Another Friday, another LinkSwarm. On a personal note, I am once again looking for a Senior Technical Writing position in the greater Austin area. If you have any leads in that direction, please let me know.
Republicans cave on everything and leave town. But somehow it’s Trump that’s going to sully the spotless reputation of the Grand Old Party…
But at least congress overrode Obama’s veto of bill allowing 9/11 survivors to sue the Saudis 97-1. One wonders why Obama even bothered vetoing the bill, given how he had already stabbed the Saudis in the back with the Iran deal.
Apparently, some in this party really do think they’re going to hand the election to Hillary, and, bizarrely, they think this will bully the rest of us into knuckling under to their agenda in 2020.
Rather than simply getting payback and tanking their candidate in return.
This party is on the verge of self-destructing. The upper class of the party is upset that the lower class has finally had its say, and they’re determined that should never be permitted to happen again.
Why then would anyone of the lower class ever vote for the GOP again? Are they required to sign a piece of paper confirming that they are Lessers who should know their place in order to have the privilege of voting against their own interests?
He’s also turns his fire on #NeverTrump:
we have a hundred people who claim to be #NeverTrump and #NeverHillary but, strangely enough, never talk about the downsides of a Hillary presidency. Oh, they’ll talk up how much of an authoritarian Trump is, but not Hillary’s sense of entitlement, grievance, vengeance, and her own history of authoritarianism and lawlessness in covering up her crimes.
They talk all day about “Principles,” but discard the most basic principles — such as keeping a proven lawbreaker out of the White House, or just honestly admitting which candidate they’re actually supporting to their readers — as convenience may recommend.
In fact, right now they’re howling about Ted Cruz’ “calculations” in endorsing Trump, while not admitting their own pose of “Being Against Both Equally” is in fact a completely contrived lie they’ve calculated will permit them to agitate for their candidate (Hillary) while not compromising their career prospects within Conservatism, Inc. too much.
How much can I agitate for Hillary while still retaining plausible deniability?
How much can I agitate for Hillary to appease my anti-Trump donors while still keeping enough pro-Trump readers that my anti-Trump donors will feel they’re getting enough eyeballs per dollar of their patronage?
The party — not just the party;the writers who are supposed to have telling the truth as their first mission, but instead of become nonstop liars all the time decrying Trump as a liar himself — has declared war on all of the Lessers beneath their station, those not in The Media and who should, therefore, not have quite as much of a say in things as they themselves have.
They’ve made themselves into exactly what they pretend to oppose — and exactly what I do in fact oppose.
Canada launches prescription smack. Part of me wants to see how the experiment turns out. And part of me wants to start offering junkies one-way bus tickets to the Great (China) White North.
There’s a proper and an improper way to turn down an orgy. Proper: “No thank you.” Improper: Getting stabby. Don’t they teach kids basic manners these days?
FBI immunity for Clinton aides that aren’t testifying against her, David Brock laundering money and taking a cut, Hillary’s mysterious ailment: Welcome to another week in Clinton Corruption!
40% of Hillary Clinton State Department board appointees were Clinton Foundation donors. What are the odds?
Clinton toady and Media Matters head David Brock is a one-man money laundering machine. He has 14 pro-Clinton groups, and every time he moves money between them, he rakes off a cut for himself. It’s like his own little mini-Clinton Foundation.
Liberals scream at Jimmy Fallon for acting like Jimmy Fallon with Donald Trump. But you know who originally dared Jimmy Fallon to touch Trump’s hair? Hillary Clinton. “Watch the old video. You may be startled at how vibrant and energetic she was back then.”
Clinton looked (to my eyes) as if she was drugged, tired, sick, or generally unhealthy, even though she was mentally alert and spoke well. But her eyes were telling a different story. She had the look of someone whose doctors had engineered 90 minutes of alertness for her just for the event. If she continues with a light campaign schedule, you should assume my observation is valid, and she wasn’t at 100%.
Some will say Clinton outperformed expectations because she didn’t cough, collapse, or die right on stage. That would be true if she also looked healthy in general, and her campaign schedule from here on out is full. We’ll know more this week, based on her schedule.
Clinton’s smile seemed forced, artificial, and frankly creepy. I’m already hearing on Twitter that mentioning a woman’s smile is sexist. I understand the point. But when someone goes full Joker-face and tests the uncanny valley hypothesis at the same time, that’s a bit different from telling a woman to “smile more.” My neighbor Kristina hypothesized that Botox was making her smile look unnatural. Science tells us that when a person’s mouth smiles, but their eyes don’t match the smile, they look disingenuous if not creepy. Botox on your crow’s feet lines around your eyes can give that effect. But whatever the reason, something looked off to me.
