Jeb Bush Seeks to Recover Momentum After Debate (VIDEO)

Good luck with that.

Jeb may be on the way out, or so they say.

At WSJ, "Former Florida governor stumps in New Hampshire, taps friends to join him on campaign trail":

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Republican Jeb Bush, a day after a widely panned presidential-debate appearance, stumped in the state on which he is increasingly pinning his White House bid next to a sign that said: “Jeb can fix it.”

The message was intended to suggest the former two-term governor of Florida can solve the nation’s problems. But the sign took on a double meaning Thursday as supporters fret about Mr. Bush’s ability to fix his own campaign, let alone America’s woes.

“Honestly, it’s frustrating,” said 39-year-old Zoe Daboul, who was among dozens of people at Mr. Bush’s speech in a small parking lot outside a sandwich shop. “He’s so intelligent and so capable, but on the big stages, it’s hard for that to show.”

The third nationally televised showdown, held in Boulder, Colo., left the crowded GOP primary race even more volatile than when the candidates lined up on the debate stage. It heightened pressure on Mr. Bush, a one-time front-runner, while boosting the candidacies of freshman Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas.

With no lone winner, it sustained underdog candidates New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. And the primary’s two leaders in the polls, real-estate tycoon Donald Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, emerged largely unscathed.

Veterans of presidential campaigns said postdebate shifts, even if they are incremental, can make a difference if candidates can build on them.

“A debate is like one act of a nine-act play, so even if you do something remarkable, it doesn’t last and you have to do something to sustain that,” said Republican lobbyist Charlie Black, who has advised GOP nominees from John McCain to Mr. Bush’s brother, former President George W. Bush, but hasn’t taken sides in the 2016 race.

Mr. Bush’s latest troubles began when his attack during the debate against his one-time ally, Mr. Rubio, backfired as the senator calmly and forcefully deflected criticism of his attendance record in the U.S. Senate by suggesting his rival was simply acting petty.

Mr. Rubio on Thursday reveled in favorable reviews of his debate performance, including his accusation that the media had become a Democratic super PAC, during appearances on a half-dozen television networks. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush spoke for only about eight minutes against the backdrop of the Piscataqua River and a collection of hay bales and lobster traps. He also was slated to attend a town-hall meeting in New London on Thursday night.

“It’s not about the big personalities on the stage,” Mr. Bush said. “It’s not about performance. It’s about leadership.”

Mr. Bush has been struggling for months to regain his front-runner status in the polls. Last week, his campaign announced across-the-board salary cuts and layoffs as staffers hunker down in the early-voting states.

The debate’s morning-after brought one gift that may be helpful in the Granite State: the endorsement of Judd Gregg, who served as U.S. senator and governor in New Hampshire. Mr. Gregg said Mr. Bush was the right choice because he can win, he is substantive and he can govern.

“Governing is not done from anger,” Mr. Gregg said in an implicit critique of some of Mr. Bush’s rivals. “You don’t stand in the corners and shout. You don’t accomplish anything doing that. Governing is done by working together in a system of checks and balances and leading.”

Still, Mr. Bush was forced to defend his candidacy from detractors who say his campaign is in trouble, or, as one reporter put it to him, “on life support.”

Still more.

CNBC's Republican Debate Was Total Trainwreck (VIDEO)

Howard Kurtz has the analysis, at Fox News:

Republican Candidates Brace for Volative November Campaign

At the Washington Post, "GOP contenders brace for volatile November after freewheeling debate":

The fight for the 2016 GOP nomination appears to be moving into a new, more fluid phase.

No longer is the question merely whether or how Donald Trump can be stopped.

The recent rise in the polls of retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson — Trump’s low-key stylistic opposite — has shown that the celebrity billionaire may not be the only one who can tap the appetite of many in the party’s angry base for an outsider.

And after Wednesday’s chaotic and freewheeling debate, there also is a new dynamic on the establishment side of the race.

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush’s once-formidable campaign appears to be nearing a state of collapse, made worse by his flailing on the stage in Colorado.

That has provided an opening to his one-time ally, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who is getting a new look from the party establishment — an ironic situation, given Rubio’s roots as an insurgent tea party favorite in 2010.

“Marco Rubio now has probably the best shot to emerge as the mainstream alternative to Trump and Carson,” said Ari Fleischer, who was press secretary for President George W. Bush.

More broadly, Fleischer, who is not committed to any of the 2016 candidates, predicted that the GOP is about to enter “a condensed version of where it was four years ago, where the party is volatile and shopping around.”

