The polls make it clear Americans – Republicans especially – are disgusted with political insiders.

There’s something to be said for political experience. But as neurosurgeon Ben Carson – one of three outsiders at or near the top of the polls noted: “There is more than 9,000 years of political experience in Congress. Look where it’s gotten us.”

We’ve learned through bitter experience that what matters most in a public officeholder are intelligence, courage, and character –little of which are in evidence in Washington D.C. these days.

And an outsider president could compensate for his or her lack of experience in government by assembling a Cabinet for the ages. My dream Cabinet would consist of:

“Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels,” said the British wit Samuel Johnson (1709-84). A proud Tory, Johnson was speaking of us, during the American Revolution. Americans laughed and said Johnson, a worshipper of George III, must be talking about himself.

Racism is the last refuge of losers – and political scoundrels wanting the losers’ votes.

Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, the “Black Lives Matter” crowd speak of “race traitors.” There is no such thing, because no one owes allegiance to a race. We are individuals, with our own aspirations, abilities and shortcomings, virtues and vices. We should be judged by the content of our character, not as members of an enormous herd into which we were born.

Egged on by America’s Racial-Divider-in-Chief, the racists and scoundrels of “Black Lives Matter” are now calling for a race war and the indiscriminate killing of whites. Here’s a suggestion on how to stop this.

Every day this week I shaved, brushed my teeth, showered, dressed myself, made my own breakfast. Big steps for a recovering invalid.

I have multiple myeloma, a bone marrow cancer. Just after I started chemo, I fell down the stairs, tore my left anterior cruciate ligament, complicating treatment for both.

For the last six weeks, I’ve essentially been confined to my bed, with another week or so to go. If you sent me an email, and I haven’t responded, this is why.

I hate being an invalid even more than I thought I would. But I have so much to be grateful for. I owe so much to my wife Pam. To all the caregivers who’ve been so wonderful to me. And I’m especially thankful for your prayers.

Your prayers are working. The first two rounds of chemotherapy have reduced sharply the symptoms of my cancer.

There is no American living today whom I admire more than pioneering neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Reared in poverty in Detroit by a single parent mother who often worked three scut jobs to put food on the table and clothes on the backs of Ben and older brother Curtis, his is a genuine Horatio Alger story

No other candidates for president in either party can claim to have saved lives, as Ben Carson has. No others can match his record of achievement. Yet Dr. Carson is running less for ego gratification than any of them.

The contrast between Dr. Carson and the prime egoist in the race, Donald Trump, could not be sharper. Mr. Trump brags constantly. Ben Carson lets his achievements speak for themselves. Mr. Trump bullies and name-calls. Dr. Carson searches for common ground.

Ben Carson also contrasts vividly with Barack Hussein Obama, whose self regard is enormous, his accomplishments sparse.

His achievements, temperament and platform make Dr. Carson an attractive candidate. So leftists are trying to tear him down, and are (as is customary) abusing the truth to do it.

On Meet the Press Sunday, host Chuck Todd asked Dr. Carson: “Should a president’s faith matter?”

At a town hall meeting in Rochester New Hampshire Friday, a questioner asserted President Barack Hussein Obama is a closet Moslem. Donald Trump did not respond. Faux outrage ensued.

“Donald Trump not denouncing false statements about POTUS and hateful rhetoric about Moslems is just plain wrong,” tweeted Hillary Clinton.

“I would correct them and I would say ‘The President is a Christian and he was born in this country,” said New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

“Mainstream” journalists wondered why so many “still” suspect Mr. Obama may be a Moslem. Given the president’s bizarre refusal to acknowledge Islamists are motivated by their interpretation of Islam, his unwillingness to take effective action against ISIS, and his dalliance with the mullahs in Tehran, Americans have more reasons than ever to suspect he’s a closet Moslem.

Or who his father really is. Stanley Ann Dunham, Mr. Obama’s mother, met Barack Hussein Obama Sr. in Hawaii. The behavior of her parents suggests Stanley Ann may have been pregnant before the family moved there[1]. (The footnote suggests just where she became pregnant.)

“There’s a sucker born every minute,” said P.T. Barnum (1810-1891), the Donald Trump of the 19th Century. These days suckers cluster on the Right.

