Archive for the ‘Foreign Policy’ Category
Friday, April 8th, 2016
Among my first thoughts when the Panama papers scandal broke was “How soon until until this is tied to the Clintons?”
The answer seems to be about four days:
The revelations of the so-called Panama Papers that are roiling the world’s political and financial elites this week include important facts about Team Clinton. This unprecedented trove of documents purloined from a shady Panama law firm that arranged tax havens, and perhaps money laundering, for the globe’s super-rich includes juicy insights into how Russia’s elite hides its ill-gotten wealth.
Almost lost among the many revelations is the fact that Russia’s biggest bank uses The Podesta Group as its lobbyist in Washington, D.C. Though hardly a household name, this firm is well known inside the Beltway, not least because its CEO is Tony Podesta, one of the best-connected Democratic machers in the country. He founded the firm in 1998 with his brother John, formerly chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, then counselor to President Barack Obama, Mr. Podesta is the very definition of a Democratic insider. Outsiders engage the Podestas and their well-connected lobbying firm to improve their image and get access to Democratic bigwigs.
Which is exactly what Sberbank, Russia’s biggest financial institution, did this spring. As reported at the end of March, the Podesta Group registered with the U.S. Government as a lobbyist for Sberbank, as required by law, naming three Podesta Group staffers: Tony Podesta plus Stephen Rademaker and David Adams, the last two former assistant secretaries of state. It should be noted that Tony Podesta is a big-money bundler for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign while his brother John is the chairman of that campaign, the chief architect of her plans to take the White House this November.
Sberbank (Savings Bank in Russian) engaged the Podesta Group to help its public image—leading Moscow financial institutions not exactly being known for their propriety and wholesomeness—and specifically to help lift some of the pain of sanctions placed on Russia in the aftermath of the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine, which has caused real pain to the country’s hard-hit financial sector.
It’s hardly surprising that Sberbank sought the help of Democratic insiders like the Podesta Group to aid them in this difficult hour, since they clearly understand how American politics work. The question is why the Podesta Group took Sberbank’s money. That financial institution isn’t exactly hiding in the shadows—it’s the biggest bank in Russia, and its reputation leaves a lot to be desired. Nobody acquainted with Russian finance was surprised that Sberbank wound up in the Panama Papers.
though Sberbank has its origins in the nineteenth century, it was functionally reborn after the Soviet collapse, and it the 1990s it grew to be the dominant bank in the country, today controlling nearly 30 percent of Russia’s aggregate banking assets and employing a quarter-million people. The majority stockholder in Sberbank is Russia’s Central Bank. In other words, Sberbank is functionally an arm of the Kremlin, although it’s ostensibly a private institution.
Snip.
John and Tony Podesta aren’t fooling anyone with this ruse. They are lobbyists for Vladimir Putin’s personal bank of choice, an arm of his Kremlin and its intelligence services. Since the brothers Podesta are presumably destined for very high-level White House jobs next January if the Democrats triumph in November at the polls, their relationship with Sberbank is something they—and Hillary Clinton—need to explain to the public.
So in summary: Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager is a registered lobbyist for Vladimir Putin.
The Clintons generate corruption and conflict of interest the way bees make honey…
Tags:2016 Presidential Race, Crime, David Adams, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton Scandals, John Podesta, Panama Papers, Russia, Sberbank, Stephen Rademaker, Tony Podesta, Vladimir Putin
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Obama Scandals | 2 Comments »
Friday, April 1st, 2016
Happy April Fools day! No tricks here, just the usual Friday LinkSwarm:
ObamaCare didn’t do jack to lower costs. (Hat tip Instapundit.)
Indeed, Obamacare is the fail that keeps failing: “As a result of the ACA, between 4 million and 9 million fewer people are projected to have employment-based coverage each year from 2017 through 2026 than would have had such coverage if the ACA had never been enacted.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Great news! The Nigerian Army has rescued rescued 800 Boko Haram hostages. That’s compared to the number of those hostages rescued by the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag, which is (stops, counts, carries the one) Zero.
Bad news: They just kidnapped 300 more. (Hat tip: Weasel Zippers.)
