Newt says Trump is in a Slump

USA Today:  "Let me just say flatly, I am totally for John McCain, who is a great war hero and a terrific human being, who has worked very hard for veterans. And I’m totally for Paul Ryan, who is the heart of the House Republican Party and probably the most problem-solving leader we’ve had in the Congress on the Republican side in the last 20 years," Gingrich said in an interview with Fox Business Network Wednesday. "So I think somewhat what Trump has done is just very self-destructive."

Gingrich said Trump’s behavior needs to shift to that of a general election candidate.

"Trump is still behaving like as though it was the primaries and there were 17 candidates. He has not made the transition to being the potential president of the United States, which is a much tougher league," the former House speaker said.

But Gingrich doesn’t think this week will put the nail in the coffin for Trump. Rather, he likened it to a slump once experienced by legendary NFL quarterback Joe Montana.

Gingrich said Montana had a “stretch during his career where he kept throwing interceptions; and for about half a season, it looked like he wasn’t Joe Montana anymore. And then he figured out what he was doing, and he changed. Trump, Trump is in that kind of a slump.”

"He's thrown a series of interceptions in the last week that really do not bode well for the campaign," Gingrich continued.

A Trenchant Warfare Analogy

link to original

That's how things looked 100 years ago on the Western Front.  The Brit's single entrenchment is shown in red; the German entrenchments are in blue. At 07:30 hours, 100 years ago, the red line advanced against the blue "grid" with horrific consequences. Of course the Reds had no idea how extensively and well-entrenched the Blues were. They had flung a week's worth of soft shrapnel bombs at the Blues, fully expecting that it would devastate the Blue defenses. An equivalent volley from the Blues to the Reds would have utterly destroyed the Red's single line which was mostly an open trench. But the Blues were too well dug-in and fortified.

Am I getting through?

"Guns and alcohol"

"Volokh breaks it down in a way even Obama should understand... but wont. Because as he said he wants to politicize it."

Every day, about 30 people are killed in the U.S. in gun homicides or gun accidents (not counting gun suicides or self-inflicted accidental shootings). And every day, likely about 30 people are killed in homicides where the killer was under the influence of alcohol, plus alcohol-related drunk driving accidents and alcohol-related accidents where the driver wasn’t drunk but the alcohol was likely a factor (again not including those who died in accidents caused by their own alcohol consumption). If you added in gun suicides on one side and those people whose alcohol consumption killed themselves on the other, the deaths would tilt much more on the side of alcohol use, but I generally like to segregate deaths of the user from deaths of others.

So what are we going to do about it? When are we going to ban alcohol? When are we going to institute more common-sense alcohol-control measures?

Please read the whole thing. That guy should be in the Supreme Court.

“They make themselves look huge”

“I knew there would be a lot of passionate defenders of swans, but we can’t base our management policies just on the aesthetics of a bird when it has such negative impacts,” said Bryan Swift, the conservation agency’s statewide waterfowl specialist."

Few knew about the proposal to eradicate mute swans. Those who did expressed shock and drew an analogy with New York’s immigrant population.

“If they were born here, they should be considered native by now,” said Michael Vangi of Bayside, Queens, whose father was born in Italy and who stopped near the bay for lunch. A co-worker, Joseph LoRe, agreed. “I’m not an environmentalist, but that seems kind of messed up,” he said, referring to the extermination plan. “Is that how we treat immigrants?”

NYT / Region - Click read more below for a 'Raising Mute Swans' video