Gregg Jarrett of Fox News writes:

As evidence mounts that the Director of the FBI subverted justice, damaged the reputation of the Bureau and squandered the support of his agents, calls for his resignation will surely escalate. 

Can there be any confidence in his future judgments and decisions, as long as he continues to preside over the once-venerated Federal Bureau of Investigation?

That is the plight James Comey now faces in light of the exclusive story published by foxnews.com in which a person closely involved in the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails revealed that career FBI agents and attorneys who dedicated themselves to the year-long probe unanimously believed she should have been criminally charged. 

If correct, this is huge as Comey said everyone believed she should not be charged.

A second source, a high-ranking FBI official, confirmed the crux of his colleague’s stunning revelation.  He said that while it may not have been a unanimous belief, the vast majority felt Clinton should be prosecuted.  Stripping her of her security clearance was unanimous, he explained. 

So unanimous that she should be stripped of her security clearance and a majority that she should have been charged.

In my column on July 5^th, the day Comey announced he would not recommend to the Attorney General that Clinton be criminally prosecuted, I argued that Comey’s decision made no legal sense.  I recited the language of the relevant statute… and compared it to Comey’s own words describing Clinton’s conduct.  They were nearly identical. 

I wrote then how Comey exhibited an astonishing ignorance of the law.  He laid out a case of gross negligence constituting a crime, defined it with the words “extremely careless” and then promptly proceeded to ignore the law.  

This had has little media attention. No wonder faith in media is so low.

A group of ex NZ advertising creatives have launched Dear America 2016 to encourage Americans to vote as the outcome of the election is so important to the world. They do not advocate who to vote for, just that Americans vote.

Will be interesting to see what the turnout is.

A reader has done a full analysis of the Mayoral results, and kindly sent it to me.

The Institute of Directors (and Chapman Tripp) has published a report looking at the opportunities and challenges for NZ of artificial intelligence.

The report raises 15 key questions:

Prosperity and wellbeing

1. How can we use AI to build our competitive advantage in key industries?
2. Is New Zealand investing enough in AI development?
3. How do we ensure the benefits of AI are broadly shared across our economy and society?

Jobs and the economy

4. What industries will be most disrupted by AI?
5. What impact will AI have on our economy as some jobs are replaced by AI-driven automation?
6. How do we encourage new jobs and industries that AI may promote?
7. How does our education system need to evolve to address the changes AI will bring?

Legal and policy issues

8. Should decisions made by AI systems be attributed to their creators?
9. Should AI systems be recognised in law as legal persons?
10. Are New Zealand’s regulatory and legislative processes adaptive enough to respond to and encourage innovations in AI?

Privacy and ethics

11. What does privacy mean to New Zealanders in an AI world?
12. What ethical challenges will the widespread use of AI raise?
13. Do we have the right frameworks to protect data and make sure it can be used most effectively by AI systems?
Controls
14. What controls and limitations should be placed on AI technologies?
Government
15. Is New Zealand doing enough to keep ahead?

Issue 8 is very interesting. Who is responsible for decisions made by artificial intelligence systems?

A fascinating report.

The Washington Post reports:

The party that could be on the cusp of winning Iceland’s national elections on Saturday didn’t exist four years ago.

Its members are a collection of anarchists, hackers, libertarians and Web geeks. It sets policy through online polls – and thinks the government should do the same. It wants to make Iceland “a Switzerland of bits,” free of digital snooping. It has offered Edward Snowden a new place to call home.

And then there’s the name: In this land of Vikings, the Pirate Party may soon be king.

The rise of the Pirates – from radical fringe to focal point of Icelandic politics – has astonished even the party’s founder, a poet, Web programmer and former WikiLeaks activist.

“No way,” said 49-year-old Birgitta Jónsdóttir when asked whether she could have envisioned her party governing the country so soon after its launch. …

The populist spirit was revved up once again this past spring when the leak of the Panama Papers revealed an offshore company owned by the prime minister’s wife that staked a claim to Iceland’s collapsed banks. The perceived conflict of interest brought thousands of protesters to the streets, a crowd that, as a share of the overall population, was equal to as many as 21 million people in the United States.

With protests building, the prime minister quit and new elections were called. But the public’s cynicism about a political system long steered by an insider clique only deepened.

“The distrust that had long been germinating has now exploded. The Pirates are riding on that wave,” said Ragnheithur Kristjánsdóttir, a political history professor at the University of Iceland. “We’ve had new parties before, and then they’ve faded. What’s surprising is that they’re maintaining their momentum.”