Conservatives love the idea of Donald Trump – a D.C. outsider who doesn’t care about political correctness, says what people are thinking but are afraid to say, said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

But Mr. Trump himself is a shallow, unserious narcissist, all bluster and no substance. “It’s silly to argue policy with this guy,” Gov. Jindal said. “He has no idea what he is talking about, he makes it all up on the fly.” When his ignorance is exposed, Mr. Trump responds with bullying and name calling.

Yet many on the Right can’t tell the differences between Trump the Act and the real Donald Trump. And when conservatives who can point them out, Trumpkins accuse them of selling out to the GOP establishment, of secretly supporting Jeb Bush.

The act is magnificent. Mr. Trump is the greatest showman of our era, just as Barnum was of his. But would you entrust P. T. Barnum with the national security of your country or the future of your children?

I’m glad I live in a time of automobiles, air conditioning, indoor plumbing, the Internet and especially (given my present circumstances) great medical advances.

But if I had to live in an earlier period, I’d want to be a soldier in the Union Army (preferably in the 24th Wisconsin, with Sherman from Atlanta to the sea). I can think of no greater cause than to fight to eradicate America’s original sin.

Slavery isn’t America’s original sin because it was unique, or uniquely horrible here. If prostitution is “the world’s oldest profession,” slave trading is second. Since the dawn of recorded history, slavery has been practiced ...

Those who style themselves “true conservatives” aren’t the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, as their constant misuse of their favorite epithet indicates.

“RINO” is an acronym, for “Republicans In Name Only.” Those who use it think only a “true conservative” can (or should be) a Republican.

The voting index maintained by the American Conservative Union indicates Republicans in Congress are a scoche more conservative than the voters who elected them.

But rank-and-file Republicans despise Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, and House Speaker John Boehner, R-OH, for a very good reason: They’re not Republicans. They’re Whigs.

As Jack Wheeler has been predicting for many moons, President Barack Hussein Obama has evidently given Vice President Joe Biden the green light to seek the Democrat nomination for president.

At this writing, Ms. Clinton’s sole credible opponent is Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an aging Socialist crackpot who nonetheless has a charming authenticity about him, reminiscent of Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who shocked the political world in 1968 when he almost upset President Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary.

That prompted LBJ to drop out of the race, Robert F. Kennedy to get into it. Had Sirhan Sirhan not gunned him down, Bobby Kennedy probably would have out-muscled Vice President Hubert Humphrey for the nomination.

Joe Biden is no Bobby Kennedy. He’s a dirty old man who’s groped women in public, likes to skinny-dip in front of female Secret Service agents assigned to guard him. The news media won’t mention this, but Hillary surely shall. This is going be a lot of fun to watch.

“They covered child sacrifices with loud noises of flutes and drums so the cries of the wailing would not reach the ears of the people,” wrote the Greek historian Plutarch (AD 46-120) of religious practices in ancient Carthage.

For most Democrats and “mainstream” journalists, not much has changed.

Posing as buyers of fetal tissue, the Center for Medical Progress, a pro-life group in California, secretly recorded stomach-turning evidence – while Planned Parenthood and its apologists responded with misdirection, deception, and outright lies.

If you can watch without gagging what USA Today columnist Kirsten Powers, a Democrat, described as “the strategic crushing of the unborn to better harvest their hearts, lungs and livers,” odds are you’re a sociopath.

Most Americans aren’t, which is why PP sociopaths try so hard to block release of more videos.

The Trump boomlet is fueled by disgust with the gutless, brain dead, duplicitous GOP “leaders” in Congress, who – in the immortal words of Henry Clay – “aren’t worth the powder and shot to kill them.”  

But Cleveland debate watchers saw he has no solutions for illegal immigration, Islamic terror, or anything else. The evening’s big winner was former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.

“Carly Fiorina is the Ronda Rousey of politics,” said an admiring John Hinderaker of the Power Line blog. Ronda Rousey is a (gorgeous) Mixed Martial Arts fighter who Sports Illustrated said is “the world’s most dominant athlete.”

