after consultation with my family and at their request, i have decided not to travel back in time to assassinate hitler or attempt to save the titanic. i do not make this decision lightly – i make it out of respect for my family. but for their concerns, i would do it
After consulting with my friends and family, I have decided not to ask Rihanna out for a date. I do not make this decision lightly. But for their concerns, I would totally do it, and she would totally say yes.
I remain hopeful Rihanna will find the right partner.
Avenatti was polling at 1 percent. His handling of Julie Swetnick was a disaster. He was recently charged with domestic violence. He doesn't have Trump's instincts and Democrats don't have an appetite for a Trump-like candidate. He would have lost badly and embarrassed himself.
Welcome to the Friday before Thanksgiving! I hope you have your family gathering, gluttony and/or shopping plans all laid out. I tend to avoid Black Friday sales unless I happen to be near a used bookstore. (And speaking of booksales, I’ll be putting out a new Lame Excuse Books catalog after Thanksgiving, so drop me a line if you’re interested.)
Florida: DeSantis wins, Scott leads Nelson in senate race, where it goes to a hand recount. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Meanwhile, both Broward and Palm Beach counties, where most of the Democrat shenanigans occurred, missed the machine recount deadlines, so the initial tallies stood.
In all the bad recount news, here’s one bit of good news: Utah incumbent Republican congresswoman Mia Love is now expected to win reelection after recounts. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
A bit more analysis of the midterms:
Interestingly, the largest/highest profile misses were almost all in races where the Republican beat the polls:
– IN-Sen: polls D+2; actual R+8 – OH-Gov: polls D+3; actual R+4 – SD-Gov: polls D+3; actual R+3 – TN-Sen: polls R+5; actual R+11 – IA-Gov: polls D+2; actual R+3
Over 50 million Chinese apartments are empty. (Caveat: Some sort of malware on ZeroHedge is trying to do a drive-by DMS install on that page. They should look into that…)
Austin’s sick leave ordinance was just struck down by the 3rd Court of Appeals. “The requirement violates the Texas Constitution because it is pre-empted by the Texas Minimum Wage Act.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Who frontman Roger Daltry “detests Jeremy Corbyn (whom he, not without cause, calls a âcommunistâ), supports Brexit, and says of the Labour party, ‘It pains me to say it, but in my life a Labour government comes in with incredible optimism and leaves the country in the sh*t.'”
Roy Clark, RIP. To TV viewers, he was that guy on Hee-Haw. To fellow guitarists he was a legend. Here’s a nice rendition of his signature piece:
William Goldman, RIP. The Princess Bride is a swell novel, and he penned more than his share of great Hollywood movies.
If you’re going illegally carry a concealed gun without a permit, maybe you shouldn’t make yourself look like The Joker. And yes, it’s exactly the state you think it is. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
This is going to be a “glass half empty” kind of post, so let’s start out enumerating all the positives for Texas Republicans from the 2018 midterms:
Ted Cruz, arguably the face of conservatism in Texas, won his race despite a zillion fawning national profiles of an opponent that not only outspent him 2-1, but actually raised more money for a Senate race than any candidate in the history of the United States. All that, and Cruz still won.
Every statewide Republican, both executive and judicial, won their races.
Despite long being a target in a swing seat, Congressmen Will Hurd won reelection.
Republicans still hold majorities in the their U.S. congressional delegation, the Texas House and the Texas Senate.
By objective standards, this was a good election for Republicans. But by subjective standards, this was a serious warning shot across the bow of the party. After years of false starts and dead ends, Democrats finally succeeded in turning Texas slightly purple.
Next let’s list the objectively bad news:
Ted Cruz defeated Beto O’Rourke by less than three points, the worst showing of any topline Republican candidate since Republican Clayton Williams lost the Governor’s race to Democratic incumbent Ann Richards in 1990, and the worst senate result for a Texas Republican since Democratic incumbent Lloyd Bentsen beat Republican challenger Beau Boulter in 1988.
O’Rourke’s 4,024,777 votes was not only more than Hillary Clinton received in Texas in 2016, but was more than any Democrat has ever received in any statewide Texas race, ever. That’s also more than any Texas statewide candidate has received in a midterm election ever until this year. It’s also almost 2.5 times what 2014 Democratic senatorial candidate David Alameel picked up in 2014.
The O’Rourke campaign managed to crack long-held Republican strongholds in Tarrant (Ft. Worth), Williamson, and Hays counties, which had real down-ballot effects, and continue their recent success in Ft. Bend (Sugar Land) and Jefferson (Beaumont) counties.
Two Republican congressmen, Pete Sessions and John Culberson, lost to Democratic challengers. Part of that can be put down to sleepwalking incumbents toward the end of a redistricting cycle, but part is due to Betomania having raised the floor for Democrats across the state.
Two Republican incumbent state senators, Konni Burton of District 10 and Don Huffines of District 16, lost to Democratic challengers. Both were solid conservatives, and losing them is going to hurt.
Democrats picked up 12 seats in the Texas house, including two in Williamson County: John Bucy III beating Tony Dale (my representative) in a rematch of 2016’s race in House District 136, and James Talarico beating Cynthia Flores for Texas House District 52, the one being vacated by the retiring Larry Gonzalez.
Democratic State representative Ron Reynolds was reelected despite being in prison, because Republicans didn’t bother to run someone against him. This suggests the state Republican Party has really fallen down on the job when it comes to recruiting candidates.
In fact, by my count, that was 1 of 32 state house districts where Democrats faced no Republican challenger.
