"Right now, the Generic Congressional Ballot polling shows Democrats with about a 7-point advantage. If they actually win the popular vote by that amount on Election Day, they would be favored to win most of the 33 competitive races. But just like with the Senate, a shift of a couple of points could have an enormous impact.

"If the Republicans are able to boost turnout a bit and pull within 5 points in the nationwide popular vote, they might be able to win enough close races to keep their majority. However, if things shift a couple of points in the opposite direction, the Democrats might enjoy a big night and gain something of the order of 45 seats.

"So after two years of campaigning, the final outcome of Election 2018 will be determined by very modest changes in who decides to show up and vote."

"All my life I have reminded fellow Jews in America that we are the luckiest Jews to have ever lived in a non-Jewish country. I know what I'm talking about. I wrote a book on anti-Semitism, taught Jewish history at Brooklyn College and fought anti-Semitism since I was 21, when Israel sent me into the Soviet Union to smuggle in Jewish religious items and smuggle out Jewish names.

"Even after the massacre of 11 Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue, this assessment remains true.

"But the greatest massacre of Jews in American history is a unique American tragedy.

"It is a tragedy in part because America has finally made the list of countries in which Jews were murdered for being Jews. While this was probably inevitable, given that 330 million people live in America, it is painful -- equally for me as an American and as a Jew."

Read entire article here.

"President Trump plans to sign an executive order that would remove the right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born on U.S. soil, he said yesterday in an exclusive interview for 'Axios on HBO,' a new four-part documentary news series debuting on HBO this Sunday at 6:30 p.m. ET/PT.

"This would be the most dramatic move yet in Trump's hardline immigration campaign, this time targeting 'anchor babies' and 'chain migration.' And it will set off another stand-off with the courts, as Trump's power to do this through executive action is debatable to say the least. ...

"Few immigration and constitutional scholars believe it is within the president's power to change birthright citizenship, former U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services chief counsel Lynden Melmed tells Axios.

"But some conservatives have argued that the 14th Amendment was only intended to provide citizenship to children born in the U.S. to lawful permanent residents -- not to unauthorized immigrants or those on temporary visas.

"John Eastman, a constitutional scholar and director of Chapman University's Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, told 'Axios on HBO' that the Constitution has been misapplied over the past 40 or so years. He says the line 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' originally referred to people with full, political allegiance to the U.S. -- green card holders and citizens."

"Last Dec. 22, President Trump signed the tax reform bill -- you know, the one that all Democrats loudly decried (but only a few decry now) as the 'tax scam.' That bill came on top of several major deregulatory measures during Trump's first year.

"On Friday, we saw the results for the second quarter since the 'tax scam' went into effect. And guess what? Its unexpectedly strong 3.5 percent annualized growth is a strong follow-up to the 4.1 percent growth in the second quarter of the year. Together, that makes for the best two-quarter stretch since 2014.

"Inflation is down to a 1.6 percent annual rate. Consumer spending is up by 4 percent. Unemployment is down -- especially black and Hispanic unemployment -- and nearly 4 million new jobs have been created since January 2017. Real wages have risen in each of the last five months in a row.

"Forecasters now project that the next quarter's report will show 3 percent growth, which would make for the best three-quarter period since before the recession and financial crisis of a decade ago."

"The activists behind the latest migrant caravan dream of dissolving national frontiers. But all they're doing is hardening existing borders -- and the hearts and minds of Americans fed up with such stunts and the worldview that inspires them.

"The sight of more than 7,000 mostly Hondurans and Guatemalans trekking across southern Mexico, en route to the US, is sure to rouse the GOP base, which is why most Democrats are keeping mum two weeks from the midterms. The images also lend credence to heartland anxieties about organized, systematic efforts to pierce US sovereignty and flood the southern border with newcomers.

"And make no mistake: This is an organized effort. A Mexico-based outfit called Pueblos Sin Fronteras ('People Without Borders') has been arranging route logistics and publicizing the exodus, though you'd be hard-pressed to find references to the group in most mainstream coverage of the caravanistas. Liberal reporters and editors, I suspect, think a spontaneous caravan makes for a more heart-tugging story.

"But much as Pueblos would like to disclaim responsibility, this many people don't decide willy-nilly to travel 2,500 miles on foot, no matter how desperate they might be. Mass movement on this scale is a tremendous feat of coordination, and Pueblos has been perfecting the art for several years, long before Donald Trump's election to the White House."

Read entire article here.

"No one is guaranteed a tomorrow, but expectations run pretty high for happy days in the here and now. Americans consider first-rate health care a right tucked somewhere in the Constitution, between baseball and free hot dogs. The lengthy struggle over the proper role of government in facilitating access to modern medicine -- including the grinding Obamacare tug-of-war -- has reached an exhausting stalemate. With voters soon to pass judgment on the well-being of the nation, legislators at every level would be advised to get on with devising a health care system that Americans can live with. The key could be loosening the bureaucratic rules and enabling states to do what they were meant to do. ...

