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What we clearly see in the focus groups is they dont regret what they did.

They are millennials of color who either didnt vote or voted third party. And for Cornell Belcher, the president of Brilliant Corners Research & Strategies, who was the pollster for the Democratic National Committee under then-Chairman Howard Dean and for both of Barack Obamas campaigns for the White House, this makes them the new swing voters the Democratic Party should be trying to win over.

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Belcher came to this conclusion after conducting focus groups, commissioned by the Civic Engagement Fund, in Milwaukee and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in May. The goal was to find out why young voters who previously voted for Obama either sat out the 2016 election or voted for one of the third-party candidates. The resultswere sobering.

They are so outraged at the broken politics that they see on both sides, Belcher told me in the latest episode of Cape Up,that they really think that them protesting their vote makes both parties have to pay attention.

And there is pointed ire at the Democratic Party. One participant was particularly blunt. Youre damn right, I dont have any loyalty to Democrats, a person of color said in a focus group in Fort Lauderdale. If Republicans want to get real about s thats happening in my community I would vote for every one of them. Then maybe Democrats would take us serious too.

[Is demography destiny for Democrats? The short answer is no.]

The Democratic Party had better be paying attention now. When you look at the third-party vote margins in Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the missed opportunity jumps off the page.

Theyre not necessarily Democratic voters, Belcher told me, but they are Obama voters. This is an echo of what former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton on the podcast immediately after the election. Theres no connection to her. Black folks have not had a connection to her. Theyve not had a real substantive feel for her, Steele said. How could that be when she is the wife of the still-revered former president Bill Clinton and was the secretary of state for the beloved Obama? Steele broke it down. If I have a connection with your friend over here in the corner through you, he said, its not the same as my connection with you.

[Michael Steeles most searing observation was about the Black vote and its relationship with Hillary Clinton.]

Listen to the podcast to hear what Belcher thinks the Democratic Party needs to do to win back the Obama coalition and what he thinks about the intense focus on winning back white working-class voters.

We spend a lot of time talking about blue-collar white voters and Reagan Democrats. Reagan Democrats are dead, said Belcher, who believes effort should be placed on winning back millennials of color and young progressive whites. Bringing that coalition back together would seem to make a lot more sense to me than try to, in fact, bring in voters who have not been voting Democrat for quite some time.

Cape Up is Jonathans weekly podcast talking to key figures behind the news and our culture. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever else you listen to podcasts.

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These Obama voters snubbed Hillary Clinton and 'they don't regret what they did' - Washington Post

A few days ago, I was at a conservative gathering talking to a friend about my dismay at the latest turns in the ongoing Russia controversy. A collusion narrative that once seemed far-fetched was back front-and-center in the investigation. Indeed, the argument for attempted collusion seemed airtight. Donald Trump Jr. was asked to meet with purported Russian officials as part of a purported Russian plan to help his father. His response? I love it.

An older gentleman, a donor to the event, was eavesdropping and obviously irritated. He jumped into the conversation with the mic-dropping comment thats always and everywhere the last refuge of the Trump apologist. What? Are you saying that you wish Hillary had won?

My response? Its too soon to tell. Before he could voice the fury that covered his face, I followed up with a question. With the benefit of hindsight, how many Democrats are glad that Jimmy Carter beat Gerald Ford in 1976?

In January, two conservative thinkers, National Reviews Reihan Salam and the New York Times Ross Douthat, both raised the thought that President Trump risked becoming a Carter a disjunctive president who tried and failed to keep together competing Democratic coalitions. Reihan and Ross focused on the difficulty of Carters political task and the tensions inherent in his fragile coalition. The concern was that, to use Reihans words, Trump (like Carter) would try and fail to paper over the deep divisions plaguing Republicans.