Remember how Trump’s unpopularity was going to sink GOP Senate candidates? Yeah, not so much.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton debated last night. I watched about as much as I could stand, which was about ten minutes. So instead of my reactions, here are those of people who watched it all he way through:
Interesting: Most conservative pundits were down on Trump’s performance, but most polls show he won the debate. “It isn’t just Drudge and Breitbart; Trump also got more votes than Clinton in instant polls at Time, Slate, Variety and other liberal outlets.”
Althouse: “Hillary Clinton’s unchallenged, illogical statement about private prisons.” Also on the debate itself: “Overall, I’ll just say that was very unpleasant and I’m glad it’s over.”
Now from the Twitters:
The debate was lousy. The candidates were lousy. The moderator was lousy. I'll discuss tonight.
Viewers are eager to hear the two candidates debate substantive policy issues on—
Yeah, right. People are tuning in to see if Hillary collapses on stage or if Trump manages to say something stupidly outrageous (our outrageously stupid) even by Trump standards.
Yesterday I had to go through a “spite password reset” for Twitter in the wake of the Instapundit banning and unbanning. I’m sure it had something to do with Twitter’s ongoing attempt to drive all non-liberal thought off the platform. This may have been the Tweet that did the trick:
This may be why so many conservatives are talking about moving to Gab.
Believe it or not, there is just a tiny bit of non-Twitter news going on:
So many people are talking about this angry, shrill, shouty Hillary Clinton video that I’m not going to put it off to the next Clinton Corruption Update:
When Donald Trump gets angry, he seems to get angry about things happening to America. When Clinton gets angry, she gets angry about what’s happening to her personally, because of the things she believes she’s entitled to (popularity, the presidency) being denied her. She comes off as shrill and unhinged.
Scott Adams. “There is still some mystery about how large the margin will be, but Trump is already the President of the United States unless something big happens in the next few weeks.”
“Swedish police are losing the battle against increasing levels crime and violence in the country as now 55 areas have been labelled as ‘no-go’ zones.” Also, three police officers a day quit and 90% are considering changing professions. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
This just in: Anthony Weiner is a pervert. “The disgraced former congressman sexted a 15-year-old high school girl for months, allegedly writing her lewd messages and sending her shirtless pics of himself, according to a report Wednesday…Weiner tried to get her engaging in ‘rape fantasies.'”
Crazy feminist publically shames her suicidal son for having non-feminist thoughts about “rape culture.” You know, the largely imaginary, non-Anthony Weiner, non-illegal alien rapist kind…
Hillary Health Watch: What’s the deal with her eyes? “Her eyes did not always move in the same direction at the same time. It appears that she has a problem with her left sixth cranial nerve. That nerve serves only one function and that is to make the lateral rectus muscle contract. That muscle turns the eye in the direction away from the midline.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instpundit.)
Today officially begins autumn, when leaves should be falling just like Hillary Clinton’s feeble body and poll numbers:
Hillary Clinton is stealing money from her poorest donors. “You made a one-time donation to Hillary? We’re pulling that much out every month, whether you like it or not! That’s what we mean by ‘Stronger Together.'”
And remember, 100+% of the Clintons’ “charity” donations went to themselves. (The plus comes donating $42,000 to a charity that then turned around and donated $700,000 to the Clinton Foundation.)
“Former President Bill Clinton and his Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) distributed ‘watered-down’ HIV/AIDs drugs to patients in sub-Saharan Africa, and ‘likely increased’ the risks of morbidity and mortality.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
“A recent NBC News poll found that just 11 percent of Americans say Clinton is honest and trustworthy. To put that in perspective, 14 percent of American voters believe in Bigfoot. In other words, more Americans believe that a large, hairy, hominoid creature inhabits the forest of North America than believe that Hillary Clinton tells the truth.” (Hat tip: Real Clear Politics.)
“It’s another piece that follows on from yesterday’s story-of-the-day, Trump’s wrangling the media to hear his announcement of Obama’s birthplace and deflection of blame onto Hillary. Sullivan explains how the press got played, but not why. The why is, I think, eagerness to help Hillary: They’ve made themselves stupid — stupid for Hillary. What’s the cure? I would think: serious, professional journalism. But Sullivan just tells them to stop it.”