"Despite Obamacare's broken promises of freedom to keep one's doctor and less onerous premiums, a majority persists in backing a government-run medical entitlement in 'the land of the free and the home of the brave.' It would be surprising, except for the fact that the forceful vortex swirling off the Democratic Party's left wing is gathering strength and followers. In 2016, 51 percent of voters threw their support behind socialized medicine; now the figure is 60 percent, and only 37 percent disagree.

"Turning to the federal Leviathan for health care aid may be understandable, but the outcome is unaffordable. The average premiums Americans without employer-based coverage were forced to pay under Obamacare climbed 105 percent between 2013 and 2017, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, including a 37 percent increase this year. Medical bills are expected to increase only 3 percent next year. The individual mandate repeal will enable individual taxpayers to withdraw from Obamacare next year, but without new choices, policies might still be too dear for average Americans short of a GoFundMe page.

"If more states win permission to innovate, Americans may conclude that neither Obamacare nor socialized medicine is the remedy they crave. Effective solutions could be much closer at hand than in Washington."

"Apple's CEO Tim Cook has joined the chorus of voices warning that data itself is being weaponized again people and societies -- arguing that the trade in digital data has exploded into a 'data industrial complex'.

"Cook did not namecheck the adtech elephants in the room: Google, Facebook and other background data brokers that profit from privacy-hostile business models. But his target was clear.

"'Our own information -- from the everyday to the deeply personal -- is being weaponized against us with military efficiency,' warned Cook. 'These scraps of data, each one harmless enough on its own, are carefully assembled, synthesized, traded and sold.

"'Taken to the extreme this process creates an enduring digital profile and lets companies know you better than you may know yourself. Your profile is a bunch of algorithms that serve up increasingly extreme content, pounding our harmless preferences into harm.'

"'We shouldn't sugarcoat the consequences. This is surveillance,' he added."

Read entire article here.

"In love as in politics, timing is everything. Hardball politics is hastening a caravan of immigrants rumbling north toward the United States, on course to arrive sometime around Election Day, Nov. 6. The sight of thousands of illegals from Central America crashing the border could haunt voters as they step into the voting booth. Rather than propel the media-predicted flood of Democratic Party victories, it could have the opposite effect, reinforcing the growing feeling among Americans that they're on the verge of losing their nation. Will Americans decide who crosses the border, or enable prospective immigrants to do it for them. ...

"Border security has been one of President Trump's signature promises, and he tweets what many Americans are thinking as they watch news accounts of the advancing throng: 'Hard to believe that with thousands of people from South of the Border, walking unimpeded toward our country in the form of large caravans, that there's no support for legislation to enable effective support for laws to protect the country.'

"His pledge to return to the right to decide who may and may not share their their country should be a winner. That's what helped Donald Trump win the White House. Two years on, Gallup finds that Republican favorability outpolls Democratic favorability 45-44 percent to Gallup. As voters witness the immigrant caravan approach from the south and ponder the coming chaos of Democrats' open-borders policies, they're likely to conclude that Donald Trump has got it right."

"Every election people talk about an 'October surprise' that upends the conventional wisdom about the outcome. Well, it appears we can see the contours of at least one October surprise. The Democrats have managed to shoot themselves in the foot with their handling of the Brett Kavanaugh nomination and the antics of their most extreme supporters. The 'Blue Wave' that liberals have been waiting for may still come, but it's more likely to splash the knees of most GOP incumbents than to submerge them.

"Veteran political handicapper Charlie Cook puts it bluntly in his latest column at the Cook Political Report, in which he asks whether 'those who led the out-of-control demonstrations on Capitol Hill against the Kavanaugh nomination have any understanding of how much damage they did to Democrats and the party's chances of winning a majority in the Senate.' His answer: 'My guess is they don't. But Senate Democrats probably do.'

"Cook now says the odds of Democrats winning a Senate a majority are 'long, no better than 1 in 5.' As of today, 'a Republican net gain of a seat or two seems most likely, moving the GOP up to either 52 or 53 seats, though a gain of three seats or no net change [is] entirely possible.'"

Read entire article here.

"With the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh, for the first time in generations there is a majority of justices on the Supreme Court who, to varying degrees, practice originalism and textualism. This means that the Court can systematically begin to restore the Constitution to its original meaning. This constitutional restoration does not mean that the Constitution's original meaning is the best choice from a policy perspective on any given issue. It means that the people get to decide what is best, and the Supreme Court is bound to follow their will. The Court has no authority to diverge from the Constitution's original meaning, only a duty to return to it until the people decide otherwise. And with the Court's new makeup, a day when it once again sits atop the 'least dangerous' branch of government is within sight."