Following the Brussels attack, the standard ruling class rituals of aversion are in full bloom.
Donald Trump suggested targeting the families of terrorists. Putin’s Russia does exactly that.
The Obama Administration treats Little Sisters of the Poor worse than Exxon, Visa and Pepsi, all of whom have health plans lacking the abortion mandate. Then again, as Instapundit noted: “To be fair, that was basically because they hate those groups and wanted to punish them.”
Xi Jinping has accumulated more power than any leader since Mao. “He has been fighting dissent with even more ruthlessness than he has been waging war on graft. Not since the dark days after the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 has there been such a sweeping crackdown on critics of the party.”
Belgium’s current crises sounds an awful lot like where California is headed: Expensive government that’s congenitally incapable of solving problems.
Canadian bank depositors are now officially at risk of bail-ins.
David Brin says the Amendment that most protects the right of citizens to film interactions with the police is the Sixth.
Rob Ford was more than just a loud-mouth drunk. “Ford was a political pragmatist who simply didn’t give a damn what anyone thought about him other than his constituents. It was that gumption that endeared him to hundreds of thousands of Torontonians.”
Supergenius New Yorker writer thinks Arizona is next to Texas.
(Screen shot has been included because the article has been edited and no notice made of the deleted error.)
Illegal alien rapes 12-year old. (Hat tip: Director Blue.
Lake Travis hits full again.
“Hulk Hogan may have just destroyed Gawker.” Well, we can only hope…
Lunatic hoplophobe associate professor of English calls 911 to report ROTC maneuvers on campus at the University of North Dakota. (Hat tip: Tam.)
Old and Busted: The Suicide Prevention Hotline. The New Hotness: The Suicide Encouragement Hotline. Not an April Fools joke, alas…
Why grackles love supermarket parking lots.
Tags:abortion, Austin, Belgium, Boko Haram, California, Canada, Catholics, China, Communism, David Brin, Donald Trump, Economics, Foreign Policy, Gawker, Guns, Hulk Hogan, Jihad, John Cassidy, LinkSwarm, Little Sisters of the Poor, Media Watch, Nigeria, North Dakota, ObamaCare, Russia, suicide, terrorism, War on Catholics, Xi Jinping
Posted in Austin, Communism, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, ObamaCare, Welfare State | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 29th, 2016
The Washington Post has a long piece up on how Hillary Clinton’s private email server scandal unfolded. Though quite restrained by the standards of the blogsphere, it paints a devastating portrait of Clinton and her aides not only blithely unconcerned about security, but plotting to bypass security and accountability from the get-go:
Hillary Clinton began preparing to use the private basement server after President Obama picked her to be his secretary of state in November 2008. The system was already in place. It had been set up for former president Bill Clinton, who used it for personal and Clinton Foundation business.
On Jan. 13, 2009, a longtime aide to Bill Clinton registered a private email domain for Hillary Clinton, clintonemail.com, that would allow her to send and receive email through the server.
Snip.
They were aware of a speech delivered by Joel F. Brenner, then chief of counterintelligence at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, on Feb. 24 at a hotel in Vienna, Va., a State Department document shows. Brenner urged his audience to consider what could have happened to them during a visit to the recent Beijing Olympics.
“Your phone or BlackBerry could have been tagged, tracked, monitored and exploited between your disembarking the airplane and reaching the taxi stand at the airport,” Brenner said. “And when you emailed back home, some or all of the malware may have migrated to your home server. This is not hypothetical.”
At the time, Clinton had just returned from an official trip that took her to China and elsewhere in Asia. She was embarking on another foray to the Middle East and Europe. She took her BlackBerry with her.
Snip.
Few could have known it, but the email system operated in those first two months without the standard encryption generally used on the Internet to protect communication, according to an independent analysis that Venafi Inc., a cybersecurity firm that specializes in the encryption process, took upon itself to publish on its website after the scandal broke.
Not until March 29, 2009 — two months after Clinton began using it — did the server receive a “digital certificate” that protected communication over the Internet through encryption, according to Venafi’s analysis.
It is unknown whether the system had some other way to encrypt the email traffic at the time. Without encryption — a process that scrambles communication for anyone without the correct key — email, attachments and passwords are transmitted in plain text.