Scott Adams: “The main targets of Trump’s rhetoric are the nations that compete against us. In stark contrast, Clinton turned her hate on American citizens. That’s the real kind of hate. Trump is more about keeping America safe and competing effectively in the world.”
The more voters hear of either Trump or Hillary, the less they like them. Which means Hillary spending more money on advertising may be counter-productive.
Dem media mouthpieces panic. “The mainstream press is in a state of utter panic at the prospect that Trump, a person they’ve decided should never be president, is within an eyelash of Clinton in the polls.”
Vodka Pundit wargames the election again: “Clinton collapsed on video nine days ago in New York, but her collapse in the polls might be just beginning.”
I attended the Austin Gun Show-Round Rock (to use the full appellation) on Sunday, and here are a few random observations:
The venue, the Round Rock Sports Center, is much bigger and better suited to a gun show than the Austin and Cedar Park venues. There’s room for more vendors in the central space, there’s none of that inner ring/outer ring/multilevel nonsense, and it’s a nice modern building.
You had the weird Russian guy selling the one Nazi flag, WWII stuff…and bedsheets.
He wasn’t the only bedsheet dealer.
There was also a Tupperware dealer. Evidently non-gun vendors have figure out that gun shows get lots of foot traffic.
When it comes to guns, prices seemed up roughly 10% over the show I attended last year.
Some manufacturers (including Kimber) are going into custom colored grips and such in a big way. I understand the reasoning (more money from the growing female shooter demographic), but they don’t do much for me.
Ditto what I call Ruger’s “Logan’s Run .22”:
One dealer did make a strong pitch for us to buy the Barrett .50 BMG we were ogling, but it was a tad out of our price range.
I’m looking for an AR-pattern rifle in 5.56 NATO/.223, probably a Smith & Wesson M&P, but they’re still a little more than I want to spend.
There was a Trump swag guy at the show. He didn’t seem to be as busy as the people selling “Hillary for Prison” shirts.
Speaking of Hillary, actual announcement at the show: “Building management has asked that you refrain from putting Hillary Clinton pictures in the urinals.”
Going into this Presidential race, we already knew Hillary Clinton was possibly the least popular Democratic Presidential candidate in modern history. (Say what you want about George McGovern, but he had a huge cadres of young volunteers, not a graying army of paid toadies.) Now we’re seeing yet more signs of just how little enthusiasm there is for Granny Lich outside the demographic of rich millionaires who need political favors:
There’s an enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats this year. “A Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 46 percent of Trump backers were “very enthusiastic,” compared with only 33 percent of Clinton supporters. And a New York Times/CBS News poll saw Trump outperforming Clinton by the same metric, 45 percent to 36 percent.”
While Republicans are seeing a surge in voting registration, Democrats are not. (Note: That’s from August, so ignore the stale poll data.)
The Clinton/Kaine campaign book Stronger Togetheris bombing. “After a week on the shelves, the book has sold fewer than 3,000 copies.” Those are pretty good numbers for a first-time novelist; they’re a disaster for a formerly “inevitable” Presidential favorite.
Trump is even making inroads into Clinton’s key demographic of black voters. “Trump saw a 16.5 percentage-point increase in backing from African-American voters in a Los Angeles Times/University of Southern California tracking poll, up from 3.1 percent on Sept. 10 to 19.6 percent through Friday. Meanwhile, the same poll showed Clinton’s support among that group plummeting from 90.4 percent on Sept. 10 to 71.4 percent.” Hillary’s campaign path to victory was always predicated on getting near-Obama level black voting participation, something that was already going to be difficult; now it looks impossible. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Expect to hear more about some of these topics Real Soon Now…
Its 52 days until the election! At least we can be thankful it isn’t more! (Alternate theory: We’ve all died and gone to Hell, and will be watching this Presidential race for the rest of eternity…)
Donald Trump widens lead in LA Times poll. “The poll shows Trump leading Clinton, 47%-41%.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
Another poll puts Trump up by eight in Iowa. Downside: Same poll has Trump up by only seven in Texas. There’s no way in Hell or Terlingua that’s happening, but let’s hope Battleground Texas cons some national Democratic donors into throwing more money down that particular rathole based on that poll… (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
Scott Adams on Hillary’s 9/11 collapse: “The optics of a potential commander-in-chief collapsing at that holy place, and on an important anniversary, rendered her unelectable in my opinion.”
