made Attorney General is the fact that if we enforce the laws already on the books, a lot of people are going to catch it hot…and that, I think, it what they are afraid of. We’ve kind of done this phony game where we need “Comprehensive immigration reform” in order to figure out what to do about the illegal aliens…thing is, we’ve got it all covered in law, except for any amnesty package. Obama – and, let’s face it, the GOP as well – has refused to enforce the immigration laws because this creates a “crisis” which then requires an amnesty. This is exactly backwards. Sessions, I think, will get it going in the right direction – enforce the laws and once we’ve cleared out the bad guys and got the border secure then we can consider amnesty for those who remain.

Kurt Schlichter, who had his doubts about Trump, is starting to enjoy this:

It’s important to understand why liberals are so angry and so scared. They are angry because they believe they have a moral right to command us, apparently bestowed by Gaia or #Science or having gone to Yale, and we are irredeemably deplorable for not submitting to their benevolent dictatorship.

They are scared because they fear we will wage the same kind of campaign of petty (and not so petty) oppression, intimidation, and bullying that they intended to wage upon us.

And their fear tastes like sunshine puked up by a unicorn.

I was considering being magnanimous in our total victory, but that lasted until a bunch of loving, tolerant, peaceful anti-Trump demonstrators jumped my friend and hurt his dog. So now, their pain is my sugar, and I say let’s spend the next four years having our coffee Sudden Impact-style.

Some Democrats, after four straight House election losses, are looking for new leadership. It won’t happen. Nancy Pelosi is a woman – Democrats can’t force her out because that would be a sexist thing to do (per Democrat ideology). Until she quits, they are stuck with her.

Story is that Ford called Trump and let him know they aren’t moving a factory to Mexico. If true, then elections really do have consequences.

Democrats using Trump Hate for fund raising. Given what we know of our Democrats, the money will come pouring in. I’d like to note, however, that Hillary massively outspent Trump and it didn’t work. Money does not win elections. Period. End of story.

Don Surber is rather pleased as punch at the way Trump is treating the press.

Keith Olbermann offers himself as Leader of the Opposition. I’m now looking forward to the 2032 primaries when there will be a hot fight to succeed President Pence.

There are two ways you can find out about the inner workings of modern Feminism – go and study it deeply with the real risk of chronic depression, or you can just let Robert Stacy McCain do it for you.

Mark Steyn:

The problem for the left is that, when everyone’s Hitler, nobody’s Hitler.

At which point, enter the Teflon Pussygrabber.

Stephen Carter rather nails it:

Too many of my progressive friends seem to have forgotten how to make actual arguments, and have become expert instead at condemnation, derision and mockery.

But, we here already knew that – just from reading the comments.

Ann Althouse:

Trump needs help, she says. And these people need jobs and power, she doesn’t say. The elite, her people, lost the election, but they should have the victory anyway, because a “young man” and a “beautiful lady” spoke of fear. Throughout the whole political season, Trump was battered with the fear of fear, and now he’s won and he’s told to pander to the people who said whatever they could to oppose him, the people who stoked the fear that he needs to prioritize calming. As if it could ever be calmed, as if his opponents will ever stop stoking it.

Barbara Boxer – the good news is that she’s retiring.

There’s a guy who is a “Beyonce scholar”…and he’s just about what you’d expect him to be.

President Trump’s toughest fight will be with the bureaucracy. My thinking: bring in Governor Walker as point man on reforming it.

In a country still about 70% Christian to some degree, turns out that attacking Christianity wasn’t a winning idea for Democrats.

The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man. – G K Chesterton

People are saying that Bannon is an anti-Semite…of course, a lot of the same people support the egregiously anti-Semitic Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement…

It was observed, as an aside, that one can have objections to Bannon, but where do liberals get off thinking they get a say in whom Trump appoints?

Terrible the things said about women…by those opposing Trump.

