Posts Tagged ‘Cenk Uygur’

LinkSwarm For November 10, 2023

Friday, November 10th, 2023

Republicans subpoena Biden Crime Family members, Israel is handily kicking Hamas’ ass in Gaza, Jezebel goes down in flames, and The Marvels looks to be doing as badly as everyone expected. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • House GOP subpoenas Hunter Biden alongside suite of Biden family members.”

    Hunter Biden and his uncle James Biden have been subpoenaed Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee, which took the remarkable step of seeking depositions from family members of President Biden amid its impeachment inquiry.

    As part of the request, the committee asked for James Biden’s wife, Sarah Biden, as well as Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen, to sit for transcribed interviews. The panel also asks for interviews with Hallie Biden, the widow of Beau Biden, and her sister Elizabeth Secundy.

    The subpoenas come weeks after the Oversight Committee demanded both Hunter and James Biden’s personal bank records, and also include a subpoena for Hunter Biden’s former business partner Rob Walker.

    The panel is also requesting to speak with Tony Bobulinski, whom Hunter Biden’s attorney have accused of lying to the FBI.

    The release from House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said he “plans to send additional subpoenas and transcribed interview requests later this week.”

    If James Biden is a potential felony suspect (which he is), I doubt the House can compel his wife to testify.

  • “Hunter Biden Wants To Sic Daddy’s DOJ On Whisteblower Biz Partner.” Of course he does.
    

  • Despite the expert opinions of all those expert commentators, Israel appears to be handily kicking Hamas’ ass.

    The IDF’s tactical success so far in its nearly two-week-old ground incursion into Gaza – cutting the north from the south and entering Gaza City with limited troop casualties – has surprised some observers. There have been 32 Israeli troops killed during the incursion, according to The Times of Israel, which is far fewer than anticipated. The IDF said it is killing fighters and destroying scores of tunnel shafts and other Hamas infrastructure during its advance that has reached the Mediterranean Sea coast. Still, the mounting casualty toll and displacement of civilians remains a grave cause for concern as outrage grows and calls for a ceasefire increase.

    Snip.

    While good analysis of any major news story should not accept on face value any claims by the participants, it most certainly must not accept the claims of a source known to lie. And yet, the mainstream press and the experts it has relied on have accepted and continue to accept what Hamas tells them, with no skepticism, to the point that several media sources (Reuters, CNN, AP, and the New York Times) allowed themselves to be used by Hamas as propaganda outlets. Their blind passion to get the story combined with their willingness to repeatedly accept the words of an organization not only known to repeatedly lie but to rape, torture, and slaughter women, children, and babies caused them to misread the situation badly.

    Others might not be so kind, and will instead say this poor analysis was because many of these news organizations and the experts they relied on have taken sides. They see Hamas as the good guy and victim, and Israel as the bad guy and oppressor. Thus, their analysis is warped because they assume Israel is lying and Hamas is telling them the truth.

    This conclusion is certainly possible with some news organizations and some experts, but it is a mistake to rely on it entirely. For example, many of the military experts quoted in the articles above were from Israel itself. Yet they too were fooled, and thought Hamas was stronger than it is.

    Muslim fanaticism and Jew-hatred are poor substitutes for planning, training, doctrine and logistics.

  • West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin will not run for reelection. That’s pretty much a lock for Republicans to flip next year in a state that went for Trump over Biden by 49 points in 2020.
  • If the 2024 Presidential election were held today, Trump would win over 300 electoral votes. “Five out of six swing states that Joe Biden won in 2020 show Trump winning well outside the margin of error.” Usual poll caveats apply.
  • UNRWA Staffers, Teachers Celebrated Hamas Massacre of Israeli Civilians.” Of course they did.
  • Five Nordic nations agree to share flights deporting illegal aliens. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • “Pennsylvania voting machines shut down after displaying flipped votes for judges in Northampton County.” This looks more like a bug than a felony, as votes between candidates were swapped, not simply switched from a Democrat to a Republican.
  • Former Soros-backed Baltimore State Attorney Marilyn Mosby convicted on purjury charges.
  • Green Charter Township, Michigan board: “Here, have a Chinese battery company.” Voters: “Here, have a pink slip.” All of them were voted out.

  • Leftwing rage monkey Cenk Uygur thinks he’s running for President, despite being constitutionally ineligible.
  • WeWork files for bankruptcy. I thought there might have been a pre-Flu Manchu use case for making a profitable business of co-working spaces, but even that wasn’t possible for WeWork, since they lease rather than own all their space. This means they’re just a middleman in an economy that increasingly eliminates middlemen, and there’s nothing special about their model that actual landlords can’t do better.
  • Feminist blog Jezebel shutting down after failing to find buyer.”

    There aren’t enough Nelsons in the world… (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Speaking of Nelson-worthy news: Fake meat company Beyond Meat is laying off workers. Seems like Vegetarianism is a luxury good people will are willing to go without in the Biden Recession. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Right now, The Marvels is tracking to have one of the lowest openings in the entire MCU, with just around $60 million. To put that into perspective, Captain Marvel opened with $153.4 million in 2019.”
  • Oh, and as you might imagine, Critical Drinker is not impressed. “People aren’t even angry anymore, they just don’t care. The original Captain Marvel was a divisive movie that inspired debate and controversy, but this one falls victim to a far more Insidious problem: absolute apathy. This really is how the MCU dies, not with a bang, but with a whimper.”
  • Speaking of the Drinker, he referenced this extensive Variety piece on MCU troubles. There’s a lot to chew on here, including how the Blade reboot “morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons.” (I’m guessing the Variety stylebook forbids using the word “woke.”) But the most interesting bit was the disasterous incompetence surrounding the She-Hulk TV series:

    But some internal sources suggest [Victoria] Alonso was a scapegoat and point to the “She-Hulk” VFX issues as a symptom of a deeper rot — namely a lack of oversight on script development. In the original arc of “She-Hulk,” a flashback of star Tatiana Maslany’s transformation into her Hulk character didn’t take place until Episode 8, the penultimate episode. But after Marvel’s brain trust watched footage, it realized the scene needed to happen in the pilot episode so that audiences could see more of the character’s backstory early. That meant that the VFX team was tasked with fixing the mess in postproduction.

    “The so-called bad VFX we see was because of half-baked scripts,” says one person involved with “She-Hulk.” “That is not Victoria. That is Kevin. And even above Kevin. Those issues should be addressed in preproduction. The timeline is not allowing the Marvel executives to sit with the material.”

    All the while, Marvel was bleeding money, with a single episode of “She-Hulk” costing some $25 million, dwarfing the budget of a final-season episode of HBO’s “Game of Thrones, ” but without a similar Zeitgeist bang. The August 2022 series premiere at the El Capitan Theatre foreshadowed what was to come six months later at the “Quantumania” bow: the “She-Hulk” special effects were out of focus in multiple scenes.

  • Important safety tip: If you’re choosing a victim to rob at knife-point, try not to pick an Ex-MMA fighter.
  • Tentative agreement reached in actor’s strike.
  • Here Lies Love, David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s disco musical about Imelda Marcos will be closing on Broadway. The first sign the production was in trouble: It was a disco musical about Imelda Marcos. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “Researchers Discover Miracle Cure For Gender Dysphoria Called ‘Deleting TikTok.'”
  • I don’t mean to cause no fuss/But can I ride your doggy bus?

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    LinkSwarm for February 25, 2022

    Friday, February 25th, 2022

    Ukraine fights back, Biden isn’t going to do jack about it, Kyle Rittenhouse is going to sue everyone, inflation soars, the Canadian “emergency” is ended, disaster looms for Democrats, and Ilhan Omar gets an unusual challenger. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Ukraine forces have retaken Antonov International Airport, AKA Gostomel, AKA Hostomel.

    While reports of the battle are confused and preliminary, it appears that Ukrainian forces counterattacked, shot down some Russian helicopters, and have so far been able to prevent the Russians from landing reinforcements. Initial claims that the Russian force at the airfield had been “destroyed” were later clarified; it now seems that the battle at Gostomel is continuing. It’s easy to understand how crucial this battle is, simply by looking at a map. If the Russians could gain control of the Gostomel airfield, they could score a quick knock-out of the Ukrainian capital as part of what is being called their “decapitation” strategy.

    Russian news services are claiming they’ve taken the airfield, but that may be stale news or propaganda.