That could help Ted Cruz, who also made a strong showing in the debate. The firebrand Texas senator, widely despised by the Washington Republican hierarchy, is looking to nudge out Trump and Carson among voters who are looking for a candidate to supplant the old order.

“I don’t think the party is going to nominate anybody who has not been elected before,” said Stuart Stevens, who was a top strategist for 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

Also likely to force some clarity in the coming weeks is the calendar. The first contest in Iowa is barely more than three months away...

More.

U.S. Economy Downshifts to 1.5 Percent GDP Growth in Third Quarter

Lame.

I mean, what, has the economy even managed 2.0 percent average economic growth since Obama took office? This is no doubt the worst economic recovery in American history.

At the Los Angeles Times, "U.S. economic growth slows sharply to 1.5% in the third quarter":

The U.S. economy slowed sharply over the summer, expanding at less than half the rate of the second quarter as the pace of economic activity eased almost across the board.

Total economic output, also known as gross domestic product, increased at a 1.5% annual rate from July through September, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

The economy grew at a 3.9% annual rate from April through June.

Economists had expected growth to slow amid global economic trouble during the third quarter, but the closely watched figure — the first of three government estimates of third-quarter growth — was less than the 1.7% that analysts had forecast.

Solid consumer spending helped keep the economy from slipping further. Still, the 3.2% increase in personal consumption expenditures was down from 3.6% in the second quarter.

Businesses cut back heavily on their inventories, which was a major drag on economic growth. Such a reduction, though, usually is followed by inventory build-up and is a reason why the economy is expected to rebound in the fourth quarter.

Aside from the inventory drop, the report showed that consumer spending and some other indicators were solid, said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. He forecast the economy would bounce back to about 3% growth in the final quarter of the year.

Overall private investment decreased at a 5.6% rate in the third quarter after increasing 5% the previous quarter. The decline was driven by a drop in spending on nonresidential structures, such as oil-drilling rigs.

A measure of business investment increased 2.1%, down from 4.1% in the second quarter. But spending on equipment increased by 5.3% in the third quarter, up significantly from a 0.3% gain the previous quarter.

Hurt by the strong U.S. dollar, exports grew 1.9% in the third quarter. That was down from a 5.1% increase the previous quarter.

The pace of government spending also declined, hurt by a cutback in defense expenditures. Government spending increased 1.7% in the third quarter after a 2.6% increase in the previous quarter.

Continued concern about the health of the U.S. economy led Federal Reserve policymakers on Wednesday to vote to keep their benchmark short-term interest rate near zero, though they hinted a hike could come in December...

Still more.

What Are the Fundamental Qualities of James Bond Movies?

This is really cool, via Britain's Sky News:

Demi Lovato Spotted Leaving Good Morning America in New York City on Thursday

She's a cool chick.

At London's Daily Mail, "Oh so chic Demi Lovato shows off her toned legs as she gears up to perform at AMAs with her Future Now tour partner Nick Jonas."

'Got to Go' — Eva Moskowitz's Success Academy Weeds Out Unwanted Students

The "Success Academies" have these "got to go" lists. If you're screwing up, disruptive, and racking up demerits, you've "got to go." Of course, it's going to be almost exclusively disadvantaged kids who've "got to go," especially racial minorities.

Because leftists are so progressive.

At the New York Times, "At a Success Academy Charter School, Singling Out Pupils Who Have ‘Got to Go’":

From the time Folake Ogundiran’s daughter started kindergarten at a Success Academy charter school in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, the girl struggled to adjust to its strict rules.

She racked up demerits for not following directions or not keeping her hands folded in her lap. Sometimes, after being chastised, she threw tantrums. She was repeatedly suspended for screaming, throwing pencils, running away from school staff members or refusing to go to another classroom for a timeout.

One day last December, the school’s principal, Candido Brown, called Ms. Ogundiran and said her daughter, then 6, was having a bad day. Mr. Brown warned that if she continued to do things that were defiant and unsafe — including, he said, pushing or kicking, moving chairs or tables, or refusing to go to another classroom — he would have to call 911, Ms. Ogundiran recalled. Already feeling that her daughter was treated unfairly, she went to the school and withdrew her on the spot.

Success Academy, the high-performing charter school network in New York City, has long been dogged by accusations that its remarkable accomplishments are due, in part, to a practice of weeding out weak or difficult students. The network has always denied it. But documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with 10 current and former Success employees at five schools suggest that some administrators in the network have singled out children they would like to see leave.

