Last Call For The 2016 View From Bevinstan

Since KY GOP Gov. Matt Bevin has been up to his eyeballs in lawsuits lately about him unilaterally firing entire state advisory boards on issues ranging from university boards of trustees to farm advisers, he hasn't really had a whole lot of time lately to open his mouth on the 2016 election.

Until this weekend at the right-wing Values Voter Summit, that is.

“We don’t have multiple options,” he warned. “We’re going one way or we’re going the other way, politically, spiritually, morally, economically, from a liberty standpoint. We’re going one way or we’re going the other way.” 

He continued by telling a story about confronting a professor while he was in college after he claimed the professor mocked Christianity, which he said liberals are known to do frequently. 

“They try to silence us,” Bevin said. “They try to get us to shut our mouths. They try to embarrass us. Don’t be embarrassed. We were not redeemed to have a spirit of timidity.” He tried to inspire young people, “Be bold. There’s enough Neville Chamberlains in the world. Be a Winston Churchill…There are quite enough sheep already. Be a shepherd.”
Bevin believes that America’s freedom has been “purchased at an extraordinary price,” citing the lives of a half million Americans who have died in uniform. “America is worth fighting for. America is worth fighting for, ideologically.” 

He encouraged the audience to fight in every possibly way so that they aren’t forced “to do it physically.” However, he argues that it may come to the shedding of blood. 

“I will tell you this: I do think it would be possible, but at what price?” he said, after being asked if he thought America would survive Clinton. “At what price? The roots of the tree of liberty are watered by what? The blood, of who? The tyrants to be sure, but who else? The patriots.” 

He continued wondering whose blood will be shed in this possible physical confrontation. “It may be that of those in this room. It might be that of our children and grandchildren. I have nine children. It breaks my heart to think that it might be their blood that is needed to redeem something, to reclaim something, that we through our apathy and our indifference have given away.”

What a super guy, my governor.  He's calling for patriots to shed the blood of tyrants if Clinton is elected.  That's not problematic or anything.

Just goes to show you that the basket of deplorables includes several sitting Republicans in state and federal elected offices.

Meanwhile, In President Land

Don't look now, but President Obama's approval ratings have only gotten better over the last few months, as the specter of "President Trump" has finally started to make people hum Joni Mitchell's "Don't Know What You've Got (Til It's Gone)."

The last time that President Obama's approval rating in Washington Post-ABC News polling was as high as it is in ournew survey was six months after he took office. At 58 percent, Obama's approval is 15 points higher than it was on the eve of the 2014 elections, where his party got blown out. Hillary Clinton's hope is that the reversal of opinions on Obama two years later will also lead to a reversal of fortunes for other Democrats — and there's reason to think that it will. 

We'll start by noting that Obama's approval rating in our survey is quite a bit higher than in other recent polls. Earlier this month, CNN-ORC had him at 51 percent. At the end of August, Fox had him at 54. But even in Gallup's weekly averages, Obama has been over 50 percent for most of this year. 

In the past, we've seen a good correlation between final vote share and Post-ABC approval polling — even when the approval rating was tested in August or September of the same year. The line on the graphs below shows that correlation for years that we have data: As presidential approval improves, so does the vote share of the president's party. At the low end are 1992, when Bill Clinton beat George H.W. Bush, and 1980, when Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter. At the high end are the reelections of Lyndon Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. High approval, high results. Low approval, low results. 

It's a pretty solid correlation.  Nixon, JFK, and Ike got big numbers with big approval ratings, Carter and Poppy Bush did not. Dubya of course ran into the buzzsaw of the financial crisis and his numbers only got worse.

By this measure, Hillary Clinton should be able to win handily.

Healthy Skepticism Of Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton's diagnosis of pneumonia over the weekend, resulting in the cancellation of her latest West Coast swing this week, has Republicans salivating, assured that Trump will now easily win in November because of course it can't possibly be simple pneumonia, because Clinton lies about everything.  If you think that's stupid, it is, but that's exactly what the Clinton-hating press believes.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is coming under fire for failing to disclose that she was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday, and for saying she simply got “overheated” at the 9/11 memorial service in New York, when video showed her knees buckling as aides helped her into a waiting van.

It wasn’t until shortly after 11:00 a.m. ET Sunday that the campaign put out a terse statement saying that Clinton had “departed to go to her daughter's apartment, and is feeling much better.” There was no explicit acknowledgment that Clinton had left the ceremony earlier than planned, nor any mention of what looked to be a fainting spell.

Clinton herself sought to project that all was well, stepping outside of her Chelsea’s apartment some 45 minutes later. "I'm feeling great, it's a beautiful day in New York," she said, taking a moment to greet a small girl before piling back into the van to head home to Westchester County.

Not until 5:15 p.m. did the campaign revealed that she had in fact been diagnosed with pneumonia and put on antibiotics a day earlier, after what her doctor called a “follow-up evaluation of her prolonged cough.”

OK, she was sick, she's feeling good enough to attend events by teleconference, but of course because our media both despises and wants to destroy Hillary Clinton, this is now a Major Campaign Fumble.

Frustration with the Clinton campaign’s handling of the incident boiled over among political journalists on Twitter.

Jonathan Martin, national correspondent for the New York Times, tweeted, “Hillary camp now reveals that her doctor diagnosed her pneumonia on Friday & put her on antibiotics. Only disclosed after this am's episode.”

“I don't understand why Clinton aides weren't telling reporters at 10:30am: ‘pneumonia,’” CNN media reporter Brian Stelter wrote.

“Of course they should have disclosed this. This isn't a cold,” added Chuck Todd, the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Maybe because this is exactly the reaction she would have gotten if she had said something.  We expect our presidents to be super-human.  Dick Cheney had serious heart problems and nobody seemed to care, never mind that Clinton has been held to a higher standard of proving she's "as strong as a man" in every political aspect.

But Trump supporters are cackling to themselves that Clinton leaving Sunday's 9/11 memorial service in NYC to recover in daughter Chelsea's apartment is the end of the race and her political career, as it's proof of everything from cancer to Parkinson's disease to stroke.

The press seems to think "there's something there."  Or, they want there to be.  After all, they have to keep the race close to sell ads.

Meanwhile, Trump, older and in worse physical shape than Hillary, has been really, really quiet on this so far...

How odd.

StupidiNews!

Vacation's over, and back to the issues at hand.  Thanks for sticking around last week, dear readers.

• Memorial events in NYC, Washington DC, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania marked the 15th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attack on the United States.
• The US, Japan, and South Korea are all looking at sanctions against North Korea in the wake of Friday's underground nuclear test by Pyongyang.
• Syrian rebels are cautiously agreeing to a week-long cease fire sponsored by US and Russian agreement, but sporadic battles continue across the country.
• Samsung's market value has dropped by more than $20 billion after US officials cautioned Samsung Galaxy Note 7 users to stop using their smartphones due to battery safety issues.
• After 45 years of controversy, a 900-year-old Mayan astronomy codex has been confirmed by experts and scientists to now be the oldest book found in the Americas.