  • There are conflicting reports whether the the Antonov An-225 Mriya (the largest aircraft in the world) stationed there has been destroyed or not
    

  • Ukrainian forces take up positions in Kiev. Also: “Reports that the Ukrainian military has delivered a strike on a Russian airfield in Millerovo, Rostov Oblast have now been confirmed.”
  • Chuck DeVore: “Has Putin Miscalculated His Ability To Take Ukraine Swiftly?”

    The invasion of Ukraine by the armed forces of Russia at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s orders marks the first time since 1945 that Russia has engaged in a conventional war with a near-peer nation.

    Ukraine isn’t restive Warsaw Pact nations, it isn’t Afghanistan, it isn’t Chechnya, it isn’t Georgia, and it isn’t Crimea.

    The conflict launched by Putin is on a far grander scale than the invasion of Crimea in 2014, launched as Ukraine’s last pro-Russia president, Viktor Yanukovych, was driven from office in a popular uprising.

    Putin, by choosing to reach beyond the ethnic-Russian majority separatist provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas Basin, has decided to end the independent, Western-looking Ukrainian government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and install a pro-Putin quisling.

    And while the fog of war, some deliberate mis-and disinformation operations by the combatants, and the far-from-perfect filter of Western media leaves much unknown at this time, what is known is that Zelenskyy is still in power a day after the Russian offensive. Further, the Ukrainian military appears to be taking a toll on the Russians invading from three sides: south across the Pripyat Marshes from Russian satellite Belarus; west from Russia, including Donbas; and north from the Black Sea in the region of Odessa and Transnistria, a Russian client breakaway state in Moldavia.

    Modern conventional war is extremely difficult to do well. Imagine being a conductor of an orchestra, all while the audience was lobbing soccer balls at you and your musicians as you perform J.S. Bach’s Chaconne in D — that’s modern warfare. Putin is attempting a highly complicated operation over large distances in the face of a determined foe. Further, he’s doing so with an army largely composed of conscripts serving for only one year.

    Since Putin has decided to oust the Ukrainian government, this means that every day Zelenskyy remains in office is another day that adds to Ukrainian national confidence to resist — and another day that Putin looks to have miscalculated.

  • White House claims Russian forces are 20 miles outside Kiev.
  • Tweets from the war zone:

  • Both the EU and the Biden Administration offer sanctions they admit will not do Jack Squat.

  • But the UK is Freezing Putin assets…assuming he has any.
  • Holy Fark is this unbelievable incompetence and naivete:

  • Taiwan joins sanctions against Russia, including their semiconductor industry. I don’t know if any fabless Russian chip design company gets their chips fabbed at TSMC, so I’m not sure how badly this hurts their economy in the long run.
  • “You Can Thank Environmentalists for the Invasion of Ukraine.”

    It is the West’s wacko environmentalists who handed Russian President Vladimir Putin the leverage and money to invade Crimea in 2014 and Ukraine this week.

    Without these wackos, Putin would be just another gangster in charge of a crumbling country, and maybe one on the verge of a revolution to depose him.

    But the facts are the facts are the facts, and the facts are these… Thanks to the West’s environmentalists, those smug greenies who are more concerned with carbon output than world peace, this gangster controls much of the energy going to the European Union (E.U.).

    Thanks a lot, Greta…

  • A great mystery:

  • Enjoy these cringy social justice takes on Ukraine.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
    

  • Biden is demonstrably more hostile to American oil and gas companies than he is to Russian companies, having frozen oil and gas leases despite a court order otherwise.
  • Thanks to Biden’s inflation, the cost of everything is going up. “70 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.”
  • Due to either bad polling or raw panic among his party, Canada’s Justin Trudeau rescinded his Emergencies Act declaration.
  • Matt Taibbi on Canada’s dangerous new dystopian powers:

    Fellow former finance reporter Chrystia Freeland — someone I’ve known since we were both expat journalists in Russia in the nineties — announced last week that her native Canada would be making Sorkin’s vision a reality. Freeland arouses strong feelings among old Russia hands. Before the Yeltsin era collapsed, she had consistent, remarkable access to gangster-oligarchs like Boris Berezovsky, who appeared in her Financial Times articles described as aw-shucks humans just doing their best to make sure “big capital” maintained its “necessary role” in Russia’s political life. “Berezovsky was one of several financiers who came together in a last-ditch attempt to keep the Communists out of the Kremlin” was typical Freeland fare in, say, 1998.

    Then the Yeltsin era collapsed in corrupt ignominy and Freeland immediately wrote a book called Sale of the Century that identified Yeltsin’s embrace of her former top sources as the “original sin” of Russian capitalism, a “Faustian bargain” that crippled Russia’s chance at true progress. This is Freeland on Yeltsin’s successor in 2000. Note the “Yes, Putin has a reputation for beating the press, but his economic rep is solid!” passage at the end:

    It looks as if we’re about to fall in love with Russia all over again…

    Compared to the ailing, drink-addled figure Boris Yeltsin cut in his later years, his successor, Vladimir Putin, in the eyes of many western observers, seems refreshingly direct, decisive and energetic… Tony Blair, who has already paid Putin the compliment of a visit to Russia and received the newly installed president in Downing Street in return, has praised him as a strong leader with a reformist vision. Bill Clinton, who recently hot-footed it to Russia, offered the equally sunny appraisal that “when we look at Russia today . . . we see an economy that is growing . . . we see a Russia that has just completed a democratic transfer of power for the first time in a thousand years.”

    To be sure, some critics have lamented Putin’s support for the bloody second war in Chechnya, accused him of eroding freedom of the press…and worried aloud that his KGB background and unrepenting loyalty to the honor of that institution could jeopardize Russia’s fragile democratic institutions. But many of even Putin’s fiercest prosecutors seem inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the economy…

    Years later, she is somehow Canada’s Finance Minister, and what another friend from our Russia days laughingly describes as “the Nurse Ratched of the New World Order.” At the end of last week, Minister Freeland explained that in expanding its Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) program, her government was “directing Canadian financial institutions to review their relationships with anyone involved in the illegal blockades.”

    The Emergencies Act contains language beyond the inventive powers of the best sci-fi writers. It defines a “designated person” — a person eligible for cutoff of financial services — as someone “directly or indirectly” participating in a “public assembly that may reasonably be expected to lead to a breach of the peace.” Directly or indirectly?

    She went on to describe the invocation of Canada’s Emergencies Act in the dripping-fake tones of someone trying to put a smile on an insurance claim rejection, with even phrases packed with bad news steered upward in the form of cheery hypotheticals. As in, The names of both individuals and entities as well as crypto wallets? Have been shared? By the RCMP with financial institutions? And accounts have been frozen? As she confirmed this monstrous news about freezing bank accounts, Freeland burst into nervous laughter, looking like Tony Perkins sharing a cheery memory with “mother.”

  • Angeleno’s tax dollars at work:

  • China is getting a good return on its investment in the Biden clan: “DOJ shuts down China-focused anti-espionage program. The China Initiative is being cast aside largely because of perceptions that it unfairly painted Chinese Americans and U.S. residents of Chinese origin as disloyal.” We can’t let national security stand in the way of political correctness…
  • The Covid-theater crazies are about to throw in the towel.

    In what may be remembered as one of the greatest miracles of all time, it seems that an upcoming American election cycle is set to put an end to the great COVID pandemic in regions that have been clinging to “mitigation” tactics despite them being proven ineffective long ago. What science couldn’t do for blue state governors, politics is about to. Meanwhile, much of the rest of the country has already adopted an “endemic” approach to COVID. In my Indiana community, for instance, school systems have been in-person and maskless for well over a year.

    A combination of experience and common sense led local officials to recognize that while COVID was a serious virus, and an often-times unpleasant condition to endure, we just weren’t experiencing the kind of mortality rates or critical hospitalizations that would require the suspension of normal life. If I was guessing, I would say that there are more counties, cities, and communities in the United States like mine than not.

    While mainstream media may be drawn like a moth to the bright lights of urban areas with all the restrictions, mandates, and panic-fueled policies enacted there, most Americans have been “living with” the virus for a long time now.

