CNN/ORC Poll: @realDonaldTrump tops in Iowa http://t.co/VjguyZpLkq pic.twitter.com/bXe1rLywaW
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 12, 2015
Officially in need of glasses! What kind should I get?! @SamsungMobileUS #galaxylife pic.twitter.com/vAgNodj0I6
— Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) August 3, 2015
. She's smart and not prone to ridiculous spin.
Alternate headline: “Blogger to start gaming out President Trump’s possible VP nominees.”Keep reading.
On the one hand, as noted by my pal Karl, this poll was conducted using Google Consumer Surveys. If you’re wary of online polls, especially ones like this that attempt to “infer” important demographic data about respondents based on their browsing history and IP, then discount these results accordingly. On the other hand, Echelon Insights is operated by Kristen Soltis Anderson and Patrick Ruffini, two of the right’s brighter lights in political data crunching. They wouldn’t have published this poll if they didn’t have good statistical reasons to think it’s accurate, I’m sure.
Pop the champagne, Trump fans. And make sure it’s only the finest champagne. The classiest...
GOP debate put Fox News in the spotlight. A profile of its audience: http://t.co/NK9CVQejaS pic.twitter.com/5ohTojqjYw
— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) August 12, 2015HIROSHIMA, Japan — I am in Hiroshima, as is my usual practice in August. I am a member of the governor of Hiroshima prefecture’s Roundtable on Nuclear Disarmament. Each year, the city and prefecture mark the bombing with both a high-level dialogue about the state of things and public events about our nuclear predicament.That's a little soppy for me, although he's absolutely right about the norm against nuclear use. No rational state will use nuclear weapons today. That's one reason why you want keep them out of the hands of state leaders in, say, Pyongyang and Tehran.
This year is the 70th anniversary of the bombings, which feels like a big moment to take stock of where we are, how we’ve gotten here, and where we’re headed.
Hiroshima is a better place to do that thinking than Washington, D.C. The weather isn’t particularly nice in either place, but Washington’s August is doubly marred with nakedly ideological polemics on the bombing. You’ll hear that the bombings ended the war and saved millions of American lives, or that President Harry Truman knew the war was over and was just trying to frighten the Soviets, a move that starts the Cold War. I don’t think the historical evidence supports either view or even the stark duality both views presume, but what is really galling about these arguments is that the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are reduced to the role of mere extras at their own murders.
I find a visit to Hiroshima deeply centering. It offers a chance to think again about the history of the bombing and to put the people who suffered most back at the center of the story.
It is easy to argue about the bombings with hindsight. We know the bombs worked and that they inflicted terrible suffering on the people of Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. Our entire modern debate about whether the bombings were intended to end the war or frighten the Soviets is premised on our contemporary conviction that nuclear weapons are awesome in the traditional sense of that word.
But Robert Oppenheimer and others didn’t know that. They were not sure, in advance, that a nuclear explosion would inspire awe. If you look back through the documents, you can see scientists worrying about picking a target to show the bomb’s best effect. There is even a dark passage where Kyoto is discussed as a target because the highly educated population would be better positioned to grasp that this bomb was different. “From the psychological point of view,” the document notes, “there is the advantage that Kyoto is an intellectual center for Japan and the people there are more apt to appreciate the significance of such a weapon as the gadget.” Consider that Oppenheimer’s first question to Gen. Leslie Groves after the bombing was whether it had occurred after sundown. He was still worried the locals wouldn’t be able to tell it was not a run-of-the-mill bombing unless the big fireball turned night into day. Groves explained that a night bombing hadn’t been feasible. The locals still noticed.
Our modern conviction that nuclear weapons are different only came later. While the construction of the norm against nuclear weapons, I think pride of place goes to John Hersey’s Hiroshima. Originally published as a series of articles in the New Yorker, it was eventually published by Alfred A. Knopf press. The fact that I was assigned this text repeatedly in high school and college probably explains my choice of careers. I have a slim 1946 first edition that is one of my prize possessions.