Down-ballot Republican judges were slaughtered in places like Harris and Dallas counties.
All of this happened with both the national and Texas economies humming along at the highest levels in recent memory.
There are multiple reasons for this, some that other commentators covered, and others they haven’t.
For years Republicans have feasted on the incompetence of the Texas Democratic Party and their failure to entice a topline candidate to enter any race since Bob Bullock retired. Instead they’ve run a long string of Victor Moraleses and Tony Sanchezes and seemed content to lose, shrug their shoulders and go “Oh well, it’s Texas!” Even candidates that should have been competative on paper, like Ron Kirk, weren’t. (And even those Democrats who haven’t forgotten about Bob Kreuger, who Ann Richards tapped to replace Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen when the latter resigned to become Bill Clintonâs Treasury Secretary, getting creamed 2-1 by Kay Baily Hutchison in the 1993 special election, would sure like to.) Fortunately for Texas Republicans, none of the non-Beto names bandied about (like the Castro brother) seem capable of putting them over the top (but see the “celebrity” caveat below).
Likewise, Republicans have benefited greatly from a fundraising advantage that comes from their lock on incumbency. Democrats couldn’t raise money because they weren’t competitive, and weren’t competitive in part because they couldn’t raise money. All that money the likes of Battleground Texas threw in may finally be having an effect.
Under the hood, the damage was significant. There are no urban counties left in the state that support Republicans, thanks to OâRourke winning there. The down-ballot situation in neighboring Dallas County was an electoral massacre, as was the situation in Harris County.
“This election was clearly about work and not the wave,” [Democratic donor Amber] Mostyn said. “We have been doing intense work in Harris County for five cycles and you can see the results. Texas is headed in the right direction and Beto outperformed and proved that we are on the right trajectory to flip the state.”
âLast night we saw the culmination of several years of concentrated effort by the left â and the impact of over $100 million spent â in their dream to turn Texas blue again. Thankfully, they failed to win a single statewide elected office,â Texas Republican Party chair James Dickey said in a statement. âWhile we recognize our victories, we know we have much work to do â particularly in the urban and suburban areas of the state.â
The idea that Trump has weakened Republican support in the suburbs seems to have some currency, based on the Sessions and Culberson losses.
That effect is especially magnified in Williamson and Hayes counties, given that they host bedroom communities for the ever-more-liberal Austin.
3. What if Beto had spent his money more wisely? All that money on yard signs and on poorly targeted online ads (Beto spent lots of money on impressions that I saw and it wasn’t all remnant ads) wasn’t cheap. If I recall correctly, Cruz actually spent more on TV in the final weeks, despite Beto raising multiples of Cruz’s money. Odd.
4. Getting crazy amounts of money from people who dislike Ted Cruz was never going to be the hard part. Getting crazy good coverage from the media who all dislike Ted Cruz was never going to be hard part.
Getting those things and then not believing your own hype…well if you are effing Beto O’Rourke, then that is the hard part.
5. Beto is probably the reason that some Dems won their elections. But let’s not forget that this is late in the redistricting cycle where districts are not demographically what they were when they were drawn nearly a decade ago.
For all the fawning profiles of O’Rourke, he was nothing special. He was younger than average, theoretically handsomer than average (not a high bar in American politics), and willing to do the hard work of statewide campaigning. He was not a bonafide superstar, the sort of personality like Jesse Ventura, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Donald Trump that can come in from the outside and completely reorder the political system. If one of those ran as a Democrat statewide in Texas, with the backing and resources O’Rourke had, they probably win.
A lack of Green Party candidates, due to them failing to meet the 5% vote threshold in 2016, may have also had a small positive effect on Democrat vote totals in the .5% to 1% range.
None of the controversies surrounding three statewide Republican candidates (Ken Paxton’s lingering securities indictment, Sid Miller’s BBQ controversy, or George P. Bush’s Alamo controversy) seemed to hurt them much. Paxton’s may have weighed him down the most, since he only won by 3.6%, while George P. Bush won with the second highest margin of victory behind Abbott. Hopefully this doesn’t set up a nightmare O’Rourke vs. Bush Senate race in 2020.
Texas Republicans just went through a near-death experience, but managed to survive. Is this level of voting the new norm for Democrats, or an aberration born of Beto-mania? My guess is probably somewhere in-between. It remains to be seen how it all shakes out during the sound and fury of a Presidential year. And the biggest factor is out of the Texas Republican Party’s control: a cyclical recession is inevitable at some point, the only question is when and how deep.
Dear God, did the Senate Democratsâ strategy on Brett Kavanaugh backfire on them on an epic scale. I do think that before the Kavanaugh fight, the Democrats were on the path to that âBlue Tsunami.â And then they decided that rerunning the Neil Gorsuch fight wasnât going to be enough; they had to fully embrace a bunch of accusations that had no supporting witnesses.
Claire McCaskill, gone. Finally. I laid out her devilish luck in yesterdayâs Jolt; for at least twelve years, Missouri Republicans yearned for a chance to take her on in a relatively normal political environment with a candidate who wasnât a walking Superfund site of toxicity. Lo and behold, with no political wind at her back, no good GOP rivals being knocked out by the political equivalent of anvils falling from buildings or alien abductions, Josh Hawley won . . . by about 144,000 votes. The old âVote liberal for four or five years, veer back to the center in election yearsâ strategy of red-state Democrats finally stopped working.