At Success Academy Fort Greene, the same day that Ms. Ogundiran heard from the principal, her daughter’s name was one of 16 placed on a list drawn up at his direction and shared by school leaders.

The heading on the list was “Got to Go.”

Nine of the students on the list later withdrew from the school. Some of their parents said in interviews that while their children attended Success, their lives were upended by repeated suspensions and frequent demands that they pick up their children early or meet with school or network staff members. Four of the parents said that school or network employees told them explicitly that the school, whose oldest students are now in the third grade, was not right for their children and that they should go elsewhere.

The current and former employees said they had observed similar practices at other Success schools. According to those employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs or their relationships with people still at the network, school leaders and network staff members explicitly talked about suspending students or calling parents into frequent meetings as ways to force parents to fall in line or prompt them to withdraw their children.

Last year, for instance, the principal of Success Academy Harlem 2 Upper, Lavinia Mackall, told teachers not to automatically send annual re-enrollment forms home to certain students, because the school did not want those students to come back, two former members of the school’s staff said. Ms. Mackall said that her comments had been misinterpreted and that she was trying to encourage parents to take the school’s requirements seriously, but that she also did not believe the school was right for all students.

In another example, a current employee said, a network lawyer in a conversation with colleagues described a particularly unruly student’s withdrawal as “a big win” for the school.

In a written response to questions, Success Academy’s spokeswoman, Ann Powell, said that the “Got to Go” list was a mistake and that the network quickly got wind of it and reprimanded Mr. Brown, the principal.

Ms. Powell said that Success schools did not push children out, and that what might look like an effort to nudge students out the door was actually an attempt to help parents find the right environment for their children. Some on the list required special education settings that Success could not offer them, she said.

Mr. Brown said in an email that he thought the disruptive behavior of the students on the list was dragging the whole school down, and “I felt I couldn’t turn the school around if these students remained.”

Well, Mr. Brown's amazingly candid about it. The funny thing is, of course these students were going to drag the whole school down. It's happening all around the country. In the case of the Success Academy, however, those students were dragging down the network's superlative performance rankings, and the "got to go" list was certainly a key method of maintaining high test scores and so forth.

But again, these are New York progressives who're weeding out black students. Can you say "racist"?

Stalin: Paradoxes of Power

My reading right now is alternating between Sean Naylor's, Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command, and Simon Sebag Montefiore's, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar.

I'll definitely finish both volumes. They're great.

And after I finish Montefiore I'm going to pick up a copy of Stephen Kotkin's, Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928, which is the first volume of a trilogy.

BONUS: Don't forget to pick up some Halloween candy before the trick-or-treaters show up at your door.

Candidates Struggle to Stand Out at #GOPDebate

At WSJ, "GOP Debate: Candidates Fight to Stand Out":

BOULDER, Colo.—The Republican presidential debate Wednesday night exposed deep differences—in both substance and style—between veteran politicians and their less-seasoned rivals who continue to captivate GOP primary voters.

Republicans picked up right where they left off from the last debate when Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tried to jump-start their campaigns by questioning the financial underpinnings of tax proposals offered by the two leaders, celebrity real-estate developer Donald Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

With Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses three months away, Mr. Kasich complained that the other candidates were making outlandish promises that would explode the deficit, and Mr. Bush interrupted Mr. Trump to point out that his tax plan would create “an $8 trillion debt.” Mr. Kasich also questioned the viability of Mr. Trump’s calls to deport millions of illegal immigrants.

“This is fantasy,” Mr. Kasich said, interjecting as Mr. Carson explained his tax plan to the audience. “You just don’t make promises like this. Why don’t we just give a chicken in every pot, while we’re, you know, coming up with these fantasy tax schemes?”

The third GOP debate, sponsored by CNBC, however, seemed unlikely to significantly shift the standings of the candidates.

Mr. Carson, who used his opening statement to say he refused to say “awful things” about his opponents, seemed to blunt any direct attacks on him. He and Mr. Trump largely ignored each other throughout the debate.

Beyond some early fireworks, there were few break-out moments. One of the more personal exchanges came between Mr. Bush and his one-time ally Marco Rubio over the Florida senator’s attendance record in Congress.

The candidates struggling on the bottom rung, including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, failed to deliver break-out performances. So did former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who stood out much more in the second debate.

Mr. Trump brushed off the early broadsides by attributing Mr. Kasich’s criticism to his recent slide in the polls. The real-estate developer also blamed Mr. Kasich for playing a role in the 2008 financial crisis by noting that he was working at Lehman Brothers, the investment bank whose collapse triggered panic in financial markets.