Limbaugh brings up the possibility that Hillary’s vote total will include a lot of people who shouldn’t have voted. He’s probably right, but it is an irrelevant point as far as Narrative Setting goes. The Progressives will forever say that Trump actually lost – even though that is only true if we jettison the rules which were in place during the campaign. Someone pointed out on Twitter that a football game would also have a different result if a Field Goal was worth 7 and a Touchdown 3, and only one team knew this. No one can possibly know who would have obtained the most popular votes if the whole campaign had been run to get the most possible votes – neither major party candidate ran that race. Who got the most votes overall is irrelevant…and we on our side should stick to the facts as they are and completely disparage any effort by Progressives to even raise the subject of the overall popular vote.

Keep in mind that no matter what, the left will never surrender it’s Narrative. It doesn’t matter what actually happened, all that matter is what what they say happened. The Party Line gets set, and all Progressives just fall in line and endlessly repeat it.

Rich Democrats get together to figure out what to do, next. My guess? More of the same – they are not the sharpest knives in the drawer, folks.

Obama thinks that Trump will keep the climate and Iran deals. He won’t. But he’s not going to flat out and just undo everything on January 20th. Trump is prioritizing…and the first thing to do is the reforms to government and the economy. Appointing special prosecutors and busting the Iran deal, while important, are issues which would distract from the 100 Days effort. Lay them aside – plenty of time to get to them, later.

I’ve noted a great deal of speculation about who will be running the Trump Administration for Trump. I think it will be Trump, myself.

Feminists are taking last week’s defeat about as you would expect.

The Democrat who persecuted Christians for WrongThink in Oregon? Lost re-election.

Stockholm decided to place gender-equity in front of snow removal. Yes, it worked out just as you would expect.

It was my fellow Catholics who gave us Trump. Seems that nominating a pro-abortion fanatic who has anti-Catholic staffers didn’t go over too well.

The Black Sea has some odd water structures and this means that ships which sank 1,000 years ago are still pretty much as they were when they sank. This is way cool for a history/archeology nerd like me. Hope they eventually raise some of the ships…from what I can tell, whatever goods they were carrying should be intact.

You know what a free trade treaty should say? This:

Goods and services may flow freely between Country A and Country B, unless such goods or services are illegal in the receiving country.

Or, if you’d like to have semi-free trade with a small tariff – this:

Goods and services may flow freely between Country A and Country B, unless such goods or services are illegal in the receiving country.

A tariff no larger than 5% of the purchase price in the receiving country may be levied.

That’s it – it is all you need, if what you want is free trade. Now, take a look at the text of the Trans Pacific Partnership. It is page after page of incomprehensible, bureaucratic gibberish which is designed to allow the maximum latitude for un-elected bureaucrats to “adjust” things based upon who is bribing the best at the moment. It isn’t a free trade agreement – it’s a mechanism whereby whomever is in charge at the moment can claim it means whatever they want.

The trouble with our political life is that we’ve raised political issues to the status of religious dogmas. Free Trade has become a dogma and you are not to question it, period. But that is just one of a thousand political and/or economic things we are told we’re just not allowed to dissent from. Nonsense. I can dissent from any statement issued by any man or woman – God and His Word are eternal and unchanging…everything else is subject to revision.

Of course, expert opinion says we must have free trade – but, what is expert opinion? It astonishes me that the same experts who were saying a few weeks ago that it was certain to be Hillary in a landslide are now, straight-faced, saying it is certain to be Hillary in a squeaker; or any variation between those two points. Experts this year seem a very strange thing.