No doubt Republicans are divided. The struggle over Obamacare reveals a party that lacks a common national vision. Its one thing for small-government conservatives, traditional Reagan Republicans, and Buchananite politicians to unite against Hillary Clinton or to join in common revulsion against leftist cultural overreach. Its another thing entirely to unite these same people under a series of common national political goals. But this challenge is heightened immeasurably by something else that Trump so far shares with Carter a staggering amount of incompetence.

Carter would have struggled to hold his coalition together under the best of circumstances (people forget how narrowly he won the 1976 presidential election even post-Watergate), but his challenge was compounded by his own unforced errors. For Millennials, Jimmy Carter is a kindly man who builds houses and works for international peace. But to Baby Boomers and older members of Generation X (like me), Carter is the man who presided over some of the lowest points in recent American history. Carters tenure was buffeted by oil shocks, stagflation, a humiliating hostage crisis, and a stunning act of Soviet aggression, its invasion of Afghanistan. Carters presidency was so disastrous that it took the end of the Cold War for American voters to again entrust Democrats with our foreign policy.

After Carters narrow victory, Republicans won three consecutive landslides. Democrats, stung by defeat after defeat, kept tacking right in national politics culminating in a Clinton presidency that in many respects was to the right of both national parties today. Can anyone imagine a crime bill such as the Clinton-era crime bill passing today? Is anyone even trying to balance the budget, much less create a surplus? With the collapse of Obamacare repeal, is there any reform on the horizon comparable to Clintons welfare reform? Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and implemented the now-hated dont ask, dont tell policy for gays in the military. As for immigration, is there a national Democrat alive whod make comments like this, from Clintons 1995 State of the Union address?

In true-believing leftist circles, Clintons presidency (aside from judicial appointments) was still part of the long, dark night of national political conservativism, and his moderate Democratic coalition, embodied by the Democratic Leadership Council, is anathema to the modern Left. Even today, you can find think-pieces spitting venom at the DLCs efforts to move the Democratic party to the right. Part of the leftist ecstasy at Barack Obamas victory in 2008 (and his reelection in 2012) was the realization that the Democratic party had elected its first genuine progressive of the modern era.

In other words, after Jimmy Carters failure, there were twelve straight years of Republican rule (featuring no less than 568 federal judicial appointments, including five justices of the Supreme Court), and arguably 28 years of moderate to center-right rule before the Left reclaimed the political throne.

Whats the lesson here? Yes, nations change and political coalitions can shift and fracture, but also that failed presidencies have serious consequences. Thats why better than Hillary simply isnt an argument. Trump has to be good. Trump has to be effective. Hillary wont be on the ballot in 2020, and shes not the alternative today. She is no longer the measuring stick, and any callback to her failures signals that the person making the argument is bereft of a meaningful Trump defense.

I am certain that a Democrat in November 1980 could look back on Jimmy Carters failed, disastrous four years and point to individual policies or appointments that they preferred over a hypothetical Ford administration, but wereDemocratstruly glad to be facing the future with the Carter legacy hanging around their necks? As they spent three full election cycles trying to convince Cold Warera voters that the party could handle the Soviet threat, were they thrilled with that narrow win in 1976?

When it comes to presidencies, the stench of overall failure can easily overwhelm the fragrance of an individual judicial appointment or a laudable regulatory rollback. Donald Trump has done good things in his first six months the Neil Gorsuch and James Mattis appointments most notable among them but he cant stop shooting himself in the foot, he hasnt yet shown that he can lead his party in Congress, and even a GOP conditioned to disbelieve all negative polls has to be concerned that only about 25 percent of Americans strongly approve of the president. His honeymoon was over before it had a chance to begin.

In the face of this reality, every cry of better than Hillary actually hurts Trump. It hurts the GOP. Rather than demanding the best of Trump, it enables and excuses his worst. Soon enough, the president will stand on his own record, against a different opponent. Its still early, and Donald Trump has a chance to learn to lead, but if the present trajectory doesnt change, Republicans will learn what Democrats learned after 1980 that you dont want to be the political party begging the nation for a second chance.