The Pirates, part of an international movement of the same name, are not the only ones seizing on the country’s discontented political spirit. Several new parties have surged and could well set Iceland’s direction for the next four years. Meanwhile, parties that have traded power in Iceland for decades are bumping along in polls at historic lows.

It will be interesting to see how they go, if they do get to form Government.

The latest poll has the following:

1. Pirates 22.6%
2. Independence (libertarian) 21.1%
3. Left-Green 18.6%
4. Progressive (centre right) 9.1%
5. Viðreisn (pro free trade) 8.8%
6. Social Democratic Alliance (centre left) 6.5%
7. Bright Future (liberal, centre) 6.0%

The Pirate Party has said they wouldn’t do a coalition with the Independence or Progressive parties so it may be Pirates, left-green and Social Democrats.

News.com.au reports:

ACE and Sheila* are a married couple who say they are tasked with killing drug users and drug dealers as part of the Philippine President’s war on drugs.

The couple claim their death squad receives up to $100 per kill from the police, and with four children to support they say it’s the only way they can make that sort of money.

That’s doesn’t seem much for being an assassin. My first thought is that the professional assassins need a union to try and lobby Government to stop the new amateur assassins undercutting their pay. It’s like taxis vs Uber.

But maybe $100 is a lot. It is around 5,000 pesos. That is around a month’s salary for a cleaner. Would you kill someone in NZ for say $3,000? I would have thought

A teacher can earn 15,000 pesos a month so that pays more than a kill per fortnight.

When we get the identification, we study it for a day, then the thing is that the job should be done within three days’ time. You should finish the hit within three days. So as soon as we get the identification we study it, then next day, we get moving. Generally by gun. If we get close to the person, or we spot them, and when we get the chance, we shoot them.

We don’t just shoot them once. We don’t leave them with just one shot. We make sure they’re dead. When we get the chance, we put the card with the word “pusher” on them.

Because the media picks it up when the card is on the target. We put the card so it attracts the media, and that’s our proof to our boss that the job is done.

I think our group has done a quarter of the 2800 killings. And the rest have been done by the other groups.

This goes against old fashioned supply and demand. The Government wants 100,000 drug dealers and users killed so this has massively increased demand for killers and assassins. With demand so high, you’d think prices for killers would have increased, but instead it has seen a flood of cheap labour into the market, depressing the equilibrium price for a killing.

I guess a factor is that these killings are state sanctioned so the normal risk premium for being caught by the Police has disappeared.

With annual net migration hitting a record 70,000 I thought it would be useful to look at what is causing it. First here are the arrivals:

The total is on the right axis. Fairly constant from 2004 to 2012 and started to grow significantly since then to hit 125,000 in the year to September 2016.

Residency visas are below their peak in 2006 and have changed little.

Student visas were at around 10,000 then in 2008 went up to around 15,000. They stayed there for a five years but since 2012 have almost doubled to 25,000. Fees from international students are very significant and only 20% of those who come here on a student visa end up staying on.

Work visas grew from 2004 to 2008 – up from 16,000 to 23,000. Then constant until 2012 and since then grown to 40,000. These are generally people doing the jobs Kiwis don’t want to do, or we don’t have enough with the right skills to do.

NZ citizens returning home has been pretty constant at 25,000 a year until 2013 and now up at over 30,000.

Australian citizens moving here reasonably constant at 6,000 but has been growing since 2013.

So how about departures?

The numbers of Aussies leaving is around constant. Also the number of non NZ and non Australian citizens leaving is also pretty constant. The big change is the number of NZ citizens leaving.

This hit a high in 2012 of 62,000 and in 2016 has dropped to 33,000. This is an excellent thing that only half the numbers of Kiwis are leaving. However it does mean the impact on net migration is significant.

Net migration was actually negative 3,000 in the year to Sep 2012. It has increased to almost 70,000 in the year to Sep 2016. The contributors are:

1. 28,567 fewer Kiwis leaving
2. 15,695 more workers on work visas
3. 10,209 more students on students visas
4. 8,870 more Kiwis returning
5. 3,179 more people on residency visas
6. 2,306 more Aussies moving here
7. 2,062 fewer “others” (non NZers and non Aussies) leaving
8. 1,754 more “others” (often long-term visitors) coming here
9. 592 fewer Aussies leaving

The latest newspaper circulations are out.  The Sunday News and SST have had the biggest decline in the last year along with the Dominion Post which continues to manage to drive readers away.