For example, on Friday night on Twitter the experts were agog over a rush to vote in Nevada on the last day of early voting – they were tweeting out shocked statements about how amazing it was that so many people, strongly Latino, were just jamming the polling places…lining up for a couple hours to do so. This was IT – proof that Trump is completely DOOMED on Tuesday. Did none of these people think for a moment that these people jamming the polling places late on Friday evening had two weeks in which to early vote and, of course, could still vote on Tuesday? I mean, sure, I totally get a strong anti-Trump vote from Latino voters…it is expected. No one doubts that Hillary will crush it among Latino voters this election. But the fact that all of a sudden, right at the end of early voting, a huge number of them just “happened” to show up means that it was planned that way. For crying out loud, are we to believe that these people just suddenly remembered they hated Trump that much? “Oh, my goodness! I forgot that I hate Trump a lot – better get to the polls right now! Even though I could have done this any time in the past two weeks or could easily do it on Tuesday…I’ll do it NOW…”. It was a stunt – a well-managed stunt, I grant, but a stunt nonetheless. It was a Narrative-driver, an attempt to get people talking about a surge of Hillary support on the eve of the election. It was, folks, politics – which is street theater writ large. Now, it could well presage a huge anti-Trump vote on Tuesday…or, it could be that they’re just milking their Tuesday vote. We’ll find out on Tuesday…but to read some cosmic truth into a political stunt is absurd.

But it has been like that all year – people picking out small pieces of data and extrapolating from that to a complete theory of what is going on. Here’s the kicker – if their predictions wind up in line with reality, they’ll be hailed as political geniuses…and if their predictions are wrong, they’ll just blame bad polling and move on to the next election. For crying out loud, people – the experts are mostly liberal Democrats who are members of the MSM and thus share a strong desire that Hillary wins and Trump loses. Maybe they’ve got it right, maybe they’re wish-casting. But until the votes are actually counted, no one can be sure. Lots of people are saying that Reagan’s win in 1980 surprised no one. They are either lying or they simply weren’t around or aware at the time…it was a shocker. No one was expecting it. The 2014 mid-terms were also a complete shock – right up until the votes started to come in, everyone was thinking that the GOP might actually get beaten…right before the GOP gained 9 Senate seats and the largest number of State legislative seats since 1928. And yet, here we are, hanging on the words of people who are only right by accident…

If your expert analysis is that the Browns will lose against Dallas tomorrow, then you’re probably be right…but that won’t make you a genius. And they’ll still have to play the game…and maybe the Browns get lucky? Or the Cowboys unlucky? You want to prove to me that you’re a genius at predicting things? Then I want to see your prediction from a few weeks back – before the game was played – wherein you said that the Bolts would be up 13 points half way thru the 4th quarter and then would give up two fumbles resulting in scoring drives by the other team. You don’t know the future. Ever.

Trump got rushed off the stage in Reno by the Secret Service – from what I can tell, it was because a nut was acting like a nut. Good job on the part of the Secret Service being so alert.

Israel’s “partners for peace” name a school after a guy who planned the Munich Massacre.

Dethrone the House of Clinton.

Never Trump is still pretty convinced that Trump will lose and they are eagerly rubbing their hands at the prospect of the purge they’ll conduct. Bit of advice – don’t bother; everyone you don’t like will purge themselves from you and go on to other things. If Conservatism is just a mechanism whereby we mildly dissent from reigning Progressive orthodoxy, then no one will want any part of it…including 90% of Conservatives.

Hillary doesn’t like it when men make crude remarks – unless it’s at one of her rallies.

Trump campaign office vandalized in Denver…I expect liberals to start wringing their hands over Hillary’s harsh, exclusionary rhetoric just about the time pigs fly.

Trump and Pence are heading to Minnesota – probably an extremely long-shot and may be just a head-fake. But this year I do invite Minnesota to repair it’s 1984 shame of being the only State in the nation which didn’t go for Reagan – who fell 3,761 votes shy of a 50-State sweep.

They never, ever give up – the British people voted to leave the European Union and, so, naturally this means that those who don’t want to leave file a lawsuit to undo the will of the people. Boiled down, they are trying to force a vote in Parliament over it – most of Parliament being opposed to Brexit because, being politicians, they actually like it when all the rules are made by secretive, un-elected bodies they aren’t responsible for. Trust me on this, if a majority of Parliament ever thinks they can survive voting to stay in the EU, they will…

Gateway Pundit has a bit of compare-and-contrast: 4,100 at a Hillary rally, 17,500 at a Trump rally – rallies only a sort distance apart. They say rallies don’t matter – but, let’s face it, Trump draws huge crowds effortlessly while Team Hillary has to drag them in…and gets far fewer. Whatever happens on Tuesday, Trump people really want something while Hillary people seem rather “meh” about the whole thing.