Taylor Swift could not deliver Tennessee for Phil Bredesen. In retrospect, the hype around the former governor looks like wishful thinking on the part of Democrats. He last won a statewide race in 2006, and as soon as Marsha Blackburn nationalized this race, it was over. Blackburn won by about 245,000 votes last night. You figure that Democrats will have a hard time recruiting a top-tier candidate anytime soon.
Rick Scott won in Florida! Never underestimate this man again. If aliens invade Florida in 2022, Scott will lead the forces of humanity to a narrow upset victory, because thatâs what he does every four years â win something that nobody thinks he has a chance to win, by about one percent. Florida Democrats will console themselves that it was so close, but with the high turnout, four-tenths of a percentage point comes out to . . . about 34,000 votes. After the 2000 presidential election, thatâs a Florida landslide.
As of this writing, Mike Braun is on pace to win Indianaâs Senate by 10 points, or about 189,000 votes. A lot of people are pointing to this result as a polling failure, but remember that because of Indianaâs strict anti-robocall laws, pollsters survey this state less frequently because they have to use live interviewers. The lesson here is, trust your instincts! A GOP candidate in a longtime Republican-leaning state, the home state of the current vice president, up against a Democrat who won with 50 percent in a presidential year and who votes against Kavanaugh a month before Election Day . . . has a really good chance to win and win comfortably.
Face it, weâre not even that upset that Joe Manchin won in West Virginia. His victory offers the lesson that any red-state Democrat could have improved their chances for reelection by voting for Brett Kavanaugh.
We should give Beto OâRourke a bit of credit; coming within three points is better than any Democrat running statewide in Texas since . . . Ann Richards, I think? But thatâs . . . not a victory, which is a fair expectation when you raise $70 million and spend $60 million. And because of the scale of the turnout, those three points amount to 213,750 votes. Turnout was more than 8.3 million votes, and I recall seeing OâRourke fans insisting that if turnout surpassed 8 million votes, then their man was certain to win. Guys, there are a lot of Republicans in Texas.
Bad: Nancy Pelosi as Speaker again. Good: Getting to run against Nancy Pelosi again, since she’s now the highest ranking elected Democrat in the country.
I am happy to see the admirable Senator Ted Cruz reelected in Texas, where you can almost buy a Senate race but not quite. I like Senator Cruz a great deal (and I like him even more when heâs not campaigning) but Iâd have enjoyed watching a reasonably well-qualified ham sandwich defeat Robert Francis OâRourke, one of the most insipid and puffed-up figures on the American political scene.
Snip.
The Democrats have gone well and truly âround the bend. I spent a fair part of last night with Democrats in Portland, Ore. â admittedly, a pretty special bunch of Democrats, Portland being Portland and all. The professional political operators are what they always are â by turns cynical and sanctimonious â but the rank and file seem to actually believe the horsepucky theyâve been fed, i.e., that these United States are about two tweets away from cattle cars and concentration camps. The level of paranoia among the people I spoke to was remarkable.
Overall, Republicans had a tough night Tuesday. When all is said and done, Democrats look to have gained around 35 seats in the House, seven governorships and over 330 state legislators. Yet as rough as it was, it could have been much worse for Republicans. In Barack Obamaâs first mid-term in 2010, Republicans picked up 63 House seats and 700 state legislative seats — numbers that were not out of the question for Democrats for a large portion of this cycle. In the Senate, Republicans actually expanded their majority — as it appears they will pick up 3 seats — whereas Democrats lost 6 seats in the 2010 midterms.
In many ways, it was a strange election. If you had told me in August that Democrats were going to win more than 30 House seats, I would have bet a large amount of money that the Senate would also be in play. I would have a difficult time accepting that Florida would elect Ron DeSantis governor and (as it now appears) Rick Scott as senator. The notion that Ohioâs Senate race would fall into the mid-single digits, that Mike DeWine would win the Ohio governorâs race handily, or that Michiganâs Senate race would be decided by fewer than seven points all would have seemed ludicrous. Martha McSally keeping Arizona close (and possibly winning) would not seem possible.
Snip.
1. The GOP got killed in the suburbs. We can place Republican losses into three broad buckets: âperennial swing seatsâ (Coloradoâs 6th, Arizonaâs 2nd), âsleeping/problematic candidatesâ (Oklahomaâs 5th, South Carolinaâs 1st), and suburban districts. This last category is by far the broadest, and it accounts for around two-thirds of the Republicansâ losses. This is a significant long-term problem for the party if it continues.
2. This probably doesnât count as a wave. If you look at the Index I referenced on Monday, our preliminary results suggest that things have moved about 23 points toward Democrats. Thatâs a substantial shift, but it falls short of even âsemi-wave electionsâ such as 2014 (a shift of 26 points toward Republicans) and 2006 (a movement of 30 points toward Democrats). Obviously, as results trickle in this might shift further, but probably not by much.
2. Money. One of the ways to resolve the tension between what we saw in the House versus the Senate (and to a lesser extent, governorships) is that Democrats had a massive fundraising advantage in the lower chamber. This allowed them to catch a number of incumbent Republicans napping, and to spread the playing field out such that the GOP just had too many brush fires to put out. Oklahomaâs 5th Congressional District, for example, flipped in part because Michael Bloombergâs team spent $400,000 on the air in the final week of the election. To the extent we wish to deduce anything about 2020 from these midterms, we should bear in mind that the next election will probably be fought on a more even financial playing field.
Snip.
This all takes place against the backdrop of a booming economy. Finally, it is important to note that Republicans should not have found themselves in this position amid a vibrant economy. It is quite unusual to have a result this bad in a time of peace and prosperity. Some of this is the suburban realignment, but some is driven by Donald Trumpâs more extreme actions, which alienate suburban moderates.