    In fact, if my community is any bellwether for the nation, most Americans are already wondering why anyone is still attempting to take a non-endemic approach at this point. The virus has proven itself to be, like all other viruses, prone to seasonal surges that are largely unaltered by our theatrical mitigation techniques. Not that anyone with their head screwed on straight ever thought there was value in wearing a porous cloth mask while standing up at a restaurant, then taking it off while sitting down, but the comical nonsense of mask histrionics is now widely appreciated as a goofy spectator sport. Behold:

    So silly. And so as opinion polls continue showing that an ever-increasing number of Americans are infuriated by this nonsense, and that they are done with all the aggressive pandemic restrictions that proved unnecessary a long time ago, a public pivot of massive proportions is underway amongst the political class.

    Whether it’s big blue state governors like California’s Gavin Newsom hilariously announcing that he will be transitioning his state to the country’s first “endemic” virus policy – meaning they’re going to start doing some things that Texas, Florida, South Dakota, Indiana, and so many others have been doing for over a year – or whether it’s blue city school boards like San Francisco’s being recalled by angry voters for their abusive and needless shutdown and masking policies, it’s clear where we’re headed.

  • Despite that, the midterm news for Democrats is not good.

    Democrats know that they should be preparing for a brutal showing in this November’s midterm elections. Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race last year — and, more to the point, the substance and style of his successful campaign — were the first sign of it.

    But the hits have kept on coming. In San Francisco last week, two progressive parents succeeded in their campaign to oust three school-board members for being . . . too progressive. Irked initially at how long it was taking for area schools to reopen for in-person learning during the pandemic, these two single parents did some digging and discovered even more to be upset about: an enormous budget shortfall, an intensive campaign to rename dozens of school buildings, and the replacement of a merit-based admissions program with a diversity-minded lottery, among other issues.

    Suggesting just how central education has become to politics, San Francisco’s intensely progressive mayor, London Breed — who last fall violated her own mask mandate at a concert and defended herself by saying she was “feeling the spirit” — endorsed the school-board recall effort.

    “My take is that it was really about the frustration of the board of education doing their fundamental job,” Breed said after the results were in. “And that is to make sure that our children are getting educated, that they get back into the classroom. And that did not occur. . . . We failed our children. Parents were upset. The city as a whole was upset, and the decision to recall school-board members was a result of that.”

    San Francisco–based writer Gary Kamiya suggests in a piece for the Atlantic that the results of the recall seem to confirm the conservative narrative. Kamiya writes that conservatives have argued “that the Democratic Party is out of step not just with Republicans, but with its own constituents. . . . Progressives rejected such conclusions, insisting that the recall was simply about competence and was driven by an only-in-San-Francisco set of circumstances.” Kamiya concludes that the best way to read the outcome is “closer to the conservative view.” “At a minimum,” Kamiya writes, “the recall demonstrates that ‘woke’ racial politics have their limits, even in one of the wokest cities in the country.”

    Over in Texas, meanwhile, failed Senate candidate and failed presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke is gearing up to become a failed gubernatorial candidate, too. Running against incumbent Republican governor Greg Abbott, O’Rourke was most recently seen trying to pretend that he isn’t a fan of radical gun-control measures.

    Asked about the promise he made during his run for president that he would “take away AR-15s and AK-47s,” O’Rourke attempted a hard about-face.

    “I’m not interested in taking anything from anyone,” he said. “What I want to make sure that we do is defend the Second Amendment. I want to make sure that we protect our fellow Texans far better than we’re doing right now. And that we listen to law enforcement, which Greg Abbott refused to do. He turned his back on them when he signed that permitless-carry bill that endangers the lives of law enforcement in a state that’s seen more cops and sheriff’s deputies gunned down than in any other.”

    As Charlie Cooke has noted, this is utter tripe. It also isn’t working. The latest poll of the race from the Dallas Moring News has Abbott up by seven points, 45 percent to 38 percent. O’Rourke himself remains underwater with voters: Only 40 percent view him favorably, while 46 percent say they have an unfavorable view of the candidate.

  • Republicans win a Jacksonville City Council race:

  • Speaking of Florida:

  • A nice guide to recent incidents of election fraud.
  • Texas sues ATF over silencers.
  • Denounce antifa violence at a leftwing think tank? You know that’s a firing!
  • Kyle Rittenhouse is finally ready to sue, including lawsuits against Whoopi Goldberg and Cenk Uygur. I hope he bankrupts anyone who called him a white supremacist.
  • Former Houston Rockets draft bust Royce White is running for Congress as a Republican against “Squad” member Ilhan Omar. Hopefully he can be on the campaign trail more than he was on the floor for the Rockets…
  • Another day, another hate crime hoax.
  • Commies gonna commie:

  • There’s a huge fight going on between Qatar Airways and Airbus over quality control issues. Boeing may be the beneficiary.
  • It takes under 20 seconds for the Lock-Picking Lawyer to defeat the mailbox lock the government requires you to use.
  • A long, detailed look at what Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary shows us about The Beatles creative process. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Uncomable Hair Syndrome.
  • “Massacre As Great White Shark Allowed To Compete In Women’s 500 Freestyle.”
  • The Mainstream Media Are Lying Liars Who Win Pulitzers For Their Lies As Long As Their Lies Help Democrats

    Sunday, November 7th, 2021

    Here’s a Glenn Greenwald thread touching on several strands of mainstream media malfeasance, including the fact that #Russiagate was an obvious hoax manufactured by Donald Trump’s political enemies, and yet the “journalists” spreading lies still won a Pulitzer for their lies, and that the Hunter Biden emails are obviously real, with huge implications for national security, foreign policy, and Biden Administration corruption.

    I think the Ben Schreckinger book Greenwald is discussing is The Bidens: Inside the First Family’s Fifty-Year Rise to Power, which I have not read.

    They sleep well because they believe doing The Will of the Party is far more important than telling the truth.

    All of these things contribute to the fact that the Democratic Media Complex is one of the least trusted institutions in the world. As a cherry on the top of this distrust, bloated leftwing media talking head Cirith Ungol Cenk Uygur put out a poll asking which was more responsible for damage to the country, right wing media or corporate media:

    It’s still running, so feel free to vote. And here’s a screenshot of the current results, just in case he deletes the results:

    LinkSwarm for October 1, 2021

    Friday, October 1st, 2021

    Greetings, and welcome to the Halloween season! Manchin and Sinema are the only thing that stands in the way of a giant, economy-destroying meteor of leftwing pandering, energy crises ramp up in China and Europe, Biden nominates a commie, and more Flu Manchu shenanigans.

  • Inflation hits a 30 year high, yet Democrats are furious two of their own party aren’t letting them run even bigger deficits.
  • West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin calls the giant runway Porkulus fiscal insanity.

    “What I have made clear to the President and Democratic leaders is that spending trillions more on new and expanded government programs, when we can’t even pay for the essential social programs, like Social Security and Medicare, is the definition of fiscal insanity,” Manchin said in a statement Wednesday.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • And you know that $3.5 trillion price tag? Staggering though it is, they’re lowballing it:


    

  • Manchin says that any reconciliation bill must include a Hyde Amendment to bar federal taxpayer funding of abortion. I’m pretty sure Democrats would prefer kicking Manchin out of the party than give compromise on their holy of holies.
  • Manchin and Sinema are a feature, not a bug:

    ‘What if — and hear me out here,” writes Robert Reich, “we stopped letting two corporate Democrats singlehandedly block every single progressive policy we elected Democrats to pass?”

    Okay, Robert. But how, exactly? The Democrats have 50 seats in the Senate. To pass a bill through reconciliation, the Democrats need 50 votes in the Senate. Two of the people who hold those 50 seats do not agree with the rest of the party on “every single progressive policy.” If the other 48 senators do agree — which is far from clear — the Democratic Party will have 48 votes for its agenda, two short of what it needs. Those two, not the Robert Reichs of the world, are the ones with the power to “stop” things.

    “Should all of this just hinge on those two?” Representative Cori Bush (D., Mo.) asked yesterday. “Absolutely not.” But should doesn’t enter into it. The question is does “all of this” hinge on Sinema and Manchin? The answer is yes. Yes it does. And why? Because, again, “all of this” requires 50 votes in the Senate, and two of those votes aren’t on-board.

