Which first lady do you want to look at for four years?

This one?































Or this one?

Obama and McCain reverting to type, calling their respective opponents crazies

John McCain quoted here in Politico in July:

“It’s very bad,” the Republican senator said. “This performance with our friend [Trump] out in Phoenix is very hurtful to me,” McCain said. “Because what he did was he fired up the crazies.”

And here's Barack Obama now at the end of August, also quoted in Politico:

Ruddy from the sun, Obama described himself as “refreshed, renewed, recharged — a little feisty.” And he delivered, recounting the ride he and [Senator Harry] Reid had just taken from the conference to the fundraiser in his up-armored presidential limo, where they talked about old times and getting back to Washington to “deal with the crazies in terms of managing some problems.”

If anyone should know crazy, it's Barack Obama and John McCain.

Scott Walker has nothing up his sleeve

In the last week Governor Scott Walker has stated he's for the 14th Amendment as currently (mis)interpreted, establishing birthright citizenship as the law of the land, for repealing birthright citizenship going forward, and against taking a position on the subject for now!

Scott Walker is a fish out of water, flopping on the pier.

CNN (justly) crucifies him for it, here.

On the merits of the issue Walker's flip-flops clearly show that he perceives the acceptable establishment view to be out of step with what he thinks the voters feel about it. Regular middle class folks with whom Walker identifies hate it that they're footing the bill for people who cut in line, go on government assistance and even commit crimes without serious consequences.

On the politics Walker looks unprofessional and unready for primetime, and when you get down to it, divided in his own mind about the issue.

The real Scott Walker has always been a little soft on illegal aliens but keeps changing his position because he senses voters aren't soft on them.

In view of his previously stated support for a pathway to citizenship, it's pretty obvious Walker has never had the fire in the belly on this subject which the Americans whose vote he's angling for possess.

And it's too late to do anything about it now.

He's done.

If he were wise he'd find a way to bow out, throw his support to Trump, and hope for a position in a Trump administration where he can do to government unions nationally what he's done to them in Wisconsin.

In Greece the popular PM Alexis Tsipras resigned last week in order to consolidate his power

Alexis Tsipras, Greece's hope peddler

Most reports put the resignation of Alexis Tsipras last week down to an act of desperation due to a loss of support in his own coalition in Syriza. 25 MPs have split off to form Popular Unity, basically composed of Syriza's old Left Platform. This party intends to stay true to the Syriza platform of an end to austerity, evidently adding in Grexit and a return to the drachma as planks.

How wonderfully conservative of the lefties. The Greek left has moved so far to the left it's become the bourgeois nationalist right.

True as all this is, Tsipras' resignation was actually an exertion of his power in the current circumstances and a demonstration of his political acumen.

By resigning now instead of sometime later, Tsipras is able to do two important things. One, he can select the candidates himself according to the rules who will replace the defectors, for whom he will use his popularity to smooth their way to election, presumably on 20 September. But he also catches the opposition flat-footed thereby, giving them no time to prepare to stop him. If Tsipras is successful in this gambit, he will be able to form a less leftist government committed to the Euro but also committed to breaking the privileges of the Greek oligarchy, approximating a key leftist political aim of more social equality.

Tsipras is proving himself to be quite adept at discerning politics as the art of the possible, for which he is already much hated by the overly principled figures populating his own and the other political parties, even as the Greek people keep supporting him.

For all the mistakes he has made this year, Alexis Tsipras has proven himself remarkably capable for such a young man.

Greece could do a lot worse, and it has.

Donald Trump lives rent free in Larry Kudlow's mind

Larry Kudlow devoted his entire three hour radio show today on WABCradio.com criticizing, ridiculing and caricaturing Donald Trump's campaign for the presidency. If there was a way to discuss Trump, he found it, and if the air in New York stank, that was Trump's fault, too. It reminded me of the relentless criticism of George W. Bush by the main stream media.

It was embarrassing. The callers to the show supported Trump and Trump's policy on illegal aliens, but Larry was having none of it, marginalizing every single caller as ignorant and uninformed about the real state of affairs despite the fact that they were living it.

That's what Larry Kudlow's big tent Republican Party stands for, inclusion for elite liberals and illegal aliens, but not for working stiffs and law and order patriots.

If Republicans lose in 2016, it will be Larry Kudlow's fault, not Donald Trump's.