On the other hand, if Trump can smooth out the rougher edges that turn suburbanites off, he could prove to be a formidable candidate in 2020. Most of his states from 2016 continued to support Republicans this cycle. But, on the other hand, he hasnât shown much interest in smoothing out those edges. And if the economy slides into recession, all bets are off.
While Tuesday night was not a complete win for Republicans, there was no blue wave, either. By most measures, Republicans beat the odds of history and nearly everyoneâs expectations, while Democrats were left disappointed as the fantasy of Beto OâRourke, Andrew Gillum, Stacey Abrams and others winning fizzled. Not one new progressive Democrat was successful bursting onto the scene. It will take a few days to process the meaning of this yearâs election returns, but the instant analysis is clear: Democrats may have won the House, but Trump won the election.
Letâs look at what wonât be happening, despite the fever dreams of the Democrats. First, there will be no big ticket legislative packages going through. No major immigration reform supporting the highest priorities of either party. No new tax cuts, but also no tax increases. No new gun control legislation. The fact is, these folks will be lucky if they can name a new Post Office.
The President isnât going to be impeached. The Democrats would need to round up every one of their members in the House to get the ball rolling and too many of them are on record saying that would be too extreme. And even if they managed it in the House there is zero chance of a conviction in the Senate. Donald Trump will finish his first term at a minimum.
The wall isnât going to be finished. Thatâs somehow become a badge of honor among Democrats, despite being one of the most doable solutions to immigration problems imaginable. If weâre going to get any money at all for additional wall construction, the new House majority will want a massive pound of flesh in return.
Kurt Schlicter: “Look For Democrats To Blow Their Meager Success By Being Jerks”:
No, they want all #resistance, all of the time, and they are going to do everything they can to appease their looney base by launching investigations and screaming and yelling. That’s not going to help the newbies keep those new House seats in 2020. Itâs going to be especially funny when all these rookies who promised the suckers back home they would never vote for that San Francisco liberal monster get strong-armed into casting their very first vote for Mistress Nancy.
And if they decide to obstruct and agitate, then Trump can be in opposition to them and run against the do-nothing House in 2020. Nobody is better than Trump when he has an enemy. Iâm kind of hoping the Democrats choose the path of jerkiness just for the nicknames heâll bestow in his tweets.
Oh, and please, impeach him over Russia Treason Traitor stuff. Please. Toss the Trump in that briar patch and heâll be president forever.
The national media portrayed Trump as a weight on Republicans. In fact, he was their source of energy. Had the Florida GOP been ambivalent about Trump and kept him out of the state, Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott would have lost. Journalists mocked DeSantis for âtying himself to Trump,â but they now fall silent as it becomes clear that that was perhaps his only winning strategy.
The press propagandized relentlessly for Gillum, who was flush with money from George Soros and Tom Steyer, while kneecapping the scrappier DeSantis over minor lapses, and Gillum still couldnât win. Notice also the mediaâs silence about Obama. Yet again the darling of journalists shows himself to be a crappy campaigner for others. In his narcissistic shade nothing grows.
The mediaâs excited talk of a âblue waveâ in Florida never struck me as very convincing as I walked around various cities in Florida. The mediaâs giddy keenness for Gillum was never reflected in any of the conversations I ever heard. In mid-October, I walked around the Volusia County mall in a MAGA hat as an experiment to test the mediaâs claims of a spreading anti-Trump backlash. Nobody seemed to care in the slightest. In fact, a self-described independent who said that he âhad voted for Jimmy Carterâ made a point of walking over to me as I sat in the mallâs food court to express his support for Trumpâs policies. âI didnât vote for him,â he said, âbut he is delivering results.â
Dems are currently up 30 seats in the House, which puts them up to 225.
Republicans are on-track to pickup five senate seats, including Arizona and Montana, but Republican Dean Heller lost in Nevada. (Update: Democrat Jon Tester back in the Montana Senate race lead narrowly.)
Democrats pick up 27 House seats (with some races still outstanding), enough to take control of the chamber and put Nancy Pelosi back in the speaker’s chair.
Democrats picked up seven Governor’s mansions, including booting Scott Walker in Wisconsin.
No blue wave. A bit of a blue ripple, but Democrats underperformed midterm averages, as the party in the White House usually loses senate seats.
Republicans both taking a senate seat and holding the governor’s mansion in Florida without recounts in such a mixed midterm is a big of a surprise.
So every Dem Senator in a competitive race who voted against Kavanaugh lost (Donnelly, Heitkamp, McCaskill, and almost certainly Nelson), and the one who voted for Kavanaugh survived (Manchin). Coincidence?
Pretty soon we won’t have Robert “Bobby” Francis O’Rourke (AKA “Beto”) to kick around anymore, so let’s do a roundup of all his campaign’s most recent missteps, shall we?
First up, front and center, are the Project Veritas sting videos that have O’Rourke staffers on camera admitting they’re diverting campaign funds to transport illegal alien caravan members to the United States:
I believe the technical term for that is “campaign finance fraud.” Unless you prefer the term “embezzlement.”
(Also, is it just me, or is there a distinct like of activity in those shots from O’Rourke field headquarters. No phone-calling, no envelope-stuffing, just…kicking back and hanging out. Evidently having more money than any senate candidate ever doesn’t buy you motivated staffers…)
Then there’s that New York Times piece that, instead of the now-standard hagiography, actually reported on how O’Rourke got to where he is today: wealthy and powerful relatives, and a healthy dose of political self-dealing:
At a special City Council meeting in 2006, a billionaire real estate investor unveiled his vision for redeveloping downtown El Paso. To replace tenements and boarded-up buildings, he proposed restaurants, shops and an arts walk rivaling San Antonioâs River Walk.