Ms. Fiorina won the debate, said 22 percent in an online poll conducted by Survey Monkey for NBC News. Mr. Trump was second, at 18 percent. But 29 percent said The Donald did the worst job in the debate. His net score of –11 tied him for last with Sen. Rand Paul.

He still leads the GOP field. But now that the real Donald Trump is emerging, I don’t think it will last.

“Government works better now than probably it ever has,” President Barack Hussein Obama told the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart last month.

In which alternate universe is the president dwelling? He certainly isn’t living in America. It seems he is living in an alternate reality created by a pathological narcissism – among other mental maladies.

Being clinically nuts isn’t one of the grounds for impeachment (“Treason, Bribery, or other High crimes and Misdemeanors”), under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution. Maybe it’s time to consider Article II’s Section 1, Clause 6 and the 25th Amendment designed to clarify it.   It’s probably the only way for SloJoe Biden to live in the White House.

Consider how Martian it is of Zero to make his claim given this small sample of examples to the contrary:

I thought the liberal giants of my youth were usually mistaken, but I never doubted their intelligence, their good intentions, or their patriotism.

Those of us who are or were in Army Special Forces will always be grateful to Jack Kennedy for giving us the Green Beret. No politician has been a more effective defender of America’s national security than Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson, D-Wash.

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-NY, the premier sociologist of his time, was a “social scientist” who was really a scientist. What a concept! Sen. Hubert Humphrey, D-Minn, was a passionate advocate of equal rights at a time when the only other politicians who were, were Republicans.

Not a single Democrat in high public office today resembles Jack Kennedy, Scoop Jackson, Pat Moynihan or Hubert Humphrey. “Liberal” is an appellation derived from the word “liberty.” Most Democrats today aren’t liberals. They’re fascists.

Little illustrates this more clearly than their reaction to the shocking videos of Planned Parenthood’s ghoulish trade in the body parts of aborted fetuses.

After smashing through the gates of the Naval Reserve Center in Chattanooga in his rented Ford Mustang convertible, Mohammed Abdulazeez, 24, murdered four Marines and a sailor with his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.

The death toll would have been higher had not Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan and Staff Sgt. David Wyatt sacrificed themselves to permit other Marines to escape, the FBI said. “Our Marines acted the way you’d expect,” said Maj. Gen. Paul Brier, commander of the 4th Marine Division. “Some willingly ran back into the fight.”

In a related story, flamboyant businessman Donald Trump had a substantial lead for the Republican nomination for president in polls this week.

It wasn’t until Tuesday (7/21) – five days after the massacre – that President Barack Hussein Obama ordered flags at federal installations be flown at half staff in honor of the Chattanooga victims.

The day before, Donald Trump had ordered the flags on all his U.S. properties flown at half staff. This well-publicized action likely shamed the president into acting.

An agreement was made in Vienna on Tuesday (7/14) only because the Obama administration capitulated to every single demand made by Iran.

“It's a deal worse than even we imagined possible,” said Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol. “It's a deal that gives the Iranian regime $140b in return for ... effectively nothing: no dismantlement of Iran's nuclear program, no anytime/anywhere inspections, no curbs on Iran's ballistic missile program, no maintenance of the arms embargo, no halt to Iran's sponsorship of terror.”

“This deal sets in place every key component of a nuclear program that Iran needs to develop a weapon,” said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla. It gives Iran “a license to kill,” said Israeli minister Miri Regev.

Here’s the scary question: Did President Zero do this on purpose? Was this his malicious goal all along?

Kate Steinle, 32, was walking with her father along the Embarcadero in San Francisco in the early evening July 1 when she was shot at random by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, 45, an illegal alien from Mexico who’d committed 7 previous felonies in the U.S.

Mr. Lopez-Sanchez had been deported five times. It would have been six, but for the fact San Francisco is a “sanctuary city.”

ICE asked to be notified if San Francisco released Mr. Lopez-Sanchez, so he could be deported. But San Francisco does not honor such requests from federal immigration authorities. Credit for his release so he was free to murder Kate Steinle goes specifically to San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi.

Statistics on crimes by illegals are horrifying, but are ignored by Democrats and the media. When someone in the public eye mentions them, like Donald Trump, he is viciously vilified.

