"It's the second debate and already Bernie Sanders is exhausting. Why does he feel the need to shout every single sentence? Every answer, on every topic, he sounded like he wasn't sure if his microphone was working. (Ryan had an okay delivery of a good line when he said to Sanders, 'you don't have to shout.') Sanders is the equivalent of getting e-mails from your great-uncle who FORGETS THAT HE HAD THE CAPS LOCK KEY DOWN. Also, I get the feeling a lot of Democratic officials have gotten sick and tired of Bernie's holier-than-thou 'I'm the only one who is willing to be bold and stand up for the people' schtick, particularly when he wasn't formally a Democrat for most of his career.

"On paper, Elizabeth Warren won, in the sense that she got through the night without any major gaffes. A lot of liberals will love her for her quip, 'I don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running to the president of the United States to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for.' Of course, she's celebrating one of the big problems in our political system -- no presidential candidate wants to acknowledge the limits of the power of the office, the presence of the opposition party, judicial review, the inherent difficulties of enacting sweeping changes through legislation, or the limit of government policy to solve problems in society. One of the reasons Americans are so cynical is that they've seen plenty of politicians come and go, with almost every one of them promising the moon and very few living up to the hype.

"Warren shamelessly insisted that the government could pay for quality health care for every American -- and illegal immigrants, too! -- just by raising taxes on billionaires and big corporations. Warren made clear tonight that she's not going to let a little thing like fiscal reality get in between her and the nomination."

Read entire article here.

"Republicans are very easy to intimidate. They still get red in the face when CNN calls them 'racist.' But they shouldn't. It's not real. Nobody means it, least of all, Al Sharpton. If you paid him money, he would stop criticizing you. You should, probably. It is just easier.

"The whole thing is a campaign tactic dreamed up at the DNC. Once the Russia conspiracy imploded, Democrats and their lackeys in the media moved on to the other message they have, which is, 'Shut up, racist.' It didn't work in 2016 for Hillary, but they're hopeful it will work this time. They are trying hard. We will see.

"Meanwhile, Baltimore -- the actual city of Baltimore, not the metaphor of Baltimore -- could desperately use some attention. So it's good news that it is finally getting some. If anything, Trump's tweets underplay the crisis there.

"Last year, the city of Baltimore recorded 309 homicides -- that's a rate of more than 50 per 100,000 people. To put it in perspective, if Baltimore were a country, it would have the fourth-highest murder rate in the world, barely below Venezuela.

"Or think of it this way: last week, the left denounced President Trump for reaching a deal with Guatemala that declares the country a safe location for asylum seekers. Liberals told us that Guatemala has too much crime and too many gangs to be considered safe. Making people stay in Guatemala is a human rights violation they told us, and yet, and here's the amazing part, Baltimore's murder rate is double that of Guatemala."

Read entire article here.

"Having hit a dead end, the impeachment train is seeking new witnesses and new subpoenas to tie the president up in investigations and continue the empty threat of impeachment that has the support of about 25 percent of even the House of Representatives. Democratic candidates for president should be wary of all this rather than cheer it on. It's one of them who might get elected and face midterm elections that flip Congress, and they will find themselves subject to retaliatory investigations normalized by events taking place today.

"Targeting political opponents through the legal and subpoena process after a massive investigation revealed no collusion undermines our democracy. It is a far greater threat to our country and its institutions than any ads on Facebook. Whether you think the FBI acted out of political malice (which is now being investigated) or a sense of duty, there is simply no evidence that the president ever committed a crime, or that his top aides were involved in collusion or conspiracy. ...

"Mueller's testimony confirmed these basic facts, and it should put impeachment investigations in the rearview mirror."

"On Thursday, Adam Schiff went on CNN to carry water for his boss, Nancy Pelosi. 'Impeachment might not be a great idea,' he told CNN's viewers.

"But wait, that doesn't seem to make sense. If Donald Trump is working for a hostile foreign power, as Adam Schiff has told us countless times that he is, how can we not impeach him? No one on CNN asked Adam Schiff to explain that contradiction, unfortunately. Not that it matters. Think about it for a second, and you'll see exactly what's going on.

"Adam Schiff never believed a word he was saying about Russian collusion. I suppose the good news is Schiff is not delusional. The bad news, though, is that Adam Schiff is a soulless liar. He is a man willing to say literally anything for political advantage, and that's really the worst of all. Being a lunatic would be much more appealing than that.

"Naturally, Washington being the place that it is, Adam Schiff has been richly rewarded for his shameless deceit. He is still the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. That's one of most powerful jobs in all of government. Schiff is all but certain to be there for years."