Representative Beto OâRourke, one of hundreds attending, wasnât exactly a disinterested party.
Not only had he married the investorâs daughter, but as a member of City Council, he represented the targeted area, including a historic Mexican-American neighborhood.
Calling downtown âone piece of El Paso that was missing on the road back to greatness,â Mr. OâRourke, now a congressman and the Democratic candidate for Senate in Texas, voted to take the first step forward with the plan.
Over the next two years, Mr. OâRourke would defend the plan before angry barrio residents and vote to advance it. At other times, he would abstain. Business owners who opposed the plan accused Mr. OâRourke of a conflict, citing the involvement of his father-in-law, the billionaire developer William D. Sanders.
Snip.
Mr. OâRourke was perceived by many as siding with the moneyed elite against angry barrio residents, small business owners and even the Jesuit priests who ministered to the immigrant community at Sacred Heart Church.
âMr. OâRourke was basically the pretty face of this very ugly plan against our most vulnerable neighborhoods,â said David Dorado Romo, a local historian who added that the episode had resurrected longstanding race and class divisions in the city.
Barrio residents feared that they would lose their homes through eminent domain, and a city-funded branding study suggested that the residents of El Paso were perceived as âdirtyâ and âlazy.ââ Among some constituents, the hurt feelings have lingered.
Naturally there was great shock among OâRourke fans that NYT would dare do actual reporting on a Democrat a week before the election. As Brandon Morse notes: “This deal OâRourke was a part of has all the hallmarks leftists hate. Hereâs a rich white guy screwing over poor minorities in order to further enrich himself and his family. Yet, for the longest time, you couldnât get a peep out of mainstream press outlets.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Finally, there’s a new Emereson College poll that purportedly shows Sen. Ted Cruz up by only three points. By now you should know the reply every poll result brings up: show me the crosstabs. They oversampled Democrats and women. As usual.
Thanks to his fundraising, I expect O’Rourke to lose by less than the 16% Cruz beat Democrat Paul Sadler by in 2012, much less the 20 points Greg Abbott walloped Wendy Davis by in 2014.
I already voted and the election is next week, so there is light at the end of the tunnel! And if political bloggers are already sick of this election season, just think how sick of it ordinary voters are. None of which will keep me from live-blogging/live-tweeting it election night…
Six weeks ago, Democrats were expecting a blue wave to rival the Republican victory of 2010, when the GOP picked up 63 House seats. Everything was in their favor. Historyâthe party in power almost always loses seats. MoneyâDemocrats continue to outraise Republicans by staggering amounts. The oppositionâsome 41 GOP House members retired, most from vulnerable districts where Donald Trumpâs favorability is low. Democrats were even positioned to take over the Senate, despite defending 10 Trump-state seats.
Democrats obliterated their own breaker in the space of two weeks with the ambush of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The left, its protesters and its media allies demonstrated some of the vilest political tactics ever seen in Washington, with no regard for who or what they damaged or destroyed along the wayâChristine Blasey Ford, committee rules, civility, Justice Kavanaugh himself, the Constitution. An uncharacteristically disgusted Sen. Lindsey Graham railed: âBoy, yâall want power. God, I hope you never get it!â
A lot of voters suddenly agreed with that sentiment. The enormous enthusiasm gap closed almost overnight as conservative voters rallied to #JobsNotMobs. Even liberal prognosticators today forecast that Republicans will keep the Senate and Democrats will manage only a narrow majority in the House, if that. Itâs always possible the polls are off, or that there is a last-minute bombshell. But it remains the case that the ascendant progressive movement blew an easy victory for Democrats.
Antisemetic hate crimes in New York are on the rise, yet “during the past 22 months, not one person caught or identified as the aggressor in an anti-Semitic hate crime has been associated with a far right-wing group.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Over 270 individuals along the caravan route have criminal histories, including known gang membership. Those include a number of violent criminals â examples include aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, sexual assault on a child, and assault on a female. Mexican officials have also publicly stated that criminal groups have infiltrated the caravan. We also continue to see individuals from over 20 countries in this flow from countries such as Somalia, India, Haiti, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.
Giant Russian floating dry dock isn’t. It may or may not have damaged Amiral Kuznetsov, Russia’s only aircraft carrier (antiquated though it is) when it went down. Now the Russian Navy is in a world of hurt in the north because no other dry dock north of the Black Sea is capable of hosting either the Kuznetsov or many of Russia’s largest submarines. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
More reminders of just what sort of Administration Lightbringer McLegTingle ran:
CIA conducted "routine counterintelligence monitoring" of US Congressional communications, 2014. pic.twitter.com/gJm77JT3Ml
Aww, no one wants to campaign with Bill Clinton anymore. “‘Inability to reckon with his sexual indiscretions’? Does the NYT use the phrase ‘sexual indiscretions’ when writing about other celebrities who’ve been accused of rape and sexual harassment?”
Workers walk out of Google in protest of their protecting sexual harassment among executives:
Perhaps no company deserves to be destroyed by feminists, but if any company does, none deserves it more than Google. Having built the worldâs most powerful search engine, the company then developed or purchased a series of other innovations â Gmail, YouTube, etc. After obtaining a hegemonic position in the online world, however, Google then inexplicably sold its corporate soul to âsocial justiceâ ideologues.