“That means that anyone could have accessed it. Anyone,” Kevin Bocek, vice president of threat intelligence at Venafi, told The Post.
The Post piece is well worth reading, even if it avoids the conclusion already drawn by everyone not already a Hillary Clinton backer: She set up a private server to avoid legal accountability while doing back-channel deals with foreign powers that directly benefited herself, the Clinton Foundation (but I repeat myself), her friends and cronies.
Then there’s this: “Because Clinton did not use desktop computers, she relied on her personal BlackBerry.” Wait, a high ranking government official in the 21st century “doesn’t use personal computers”? Who is she, your grandmother that complains she can’t play solitaire because you closed the games directory on Windows 95?
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Clinton Foundation, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy | No Comments »
Monday, March 21st, 2016
Instapundit tweeted a link to this Der Spiegel piece on the success of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party against Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. It’s a lengthy and illuminating piece.
The immigration crisis is just the final straw for conservative German voters who have watched the Christian Democratic Union drift leftward. “He then lists all of the things that the CDU has done wrong in recent years: abandoning nuclear power, introducing a minimum wage, same-sex marriage…It is a rebellion targeting a CDU leader who has continually led her party to the left.”
But it’s more than that.
At its core, the rise of the AfD is the story of strife and of growing alienation between the chancellor and a portion of the German electorate. The triumph of the AfD is nothing less than a revolt against Angela Merkel.
It is a rebellion targeting a CDU leader who has continually led her party to the left, stripping many conservatives of a political home. It also targets a chancellor whose open borders policy in the refugee crisis may be attractive to left-leaning Germans, but is one which strikes more conservative voters as high-handed. Hotelier Schäfer, for his part, thinks it is naive to believe that so many Muslim refugees can be integrated into German society. “We are endangering our freedom when we take in too many people who don’t want this freedom,” he says.
Above all, however, the revolt is aimed at the chancellor as a symbol of the country’s elite — an elite which has supposedly lost sight of the people and their concerns. For many in Germany, Merkel has become the personification of a “ruling class” — a class that not only includes the CDU, the center-left Social Democrats and the Greens, but also business leaders, union leaders and the media.
Sound familiar?
When Merkel took over the CDU, she took a dispassionate view of the doctrines and rites that defined her party. She cleaned out the CDU’s political platform the way others dispose of worn socks from their sock drawer.
Old CDU traditions were of secondary concern for the new party chairwoman; she was more focused on expanding her party’s electorate. Instead of seeing politics as the great battle over the shape of society and grand ideas, she reduced it to strategy and the consolidation of power. She moved her party so far to the middle that it soon became difficult to distinguish it from the Social Democrats. She didn’t wrestle with the SPD over political positions, she simply copied theirs — and took over popular elements of the Green Party platform as well. Under her leadership, the CDU became a kind of Germany Party that leaned neither right nor left. Rather, it was “alternativlos,” as Merkel liked to say — there was no alternative.
Snip.
A vital part of any healthy democracy is having alternatives and parties that are distinguishable from each other. At the moment, it’s no longer possible to tell what it is that separates the CDU from the SPD or the Greens. The party is whatever Merkel says it is. There are close to no correctives left in Germany and there is no longer a balance of power. The more Merkel tries to peddle her policies as being without alternative, the greater the anger within the populace will grow.
The entire political situation in Europe arises from elites doing all they can to insulate their institutions and power from the crass rabble know as “voters.” But voters across Europe and America are sick and tired of the Permanent Incumbent Party doing what’s best for elite interests and ignoring the will of the voters.
And the longer elites refuse to change course, the more terrible the reckoning will be when it comes…
Tags:Alternative for Germany, Angela Merkel, Border Controls, Christian Democratic Union, Elections, Foreign Policy, Germany, Illegal Aliens, Jihad
Posted in Border Control, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad | No Comments »
Friday, March 18th, 2016
I hope you’re not too hung over from St. Patrick’s Day (and didn’t get stabbed to death on the Ides of March). Here’s a Friday LinkSwarm:
Marco Rubio says that Ted Cruz is the only conservative left in the race. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
John Boehner calls Ted Cruz “Lucifer.” With that even-tempered perspective, it’s impossible to figure out why he’s no longer Speaker…
Ted Cruz unveils his national security coalition. Media reports on this have been particularly poor…
“African-Americans living in poor neighborhoods cannot rely on Democratic leaders to take the decisive steps needed to ameliorate the problem as long as the Democratic Party can take the black vote for granted. The question, then, is how long can Democratic Party leaders and candidates continue to rely on African-American voters before African-American voters take matters into their own hands.”