“This is the man who was a managing general partner at Lehman Brothers when it went down the tubes,” Mr. Trump said, taunting the Ohio governor for his position at the far edge of the stage...

Yeah, well, the biggest loser was the Democrat-Media-Complex.

But keep reading.

'Sentencing Reform' Kills Cops

From Daniel Greenfield, at FrontPage Magazine, "Pro-crime politicians must be held liable for their crimes":

NYPD Officer Randolph Holder was shot and killed last week. But the bullet that murdered him had been fired years ago. And it was the Democrats of the New York State government that took the shot.

The trigger had been pulled in 2009 when New York lawmakers passed drug crime “reforms” that targeted mandatory minimum sentences, a particular obsession of the pro-crime lobby, and allowed drug offenders to bypass jail.

Governor Paterson, who had used cocaine and whose close associate was a former drug dealer whose scandal would play a role in the governor’s downfall, claimed that sentencing reform would “Give judges the discretion to divert non-violent drug addicted individuals to treatment alternatives that are far more successful than prison.”

Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, New York’s first black Temporary President of the Senate, who would later be busted by the FBI on corruption charges, promised that the reforms would “Reverse years of ineffective criminal laws.”

Senator John Sampson, the first black Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who would be indicted for embezzlement, claimed that drug laws had “decimated communities and destroyed lives” by locking up criminals. Assembly Speaker Silver, currently facing trial for mail fraud, said that the reforms would take advantage of “more effective and less costly alternatives than prison.” Senator Shirley Huntley, who would later be sentenced to prison for stealing money from a charity for public school children, praised the law for giving “families and communities a fighting chance.”

Senator Hiram Monserrate, who had already been arrested for slashing his girlfriend in the face with a broken glass, explained his vote in favor of sentencing reform by saying, “If I had to err, ladies and gentlemen, I would err on the side of compassion.”

Senator Kevin Parker, who had gotten away with punching a traffic agent, attacking a female aide and assaulting a photographer, blasted Republicans for using “Fear and diversion to oppose reasonable changes to the law for 40 years.”

They were all lying.

In that same year, Officer Holder’s killer had been arrested in a shooting that wounded an 11-year-old boy and a 77-year-old man. But he wasn’t done yet...

Keep reading.

Sheldon Wolin Has Died

He was an esteemed political theorist and celebrated political scientist at Berkeley, and later Princeton.

See the New York Times, "Sheldon S. Wolin, Theorist Who Shifted Political Science Back to Politics, Dies at 93."

The obituary ends with this, "His last book reflected this dark interpretation of politics in the United States. It bore a sobering title: “Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism”."

And that is dark. So I looked it up, at Amazon, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism:

Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost cliché. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"?

Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level.

Democracy Incorporated is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come.

'Something Deeply Disturbing Is Happening All Across America...'

From FBI Director James Comey, speaking at the University of Chicago Law School,  October 23rd, "A chill wind has changed police behavior, and now violent crime is rising. Its victims are almost entirely young black men":

Part of being clear-eyed about reality requires all of us to stare—and stare hard—at what is happening in this country this year. And to ask ourselves what’s going on.

Because something deeply disturbing is happening all across America. I have spoken of 2014 in this speech because something has changed in 2015. Far more people are being killed in America’s cities this year than in many years. And let’s be clear: far more people of color are being killed in America’s cities this year. And it’s not the cops doing the killing.

We are right to focus on violent encounters between law enforcement and civilians. Those incidents can teach all of us to be better. But something much bigger is happening. Most of America’s 50 largest cities have seen an increase in homicides and shootings this year, and many of them have seen a huge increase. These are cities with little in common except being American cities—places like Chicago, Tampa, Minneapolis, Sacramento, Orlando, Cleveland, and Dallas.

In Washington, D.C., we’ve seen an increase in homicides of more than 20% in neighborhoods across the city. Baltimore, a city of 600,000 souls, is averaging more than one homicide a day—a rate higher than that of New York City, which has 13 times the people. Milwaukee’s murder rate has nearly doubled over the past year.

And who’s dying? Police chiefs say the increase is almost entirely among young men of color, at crime scenes in bad neighborhoods where multiple guns are being recovered.

That’s yet another problem that white America can drive around, but if we really believe that all lives matter, as we must, all of us have to understand what is happening. Communities of color need to demand answers. Police and civilian leaders need to demand answers. Academic researchers need to hit this hard...

I'm not holding my breath, but keep reading.

Elizabeth Turner Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Casting Call (VIDEO)

Smokin'.