"Among his talents, Donald Trump has a special gift for driving his detractors so crazy that they do really stupid stuff. The decision by Democrats to force Robert Mueller to testify before Congress is Exhibit A.

"Bumblin' Bob was a train wreck of epic proportions. The fallout is immediate, starting with this: Impeachment is no longer an option.

"It had a slim chance before Wednesday's painful slog and no chance after it. ...

"There are two other major developments growing out of the hearing.

"First, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now has the responsibility to get her party back to its job of governing. She gave the impeachment caucus and its fanatical leaders, Reps. Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff, time to gin up public support, but they have gotten nowhere because the facts were not as they promised."

"White police officers are not more likely to shoot minorities than their non-white counterparts, according to a new study.

"'If anything, black officers are more likely to shoot black citizens,' Dr. Joseph Cesario, co-author and professor of psychology at Michigan State University, wrote in the report. 'But this is because black officers are drawn from the same population that they police. So, the more black citizens there are in a community, the more black police officers there are.'

"The 'systematic nationwide study' from MSU and University of Maryland -- described as the first of its kind -- debunks the commonly-held belief that white police officers unfairly target black and brown citizens in use of lethal force. A flurry of media reports over the span of a few years and the efforts of two major media outlets, the UK's Guardian and the Washington Post, roiled both the nation and the political theater.

"'There are so many examples of people saying that when black citizens are shot by police, it's white officers shooting them. In fact, our findings show no support for the idea that white officers are biased in shooting black citizens,' Dr. Cesario wrote.

"The findings of the study are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), incorporating data about every officer-involved shooting since 2015. Researchers collected the age, sex, race and experience level of each officer who was found to have shot a suspect."

Read entire article here.

"Rarely has a foreign country seemed so eager to get bombed by the United States as Iran does right now.

"In its latest provocation, Iran seized a British-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday. It wasn't a subtle operation. Revolutionary Guard forces rappelled on to the tanker from a helicopter, and if you have any doubt, it was all captured on videotape.

"The act raised the stakes in the regime's confrontation with the West. After the last round, when the Iranians shot down a U.S. drone, President Trump order a retaliatory strike that he abruptly cancelled, citing his fears of disproportionate casualties. Our natural instinct would to hit Iran hard for its depredations and to establish a deterrent against such attacks before they get worse. But in this case, Iran clearly wants to provoke a reaction, which suggests the administration's more cautious, 'rope-a-dope' approach may be the right one.

"Skeptics doubted that the administration's unilateral sanctions could truly bite after the nuclear deal opened Iran for business with Europe. They were wrong. The oil embargo and banking sanctions, imposed after Trump pulled out of the deal, have been cratering the Iranian economy. The regime's aggressions are an attempt to find a way out of the economic punishment."

"The 2018 election was a watershed in the shift of minority voters toward Republicans.

"Consider the example of the very left-wing African-American female candidate for governor in Georgia. She alienated enough African-American males with her radicalized platforms that the Republican candidate wound up with a significant percentage of African-American male votes.

"In Florida, a left-wing African-American candidate for governor lost almost one out of five African-American female votes because of his opposition to school choice.

"In Michigan, a charismatic Republican African-American veteran and businessman, John James, received more votes for the Senate in Michigan than any Republican since the year 2000. James is running again, and if he wins, the historic monopoly that the left has on the African-American vote will collapse.

"All around the country, President Trump is attracting Latinos to his rallies in record numbers. There is strong support in the Latino community for job creation, income growth, small business prosperity, and enforcing the law.

"The left's reaction to these threats has been hysteria."

Read entire article here.

"Sen. Bernie Sanders is one of the many faces that make up the progressive left within the Democratic Party. He's an unapologetic democratic socialist. He has an economic agenda that would cost us trillions of dollars. And he's staunchly pro-labor union. That is until his campaign staff starts making demands for better pay, right? Yeah, it seems so. The Sanders campaign has unionized and is demanding $15/hour for staff nationwide and so far the left-wing candidate's leadership is silent on the matter. You just can't make this up. The far left guy unionizes the staff, makes minimum wage hikes part of the campaign platform, and then decides to slow walk paying his own staff the wage he wants to enact nationwide for workers as president. Excuse me while I grab some popcorn ..."

Read entire article here.

"The House on Wednesday voted 332-95 to kill the first articles of impeachment brought forward under the new Democratic majority, showing off a deep divide among Democrats on whether to go forward with an effort to unseat President Trump.

"A majority of Democrats, along with the chamber's Republicans, voted to table the measure sponsored by Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), while 95 Democrats voted in favor of it.

"It's the first time the Democratic House has been confronted with a vote on impeachment and comes a week before former special counsel Robert Mueller is set to testify before two committees on Capitol Hill."