No amount of primary wins will make Hillary Clinton’s email troubles go away.
And if the FBI doesn’t get her, the NSA might. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
“The Tea Party movement — which you also failed to understand, and thus mostly despised — was a bourgeois, well-mannered effort (remember how Tea Party protests left the Mall cleaner than before they arrived?) to fix America. It was treated with contempt, smeared as racist, and blocked by a bipartisan coalition of business-as-usual elites. So now you have Trump, who’s not so well-mannered, and his followers, who are not so well-mannered, and you don’t like it.”
Got to hand it to Donald Trump: this is an effective ad. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Jews leave France in record numbers. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Obama Administration finally comes out and admits that the Islamic State has committed genocide against Yazidis, Christians and Shiites. That’s like Harry Truman finally declaring the Holocaust genocide two years after the liberation of Auschwitz…
Putin takes his toys and goes home.
Contrary to his expectations of finding a pliable ally in Iran, he found the Iranians in control, glad to borrow his air force, arrogant and disdainful in Damascus (and Baghdad) and well on the path to dominating a vast stretch of strategically vital territory. And Iran has no interest in playing junior partner to anyone—least of all a traditional Christian enemy.
Suddenly, Putin had a vision of a nuclear-armed, radical-Shia empire on Russia’s southern flank. Those Iranian missiles that can reach Israel? They can reach major Russian cities, too.
Putin’s initial bet on Shia Iran also backfired by turning the Islamic world’s Sunni majority against him — not least Saudi Arabia, which can continue to hold down the price of oil and gas, punishing Russia’s economy far more than it wounds American fracking efforts. And Sunni terrorists have taken a renewed interest in Russia.
Hellfire missile intercepted in-route to Portland, Oregon.
Minimum wage hike causes fast food restaurants to start investing in automation. Just like conservatives said it would.
Texas Public Policy Foundation vs. Bureau of Land Management is now TPPF and The State of Texas vs. BLM. (More background here.)
Penny Arcade on Gawker:
Gawker is poison AIDS cancer. In the same way that the Cross is the symbol for the redemptive power of Christ’s blood, Gawker is the symbol of a metastasized social media. Gawker is Nidhogg, the dragon which gnaws at the root of the World Tree. The causes they enunciate are tarnished, just for being in their mouths.”
I don’t wish ill on anyone who works there, obviously. I mean, I guess their every action technically does sustain a legitimately evil beast of legend, some Revelations type shit, and they ruin lives for profit whenever they aren’t simply wasting your time.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton rules that state contractors must continue using E-verify.
Everything you know about Altamont is wrong. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
The story behind that memorial mural on the pillar at the Lamar underpass right before Fifth Street.
Man the pollen in the air is really bad this time of year in Austin…
Dog shows up safe a month after being presumed lost at sea. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
Will the last Elvis impersonator to leave Las Vegas please turn off the neon.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Austin, black, Border Controls, Crime, Democrats, dogs, Donald Trump, Elections, Foreign Policy, France, Gawker, genocide, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Islam, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jews, Jihad, John Boehner, Ken Paxton, Las Vegas, LinkSwarm, Marco Rubio, minimum wage, NSA, Portland, Republicans, San Bernardino, Shiites, Star Wars, Tea Party, Ted Cruz, Yazidi
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad | No Comments »
Friday, March 11th, 2016
Here in Texas it’s rained every day this week, resulting in flooding along the Sabine. Try to stay dry and enjoy this complimentary Friday LinkSwarm:
Ted Cruz pegs the meter with this comment. (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
GOP squishes finally start backing Cruz as only way to stop Donald Trump.
Could our FBI director actually be doing his job, without fear or favor?