We must have NATO! Well, NATO now includes a dictatorship which is arresting it’s own citizens in huge batches. Tell me, Americans, you want your sons and daughters going to the defense of Turkey?

Peak Atlantic – they actually have an article wondering why Hillary is so beloved.

Democrats are hoping for a replay of Nixon’s “Saturday night massacre”. This whole Comey thing shows that Democrats are only interested in power.

There’s no such thing as voter fraud – but there is such a thing as 83 mail-in ballots showing up at one address in 83 different names. Registrar says it was just a clerical error – which is as believable as “if you like your plan, you can keep it”.

Don Surber notes that the Washington Post is getting a little nervous.

Gay Patriot lays out what is wrong with the leaders of American Conservatism:

Like the rest of the Republican Establishment, George Will does not think the concerns raised by the “Basket of Deplorables” who are voting for Trump are legitimate. Their concern about the hollowing out of middle America … not legitimate. Their concern about the unchecked flood of immigrants and their effects on low-skilled job wages, schools, and welfare systems…. completely illegitimate. Their concern that Washington DC has become a cozy, cronyist cabal of politicians, lobbyists, donors, and media? Not legitimate at all.

Like most of the GOP, Will thinks that the Trump phenomenon is entirely based on personality and “racist/sexist/xenophobic” rhetoric that excites a certain stupid portion of the electorate who will all go back to eating the excrement sandwiches the GOP will provide once Trump is gone.

Ain’t gonna happen. Win or lose, the old way of doing business if over, for good.

Lots of information out there saying Hillary has it in the bag, lots of information out there saying that things might not be as they seem. Not least of which is the GOP’s still-solid shot at retaining the Senate; with 24 seats to defend in a Presidential election year, that shouldn’t really be in the realm of possibility. Given that Trump has not caused a complete down-ballot melt-down, I’m suspecting that a lot of rock-solid predictions are mere wish-casting. It could well be a Hillary landslide, but it could also be a Trump landslide. At this point in 1980 there was no solid indication of a Reagan landslide. I think we’re going to have to vote and then just see what happens. But I am planning at least some CNN/MSNBC watching for election night…

It ain’t crazy talk to discuss Trump’s chances of winning.

I said years ago that the Age of Science is ended – we are entering a new Dark Age. The Progressives who read that article didn’t understand it in the least…but that is mostly because Progressives abandoned Reason many years ago. We religious people with our weird beliefs have retained Reason, however. Long article here on how “science” is getting it flat wrong – but that is because it isn’t really science. The scientific method traces itself back to monks in the Middle Ages who, believing in Catholic theology, understood the world to be the deliberate creation of a rational Being, and thus it could be understood by observation and experiment. If you ever wondered why it was Europeans who first developed practical applications for a steam engine (a concept well known to people for a very long time), then look no further than this – Reason being applied to the natural world. But, take away the Reason – start to believe that there is no absolute truth, that is – and you cut the cord which allows you to understand the natural world. And, so, absurdities like assertions that eggs – which human beings have eaten since the dawn of humanity – are bad for you. Lot of other nonsense like that, too.

Everyone realizes that we’re currently engaged in five wars, right? And not really winning any of them. I doubt that 1 in 10 Americans could identify them – and this is precisely because the MSM, in service of Hillary and the Democrats, has decided not to talk about them…because talking about them cuts against Hillary and the Democrats. There never has been unbiased media – but used to be, we had media for all sides of the political spectrum. It was the professionalization of media which killed media variety – once colleges started to churn out people with degrees in journalism, the game was up…because the media would naturally just become what the journalism professors wanted it to be…and, as it turns out, almost all of them were Progressive. This does need to be brought to an end – but it will take billions of dollars and the creation of entirely new, parallel media.

Dilbert creator Scott Adams endorses Trump – mostly because he’s nauseated with Team Clinton. If you don’t mind a Catholic homily, here is what is decisive in my 2016 vote. You might not be Catholic – but give it a listen.