Please explain to us how and why "and" is superfluous in the 14th Amendent

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens . . .."

This Amendment had a specific meaning, not a broad meaning. Its intent was to settle the citizenship of emancipated slaves who had hitherto been State-less, that is, in a kind of limbo with respect to jurisdiction because they had been property, not persons. The Amendment meant to state that once freed they became persons who came under the jurisdiction of the United States, whether they were born slaves here or abroad.

Indians were not understood to be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time, but were subjects of the Indian nations, and were thus not granted citizenship by the Amendment in 1868, else the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act making them so had been unnecessary.

Children of diplomats born in the US while their parents were representing the countries whence they came were not thereby granted citizenship either, because they like their parents were subjects of foreign jurisdictions. Senator Jacob M. Howard of Michigan, the author of the citizenship clause, said the Amendment excluded “persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.”

Thus children born here to illegal aliens, like their parents, are subject to the jurisdictions whence they came and should not be granted American citizenship now, unless it please the people to do so.

It's that simple.

And the Congress has every right to make that rule consistent AT ANY TIME if it has not been so in practice or in litigation, as Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution makes clear:

The Congress shall have Power . . . To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

Meanwhile the importance of jurisdiction for citizenship is otherwise seen to be paramount because no one except an idiot or a malcontent questions the citizenship of a John McCain or a Ted Cruz because they were born to citizens while living abroad.

And even if it could be proven that a Barack Obama was born abroad it wouldn't make any difference to his citizenship because his mother was a citizen of the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.

Anyone in the world can renounce jurisdiction and pledge allegiance to another flag if one chooses, and it is entirely within our rights as Americans to set the conditions for welcoming as well as bidding farewell to those who do so. 

Taking a position on birthright citizenship is above Scott Walker's pay grade

What a disappointment this guy has become. He is so finished.

We might as well wait for Godot.

Rasmussen poll finds Trump is persuading Republicans to support him

Here:

• Very likely to be the nominee two months ago 9%, 25% now
• Likely to be the nominee two months ago 27%, 57% now

Libertarian Ben Domenech, like every sick liberal does, descends into the politics of personal destruction

Libertarian Ben Domenech, here, sensing his own marginality, states quite seriously that deporting law-breakers and enforcing the constitutional concept of jurisdictional citizenship is nothing short of racism and despotism:

"The idea that America is going to endure the blood and moral outrage over the deportation of 11 million people, including young children of illegals born here who are constitutionally American citizens, is absurd. Even one of the most prominent immigration hawks, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, dismissed this mass deportation as impossible on my radio show this week. But Donald Trump has proposed this, and loudly insisted he will do it. And the faction of the country that believes not in freedom but identity politics for white people adores it."

Sprinkled throughout he calls Trump supporters a bunch of narrow-minded, disaffected, angry street thugs who are motivated by an unprincipled and frankly anti-constitutional emotionalism to support a dangerous man who is only too willing to rule in a dictatorial and autocratic manner in the style of Obama but for the "right" reasons. Why, they'll even abolish the US Senate!

It's that simple you see. You knuckle-dragging conservatives have an insufficient concept of freedom. How dare you have a border and stop other people from exercising their right to be free by crossing it! How dare you successfully deport over a million illegal aliens in 1954 with just 750 agents!

The outrage! The horror!

Greek PM Alexis Tsipras has resigned today

Blow by blow coverage is provided in the UK by the Telegraph here and the Guardian here.

The next two largest political parties have a chance to try to form a government, but it is thought likely that they'll be unsuccessful and that snap elections will occur in a month.

Tsipras remains very popular, but will have to shed Syriza's Left Platform rebels to consolidate power in the new election with new blood, if he can get that far.

There is zero evidence Hillary's server was in Platte River Networks' Denver bathroom while Hillary was Secretary of State

The sensationalist tabloid article in the UK Daily Mail here admits Platte River Networks didn't begin working for Hillary until mid-2013, months after Hillary's tenure as Secretary of State had ended:

"Clinton's 'homebrew' computer system housed her emails while she was Secretary of State between 2009 and 2013. Platte River Networks provided its services in mid-2013 according to Barbara Wells, the company's lawyer."