In related news: Could Hillary Clinton’s grand jury already be empaneled? (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Marco Rubio is a horrible failure.”
There have been adultery accusations popping up on Rubio’s campaign trail, which doesn’t necessarily mean anything. However, I was surprised to read they date back to at least 2010.
Failed ObamaCare co-ops haven’t repaid $1.2 billion in taxpayer loans.
Think California is boned? Europe’s pension crisis is even worse:
Europe’s population of pensioners, already the largest in the world, continues to grow. Looking at Europeans 65 or older who aren’t working, there are 42 for every 100 workers, and this will rise to 65 per 100 by 2060, the European Union’s data agency says. By comparison, the U.S. has 24 nonworking people 65 or over per 100 workers, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which doesn’t have a projection for 2060.
Also this:
The global decline of the blue model stands to inflict even more pain on Europe than on the United States. Europeans are worse at making babies than the United States, worse at integrating immigrants, worse at saving money to pay boomer retirement bills—but no worse at making promises to voters that they will be unable to keep.
(Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
“Venezuela’s accelerating economic meltdown is rapidly turning into a full-fledged humanitarian crisis. For too many in that country, the pervasive shortages of food, medicine, electricity, and other basic goods are making everyday life a nightmare.”
How “liberation theology” was designed and run from Moscow.
Differences between Christian and Islamic eschatology.
If you have trouble firing handguns, you may find this gripping reading. (Hat tip: Stuff from Hsoi.)
“UC-Berkeley Law School Dean Resigns After Being Sued For Sexual Harassment.” (Hat tip: Instapundit, who asks “Why are leftist institutions such cesspits of sexual predation?”)
“The San Francisco Chronicle used to give out firearms as subscription premiums.”
Another Adobe Flash vulnerability in the wild.
It begins.
Inside Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower, the only remnant of a “Metabolist future” that failed.
Mr. T. says goodbye to Nancy Reagan.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Crime, Donald Trump, Economics, Eschatology, FBI, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Islam, Japan, Jihad, LinkSwarm, Marco Rubio, Mr. T, Nancy Reagan, ObamaCare, Ted Cruz, Venezuela, Welfare State
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, ObamaCare, Republicans, Texas, Welfare State | No Comments »
Monday, February 29th, 2016
Happy Leap Day, everyone! Enjoy a yuge LinkSwarm, and if you’re in Texas or another Super Tuesday state, take time to dig out your voter registration card for tomorrow.
The Case for Cruz: The Math. “In the states where Cruz is ahead of Rubio in the upcoming Super Tuesday, he is either beating Trump or within striking distance. In the states where Rubio is ahead of Cruz in the upcoming Super Tuesday, Trump has a huge lead. Rubio doesn’t lead in a single state.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Sixteen Reasons Why Ted Cruz Is The Better Anti-Trump Than Rubio.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
The Millennial Case For Ted Cruz. “Polls show that Hillary beats Trump in a general election. On the other hand, Cruz beats Hillary in a general election.” (Hat tip: Conservatives for Ted Cruz.)
Cruz releases nine years of tax returns, calls on Trump to do the same.
Analysis of Ted Cruz’s positions on defense.
How Ted Cruz’s ads are so Hollywood slick.
Cruz has rebuilt his stump speech around the Scalia vacancy.
Lefty Robert Reich’s attacks on Ted Cruz provides yet more reasons to vote for Cruz.
Our cultural elites just can’t figure out why those ignorant gun- and religion-clinging redneck freaks of JesusLand keep flocking to Trump when he says he love them. It’s an insoluble mystery…
40 reasons not to vote for Donald Trump.
Trump University was a scam. “Many people believe that higher education is a de facto scam. Trump University, Donald Trump’s real-estate institution, was a de jure one.”
Hillary heckled.
DNC vice chair steps down to support Bernie Sanders. An understandable move, given the DNC is so far in the tank for Hillary under Debbie Wasserman Schultz that supporting Sanders is probably looked on as akin to treason… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Mark Steyn lays out some grim election analysis: “No one loses as expensively as Republicans.”
720,000 taxpayers have their tax form information stolen from the IRS. Our country is in the very best of hands!