The ODT is doing relatively well with only a 2.6% drop.

The Herald reports:

The Queen is facing a million-pound black hole in her estates’ finances after Brexit which has caused consternation among royal aides, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

Sandringham Estate, the Queen’s country retreat in Norfolk, will lose close to £700,000 a year when EU farming subsidies end while the farms near Windsor Castle will be around £300,000 down.

Prince Charles’s estates are also facing a funding cut from Brexit of £100,000 a year while the Crown Estate – which manages Royal land – will also be hit.

So the royal estates get subsidies from the EU!

Ministers are now under pressure to break their refusal to provide commitments for post-Brexit Britain and publicly say the payments will be continued.

Estates and country houses across Britain as well as farmers benefit from Common Agricultural Policy [CAP] payments – the EU’s system of rural support.

The billions of pounds of subsidies will end when Britain leaves the EU, which on current timescales will be in spring 2019.

Ministers have sought to reassure the farming community by guaranteeing payments until 2020, but have refused to make commitments beyond that.

And they shouldn’t. Their farms will actually emerge stronger if they are not subsidised. NZ is proof of that.

Stuff reports:

Controversial Auckland businessman William Yan is understood to be heading back to China to speak with authorities. 

Just under what circumstances he’s going, remain shrouded in mystery. Yan has been branded an economic fugitive by his own country, and China allege he embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars before fleeing to New Zealand. 

Concerns over his safety should he return to China – including arrest, imprisonment, execution and organ harvesting – formed the basis for then Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones to grant him New Zealand citizenship in 2008.

It seems those concerns are no longer an issue, as Yan is travelling to China in the coming weeks to be interviewed by Chinese authorities.

But Shane Jones and Labour said they granted him citizenship against strong advice against because they were convinced he would be killed if he went to China. They said it had nothing to do with his donations to Labour and Labour MPs, but all about it being unsafe for him to be returned to China.

Stuff reports:

New York state enacted one of the nation’s toughest restrictions on Airbnb on Friday with a new law authorising fines of up to US$7500 (10,500) for many short-term rentals.

The measure applies to rentals of fewer than 30 days when the owner or tenant is not present.

Supporters of the measure say many property owners use sites like Airbnb to offer residential apartments as short-term rentals to visitors, hurting existing hotels while taking residential units off the already expensive housing market in New York City.

Diddums for existing hotels. Competition is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Airbnb said it would immediately file a lawsuit challenging the law.

“In typical fashion, Albany backroom dealing rewarded a special interest – the price-gouging hotel industry – and ignored the voices of tens of thousands of New Yorkers,” said Josh Meltzer, Airbnb’s head of public policy in New York.

Protecting existing industries rather than consumers.

Stuff reports:

Wellington police may have used an alcohol checkpoint to gather information about elderly women attending euthanasia meetings.

The women had been attending an Exit International meeting on a Sunday afternoon early early this month in the Lower Hutt suburb of Maungaraki.

As they left, about 4pm, all were pulled over at the checkpoint and – before being asked to blow into the machine – were made to give their names and addresses, and show their driver’s licences.

In the days that followed, at least 10 of them received visits from police officers, asking questions about their association with Exit, a pro-euthanasia group. 

Wellington barrister Douglas Ewen, a specialist in human rights, said it could be an abuse of police powers if it could be proven they used the guise of a checkpoint to get details for an issue unrelated to road safety.

Similarly, the act of stopping cars for a purpose other than road safety could be seen as “arbitrary detention”, and therefore a breach of the Bill of Rights.

“If a power is conferred, it should be used for that purpose,” Ewen said.

I’m no lawyer but I would have thought a checkpoint must be for road safety and not to find out who attended a meeting down the road.

I’d suggest a complaint to the IPCA so they investigate.

Stuff reports:

Cheika attempted to explain why he has been putting the All Blacks and New Zealand Herald in the same basket when it was the paper who made the editorial decision to run the cartoon. 

He is under the impression the All Blacks leaked a story to the paper that a listening device had been found in the New Zealand team’s hotel in Double Bay before the Bledisloe Cup opener given they were the ones who broke the news on game day.

“The whole bug thing came out from there,” Cheika said. “We had policemen in our offices asking us questions, asking our management questions about it. That’s serious stuff to be accusing people of and it’s not true. That’s their go-to, nothing happens without that connection.” 