Yet, while Mr. Trump deserves criticism for how he said it, the thrust of what he said is indisputably true.

Our 70,000 page tax code “has grown so corrupt, complicated, intrusive and antigrowth that I’ve concluded the system isn’t fixable,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY.

He wants to repeal the whole thing, replace it with a 14.5 percent flat tax on individuals, businesses, capital gains and estates.

In March, Sens. Marco Rubio, R-FL, and Mike Lee, R-UT, proposed a more modest plan that would reduce our current 7 personal income tax rates to 3, with a top rate of 35 percent.

Either would be a vast improvement over the ugly mess we have now. Neither will ever be enacted.

Every conservative reform plan with which I am familiar fails to take into consideration public opinion, or its vulnerability to demagoguery. So here’s what I propose in lieu of Sens. Paul, Rubio, and Lee.

To the "Black Lives Matter" crowd, most black lives don't. About 7,000 blacks are killed each year - more than 90 percent by other blacks. To most Democrats, only those shot by white police officers or white bigots matter. Just 25 percent of about 400 local police killings a year involve a white cop and a black victim, an FBI study found. Shootings of blacks by police have been cut in half since 1981. For every black killed by a white cop, black criminals murder 70. It is 25 times more likely a black will commit a crime of violence against a white than vice versa. There's so much crime in black communities because they're poor, Democrats say. They have it backward. Crime causes poverty, not the other way around.  Businesses flee violence-riddled neighborhoods, taking jobs with them. Property values fall. Democrats prefer nostrums designed more to enrich themselves than to help the poor.  One clear example is the Dems' "War on Poverty," on which we've spent more than on all of America's real wars combined. As social service spending exploded, urban decay accelerated.  Here are other examples:

Little illustrates more clearly how frivolous “progressives” have become than the announcement by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew that Alexander Hamilton will be replaced on the ten dollar bill by a woman, identity TBD. This isn’t because there haven’t been many women in American history deserving of the honor. Foremost among them, arguably, is Harriet Tubman (1822-1913), who after escaping from slavery returned to Maryland’s Eastern Shore 13 times to rescue 70 other slaves. During the Civil War, she risked her life to spy for the Union. In later life, she became a leading suffragette. Among other women deserving of honor are Betsy Ross, “Molly Pitcher,” Harriet Beecher Stowe, Julia Ward Howe, Clara Barton, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. But none of these admirable women contributed nearly as much as Alexander Hamilton, after George Washington arguably the most important of our Founding Fathers – and the most anti-slavery to boot. That Mr. Lew didn’t have a woman in mind when he announced Alexander Hamilton would be dumped for one indicates he’s making the move for a cheesy reason: gender politics irrespective of achievement. And now he is learning the hard way how difficult it is to appease those who practice gender politics.

The Confederate battle flag had nothing whatever to do with the gruesome murders Dylann Roof committed in the Emanuel AME Zion church in Charleston, South Carolina. But Gov. Nikki Haley is right to seek its removal from a monument to Confederate soldiers on the grounds of the state capitol. Conservative CNN commentator Erick Erickson explains why. And, as Gov. Haley noted, "the hate-filled murderer" and others of his ilk have appropriated the Southern Cross as a symbol of white supremacy. It no longer matters that for many Southerners who followed it into battle, it wasn't. Robert E. Lee was more critical of slavery than were Union generals U.S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. Lee was against secession. He fought for the South because he could not fight against Virginia, his home state. We should all thank God the South lost. But it is false and malicious to assert all Confederates were virulent racists, akin to Nazis.

Dylann Roof, 21, sat in a Bible study in the Emanuel AME Zion Church in Charleston, South Carolina for nearly an hour before murdering 9 of the parishioners he told police had been "so nice to him." As most of us were recoiling in horror from such evil, "progressives" - pouncing like vultures on fresh killed carrion - politicized this awful crime. "This type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries," said President Barack Hussein Obama. Since 2001, there've been 14 shootings with as many or more victims in Norway, France, Switzerland, Britain, Germany, Finland, Serbia, Brazil and Mexico. He knew this, yet he used Roof's lunacy to promote his Hate America racist agenda -- and to promote gun-control laws for the purpose of disarming citizens.