The extent to which Google has been captured by left-wing totalitarians, and become an active agent of intellectual repression, became apparent last year after the company fired James Damore for writing an internal memo that criticized their âdiversityâ policies. Damore sued his former emoployer (âGoogle Lawsuit Exposes Stalinist Climate Protecting Anti-White, Anti-Male Bias,â Jan. 10) and Google was also subsequently sued by a former member of its âtechnology staffing management teamâ who said the company implemented illegal hiring quotas. Only female, black or Latino candidates were eligible for hiring at Google, the lawsuit by Arne Wilberg alleges, and recruiters were ordered to âpurge entirely any applications by non-diverse employees.â
Texts from the Nevada Democratic Party: “FâK Trump. Stupid Republican retard. Trump is the anti-christ. Trump loves misery and hates Mexicans. Trump wants you to die. Trump wants to murder Mexicans.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Step into the wayback machine for this one, as some of the stops go back decades.
First read this piece from Jim Schutze from way back in 2002 about how then-Democratic State Rep. Terri Hodge would bring in mysterious courier bundles of absentee ballots on primary day while her assistant was awaiting trial for absentee ballot fraud.
Now move forward to 2010 and this release from the U.S. Attorney General’s office from the FBI archives:
DALLASâGladys E. Hodge, also known as âTerri Hodge,â who was to go on trial early next month on charges outlined in a 31-count indictment charging 14 public officials and their associates with various offenses related to a bribery and extortion scheme involving affordable housing developments in the Dallas area, has pleaded guilty, announced U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks of the Northern District of Texas. As a condition of her plea with the government, Hodge, who was elected to the Texas House of Representatives, District 100, in 1996, and re-elected to the same position in 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008, has agreed to resign her office and never seek or hold future public office.
Hodge entered her guilty plea this morning, before U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn, to fraud and false statements on an income tax return. She faces a maximum statutory sentence of three years in prison, a $100,000 fine, and restitution to the IRS.
Now fast forward to 2017. Who do you think Dallas Democrats have running a session called “Building Better Vote-by-Mail Results?” That’s right: Convicted felon Terri Hodge.
Dallas Republicans are once again battling local Democrats to stop voter fraud. They were in court today seeking a temporary restraining order against Dallas Countyâs Democrat elections administrator Toni Pippins-Poole to delay opening of suspicious mail ballots, which was scheduled to begin at 7:00 a.m.
Lawyers for the Dallas County Republican Party asked a judge to sequester about 2,400 mail ballots submitted for the November election that GOP ballot board members identified as questionable. They also flagged 20 mail ballots signed by disgraced ex-state representative Terri Hodge as an âassistant.â
Hodge, a Democrat, pleaded guilty in 2010 to felony tax evasion in a Dallas bribery scandal and spent a year in prison. Hodge is prohibited from running for public office but continues to assist mail-ballot voters.
A Democratic judge is hearing the case.
For Dallas Democrats, not only is a felony conviction not enough to dissuade them from hiring someone to commit the same type of voting fraud they’ve been carrying out for over two decades, they actually hired the convicted felon to teach other activists her methods.
That’s why it’s so important to get out and vote. You not only have to win, you have to win beyond the margin of Democrat fraud…
Greetings from Austin in October! The skies have finally cleared to deliver some beautiful autumn weather, but we’re still required to boil our water due contamination from the massive rains.
A former Democratic Party official is accused of funding an organized voter fraud ring busted earlier this month that targeted elderly and incapacitated voters in north Fort Worth.
In court documents filed Tuesday, state prosecutors allege former Tarrant County Democratic Party executive director Stuart Clegg funneled money to Leticia Sanchez, one of four paid campaign workers arrested and charged with submitting false and forged mail-ballot requests in an organized criminal voter fraud scheme.
The documents say Sanchez, her co-defendants, Clegg, and others collaborated to cast mail-in votes for down-ballot candidates in the 2016 Democratic primary âwithout the voterâs knowledge or consent.â The state claims Sanchez used funds from Clegg, now a campaign consultant, to pay her three co-defendants and others for their part in the illegal mail-ballot harvesting scheme.
Sanchez, her daughter, and two other women are charged with a total of 29 felony voter fraud counts. Sanchezâs charges include one count of illegal voting and 16 counts of providing false information on a ballot application. The court notice filed Tuesday implicates Sanchez in hundreds more crimes for which she hasnât yet been charged.
Strong Border Security positions help in November — While Hurd is a sometimes squish, Flores isn’t. That this is happening at the same time as Trump is doing what he’s doing (and the legislature is, however reluctantly, doing what they’re doing) tells you everything you need to know. If the GOP’s immigration position were “toxic,’ they wouldn’t be winning in Southwest Texas.
The Democrats are simply too liberal (esp. on Guns and Babies) — We’ve made this observation before, but it remains true.
The Failure to address Carlos Uresti has cost Democrats DEARLY — Another observation we’ve made previously. But all they had to do was do the right thing when either the financial or the sexual stuff came out. But they didn’t….
Southwest Texas REALLY isn’t into Bobby Francis — These are the same counties that he lost in his primary disaster.
Think about it. Youâve got Hollywood, the media, the Tech giants and big education behind you. Youâve got tends of millions of dollars being spent in races all over the country and you and yours. youâve got every possible advantage going your way. Add to that you and your allies are completely energized and engaged, literally counting the days until the election so you can defeat Donald TrumpâŠ
âŠand you STILL lose.
How will they deal with the realization that their anger, rage and panic over Donald Trump is not shared by the voting public?