A bunch of redneck, kook ranchers defied the Federal Government, got arrested and taken to trial…and the jury acquitted them all.

Arizona gets a 116% Obamacare premium increase…but, yeah, Trump’s vulgar so let’s give it all to Hillary.

You can have Rules or Rulers, a wise man once said – meaning that you can either live by dogma, or you can live by the whim of a King. Take your pick – I prefer dogmas, myself.

A GOP office in North Carolina was fire bombed. Naturally, some Progs are thinking GOPers did it, themselves.

Know about the war in Somalia? Of course not – doesn’t fit the Obama Narrative. But, we are intensifying our effort in that war.

In October of 2008, a month before the election, the Democrats’ corporate paymasters had already settled on Obama’s cabinet. There is a bit of an internal battle among Democrats about how things will be divvied up in a Clinton Administration – hate to break it to you, earnest Progressive friends, but Democrats do not push back against those who write the checks.

Victor Davis Hanson lays out the modern medievalism of the United States. He notes that the modern medievalism lacks the saving grace of a deep, religious belief to provide a counter to despotism. I’ll never want to get too far into an argument with someone like Hanson – but the fact of life is that the Middle Ages were not so much an age of despotism as we moderns tend to think. Yes, people had a lot of duties to perform…but taxes took up a far smaller percentage of income than today and a person was free from relentless propaganda.

The Washington Post is convinced that Hillary has already won. So have most experts. Polling almost uniformly confirms this view. Except for the much-maligned LA Times Poll (currently showing a 0.6% Trump lead). Thing is, the Washington Post poll released yesterday pretty much has the race the same as it did in mid-September – Hillary ahead by 4; the Washington Post poll, in my experience, has always been a bit favorable for the Democrats (just as the Rasmussen poll very often favors Republicans). The spread in that poll is D+8 – but that is not as important as the fact that after a month of Team Hillary dropping nuclear Oppo on Trump, the race hasn’t changed much. In fact, none of the national polling I’ve seen actually shows much change over the past month. But, still, it almost all gives the advantage to Hillary – so, she’s the next President. As I said, only if Trump shakes up the normal electorate can he win…and such an shake up would not necessarily show up in polling. The LA Times says they have figured out how the electorate has been shaken up in 2016 and thus they stand by their polling – and Sean Trende notes that there is some reason for their confidence: the LA Times poll – called the Rand poll in the past – was dead-on in 2012. Of course, Trende also note that past performance is no guarantee of future results. My view – Hillary has the institutional advantage and by all traditional measures is the next President. And thank goodness that people are just in love with our institutions in this oh, so very traditional year.

UPDATE: the RCP average shows Clinton up by 7 – it’s over. Trump is heading for a crushing loss. So, has the LA Times poll gone along? Nope: Trump is now up 1.6 points in that poll. Just weird – and I guess we won’t know for sure until 11/8. If you’re betting money, lay it on Hillary…but maybe make a side bet on Trump.

UPDATE II: I’ve been a Republican since I became an adult. My first ballot was cast in 1988 – I could have voted in ’84, of course, but I was overseas in the Navy and absentee balloting wasn’t much of a thing back then; certainly not for a 19 year old squid. I did some volunteer work for George H W Bush in 1988 – but I had to reach out to volunteer. I’ve donated a few times to various GOP campaigns, but I think my last time was in ’04 (though I may have donated a bit in ’06 – but whatever I’ve done in the past 12 years, it wasn’t much). Other than that 1988 thing, I’ve never done any volunteer work. So, while Republican I’m pretty much off the radar – certainly haven’t donated this year either to the GOP, GOP candidates or Donald Trump. So, much to my surprise, I get a phone call today from the Trump campaign asking if I’d like to volunteer.

I’ve read several bits from GOPers swearing that they’ve got this Cracker Jack GOTV for November – something which will do wonders. I’ve doubted it – and all reports are that Team Trump and the overall GOP are going to be skunked by Team Hillary and the DNC in GOTV efforts. Me getting a call today makes me wonder if that will really be the case.

