I hope you appreciate my extreme laziness restraint in not putting a 2020 Presidential Race Roundup up until now.
Here’s the list of Democrats widely contemplated as be willing to climb into the clown car. I’ve divided them into two categories: Shiny Things and Old Warhorses.
Shiny Things
Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Doubtful. Says she’s open to the idea but hasn’t made any moves to run. Hard to see national donors backing her over Kamala Harris’ more obviously viable campaign.
Creepy Porn lawyer Michael Avenatti: Out, much to the disappointment of conservative pundits nationwide.
South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: Acting like he’s running, despite no one knowing who he is. As a 36-year old gay white man, he only checks off one box in the Social Justice Warrior sweepstakes. He has twice Andrew Yang’s chance at being elected (2 x 0 = ___).
Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: Probably running. Evidently he didn’t want to let Beto O’Rourke take the “can’t win statewide in Texas so might as well run nationally” sweepstakes by default. Has the advantage (unlike O’Rourke) of being an actual Hispanic, but hasn’t made much of a national impression (or even a statewide impression).
Maryland Representative John K. Delany: Definitely in. AKA “Who?” Announced in 2017. He’s competing for the same “rich old white guy with the blue collar Catholic background” niche as Joe Biden, assuming that niche even exists for Democrats in 2020. You may think the guy has zero traction, but he’s already raised nearly $5 million.
Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: Running. As hard-left as Kamala Harris, except younger and prettier (not that any Democratic activist would admit that, even with a gun to their head). Doesn’t have Harris’ fundraising base or national media following. Sanders supporter in 2016, and she could be poised to pick up some Bernie Brigades if Sanders opts out.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti: Leaning toward a run. Hard to see where he finds running room, with Kamala Harris sucking up all the California money. Thomas Bradley is the standard for Los Angeles mayors running for higher office: A series of stinging defeats. But Democrats could do worse, and almost certainly will.
Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Probably not. Beto O’Rourke raised a zillion dollars to overperform and still lose in 2018, while Gillum raised far more modest sums to underperform to lose a winnable race.
California Senator Kamala Harris: Almost certainly in: Hasn’t announced yet, but is acting like a candidate and raising money. The Social Justice Warrior and New York Times (but I repeat myself) favorite.
Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: Probably In. Hasn’t announced, but Ann Althouse thinks he’s running based on this video, and I don’t see any reason for him not to run, with high favorables, strong polling and having just received a zillion fawning national media profiles. The rules used to be that you couldn’t run for President if you lost your last race. But Hillary Clinton ignored that and won the nomination, and Richard Nixon won the presidency despite two high profile losses (the 1960 Presidential race and the 1962 California Governor’s race). And all sorts rules got thrown out with Trump’s election.
Incoming New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez: Constitutionally ineligible to run, as she won’t turn 35 until October 13, 2024. Duh. Listed only for the sake of completeness.
Ohio Democratic Representative Tim Ryan: Probably running. Seen most recently getting pantsed by Nancy Pelosi. Basically Beto without the fake Hispanic name, the senate run, the huge fundraising, or the fawning media coverage. So not like Beto at all…
California Representative Eric Swalwell: Probably running. Why is anybody’s guess. Joking about nuking gun owners may attract media attention, but voting for an unknown white guy with 1980s hair doesn’t seem to be on the Democratic Party activist agenda these days.
Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: Running but no one cares. He’s only a multimillionaire, which won’t get it done as an unknown outsider.
Wildcard Random Celebrity: You know some Democratic consultants must be looking high and low for “the Democratic Donald Trump,” the celebrity outsider that comes in and takes a crowded field by storm. Who has the gravitas to pull it off? George Clooney or Brad Pitt, maybe. Other A-listers I can think of have too much baggage (Robert Downey Jr.’s drug convictions, Tom Cruise’s Scientology, Ben Affleck/Matt Damon backing #MeToo targets, etc.) to be serious contenders. Dwayne Johnson says he’s not running (and might be a Republican).
Wildcard Random Billionaire: No idea who that would be, except it’s not going be to Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates. (Have you seen those guys speak?) Tom Steyer, maybe. Given the effectiveness his financial backing has had thus far, he could top the John Connelly in 1980 campaign for most money spent for fewest delegates garnered record.
Old Warhorses
Some are old, and some are very old.
Former Vice President Joe Biden: Waffling. Biden has to think he could have taken Trump if he hadn’t left the field to Hillary. He seems to be laying the groundwork for a run. If elected, Biden would be 78 at his swearing-in ceremony.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Maybe. Says he’ll decide in the next couple of months. Can self-fund, but it’s hard to see how a guy less popular than Rudy Guilianni could do what he didn’t, and he’s sure to get dinged by Democrats for having been elected mayor as a Republican, no matter how nominal.
Outgoing California Governor Jerry Brown: Maybe. His aura smiles and never frowns. But that speculation is from 2017, and Brown would be 82 come inauguration day. Brown first ran for president in 1976 and ran an effective, underfunded insurgent campaign in 1992.
Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Considering a run. A moderate from a swing state, Brown has the sort of resume Democrats used to consider for President, but these days he’s looking a lot more like the safe Old White Guy VP choice.
Pennsylvania Governor Senator Bob Casey, Jr.: Maybe. Hasn’t said yes or no. I could cut-and-paste most of the Sherrod Brown verbiage here. His primary appeal is geographic (Trump won Pennsylvania), which doesn’t seem to matter much to Democratic primary voters. [Corrected. – LP.]
Former First Lady, New York Senator and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Probably not. She wasn’t even healthy enough to run effectively in 2016, how is she going to take the grind in 2020? So I don’t give much credence to reports she’ll run. Her absence has not made Democratic voting hearts grow fonder. If I had to guess, she’s secretly hoping that Democrats end up with a brokered convention and she emerges as the consensus compromise nominee without having to campaign.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo: Probably not. Says he’s not running. We know Cuomo lies, but his declaration, and the fact that so many Democratic-friendly media outlets that have previously given him a pass for his sleaze would attack him to boost other (likely non-male and non-white) contenders will probably keep him out.
