Pam Bondi Speech to the Republican National Convention #RNCinCLE (VIDEO)

I love her accent, and always have.

And she gives a fairly policy-oriented speech:

Republican National Committee Won't Post Ted Cruz's Full Speech to RNC’s YouTube Page

They've posted a snippet here, "We The People Constrain Government" - Sen Ted Cruz 2016 Republican National Convention."

But they're not posting the entire speech.

At Politico, "Cruz's full speech missing from RNC YouTube channel."

It was posted, however, at ABC News 15 Phoenix, "FULL SPEECH: Senator Ted Cruz BOOs & Cheers at the Republican National Convention."

Texas Delegates 'Disappointed' in Ted Cruz Snub of Donald Trump at #RNCinCLE (VIDEO)

Some Texas delegates stressed their disappointment to CBS News, which I posted earlier, "Ted Cruz Unleashes Fury with Donald Trump Snub at #RNCinCLE (VIDEO)."

But here's an even more detailed account, at Fox News, with Martha MacCallum, "Texas delegates 'disappointed' in Ted Cruz."

'Real Housewives' Star Joanna Krupa for Treats Magazine

At London's Daily Mail, "'It's pure art': Real Housewives of Miami vet Joanna Krupa stuns in nude photo shoot for treats! magazine as she weighs in on 'supermodel' debate."

More, "Joanna Krupa by Steve Shaw in Treats! Magazine Issue #11 Preview (2016)."

One of my fav shoots to date! Excited about this w @steveshawphoto https://t.co/hHWo1hpvx4

— Joanna Krupa (@joannakrupa) July 15, 2016

Stunning @joannakrupa 📸 by me for @treatsmagazine #issue11 @smudgestudiola - stylist @lisabae… https://t.co/F2BRMqLAUL

— steve shaw (@steveshawphoto) July 20, 2016

Margot Robbie Swimsuit Surfing Photos in Hawaii

I'm supposed to be taking my young son to see "Suicide Squad," heh.

Maybe this weekend.

Meanwhile, Ms. Margot is lovely:

Photo cred to the creepy pap hiding in the bushes. Thanks for always catching me at my best… https://t.co/bIPC89r1G3

— Margot Robbie (@MargotRobbie) July 21, 2016

Suicide Squad star Margot Robbie snapped surfing like a pro on holiday https://t.co/2DTRjnQEit pic.twitter.com/Wf96U9WvY2

— Mirror Celeb (@MirrorCeleb) July 21, 2016

Margot Robbie In a One Pierce Swimsuit Wipes Out Surfing in Hawaii https://t.co/TFvSQvH9ln pic.twitter.com/rpS9c7qxPk

— Celebzz (@celebzz_a) July 21, 2016

Cover star @MargotRobbie talks Leo, #SuicideSquad, "tall-poppy syndrome," and more https://t.co/9VNNZB6YW0

— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) July 16, 2016

Margot Robbie hits the beach in a crocheted bikini! https://t.co/hszQYcPJI7

— People Magazine (@people) July 16, 2016

Samantha Hoopes on How to steal Third Base (VIDEO)

She's so sweet.



BONUS: "Samantha Hoopes topless see through Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2016."

Charles Krauthammer: Ted Cruz Has 'Destroyed His Political Career...' (VIDEO)

I think so.

Watch, at Fox News, "Krauthammer: Cruz blew it by making non-endorsement personal."

The Question of GOP 'Party Unity' as Donald Trump Readies Acceptance Speech

Meh.

Who cares about "party unity" anyway. Isn't Trump all about blowing up the party?

At WaPo:

As Trump prepares to formally accept the GOP nomination, party unity remains in question https://t.co/zu5iLCfrDu

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 21, 2016

Laura Ingraham Brings Down the House at #RNCinCLE (VIDEO)

She was pretty awesome.

A freakin' rock star.

Watch the whole thing, "FULL SPEECH: WOW! Laura Ingraham brings down the house at Republican National Convention."



And for the related Twitter meme, picked up by plenty of MSM hacks, see Heat Street, "No, Laura Ingraham Didn’t Make a Nazi Salute With the Wrong Hand at the Republican Convention."

Jackie Johnson's Sunny and Hot Forecast

I'm about to turn on the air conditioning here.

It's going to be a scorcher today.

From the lovely Ms. Jackie, at CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Bwahaha! Juice Box Ezra Klein's Afraid for the First Time in His Life!

Because Donald Trump!

Look, we've been living a nightmare for nearly eight years under the Hussein administration. A Trump presidency's going to be like walking out of prison into the cool, cool breeze of freedom and prosperity.

But don't miss Ezra "juice box" Klein, at Vox:

Donald Trump’s nomination is the first time American politics has left me truly afraid https://t.co/EsB1fWq1Nc

— Vox (@voxdotcom) July 21, 2016

Tonight, Donald J. Trump will accept the Republican Party’s nomination for president of the United States. And I am, for the first time since I began covering American politics, genuinely afraid.

