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Political Commentary

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August 18, 2016

Trump and Blacks By Thomas Sowell

Who would have thought that Donald Trump, of all people, would be addressing the fact that the black community suffers the most from a breakdown of law and order? But sanity on racial issues is sufficiently rare that it must be welcomed, from whatever source it comes.

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August 18, 2016

Clinton Rises to 348 Electoral Votes, Trump Drops to 190 By Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

New Hampshire may just have four electoral votes, but it’s important. If you doubt it, just ask any Granite State citizens, and they’ll tell you about their first-in-the-nation primary. Even that quartet of electoral votes can matter; in 2000, if Al Gore had just won them (and without Ralph Nader on the ballot, he probably would have), Gore would have been president even without Florida. He didn’t and he wasn’t.

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August 17, 2016

Hillary's Headhunter: Sleazeball Ken Salazar by Michelle Malkin

The Loathsome Cowboy rides again.

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August 17, 2016

Vice Presidential Prospects By John Stossel

We've heard nonstop criticism of both the Democrat and Republican presidential candidates -- for good reasons. So are their running mates any better?

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August 16, 2016

Does Black Success Matter? by Thomas Sowell

We keep hearing that "black lives matter," but they seem to matter only when that helps politicians to get votes, or when that slogan helps demagogues demonize the police. The other 99 percent of black lives destroyed by people who are not police do not seem to attract nearly as much attention in the media.

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August 16, 2016

The Real Existential Threats of 2016 By Patrick J. Buchanan

On Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2016, the national debt is projected to reach $19.3 trillion.

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August 16, 2016

Will Trump Take Down Congressional Republicans? By Michael Barone

On Friday, Republican National Committee and Trump campaign staffers held what one described as an "emergency meeting" at the Ritz Carlton in Orlando. The obvious subject: what to do about Donald Trump's flagging campaign and how Republican down-ballot candidates can avoid the possible (likely?) downdraft.

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August 12, 2016

Yes, the System Is Rigged by Patrick J. Buchanan

"I'm afraid the election is going to be rigged," Donald Trump told voters in Ohio and Sean Hannity on Fox News. And that hit a nerve.

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August 12, 2016

Nationalism Is Not Necessarily a Bad Thing By Michael Barone

Google "Donald Trump" and "nationalism" and you'll get 1,090,000 results, the large percentage of which are, to judge from the top hits, negative. "Nationalism" is deemed to be bad stuff, maybe even akin to Nazism.

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August 11, 2016

Forecasting the 2016 Presidential Election: Will Time for Change Mean Time for Trump? By Alan I. Abramowitz

The Time for Change forecasting model has correctly predicted the winner of the national popular vote in every presidential election since 1988. This model is based on three predictors — the incumbent president’s approval rating at midyear (late June or early July) in the Gallup Poll, the growth rate of real GDP in the second quarter of the election year, and whether the incumbent president’s party has held the White House for one term or more than one term. Using these three predictors, it is possible to forecast the incumbent party’s share of the major party vote with a high degree of accuracy around three months before Election Day.

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August 10, 2016

Lies Politicians Tell By John Stossel

I don't want Hillary Clinton to be president. She's a liar.

But I can't vote for Donald Trump. He lies almost as often.

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August 10, 2016

Fonda & Redford: Hollywood's New Welfare Mooches By Michelle Malkin

COLORADO SPRINGS -- My adopted hometown will soon be the base of operations for a new Netflix movie starring aging elitist hippies Robert Redford (estimated net worth: $170 million) and Jane Fonda (estimated net worth: $120 million).

A state economic development commission unanimously voted last week to fork over $1.5 million in taxpayer-funded "incentives" for the liberal duo's romantic flick, arguing that it will generate "great publicity."

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August 9, 2016

CNN Leads Unhinged Media in Attacks on Trump Disguised as ‘Reporting’ By Charles Hurt

Another exciting week in the 2016 Trump Presidential Spectacular and another week of political obituaries predicting Donald Trump’s imminent demise.

Serious question: How many political obituaries have these people written about Mr. Trump since he descended into the fetid American political swamp on a glass escalator last summer?

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August 9, 2016

Old Lies By Thomas Sowell

We expect to hear a lot of lies during an election year, and this year is certainly no exception. What is surprising is how old some of these lies are, and how often they have been shown to be lies, years ago or even decades ago.

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August 9, 2016

The End of History Not Turning Out as Hoped By Michael Barone

The scholar Francis Fukuyama has been widely ridiculed for the title of his 1992 book, "The End of History." Critics point out that we've had -- suffered -- a lot of history since then: the 9/11 attacks, prolonged wars in the Middle East, a worldwide financial crisis and deep recession.   

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August 9, 2016

Who Got Us Into These Endless Wars? By Patrick J. Buchanan

"Isolationists must not prevail in this new debate over foreign policy," warns Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. "The consequences of a lasting American retreat from the world would be dire."

To make his case against the "Isolationist Temptation," Haass creates a caricature, a cartoon, of America First patriots, then thunders that we cannot become "a giant gated community."

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August 5, 2016

Khizr Khan and the Triumph of Democratic Militarism By Ted Rall

Against the wishes of her New York Democratic constituents, Hillary Clinton voted with Senate Republicans to invade Iraq. (It was a pivotal vote. Without Democratic support, George W. Bush's request for this war of aggression would have failed.)

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August 5, 2016

Donald Trump's Opportunity Cost By Michael Barone

Opportunity cost. That's an economist's term for what you lose out on when you divert your investments and attention to something less profitable. It's also a good term for the losses Donald Trump has incurred in the last six days -- more than 6 percent of the 94 days between the close of the Democratic National Convention and the election in November.   

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August 5, 2016

Trump's Road Still Open By Patrick J. Buchanan

At stake in 2016 is the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate and, possibly, control of the House of Representatives.

Hence, Republicans have a decision to make.

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August 4, 2016

Hanging Tough By Larry J. Sabato

On March 31, we released our first general election map of the Electoral College. With our self-imposed rule of permitting no cop-out “toss-ups” — a rule we’ll try to hold to as we handicap this year’s Electoral College map — our bottom-line totals were 347 electoral votes for Hillary Clinton and 191 for Donald Trump. We’ve made modest changes since: Pennsylvania has morphed from Likely Democratic to Leans Democratic, while Virginia — after Tim Kaine was added to the Democratic ticket — went the other way from Leans Democratic to Likely Democratic. Arizona and Georgia went from Likely Republican to Leans Republican, and usually reliable Utah from Safe Republican to Likely Republican.