You might expect a coach from say Uganda to not understand the difference between a rugby team and a newspaper, and think that somehow one is controlled by the other. For an Australian to seriously suggest the All Blacks are responsible for what cartoons the Herald prints is pathetic.

Hansen continued to stir the pot on Sunday, telling Cheika to pull his head in and make it known that the offer of a beer would have in fact been on the cards. 

“He’s obviously feeling the pressure and had a bit of a meltdown,” Hansen said. “The best thing he can do is stop whining. If he doesn’t think people are respecting him then ask yourself ‘Why would the media dress me up as a clown?’ and then go and fix those problems. He’s a good man and he’s under pressure. 

Media have done cartoons portraying Richie McCaw as Richie McGrub. Did he blame other rugby teams for this? No. He just didn’t let it get to him and continued to play and lead well.

The Guardian reports:

Hundreds of people including the actor Carey Mulligan have protested in central London to call for the government to end the bloodshed in Syria.

How can they do that?

Mulligan said Britain could lead the way in efforts to address the plight of children caught up in the bitter war. The crowd included children wearing “Save Aleppo” T-shirts and other people carrying placards urging a “No-bomb zone now”, while some flew Syrian flags.

The bombs are not British. They are Russian.

Campaigners said the day of action was a rebuttal to Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, who called for protests outside the Russian embassy, because they feel the British government needs to play a stronger role.

In what way?

Bert Wander, Avaaz campaign director, said: “The bloodbath in Aleppo has gone on long enough, and Theresa May must listen to the people on the streets and support a no-fly zone to stop the slaughter.

Sure you can do that. But do they understand what a no-fly zone is? It means that British aircraft and ships will show down any Russian or Syrian planes that take to the air over Aleppo. So they are calling for the UK to shoot down Russian aircraft.

I don’t necessarily have a problem with that, but peace protesters normally moan that western countries are involved in a war. Here they are complaining that they are not involved.

The Herald reports:

New Auckland Mayor Phil Goff wants to make an early start on a $1 billion stadium on railway land alongside Vector Arena.

In an interview with NewstalkZB’s Tony Veitch to be aired today, Goff said he does not want to spend an estimated $250 million on upgrading Eden Park over the next 15 years and believes the spiritual home of rugby and cricket could be sold for as much as $300m.

Goff, who has only been in the mayoral job for two weeks, stressed the council did not have up to $1b to invest in a new stadium right now but if the council did not start planning it would miss the boat.

The mayor said private investment would be required and he hoped the Government might also provide some funding towards the project.

Phil Goff is getting good at coming up with things in Auckland that the residents of Gore, New Plymouth and Hastings should pay for.

The Washington Post reports:

All this year, as they trudged through an unprecedented economic implosion,Venezuelans have been gearing up for what was meant to be the defining political event of the year: a referendum on whether to recall our increasingly loathed authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro. The tense buildup suddenly ended Thursday as five separate (and supposedly independent, but c’mon now) lower courts approved injunctions to suspend the recall, closing down Venezuela’s last best hope for a peaceful solution to its long-running political crisis.

Even for battle-hardened Venezuelans, it all came as quite a shock. A major signature-gathering drive to officially activate the recall vote was scheduled for next week. Opposition activists were busy preparing their plans to get out their voters to sign. No one, not even the military, seemed to have been expecting this.

This could end very badly. The socialists are determined to hold onto power, no matter how many people starve and babies die. They knew they would lose the recall vote, so they got it stopped.

When a Government can’t be removed through legal peaceful means, that only leaves one other way to remove them.

For Venezuela’s pro-democracy activists, fighting a regime that has instituted dictatorship by tiny increments has been an exhausting ordeal. Which is why today, mixed with the genuine anger at the subversion of our constitutional right to a recall, you can detect just a hint of gratitude for the clarity this brings.

We’re rid of the adjectives. We are finally through with the academic circumlocutions.

There’s no need to hyphenate it anymore. Venezuela is just a dictatorship.

This will lead to more people dying.

The Herald reports:

Joseph Parker’s promoters are asking for taxpayers’ money to ensure the New Zealand heavyweight boxer gets a world title fight in Auckland in December.

Promoter Dean Lonergan told the Herald last week that Duco Events will require sponsorship and funding to the tune of seven figures for the December 10 fight between Parker and Andy Ruiz Jr for the WBO world title.

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce confirmed yesterday that an application for Government funding had been received for the bout.