So, why the Nuclear Oppo Dump on Trump this week? Perhaps because of the news that 100,000 PA Democrats have switched to the GOP this past year? Now, to be sure, about 38,000 GOPers switched to Democrats, but that is still pretty bad news. Meanwhile, the PA GOP says that, in total, the GOP has signed up 243,139 since November of last year. The bad news? Given what Romney won in 2012 in PA, that would not be quite enough…if Hillary does as well as Obama overall. If. Big freaking IF. Oh, Trump back in the lead in Ohio.

A peak at what a Hillary Presidency would be like after she appoints a few Justices – Venezuela’s Supreme Court just ruled that the President can write his own budget.

If you like your freedoms, you can keep your freedoms – Feingold caught on tape stating that Hillary would use executive orders to curb gun rights. But, yeah, way more important to stop Trump ’cause he’s gross and all that…

Some like to think that if we had nominated Rubio, all would be well. I grant that smearing Rubio would have been more difficult than smearing Trump…but the Democrats would have done it anyway.

Always remember, the Democrats and the MSM don’t have to tell the truth – there is no power in this land which can make them tell the truth and there is no desire on their part that the truth be told.

Why, yes, Hillary does support taxpayer funded abortion on demand. Why? Because she has to – all senior Democrats must bow before the abortion lobby…

Former President of Haitian Senate calls the Clintons common thieves.

Podesta thinks he can get us backwards Catholics to change. He’s wrong. It doesn’t work like that – the Catholic Church just waits you out. Been around 2,000 years. Lot of changes during that time, folks – still the same, old Church.

Almost instantly after last night’s debate various MSMers and hangers-on started talking about how Pence did good, but refused to defend Trump…whole series of conversations about it on social media, with requisite “sources say” on background to lend credibility. But, it happened too fast…it was too many people essentially saying the same thing. I figure it originated with Team Hillary. Just because the JournoList was shut down, doesn’t mean MSMers ceased intimate coordination with the Democrats, folks. Remember, the MSM is on the Democrats’ side.

The NY Times says that Ohio is no longer important, so you know it’s pretty in-the-bag for Trump – and all those stories of the House being at risk for the GOP? Not so much. In fact, given current RCP ratings, the GOP could lose as little as one seat.

Realizing that for Trump States like FL and NC are must-wins and that he’s behind in both States…still, did anyone predict that by early October the GOP nominee would have OH and IA pretty much locked up for November? I don’t think so – and I do recall that Mitt was still desperately battling for both of them right before the election. Trump’s got lots of problems and the Democrats have massive power to push Hillary over the line…but Trump is the first GOPer who could feel secure about Ohio since George H W Bush ran in 1988.

If you like your liberty, you can keep it, right? Well, not so much – Uncle Sam enlisted local PD’s to scan license plates at gun shows. I’m sure someone back in there has some justification for it, but whatever they say, it’s nonsense. It is collecting data on people who are sure to be 99.99% free of any criminal activity. It is building data-bases on us – and I don’t like that.

Give complete control of a city to Progressives, things start to suck. It always works out like that.

Kevin Williamson gives the argument for keeping American foreign policy pretty much as-is. Not a defense of Obama’s blunders, but a defense of, for lack of a better term, the Post-WWII international settlement…where the US takes up the burden of keeping the peace of the world via military alliances and free trade. I disagree – have, in fact, disagreed for years. Many years. You see, the idea that we should keep US forces stationed somewhere as a trip-wire against military aggression is monstrously immoral – it is setting up some of our best and bravest to just die in a fight they can’t immediately win. It also gives an overblown sense of security in the nations the troops are stationed in, thus allowing the host nation to skimp on military preparedness. I don’t mind alliances – but we cannot have what was called in old diplomatic language inégale partie; each side must pull it’s full weight in any agreement. I do think we should agree to the defense of Poland – but this must be predicated upon Poland maintaining sufficient military force in being to offer a vigorous defense of Poland until such time as help can arrive or, given who might attack Poland, we could start attacking Russia on their Pacific frontier. Furthermore, the UN as structured is not just absurd, it is also a force for evil in the world because it allows bad actors on the world stage to use the UN to make demands in the service of evil causes. Finally, looking after the United States – our economic and military interests – does come first and foremost. Free trade is great, but if it means deals with a corrupt China, then it isn’t really free trade.