Donald Trump is not a man who should be president. This is not an ideological judgment. This is not something I would say about Mitt Romney or Marco Rubio. This is not a disagreement over Donald Trump’s tax plan or his climate policies. This is about Trump’s character, his temperament, his impulsiveness, his basic decency.

More.

So, I Guess Jim Hoft is Now Dead to Dana Loesch

Actually, I thought things were getting more or less back to normal on the right side of the polit-o-sphere, but I guess not. Ted Cruz really upended things last night:

. @gatewaypundit You are ridiculous. I never pledged anything. I regret ever being your friend. You are a horrible person.

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) July 21, 2016

'If you were new to the scene, you could be forgiven for thinking that National Review is some sort of leftist site that was created for the sole purpose of howling about Trump...'

I just don't read National Review. It's never been one of my favorites, but it's been forever dead to me since that anti-Trump special edition last years.

But see Bill Quick, "NRO: “Some Sort of Leftist Site…Created For the Sole Purpose of Howling About Trump”."

And I guess Jonah Golberg and his minions have launched some "I Choose Ted" hashtag.

Bleedin' idiots, the lot of them:

Indignant @JonahNRO is the best @JonahNRO. The day's must-read on Trump/Cruz. "I Choose Ted." https://t.co/rJ0Y3bSAUP #RNCinCLE

— Stephen Hayes (@stephenfhayes) July 21, 2016

Ted Cruz Unleashes Fury with Donald Trump Snub at #RNCinCLE (VIDEO)

Following-up from last night, "Ted Cruz Booed, Shouted Down After Refusing to Endorse Donald Trump at #RNCinCLE (VIDEO)."

At the New York Times, "Ted Cruz Is Heckled Again the Morning After His Non-Endorsement."

And at Breitbart, "Exclusive - Sarah Palin to Ted Cruz: Delete Your Career - Breitbart."

Also, at the New York Times, via Memeorandum, "Ted Cruz Stirs Convention Fury in Pointed Snub of Donald Trump."

And here's Major Garrett, for CBS This Morning:

Ted Cruz is Dead to Me

Well, if you've been watching the Republican convention, you know what's up.

If not, this LAT headline pretty much nails it, "Republican convention dissolves into boos as Ted Cruz withholds endorsement of bitter rival Donald Trump."

There's video here, via AP, "Boos Fill Hall as Cruz Ends Convention Speech."

And on Twitter:

.@BreeSrsly Selfish prick Ted Cruz. He's dead to me. #RNCinCLE

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) July 21, 2016

Trump Adviser Al Baldasaro Says Clinton 'Should Be Put in the Firing Line and Shot for Treason...'

Heh.

I think this guy's being investigated by the FBI, lol.

Here's WaPo earlier, on Chris Christie's speech last night, "The GOP's new convention theme: 'Lock her up!'."

And from leftist goon Andrew Kaczynski, at BuzzFeed.

Looks like they went with the most unhinged photo they could find, heh:

Secret Service Investigating Trump Adviser Al Baldasaro Who Said Hillary Clinton Should Be 'Shot for Treason'https://t.co/rq1xarofJ1

— andrew kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) July 20, 2016

The End of a Murdoch Era

I concur with Chris Cillizza. It's a great read.

This is one hell of a Roger Ailes piecehttps://t.co/FUXnsQpxXq

— Chris Cillizza (@TheFix) July 20, 2016

Donald Trump's Battleground Realignment

The key for me is if Trump wins in November. If so, I expect it'll be the beginning of a partisan realignment.

But see Ronald Brownstein, at the Atlantic, "Trump, Clinton, and the Realignment of Battleground States":

Why the Sunbelt & Rustbelt are changing places in @realDonaldTrump vs @HillaryClinton https://t.co/06MHRGm2hT https://t.co/OcUhWSKTbN

— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) July 18, 2016

CLEVELAND—The tumultuous 2016 presidential race appears poised to realign the states at the tipping point of American politics.

Since Bill Clinton’s first victory in 1992, Democratic presidential candidates have consistently run better in the aging, predominantly white and heavily blue-collar swing states clustered in the Rustbelt than in the younger, more diverse, and increasingly white-collar swing states arrayed across the Sunbelt. That pattern, in fact, has largely shaped presidential races since passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 fractured the century-long Democratic control of the “solid South.”

But now public polls and private assessments alike show Donald Trump running more strongly against Hillary Clinton in several of the key Rustbelt battlegrounds than in their Sunbelt counterparts.

With blue-collar whites providing the core of Trump’s support, the Rustbelt has emerged as his most—and perhaps only—plausible path to an Electoral College majority. Simultaneously, Democrats are increasingly viewing Sunbelt states that not long ago were considered safely Republican as the closest thing to a firewall for Clinton, largely because of the resistance to Trump among minorities and white-collar whites. “This shift was probably coming anyway because of the changing demographics of the Sunbelt, but Trump radically accelerates it on both ends,” said long-time Democratic strategist Paul Begala, a senior adviser to the pro-Clinton Priorities USA political action committee.