    Underneath the complaints that Reich and Bush have leveled sits the erroneous implication that, come election time, American voters are obliged to press a button marked “Republican” or “Democrat,” and that, having done so, they are shipped a drone-like representative of the winning team from a central repository in Washington, D.C. Reich complains that “we elected Democrats.” But this is correct only in the aggregate. In fact, 50 different “we”s elected one hundred senators and 435 Representatives, who between them make up our majority and minority parties. There is nothing in this deal that obliges those emissaries to agree with one another.

    Senators Manchin and Sinema are not a pair of uninvited interlopers who are unexpectedly gumming up the gears; they, themselves, are among the gears. This being so, the duo cannot be said to be “blocking” the Democrats’ de facto Senate majority so much as they are sustaining the Democrats’ de facto Senate majority. Why? Because their decision to caucus with the Democrats rather than the Republicans is the only reason that majority exists in the first place. To hear progressives talk, one would assume that in order to take one’s place within the firmament one must first swear a blood oath to Dick Durbin. Shockingly enough, one is obliged to do no such thing.

  • All this debt limit foo-fora is just kabuki:

    If there’s one thing we know about the looming debt limit crunch and the warnings about the dire consequences of default, it’s this: The government is not going to default.

    The recurring brinksmanship over the debt limit and the partisan refusal to get Republican fingerprints on the increase don’t say much for our political class. But the U.S. Treasury isn’t full of stupid people, and they’ve been through this drill before. Back in July 2011, when the debt ceiling of $14.3 trillion was about to be reached, the Washington Post reported:

    The Treasury has already decided to save enough cash to cover $29 billion in interest to bondholders, a bill that comes due Aug. 15, according to people familiar with the matter.

    You can bet they’re making similar plans today. The difference is that 10 years later the debt ceiling is $28.4 trillion, just about doubled, and we’re about to bump into it again.

    Back in that summer of discontent I talked to a journalist who was very concerned about the “dysfunction” in Washington. So am I. But I told her then what’s still true today: that the real problem is not the dysfunctional process that’s getting all the headlines, but the dysfunctional substance of governance. Congress and the president will work out the debt ceiling issue, probably just in the nick of time. The real dysfunction is a federal budget that doubled in 10 years, unprecedented deficits as far as the eye can see, and a national debt (more accurately, gross federal debt) yet again bursting through its statutory limit of $28.4 trillion and soaring past 120 percent of GDP, a level previously reached only during World War II.

  • John Durham subpoenas Clinton law firm Perkins Coie. I’m betting the Dlinton cronies aren’t wild about that at all…
  • Biden nominates an actual communist as Comptroller of Currency:

    The Cornell University law school professor [Saule Omarova]’s radical ideas might make even Bernie Sanders blush. She graduated from Moscow State University in 1989 on the Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship. Thirty years later, she still believes the Soviet economic system was superior, and that U.S. banking should be remade in the Gosbank’s image.

    Snip.

    Ms. Omarova thinks asset prices, pay scales, capital and credit should be dictated by the federal government. In two papers, she has advocated expanding the Federal Reserve’s mandate to include the price levels of “systemically important financial assets” as well as worker wages. As they like to say at the modern university, from each according to her ability to each according to her needs.

    In a recent paper “The People’s Ledger,” she proposed that the Federal Reserve take over consumer bank deposits, “effectively ‘end banking,’ as we know it,” and become “the ultimate public platform for generating, modulating, and allocating financial resources in a modern economy.” She’d also like the U.S. to create a central bank digital currency—as Venezuela and China are doing—to “redesign our financial system & turn Fed’s balance sheet into a true ‘People’s Ledger,’” she tweeted this summer. What could possibly go wrong?

    It’s like an entire century of central planning failure means nothing to her, and Henry Hazlitt died in vain. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • “Democrats Would Prefer That You Ignore All of the Violent Crime Around You.”

    The FBI’s annual report Monday made official what most unfortunately presumed: The United States in 2020 experienced the biggest rise in murders since the start of national record-keeping 60 years ago.

    The Uniform Crime Report detailed a murder increase of nearly 30 percent.

    The previous largest one-year change was a 12.7 percent increase back in 1968. The national rate of murders per 100,000, however, still remains about one-third below the rate in the early 1990s.

    The FBI data show around 21,500 total murders last year, which is 5,000 more murders than in 2019. More than three-fourths of reported murders in 2020 were committed with a firearm, the highest rate ever reported.

    Now before you start jumping to conclusions about a correlation between the leftist fever to defund the police and a huge jump in the nation’s murder rate, you should probably be aware of the fact that the Democrats want you to know that there’s no problem at all.

    That’s right, the same people who want us all to live in mortal fear of being breathed on by a stranger at Kroeger are trying to poof away a pile of bodies.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Heh:

  • The Fairfax County School Board would really prefer that you not point out the gay porn in their library.
  • There’s stupid, and then there’s revealing a secret military aircraft on Tik-Tok stupid.

  • “Facebook Takes Down Project Veritas Video Featuring HHS Staff Denouncing the COVID-19 Vaccine.” I think they mean this one:

  • Speaking of Flu Manchu, here’s NBA player Jonathan Isaac calmly explaining why he doesn’t feel he needs the vaccine:

  • The Lancet just gives up on trying to determine the origins of Flu Manchu, much like OJ has given up on finding the real killers.
  • China is trying the classic idiot price controls strategy for its self-inflicted energy crisis:

    China is officially panicking.

    Now that the global energy crisis has slammed China’s economy, leading to the first contractionary PMI since March 2020 as a result of widespread shutdowns of factory and manufacturing, not to mention hundreds of millions of Chinese residents suffering from periodic blackouts, Bloomberg reports that China’s central government officials “ordered the country’s top state-owned energy companies to secure supplies for this winter at all costs.”

    Translation: Beijing is no longer willing to risk social anger and going forward China will be subsidizing coil and nat gas, which will lead to even higher prices, which will lead to even higher prices for other “substitute” commodities such as oil, which is why oil surged on the news.

    The news follows a report on Wednesday that China will allow soaring coal prices to be passed on to factories in electricity prices. But prepare for a surge in PPI, which will likely not be allowed to be passed on to CPI due to ‘common prosperity’. Which logically means margin collapse, and shutting down – so even more structural shortages. Unless we get state subsidies of some sort, or differential pricing for the foreign and domestic market. There used to be a name for that kind of economy. Wall Street used to pretend it didn’t like it.

  • European natural gas prices hit all-time highs.
  • Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh tests positive for Mao Tze Lung.
  • Cenk Uygur says he could take former MMA fighter-turned-comedian-turned-podcaster Joe Rogan in a fight. I’m sure Uygur will get right to it after completing that 3 minute mile and turning down Scarlett Johansson begging for sex…
  • Speaking of Rogan, he says that Trump beats Biden or Harris 100% in 2024. Also says someone other than Biden is running his White House.
  • So say the polls: In a hypothetical matchup, Donald Trump creams Joe Biden by 10 points in 2024.
  • Intel breaks ground on a $20 billion seminconductor fab in Arizona. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Smith & Wesson is moving from Massachusetts to Tennessee.
  • Crypto-Trading Hamster Performs Better Than Warren Buffett And The S&P 500.”
  • “Leftists Deeply Afraid Things Could Go Back To Normal.”

    “We don’t want normal,” said activist Earnest Greer. “We want radical change. What if everything goes back to the way it was without us completely dismantling and rebuilding the system?”

    Liberals saw the pandemic as an opportunity to get people less clingy to individual freedom and more accepting of government planning significant parts of everyone’s lives. Normal would mean relinquishing that power, which is anathema to the Left.

  • “I said get in the family photo!”

  • A Californian Moves To Texas…

    Saturday, February 20th, 2021

    Hard left TV host and well-known all-around dick Cenk Uyger said Texas had the ice storm coming because…Joe Rogan moved here from California:

    Today the Texas grid is back up and running normally and it’s getting up into the 50s today as the once-a-century Texas winter storm recedes. But I bet that come summer, California has to close down parts of its grid yet again because high winds took out another power line.

    All that’s a handy hook to hang this amusing “Californian moves to Texas” video on:

    And yes, it mentions Joe Rogan…

    (Though if Calidude had moved to Austin rather than Houston, the homeless people would have been much easier to find…)

    Cenk Uygur’s Bad Week

    Sunday, March 8th, 2020

    Young Turks host Cenk Uygur is having a very bad week.

    Last week’s uproar over him fighting unionization hadn’t even died down before Ungyer lost his carpetbagger bid for the 25th Congressional District that Democratic incumbent Katie “Naked Bong Hits” Hill resigned from.