So, 'Supergirl' Is Pretty Good After All

I tuned-in too late to be a really good judge, but see Hot Air, "Ignore the media maelstrom: “Supergirl” is pretty super."

And ICYMI, "Melissa Benoist."

New York's Affirmative Consent Law Affirmatively Confuses Students (VIDEO)

From the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education:



And ICYMI, "Phony 'Rape Crisis' is Assault on Common Sense."

The Harlem Honeys and Bears Synchronized Swim Team (VIDEO)

Via National Geographic:

Reince Priebus Blasts Far-Left CNBC Moderators After #GOPDebate (VIDEO)

What's so shocking about his outburst is that as chair of the RNC he has complete control over the choice of network venues. Michelle Malkin hammered him on that, indeed.

Via CNN:

Far-Left CNBC Moderators Lose Control of Third GOP Debate (VIDEO)

Linked previously, at Instapundit, "JUDGING FROM WHAT I’M SEEING ON TWITTER, CNBC AND JOHN HARWOOD ARE THE BIG LOSERS OF TONIGHT’S DEBATE."

And now from Hadas Gold, at Politico, "Moderators lose control at third GOP debate":

The CNBC-moderated debate became a debate about CNBC, as various candidates and the audience turned the tables on the network’s three moderators.

The repeated bursts of anger and anarchy were prompted, in part, by questions from the moderators that veered, at times, beyond sharp into contentiousness. By the end of the first hour, the audience seemed to be siding with the candidates, booing when CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla seemed to play gotcha with Ben Carson about his past work for a questionable company.

Taking on the media is a time-honored tradition in Republican debates, from Ronald Reagan in 1980 to Newt Gingrich in 2011. But those were generally one-time outbursts. On Wednesday night, the tension was palpable throughout the encounter, a theme that may have dashed CNBC’s plans to use the night to showcase a broad array of its own anchors and introduce itself to millions of new viewers.

The pattern was established very early by Donald Trump, spurred by a question about his tax plan from CNBC’s John Harwood that suggested the businessman was running a “comic-book” campaign. Trump angrily proclaimed that the network’s own star host, Larry Kudlow, had praised his tax plan.

Soon after, Texas senator Ted Cruz picked up the cudgel declaring, in response to a question from Quintanilla about raising the debt ceiling, “Let me say something at the outset. The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media. This is not a cage match. The questions shouldn’t be getting people to tear into each other.”

Cruz, his voice rising in indignation, cited Harwood’s “comic-book” question to Trump and one from CNBC’s Becky Quick to Carson that declared that his flat-tax plan wouldn’t bring in nearly as much revenue as he claimed. After Cruz waxed on about a double standard between Democratic and Republican debates, Quintanilla seemed visibly irritated, and he and Harwood each refused to give Cruz any extra time to answer the original question.

A few minutes later, they seemed to think better of it and did give Cruz the time. But the spuriousness of the decision left them open to further expressions of outrage by other candidates whenever the moderators tried to cut them off.

The unruly atmosphere was a far cry from what CNBC seemed to want and expect, from a gauzy opening photo montage to a series of promotions emphasizing what Quintanilla, at the outset, called, “CNBC’s top experts in the markets and personal finance” and “the best team in business” journalism.

Earlier, the network's efforts to showcase a large number of personalities during a disjointed pre-debate discussion drew jeers on Twitter from reporters, political operatives and others who couldn’t stand the banter between the anchors, correspondents and pundits filling time between the two events.

"The CNBC anchors are just desperately filling airtime with absolute nonsense to kill time,” conservative writer John Tabin tweeted.

"Please run vertical color bars until the debate starts,” wrote U.S. News and World Report’s managing editor for opinions Robert Schlesinger...

Keep reading.

Most Republican Voters Want Someone from Outside the Political Establishment to Win Their Party's Presidential Nomination

Donald Trump is up 14 points over Ben Carson in YouGov's latest poll of the GOP presidential field.

See, "Trump leads GOP nationally ahead of third debate."



And flashback to still the best thing I've read this year on the Trump phenomenon, "The Political Establishment's Terrified by Donald Trump's 'Tangible American Nationalism'."

Donald Trump Says He 'Carries on Occasion' (VIDEO)

He carries a gun on occasion.

From tonight's debate:



And at Instapundit, "JUDGING FROM WHAT I’M SEEING ON TWITTER, CNBC AND JOHN HARWOOD ARE THE BIG LOSERS OF TONIGHT’S DEBATE." (That's Ted Cruz hammering John Harwood at the link.)