Two stories dominated the news this week. One is really, really important. The other is frivolous. Of course, the news media focused more attention on the frivolous story. Hackers stole sensitive information from databases of the Office of Personnel Management on 4 to 14 million federal employees, who now could have their identities stolen, or worse. This was a cyber Pearl Harbor which "wrecked American espionage," said John Schindler, a former counterintelligence officer for the National Security Council.  Actually, it was no real hack at all, but we'll get to that. The news media gave more attention to Rachel Dolezal, who was president of the NAACP chapter in Spokane and a part time professor of Afro-American Studies at Eastern Washington University until her parents outed her as being 100 percent white. Conservatives chortle as liberals, who said Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner is a woman because he/she thinks he/she is, perform verbal somersaults to make pseudo-distinctions between him/her and Ms. Dolezal. Once, journalists told us what we needed to know as well as what we liked to hear. It's easier to write about Rachel Dolezal than about the implications of a cyber Pearl Harbor.  But there's another, truly sinister reason.

Here's how to give the poor access to good health care without clobbering middle class Americans or  taxpayers. When I wrote this, Jack Wheeler reminded me of his Health Freedom vs. Health Fascism from May of 2009.  It's not surprising, given that we think alike, that our "here's how" lists are so similar.   Here's mine.  Jack's is appended below for comparison.  Specifics aside, one thing on which all conservatives should be able to agree is that the antidote to Obamacare health fascism is getting the government out of the way of health freedom. Comments on the Forum will be appreciated.  And feel free to add your own suggestions on how to expand health freedom in America.

"A Hillary Clinton match-up with Marco Rubio is a scary thought for Democrats," the New York Times reported May 22. Democrats with bylines are frightened too, hit pieces in the New York Times and the Washington Post indicate. Marco Rubio has gotten 4 traffic tickets since 1997, the Times reported June 5. One every 4 to 5 years may be below average for Florida. So reporters Alan Rappeport and Steve Eder beefed up their story by adding in the 13 tickets his wife got. What bearing does Jeanette Rubio's lead foot have on her husband's fitness for office? The Times' shady move promptly got the ridicule it deserved. "Taken together, Marco Rubio and Napoleon conquered most of Europe," tweeted John Ekdahl.   "Taken together, Marco Rubio and Pontius Pilate agreed to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ," tweeted Steve Klein. It's so gratifying to see the libtard media do a total faceplant and subject themselves to merciless ridicule.

"I'll restore faith in the country we all love," Hillary Clinton pledged at a fund-raiser in Manhattan June 1. To find out which country that is, we'll have to check the list of donors to the Clinton Foundation, tweeted actor and former GOP Sen. Fred Thompson. The Clinton campaign was awful eight years ago. Ready for Hillary 2016 hasn't been an improvement. Things have gone so poorly since Ms. Clinton announced her candidacy April 12 she plans to take a mulligan. Hillary will relaunch her campaign with a rally on Roosevelt Island this Saturday (6/13). By choosing that day without consulting the locals, Team Clinton forced cancellation of a long scheduled event for children, which generated bad press and irritated community leaders. She's dodged questions about scandals, but acting like a queen on the way to her coronation reinforces impressions she's arrogant and out of touch. And even her toadies in the news media are irritated by her refusal to answer their questions. Hence the mulligan. Here's why it may not do her any good.

Major health insurers seek eye popping rate increases for 2016 - 25 percent in Oregon, 30.4 percent in Maryland, 36.3 percent in Tennessee, 51.6 percent in New Mexico. Despite subsidies for the industry of at least $16 billion, many insurers lose money. Far fewer signed up for Obamacare than they expected (and the administration claimed). Those who did sign up are older and sicker. Subsidies for insurance companies mask the true cost, says Stephen Parente, director of the Medical Industry Leadership Institute. When they expire in 2017, premiums for the cheapest plan could rise nearly 100 percent for individuals, 50 percent for families, he says. That's on top of sky high deductibles.  Obamacare is a cancer inside the body of health care in America -- and it is metastasizing.