    In fact, Uygur came in fourth in the jungle primary, behind not only Democrat Christy Smith and Republican Mike Garcia (who are in a runoff May 12), but also behind Republican Steve Knight (who had previously represented the district before losing to Hill in 2018). Ungyer didn’t just lose, he lost badly, garnering just 5.4% of the vote and coming in at one fifth of Smith’s vote total.

    Then, on top of that, he had his flight delayed for four hours. How did he take that?

    Not. Well.

    I can understand being upset over a plane being delayed four hours. However, taking it out over service personnel isn’t going to make the plane magically appear. Moreover, filming yourself being a complete dick to those same service personnel isn’t going to help the plane appear either, or encourage normal, non-crazy people to watch your show.

    Still another problem with the Social Justice Warrior left is how overt outbursts of anger are always seen as righteous and validating rather than a dangerous lack of self-control.

    And the kicker is that Uygur uploaded this video himself, as though he would be the one who came off well for yelling at random employees. Oh, you get angry when you get hungry? Then pack some food, idiot!

    The entitlement mentality of our left-wing media elites seems infinite.

    LinkSwarm for February 28, 2020

    Friday, February 28th, 2020

    Welcome to a Friday LinkSwarm! There are five Saturdays in February this month, something that won’t happen again until 2048.

  • Giant water main break in Houston shuts down lots of schools and streets. The pipe, which is 8 feet across and supplies 40-50% of Houston’s water, burst during repairs. There’s a boil notice in effect for Houston for the next 24 hours. (Hat tip: Kemberlee Kaye.)
  • Why we need to secure the border to fight coronavirus: “U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended 1,155 Chinese migrants this fiscal year after they illegally entered from Mexico, Canada, or coastal boundaries. More than 95 percent came over the southwestern border between October 1, 2019, and January 31, 2020.”
  • Kurt Schlichter covers the Gathering of the NeverTrumpaloos:

    Woke Rule No. 1 is that anything with “Principles” in its name is a grift. Now, something called “Principles First” – ugh – is trying to shoehorn into CPAC’s spotlight with its “National Summit on Principled Conservatism” to be held in D.C. on February 29th, and for the low, low, almost certainly lib tech tycoon-subsidized price of $10, you can attend this sexless Never Trump Freaknik.

    It’s an opportunity to get one-on-one with all your favorite relevancy-challenged B-list MSNBCNN guests for a full day of complaining about Donald Trump and having them show you on the doll exactly where Trump hurt them. Brace yourselves for impassioned pleas by impotent weirdos to vote for the crusty commie curmudgeon because Trump sends mean tweets, plus plenty of “Oh well I nevers” and “We’re better than thats” as Pearl Clutchfest 2020 gets well and truly lit. Just don’t be surprised if the marquee outside reads “Puppet Show and Never Trump.”

    From political consultants who are no longer consulted to writers who are no longer read, this is the Woodstock for conservatives who never actually conserved anything.

    Excited? Worried you might miss out? Calm down. There are plenty of tickets left. And I hear they’ve got loads of Doritos and Zima at the buffet, if you can squeeze in between the ravenous Bulwark staffers stuffing their talk holes.

    Who’s coming to this soiree? Well, just imagine the universe’s worst county fair dino-rock concert line-up, and this is its political equivalent. Mona Charen! Bill Kristol! David Frum! It’s basically the Swamp’s version of Bachman Turner Overdrive, Blue Öyster Cult, and Average White Band – except this band of totally white people are well below-average, though I’m sure we’ll get a fussy email reading “Excuse me, but we have a/an __________.” The closest thing to diversity I could detect in their line-up was the aptly named Heath Mayo – he’s diverse because he’s a younger kind of white person. I’m sure Mayo is ready to unleash the full benefit of his life experience upon the eager crowd – he can explain how learning about Reagan in high school in 2008 totally changed his life.

    Sadly, Ana Navarro isn’t on the bill, but she probably has important work to do completing Dr. Stephen Hawking’s string theory research. And there’s no sign of Jennifer Rubin, probably because the event occurs during the hours of daylight.

  • Former Texas state Senator Don Huffines has some sobering behind-the-scenes look at Texas government.
    • Abolished an obscure quasi-educational agency: “A rats nest of crooks.”
    • “We uncovered the biggest political corruption scandal in the history of the state of Texas.”
    • “We discovered these people were stealing a lot of money.”
    • “Over 3000 employees.”
    • At least 5 employees are currently in prison, with more potentially coming soon.
    • “I didn’t get a lot of help in Austin.”
    • “I didn’t get any support of the Governor.”
    • “I got nothing but opposition from the speaker of the house.”
    • The Lt. Governor wasn’t particularly helpful, but didn’t actively work against him either.
  • Trump campaign to open storefronts in black neighborhoods in swing states.
  • China lases U.S. Navy plane in international waters.
  • The “Green New Deal” “would cost a typical household a minimum of $74,287 in the first year of implementation…for the subsequent four years, the average annual costs per household for 10 of the 11 states is $47,755, decreasing to $40,706 for ever after.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Young Turks founder fights unionization. “In the staff meeting, the network’s co-founder and influential host, Cenk Uygur, urged employees not to do so, arguing that a union does not belong at a small, independent outlet like TYT, according to two workers who were present. He said if there had been a union at the network it would not have grown the way it has.” See, it’s always different when they do it…
  • Bad: Zyxel announced security bug in their NAS products. Worse: It was also in their firewall products.
  • There’s a California bill that would require porn stars to get a license. Inspector: “Yeah, I’m going to need to see your license.” Porn star (opens blouse): How about these licenses?” (Bowchickawowow…)
  • Hosni Mubarak dead at age 91. Of all the strongmen who have ruled Egypt, Mubarak falls in about the middle; less brutal than Morsi or Nasser, but more corrupt than Sadat or Sisi. His real downfall came from trying to install his son as a dynastic successor, at which point the army let the popular revolt oust him, leading eventually to the Muslim Brotherhood’s brief reign. He kept the peace with Israel, was a fairly reliable US ally for the region, and suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood (obviously not well enough).
  • Today’s elite facepalm: “Immigration to America is down. Wages are up. Are the two related?” Hey, you just might be on to something with that radical ‘supply and demand’ theory there, Einstein… (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • With Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction, let’s remember what a huge Democratic Party donor he is. Also: “He faces an L.A. criminal trial soon, where 90 women have filed complaints against him, including well-known actresses Gwyneth Paltrow, Uma Thurman, and Salma Hayek.”
  • How a treasure trove of aviation drawings was saved from destruction thanks to a single engineer, including those for the P-51 and the B-25.
  • Scientist: Here’s a journal article. Editor: Think you could provide the raw data? Scientist: (Hissses, holds up arm to shield the crucifix from it’s sight, withdraws paper.)
  • The garbage world of corporatespeak.
  • “Recently Listed $1.5 Million Home In San Francisco Just Soggy Cardboard Box Full Of Used Needles.”
  • Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for December 16, 2019

    Monday, December 16th, 2019

    This week’s debate is set, Biden’s back on top in Iowa, the Klobuchar boomlet continues, Delaney waits for the sweet release of death, and Castro is in sixth place…in Texas. It’s your Democratic Presidential clown car update!