“Americans’ support for a ban on semi-automatic guns in the U.S. has dropped eight percentage points from a year ago,” now opposed 57% against to 40% in favor. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Google could have fired Mr. Rubin and paid him little to nothing on the way out. Instead, the company handed him a $90 million exit package, paid in installments of about $2 million a month for four years, said two people with knowledge of the terms. The last payment is scheduled for next month.
Also this bit of enlightened thinking:
In a civil suit filed this month by Mr. Rubinâs ex-wife, Rie Rubin, she claimed he had multiple âownership relationshipsâ with other women during their marriage, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to them. The couple were divorced in August.
The suit included a screenshot of an August 2015 email Mr. Rubin sent to one woman. âYou will be happy being taken care of,â he wrote. âBeing owned is kinda like you are my property, and I can loan you to other people.â
Our “moral superiors” sure seem to have a fetish for slavery…
Want to read something super, mega depressing? Here’s the New York times on the Walmart of heroin in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Kensington.
n the summer of 2017, when I first toured the area with Patrick Trainor, a special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration, he called Kensington the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast. Itâs known for having both the cheapest and purest heroin in the region and is a major supplier for dealers in Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland. For years, the heroin being sold in Kensington was pure enough to snort, but that summer, it was mixed with unpredictable amounts of fentanyl. In Philadelphia, deaths related to fentanyl had increased by 95 percent in the past year.
Philadelphia County has the highest overdose rate of any of the 10 most populous counties in America. The cityâs Department of Health estimates that 75,000 residents are addicted to heroin and other opioids, and each day, many of them commute to Kensington to buy drugs. The neighborhood is part of the largest cluster of overdose deaths in the city. In 2017, 236 people fatally overdosed there.
Snip.
In the early 2000s, Dominican gangs started bringing in Colombian heroin that was not only purer but much cheaper than heroin imported from Asia, which historically predominated. Kensingtonâs decentralized market kept competition high and prices low. Most corners were run by small, unaffiliated groups of dealers, making the area difficult to police; if a dealer was arrested, there was always someone there to replace him. The Philadelphia prison system has become the largest provider of drug treatment in the city. The police have realized that they canât arrest the problem away, and they spend many of their calls reviving drug addicts with Narcan, an overdose-reversal spray. The D.E.A. focused on the high-level drug traffickers, not the guys working the streets, but the arrests did little to curb the growing demand.
âThey call this the Badlands,â Elvis Campos, 47, said about Kensington. âGood people are held hostage in their homes.â Campos, who moved to the neighborhood 22 years ago, lives on a small, crumbling block next to a demolished crack house. âI didnât know about the drugs when I came,â he said. âI found the house, and it was cheap.â No one on his block used or sold drugs, he said, and his neighbors worked hard to keep it clean. But dealers were always around their homes trying to sell. âI tell them to leave,â Campos said. âI served in Iraq, and I think thatâs why Iâm good at telling drug dealers to get off the block.â
Like Campos, many residents had come to Kensington simply because they couldnât afford housing anywhere else, and though many expressed empathy for the users, they also wanted them to leave. People cleared needles off their lawns, their front steps and the sidewalks where their children played. Some wouldnât go anywhere unless they were in a car, but a lot of families were too poor to afford a car. They organized cleanups, lobbied City Council members and state representatives and asked for help from church groups, but the problem seemed insurmountable. The drug market, institutional racism, joblessness and the ravages of the war on drugs in the â80s left the community struggling. âYou see everything here,â one female resident told me. âOverdoses, shootings, killings. We are exposed to trauma every day just living here. Itâs constant.â
Were the “explosive devices” sent to several Democrats fakes? They may or may not have been hoaxes or false flags, but they are at the least very suspicious. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“‘Segway Jeremy’ â a central character in the 2011 Wisconsin protests â has been arrested for trying to buy a lethal dose of radioactive material.” He’s a far left anti-police loon who ran against Paul Ryan in the 2014 Republican primary on a legalize weed platform. Via Badger Pundit, this is what he looked like back in 2011:
And here’s his booking mugshot:
If you’re trying to make the case that marijuana is a safe recreational drug, you’re not helping…
Effective weapons for your planned high school murder spree: Guns, bombs. Ineffective weapons: pizza cutters. Do I even need to name the state? Bonus: Preteen girls who claim to be Satan worshipers. (Hat tip: Daddy Warpig on Twitter.)
A review of the presidential votes cast in Texas in 2008, 2012, and 2016 by the data analysis firm Votistics found a disturbing number of duplicate registrations and multiple votes. This means that inaccurate voter rolls are not harmless, forgivable mistakes.
According to Votistics, data provided by the Texas secretary of state indicate that 104,800 people appear to be registered more than once. That is, the list contains thousands of name/date of birth pairs. Of course, some cases could reflect unusual coincidences. But most are the same person. The State of Texas and county registrars have the information necessary to confirm duplicate registrations and remove the extra ones.
Votistics found that 2,159 of these “voting pairs” appeared to have cast ballots in the same election. The firm found another 272 cases of registrants who lacked fully matching middle names but also apparently voted more than once, as confirmed by data matching at various commercial sites that track personal information. While Votistics had no detailed information on these ballots, at least some of them were cast erroneously or fraudulently.
Moreover, 45,854 registrants appeared to have voted more than once in at least one general election according to the records provided by the Texas State Board of Elections.
Texas also has a problem of the dead, or presumed dead, voting. For instance, Votistics discovered that more than 3,000 of those who cast ballots apparently were older than the world’s oldest known person. Remarkable!