Public employee unions are the establishment. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Left-wing protesters shut down lecture on welfare reform at London School of Economics. Here’s the book protester’s don’t want people to read: Adam Perkins’ The Welfare Trait: How State Benefits Affect Personality.
Muslim immigrants will cost Sweden fourteen times more than their defense budget. Good thing Germany and Russia are such historically peaceful neighbors…
Merkel must have a political death wish: “German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday defended her open-door policy for migrants, rejecting any limit on the number of refugees allowed into her country despite divisions within her government.”
Stratfor analyses China’s new military facilities on Woody Island. “While the media’s response to China’s actions on Woody Island suggests that they represent a watershed moment in the militarization of the South China Sea, in reality they are neither surprising nor particularly meaningful.”
How disasterous Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro could be removed from power.
The truth about the MiG-29. Longish but interesting piece. Turn out the Soviet super fighter was very good at basic fighter aircraft maneuvers, but had poor avionics that severely limited the pilot’s situational awareness.
Mass transit doesn’t actually save any energy. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
“Male feminism is a sort of disease.”
Joe Straus’ primary opponent Jeff Judson has a couple of major financial backers, including Alice Walton.
Beloved, innocent man shot down by Seattle police. And by “innocent” I mean “a convicted rapist with a gun, crack and heroin.”
“Turn down the fucking music.” “The more and more you attempt to compensate for the fact people have no social skills, making the music so loud conversation is impossible, the more and more intelligent and competent people you will drive away.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Soldier of Fortune magazine to cease publication.
Man makes video designed to show that SERPA holsters are safe, proves the opposite. (Hat tip: Tam via Dwight.)
Tweet 1: The bus is turning around. Tweet 2. The bus is on fire. Tweet 3. The bus exploded. (Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
The OSS World War II escape knife.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Alice Walton, Antonin Scalia, Border Controls, China, Crime, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrats, Donald Trump, Germany, Guns, Hillary Clinton, IRS, Jason Villalba, Jeff Judson, Jihad, Joe Straus, Karl Rehn, LinkSwarm, Mark Steyn, Military, Seattle, Social Justice Warriors, South China Sea, Sweden, Ted Cruz, Venezuela, Woody Island, World War II
Posted in Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Military, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 17th, 2016
Early voting started in Texas Monday, which means I’m way behind on covering state and local races. Oh well, maybe later this week…
Hillary Clinton didn’t do as badly as expected in New Hampshire. She did worse.
Sanders’s margin of victory — 60 percent to 39 percent — was the largest ever by a Democrat who wasn’t a sitting president. It was a come-from-behind win: Eight months ago, Sanders was at 9 percent and Clinton held a 46-point advantage. And Sanders overperformed the polls. Only 1 of the last 15 polls had him above 60 percent; the Real Clear Politics average in New Hampshire had him at 54.5 percent going into the vote.
Then there are the crosstabs. The exit polling for Clinton was brutal. Sanders won men by 35 points; he won women by 11. He won voters under the age of 30 by 67 points. People expect that of Sanders and his children’s crusade. Clinton took home senior citizens, 54 percent to 45 percent. People expect that of Clinton’s boomers. But in the big band of middle-aged Democrats, ages 45 to 64 (who made up 42 percent of the electorate), Sanders beat Clinton 54 percent to 45 percent. He beat her among Democrats with a high school diploma or less; he beat her among Democrats with postgraduate degrees. Among people who’d voted in a Democratic primary before, Sanders won by 16 points; among first-time voters, he won by 57. He won self-identified “moderate” voters by 20 points.
Clinton made gun control a substantial part of her pitch in New Hampshire. Sanders won voters who own guns by 40 points. But he won voters who don’t own guns by 14. He even won voters who said that terrorism was their number one concern.
The biggest problem for Clinton, however, came in the candidate-perception categories. The second-most important quality voters said they wanted in a candidate was someone who “cares.” Sanders won these voters by 65 points. The most important quality people said they wanted was “honesty.” Sanders took those people home 92 to 6. Look at that again. When asked “Is Clinton honest and trustworthy?” 53 percent of all voters — not just Sanders voters, but everyone casting a Democratic ballot — said “no.”
Bernie Sanders has more than ten times the number of staffers on the ground in South Carolina than Clinton does.