    Polls

  • Fox News: Biden 30, Sanders 20, Warren 7. Buttigieg 7, Bloomberg 5, Klobuchar 5, Gabbard 3, Yang 3, Booker 2, Bennet 1, Castro 1, Steyer 1, Williamson 1. With Bloomberg already in fifth place with infinite money to spend, the other candidates may already be hearing the Jaws theme…
  • Post & Courier (South Carolina): Biden 27, Sanders 20, Warren 19, Buttigieg 9, Steyer 5, Booker 5, Gabbard 4, Bloomberg 3. Sample size of 392.
  • CNN (Texas): Biden 35, Sanders 15, Warren 13, Buttigieg 9, Bloomberg 5, Castro 3.
  • CNN (California): Biden 21, Sanders 20, Warren 17, Buttigieg 9, Yang 6, Bloomberg 5, Booker 3, Gabbard 2, Klobuchar 2, Castro 1, Steyer 1.
  • Marquette (Wisconsin): Biden 23, Sanders 19, Warren 16, Buttigieg 15, Booker 4, Yang 3, Klobuchar 3, Bloomberg 3, Gabbard 1. What I don’t understand is that they have Yang and Booker each receiving 12 votes, but they give Booker 4%, and Yang 3%. 🤔
  • Emerson (Iowa): Biden 23, Sanders 22, Buttigieg 18, Warren 12, Klobuchar 10, Booker 4, Steyer 3, Bloomberg 2, Yang 2, Gabbard 2. Biden back on top! But sample size of only 325…
  • WBUR (New Hampshire): Buttigieg 18, Biden 17, Sanders 15, Warren 12, Gabbard 5, Yang 5, Klobuchar 3, Steyer 3, Bloomberg 2, Booker 1, Williamson 1, Bennet <1, Patrick <1.
  • Economist/YouGov (page 167): Biden 26, Warren 21, Sanders 16, Buttigieg 11, Bloomberg 4, Yang 3, Gabbard 3, Booker 3, Klobuchar 2, Bennet 1, Castro 1, Steyer 1.
  • Quinnipiac: Biden 29, Sanders 17, Warren 15, Buttigieg 9, Bloomberg 5, Yang 4, Klobuchar 3, Gabbard 2, Booker 1, Castro 1, Delaney 1, Williamson 1, Bennet 1, Steyer 1.
  • Monmouth: Biden 26, Sanders 21, Warren 17, Buttigieg 8, Bloomberg 5, Klobuchar 4, Yang 3, Booker 2, Castro 1, Patrick 1, Steyer 1. Gabbard <1, Williamson <1.
  • Politico/Morning Consult: Biden 30, Sanders 22, Warren 16, Buttigieg 9, Bloomberg 6, Yang 4, Booker 3, Steyer 3, Gabbard 2, Klobuchar 2, Bennet 1, Castro 1, Delaney 1, Williamson 1.
  • Real Clear Politics
  • 538 has a new poll average that they totally want you to know is super duper bestest, for Reasons.
  • Election betting markets.
  • Pundits, etc.

  • In Thursday’s debate: Biden, Sanders, Buttigieg, Warren, Klobuchar, Steyer, Yang.
  • But all seven Democrats who have qualified for the debate are threatening to boycott it over a union dispute.
  • And they want to change debate standards to let more candidates qualify. Because that’s been the big problem with the debates so far: Just not enough candidates on the stage!
  • One barrier to making the stage: fewer qualifying polls. “Most debates have seen anywhere from five to nine polls released in the last two weeks, but for the upcoming debate, it seems as if there will be less than five.” Blame Thanksgiving.
  • The left’s nightmare scenario:

    “We wanted to propel others to jump in,” she said. “We cannot sit on the sidelines as we watch this primary play out and allow a neoliberal be elected. If we stay divided, the corporate Democrats will pick the nominee.”

    That was the left’s nightmare scenario, and it was getting more believable at the worst possible time. The year began with a weak-looking Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) posing no threat to Sanders; by summer, Warren had jumped past Sanders and the rest of the field. Now, with Warren’s momentum fading, the two Democrats most broadly acceptable to the left have been splitting endorsements and capturing separate swaths of the electorate.

    Centrists who had worried about Warren romping in Iowa and New Hampshire are less nervous now, with South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg surging in those states and former vice president Joe Biden holding his lead in upcoming Southern primaries.

    “The far-left bloc is smaller than the candidates expected,” said Jim Kessler, the co-founder of the business-friendly centrist group Third Way, which Sanders feuded with this summer. “They haven’t expanded their base. It feels a lot like 2018: The left was ascendant, and then suddenly, when voters came in, they voted for mainstream candidates.”

    The primary debate has moved further left than Third Way wanted. No leading candidate has embraced the ideas, like a “small-business bill of rights,” offered at the centrists’ conferences. Buttigieg, who has been attracting most of the left’s fury recently, has embraced some of its less economically disruptive ideas, such as banning private prisons and legalizing marijuana while helping victims of the war on drugs. And both Biden and Buttigieg get big applause when they single out Amazon, a target of both Warren and Sanders, to argue for higher, fairer corporate taxes. (Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, owns The Washington Post.)

    But the left began this year with its eye on the nomination; the movement’s gatekeepers, strengthened during the Trump years, wanted to pick the nominee. That has been getting harder. Groups that grew out of electoral politics, and close combat with the Democratic Party’s establishment, have generally sided with Warren, who combined populist politics and good relationships with Democrats. The Working Families Party endorsed her. MoveOn members have preferred her to Sanders in their straw poll, as have readers of the Daily Kos. While the Progressive Change Campaign Committee has endorsed Warren, the similarly aligned Democracy for America has stayed neutral, explaining that its membership is enthusiastic about both candidates.

    “A supermajority of our members support both Bernie and Warren,” DFA’s Charles Chamberlain said. “They’re competing against a corporate wing that has all the money and power and can’t get more than 25 percent of voters behind one candidate. Let’s be clear: They have more candidates than us splitting the vote. If I were Third Way, I’d be more concerned with their side than ours.”

    (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • After Harris drops out, Democrats panic over diversity:

    Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. An Asian guy, two black guys, three white women (one of whom spent much of her life claiming to be Native American), a Pacific Islander woman, a gay guy, a Hispanic guy, two elderly Caucasian Jews (one a billionaire, the other a socialist), a self-styled Irishman, and a few nondescript white guys walk into a bar, and the bartender yells, “Get the hell out! We value diversity here!”

    I didn’t say it was a good joke, but it’s kind of funny all the same, because some folks in the press and the Democratic party are freaking out over the shrinking diversity of the Democratic field.

    The diversity panic was set off by the withdrawal of California senator Kamala Harris on December 3. In the words of Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page, “The famously inclusive party wasn’t looking very inclusive anymore.”

    The real issue is that not many people of color [Here’s an example of linguistic drift from Trump-skeptic Jonah Goldberg; “of color” is a SJW neologism designed to assign everyone who’s not white into a single category for the benefit of the Democratic Party, and is thus best avoided. -LP] qualified for the December 19 debate in Los Angeles. As New Jersey senator Cory Booker, an African American, complained, “There are more billionaires than black people who’ve made the December debate stage — that’s a problem.”

    It’s debatable whether it’s a problem for anyone other than Booker himself, which is why he’s been raising this alarm vociferously. So has former HUD secretary Julian Castro, who is of Mexican descent.

    “What we’re staring at is a DNC debate stage with no people of color on it,” Castro complained. “That does not reflect the diversity of our party or our country. We need to do better than that.”

    Since Castro made his remarks, Andrew Yang, a Chinese-American entrepreneur whose parents immigrated from Taiwan, has qualified for the debate.

    Perhaps a broader perspective would help. All of the first 43 presidents were white men. About half were Episcopalian or Presbyterian, most of the rest belonged to other prominent denominations, and three were Christians of no formal affiliation. Then, in 2008, Barack Obama (of the United Church of Christ, for what it’s worth) became the first African-American president, winning two terms. In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the Democrats’ first female nominee. She won the popular vote but lost the election to Donald Trump.

    Given these facts, it’s hard for me to see a diversity crisis. The top four candidates right now are Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and Elizabeth Warren. Biden would be only the second Catholic president. Sanders would be the first Jewish president and the first socialist one. Buttigieg would be the first openly gay (and youngest) president. Warren would be the first female president (and if her DNA test had gone another way, the first Native American one).

    What a devastating blow to diversity!