New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio: All but out. Hasn’t announced he’s not running, but he barely even bothers to show up for his current job. Widely loathed with no national base and no notable fundraising prowess. Other than that he’s in good shape…
New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Probably not. Young by warhorse standards, but she’s been a senator since 2009. Says she’s not running, and I don’t see voters crying out to vote for another female senator from New York…
Former Vice President Al Gore: No signs of a run, despite certain Democratic insiders openly pining for him.
Outgoing Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper: Probably in. Might be able to run as the “Pro Pot Candidate.” Unless that will be…
Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. He’s running as the “all in on global warming” president, which I suspect has all the activist cachet of a Presbyterian sermon in a Democratic Party dominated by illegal alien activism and victimhood identity politics.
Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine: Probably not. Veep picks used to be considered contenders, but Kaine didn’t exactly set the world on fire. Said he wasn’t running right after Trump’s surprise victory, and hasn’t said anything to change minds since.
Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry: Considering running. I don’t see him getting much traction, but he’s rich enough (from marrying well) to self-fund. He and Biden would be the only candidates with notable foreign policy experience (disasterous though it was), but when has that mattered in a recent Democratic Presidential primary?
Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: Considering a run. A strong contender to snag some Clinton feminist cadres, having not made the many missteps Elizabeth Warren has, but it’s hard to see her gain much fundraising traction.
Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe: leaning toward it. Personally I expect the public appetite for a figure so closely linked to the Clintons to be extremely limited in 2020, and I don’t see any running room for him if any of the higher profile Old White Guys run.
Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley: Considering a run. In the Senate since 2009. Can you be an old warhorse if no one knows who you are?
Former First Lady Michelle Obama: Out. Both she and her husband say she’s not running. For once we should probably take them at their word…
Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: Out. Says he’s not running, and there’s already enough real and potential Massachusetts candidates in the race.
Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: Probably running. Getting screwed by Hillary and talk of a “socialist wave” in 2018 (deluded though it was) must be steeling his resolve, even though he’s a year older than Joe Biden.
Talk show host Oprah Winfrey: Probably not running. She says she’s not: “In that political structure — all the non-truths, the bullsh*t, the crap, the nastiness, the backhanded backroom stuff that goes on — I feel like I could not exist. I would not be able to do it. It’s not a clean business. It would kill me.” Translation: I’m just too pure for your rough and tumble politics.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. She’s announced she’s running. After years of self-inflicted wounds, I expect her to lose badly.
EU: “Bad Hungary! We are going to sanction you for thought crimes against the European elite!” Poland: “Hey EU! Get stuffed!” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Bureaucrats try to strip the title of heroes from the defenders of the Alamo, and the elected state board of education stops them cold. (By the way, I recently watched John Wayne’s version of The Alamo, and it’s a much better film than its reputation.)
And it’s not just missed sleep: Trump Derangement Syndrome made a Democrat attempt to get all stabby on a Republican congressional candidate in California.
R.S. McCain on modern dating: “Guys, when women say they want you to ‘share your feelings’? Don’t believe it. All that stuff you read about how women want men who are ‘sensitive’ and ‘vulnerable’? This is a gigantic load of crap. Don’t fall for it.”
“Author of ‘How to Murder Your Husband’ Charged With Murdering Her Husband.” What are the odds?
“Facebook has banned Brandon Straka, the former Democrat who founded the ‘Walk Away’ campaign and its viral hashtag #WalkAway, after he linked to Infowars.com – which has been banned from the platform.” Evidently even linking or mentioning an official “unperson” can get you banned…
Via Ann Althouse comes this dramatic depiction of just what a 6′ and 9′ storm surge looks like:
“Google Rep Issues Heartfelt Apology For Anti-Conservative Bias While Wearing ‘Kill All Republicans‘ T-Shirt.” “We want Google to be completely free from bias, even against Republicans who need to die violent deaths for disagreeing with us. That’s what inclusivity is all about.”
I saw this over at Say Uncle and I may have to pick some up:
Job interviews and book-related work have taken up the majority of my waking hours this week. Also, The Burning Time has fully arrived here in central Texas. It’s supposed to hit 108° on Monday…
There are plenty of risks with President Donald Trump’s trade strategy in China, but China faces risks of its own:
The smartest short-term decision Beijing can make is simply to absorb the next round of blows and hold its punches. For instance, if Washington moves ahead to impose 25% tariffs on $16 billion of Chinese imports, Beijing would withhold fire, in the hope of enticing Washington into a ceasefire, which in turn could create an opportunity to negotiate a face-saving way to avoid further and much more costly escalations.
The most compelling rationale behind this strategy of quick capitulation is to protect China’s centrality in the global manufacturing supply chain. About 43% of Chinese merchandise trade in 2017 (totaling $4.3 trillion) is, according to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, “processing trade” (which involves importing intermediate goods and assembling the products in China). What China gains from processing trade is the utilization of its low-cost labor force, factories, and some technological spillover. Processing trade generates low value-added and profitability. For example, Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that assembles iPhones in China, had an operating margin of only 5.8% last year.
One of the greatest risks China faces in a prolonged trade war with the U.S. is the loss of its processing trade. Even a modest increase in American tariffs can make it uneconomical to base processing in China. Should the U.S.-China trade war escalate, many foreign companies manufacturing in China would be forced to relocate their supply chains. China could face the loss of millions of jobs, tens of thousands of shuttered factories, and a key driver of growth.
However, capitulating to a “trade bully,” as the Chinese media calls Trump, is hard for Xi, a strongman in his own right. Worse still, it is unclear what Trump wants or how China can appease him. The terms his negotiators presented to Beijing in early May were so harsh that it is inconceivable that Xi could accept them without being seen as selling out China.
Even if the trade war with the U.S. could be de-escalated with Chinese concessions, Beijing faces another painful decision. The trade war in general, and in particular the forced shutdown of the Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE after Washington banned the company from using American-made parts have highlighted China’s strategic vulnerability from its economic interdependence with the U.S. Before the two countries became geopolitical adversaries, economic interdependence was a valuable asset for China. It could take advantage of this relationship to build up its strength while the mutual economic benefits cushioned their geopolitical conflict.