READ MORE: Whataboutism: What of It? Our Current Presidential Era May Not Be Normal, But It Is Predictable No One Emerges from Trumps Feud with the Media Looking Good

David French is a senior writer for National Review, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, and an attorney.

Read more:
Stop Talking about Hillary Clinton and Start Thinking about Jimmy Carter - National Review

Tucker: The Left on Campus Is a 'Snake Eating Its Own Tail'

'Maddow's Dots May Never Connect': Left-Wing Author Blasts Trump-Russia Narrative

Greg Gutfeld said the media's fixation on allegations of Trump-Russia collusion represents a double standard.

"As the media fans the flames of collusion, I ask: what about them?" Gutfeld said.

He pointed to several Democratic scandals which went largely unnoticed by the mainstream press.

Pence Hits Back at Dem Who Accused Him of Health Care 'Evil'

"Hillary's dirty tricks, John Podesta's scams... Benghazi, the IRS," Gutfeld said, listing several incidents.

He said the left colluded with the USSR for decades, and added that the Kremlin was a "far worse" evil in those days.

"The chase is driven by politics and not morality," Gutfeld said of their present-day claims.

"Today's duplicity by hysterics who embraced the Reds decades ago negates their outrage," he said.

Watch more above.

'Lose the Fake Robin Hood Shtick': Bolling Blasts Bernie & Jane Sanders for FBI Probe

'If You Work Your Butt Off and Pay Taxes...': Kid Rock Offers Senate Platform

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Link:
Gutfeld on the Media's Double Standards for Hillary Clinton - Fox News Insider

BLOOMINGTON A dispute over a coat led to a November shooting on Bloomingtons east side, prosecutors said Monday on the first day in the attempted-murder trial of Darvell Williams.

A six-man, six-woman jury was seated Monday before opening arguments and the states first witness, a woman who reluctantly testified against her former roommate.

Its a really simple case, Ghrist said. It will come down to common sense. The defendant took a 9 mm handgun and shot multiple times at Willie Love. Eight shell casings were found in the apartment the defendant was living in.

Williams is facing nine felony charges, including attempted murder in the Nov. 26 shooting that also damaged a mailbox in an apartment complex, a passing car and a window at Lowes Home Improvement at 2101 E. Empire St.

One of the charges, an aggravated unlawful use of a weapon into a vehicle, against Williams was dropped in court Monday.

Defense attorney Brian McEldowney asked the jurors to keep an open mind and to listen to all of the evidence before making a decision on Williams' guilt or innocence.

These are volatile charges and our natural reaction is to get angry, but please listen to all of the testimony before making a judgment, he said.

The state called Chiquan Felton to the stand, who attempted to avoid Ghrists questions.

I plead the Fifth, she said. I have nothing to say.

Ghrist reminded her that she was not facing charges, so there were no grounds to invoke the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

After excusing the jury, Judge Robert Freitag explained that she had to be truthful with her testimony.

You are here pursuant to a court order and if you are asked a question, you must answer truthfully, and if you refuse, you could be held in contempt of court and be held in county jail until you decide to answer, he said.

When the jury returned, Felton testified that she never saw Williams shoot at Love because her back was turned while she was trying to open the door to the apartment she shared with Williams.

I heard gunshots, but I never saw him shoot at him, she said. Where I come from, you run away from gunshots.

The trial is expected to conclude Tuesday or Wednesday. Testimony will resume at 9 a.m. Tuesday.

Follow Kevin Barlow on Twitter: @pg_barlow

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Prosecutor: Attempted murder began with feud over coat - Bloomington Pantagraph

The Telegraph

Big school district lawsuit may be put on hold while prosecutors pursue criminal case The Telegraph What's more, they contend Culver and his company won't be able to adequately defend themselves in the civil case without invoking their fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination, which could also have a negative impact in the civil case. The ...

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Big school district lawsuit may be put on hold while prosecutors pursue criminal case - The Telegraph