“That will go through the process and be treated like any other application,” he said.
Joyce said it would have to meet a range of criteria to quality for a contribution from the Major Events Development Fund. In particular, the organisers would have to show that it could not go ahead without Government money.

“The whole idea of the fund is to develop new major events,” Joyce said.

“It’s about providing money to support something that would otherwise not happen.

“For example, and this is an extreme example, a rugby test is already happening and if it came to the major events fund then we’d say ‘it’s going to happen anyway’.”

The fund had previously been used to help bring the Under-20 Football World Cup and the Rugby League World Cup to New Zealand.

I can see the case for events like those named above – true world cups.

But boxing is a corrupt fragmented sport with hundreds of so called world titles being fought over. I don’t see any case for taxpayers subsidising a fight.

538 has the following leads for Clinton in the swing states:

1. Oregon 12.1%
2. Virginia 9.8%
3. Michigan 9.3%
4. New Hampshire 9.0%
5. Wisconsin 8.2%
6. Colorado 7.8%
7. Minnesota 7.4%
8. Pennsylvania 7.3%
9. Nevada 4.1%
10. Florida 4.0%
11. North Carolina 3.1%
12. Ohio 2.0%
13. Arizona 0.8%

So at the moment is is Clinton 351 and Trump 187. If he even did won the states where he trails by under 5% that gives him 79 more so 266 – four short. He needs to win all of those and one of the states where he trails by 7% or more.

Up until the last few days the Trump effect was not hitting the Senate races that much. It was 50/50 but now the Dems are seen as 73% likely to gain control. They lead by the following in the GOP held seats:

1. Illinois 9.8%
2. Wisconsin 8.2%
3. Indiana 3.5%
4. New Hampshire 2.4%
5. Missouri 1.2%
6. Pennsylvania 0.7%

So if these hold up the Democrats get 52 seats in the Senate.

Many readers will recall Erin Leigh, the civil servant who was a whistleblower against Labour Ministers undermining the neutrality of the public service.

Many will also be aware of Billie Jordan, who led the Waiheke Hip Op-eration Crew to global publicity. Well it turns out they are the same person!

I don’t normally run a lengthy release but am doing so in this case as the story is so detailed. I have removed a couple of paragraphs around her family, as I have no way of contacting them to verify. I’m happy to run a response from the Herald.

This is her story:

“Everyone who knows me personally, knows I was called Erin Leigh before I
changed my name by Deed Poll eight years ago. I’m the same person as I was then,
I just have a different name. So why did I change my name? Well, two reasons: I had
an abusive childhood and didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with a name given
to me by my abusers; it was a way to get my power back and secondly, I was
defamed by the NZ Labour Government in 2007 when I blew the whistle on them
breaking the laws of neutrality in the public service. I had huge support from NZ
when I did this and was even nominated public servant of the year. However
although people love whistle blowers and most respect them, they don’t necessarily
want to employ them. Changing my name to something that was easy to say and
spell and androgynous gave me the fresh start I was looking for in life. I am
incredibly proud of the fact that when I was Erin Leigh I took the Ministry for the
Environment and the Attorney General to court – and won my case in the Supreme
Court.

I used that knowledge and my grit and determination to inspire and encourage my
senior citizen hip hop dancers to never give up or think they can’t achieve almost
impossible goals which seem so overwhelming at first. I had unwavering faith in my
dancers that they would make it to the world hip hop championships in just eight
months time – after all – if I, a mere public servant at the bottom of the pile could take
on the New Zealand Labour Government and win in the supreme court, anything
was possible.
If the fact I am Erin Leigh is news to you, it’s not because I have tried to hide it, it’s
just never been relevant to hip hop dancing. I used to be a journalist and have
friends in nearly every media outlet in the country – they have always known Billie
Jordan equals Erin Leigh. I haven’t had a face transplant and am in the public eye a
lot; if you were going to try and hide your identity you certainly wouldn’t allow yourself
to be in an international documentary film (Hip Hop-eration), have hundreds of news
media interviews and have your face plastered on nearly every publication in the
country – or travel around the country speaking to large groups of people. My life
story, including the time when I was called Erin Leigh, is all in my book (yet to be
published).
Hollywood know about it and have purchased my life story to make a film, Minister’s
of Parliament know my previous name, the news media know, my dance group have
always known, my work colleagues and speaking engagement agency knows, the
NZ Film Commission knows, the documentary film production company who made
Hip Hop-eration know – in fact I think every person who has been in my life for longer
than one hour knows.