“Hillary Clinton has stage-three Parkinson’s disease and suffers from seizures, according to three sources who have had a personal relationship with the Democratic Party presidential nominee.” Grains of salt, anonymous sources disclaimer, yadda yadda.
Did I miss this from 2015? “The charitable foundation run by Hillary Clinton and her family has received as much as $81m from wealthy international donors who were clients of HSBC’s controversial Swiss bank.” Including Frank Giustra. But why would you trust such a notoriously right-wing news outlet as The Guardian? (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“It Was Easier To Cure Trump Of His Trumpiness Than Hillary of Her Hillaryness.” “For Hillary, the problem runs deeper. People think she’s corrupt and dishonest. That’s because she’s corrupt and dishonest.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Email leak exposes Democratic Party Pay-for-Play scheme, despite cleverly hiding their intent by actually using the phrase “pay-for-play.” Just think: This would have been a major story dominating the news for months if it were a Republican Administration. In the age of Obama and Hillary, it’s just another selection on a vast buffet of corruption. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Well, what did they expect when they went all in for Hillary? And now Trump is climbing in the polls — 6 points up in the new L.A. Times poll — and they’ve already squandered their credibility. They can’t help her now. They tried too hard before. Too bad the Democratic Party didn’t give us a democratic experience this time. They foisted a candidate on us, they rigged it, with the assistance of the media. And now the candidate we didn’t want zombie-walks and stumbles to the finish line, and there is nothing the Party or the media can do to stir up our affection. Meanwhile, the man the media loved to hate is powering through to the Presidency, looking only stronger for all the shots he took.
Viktor Orbán, together with the prime ministers of the Visegrad countries and the Ukrainian prime minister, took part in a discussion where he highlighted: a whole generation of European politicians had a “secret dream”, that they can use the EU to achieve the weakening of the member states’ national, religious, and historic identities, and that all this would be replaced by a new European identity. But we found out there is no such identity that could replace the old ones, he said. He added: now it is proven that the only successful countries are the ones with strong identities.
Someone is extensively testing the core defensive capabilities of the companies that provide critical Internet services. Who would do this? It doesn’t seem like something an activist, criminal, or researcher would do. Profiling core infrastructure is common practice in espionage and intelligence gathering. It’s not normal for companies to do that. Furthermore, the size and scale of these probes — and especially their persistence — points to state actors. It feels like a nation’s military cybercommand trying to calibrate its weaponry in the case of cyberwar… The data I see suggests China.
Former Ohio mayor arrested for raping a 4-year old. Guess which party they were a member of, and guess how deeply the Washington Post buried that information.
As this pneumonia episode demonstrates, Clinton’s real problem isn’t her health but the entirely valid perception that she’s dishonest, secretive and exploits “the system” — including the support of the mainstream media — for her benefit.
In 2008, news outlets openly speculated about whether Sen. John McCain was too frail to be president. NBC News ran an Associated Press story under the headline, “1 in 4 chance McCain may not survive 2nd term.”
People remember these things. When Clinton faltered on Sunday, she not only humiliated her most loyal servants, who were kept in the dark by a campaign terrified of playing it straight with voters and the media, she also made countless people say, “Looks like Drudge was right again.”
Reporting on Hillary’s collapse means that I never had a chance to talk about her “basket of deplorables” comment, where she went full Social Justice Warrior and said that one-quarter of America is “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic.”
The most racist thing out there, is the whole DNC platform that expects black people to continue to vote DNC candidates, without so much as even pandering, simply by tossing out the race card over every little thing.
It is obvious that crying Racism is the ONLY thing left the Democrats have with respect to Hillary’s campaign. And that is, by itself racist. And the black community is starting to wake up to the pure racism of low expectations that the DNC has of them.
Can’t have voter ID laws, because the DNC says Black people can’t figure out how to get a free voter ID. But that isn’t racist.
Can’t have single day voting, because DNC says Black People can’t figure out how to fill out an absentee ballot or get to the polls on time. But that isn’t racist.
IF you simply look at the excuses being made on behalf of black people, they are all telling black people that they are incapable of doing normal activities, simply because … they are black.And I find that extremely distasteful and as fucking racist as anything.
Black people aren’t as stupid, lazy, incapable as the DNC is making them out to be. But I am a racist for pointing out how stupid the DNC position is for these people.