  • Chronicle of a death foretold:

  • On the same theme, see this piece from two days ago.
  • Veepstakes. Don’t think much of the list, because I doubt any likely candidate wants such a bad campaigner as Kamala Harris on the ticket. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • For Democrats, there’s no One Punch Man.
  • Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: In. Twitter. Facebook. Billionaires backing Bennet, including a Walton heir. “U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet from Colorado was being talked up by former Clinton whisperer James Carville and influential journalist Al Hunt on their popular podcast, 2020 Politics War Room. Both are bullish on Bennet, even though the guy can’t seem to move north of the 1% neighborhood in the polling.” Plus some Joe Biden Authentic Frontier Gibberish.
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. Twitter. Facebook. Funny how none of Biden’s Democratic competitors are going after him on Hunter Biden and Ukraine. Almost like they don’t really want to win. CBS has Biden ahead in Super Tuesday projected delegates. “Joe Biden Wants To Allow States And Localities To Issue Immigration Visas.” What do you want to bet the Democratic locales would start issuing them like mad? One term Joe?
  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: In. Twitter. Facebook. How Bloomberg created a network of friendly mayors through grants. Bloomy on Boris: “”Maybe this is the canary in the coal mine. I think that beating Donald Trump is going to be more difficult after the U.K. election. That to me is pretty clear. The public clearly wanted change in the U.K. and change that is much more rapid and greater magnitude than anyone predicted.” The change they wanted was for politicians to keep their freaking promises, which is, granted, a pretty radical change. #BloombergStyle:

  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. He’s scaling back his campaign in New Hampshire to go all in on Iowa and South Carolina. A rational decision, but he’s probably toast in Iowa; going all in on South Carolina would probably be a slightly-higher-percentage desperation play. Here’s a piece that outlines his “hail Mary” chance to win…but also discusses his “strong ground game in New Hampshire.” Oops! Gets a Chicago Tribune profile.

    Three key attributes:

    1) Big donor ties: Booker’s early candidacies for mayor and U.S. Senate were heavily backed form big-dollar donors on Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Booker also famously reeled in a $100 million donation to Newark schools from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg that was announced on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”. Booker also drew criticism in 2012 when he defended Bain Capital against attacks during President Barack Obama’s reelection bid against Mitt Romney.

    2) Hired Garry McCarthy: Before Garry McCarthy became former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s controversial police superintendent in Chicago, Booker hired him to be Newark’s top cop. The two were stars in the documentary “Brick City,” whose production crew later would go on to produce the CNN series “Chicagoland” — a documentary largely in name only — that focused on Emanuel and McCarthy. In Newark, McCarthy favored the use of “stop and frisk,” which resulted in complaints from the American Civil Liberties Union and a U.S. Department of Justice investigation that found illegal stops, searches and use of force. Booker cooperated with the investigation and agreed to a federal consent decree. Former Vice President Joe Biden attacked Booker in an early presidential debate for hiring “Trump’s guy” to run his police department, a reference to Trump calling McCarthy a “great guy” at a political rally. Emanuel used the footage of Trump in attack ads against McCarthy in 2018 before abandoning a run for a third term.

    3) Bachelor candidate: Booker has never been married and, if elected, would become just the third U.S. president elected unmarried. He has, however, confirmed he is dating actress Rosario Dawson.

  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. Is Alfred E. Newman too young to be President? Another reminder of how incestuous our ruling class is: “Ganesh Sitaraman is one of Elizabeth Warren’s closest advisors. He’s also one of Pete Buttigieg’s best friends.” Here’s a lengthy “Buttigieg doesn’t get black people” piece. Be sure to strap on your intersectionality wading boots first…
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. Castro just barely made it onto the Virginia primary ballot when they located his paperwork. He was very, very upset that President Donald Trump mocked St. Greta.
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Probably not? She tops an online Harris poll for which candidates Democrats want. Key word there is “online.” “I guess a bit of me hopes Hillary does run to muck up the Democratic primary even more and the fact that Trump would easily cruise to a second term.” She has a new look and it’s ghastly.
  • Former Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. Interview with Fox Business. Delaney didn’t make the filing deadline for the Virginia Super Tuesday primary on March 3rd. I think he’s already mentally checked out of the race and is just waiting for Iowa to give his campaign the sweet release of death.
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. She gets a Chicago Tribune profile. They finally found an unflattering photo of her to run (closeup from below). She’s pledged to skip the December debate even if she met the inclusion criteria (she didn’t), choosing to spend the time in New Hampshire and South Carolina. BoldMoveCotton etc. It would have made a bigger statement if she had actually qualified, or done it after she qualified for the last debate. Could she oppose impeachment? Do the Afghanistan Papers justify her antiwar stance?
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Twitter. Facebook. Another piece on the Klobuchar boomlet:

    In the past two weeks, she has doubled her number of [Iowa] field offices to 20, with the possibility of more expansion. She has about 60 staffers on the ground, up from 40 in late August but about half the number reported by Warren, Biden and But­tigieg. Still, she has made key hires, including Norm Sterzenbach, a former Iowa Democratic Party executive director and expert on caucus turnout who previously worked for former congressman Beto O’Rourke’s campaign.

    Klobuchar’s rise comes as moderate Democrats have reasserted their power in a presidential race that for months was dominated by sweeping liberal ideas, including Sanders’s call for a political revolution and Warren’s pitch for big, structural change. Democratic Party leaders and voters here have openly worried that expensive policies such as Medicare-for-all could prove to be too polarizing and lead to Trump’s reelection next year.

    Klobuchar has made the same unwavering argument for months on the campaign trail, describing Medicare-for-all as a “pipe dream” and criticizing proposals such as free college as something the nation can’t afford. She has criticized other Democrats in the 2020 race, arguing that their liberal policies will doom them in the general election. She presents herself, in contrast, as a political realist and, during her stump speech, often ticks through a litany of bills she has passed as a member of the Senate, many with the support of Republicans.

    She’s peaking at the right time, but she’s also starting waaaaaay far back from the frontrunners. Is her boom significant? This piece brings up some painful historical analogies:

    Klobuchar had previously received at least five percent support in each of the four public polls of Iowa Democrats released in November by Monmouth University, CBS News, Des Moines Register/CNN, and Iowa State University.

    But will hitting this double-digit mark ultimately be a big deal, little deal, or no deal for Klobuchar with less than two months before the caucuses?

    To be sure, in recent election cycles there have been many presidential candidates who at some point reached the 10 percent mark in an Iowa poll, but ultimately did not carry a single state in the subsequent primaries or caucuses:

    • 2004 (Democrats): Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt
    • 2008 (Republicans): Fred Thompson, Rand Paul, and Rudy Giuliani
    • 2008 (Democrats): Tom Vilsack and Bill Richardson
    • 2012 (Republicans): Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry
    • 2016 (Republicans): Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Ben Carson

    In the 2020 cycle, Democrats Beto O’Rourke and Kamala Harris can be added to that list and each has already suspended their campaign.

  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: In. Twitter. Facebook. Inside his time at Bain Capital.

    Oh wait, that’s Bane Capital. Never mind.

    He’s not going to make the Michigan ballot. Honestly, at this point he’s fighting Delaney, Castro, Steyer and Williamson for last place.

  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Franklin Foer wants you to know that Bernie is totally, totally, totally different from Jeremy Corbyn, for Reasons. Sanders withdrew his endorsement of Cenk Uygur (who’s running a carpetbagger campaign for Katie Hill’s seat) for various Twitter crimes against social justice. Seeing cancel culture come after Uygur is certainly a savory “told ya” moment. Gets mocked by Rep. Dan Crenshaw over his student debt cancellation plan.
  • Billionaire Tom Steyer: In. Twitter. Facebook. Lefties accuse Steyer of running a donor scam: “He has spent $47 million of his own money in what amounts to a scam. Since he needs donors only to meet the DNC’s bizarre debate criteria, he has essentially purchased his donor base, through tactics such as selling $1 swag with free shipping—usually items worth far more than $1—that has nothing to do with him or his presidential campaign.” This leaves out that the natural demand for Steyer swag is zero. Now, if Make-A-Wish Tommy started stapling a $20 bill to every shirt he sold…
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. Warren and Sanders have a problem: each other:

    In Iowa and nationwide, they are the leading second-choice pick of the other’s supporters, a vivid illustration of the promise and the peril that progressives face going into 2020: After decades of losing intraparty battles, this race may represent their best chance to seize control from establishment-aligned Democrats, yet that is unlikely to happen so long as Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders are blocking each other from consolidating the left.

    For center-left Democrats, that’s exactly their hope — that the two progressives divide votes in so many contests that neither is able to capture the nomination. Moderates in the party fear that if Mr. Warren or Mr. Sanders pull away — or if they ultimately join forces — the ticket would unnerve independent voters and go down in defeat against President Trump.

    Interviews with aides from both camps — who spoke on the condition they not be named because they warn their own surrogates not to criticize the other — produce a common refrain. The two candidates are loath to attack each other because they fear negativity would merely antagonize the other’s supporters. The only way to eventually poach the other’s voters, each campaign believes, is by winning considerably more votes in the first caucuses and primaries.