But with the overall U.S.-China relationship turning adversarial, economic interdependence is not only hard to sustain (as shown by the trade war), but also is rapidly becoming a serious strategic liability. As the economically-weaker party, China is particularly affected. In the technological arena, China now finds itself at the mercy of Washington in terms of access to vital parts (such as semiconductors) and critical technologies (operating systems such as Android and Windows). Should the U.S. decide to cut off Chinese access for whatever reason, a wide swathe of Chinese economy could face disruption.
China’s somewhat vulnerable on semiconductors, but it’s severely vulnerable on semiconductor equipment.
Democratic U.S. House candidate and socialist darling Alexandria Ocasio Cortez: “We need to occupy every airport.” Yeah. I can’t possibly see that backfiring. Sayeth Powerline’s John Hindraker:
Yes, please! Please go straight to LaGuardia and shut it down. But don’t stop there! “Every airport” needs to be occupied and shut down by Democrats. Between now and the midterm elections, Democrats should do all they can to make air travel inconvenient, and preferably impossible.
This actually happened not too long ago, in the fall of 2001. Ocasio-Cortez may be too young to remember it clearly, but all of America’s airports were closed for a few days as a result of al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks. Ocasio-Cortez is more ambitious, of course. She doesn’t just want to shut down “every airport” for a few days, she wants to make it long-term. Terrific, I say! Led by Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic Party could be as popular as al Qaeda by November.
Congress breaks record confirming trump picks. Also, check out this from Sen. Dianna Feinstein (D-CA): Oldham’s record “could not be more extreme and overtly political.” Really? Did he order kittens to be slaughtered in his chamber so he could bath in their blood while invoking Satan? No? In that case, I’d say he his a lot of headroom on the “more extreme” front… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
The most difficult times I faced during my years with the LAPD were during the years Bernard Parks served as its chief. Parks, in an overreaction to the Rampart scandal (which, though a genuine scandal, was confined to a handful of officers at a single police station), had disbanded the LAPD’s gang units and instituted a disciplinary system that placed a penalty on proactive police work. It was under Chief Parks that I attended a supervisors’ meeting after a week in which my patrol division had seen four murders and a wave of lesser crimes. Despite these grim statistics, not a single word at this meeting touched on the subject of crime. What did we talk about? Citizen complaints. And even at that we didn’t discuss them in terms of the corrosive effect they were having on officer morale. Instead, we talked about the processing of the paperwork and the minutia of formatting the reports. Fighting crime, it seemed, had taken a back seat to dealing with citizen complaints, even the most frivolous of which required hours and hours of a supervisor’s time to investigate and complete the required reports.
As one might have expected, officers reacted to these disincentives by practicing “drive-and-wave” policing. Yes, they responded to radio calls as ever, but it became all but impossible to coax them out of their cars to investigate suspicious activity when they came upon it. As one might also have expected, the crime numbers reflected this change in police attitudes. Violent crime, which had been falling for seven years, began to increase and continued to increase until Bernard Parks was let go and replaced by William Bratton.
Which brings us back to Baltimore, where, USA Today informs us, 342 people were murdered in 2017, bringing its murder rate to an all-time high and making it the deadliest large city in America. (Baltimore’s population last year was about 611,000. In Los Angeles, by comparison, with a population of about 3.8 million, there were 293 murders last year.)
The Baltimore crime wave can be traced, almost to the very day in April 2015, that Freddie Gray, a small-time drug dealer and petty criminal, died in police custody. When Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby made the ill-considered decision to charge six officers in Gray’s death, she sent a clear message to the rest of the city’s police officers: concerns about crime and disorder will be subordinated to the quest for social justice.
As was the case in Los Angeles years ago, the result was entirely predictable. Officers disengaged from proactive police work, minimizing their risk of being the next cop to be seated in the defendant’s chair in some Marilyn Mosby show trial. The prevailing thought among Baltimore’s cops was something like this: They can make me come to work, they can make me handle my calls and take my reports, but they can’t make me chase the next hoodlum with a gun I come across, because if I chase him I might catch him, and if I catch him I might have to hit him or, heaven forbid, shoot him. And if that happens and Marilyn Mosby comes to the opinion that I transgressed in any way . . . well, forget it. Let the bodies fall where they may, and I’ll be happy to put up the crime-scene tape and wait for the detectives and the coroner to show up.
Andrew Cuomo fundraising tidbits. Cuomo has $31.1 million cash on hand and spent more on TV advertising ($1.5 million) than Cynthia Nixon has raised in total. Bonuses: Low-level shenanigans (one guy gave 69 donations totally $77) and Winklevoss twins!
Defeated Republican state representative Jason Villalba calls for President Trump’s impeachment. Thanks for reminding Republican primary voters, yet again, why they dumped you for Lisa Luby Ryan.
“Kicking, screaming, biting Kansas councilwoman finally taken down with Taser, arrested.” Bonus 1: She later bite a deputy’s thumb so hard she broke a bone. Bonus 2: She was elected to the Huron (population: 73) city council with a grand total of 2 votes.
A $15 million state-built film studio outside Syracuse, which promised to produce hundreds of jobs and bring Hollywood’s glitter to Central New York, hit an inglorious milestone on Friday with its sale to a new corporation set up by Onondaga County to manage it.
The price? $1.
The flop of the Central New York Film Hub, built by frequent and generous donors to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo who are facing federal corruption charges, had been presaged almost since its announcement in 2014, when the governor wondered aloud the miracle of the concept.
“Who would have ever figured: Hollywood comes to Onondaga, right?” Mr. Cuomo said. “You would have never guessed. But it has.”
It actually never did.
Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat facing re-election in the fall, had promised that the project would create “at least 350 new high-tech jobs” and would be “a hot spot” for cutting-edge filmmaking techniques. But beyond temporary construction jobs, sporadic shoots and a lucrative contract for its builder, COR Development, the film hub has been anything but a success. It sat rarely used and became the subject of lawsuits by COR, which said the state owed it back rent.