The Clinton Foundation "received as much as $26.4 million in previously undisclosed payments" in 2014, the Washington Post reported last week (5/21). That's in addition to "millions" in foreign donations for the years 2010-2013, but not reported until Reuters asked about them in April. Which were in addition to millions in foreign donations the Clinton Foundation acknowledged after the Washington Post asked about them in February. Foreign contributions to the Clinton Foundation - and Bill's speaking fees - jumped while Hillary was secretary of state.  This is all just for openers. There's a lot more. Mrs. Clinton is a pathologically greedy corrupt liar with a record barren of achievement.  How can anybody with a modicum of intelligence and patriotism think she should be president?

More than a dozen Republicans are likely to run for president. Nearly all are serious, accomplished people who deserve a hearing. But it may be difficult to find a stage large enough to accommodate podiums for them all when they "debate." I put "debate" in quotes, because with so many participants, real debate is impossible. It could become a farce that would reflect poorly on the candidates and the GOP. The herd won't thin much until delegation selection begins in January. The Republican National Committee plans to hold a debate a month beginning in August. That's a big mistake. Fox News and CNN, slated to moderate the first two debates, say they'll limit participation to the top 10, as determined by national polls. That's hard to do fairly. And 10 is still at least twice as many as there should be to have a meaningful debate. The RNC should cancel all debates scheduled for this year, replace them with candidate forums to be held two weekends a month, beginning in August or September.  Now about those Lying Swine moderators...

The fall of Ramadi, Iraq's 4th largest city, 64 miles from Baghdad, to the vicious terrorists of ISIS has renewed interest in an old controversy. "Knowing what we know now," invading Iraq was a mistake, say most GOP presidential candidates --including the brother of the president who ordered it. The sudden interest in what GOP candidates think about the decision to invade Iraq is an effort by the Lying Swine to blame George W. Bush for what's happened since he left office.  What President Bush was falsely accused of doing, President Obama has done. The hideous debacle in Iraq today lies at Zero's feet, not W's.

An Amtrak train bound for New York May 12 derailed a few minutes after leaving Philadelphia, killing 8, injuring more than 200 of 243 passengers and crew. The crash could have been prevented if more had been spent on infrastructure, journalists speculated  before investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board reached the site. The train was going more than twice the speed limit of 50 mph as it entered a sharp curve at Frankford Junction, NTSB investigators said. The train sped up as it entered the curve. Positive Train Control - which forces trains to slow if the operator ignores speed limits - was installed along that section of track, but wasn't turned on, Amtrak said. Amtrak is getting $1.4 billion this fiscal year. Republicans want to reduce that by $200 million, but propose no cuts in the portion of its budget that funds safety. Democrats imply "budget cuts" were to blame even though cuts not yet made couldn't possibly be responsible. Their ghoulish demagoguery diverts attention from the misplaced priorities and (in)competence of Amtrak's management.

"White masculinity is THE problem for America's colleges," said Saida Grundy, professor of sociology and Afro-American Studies at Boston University, in an indiscreet tweet. Whites have had it better than peoples of color, men have had it better than women, so white male students should be made to "check their privilege," say many college administrators, professors and students - chiefly those in ethnic and gender studies. The irony of arguably the most sheltered, cosseted and subsidized among us demanding that others "check their privilege" is lost upon them. What they call "privilege" is really "a consequence of hard work, of delaying gratification and of sacrifice," said Art Schlichter, a retired Army officer turned trial lawyer. "If we have privilege, it was earned at Bunker Hill, Gettysburg and Normandy," he said. It's a function of character, not of "skin tone or the number of vowels in your name." Let's face it -- "white privilege" is a guilt-mongering racist scam.