That's why the employees interviewed for the article expressed disbelief that the small operation they knew and worked for long before 2013 could have had such an important client:

"Speaking to Daily Mail Online at her home in Castle Rock, Colorado, Tera [Dadiotis] said: 'I think it's really bizarre, I don't know how that relationship evolved. At the time I worked for them they wouldn't have been equipped to work for Hillary Clinton because I don't think they had the resources, they were based out of a loft, so [it was] not very high security, we didn't even have an alarm.' ... Tera thinks Platte River was an unsuitable choice for Clinton, she said: 'It's so weird, because it's just a small IT company. I know they've expanded quite a bit since I left but I do think it's strange, we only had the three owners and like eight employees. We didn't do any work in other states. No offense to them, but who are they?'"

The sneaky use of the word "homebrew" throughout the article is meant to unite in the reader's mind Hillary's server operation and the pre-Hillary bathroom of the fledgling company in the Denver apartment loft when there was no basis in fact for it. It's meant to make Hillary look bad, which is irresponsible, and unnecessary.

Hillary can do that all by herself.

The developing server story distracts from the basic fact that Hillary's Chappaqua server needs to be examined by the FBI

The many moving elements of this story can and do mislead and distract from the basic fact that Hillary late in 2014 set the server which currently sits in the Bill and Hillary Clinton Chappaqua home to save no e-mails older than 60 days. It was from this server that Hillary produced the record of e-mails she says she provided to the State Department. Older servers may or may not retain evidence of those e-mails.

The FBI needs to examine the Clinton's Chappaqua server, to which Hillary's emails were last transferred after June 2013 with the help of the Denver firm Platte River. Hillary has implied she provided e-mails to State from this server in December 2014 and then deleted everything, including her personal e-mails. Her lawyer has stated that the method employed to delete everything was to set the server not to save e-mails older than 60 days. The lawyer's letter to Congress says nothing about wiping the server. Sometime late in 2014 after copying out her State Department e-mails and providing them to State Hillary Clinton stopped saving e-mails on this server according to her testimony.

The Denver firm Platte River reportedly started work for Hillary in June 2013, removing the old server from the New York home to New Jersey after transferring everything to the new, present server. So this means the Denver "bathroom servers" we all went crazy over in recent days are irrelevant because those long pre-dated Hillary and had nothing to do with this story. The only relevant server Platte River had was the server removed in 2013 to New Jersey and now in the possession of the FBI. 

The New York Post reported here on August 13th:

"Platte River says it began work for Clinton in June 2013, after she left office, to upgrade, secure and manage her e-mail server. The company retrieved the server from her New York home and housed it at a data center in New Jersey, said company spokesman Andy Boian."

The Washington Post had reported here on August 12th:

'Before it was taken to the data center in New Jersey, the server had been in the basement of the Clintons’ private home in Chappaqua, N.Y., during the time she was secretary of state, according to people familiar with the Clintons’ e-mail network.

'After she left government service in early 2013, the Clintons decided to upgrade the system, hiring Platte River as the new manager of a privately managed e-mail network. The old server was removed from the Clinton home by Platte River and stored in a third party data center, which are set up to provide security from threats of hacking and natural disaster, Wells [representing Platte River] said.

'Platte River Networks has retained control of the old server since it took over management of the Clintons’ e-mail system. She said that the old server “was blank,” and no longer contained useful data. ...

'The Clinton’s private e-mail system passed through different hands. In 2008, responsibility for the system was held by Justin Cooper, a longtime aide to former president Bill Clinton who served as a special assistant helping the former president with his books. ...

'Those briefed on the server setup say the device installed for Bill Clinton was deemed too small for the addition of a sitting Cabinet official [Secretary of State Hillary Clinton]. Instead, a server that had been purchased for use by Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign was installed at the Chappaqua home.

'With the new server came an additional specialist who had worked as her campaign’s Internet technology director and later went to the State Department as an IT specialist.'

It's that 2008 server which ended up in New Jersey in 2013 when Platte River Networks entered the picture and helped Hillary transition to the post-Benghazi environment (9/11/2012).  Remember, it was early in 2013 immediately after she left the State Department that Hillary all of a sudden decided to upgrade the system hide the evidence.

Hillary needs to answer why a server upgraded to be suitable for a sitting US Secretary of State had to be replaced for a retired one. As surely as the sun also rises, the new 2013 server has not been wiped and must be investigated before it is.

The pea is under shell three.