The lawsuits were not the film hub’s only brush with scandal: In 2016, two executives with COR, Steven Aiello and Joseph Gerardi, were charged in a federal bid-rigging case along with Alain E. Kaloyeros, the former president of the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute.
All three men have pleaded not guilty, as has a fourth co-defendant, Louis Ciminelli, another developer who has given money to Mr. Cuomo.
Mr. Aiello was found guilty of conspiracy in March during a separate corruption trial that also saw the conviction of Joseph Percoco, once one of the governor’s closest aides and friends. Mr. Percoco was found guilty of three corruption-related counts, including conspiracy and solicitation of bribes.
Mr. Cuomo, 60, has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but the taint of corrupt associates has become an issue in his re-election campaign, used by both his Democratic challenger, the actress Cynthia Nixon, and his Republican opponent, Marcus Molinaro.
A 2016 investigation of the film hub by The New York Times found that the producers chosen to anchor the project by the Cuomo administration were entangled an array of lawsuits, tax liens and legal judgments. Their company, FilmHouseNY, used a misleading website to suggest it had offices in Albany and the Los Angeles area; it had neither. (The website listed its New York headquarters as “Suite 263,” the number of the company’s mailbox at a U.P.S. Store in a suburb outside Albany.) And despite the governor’s promises of jobs, the film hub had only two employees.
Spending $15 million and getting $1 in return is emblematic of not only Cuomo’s own corrupt regime, but of New York Democrats in general, from Eric Schneiderman to former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Democrat-run New York is a cesspit of corruption and failure.
California is a bankrupt failed state that is essentially Illinois with palm trees and better weather. Outside the coastal urban enclaves where Jack and his pals mingle, drinking kombucha and apologizing for their white privilege to their baffled servants, it’s a crowded, decaying disaster. Bums wander the streets, littering the sidewalks with human waste. Crime is rising. Illegal aliens abound, more welcome in the Golden State than actual Americans. California is an example all right, but a cautionary one.
So how did California go from conservative in the 80s to the blue hellhole it is today? The leftist zillionaires and the Democrat government unions bought the elections. It also got so expensive and so crowded here that a lot of the kind of people who made California red and not terrible moved away. Now you have a relatively small elite of really rich liberal jerks, and a large class of serfs to the Democrat welfare state – many imported for their delightful obedience and complacency – but no more huge middle class of Normals. Those Normals went east, toward opportunity.
The liberal plan for civil war does not take into account how prosperous states like Texas went hard right in the 90s and show no sign of changing colors, and there is no mention of how Republicans hold more elected offices today than at any time in history.
Snip.
“If the liberals ever get their wish for a new civil war, my money is on the side with all the guns.”
What happened when states no longer required able-bodied adults to work to receive benefits? Predictably, the number of able-bodied adults on food stamps skyrocketed, more than tripling since 2000, while the cost to taxpayers went up fivefold.
Even though unemployment has since rebounded to near-record lows and more than 6 million jobs are open nationwide, these Obama-era waivers are still in place and many states continue to operate expanded welfare rolls under them.
They only complaint I have is that President Trump didn’t restore those rules sooner…
Khamenei has sent tens of thousands of Iranians and Iranian mercenaries to Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. His failed and murderous regime, with Russia’s help, is responsible for the astonishing casualty, refugee, and death totals in Syria. Without the manpower Khamenei’s regime provides, there would be no debate over “what to do about Assad” because Assad would be gone.
That should have produced a winning strategy for the United States and our friends and allies: support regime change in Tehran, thereby pulling the plug on the Assad regime, depriving the Russians of cheap cannon fodder, and ending the Iranian funding of Hezbollah.
It has long been possible to subvert the failed mullahcracy. Most Iranians detest the regime. Keen-eyed mullahs and ayatollahs know this, and know that they will cease to matter to the majority of Iranians the minute the Islamic Republic falls. They all know, because they have heard the words from Washington, that Trump has no sympathy with the regime. Unlike Obama, he does not want a strategic alliance with Tehran. He prefers Jerusalem and Jedda. As do most Iranians.
So we should be supporting the internal opposition. Perhaps we are, but our leaders and pundits, even now, keep talking as if we must choose between a bigger war and the survival of the regime. I find that unfortunate and deplorable. Why are our leaders not openly calling for democratic revolution in Iran?
I am all for sanctions, but too many of the sanctions advocates seem to think that the sanctions are necessary to bring about the manifest failure of Khamenei and his cohorts, when that failure is evident to anyone who looks at the country. All the banks are rupt, including the central bank. The rial is worth one one-thousandth of its value at the end of the shah’s rule. Like the Soviet Union before it, the Iranian tyranny has destroyed the whole national ecosystem, starting with the water supply.
Left-leaning politicians, including leaders of the UK Labour Party, tweet stern condemnations of Israel’s shootings on the Gaza border where they were silent, or at least more restrained, in relation to Turkey and the Kurds. Academic and cultural institutions boycott Israel where they do not boycott Turkey, or China, or Russia, or America and Britain for that matter, which have done their fair share of bad things – ‘bloodletting’? – in the Middle East in recent years. That only Israel is boycotted by the self-styled guardians of the West’s moral conscience, by our cultural and academic elites, constantly communicates the idea that Israel is different. It is worse. It stands above every other state in terms of wickedness and hatred and war. BDS institutionalises the idea that Israel is alien among the nations, a pock among countries, the lowest, foulest state. It is a bleak irony that BDS activists holler ‘apartheid!’ or ‘racist!’ at Israel while subjecting Israel to a kind of cultural apartheid and contributing to the ugly view of this state, this Jewish state, as the maddest state, the state most deserving of your anger and even your hatred.
Lovely: Thieves are intercepting new debit cards and replacing the chip on them with old chips. People activate the card, unaware those thieves are using the new chip on another card to drain the cardholder’s account…
“This court rules that Constantin Reliu is dead.” “No I’m not! I’m right here!” “No, you’re dead. Now shut up and get back on the cart.”