The surprise victory of Britain's Conservative Party in the election last Thursday (5/7) was a grave embarrassment to all 11 of the UK's biggest pollsters, who predicted the Tories would lose narrowly, or barely eke out a win. "In all my years as a journalist and strategist, I've never seen as stark a failure of polling," said David Axelrod, President Obama's campaign guru, who advised the Labour Party ("labor" spelled the Brit way).  Axelrod, you'll enjoy hearing, returned to the US humiliated by his own failure. The British election was just the most recent surprise for pollsters globally, who badly underestimated Likud's strength in the Israeli election March 17; badly underestimated how well Republicans would do in the 2014 midterm elections. Why have pollsters become so bad at understanding voters recently?  There are many proposed explantions, but ine stands out.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake dawdled while Baltimore burned, let thugs run amok, then apologized for calling them "thugs." She worked harder to protect her image than to protect the law abiding. I didn't think it possible for a public official to demonstrate greater unfitness for office. I was wrong. States Attorney Marilyn Mosby filed criminal charges against six Baltimore police officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray, 25, who suffered a severe spinal injury while being transported in a police van. Roughly half of those arrested during a week of rioting were released without being charged. The indicted cops are being "thrown like red meat" to satisfy an angry mob, said Milwaukee County (Wis) Sheriff David Clarke, a Democrat who is black. The Gray family attorney was a major contributor to her campaign, so Ms. Mosby should have recused herself, said the Fraternal Order of Police. Demagogues like the Mosbys want to make what happened in Baltimore all about race. It isn't. Three of the indicted officers are black. So are the police chief and his deputy. So is the mayor.

"I think we, as a country, have to do some soul searching" about the rioting in Baltimore, President Barack Obama said Tuesday (4/28). Bunk. "We, as a country" are not to blame. First and foremost, blame resides with the racist thugs who looted stores, burned buildings and automobiles, assaulted police officers, shopkeepers, and white people who crossed their path. Next in order of culpability are the politicians whose belated and timid response allowed the thugs to run amok. The conduct of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has been especially appalling. Ms. Rawlings-Blake is a Democrat. So are all 15 members of the city council. Baltimore hasn't had a Republican mayor for 48 years, since Theodore McKeldin left office in 1967. Maryland has had just two Republican governors since 1969. Democrats have controlled both houses of the legislature since 1992. "The system" that has failed poor blacks in Baltimore was designed, and is administered, exclusively by Democrats. Ms. Rawlings-Blake is black. So is the president of the City Council, a majority of its members, and the States Attorney. Blacks in Baltimore aren't oppressed by The Man. In Baltimore, politically connected left wing Democrat blacks are The Man.

Bomber pilots in World War II knew they were over the target when they began taking FLAK --the German acronym for Flugzeug Abwehr Kanonen" (air defense artillery). So hold your course steady, Scott Walker. You've frightened them. By "them," I don't mean just Democrats and leftist ideologues. Big business and establishment Republicans are terrified too. The flak they've fired at Wisconsin's governor for what most Americans regard as uncontroversial remarks indicates "terrified" isn't hyperbole. "The next president and the next Congress need to make decisions about a legal immigration system that's based, first and foremost, on protecting American workers and American wages," Gov. Walker said on Glenn Beck's radio program April 20. Gov. Walker is "far right," "anti-immigrant," "xenophobic," wants to end legal immigration, said many on the Left. Lying and name-calling are the Left's idea of "debate" on most issues .But establishment Republicans piled on too. All this flak means Walker is bombing a bullseye on the most serious issue regarding America's future.  Is he the bomber pilot we need for 2016?

On her way to Iowa in a van she called "Scooby Doo," Hillary Clinton stopped for lunch at a Chipotle restaurant in Toledo. It was "historic," said Newsweek. She carried her own tray, gushed the New York Times. "We've never seen her eat a burrito before!" marveled Mark Halperin of Bloomberg News. Politico wrote a story about "the everyday people who made Hillary Clinton's burrito." The subtext, I gather, was how thrilling that must have been for the peasants. I hope they were thrilled, because Hillary didn't leave a tip. The "listening tour" - right down to the name of her van - is a reprise of what Ms. Clinton did when she ran for the Senate in 2000. Every event in Iowa - where Hillary met mostly with small, pre-screened groups - was staged and scripted. In the first, three "ordinary Iowans" she chatted with in a café were Democrat campaign operatives driven there by her staff. And yet the Lying Swine continue to swoon.