In 2016 alone, nearly 800 people above the age of 100 appear to have voted, most of them in person. Either the location of the Fountain of Youth is a few hundred miles off, or there’s a lot of voter impersonation going on. Regardless of whether these ballots were fraudulent, the secretary of state should lead a determined effort to fix election rolls across the state.
The problems are systemic. The American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) has been reviewing the role of inaccurate registration lists across the country. In Texas, 39 counties have more people registered than the number eligible to vote. One of the worst offenders is Starr County, with roughly 16 percent more registrants than qualified residents.
In 2014, the ACRU secured a consent decree with Terrell County, Texas requiring officials to clean up their voter rolls by eliminating outdated and duplicate names. As a result, the analysis by Votistics showed the number of “surplus” registrants down markedly.
Members of an organized voter fraud ring have been arrested and indicted on charges they targeted and, in one case stole, the votes of elderly voters on Fort Worthâs north side.
Four people were arrested â Leticia Sanchez, Leticia Sanchez Tepichin, Maria Solis and Laura Parra â after being indicted on 30 felony counts of voter fraud, according to a statement from the Texas Attorney Generalâs Office.
These people allegedly were paid to target older voters on the north side âin a scheme to generate a large number of mail ballots and then harvest those ballots for specific candidates in 2016,â the statement read.
âBallots by mail are intended to make it easier for Texas seniors to vote,â Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. âMy office is committed to ensuring that paid vote harvesters who fraudulently generate mail ballots, stealing votes from seniors, are held accountable for their despicable actions and for the damage they inflict on the electoral process.â
Vote harvesting typically happens in two stages. Thereâs seeding and then harvesting.
The AGâs office explains that applications for mail-in ballots are first sent to âtargeted precincts.â Then, âharvesters attempt either to intercept the ballots outright or to âassistâ elderly voters in voting their ballots while ensuring that the votes are cast for the candidates of the harvestersâ choice.â
Let’s take a closer look at the accused fraud ring, shall we?
Leticia Sanchez, 57, of Haltom City, faces 17 counts. She is accused of marking a voterâs ballot without his consent in March 2016, and altering and submitting applications in January and February 2016 to request ballots by mail for the Democratic Party for 2016 elections for 13 people who had made no such requests. She is also accused of providing forged signatures for three people on applications. Sanchez remained in the Tarrant County Jail at noon Friday with bail set at $1,500.
Laura Parra, 24, of Fort Worth, faces one count. Parra is accused of providing a forged signature in January 2016 on an application for an early voting ballot. She was released from jail Thursday on a $1,500 bond.
Leticia Sanchez Tepichin, 39, of Haltom City, faces nine counts. Tepichin is accused of providing forged signatures on two applications for early voting ballots in January and February 2016. She is also accused in seven of the counts of soliciting, encouraging, directing, aiding, or attempting to aid others in altering and submitting false information on early voting ballot applications. The false information was submitted, according to the indictment, to request ballots by mail for the Democratic Party for 2016 elections by people who had made no such request. She was being held in the Tarrant County Jail Friday at noon with bail set at $1,500.
Maria Rosa Solis, 40, of Haltom City , faces two counts. Solis is accused of providing forged signatures in January 2016 on two applications for early voting ballots. She was released from jail on Friday on a $1,500 bond.
Itâs a Class B misdemeanor under the Texas Election Code to make a false statement, or attempt to induce another person to make a false statement, on a voter registration application.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation, a non-profit law firm dedicated to election integrity, sent the alert to district attorneys in Hidalgo and Starr counties, Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.
PILF explained that because it represents a sworn statementâand is the only verification of an applicantâs citizenship status required to registerââthe voter must answer the important citizenship question on their own.â
Itâs a state and federal crime for non-citizens to register to vote or cast ballots, and illegal registration or voting can prevent legal residents from becoming citizens.
The mailers were marked âURGENT!â and read, âYour voter registration application is inside. Complete, sign and return it today!â The TDP further urged recipientsâwhich included already-registered voters, ineligible non-citizens, and deceased individualsââMail IMMEDIATELY to be registered to vote in the November 2018 Election!â
For the second time in two weeks, a South Texas woman has been arrested and charged with multiple counts of voter fraud.
Modesta Vela of Roma was arrested October 4 on four voter fraud charges relating to mail-in ballots. Vela is accused of approaching an elderly voter, taking the voterâs mail-in ballot for the November 2018 election, then filling it out herself and mailing it.
District Attorney Omar Escobar said his office began investigating Vela last month after the Starr County Elections Department notified him of the allegations. Vela was charged with felony counts of illegal voting, knowingly possessing a ballot or ballot envelope of another person with the intent to defraud, and election fraud, as well as a misdemeanor count of unlawful assistance of a voter.
Vela was arrested again Friday on four new voter fraud charges of tampering with a government record, namely voter registration applications. Starr County Special Crimes Unit made the arrest.
Snip.
Escobar said the AGâs office is advising local authorities on what evidence to collect in Velaâs case. Vela, a former Starr County Precinct 2 employee who was fired earlier this year, assisted over 200 mail ballot voters in Starr Countyâs March 2018 Democratic primary. She was also arrested in 2010 on a voter fraud charge involving improper mail ballot assistance during that yearâs Democratic primary.
I know you’ll all be shocked at this revelation of the accused malefactor’s party.
But despite these setbacks, Democrats press on, trying to register one of their most reliable voting blocs: the dead. Including one woman who has been dead 29 years…