The creation of this norm was slow and contested. In the 1950s, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles worried very much about a growing taboo against nuclear weapons use. They worried the taboo would deny the United States a weapon that they believed was essential to meeting defense commitments around the world.
Over time, we’ve come to see nuclear weapons as Hersey saw them, as the ultimate expression of material and spiritual evil of total war. The bomb has come to represent the ability of our civilization to destroy itself and our nagging fear that our political and social institutions are inadequate to save us from the abyss.
This norm, really this fear, helps explain why nuclear weapons have not been used again in anger in the intervening 70 years. One might point to deterrence, but nor have we used the bomb against states with no nuclear weapons. Even Eisenhower hesitated in response to suggestions nuclear weapons night help relieve French forces trapped by the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu.
The implication of this norm, of course, is that we can’t actually use nuclear weapons. It’s hard, for example, to imagine dropping a nuclear bomb on the Iraqis we claimed to be liberating from Saddam Hussein. That’s certainly what Air Force Gen. Chuck Horner, who ran the air war during the 1991 Gulf War, concluded. Asked by an interviewer whether he considered using nuclear weapons, he responded, “You could use nuclear weapons but for what targets? The nuclear weapon’s only good against cities; it’s not any good against troops in the desert. I mean it takes too many of ’em, so the problem you have is, you have a war where if you kill a lot of people, particularly women and children, you lose the war no matter what happens on the battlefield.” Nor, obviously, did the United States use nuclear weapons in 2003.
I once had the opportunity to ask a four-star general a pointed question: Are there any targets that the United States cannot destroy without nuclear weapons? I got an interesting response, one that I found a bit convoluted and that involved a nearby chair as a metaphor. He said something like, “Take this chair — there are a lot of ways I can destroy the chair as a chair, but does destroying the chair have the unique psychological effect of using a nuclear weapon?” I wasn’t quite sure I was as intimidated by our ability to nuke the chair, or even the whole dining room at Restaurant Nora, but I took that to be a “no.” There are no such targets...
WASHINGTON - As pressure builds on Hillary Clinton to explain her official use of personal email while serving as secretary of state, she faced new complications Tuesday. It was disclosed her top aides are being drawn into a burgeoning federal inquiry and that two emails on her private account have been classified as “Top Secret.”Keep reading. (Via Elizabeth Price Foley, at Instapundit.)
The inspector general for the Intelligence Community notified senior members of Congress that two of four classified emails discovered on the server Clinton maintained at her New York home contained material deemed to be in one of the highest security classifications - more sensitive than previously known.
The notice came as the State Department inspector general’s office acknowledged that it is reviewing the use of “personal communications hardware and software” by Clinton’s former top aides after requests from Congress.
“We will follow the facts wherever they lead, to include former aides and associates, as appropriate,” said Douglas Welty, a spokesman for the State Department’s inspector general.
Despite the acknowledgment, the State Department inspector general’s office has left numerous unanswered questions, including exactly who and what is being investigated. The office initially declined to comment and referred questions to the Intelligence Community inspector general’s office, which said it is not currently involved in any inquiry into aides and is being denied full access to aides’ emails by the State Department. Clinton, herself, is not a target.
The expanding inquiry threatens to further erode Clinton’s standing as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Since her reliance on private email was revealed in March, polls in crucial swing states show that increasing numbers of voters say Clinton is not honest and trustworthy, in part, because of her use of private emails.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, wants Clinton and her aides to “come clean and cough up” information about their personal email use.
“Both the State Department and Intelligence Community inspectors general should be looking into the staff use of the Clinton private server for official State Department business. This means giving both inspectors general access and custody of all emails that haven’t already been deleted,” said Grassley of Iowa. “From what is publicly known, it appears that the investigation thus far has focused so much on the former secretary of state, that it’s gotten lost that high-level staff apparently also used this server too.”
Folks are asking “What about Hillary?
1) Some people, like me, actually like *Bernie Sanders* and want to vote for him for President. But the Bernie that’s been on display for months just won’t do. We a better Bernie and that’s why we push.
