The Media is Freaking Out Over Trump

We are in the midst of an epic media freak-out. Trump got ahead of the game by closing the gap in the race. They are operating well outside their comfort zone and behaving strangely. Read the article in Politico 


Update, more here from The National Review  

How they riot in Canada

Women chess players a little upset about scheduling the world championship in Iran

They would be required to wear a hijab while in the country. Seems a little dumb to schedule a woman's event in Iran.

Christians in America are suffering persecution for their beliefs

These are tough times for evangelicals. Weakening influence in American culture is creating problems Many are split over the election. For the first time their preferred candidate is weak on Christian principles. Read this article.

Lessons in media bias

You probably haven't seen much coverage about the fact that we messed up in Libya by working to eliminate Kadafi. Hillary Clinton was on the forefront of this as Secretary of State, and took credit for what was accomplished before it became obvious that the results were disastrous. Here's what the British House of Commons had to say:

 "This policy," the conservative-led committee concluded, "was not informed by accurate intelligence. In particular, the [British] Government failed to identify that the threat to civilians was overstated and that the rebels included a significant Islamist element. By the summer of 2011, the limited intervention to protect civilians had drifted into an opportunist policy of regime change. That policy was not underpinned by a strategy to support and shape post-(Gadhafi) Libya. The result was political and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of (Gadhafi) regime weapons across the region and the growth of ISIL in North Africa."

So what does the media cover? A gaffe by the Libertarian candidate  Apparently the media have figured out that a vote for Johnson is a lost vote for Hillary

Does the public hate the media enough to elect Trump?

The public doesn't trust the media, some even hate the media, some would argue justifiably. Will the public vote against Hillary to show their displeasure? Arguably, the media are trying their best to elect Hillary, providing coverage in a favorable light and ignoring substantive issues that should see the light of day. On the other hand, they emphasize every gaff that Donald commits, and they are legion, though I suspect the public could care less about his tax returns or the "birther" issue.

Further on the same subject Rasmussen says voters don't trust the media fact checking.  Especially Trump supporters

Can an Atheist Lead a Protestant Church

The United Church of Canada is the country’s largest Protestant denomination. 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.  The United Church is pretty liberal, but not so liberal that they are ready for an atheist pastor. "In our opinion, she is not suitable to continue in ordained ministry because she does not believe in God, Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit."

The election seems to be splitting Catholics and evangelicals

Normally, these two religious folk vote pretty much the same, but in this election, Evangelicals are going for Trump and Catholics for Clinton This article attempts to explain why

Climate Change

I think Donald Trump has a reasonable position on global warming Climate Change

This is a strange election

From all the available candidates we have selected two that nobody wants to vote for except as the lesser of two evils. Never has there been as much desire for a "none of the above" on the ballot.

Of course the candidates weren't selected by the people, they were pulled into their positions by the media. There were several good candidates in the Republican field that voters could have supported willingly if not enthusiastically, but Donald Trump sucked up all the coverage with his bombastic style and remaining support was spread over many qualified choices.

Even on the Democratic side, there was what I consider to be a good candidate, James Webb, who provided substantive comments in the first Democratic debate. See what Amazon has to say about him on one of his books  Webb got virtually no coverage in the following news cycle and he quickly disappeared from the race. Of course Webb is a centrist, maybe even conservative Democrat that didn't fit the narrative.

Consequently, there isn't much enthusiasm for this election. Peggy Noonan wrote about this in the Wall Street Journal "The year of the reticent voter"

The Leaning Tower of San Francisco

The Leaning Tower of Pisa was built between 1173 and 1372.

It leans of course, because the designers didn’t do an adequate job of foundation investigations. Now, almost a thousand years later, we have advanced substantially in the area of soil mechanics and this wouldn’t happen today.  Oops, not so fast, There's a 58-story skyscraper in San Francisco that is both sinking and leaning. It was built on artificial filled ground dredged up from the bay, famous for collapsing buildings in the 1989 earthquake. 

Since the building is a condominium, buyers are kind of stuck. I have been working under the assumption that tall San Francisco skyscrapers were properly designed to be earthquake safe, but it looks like this one will fall over in the next “big one” and take some adjacent buildings with it.

There are some protests taking place in the Dakotas over a pipeline.

Indians Native Americans are complaining about desecration of sacred lands and protesters are protesting pipelines in general, even though they are the safest way to move oil across the country.

The problem is that this pipeline was approved by the government, and now that work is in progress, Obama has canceled the permit. As usual, Obama shows no respect for the rule of law. Thousands of workers and miles of pipe are ready on site to extend the pipeline, and they can't work. This is unprecedented and no doubt unconstitutional under the "takings" clause. Just what you wouldn't expect from a professor of Constitutional Law

Here's the link to the article

I watched the debates this week. Neither candidate or the moderator did very well.

Trump was defensive about the issues of his tax returns and the "birther" issue. I believe it would have been better to explain that he isn't releasing his tax returns because his opponents (including the mainstream media) would go through them line-by-line looking for ways to criticize Trump. People would have understood that.  He could have said that he changed his mind about Obama's birthplace. In both cases, he should have argued that the people didn't care about those issues--they cared about the economy, jobs, and terrorism and that's what the debates should focus on (kind of like when Bernie Saunders foolishly said to Hillary that "The people are tired of hearing about your e-mails".)

Hillary, on the other hand, was scripted, handing out platitudes about investing in jobs and even mentioned the universal cliche about eliminating corporate tax loopholes. Politicians always talk about eliminating tax loopholes without getting very specific. I think that's a good idea, but it never happens; they can't even do a budget. She came across as arrogant and phony, and surely nobody believes anything she says. She did manage to stand there for 90 minutes, which wasn't a sure thing.

Lester Holt took a lot of justified criticism for his obvious favoritism toward Hillary. He got through the whole 90 minutes without mentioning the e-mails, the Clinton foundation, Benghazi, Libya, or dozens of proven lies. He "fact-checked" Trump several times, even arguing with him like Candy Crowley did to Romney in 2012, assuming facts not in evidence.

September 28, 2016; blogging day one.

I am creating a blog where I can post comments, links, and images for items of interest. Possibly it will be entertaining. We'll see.