Running a presidential campaign is not an amateur hour. One of the things that Trump offered, or it seemed to me, was that he could work through others. This is a very big worry to me: Trump’s relationship with RNC sours.

“I don’t think we are going to take a lot of political advice from Priebus,” a campaign official said. “From my perspective, we should not be relying on the RNC for much, because I’m not sure they are fully supportive yet,” the campaign official said, adding “but we hope and expect to soon be on the exact same page.”

The fraught dynamic is a potentially serious liability for an insurgent campaign that has proudly eschewed political infrastructure and is dwarfed by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s operation, which is expected to raise $1.5 billion or more. And the situation is equally problematic for the Republican Party, which typically relies on its presidential candidate to help boost down-ballot candidates, enhance voter data and raise money.

There are a million snares that are out to derail this campaign. Either Trump gets everyone on board he can or he will be sunk by September. Meanwhile, the media distortion grows by the hour and will become immense over time. with this recent example by Ann Coulter that can only be expected.

Now you see why reporters aren’t quoting Trump and have to hope you won’t read the speech for yourself.

Of course the ratio will be 100-1 of those who read reports versus those who read the speech. I just hope he is up for the discipline of the campaign because that is what it will need from this moment on in. And yet, as Victor Davis Hanson explains, the US will sink without this change in direction: Same Old, Same Old Horror – The Orlando massacre brings up familiar lessons that we never quite learn.

The inability of Barack Obama and the latest incarnation of Hillary Clinton to utter “radical Islam” or “Islamic terrorism” in connection with Muslims’ murderous killing sprees again is exposed as an utterly bankrupt, deadly, and callous politically correct platitude. Mateen did not learn to hate homosexuals from the American government, popular American culture, or our schools, but rather from radical and likely ISIS-driven Islamic indoctrination. From Iran to Saudi Arabia, the treatment of gays is reprehensible—but largely exempt from Western censure, on the tired theory that in the confused pantheon of -isms and -ologies, multiculturalism trumps human rights.

Finally, the Left will blame guns, not ideology, for the mass murder, forgetting that disarmed soldiers who could not shoot back were slaughtered by Major Hasan, that the Tsarnaev brothers preferred home-cooked explosives to blow up innocents in Boston, that the Oklahoma and UC Merced Islamists did their beheading or stabbing with a knife, and that Mateen likely followed strict gun-registration laws in obtaining his weapons.

Who but Trump would deal with it? No one, and that is the catastrophe that stands before us.

I wonder if billionaires really do have their finger on the pulse of the electorate. This really is a strange, strange story: Furious GOP donors stew over Trump: At an exclusive Park City retreat, some of the Republican Party’s top financiers lashed out at their nominee. How likely is it that their interests coincide with the interests of most Americans?

On Friday afternoon, at an exclusive Republican donor retreat here hosted by Mitt Romney, frustration boiled over. During an off-the-record question-and-answer session with House Speaker Paul Ryan, Meg Whitman, the billionaire Hewlett Packard chief executive officer, confronted the speaker over his endorsement of Trump. Whitman, a major GOP giver who ran for California governor in 2010, compared Trump to historical demagogues like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and wanted to know how the speaker could get behind him.

At another discussion session during the day, which featured top Romney alumni Stuart Stevens and Matt Rhoades, Ana Navarro, a Republican contributor and ubiquitous cable news personality, called Trump a “racist” and a “vulgarian and a pig who has made disgusting comments about women for years.” (Neither Whitman nor Navarro would comment.)

Even Ryan, who has endorsed Trump despite criticizing his behavior, joked during his presentation on Friday that in a recent conversation with magician David Copperfield, he said that he wished he could make himself disappear.

The incidents, which were relayed by three sources who were present — one of whom described them as “shocking” — illustrates the intense anger coursing through the GOP donor community. Far from letting go of their white-knuckled opposition to Trump, they’re stewing in it. . . .

Some are convinced the situation is growing increasingly bleak. In an interview here, Spencer Zwick, Romney’s former finance chair and one of the most prominent fundraisers in Republican politics, said that some of Romney’s donors would stay on the sidelines — and that others would even give to his Democratic opponent.

Just what it is that Trump would do or wouldn’t do that upsets them – or why it would or should upset them – is hard to work out from the article. Values voters they are not. These are unlikely to be small-government types, opposed to a crony capitalist relationship between business and government. Getting money out of politics is an imperative in a Republican system far more than in a Parliamentary democracy, but it should be done everywhere it can. And it shows why this needs to be done in ways that you would think those with the money to spend ought to do their best to keep quiet.

You know. Walk in the house. Scan the net. Usual things.

HILLARY HUMILIATION: BILL BRAGGED ABOUT SLEEPING WITH 2,000 WOMEN!

U.S. Taxpayers Are Funding Iran’s Military Expansion

U.S. Pilots Confirm: Obama Admin Blocks 75 Percent of Islamic State Strikes: ‘We can’t get clearance even when we have a clear target in front of us’

Bill, White House staff lived in fear of Hillary: Ex-Secret Service officer

How Ayatollah Khomeini suckered Jimmy Carter

Emails in Clinton Probe Dealt With Planned Drone Strikes

Followed, of course, by this.