Man goes to hospital for severe headaches after eating Carolina Reaper pepper. (Confession: If I could get at least $10,000 for eating a Carolina Reaper pepper on camera, I would totally go for it. After all, I put Ghost Peppers in my last batch of salsa…)
Diversity erodes social trust, trust being that extremely valuable form of social capital that enables people to make handshake deals, leave their doors unlocked, and trust institutions to treat them fairly. Sociologist Robert Putnam was so shocked to discover this that he sat on his results for seven years before publishing. In diverse communities trust drops not only between ethnolinguistic groups but within them. It’s insidious and very harmful – low-trust societies are bad, bad places to live.
The U.S. has a proud tradition of assimilating legal immigrants into a high-trust society, but it succeeds in this by making them non-diverse – teaching them to assimilate folk values and blend in. Putnam’s work suggests strongly that without the ability to rate-limit immigration to be within some as yet undetermined maximum, the harm from erosion of trust would exceed the benefits of immigration.
We are probably above the optimal legal immigration rate – the highest compatible with avoiding net decrease in social trust over time – already (later in this post it should become obvious why I believe this). There is little doubt that we would greatly exceed it without immigration controls.
Anyway, even if ending border enforcement were a good idea (and I conclude that it is not, despite my libertarian reflexes) it’s a political nonstarter in the U.S. Trump got elected by appealing to sentiment against illegals, and beneath that is a phenomenon one might call Putnam backlash; everywhere outside a few blue-state enclaves, Americans sense the erosion of social trust and have connected it to illegal immigration.
If you run around saying “We should end border enforcement”, enough people to form a blocking coalition are going to hear that as “He wants the U.S. to sit on its hands as erosion of social trust degrades it into a shithole.” Of course most of them don’t have this intellectually analyzed – it’s a more a gut feeling. But no less powerful for that, especially since the problem is real.
Do you want more Trump? Because that is how you get more Trump – or possibly someone worse. I don’t think there is actually a large cohort of Americans willing to sign on to full-throated 19th-century-style nativism yet, and I’m glad of that. But that’s where the next turn of the screw takes us.
We can only save the positive benefits of immigration by controlling it. And by growing some freaking humility about our biases. It’s easy for elite whites like you and me to see only the upside of immigration (cool restaurants, interesting music, exotically pretty girls, lower price levels due to labor cost push on the things we buy, getting to feel virtuous about our inclusivity); immigration seldom has any obvious downside for us unless we roll snake-eyes and get killed by MS-13 or something.
We tend to miss the fact that if you’re a native-born unskilled laborer or minority or legal immigrant the cost-benefit ratio looks very different and not favorable at all. Loose labor markets are good to us, but sure as hell not to our poorer compatriots. A little more compassion and a little less class-blindness on our part would be an improvement.
Show of hands: Who thinks this stops, even slows down, once those mean old not-actually-assault weapons get banned? That liberals have taken a hard stand in favor of cowardice does not exactly fill one with confidence that once we give up our Second Amendment rights that we’ll be safer or freer.
I guess we both have blood on our hands for having this chat – the real heroes are Sheriff Israel and the Broward Cowards. Because of the children or something.
But at CPAC, the president was super clear – he is not wavering on the Second Amendment. Sure, gooey puff boys like Marco Rubio are eager to roll over and show belly, but a hard line on our rights is not going anywhere. Hey Little Marco, this is the Republican Party, not the Foam Party.
Rubio, displaying the political savvy that convinced him to don a studded leather collar and be led around on a leash by Chuck Schumer, talked Congressman Brian Mast into rolling too. Suckers. The New York Times was delighted that Mast agreed to commit career suicide by sticking his constituents in the back when he tried to leverage his being a vet into somehow qualifying him to tell everyone else what their rights are. Amazing, but those of us vets who don’t dance to the libs’ tune never seem to get a Golden Ticket to the NYT op-ed page.
These gullible outliers don’t change the fact that the rest of the GOP is solid. That’s why the left is changing the rules and trashing our norms to do what they can’t do politically through intimidation. They have cultural power and we don’t, and they now seek to use businesses to destroy our rights and silence our voices. Understand that they don’t want an argument or a conversation – they want to use their non-governmental cultural power to deny us access to a platform so that we are unable to make our views heard. We need to recognize this dangerous trend and counterattack ruthlessly with our political power.
Schlichter also reminds conservatives that liberals don’t hate the NRA, they hate you:
Just give them a listen. Those carefully selected moppet puppets are out there on TV telling Normals “We are going to outlive you.” When leftists tell you that you are going to die first, you should believe they mean it. They have a track record of making that happen.
And then there is the new meme, that the NRA is a “terrorist” organization. This means you are a “terrorist” simply by advocating for your political views. Think about that. Labeling your political opponents as “terrorists” – gee, that can’t end badly. Violence against and suppression of terrorists is okay, isn’t it? And when this ploy works with guns, it will happen with the next right the left wants to take from us.
How’s that blood on your hands? Sure, you were thousands of miles away, and your AR-15 – like the 14,999,999 other AR-15s out there – never shot up a school, but just believing in the Second Amendment makes you a non-human. Those of us who know something about history know that the people leftists regard as non-human always tend to end up non-living.
Q: Why are Senate Democrats torpedoing their own gun bill? A: Because it might pass:
When Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) first proposed the Fix-NICS act last November, he had four members of each party as sponsors, calling it “the most important piece of bipartisan guns legislation since Manchin-Toomey.” The bill would plug the gaps in reporting by federal agencies to the background-check system, failings that contributed to the fatal church shooting that month in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
Now, though, Democrats have spent their first days back from recess rejecting Fix-NICS, and even Murphy doesn’t want a stand-alone vote for his “most important” bill.
Because it fixes problems with the existing NICS system rather than disarming law-abiding Americans. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
In late November, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo flew to Buffalo for a fund-raising trip, a quick two-stop jaunt that brought in more than $200,000 in donations for his re-election campaign.
The events, one at an Embassy Suites hotel and the other a more intimate gathering at a private residence, were hosted by two men familiar to Mr. Cuomo — and to state government.