2) Sure, Hillary is a very strategic target. (In general, not for this tactic cause she got the ill security).
But….. WHY would Hillary feel the need to be a better advocate for ending structural racism and white supremacy when Bernie Sanders, her MORE RADICAL opponent, can get away with a) cancelling meetings with black freedom movement organizers b) explicitly stating that the focus of his campaign is seniors and poor white people, as if black votes and lives don’t matter c) deflecting questions about racism and turning them into answers about socio-economic class at every turn d) not publicly releasing a racial justice platform???? If I were her, I sure wouldn’t feel the need to out-radical my radical opponent. Not at all.
If you don’t understand the desired outcome, the actions make no sense.RTWT.
One of the most controversial and least talented artists of the global art scene routinely receives the full force of establishment institutional support, including from a supposedly conservative government.
Tracey Emin is a notorious figure in England. She is an icon of the Conceptual Art movement that has done so much to destroy the credibility of elitist culture for anyone who has a life outside of the Postmodern cocoon.
Emin’s an artist who can’t draw; naturally the powers that be named her Professor of Drawing at London’s prestigious Royal Academy of the Arts.
*****
Once you realize the arrogant ruling class believes tearing down the traditions and standards of Western civilization will cement their grasp on unaccountable power, the promotion of Emin as the pinnacle of artistic achievement becomes understandable. Hyping soulless, unskilled art has a toxic, weakening effect on society as a whole. Conceptual art is a tool of oppression.
Boston Herald front page -- August 12, 2015 pic.twitter.com/mWJyP9cxTn
— Boston Herald (@bostonherald) August 12, 2015Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has rocketed past longtime front-runner Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, a stunning turn in a race once considered a lock for the former secretary of state, a new Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald poll shows.
Sanders leads Clinton 44-37 percent among likely Democratic primary voters, the first time the heavily favored Clinton has trailed in the 2016 primary campaign, according to the poll of 442 Granite-Staters.
Vice President Joe Biden got 9 percent support in the test primary match-up. The other announced Democrats in the race, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee and former Virginia Gov. Jim Webb, barely register at 1 percent or below.
The live interview phone poll was conducted Aug. 7-10 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points.
Clinton is still viewed overwhelmingly by voters as the likely Democratic nominee, but the results suggest she faces an unexpectedly difficult fight to prevent an embarrassing opening loss in the first-in-the-nation primary.
The Franklin Pierce/Herald poll shows that most New Hampshire Democrats are lukewarm to Clinton, despite her campaign’s concerted effort to soften her image and connect with voters.
Just 35 percent of likely primary voters say they are “excited” about Clinton’s campaign, according to the poll. And 51 percent of voters say that while they could support her, they aren’t enthusiastic about her White House bid.
And while 80 percent of likely Granite State Democrats view her favorably, just 38 percent of those say they have a “very” favorable impression.
Sanders’ rise has been meteoric. The socialist senator trailed Clinton by a 44-8 margin in a Franklin Pierce/Herald poll in March.
More than half of New Hampshire’s likely Democratic primary voters say they view Sanders “very” favorably, an indication of the excitement the Vermont senator has generated among his mostly liberal supporters.
But while Sanders has surged ahead in New Hampshire, he does face what appears to be an electability problem, even among his staunch supporters.
Just 11 percent of likely Democratic voters picked him over Clinton to win the nomination, while 65 percent said she would emerge as the party’s general election candidate...
Is that an egret? Don't know if they come in gray? Beautiful. #Irvine pic.twitter.com/TTfIhtLxvd
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 11, 2015She's sticking her head up now. #Irvine. pic.twitter.com/NWC5Pwu3Tf
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 11, 2015Nice little pond in the flood channel. The ducks can chill. #Irvine. pic.twitter.com/zNVajmdold
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 11, 2015Stopping for a break at Culver and Irvine Blvd. #Irvine. pic.twitter.com/GEblzU7bzf
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 11, 2015