Hillary's e-mail still exists: She admitted in March only that she set her server in 2014 "to retain only the most recent 60 days of e-mail"

An atypical report from last March had it that way here:

'Clinton's attorney has confirmed to a House committee on Benghazi that, after handing over work-related email to the State Department, the politician both "chose not to keep" personal messages and set a 60-day limit on what the server retains. In short, she effectively wiped it clean. There's no going back to mail from her Secretary of State days beyond the 30,490 messages on the record, or roughly half of what the server held during the period.'

But notice that Hillary wouldn't answer affirmatively yesterday that the server was wiped when she was directly asked. That's because it wasn't, and any such statement would conflict with her counsel's statement.

Hillary's position was stated clearly in March through her attorney's letter to Congressman Trey Gowdy here:

"After the review was completed to identify and provide to the Department of State all of the Secretary's work-related and potentially work-related emails, the Secretary chose not to keep her non-record personal e-mails and asked that her account (which was no longer in active use) be set to retain only the most recent 60 days of e-mail. To avoid prolonging a discussion that would be academic, I have confirmed with the Secretary's IT support that no e-mails from hdr22@clintonemail.com for the time period January 21,2009 through February 1, 2013 reside on the server or on any back-up systems associated with the server. Thus, there are no ... e-mails ... on the server for any review . . .."

That means that the e-mails are still recoverable. The unsaved mail would have to be overwritten actively to be truly deleted.

There has not been any statement by Hillary that the server was wiped. It's only been the assertion of the press, probably by design to buy time and throw investigators off the scent, and only by inference from her lawyer's letter, also intended to stymie further interest.

It also means that the server now revealed to be in Denver and seized by the FBI was likely the backup, and that the main one is still in the house located at 15 Old House Lane, Chappaqua, NY 10514, or perhaps it's really at 3067 Whitehaven Street NW, Washington, DC 20008.

Let's have some search warrants already, looking for evidence of obstruction of justice.

Eighty percent of likely voters favor some deportations, fifty-one percent a wall on the border

Rasmussen, here:

"Among all likely voters, 51% favor building a wall on the border; 37% disagree, and 12% are not sure. Eighty percent (80%) support the deportation of all illegal immigrants convicted of a felony; only 11% are opposed."

Deportation will not work without a wall, as Operation Wetback in 1954 proved.

Hillary Clinton wore orange yesterday in an omen of what's in store for her for wiping her server

Video here.

In March Hillary said her email server was on property guarded by the Secret Service when it was in a Denver bathroom

Hillary, quoted here in March, lying through her teeth:

“Well, the system we used was set up for President Clinton’s office. And it had numerous safeguards. It was on property guarded by the Secret Service. And there were no security breaches.”

Uh huh.

Now we learn five months later from a former employee at the heart of the small operation that the servers were in some guy's bathroom in a Denver loft apartment:

'I don't know how they run their operation now, but we literally had our server racks in the bathroom. I mean knowing how small Platte River Networks ... I don't see how that would be secure [enough for Clinton].' ... 'At the time I worked for them they wouldn't have been equipped to work for Hillary Clinton because I don't think they had the resources, they were based out of a loft, so [it was] not very high security, we didn't even have an alarm.' ... The server is now in the hands of the FBI who took it off Platte River Networks hands last Wednesday.

And what will we learn five months from now?

And five months after that?

And . . ..

When will the Obama Justice Department stop stalling? And the State Department? There's a cell waiting somewhere with Hillary's name on it.

Hormones transcend thinking: Republican Carly Fiorina for Hillary in 2008

“She was a great candidate. She has helped millions of women all over this country. Women of any political party owe a debt of gratitude to Hillary Clinton and I will bet that every woman up here agrees with me.” ...

“I have such great admiration and empathy for Hillary Clinton,” she says. “I have great admiration for her because I know what it takes in some small measure to do what she has done. She is obviously incredibly intelligent, focused, tough, determined, empathetic of all the tens of millions of people that she was trying to represent in her quest to become the first woman president of the United States.”

Buzzfeed has the video here.

Back when America was great: Operation Wetback's 750 agents expelled 1.1 million illegals in 1954

Three post-debate polls show Trump still handily in first by 11.3 over Bush in Real Clear Politics average, liberal favorite Kasich in ninth

My favorite line in Trump's immigration policy paper

"Mark Zuckerberg's personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities."

Discussed in some depth here.