Lefty at The Nation: “Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote.”
The topic is the Clintons, so it’s time for another glimpse of Good Maureen Dowd: “It turned out that female voters seem to be looking at Hillary as a candidate rather than as a historical imperative. And she’s coming up drastically short on trustworthiness.”
Ted Cruz is very electable. “Cruz is electable because he’s the real thing.” (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
People who were actually paying attention during the Gang of 8 fight scoff at Marco Rubio’s assertion Cruz favored amnesty. (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
Only top Obama Administration officials with high security clearances knew about Hillary’s secret email server. And LinkedIn.
The NRA is saying gun-indifferent Sanders beat hoplophobe Hillary. Hmmm…
Remember how the Obama Administration swore up and down ObamaCare wouldn’t go to illegal aliens? Guess what?
I think this is quite an effective Donald Trump ad, targeting how black Americans have been hurt by illegal alien crime. Rick Perry did quite well with an ad highlighting an illegal alien who murdered a Houston police officer in his race against Bill White in 2010. Too bad too many gutless Republicans have been hesitant about running such ads for fear of being branded racists, xenophobes, etc. by the media.
Muslim immigrants are killing Sweden.
Germany to take in a half million more Islamic “refugees” in 2016. It’s like Merkel wants to destroy her own party… (Hat tip: JihadWatch.)
Police in the UK arrest man for criticizing Syrian “refugees” in a Facebook post. (Hat tip: JihadWatch.)
Boom! Headshot! (Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
Current law prohibits transferring prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to the U.S., and the military won’t do so until the law is changed, no matter what Obama may want.
“Scalia was not only finest writer ever to sit on the Court, he was one of the best rhetoricians in history.”
Dear naive young voters: socialism sucks in real life.
Behold the ideal government worker under socialism! Every bureaucrat his own Wally….
A look at China’s new stealth fighters.
China is also deploying missiles on a disputed island in the South China Sea.
Huge explosion at a military barracks in Turkey. Just occurred before I posted this, so details are scant.
The ACLU continues its long retreat from defending free speech. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Talk like Reagan.
Venezuela’s socialist government appears to have authorized the military to form an oil company.
Notes on the collapse of a tech startup. More than a grain of truth here. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
The Coen Brothers aren’t fans of cramming diversity for the sake of diversity into individual movies. “Not in the least!” Ethan answered. “It’s important to tell the story you’re telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity—or it might not.”
Science fiction writer has book rejected by Harper Voyager because robot characters dared to voice non-PC thoughts.
Because driving I-35 just didn’t suck enough already, enjoy being attacked by thrown rocks.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, ACLU, Antonin Scalia, Austin, Bernie Sanders, black, Border Controls, China, Coen Brothers, Crime, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrats, Elections, Facebook, Guantanamo Bay, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, I-35, Jihad, Marco Rubio, Maureen Dowd, Military, NRA, ObamaCare, polls, Republicans, Ronald Reagan, South China Sea, Ted Cruz, Thomas Sowell, Venezuela
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Military, ObamaCare | 1 Comment »
Friday, February 5th, 2016
Presidential elections, Islamic terrorism, gun rights, crooked locksmiths: Something for (almost) everyone in your Friday LinkSwarm:
So why did Hillary Clinton take $675,000 for three speeches to Goldman Sachs? “That’s what they offered.” I actually like the refreshing honesty about that answer, since we already know Granny Crooked McCankles is all about the benjamins. But Hillary saying she hadn’t decided to run for President yet when she took the money? That’s just pissing on our leg and calling it rain…
Why is the Republican establishment willing to consider one heresy to their worldview (subsidizing the working poor) but not another (actually enforcing immigration law and securing the borders)?
An inside look at Boko Haram.
According to Donald Trump, Ted Cruz gave us ObamaCare. By voting to confirm John Roberts. Before Cruz was even in the senate. Hey, why should Ted Cruz even bother to run for President if he’s capable of time travel?
Remembering the genocide Muslim Turkey committed against Christian Armenians.