One host, Steven J. Weiss, had been appointed by Mr. Cuomo to the New York State Housing Finance Agency in 2011 and the state board of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in 2016. Government records show that Mr. Weiss has donated $53,000 to the governor’s campaign since being picked for the housing agency.
The other, Kenneth A. Manning, had been named by lawmakers to the same cancer research institute board, and had been appointed by Mr. Cuomo to a state judicial screening committee in 2011. Records show that Mr. Manning has donated $50,500 since his 2011 appointment.
That type of arrangement — appointments go out, campaign cash comes back in — has vexed government reformers in Albany for generations. Things were supposed to change in 2007, when Eliot L. Spitzer, then the newly elected governor, issued an executive order barring most appointees from donating to or soliciting donations for the governor who made the appointment. Mr. Cuomo renewed the order on his first day in office.
But a New York Times investigation found that the Cuomo administration has quietly reinterpreted the directive, enabling him to collect about $890,000 from two dozen of his appointees. Some gave within days of being appointed.
The governor also has accepted $1.3 million from the spouses, children and businesses of appointees, state records show.
Even the liberals talk like Ukip, while those on the Right talk of mass deportations. Every conversation involves the phrase: ‘I’m not racist but . . .’
Last weekend, thousands of Left-wing demonstrators descended on the town for an anti-fascist demonstration following the attack on the migrants. The locals, however, did not take part.
All tell me that the situation had been getting out of hand long before recent atrocities, with a marked rise in begging, petty theft and increased inter-racial tension.
Most suspect the authorities are not telling them the whole story about Pamela Mastropietro’s death.
So remember how Russian “mercenaries” got their ass kicked by American forces in Syria? Evidently there’s audio from the survivors talking about just how bad that ass-kicking was. Evidently (assuming the audio is legit, for which I make no claim one way or another), “our guys didn’t have anything besides the assault rifles…nothing at all, not even mentioning shoulder-fired SAMs or anything like that.” If true, this posits a tremendous failure of either leadership or situational awareness akin to attempting a bayonet charge uphill against an entrenched machine gun nest in World War I. You don’t attack a well-defended enemy’s position across a river using only small arms. But it also makes it harder to draw any conclusions about the relative quality of American and Russian troops; an American unit attempting such a monumentally stupid attack against similarly defended Russian forces would likely suffer the same devastating defeat.
Police arrest Daniel Frisiello, the guy who allegedly sent an envelope of white powder to Donald Trump, Jr. Judging from his targets, the things Frisiello allegedly hates are: A.) Trump, B.) Jews, and C.) People who hate pedophiles.
Also: Guess which party he belonged to?
BREAKING: Daniel Frisiello, just charged by DOJ w/sending hoax white powder letter to @DonaldJTrumpJr's family is a Massachusetts Democratic activist who donated to Act Blue in the same cycle they donated to MA's @SenWarren.
A 43-case dossier handed to the party leader in the document entitled LabourToo contains shocking complaints from women describing themselves as MPs, candidates, staff and activists.
MPs are due today to debate proposals for a new parliamentary complaints and grievance system drawn up by Leader of the Commons Andrea Leadsom, in the wake of a rash of complaints of inappropriate behaviour.
One woman told LabourToo she was raped at the annual conference, but “no-one cared” when she told her regional party and an MP.
Another said an individual facing rape accusations was allowed to resign quietly and others told of lewd comments and leg-stroking.
After Rotherham, is anyone really surprised?
A tweet:
This notion that women should vote for female candidates insulting and wrong. I call that "vote your vagina." I wouldn't vote for somebody because they have earlobes; why should I vote for somebody because they have a vagina?
A few days ago news broke of New York Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo’s fishy book royalties:
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo reported his income last year more than doubled from the previous year, thanks to another round of royalty payments on a 2014 HarperCollins memoir [All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life] that saw lackluster sales.
In all, Cuomo has made $783,000 from HarperCollins for his book. The book sold 3,200 copies since it was published in the fall of 2014, according to tracking company NPD BookScan.
That works out to royalty payments to Cuomo of $245 per book.
It’s not unknown for a political book to get a big advance and bomb. What is unknown is getting big royalties on such a book two years after publication, since it will not have “earned out” its advance and thus no royalties should be forthcoming.
So how could a book earn royalties if it wasn’t selling enough copies to according to BookScan?
One possibility is that HarperCollins is somehow passing money on to Cuomo for political favors. Since HarperCollins is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., this seems unlikely
Another, far more likely possibility is that Cuomo is pulling a Jim Wright. Wright, then Democratic Speaker of the House, published a slim volume of supposedly pithy aphorisms, Reflections of a Public Man, the vast majority of copies being sold via bulk sales to Wright’s political cronies (including unions) for which he was paid an unheard of 55% royalties on the cover price. Stephen King and J. K. Rowling don’t even get remotely that much per hardback. (E-book sales are a different matter, but physical books still outsell e-books.)
It’s quite likely that bulk sales of Cuomo’s book to unions wouldn’t show up on BookScan, which only tracks regular book channel sales. (Amazon, for example, shows that Cuomo’s book is the 337,666 best-selling book they stock.) And, like Wright’s, those sales would likely count as an illegal campaign contribution, assuming the unions in question had already hit New York state contribution limits.
The book royalty mystery is just another in the long list ethical lapses and corruption swirling around Cuomo. He famously created a commission to root out state corruption, then abruptly shut it down when it got too close to his own honeypots.