Paul Ryan under fire for Trump remarks…

Wants Him To Lose So He Can Run In 4 Years?

My very thought about Chris Christie in 2012. These GOPe types make you sick with fury. As Glenn Reynolds asks: The Democrats’ ability to goad the GOP into forming a circular firing squad is a major strength of theirs. Why does the GOP play along?

They’re not used to fighting to win. From The New York Times: Donald Trump’s Advice to Panicked Republicans: Man Up.

Donald J. Trump has some advice for panicked Republicans in Washington who are melting down over his most incendiary statements: Man up.

“Politicians are so politically correct anymore, they can’t breathe,”Mr. Trump said in an interview Tuesday afternoon as fellow Republicans forcefully protested his ethnically charged criticism of a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit against the defunct Trump University.

“The people are tired of this political correctness when things are said that are totally fine,” he said during an interlude in a day of exceptional stress in the Trump campaign. “It is out of control. It is gridlock with their mouths.”

Even as he chastised Washington’s political class for a lack of backbone, Mr. Trump exhibited modest signs later on Tuesday that he was getting the message that some remarks — such as questioning the fairness of Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel because of his Mexican heritage — crossed a line.

While he did not apologize, he issued a statement that his comments on Judge Curiel had been “misconstrued.” In a final Republican primary night victory speech, he struck a more conventional tone — at least for him — giving a more disciplined address using the teleprompter he has mocked while promising to make the Republican Party proud in the general election campaign.

But anyone thinking that Mr. Trump is going to suddenly adopt a more cautious, strategic approach yearned for by election-conscious congressional Republicans is likely to be disappointed. He wrinkled his nose in disgust at the mere mention of the word “pivot,” though he conceded he wants to get on to broader discussion of the economy.

In his view, it is clear that his way has worked and the establishment’s has failed. After all, he vanquished every senator, governor or former governor who challenged him for the party’s nomination.

“I disagree with a lot of things I’ve watched in politics over the years, that’s why I’m running,” Mr. Trump said over a meatball lunch he barely touched in the restaurant of Trump Tower. “And that may make me less popular with politicians. But I have to be honest. I didn’t get there by doing it the way a lot of these people do it.”

Interactive Feature | The Electoral Map Looks Challenging for Trump Current polls show an uphill battle for Donald Trump should he and Hillary Clinton face off in the general election.
Back in Washington, congressional Republicans were in a fever, with Speaker Paul D. Ryan, a reluctant Trump convert to begin with, calling Mr. Trump’s comments about the judge “the textbook definition” of racism. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and majority leader, denounced Mr. Trump’s crusade against Judge Curiel as stupid and urged him to apologize. Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois withdrew his endorsement, and others were pondering it.

Mr. Trump, arms crossed tightly across his chest during lunch, was aggrieved and considered some of the Republican pushback inappropriate and unhelpful — though he did not want to address specific critics. He insisted that he is anything but a racist and, with his usual rebuttal by the numbers, stressed that voters have rewarded his outspokenness with a record haul of primary votes while Washington is held in dismal regard.

“People want people to represent them who are going to stick up for what they believe in,” Mr. Trump said. “Politicians have been very weak and very ineffective over the last quite long period of time.”

Mr. Trump is also unhappy with the media, and noted that he is nearing the ability to reach 20 million people by himself through his personal Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, providing an alternative way to reach the public, even if it’s largely a one-way conversation.

His is a campaign like no other, conducted out of a luxury office tower in Manhattan named for its most prominent occupant, the presumptive nominee himself. A few floors below his personal office with a Trumpian view of Central Park is unfinished space being leased to his campaign team, a relatively skeleton crew of 80 or so running a national campaign.

He is flabbergasted by critiques that he is woefully undermanned compared to the hundreds working for Mrs. Clinton, many just over in Brooklyn.

“To me, that is smart,” Mr. Trump said about his lean team, though he says he will soon increase his work force.

As the primary season came to an odd close with him under Republican fire in the nation’s capital — an unheard-of spectacle in the last half century of presidential politics — Mr. Trump took some time to huddle with his campaign team. His daughter Ivanka, a trusted adviser, was close at hand, as was his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, his press secretary, Hope Hicks, and his special counsel, Michael Cohen.

As he headed to the Trump Grill for lunch, tourists and workers hailed him, congratulated him and urged him on as they lined up to take photos with their phones.

He posed with some women and looked back at a reporter to point at the women and boasted “Hispanics!” Afterward, he bragged: “They say ‘We love you, Mr. Trump. We’re from Mexico.’ ”

After he was seated, the Secret Service erected a temporary partition to shield him from other guests.

UPDATE: You cannot, of course, trust the American media on a single thing. According to this, NYT Frames Donald Trump’s Advice To Pearl Clutching DC Politicians As “Man Up”…, he didn’t say “Man Up”. Not that I would be upset if he had, but here’s the story:

Priceless. The only problem for the New York Times is, Trump never said: “Man Up”.

A recent Times article, which was transparently structured to present candidate Trump with gender references, outlines Donald Trump’s opinion of the weak-kneed professional political class. His position is essentially the same as Senator Jeff Sessions, get over it.