    Liberal leaders, acknowledging the mixed blessing of having two well-funded, well-organized progressive Democrats dividing endorsements and poised to compete deep into the primary calendar, are now beginning discussions about how best to avert a collision that could tip the nomination to a more centrist candidate.

    At informal Washington dinners, on the floor of the House and on activist-filled conference calls, left-leaning officials are deliberating about how to forge an eventual alliance between Mr. Sanders, of Vermont, and Ms. Warren, of Massachusetts. Some are urging them to form a unity ticket, others want each to stay in the race through the primary season to amass a combined “progressive majority” of delegates, and nearly every liberal leader is hoping the two septuagenarian senators and their supporters avoid criticizing each other and dividing the movement.

    “Investors could pay twice as much in capital gains just to raise the funds for Ms. Warren’s levy.” I’m sure there’s no way that would damage the economy…

  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. Facepalm.
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. He’s qualified for the December debate. Says he’s not getting media attention because he’s Asian. Meet the Yang Gang.

    Yang launched his quixotic quest for the presidency more than two years ago. At the time, he was a fairly successful but little-known entrepreneur. The New York Times described his bid, which he bolstered with the marquee issue of a universal basic income, as having a “longer-than-long” shot. As recently as this spring, Yang couldn’t crack a single percentage point in most national polling.

    He’s now polling around 3%, good enough for fifth or sixth place nationally, and at more than 3% in the Granite State as well as in Nevada and California. Now, this virtual unknown and political neophyte has already outlasted three senators, three governors, five representatives, and two mayors in the less-and-less-crowded Democratic presidential field. Couple that with surging fundraising — Yang’s campaign is on track to beat his $10 million third-quarter earnings for the end of this year — and he’s a genuinely impressive candidate.

    Perhaps the most important asset to the campaign has been the Yang Gang.

    Joe Rogan, the massively popular podcast host, introduced Yang to most of the pundit class and plenty of his most vocal eventual supporters. Yang’s February appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, the same show that landed Yang-endorser Elon Musk in hot water with NASA for smoking marijuana on air, earned more than 4 million views on YouTube. His Twitter following went from 34,000 to more than a quarter million. It’s now well over a million.

    Yang proudly deems himself a Democrat. He supports unfettered abortion access and financial giveaways. But his central message, that the government must temper the effects of the automation revolution with a universal basic income rather than socialist safety nets, has resonated with some on the Right.

  • Out of the Running

    These are people who were formerly in the roundup who have announced they’re not running, for which I’ve seen no recent signs they’re running, or who declared then dropped out:

  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti
  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams
  • Actor Alec Baldwin.
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock (Dropped out December 2, 2019)
  • Former one-term President Jimmy Carter
  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.
  • New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
  • New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (Dropped out September 20, 2019)
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (Dropped out August 29, 2019)
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum
  • Former Vice President Al Gore
  • Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (Dropped out August 2, 2019)
  • California Senator Kamala Harris (Dropped out December 3, 2019)
  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (Dropped out August 15, 2019; running for Senate instead)
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: Dropped Out (Dropped out August 21, 2019; running for a third gubernatorial term)
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe
  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley
  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton (Dropped out August 23, 2019)
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: (Dropped out November 20, 2019)
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda (Dropped out January 29, 2019)
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke (Dropped out November 1, 2019)
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (constitutionally ineligible)
  • Ohio Representative Tim Ryan (Dropped out October 24, 2019)
  • Former Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak (Dropped out December 1, 2019)
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell (Dropped out July 8, 2019)
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey
  • Like the Clown Car update? Consider hitting the tip jar:





    LinkSwarm for March 17, 2017

    Friday, March 17th, 2017

    Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Insert your own Irish-related drinking joke here.

  • President Trump’s approval ratings rise.
  • Did Obama use a British intelligence agency to spy on Trump? (Maybe not.)
  • Did the Obama Administration use Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac as a slush fund to pay for ObamaCare?
  • Senate Democrats are paralized what do to over Neil Gorsuch. Everyone agrees Gorsuch is extremely qualified, but the leftwing nutroots are threatening to primary any Democrat who votes to confirm him. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Finally: “A House panel held a hearing on possibly splitting the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday morning.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • In talking about the House GOP’s pathetic ObamaCare replacement, Stephen Green hits the nail on the head: “Congress is warped because the American electorate has yet to accept that other people’s money does eventually run out — and that we are all the other people.” That’s why we need someone committed to reform in the White House, and Greece and Venezuela’s examples fresh in the public’s eye…
  • Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey: “What we reject is immigration without assimilation.” (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
  • ICE arrests 248 illegal aliens, most in the sanctuary city of Philadelphia. “20 had a conviction and/or pending charges or 48 percent (88 of those arrested had criminal convictions and 32 of those arrested have pending criminal charges). In addition, 50 had been previously removed from the United States and subsequently illegally re-entered.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Meanwhile, in Australia: “Teacher quits after primary school students threaten to behead her.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Iraqi government forces besieged Islamic State militants around Mosul’s Old City on Thursday, edging closer to the historic mosque from where the group’s leader declared a caliphate nearly three years ago.”
  • Former Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich says that one of his phonecalls was wiretapped. “If a member of Congress can have his phone tapped, this can happen to anybody.”
  • Ten Senate Democrats are vulnerable in 2018. They’re prime targets for takedowns in the midterm elections. But the process starts now, not then…In order of vulnerability (most to least), the target list features: 1) Joe Donnelly-IN; 2) Bill Nelson-FL; 3) Sherrod Brown-OH; 4) Claire McCaskill-MO; 5) Heidi Heitkamp-ND; 6) Tammy Baldwin-WI; 7) Jon Tester-MN; 8) Joe Manchin-WV; 9) Debbie Stabenow-MI; 10) Bob Casey, Jr.-PA.” Agree with the list, but not the order, since Heitkamp hails from a state Trump won by 36 points. But seeing Stupak bloc flip-flopper Donnelly go down at last would be extremely satisfying…
  • Breakdown of 2016 Presidential race demographics. Least likely to vote for Trump: Black single women. Most likely to vote for Trump: Mormons. Usual poll caveats apply. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Remember convicted felon Brett Kimberlin? There’s always some Kimberlin news floating around the blogsphere, usually in relation to his latest ludicrous lawsuit getting laughed out of court. But this week he made the news for being involved in selling hoax documents designed to bring down Donald Trump. “The entire set of documents appear to have been forged as part of an elaborate scam.” So, like most Kimberlin escapades, the story ends in embarrassing failure. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • Cenk Uygur: Why the Democratic Party is useless. 1. As with all these critiques of the Democratic Party from the left, it’s right about the party being a corrupt institution for entrenched interests and wrong about America being gung ho for socialism. 2. Boy, that “not being polite” stuff sure helped Democrats recall Scott Walker! 3. “Cenk Uygur” sounds like a dark, forbidding fortress at the edge of Mordor.
  • Holland is the canary in the European coalmine of radical Islamization. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Speaking of Holland, Geert Wilders placed second in Dutch elections, which falls short of a serious challenge to the Islamophillic and Eurocentric establishment.
  • Dear Sen. McCain: (Sigh).
  • Rand Paul fires back: “He makes a really, really strong case for term limits. I think maybe he’s past his prime. I think maybe he’s gotten a little bit unhinged.”
  • Germany wants to fine companies for not censoring fast enough. What do you want to bet that objections to the rousing success of their Muslim immigration policy are first on the list of things to be censored?
  • Camille Paglia has a new book out, and offers up an interview where she talks about modern feminism (against), southern women (for), working class men (for), Michel Foucault (against), and pornography (for).
  • Soros Fellow Flees Country While Wife Arrested For Welfare Scam.” It seems that earning $1.5 million a year at the Washington, D.C., offices of Mayer Brown LLP just wasn’t enough for Fidelis Agbapuruonwu… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Three #BlackLivesMatter protestors arrested for beating up a homeless man.
  • Man gets a C when he should have gotten an A for a school assignment. So he did what any of us would have done: Successfully amends the Constitution. (Hat tip: Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett’s Twitter feed.)
  • Dwight has some Austin-related memoes from the police beat.
  • “Coming up next on Most ShockingMormon Justice!”
  • King Kong burns.
  • He divided them again!
  • Schumer steals again. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Singer Kelly Clarkson is selling her Tennessee mansion. I like how it’s half typical rich-person mansion, and half Bass Pro Shop…