Andrew Cuomo is, of course, the son of a far more charismatic New York governor, Mario Cuomo, as well as the brother of CNN host Chris Cuomo. (He also happens to be married to a Kennedy.) If he had any more silver spoons he’d he could open a shop on Martha’s Vineyard. I would suggest that the overclass cease foisting their hellish drop as future politicians, but we all know they’re not going to stop…
It turns out that the FBI never examined the “hacked” DNC servers”. Indeed, the DNC denied the FBI permission to examine the server. “The bureau tells Buzzfeed News that the Democrats’ organization reportedly ‘rebuffed’ multiple requests for physical access to the hacked servers, forcing investigators to depend on the findings of the third-party security firm CrowdStrike (which the DNC contacted after the hack).” (“Your honor, instead of the FBI crime lab testing the alleged cocaine sample, we had Morty’s Fly-By-Night Chemical Analysis and Pet Grooming Company do the analysis. I’m sure you’ll find that’s good enough…”) So how can FBI actually tell the Russians hacked them? Did they even try to get a warrant for the DNC servers? Since that’s one of the first things you would do if you really thought the Russians were behind the hack, and the hack had (by Obama Administration testimony) national security implications. This suggests that the DNC is: A.) Lying about Russian involvement, or B.) Is telling the truth about it, but has material far more illegal and/or damaging than what has already been released. Why should we give more credence to allegations that the FBI hasn’t even taken the most basic steps of criminal investigation to prove?
“If you thought 2016 was packed full of liberal foolishness, just wait until you get a load of 2017. As 2016 ends, progressives enter the new year terrified that Donald Trump will continue to run circles around them, and their epic meltdown is only going to get more epically meltdownier. They’ve been shrill, stupid, and annoying for the last two months, but brace yourself for the next 12. Fear is going to make them go nuts – not the fear that Trump will be a failure, but the gut-wrenching, mind-numbing fear that Donald Trump will be a success.”
Which is why Democrats are still in denial. “Republicans control the House, the Senate, 34 governor’s mansions, and 4,100 seats in state legislatures. But Democrats act like they run Washington.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Global warming critic at Georgia Tech resigns tenured position because “growing disenchantment with universities, the academic field of climate science and scientists.”
The reward system that is in place for university faculty members is becoming increasingly counterproductive to actually educating students to be able to think and cope in the real world, and in expanding the frontiers of knowledge in a meaningful way (at least in certain fields that are publicly relevant such as climate change).
Snip.
A deciding factor was that I no longer know what to say to students and postdocs regarding how to navigate the CRAZINESS in the field of climate science. Research and other professional activities are professionally rewarded only if they are channeled in certain directions approved by a politicized academic establishment — funding, ease of getting your papers published, getting hired in prestigious positions, appointments to prestigious committees and boards, professional recognition, etc.
How young scientists are to navigate all this is beyond me, and it often becomes a battle of scientific integrity versus career suicide (I have worked through these issues with a number of skeptical young scientists).
Speaking of Cuomo, he just commuted the sentence of left-wing cop killer Judith Clark. Clark participated in a Weather Underground robbery where three people, including police officers Waverly Brown and Edward O’Grady, were murdered. Maybe we should start calling him “Cop Killer Cuomo.” Evidently black lives, like that of Brown, don’t matter when they’re cops murdered by white leftwing radicals… (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Feminists have very little in common with the women they claim to represent: “Few feminists seem to be married with children, and comparatively few are heterosexual.” (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
Smugglers work across the Texas border to sell their addictive products. Only this time, it’s selling black market Krispy Kreme donuts from El Paso in Juarez… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Hope all of you had a happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm before you go off to engage in mortal combat to save $5 on an improved deframbulator.
“If Americans outside the big blue cities don’t care about the social obsessions of aging hippies, indoctrinated millennials, and frigid feminists, then they’re wrong. You can probably fix everything by redoubling your efforts to show them how horrible they are.”
“Why pretend to respect their opinions when you don’t respect their opinions. They like guns and America and Jesus, and frankly those things are, at best, embarrassing if not downright horrible. I mean, #Science, right?”
“Why bother assembling and analyzing the facts when you know what the answer will be, what it must be: racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and whatever other faux-phobias that come slinking out of academia to give you an excuse to hector and nag normal people.”
If you want to see politics based on emotionalism over reason and a borderline-religious devotion to an iconic figure, forget the Trump Army; look instead to the Cult of Clinton.
Ever since Donald Trump won the presidential election, all eyes, and wringing hands, have been on the white blob who voted for him. These “loud, illiterate and credulous people,” as a sap at Salon brands them, think on an “emotional level.” Bill Moyers warned that ours is a “dark age of unreason,” in which “low information” folks are lining up behind “The Trump Emotion Machine.” Andrew Sullivan said Trump supporters relate to him as a “cult leader fused with the idea of the nation.”
What’s funny about this is not simply that it’s the biggest chattering-class hissy fit of the 21st century so far — and chattering-class hissy fits are always funny. It’s that whatever you think of Trump (I’m not a fan) or his supporters (I think they’re mostly normal, good people), the fact is they’ve got nothing on the Clinton cult when it comes to creepy, pious worship of a politician.
By the Cult of Hillary Clinton, I don’t mean the nearly 62 million Americans who voted for her. I have not one doubt that they are as mixed and normal a bag of people as the Trumpites are. No, I mean the Hillary machine—the celebs and activists and hacks who were so devoted to getting her elected and who have spent the past week sobbing and moaning over her loss. These people exhibit cult-like behavior far more than any Trump cheerer I’ve come across.
Trump supporters view their man as a leader “fused with the idea of the nation”? Perhaps some do, but at least they don’t see him as “light itself.” That’s how Clinton was described in the subhead of a piece for Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter. “Maybe [Clinton] is more than a president,” gushed writer Virginia Heffernan. “Maybe she is an idea, a world-historical heroine, light itself,” Nothing this nutty has been said by any of Trump’s media fanboys.
“Hillary is Athena,” Heffernan continued, adding that “Hillary did everything right in this campaign…She cannot be faulted, criticized, or analyzed for even one more second.”
That’s a key cry of the Cult of Hillary (as it is among followers of L. Ron Hubbard or devotees of Christ): our gal is beyond criticism, beyond the sober and technical analysis of mere humans.
Snip.
As with all saints and prophets, all human manifestations of light itself, the problem is never with them, but with us. We mortals are not worthy of Hillary. “Hillary didn’t fail us, we failed her,” asserted a writer for the Guardian. The press, and by extension the rest of us, “crucified her,” claimed someone at Bustle. We always do that to messiahs, assholes that we are.