Everyone got burned by “un-skewing” the polls in 2012, so in 2016 complaints about polls are jokingly referred to as “un-cucking” the polls. But there is an argument to be made that things aren’t necessarily as they appear. I’ve been saying all along that for Trump to win he’d have to, in a sense, create a bit of a different electorate than we’ve seen the last few cycles – and that such a shift would not necessarily show up in polling. Anyway, take it as you like – we’ll see on November 8th.

Hillary, who turns 69 later this month, is tapping Al Gore, 68, to help her with the youth vote. No, that is not an Onion article.

ISIS is calling for more knife attacks – while the word is that the attacks will be “random” you can bet your last dollar that in the United States, if they come here, the attacks will be done in gun-free zones or areas with strict gun control. You guys out there on the shooting range have nothing to worry about…

Remember I promised that I wouldn’t hurl insults any more? This story tests my resolve:

The Rev. Gretta Vosper is a dynamic, activist minister with a loyal following at her Protestant congregation in suburban Toronto. She is also an outspoken atheist.

“We don’t talk about God,” Vosper said in an interview, describing services at her West Hill United Church, adding that it’s time the church gave up on “the idolatry of a theistic god.”

Some things cry out for a massive hurling of insults. This is one of them. But, I refuse…

Libertarians – there doesn’t seem to be much point to them – their VP candidate is saying that no one is more qualified than Hillary to be President. Allahpundit notes in the article that Governor Weld and Hillary Clinton have been friends since they worked together on the Watergate Committee. Keep in mind that Weld was an allegedly Republican governor – but with that kind of long-term friendship, just what would Weld ever do which would actually stop a Progressive thing from happening?

And that reminds me about the new President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte. He’s a bit of an odd fellow. He won the election earlier this year with 39.01% of the vote. There were five major candidates for the office – one was the grandson of a previous President; one picked Ferdinand Marcos’ son as her VP; one was a former Vice President; one was an expatriate who only returned to the country when her father (a failed Presidential candidate) died. No wonder the outsider won. People will put up with Ruling Classes for quite a long time, but after a while as things just get worse and worse, they will turn towards anyone who will mix things up…even if his campaign pledge is to murder drug dealers (a campaign promise he is keeping). Perhaps Trump ends up flaming out – but if we keep getting this same old, same old Ruling Class BS over and over again, eventually the people will turn successfully to someone who will shake things up.

Ace goes on another rant. Quite a good one, too. Ace has some views I don’t agree with – but I’m 100% with him in having nothing but contempt for our “thought leaders” who first diligently surrendered on Conservative issues and now demand everyone help them elect Hillary because Trump says The Bad Words.

Trump is a sure loser! Perhaps. But the House is pretty much safe as it can be for the GOP and the Senate looks ever more likely to retain a GOP majority. The GOP is also crowing about the prospect of increasing their already record-high number of governorships…even Sanders’ Vermont might elect a Republican this year. For the GOP being a dying party, knifed in the back by Trump and his legions, it seems pretty electorally healthy at the State level.

As an aside, early voting in terms of ballot requests seems to favor Hillary in North Carolina, Trump in Florida. Of course, ballot requests are not a 100% predictor – if you’re registered as a Republican and plan to vote for Hillary, for instance, then your ballot request will sill be totaled up with the other Republican ballot requests and ditto for Democrats who are planning to vote Trump. Still, it is worrisome to Team Trump that Hillary seems to be getting a boost in NC…but it must be equally worrisome for Team Hillary that Trump is getting an apparent boost in FL.

The Obama Administration forgot that Jerusalem is in Israel, it would seem.

College kid chooses his pronoun – Your Majesty.