Squirrel-Hair roundup

Peter Wehner at Commentary looks unflinchingly at the latest poll numbers:

A new Bloomberg Politics national poll shows Clinton leading Trump with 49 percent to 37 percent among likely voters in November’s election. 55 percent of those polled say they could never vote for the real-estate developer and TV personality. Women are a majority of voters, and a full 63 percent of them say they could never vote for Trump.

Then there is the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll showing that negative views of Trump have surged to 70 percent, their highest level of the 2016 campaign. (Hillary Clinton’s are at 55 percent.) It’s not only that Trump’s negatives are sky-high; it’s also that a majority of those who have negative impressions of him (56 percent) hold those views “strongly.”

And for those Trump supporters who are hoping he will benefit from his response to the Orlando massacre, based on the belief that he comes across as “strong” and “tough” and will protect us, there’s this: In a new CBS News poll, more than half (51 percent) of Americans disapprove of the way Trump is responding to the Orlando attack, while only a quarter (25 percent) approve.

Jim Geraghty  at NRO on the feeble attempts of S-H's Pub water-carriers to put lipstick on their pig:

There is no responsible, unifying, disciplined Trump waiting to be unveiled at the right time. This is who he is. Republicans running for reelection are stuck with him, and they seem increasingly inclined to decline comment, feign unfamiliarity, or simply throw up their hands when asked about it.

“I’m not going to be commenting on the presidential candidates today,” Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday.

“I’m not gonna make a career out of responding to every comment and every tweet,” said Mississippi senator Roger Wicker.

“I have offered public encouragement at important times, but I must admit that I am personally discouraged by the results,” said Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker.

Trump has single-handedly created a political environment where his surrogates are forced to attempt a defense of the indefensible while Republican lawmakers with any sense of self-preservation refuse to even bother. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus is left to insist that a Tweet about taco bowls represents a sign that Trump is “trying,” and Orrin Hatch lamely instructs everyone to “be nice to him,” since “he’s a poor, first-time candidate.” Former senator Scott Brown merely claims that the 70-year-old Trump is “learning and growing, learning and growing.”

Susan Wright at RedState offers this noteworthy nugget: The new S-H campaign director in Iowa is Eric Branstadt, a major ethanol lobbyist.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air looks at the latest in the matter of S-H throwing the NRA under the bus. Reuters wasted no time in trying to make it look like the NRA had changed its position on allowing gun sales to people on terror-watch and no-fly lists. Not so fast:

Reuters seized on one sentence and ignored its context. The whole point of a watchlist is to flag activity for immediate investigation, whether it’s a travel watchlist or a gun-purchase watchlist. The NRA is in fact saying that such an activity is legitimate — but that’s as far as they go.

The sale of a firearm in this instance should only get delayed if the government does a timely investigation and then “immediately go to court, block the sale, and arrest the terrorist.” If the government is not prepared to do that, then the sale should proceed.

In other words, the government should not be able to block the exercise of civil rights merely on the basis of executive-branch suspicion and force citizens to (a) discover why their civil rights have been abrogated, and (b) prove themselves innocent rather fight against a presumption of guilt. That’s what we call “due process,” and that’s precisely what the watchlists lack.

It’s also the reason why FBI Director James Comey opposes the Democratic proposal. The denial of sale would trigger a process that could ruin national-security investigations . . . 

Pubs, I know everybody is telling you that you've made your bed and now must lie in it, but it's a plain fact that not one delegate who is going to show up in Cleveland is obligated to vote for this clown.