Surviving childhood abuse is a very complex ordeal and the pathway to healing for
all involved is not straight forward. I tried to leave it in the past and put a lot of effort
into appeasing my parents and buying them gifts even though I continued to be
treated badly in adulthood.

[detailed deleted by DPF]

I have been shocked by the actions of Kim Knight from the Herald over the past two days which makes me despair New Zealand has just stepped back 200 years in how
victims of abuse are treated. She somehow tracked down my confidential counsellor
who I started seeing in 2007 and asked her to contact the Herald about my abuse.
My counsellor rang me last night and told me about the phone message she received and the fact she was not going to even acknowledge it let alone reveal highly confidential details of my abuse and counselling to splash all over the papers.

Continue reading »

Chris Cillizza writes:

Winners

* Hillary Clinton: This was the Democratic nominee’s best debate performance. She finally figured out the right calibration of ignoring and engaging Trump. Given her considerable edge in the electoral map, Clinton didn’t need a moment in this debate, she simply needed to survive. But she had a moment, anyway — with a stirring answer in response to Trump’s comments about women and the allegations against him of groping nine different women. Clinton, borrowing from Michelle Obama’s speech on the same subject, was deeply human and relatable in that moment. Throughout the rest of the debate, she did what we know she knows how to do well: She deftly dropped a series of opposition research hits and sprinkled in a series of attempts to goad Trump into mistakes. She came across as calm and composed in the face of his, at times, tough-to-watch interruptions. (“Such a nasty woman,” Trump said of Clinton as she was speaking toward the end of the debate.) Her performance wasn’t perfect; she struggled to defend the Clinton Foundation, for example, but Trump managed to throw her an opening to talk about his own foundation’s issues. All in all, Clinton won — a clean sweep of the three debates.

* Chris Wallace: Wallace was the best moderator of the four debates — three presidential, one vice presidential. Poised and confident, he sought to steer the conversation without dominating it. He allowed the candidates to debate issues back and forth but, when they veered off course and didn’t answer his questions, he made sure to let them know about it. And, as was the case in other Fox-sponsored debates in the primary season, Wallace’s questions were just top-notch. On immigration, on the women alleging that Trump groped them, on the Clinton Foundation, Wallace asked blunt questions that demanded straight answers.

* Vladimir Putin: The Russian leader had to be thrilled about the amount of airtime he and his country received in the debate. And Trump, while insisting that he and the Russian president are not, in fact, friends, repeatedly said that he knew for a fact that Putin had no respect for Clinton. Any airtime for Putin in a debate with tens of millions of Americans watching probably make him very, very happy.

* David Fahrenthold: The WaPo reporter who has broken every piece of news about the Trump Foundation didn’t get mentioned by name during the debate but he was all over it. Clinton mentioned Fahrenthold’s reporting about the six-foot portrait Trump bought of himself — with charity money. Wallace noted that Trump had used foundation money to pay off fines — another Fahrenthold scoop. This was the biggest night for Fahrenthold since he won the Ciquizza!!! (Side note: Make sure to read my conversation with Dave about how he happened onto the Trump Foundation story and how he continues to break big news on it.)

Chris Wallace was by far the best moderator.

Losers

* Donald Trump: Top to bottom, this was Trump’s most consistent and best debate. But, it wasn’t a good debate for him. Not at all. His signature moment — and the defining moment of the entire debate — came when he refused to say he would concede if the election results showed he had lost. Trump’s I’ll-just-wait-and-see answer was a total disaster and will be the only thing people are talking about coming out of the debate.Trump’s first 30 minutes were actually quite good. But, as has so often been the case in this campaign, Trump simply couldn’t stick to his plan. As the debate wore on, he became more and more short-tempered and curt; it culminated with his sarcastic praise for Clinton regarding ISIS and his “such a nasty woman” interruption. Trump’s task in this debate — to fundamentally rejigger its course — was always a bridge too far. But it’s hard to see how he even made incremental progress toward that goal on Wednesday night.

If Trump was disciplined he could be a very effective debater. But he doesn’t hold his focus.

* Calls for silence: In the 15 minutes before the debate started, there were roughly 487 warnings from people on stage that the audience needed to remain totally silent during the debate. This is, to be blunt, dumb. If you don’t want people to cheer, boo or otherwise react, don’t have an audience. Come on, man.

I agree – you have an audience to get a reaction.