Russia will lift its ban on the sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Iran, Vladimir Putin announced Monday (4/13). That will hugely complicate an Israeli air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported out unanimously Tuesday a bill to give Congress the right to impose sanctions on Iran if the administration's deal lacks adequate safeguards. But no bill that has the support of so many Democrats can be all good. A few hours after President Obama announced Tuesday he would remove Cuba from the State Department's list of nations which sponsor terror, a Cuban-supported terror group murdered 10, wounded 17 in an attack on a military base in Colombia. ISIS is conducting an offensive on the provincial capital of Ar Ramadi, Iraq's 4th largest city. The situation is "way worse than we've been told," said LTC Allen West. Al Qaida has seized control of a major airport, an oil terminal, and a major military base in Yemen. Hillary Clinton has agreed to testify before the Benghazi Committee, Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-SC, told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt Wednesday, but he won't schedule her appearance until the committee has all relevant documents. Hillary wiped her private email server clean in part because it was "packed full" of missives to and from her lesbian lovers, said the National Enquirer. Hillary announced her candidacy for president Sunday with a tweet and an insipid video. There were lots of glitches in the rollout, but she is campaigning exactly as an unlikeable candidate with stale, unpopular ideas, a record devoid of accomplishment, and a closet full of scandals ought to campaign. Marco Rubio threw his sombrero into the ring Tuesday. He has the most upside potential of any GOP candidate, many think, because the contrast with the PIAPS is so vivid.

"Universities emulate greenhouses where fragile young adults are coddled as if they were hothouse orchids," says Victor Davis Hanson, who taught the classics at Fresno State University. "Hypersensitive students are warned about ‘micro-aggressions' that in the real world would be imperceptible." Many colleges have established "designated areas where traumatized students can be shielded from supposedly hurtful or unwelcome language that should not exist in a just and fair world," he says. By contrast, Columbia University Prof. Todd Gitlin recalls when he was in college years ago having to watch the Nazi propaganda film "Triumph of the Will" in a sociology class. "The pedagogical tactic was precisely to produce discomfort," he said. "Discomfort was the crucible for a 'teachable moment.'  Universities are not fallout shelters. Attention to the appalling causes disturbance. Deal with it. You're at college to be disturbed." So what do we do with this -- how do we get college kids to stop being hothouse flowers?  Here's one way to start.

"It's hard not to think that Iran is out to humiliate Barack Hussein Obama," said Richard Fernandez after the mullahs contradicted every assertion he's made about his "historic" Iran deal. "With this calculated slight, they not only want to wipe the floor with his reputation, they want to see him crawl.  And he probably will." We can't laugh about this farce because the implication's of Zero's craven behavior are so ominous. So, for pure comedy gold, here is State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf saying the president was "a little mixed up" and "muddled," and here is Ms. Harf again, dismissing criticisms of the Iran deal by former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schultz as "a lot of big words and big thoughts." Iran has sent a destroyer and a support ship to the coast of Yemen. It sure looks as if the fit is about to hit the shan there. Bowe Bergdahl was planning to join the Taliban when he walked away from his post, an investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigation Service determined in 2009, according to LtCol. Anthony Shaffer, a former Army intelligence officer who served in Afghanistan. Hillary has leased office space in Brooklyn for her campaign headquarters. She may formally announce she's running for president this weekend. Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. Brian Beutler, a putz who writes for The New Republic, wants April 9 to be made a national holiday, and to disavow or rename all monuments to the Confederacy. Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Indiana  re-opened yesterday. "Within an hour, all eight tables were filled and six people were waiting for carryout orders," owner Kevin O'Connor said. On Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, became the second Republican officially to announce his candidacy for president. He'll run as an anti-Establishment outsider, critical of Republicans as well as Democrats.

My fiancée wanted her rabbi, a family friend, to marry us. He refused - because I'd made it clear I wouldn't convert; our children would be baptized. I admired him for it. The rabbi would have done just about anything for my lady - except that. He took his faith, and his office, seriously. To preside over our wedding would have mocked both. I don't think a person's sexual preference has anything to do with character - or is any of my business. I applaud gays in long term monogamous relationships. They ought to have the same legal protections as if they were married. But I'm against gay marriage, because God said marriage is between a man and a woman, and I take Him at His word. President Obama compared the "struggle" for gay marriage to the struggle for civil rights in his speech last month commemorating the 50th anniversary of the march in Selma, Alabama.  As always, he's immorally wrong.  Here's why.