And of course the light of Hillary had to be guarded against blasphemy. Truly did the Cult of Hillary seek to put her beyond “analysis for even one more second.” All that stuff about her emails and Libya was pseudo-scandal, inventions of her aspiring slayers, they told us again and again and again.
As Thomas Frank says, the insistence that Hillary was scandal-free had a blasphemy-deflecting feel to it. The message was that “Hillary was virtually without flaws… a peerless leader clad in saintly white… a caring benefactor of women and children.” Mother Teresa in a pantsuit, basically. As a result, wrote Frank, “the act of opening a newspaper started to feel like tuning in to a Cold War propaganda station.”
Then there was the reaction to Clinton’s loss. It just wasn’t normal chattering-class behavior. Of course we expect weeping, wailing videos from the likes of Miley Cyrus and Perez Hilton about how Clinton had been robbed of her moment of glory; that’s what celebs do these days. But in the media, too, there was hysteria.
“‘I feel hated,’ I tell my husband, sobbing in front of the TV in my yoga pants and Hillary sweatshirt, holding my bare neck,” said a feminist in the Guardian. Crying was a major theme. A British feminist recalled all the “Clinton-related crying” she had done: “I’ve cried at the pantsuit flashmob, your Saturday Night Live appearance, and sometimes just while watching the debates.” (Wonder if she cried over the women killed as a result of Hillary’s machinations in Libya? Probably not. In the mind of the Hillary cultists, that didn’t happen—it is utterly spurious, a blasphemy.)
Then there was Lena Dunham, who came out in hives—actual hives—when she heard Clinton had lost. Her party dress “felt tight and itchy.” She “ached in the places that make me a woman.” I understand being upset and angry at your candidate’s loss, but this is something different; this is what happens, not when a politician does badly, but when your savior, your Athena, “light itself,” is extinguished. The grief is understandable only in the context of the apocalyptic faith they had put in Hillary. Not since Princess Diana kicked the bucket can I remember such a strange, misplaced belief in one woman, and such a weird, post-modern response to someone’s demise (and Clinton isn’t even dead! She just lost!).
It’s all incredibly revealing. What it points to is a mainstream, Democratic left that is so bereft of ideas and so disconnected from everyday people that it ends up pursuing an utterly substance-free politics of emotion and feeling and doesn’t even realize it’s doing it. They are good, everyone else is bad; they are light itself, everyone else is darkness; and so no self-awareness can exist and no self-criticism can be entertained. Not for even one second, in Heffernan’s words. The Cult of Hillary Clinton is the clearest manifestation yet of the 21st-century problem of life in the political echo chamber.
A word of neighborly advice to our more genteel media friends, the ones who sit at the high table in their pristine white dinner jackets and ball gowns. You’ve been barfing all over yourselves for a week-and-a-half, and it’s revolting to watch.
For your own sake, and that of the republic for which you allegedly work, wipe off your chins and regain your composure. I didn’t vote for him either, but Trump won. Pull yourselves together and deal with it, if you ever want to be taken seriously again.
What kind of president will Trump be? It’s a tad too early to say, isn’t it? The media are supposed to tell us what happened, not speculate on the future. But its incessant scaremongering, the utter lack of proportionality and the shameless use of double standards are an embarrassment, one that is demeaning the value of the institution. The press’ frantic need to keep the outrage meter dialed up to 11 at all times creates the risk that a desensitized populace will simply shrug off any genuine White House scandals that may lie in the future (or may not).
Hysteria is causing leading media organizations to mix up their news reporting with their editorializing like never before, but instead of mingling like chocolate and peanut butter, the two are creating a taste that’s like brushing your teeth after drinking orange juice.
“One by One, ISIS Social Media Experts Are Killed as Result of F.B.I. Program.” My reaction: 😊 (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
More of those “mostly peaceful” protestors we keep hearing about, this time in North Dakota (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“The reason the micro-group of neo-Nazis got attention is the media. It’s not the Right. This is an active attempt by CNN and others to paint all conservatives as anti-Semites. It’s disgusting.” Or why Richard Spencer is the new Westboro Baptist Church: A tiny, unimportant thing constantly hyped by the mainstream media as a way to paint Republicans as evil. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Mickey Kaus wonders if Democrats are finally willing to flip to an enforcement-first approach, giving up on amnesty to take the issue off the table and win back working class white voters. That idea makes a lot of sense, which is why I’m sure Democrats will never go for it…
Palestinians are shootinge each other, since the border wall makes it difficult to shoot Israelis. “The violence, much of it directed at a Fatah leadership seen as corrupt and out of touch.” Has there ever been a single moment in the history of “Palestine” when their leadership wasn’t “corrupt” and “out of touch”?
More Trump dividends: France cancels umpteenth Israel-Palestine summit because nobody gives a rat’s ass.
Twitter suspends the account of their own founder. That’s some mighty fine vetting process you’ve got going on there, Jack… (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
MSNBC has repeatedly stated that a travel ban from Ebola-stricken nations is racist:
Now it turns out that lots of Democrats (especially of the “endangered Senate incumbent” variety) have come out in favor of a travel ban:
Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire joined the crowd on Monday night, saying through a spokesman that she “strongly supports any and all effective measures to keep Americans safe including travel bans if they would work.” Shaheen said last week she didn’t think a travel ban makes sense, but she is facing heavy criticism from her Republican opponent, former Senator Scott Brown, on the issue. Under pressure from Republicans, Senator Kay Hagan came out in support of a ban late last week, and Senators Mark Pryor and Mark Udall have also called for travel restrictions.
Even Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, a Democrat who is not in a particularly close race, changed his stance on Monday and said the government should “seriously consider” a ban.
Strangely enough, I haven’t heard of anyone on MSNBC calling those Democrats racist. (Then again, I don’t watch it, but I think I would have heard about it had it happened. If they have, let me know…) So, there are two possibilities here:
All the Democrats calling for a travel ban from Ebola-stricken nations are racists.
MSNBC is made up of lying hacks for the Democratic Party
Of course, I suppose that both could be true.
And what’s MSNBC going to say if, as widely rumored, Obama himself comes out for a travel ban?