The trend was underlined last week by the release of a flurry of NBC/Marist College/Wall Street Journal polls that showed Trump even with Clinton in Ohio and just narrowly behind in Iowa, while lagging by virtually identical margins of six to nine percentage points in Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida in the Southeast, and Colorado in the Southwest.

Political strategists in both parties generally rank those four states, plus Nevada, as the five true swing states in the Sunbelt. New Mexico, a sixth Sunbelt state, was competitive during the George W. Bush years, but both sides now place it safely in the Democratic camp. Together, the five most competitive Sunbelt states offer 72 Electoral College votes (led by Florida with 29).

Likewise, strategists identify five Rustbelt states as key battlegrounds: Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. (The final state that both sides have treated as competitive in recent elections is New Hampshire, which is geographically distant from both clusters, but demographically and economically more closely resembles the battlegrounds in the Rustbelt than the Sunbelt.) The five Rustbelt battlegrounds offer 70 Electoral College votes (led by Pennsylvania with 20).

Just gaining ground in the Rustbelt won’t be enough for Trump if he can’t contain his losses in the Sunbelt. Even if Trump flipped all five of the Rustbelt swing states—each of which backed President Obama over Mitt Romney in 2012—he would still lose the election if he can’t win any of the five Sunbelt swing states, assuming no other states changed hands.

The shifting balance in these two key groups of swing states reflects, above all, the changing demography of each party’s electoral coalition. The working-class white voters underpinning Trump’s support represent a much larger share of the vote across the Rustbelt than the Sunbelt, whether using data from the exit polls or the Census post-election survey (which consistently identifies non-college whites as a large share of the electorate than the exit polls do). The Census results identify non-college whites as at least 54 percent of 2012 voters in all five Rustbelt states—and no more than 44 percent in any of the Sunbelt states. And except for Florida, the Rustbelt states, as a group, are also generally older, at a time when Republicans are dominating among whites older than 45.

Contrasting dynamics are molding the Sunbelt states. Diversity is the most important. The non-partisan States of Change project has projected that from 2008 to 2012 the minority share of eligible voters will rise by more in each of the Sunbelt swing states than in any of the Rustbelt battlegrounds, with the biggest increases registered in Nevada (a stunning 7.3 percentage points), Florida (4.5 points), and Colorado (4.3 points). In each of those states except Colorado, the States of Change model projects that the white share of eligible voters will dip below 70 percent in 2016. By contrast, the model projects that whites will still comprise at least 80 percent of eligible voters this year in all of the Rustbelt swing states except Michigan (where it will dip only to 78 percent).

Democrats have also benefited because college-educated whites, who have been grown warmer toward the party since the 1990s, generally comprise a larger share of the total white vote in the Sunbelt than Rustbelt battlegrounds. While the Census found that whites holding at least a four-year college degree represented only a third or less of all white voters in 2012 in Ohio, Iowa, and Michigan, they comprised at least 45 percent of all whites voting in Virginia and Colorado. (College whites clustered at 36 percent of the total white vote in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Nevada and slightly above that in Florida and North Carolina). This dynamic may prove especially important this year with most national polls showing Clinton even or ahead of Trump among college-educated whites—a group no Democratic presidential nominee has carried in the history of modern polling dating back to 1952.

It’s possible that this evolving geography could tip other states from both buckets  into the competitive category. When the Trump campaign recently identified 17 states as 2016 battlegrounds in a private briefing for a group of congressional Republicans first reported by the Wall Street Journal, it included reliably Democratic Minnesota in the Rustbelt as a state it hoped to contest. It also identified Republican-leaning Arizona and Georgia in the Sunbelt as diverse states it would need to defend. (Somewhat incongruously, it also included red-tinted Missouri and Indiana from the Rustbelt as states it thought it might need to protect.) But at this point few Democrats—including inside Clinton’s campaign—say they believe any of those will become truly competitive.

Obama’s two victories signaled growing Democratic strength in the Sunbelt, but despite some early party fears, displayed no erosion in the Rustbelt: Compared to the 1992 to 2004 period, Obama improved on the Democratic performance in both groups of states. This year, though, the polling raises the possibility that Trump could advance in the Rustbelt and retreat in the Sunbelt, leaving Clinton potentially more reliant on the latter than the former. That would mark a major reversal...

Ted Cruz Wants His Reagan Moment (VIDEO)

Well, it's going to be interesting, no doubt.

Watch, Fox News, "Lisa Boothe: Ted Cruz wants RNC to be his Reagan moment."

New Britney Spears Photos

Hey, good for her. She's doing really well.

Britney Spears shows off her sexy curves in a very revealing outfit https://t.co/8vedTUM8Gj pic.twitter.com/DSBmAt1pia

— Page 3 (@officialpage3) July 12, 2016

Britney Spears looks seriously toned promoting her new single 'Make Me' https://t.co/UuvBn88nPC pic.twitter.com/kPcU1d4HUu

— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) July 16, 2016