Donald Trump is the Stephen Curry of Republican politics.

CONFIRMED=> Hillary Clinton Received 1.5 Million FEWER Votes in 2016 than in 2008 — Democrats Down 7 Million Votes
Trump Shatters Republican Primary Vote Record by 1.4 Million…
Historic 13M Vote Blowout…
Beats Own Campaign Prediction, Reaching 1,536 Delegates…

Too bad they’re not playing basketball but politics. This is close to the vibe I see everywhere across Republican websites. From Ace of Spades: “So, Who Is the GOP Going to Install as Its Nominee Instead of Trump?” First he says this:

Let me explain my entire political raison d’etre:
BEAT HILLARY CLINTON.
That’s it. That’s the ballgame.

But then he say this about the leadership of the Republican Party:

I happen to think the White Upper Middle Professional Class is silly and overproud — the status conscious bourgeoisie who are a bit too fashionable and frivolous in their political passions.

They’re just not good in a fight. They back down too quickly from the left’s threat of reducing their social status.

Yet the fact is, you can’t win an election without them. This group, which isn’t only white, but is Super White, is a core group of any GOP coalition. Including the losing ones, even.

He thinks they won’t allow Trump to be the nominee. Trump’s task was not just to win the votes but to make himself acceptable to the while upper middle class leaders of the party.

I do think the GOP is actually gearing up to do something drastic in three weeks.

I think all the shrieking you’re seeing right now is part of the battlespace preparation to prepare for that moment.

To justify it, to defend it. To show: “We had no other choice.”

To say, “We tried working with him. You saw how hard we tried working for him! But he’s just impossible. He’s an animal, and we can’t do anything to educate him.”

The question I’m asking myself isn’t whether they’ll do this (if Trump keeps sinking in the polls, and stinking up the reputation of the Upper Middle Class Professionals that make up the high ranks of the party, they will), but who they’ll replace him with.

The word is Paul Ryan. He denies that. He denies a lot of things.

I think he’s a sneaky little rat who would be flattered by it, and flattered by it, he’d leap at it.

I’d go berserk if they tried that, personally. I think a lot of people would. He’s already a proven electoral loser — he got beaten by the Imbecile Joe Biden in a debate, for god’s sake — but they may try it anyway.

And so we shall see. There are many who are walking away. A random sample from today:

Trump/La Raza Judge Row Blows Lid On GOP Establishment Plan: Sabotage His Campaign, Wait For 2020

Uh Oh: Scott Walker Now Backing Away from Pledge to Support Republican Nominee

GOP Tool Hugh Hewitt TURNS On BFF Trump, DEMANDS GOP Tell Him To QUIT Campaign!!

You get the idea. Meanwhile, Ann Coulter is not really surprised in spite of what the headline might make you think: Stunning New Development!!! Media Calls Trump Racist.

The effrontery of this double standard is so blinding, that the only way liberals can bluff their way through it is with indignation. DO I HEAR YOU RIGHT? ARE YOU SAYING A JUDGE’S ETHNICITY COULD INFLUENCE HIS DECISIONS? (Please, please, please don’t bring up everything we’ve said about white judges and juries for the past four decades.)

They’re betting they can intimidate Republicans — and boy, are they right!

The entire Republican Brain Trust has joined the media in their denunciations of Trump for his crazy idea that anyone other than white men can be biased. That’s right, Wolf, I don’t have any common sense. Would it help if the GOP donated to Hillary?

Donald Trump is not of the opinion that absorbing punishment is a useful way to show one’s strength. He is, in fact, the first person in politics on my side of the fence who thinks attack is the best form of defence. The business with Trump University is almost a perfect example of how he goes about his business. The case has existed for quite some time, but the minute it was raised, he slammed the judge overseeing the case as hopelessly biased against him, the evidence being that he was a member of La Raza, a race-based group supporting illegal migration into the United States.

Hillary wants to argue that Trump represents a War on Women. Back he comes with an attack on Bill’s serially abusive relationships with women, for which Hillary has been the enabler.

And then there was the story of how Trump’s campaign manager had thrown reporter Michelle Fields to the ground that was reported as unvarnished truth across the media, even when the videos, they had not known existed, showed none of it was true. Trump just stared them down and would not give an inch. Admirable qualities I would say in a president who you want to be looking after your interests.

In every way, Trump has shown an amazing willingness to counter punch, to refuse to accept even minimally the premises of his opponents. He may yet lose the election because of the range of forces ranged against him – including many supposedly on his own side – but he is more likely than any of the other Republicans to win. And he is changing the debate. And here is how he is changing the debate and will be putting Hillary on the back foot: TRUMP Announces MAJOR SPEECH on Clinton Corruption and Scandal Next Week.

The Clintons have turned the politics of personal enrichment into an art form for themselves. . . .

Hillary Clinton turned the State Department into a private hedge fund.

All true, but no one else has said it. Attack, attack, and then attack some more. If he loses, it won’t be because the facts weren’t out there. As he asks, I wonder whether the press will be there to cover next week’s speech.