The gun rights movement continues to win victories around the country:
To recap: Gun-control activists declared Virginia their proving ground and poured unbelievable amounts of money into a state-senate election; then they lost that election; then they bet big on executive actions instituting new gun control; they watched as those actions were not only reversed but gun rights were expanded.
If we take Virginia as the bellwether that the gun-control activists envisioned, then gun control is dead as a 2016 issue.
And according to this legal paper by Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, lower courts are scrutinizing even modest post-Heller gun rights restrictions.
West Virginia is on the brink of becoming a right-to-work state.
Who knew New Hampshire had such a serious drug problem? Or that they were the hardest-drinking state in the union? (Hat tip: Jim Geraghty via his Morning Jolt.)
Old and Busted: “The solution to misguided speech is more speech.” The New Hotness: “Your non-liberal speech is toxic. Goodbye comments!”
Debunking the “BernieBro” myth social justice warrior types are trying to gin up.
Rick Santorum stops pretending to run for President.
Male yahoo employee claims illegal sex discrimination in Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s ranking system.
Feminists freak out over people daring to point out how just how unlikable Hillary Clinton is. Then again, when are feminists ever not freaking out?
How fake locksmiths are gaming Google maps to rip you off. It’s an eye-opening piece, and another reason you should join Angie’s List…
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Boko Haram, Border Controls, Crime, DC vs. Heller, Democrats, Donald Trump, genocide, Glenn Reynolds, gun control, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Instapundit, Jihad, Jim Geraghty, LinkSwarm, Media Watch, New Hampshire, Nigeria, ObamaCare, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Ted Cruz, Turkey, unions, Virginia, West Virginia
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, unions | No Comments »
Friday, January 22nd, 2016
Been a trying week. Have a Friday LinkSwarm, on me…
Mark Steyn reiterates his central thesis. Namely secular welfare state = low birth rates = import of Muslim immigrants = extinction of the west. “It’s Still the Demography, Stupid.”
Welcome to the ObamaCare gaming death spiral.
Krauthammer: Hillary’s email scandal is now now worse than what Snowden did, because she exposed information that was far more sensitive.
Mark Rich may be dead, but the Clintons are still raking in dough from his associates thanks to Clinton’s pardon of him.
Democrat-controlled Flint, Michigan knowingly poisons its citizens with unsafe drinking water.
Myth: Ted Cruz is unpopular outside the GOP: Fact: He has higher favorable ratings than Donald Trump or Jeb Bush.
“In today’s atmosphere there can be no greater reason to support Ted Cruz than the fact that so many entrenched Washington insiders hate him.”
National Review takes a short break from their Trump-bashing to look at how the mainstream media has made him such a big deal through saturation coverage. “The media that so thoroughly built up Trump as a contrast to his boring, predictable, consistently conservative GOP rivals might not find him so easy to tear down.”
“Are the Global Warmistas Simply Juicing Up the Latest Years’ Temperatures With ‘Adjustments’ While Reducing the Temperatures of Previous Years, To Always Make the Current Year ‘The Hottest’? Sure seems that way.”
Global Warming advocates latest excuse: stupid lying satellites.
Anti-GMO scientific papers may have manipulated data.
Female Muslim scholar says it’s just fine and dandy to rape non-Muslim women to humiliate them.
“Western Europe’s elites have pretended that importing millions of Muslims from countries ranging from Morocco to Afghanistan raises no issues and creates no problems. That this is untrue has been obvious for a long time.”
Warning: Pretty much every aspect of this story is horrifying and disgusting.
Law enforcement on Open Carry in Texas: “We have no concerns and we have had no problems.” (Hat tip: Push Junction.)
Slashdot: California Assemblyman Jim Cooper wants to add crypto-backdoors to your phone. Wanna guess which political party Cooper is a member of? Go ahead. Guess.
Remembering Sergei Korolev, the legendary “chief designer” of the Soviet space program. (Hat tip: Gregory Benford’s Facebook page.)
Science Fiction editor David Hartwell has died. He was a hugely important figure in the field…
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, California, Charles Krauthammer, Crime, Donald Trump, Elections, Flint, Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Jim Cooper, LinkSwarm, Mark Rich, Michigan, ObamaCare, science fiction, Soviet Union, Ted Cruz, Texas
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Jihad, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »