Posts Tagged ‘Nancy Pelosi’
Friday, June 28th, 2019
Man, it’s been a week. The clown car and NRA pieces have been blowing up my stats, and I’ve got a bunch of other things happening. I tried to watch the Group of Death debate last night, but the stream kept cutting out, so I’ll probably save the reactions for Monday’s Clown Car Update. This LinkSwarm features Dan Crenshaw, Google, and Dan Crenshaw grilling Google.
Pelosi caves, gets the House to pass the Republican Senate bill to address the crisis on the Southern border 305-102. The Senate bill isn’t perfect, but it’s a vast improvement on the House’s laughable effort. But the fact that 90% of the 2020 Democratic presidential contenders are demonstrably to the left of Nancy Pelosi on the issue might give a more reflective party pause…
Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw says Democrats live in another world when it comes to the crisis on the border.
“In Emergency Bill, House Dems Vote To Send More Fake Tears To Address Border Crisis.”
Cuba runs out of other people’s money.
Trump’s latest accuser is loony toons.
But “David French Believes Her Implicitly, Because of Course He Does.”
It’s not all bad news on the gun rights front front: Gov. Abbott signed 10 pro-Second Amendment bills.
Kevin Williamson dissects Facebook’s attempts to float their own cryptocurrency.
Professor Posner is correct in pointing to the rivalrous nature of political power and market power. What is less well understood is that markets won that fight in a knockout a decade or more ago. The new reality is that markets — not corporations, but markets — are more powerful than states, and much of the angry, angsty, mob-inciting politics of the Left and the Right in the past decade is simply the emotional noise and churn generated as societies and governments readjust their affairs to accommodate themselves to that new reality. Bill Clinton spent much of his presidency bitching about the bond market, which was his shorthand for the ways in which global markets (especially financial markets) limited politicians’ effective scope of action. He was, uncharacteristically for a man of such modest imagination, ahead of his time.
The power of capital flows is a reality that has made itself known bit by bit to states both liberal and autocratic, from the members of the European Union to the caudillos in Beijing. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy with no regard for life or property, brutal and vicious — and constantly getting slapped around by volatility in the energy market. Mohammed bin Salman can command almost anything — except the commodity markets that rule his world.
Much of the hysteria on display in the Democratic presidential primary is American progressivism’s shrieking protest of the new facts of life. Progressives such as Elizabeth Warren are intelligent enough to understand what’s happened: That just at the moment they were primed to take power, power was taken away from them.
Project Veritas reported on Google executives working behind the scenes to censor conservatives and prevent President Trump from being reelected. “People need to know what’s going on with Google, and that they are not an objective piece – they’re not an objective source of information. They are a highly biased political machine that is bent on never letting somebody like Donald Trump come to power again.” Result: Project Veritas was banned from Google-owned YouTube, then from ostensible YouTube competitor Vimeo. But you can watch it on BitChute.
Speaking of Google: “Rep. Dan Crenshaw grilled Google executives after an employee reportedly labeled Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, and Dennis Prager as ‘Nazis.’ ‘Two of three of these people are Jewish, very religious Jews. And yet you think they are Nazis,’ the Texas congressman said in reference to Shapiro and Prager. ‘It begs the question, “What kind of education do people at Google have?”‘” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Speaking of Big Tech censorship of conservatives, Reddit has “quarantined” The_Donald subreddit for Trump fans, one of the largest and most heavily trafficked groups on Reddit. You can still reach The_Donald by following that link, but you get a warning and you can’t search for the content anymore.
People continue to flee high tax states and move to low-tax states, something that has only been accelerated by the limitation of state and local taxes in the 2017 tax reform. (Hat tip: TPPF.)
What people actually die of versus what types of deaths the media cover. (Hat tip: Say Uncle.)
“Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne Used To Hate Donald Trump. Now, He’s Kind of a Fan.” Also worries (if you listen to the podcast) about China’s rise as a techno-authoritarian hegemon.
Democratic congressmen Donald Norcross of New Jersey and Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut hit with ethics violation charges for all-expense-paid trips to Qatar. You know, the same country that loves bribing people and bankrolling terrorists.
“Leaders Of Brooklyn And Manhattan Chapters Of The United Brotherhood Of Carpenters Charged In Rampant Admissions-Bribery Scheme.”
Colorado sees 4 to 10 inches of snow on Summer Solstice.
Huawei loses lawsuit against semiconductor designer CNEX (a fabless solid state storage firm), though it’s something of a pyrhic victory, as the judge awarded CNEX no damages. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Herbert Meyer, RIP. You may not have heard of him, but he penned a famous memo in late 1983 that outlined how the U.S. was winning the cold war.
Rosanne Barr and Andrew “Dice” Clay to do a comedy tour together.
Speaking of comedy: “Louis CK’s audience must be punished.”
Stop laughing. This isn’t funny. Louis CK is now an unperson. You can no longer applaud him or enjoy his comedy hate speech. If you insist on supporting an enemy of the people, there will be consequences. You will be punished. Your life will be upended. If you care about your future, you will keep your excitement and happiness to yourself when presented with the verboten.
“Well, if you don’t like Louis CK, don’t listen to him. You can’t tell other people what they should and shouldn’t laugh at.” We hear that a lot from fascists, don’t we? They think hate speech is free speech, and they don’t think they need to do what they’re told. But they’ll learn. They will be corrected.
Today you’re cheering for an unapproved comedian. Tomorrow you’re marching with tiki torches and tweeting dank memes. The day after that, you’re annexing the Sudetenland. These people must be controlled before the fascism spreads.
Famed designer Jony Ive has has left Apple to form his own design group (but Apple will be a client). CNet looks at some of his most iconic designs, including the original iMac and the iPhone.
How many flatmates were there in the classic BBC sitcom The Young Ones? Five. If you count the creepy ghost.
“Major Cave-In As Democratic Candidates Rush To Far Left Side Of Debate Stage.”
A nice little compilation of train stunts in silent movies:
Tags:Andrew "Dice" Clay, Apple Computer, BBC, Ben Shapiro, Border Controls, China, CNEX, Colorado, Communism, Cuba, Dan Crenshaw, David French, Democrats, Dennis Prager, Donald Norcross, Donald Trump, Facebook, Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Google, Greg Abbott, Guns, Herbert Meyer, Huawei, Jim Himes, Jordan B. Peterson, Kevin D. Williamson, LinkSwarm, Louis C.K., Nancy Pelosi, Obituary, Patrick Byrne, Project Veritas, Qatar, Reddit, Roseanne Barr, Semiconductors, Taxes, Texas, The Young Ones, unions, YouTube
Posted in Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, Guns, Texas, unions | No Comments »
Friday, May 31st, 2019
Important traffic notice for Austin residents: Half of I-35 is going to be closed between 290 and Rundberg starting at 9 PM tonight and lasting through 5 AM Monday, June 3, while they take down the St. John’s bridge and route southbound traffic down two northbound lanes, squeezing traffic in both directions. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s going to screw up traffic everywhere between Georgetown and Slaughter Lane. Avoid if at all possible…
Robert Mueller closes up shop.
Alan Dershowitz thinks that Mueller acted shamefully in going beyond his prosecutor’s mandate:
Virtually everybody agrees that, in the normal case, a prosecutor should never go beyond publicly disclosing that there is insufficient evidence to indict. No responsible prosecutor should ever suggest that the subject of his investigation might indeed be guilty even if there was insufficient evidence or other reasons not to indict. Supporters of Mueller will argue that this is not an ordinary case, that he is not an ordinary prosecutor and that President Trump is not an ordinary subject of an investigation. They are wrong. The rules should not be any different.
Remember that federal investigations by prosecutors, including special counsels, are by their very nature one-sided. They hear only evidence of guilt and not exculpatory evidence. Their witnesses are not subject to the adversarial process. There is no cross examination. The evidence is taken in secret behind the closed doors of a grand jury. For that very reason, prosecutors can only conclude whether there is sufficient evidence to commence a prosecution. They are not in a position to decide whether the subject of the investigation is guilty or is innocent of any crimes.
That determination of guilt or innocence requires a full adversarial trial with a zealous defense attorney, vigorous cross examination, exclusionary rules of evidence and other due process safeguards. Such safeguards were not present in this investigation, and so the suggestion by Mueller that Trump might well be guilty deserves no credence. His statement, so inconsistent with his long history, will be used to partisan advantage by Democrats, especially all those radicals who are seeking impeachment.
Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw on the issue:
President Donald Trump has given Attorney General William Barr authority to declassify to declassify Scandularity documents (like FISA warrents aimed at the Trump campaign), and Democrats are freaking out.
Study shows that America is less racist under Donald Trump’s presidency.
Mexico’s senate should pass the USMCA free trade treaty soon. Now it just needs to get past Canada and Nancy Pelosi.
Trump also threatens to slap a 5% tariff on Mexican goods until they do more to control the border.
“Continuing plunge of CNN, MSNBC ratings reveals that fake news is a bad business strategy.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
More on the same subject from Vodkapundit.
Related: “It’s Not Your Imagination: The Journalists Writing About Antifa Are Often Their Cheerleaders.”
Of all 15 verified national-level journalists in our subset, we couldn’t find a single article, by any of them, that was markedly critical of Antifa in any way. In all cases, their work in this area consisted primarily of downplaying Antifa violence while advancing Antifa talking points, and in some cases quoting Antifa extremists as if they were impartial experts.
Update: For revealing those links, Twitter has banned author Eoin Lenihan.
“Democrats yet again sue Little Sisters of the Poor for contraception coverage.” Every knee must bend…
“Scientists discover China has been secretly emitting banned ozone-depleting gas.” I’m shocked, shocked that China is evading agreed-upon environmental regulations…
“Why Are Top Obama Officials Working Cushy Jobs for Chinese Company We Now Consider a Threat?” (I think we all know the an$wer to that que$tion.) “Samir Jain — a former senior director for cybersecurity policy under Obama’s National Security Council and now a partner with the international law firm Jones Day — was recently hired by the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei as a lobbyist. Jain works alongside James Cole, who was Obama’s deputy attorney general from 2011 to 2015. Huawei hired Cole for legal representation in 2017, the Examiner reported.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Gulf Cartel Kidnapping Crew Caught Operating in Texas.” It operated in various locales in Hidalgo County.
This is interesting: Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz and New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are talking about teaming up to impose a lifetime ban on former members of congress becoming paid lobbyists. It’s a good idea that I expect to go nowhere, as it takes potential graft money out of too many congressional pockets. But this is not the only idea the hard left and the hard right could propose to fight the swampy center.
Mizrahi Jews are not “Palestinian Jews“:
When my grandparents arrived in Israel, together with 850,000 other Jews who lived in the Middle East and North Africa, they understood three things.
First, they understood that they were being forced to leave their Arab homelands. My Iraqi grandparents, for example, had very clear memories of the Farhud, the 1941 pogrom that left more than 180 Jews dead at the hands of their neighbors. They finally fled their native country in 1951, pushed out by an Iraqi government determined to rid itself of all of its Jews.
When they arrived in Israel, my grandparents did not see themselves as Palestinian Jews—they had never before lived in Mandatory Palestine. They saw themselves as Jews of Iraqi descent returning to the ancient homeland they and their ancestors had dreamed of and prayed of for thousands of years, the land from which they were once expelled and to which they were overjoyed to return. And they also understood themselves to be distinct from their Ashkenazi brothers and sisters: They were all Jews, but my grandparents were proud of their Mizrahi heritage just as the 200,000 Israelis of Ethiopian descent are proud of theirs.
Five dead as explosions rock Kirkuk, Iraq.
Instagram removes pro-life cartoon as “hate speech.”
Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw puts up a Twitter thread for his fallen comrades in arms for Memorial Day.
What it’s like to fight with Americans. “They are coming for you and very little will save you.”
And now a rather pungently expressed conflicting view:
They’re hordes of freaks and geeks, socially promoted like the retards in Common Core to grease the retirement skids of a pack of careerist Courtney Massengales not fit nor capable to pour piss out of their own boots even with the instructions stamped on the heel.
Else we wouldn’t have Rangerettes who can’t climb a short wall, Navy officers who can’t conn a ship without hitting everything afloat, as they dredge up parts from museum pieces to keep their current aircraft flying, Air Force generals pimping for a white elephant plane that cannot fly, missile officers cheating on their proficiency tests, Marine recruits in combat arms who can’t throw a grenade without killing themselves, or “combat leaders” who couldn’t pass a ruck march, West Point “leaders” who condone open communism from faculty and students, and promote a pack of Affirmative Action cadets who couldn’t pass a PRT or meet basic weight and appearance standards, while flashing Black Power signs in uniform. We wouldn’t be doing gender reassignment surgeries instead of physical therapy for combat wounded, we wouldn’t be spending more money on gender sensitivity counseling than on marksmanship training, and we wouldn’t be wavering the insane and drug-addicted into the military in record numbers, just to appease a pack of blue- and pink-haired SJWs.
The US military is broken.
Hugely so. Nearly hopelessly so.
Nostalgia for a time long past when it was otherwise won’t paper over the reality that right now we’re as weak as kittens, with a military that’s going to have its own ass handed to it on a platter, and body bags filled by the gross, because it’s so hamstrung with PC that it cannot accomplish the most fundamental missions assigned to it, eight days out of seven.
Overstated? Probably. Almost certainly. And don’t underestimate “freaks and geeks.” Or both viewpoints are true: Our armed forces aren’t what they’re shaped up to be, but are still miles beyond other country’s armed forces. Or it could be a case of inter-service differences: The army, honed by two decades at the point of the knife in the global war on terror, is the best in the world but the Navy and Air Force have problems. Or anywhere in-between those extremes. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
African Swine Fever and stagflation in China.
Ackerman McQueen moves to terminate their contract with the NRA. (Previously. I still have an incomplete follow-up to that piece I need to finish.)
CrossFit leaves Facebook over suspensions of popular groups promoting a Keto lifestyle. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Spreadsheeting your marriage. It actually makes a surprising amount of sense… (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Former Mississippi Republican Senator Thad Cochran has died at the age of 81. Cochran was Mississippi’s first Republican senator since Reconstruction, was a stalwart advocate of the Reagan revolution, and then slowly drifted into a more moderate direction as he stayed in the senate 45 years.
Leon Redbone, RIP.
John Cleese tells critics to piss off:
(Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Texas repeals ban on tomahawks and brass knuckles.
Texas Scorecard approves of the work of Austin police chief Slab Bulkhead* Brian Manley.
Last Mohawk code-talker dies.
Jeopardy host Alex Trebek almost in remission from his cancer.
Important safety tip: Trying to imitate The Dukes of Hazzard in real life will not bring the desired results. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Austin-area SH 45 SW Toll road to open June 1st.
What Rice University looked like a hundred years ago, when it was surrounded by a whole lot of nothing.
Follow-up: You know that story about a researcher cracking the Voynich Manuscript? Yeah, maybe not. (Hat tip: Reader Dave Rainwater.)
“Sociologists Believe Shrieking Left-Winger Who Is Throwing Things May Be Expressing Disagreement.”
“Punk Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Novel Somehow Always Ends in 9-to-5 Office Job.”
*Running joke. Source here.
Tags:abortion, Ackerman McQueen, Alan Dershowitz, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, American Indians, antifa, Austin, Austin Police Department, Border Controls, Canada, China, CNN, Dan Crenshaw, Democrats, Donald Trump, Gulf Cartel, Guns, Hidalgo County, highways, Huawei, Iraq, Israel, James Cole, Jews, Jihad, John Cleese, Kirkuk, LinkSwarm, Little Sisters of the Poor, Media Watch, Mexico, Military, Mississippi, MSNBC, Nancy Pelosi, NRA, Obama Scandals, Obituary, Republicans, Rice University, Rio Grande Valley, Samir Jain, Ted Cruz, Texas, Thad Cochran, trade, USMCA
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Obama Scandals, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | No Comments »
Friday, May 24th, 2019
Welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! This week: Texas legislative news, foreign elections, and a surprising amount on analog synthesizers…
Theresa May is out as British Prime Minister effective June 7. The only reason she’s not the worst prime minister of the last century is that she didn’t give Czechoslovakia to Hitler…
May’s refusal to offer the UK a real Brexit may result in the Tories being crushed by Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party:
Even before [EU Parliamentary] election results are known on Sunday, therefore, there’s a growing sense that the Brexit party may be a permanent factor in British politics. Opinion polls on how people would vote in a general election show that the party would do less well than in European elections but still run about level with the Tories and Labour. There are deep divisions on policy apart from Brexit that have allowed critics to argue that the party would fall apart once its main goal had been achieved. But the divisions don’t seem deeper than those of other parties, and power or its prospect is itself a unifying social glue. Farage’s rallies around the country are hugely successful — packed, good-humored, more diverse socially and politically than those of the other parties, full of confidence and optimism, and notably without rancor. As with Trump’s election rallies, people seem to find them enjoyable as well as genuinely serious. A kind of Brexit party spirit already exists with many different types of people happy to be together on the bandwagon. It seems less class-bound than any of the existing parties.
And if the Brexit party wins one-third or more of Britain’s votes this week from a standing start, it will change British politics. Such a result would have the effect of a second referendum victory for Leave. It simply would not be possible for Parliament and the mainstream parties to push through a Brexit that doesn’t get the effective consent of Farage and his party. If such a thing is attempted, it will be seen to be anti-democratic and will have to be abandoned quite quickly. It would force the EU to confront the fact that there is little chance of getting a deal like May’s withdrawal deal accepted, and that even if one were to make it into the statute book, it could never be effectively implemented. In those circumstances the EU might simply throw up its collective hands and declare that the U.K. has left without a deal.
The third effect of a Farage success in the European elections would be to realign political parties and, in particular, to place the Conservative party in mortal peril. Voting for a political party is a matter of both loyalty and habit. For lifelong Tories, the idea of voting for another party is anathema. Most people who think about it never actually get around to doing it. But the Tories have certainly given their traditional supporters and those new supporters who voted for them in order to achieve Brexit good reason to leave them on this occasion. Many will do so this week. And as with adultery, betraying your party for another is much easier the second time around.
Well:
You know who doesn’t want to impeach President Donald Trump? House Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (Hat tip: Jim Geraghty.)
But she may not be able to hold off her lunatic party much longer.
And all that despite ample evidence that voters are opposed to the whole charade. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Democrats lying about preexisting conditions again:
“A charity run by the wife of Rep. Elijah Cummings received millions from special interest groups and corporations that had business before her husband’s committee and could have been used illegally.”
Democratic Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards is a rarity: an actual pro-life Democrat. When Edwards’ wife was “20 weeks pregnant with their first child, a doctor discovered their daughter had spina bifida and encouraged an abortion. The Edwardses refused. Now, daughter Samantha is married and working as a school counselor, and Edwards finds himself an outlier in polarized abortion politics.”
A succinct summary from across the pond:
If you look at what China is targeting in retaliatory tariffs, it’s obvious their hand is incredibly weak:
But based on what we know, what’s even more revealing about China’s choices are the U.S.-made products that haven’t made any tariff list. They include civilian aircraft and their engines and parts, which had a 2018 export total of $17.73 billion. They include semiconductors and their components, which last year had China shipments that totaled several billion additional dollars. They include the equipment needed to manufacture and inspect semiconductors and their parts, which racked up at least $850 million in 2018 exports to China; devices for conducting chemical and physical analyses (with $912 million in China exports last year); laser equipment ($304 million), motor vehicles, auto parts, and plastics resins and polymers (which each produced billions in exports to China); and billions of dollars’ worth of other products that the Chinese either can’t (yet) make or can’t make in the amounts that they need—or that consist of goods preferred by Chinese consumers over their Made in China counterparts.
As I’ve said before, semiconductor equipment is an area where it’s all but impossible for the Chinese to do without American technology.
Narendra Modi wins reelection in India. Forcing Pakistan to stand down over Kashmir probably clinched the victory for him. Modi’s Hindu ethononationalism is not good for India in the long-run, but he’s probably someone President Trump can trust to be a staunch ally against Islamic terrorism. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
The election was an outright disaster for Rahul Gandhi, “the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and leader of India’s Congress party,” which is down to 52 seats as opposed to 303 for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. (Remember that Indira Gandhi was the daughter on India’s first prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and is not related to Mahatma Gandhi.)
The Morganza Spillway on the Mississippi to be opened for only the third time in history. The Morganza Spillway is located downstream of the Old River Control Structure.
“60% of male managers are ‘uncomfortable‘ working around women,” a 32% increase over last year. You mean they don’t want false accusations of sexual harassment to derail their careers? Way to go feminists! Once again you’ve made things worse for women living in the real world!
People have known that Chinese manufacturer Huawei has been stealing American intellectual property for at least seven years. Former congressman Mike Rogers: “If I were an American company today, and I’ll tell you this as the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and you are looking at Huawei, I would find another vendor if you care about your intellectual property, if you care about your consumers’ privacy, and you care about the national security of the United States of America.”
Social Justice Warriors are ruining Young Adult publishing.
How computer security is actually handled in the wild:
UK foreign minister to Iran: “Bitch, you try to throw down on T-Dog, he gonna go HAM upside yo dome!” Of course I’m paraphrasing a bit…
Good news! It looks like Texas taxpayers will finally be getting some meaningful property tax relief, to the tune of $5 billion, or half the projected surplus. (Kids, if you have any friends in California or Illinois, try to explain to them what a “budget surplus” is.) This follows months of waffling.
Good news! Texas passes constitutional amendment banning a state income tax, which will go before voters in November.
Bad news! Texas House kills election integrity bill.
Bad news! Texas House refuses to pass a taxpayer-funded lobbying ban.
Laredo passes Los Angeles as America’s largest port. (Hat tip: Matt Mackowiak.)
Coordinated Instagram troll farm attack on Trump. So the next time you see a Trump-Putin meme, be sure to post that link and ask “How the trolling, Trolly McTrollFace?”
Speaking of trolls: Twitter Permanently Bans Anti-Trump Krassenstein Brothers” for “operating multiple fake accounts and purchasing account interactions.” The overwhelming majority of conservatives I follow think Twitter should lift the ban so these idiots can keep talking, but it will be nice to no longer see these morons as the top reply on every Trump tweet.
Antifa activist ordered to pay Judicial Watch’s legal fees.
Speaking of legal fees, Harvey Weinstein will reportedly pay $44 million to settle various sexual harassment/etc. lawsuits, the money evidently coming from insurance, but will still face criminal prosecution over at least two sexual assault allegations.
“Florida man hid legless fugitive girlfriend in plastic tote.” She sounds like a real winner: “Anderson was wanted for failing to appear in court on charges including false imprisonment related to a 2015 incident when she allegedly held people hostage at a Burger King with a BB gun. It ended in a shooting with police and she lost both legs.”
Speaking of lunatics: “Trump is the devil!” Genuine loon, or suicide by cop? You make the call. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
All teaching “white privilege” does is make leftists more contemptuous of poor white people. Which pretty much explains the Democratic Party’s decline in a nutshell…
Austin Mayor Steve Adler rolls out the welcome mat for antisemetic Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar.
Followup: “Medieval Sex Cult at Center of German Crossbow Murder Mystery. Police now say a German sex guru specializing in medieval bondage directed lesbian sex slaves in bizarre murder-suicide.”
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez frets over colonial cauliflower in her own garden. She really is an idiot. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Moogseum.
And speaking of analog synthesizers, they had features you don’t find on modern digital versions, like secret caches of LSD. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
“Facebook Claims Party Celebrating Candace Owens’s Suspension Was ‘An Honest Mistake.'”
A Song of Vanilla Ice and Fire.
Tags:2016 Presidential Race, 87th Texas Legislature, abortion, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, antifa, Austin, Bharatiya Janata Party, Brexit, Brexit Party, Candace Owens, China, Conservatives, corrupt scumbags, corruption, Dan Crenshaw, data security, Democrats, Elections, Elijah Cummings, EU, Facebook, feminists, Florida, Florida Man, Foreign Policy, fraud, Harvey Weinstein, Huawei, Ilhan Omar, impeachment, India, Instagram, Iran, Jihad, John Bel Edwards, Judicial Watch, Laredo, LinkSwarm, Louisiana, Mississippi river, Morganza Spillway, music, Nancy Pelosi, Narendra Modi, Nigel Evans, Nigel Farage, Rahul Gandhi, Scandularity, Semiconductors, Social Justice Warriors, Steve Adler, Texas, Theresa May, UK
Posted in Austin, Communism, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Obama Scandals, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 2 Comments »
Friday, March 15th, 2019
In one of the more important but confusing stories this week, UK’s Parliament rejected PM Theresa May’s Brexit deal, rejected a no-deal Brexit, and rejected a second referendum, but voted to delay Brexit until June. Whether the EU will consent to this delay or not remains to be seen. Borepatch thinks not, mainly due to EU elections coming up.
Enjoy a complimentary LinkSwarm:
Democrats have a race problem:
In the Trump era, Democrats are so intent on appealing to immigrants and minority voters they will tolerate insults to Jews, a constituency that voted for Clinton by better than a 3-to-1 margin in 2016. This is not inconsequential, as Jewish conservative Jeff Dunetz pointed out last week: “According to the FBI, almost 60% of the hate crimes in 2017 based on religion were against Jews.” Liberals would like us to believe that Trump supporters are responsible for this, but who is to blame when, for example, Somali immigrant Mohamed Mohamed Abdi is charged with attempted murder for allegedly trying to run over two men outside a Los Angeles synagogue? How can liberals claim Trump is responsible for three black men attacking Jews in Brooklyn? Police are alarmed by increasing anti-Semitic violence in New York City, which probably has a lot more to do with the “progressive” politics of that Democrat-run fiefdom than it does with who’s occupying the White House. Meanwhile, 11 white people were attacked in New York over the weekend, and a black transgender suspect has been arrested in what police say was an apparent hate-crime spree. Such is the toxic racial climate in the city that sends to Congress such Democrats as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who spent her weekend trashing Ronald Reagan for a capacity crowd of liberals in Austin, Texas.
Democrats and their media allies have spent years building this bonfire of racial resentment. CNN devoted hour upon hour of coverage to the “Black Lives Matter” movement that provoked riots in Ferguson, Missouri, and by the time of the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland, anti-Trump protesters were marching with Communist posters advocating revolution. Barely six weeks before Election Day 2016, a “Black Lives Matter” riot erupted in downtown Charlotte, N.C., and does anyone still wonder why Hillary lost North Carolina, a state that Obama had carried twice? Trump got 63 percent of the white vote in North Carolina, carrying the state by a margin of more than 170,000 votes. Is it likely that Democrats can reverse that verdict by doubling-down on identity politics? Yet liberals continue intensifying their incendiary rhetoric that has sparked incidents like the smearing of the Covington Catholic boys, the Jussie Smollett hoax, and a spree of attacks on Trump supporters across the country. Democrats and their media allies have done everything in their power to demonize the nearly 63 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2016, and what does that foreshadow for November 2020?
Certainly by now, working-class white voters must be tired of deranged Trump-haters getting in their faces and shouting, “RAAAAACIST!” Perhaps that’s why the latest Iowa poll shows Democrat primary voters favoring two old white guys, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. However, the crowded field of Democrats contending for the 2020 presidential nomination, cheered on by their Greek chorus of left-wing journalists, will probably make it easier for Trump to get re-elected. The more white voters become alienated from the Democrats, the more extreme the Democrats become, and the media are so out of touch with voters in places like Iowa that Democrats are caught in a sort of feedback loop of extremism.
The left-wing crackup:
The constituent elements of the American left have radicalized and they are tearing the Democratic Party apart. Meanwhile Donald Trump has delivered on a growing economy, deregulation, strong borders, the rule of law, and he is apparently going to leave the cows and their diapers for later.
The radicalized Democrats are now running as socialists. In the middle of a growing economy they are casting their lot with Venezuela. They expect to win in 2020. Call it the left-wing crack-up.
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Is Corbynism coming to America?
Less than four years ago, Jeremy Corbyn was an obscure backbencher in the British Parliament. In his 30 years as a member of the Labour Party, his greatest legislative accomplishment was paradoxically the lack of any: From 1997 to 2010, when Labour was last in government, Corbyn was the MP who voted against his own party more than any other. Despite his perpetual insubordinations, successive Labour Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown declined to expel Corbyn from their party. “There was no threat,” a deputy Labour chief whip told the Financial Times about Corbyn and his small band of hard-left rebels in 2016. “These people were tolerated because no one had ever heard of them.”
Today, everyone in British politics has heard of Jeremy Corbyn, who, as leader of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition, has utterly transformed the Labour Party. Once a broad-based movement that could command large parliamentary majorities, today it is a sectarian personality cult, offering meager resistance to a shambolic Conservative government. Once the party whose leaders created NATO and stood stalwart against the threat of international communism, today Labour is led by people who sing the praises of anti-Western despots and terrorists. And once the natural political home of British Jewry, Labour today is mired in an anti-Semitic morass, to the point where 40 percent of Jews say they would “seriously consider” leaving the country were Corbyn to become prime minister. Indeed, Labour has become so toxic that, last month, nine MPs quit the party, calling it “sickeningly, institutionally racist,” “a threat to national security” and “a danger to the cohesion of our society, the safety of our citizens, and the health of our democracy.”
How Labour reached this deplorable condition is one that should seriously concern liberals in the United States, where a similar dynamic is playing out in the Democratic Party. An insurgent progressivism favorably disposed to socialism, hostile to Jews and openly admiring of Jeremy Corbyn and all that he represents is steadily making inroads against an aging, centrist Democratic establishment. Here, a constellation of elected officials, media personalities, and activists are mimicking the tactics of their ideological comrades in Britain to take over and transform the Democratic Party into a vehicle for their extreme agenda.
Related: Jexodus.
“Migrants Use Almost Twice The Welfare Benefits As Native-Born Americans.”
According to a report by Breitbart, in recently released research by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), analysts discovered that about 63 percent of non-citizen households, those who live legally and illegally in the U.S., use some form of public welfare while only about 35 percent of native-born American households are on welfare.
“Five adults arrested at compound in Taos County indicted on terrorism charges.”
“Twice-Deported Illegal Alien Charged With Raping 12-Year-Old Girl.”
Illegal alien arrested for murder of 59-year old woman. “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said agents tried to deport Carranza nine times before, but their detainer requests were not honored in Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties, both so-called ‘sanctuary cities.’ In every occasion, local authorities declined to cooperate with a federal request to hold Carranza in jail due to his immigration status — as is often the policy with “sanctuary cities” and counties — and he was released back on the street.”
“At a 10-year high, wage growth for American workers likely to keep accelerating.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Meanwhile, some manufacturers can’t fill open jobs. (Hat tip: TPPF’s Cannon.)
Never Trump Bulwark writer attempts to take down Victor Davis Hanson. The attempt goes very, very badly for him.
[Gabriel] Schoenfeld only fuels the popular perception of The Bulwark Never Trumpers as an angry, coastal elite who are anguished that their warnings about Trump were ignored by both hoi polloi and their conservative “grifters and trolls.” In careerist fury, he now damns others for his own self-immolation — as if the country must suffer for the sins of not listening to his own genius, which would probably have given the country a 16-year Obama-Clinton regnum.
That Never Trumpers at The Bulwark were wrong about the Trump nomination, the general election, and the first two years of the Trump administration seems only to have fueled their spitefulness. If Schoenfeld is representative of this rump movement, then they are engaging in projection.
Read the whole thing for a detailed, comprehensive takedown.
Another big money Democratic donor caught up in the college admissions scandal.
The CDC’s “gun violence” numbers are useless, says that well-known pro-gun outlet, 538.
How China is screwing Vietnam out of energy opportunities.
Another week, another UK Muslim rape gang.
SPLC founder Morris Dees fired, though evidently for sexual harassment rather than smearing innocent conservatives.
“California Veterans Home Threatens to Eject 84-Year-Old Widow for Bible Study Group.”
Some of the power has been restored, but Venezuela’s water runs black.
Venezuela’s premier university destroyed by socialism. A sad photo essay. (Hat tip: Wretchardthecat on Twitter.)
Related tweet:
“Son defends parents caught in college admissions scandal while smoking blunt.” Can’t imagine why such a fine specimen of academic scholarship would need a leg up in their college admissions. (Had tip: IowaHawk via Andrew Wimsatt.)
“Media Matters President Wrote Blog Posts About ‘Japs,’ ‘Jewry’ And ‘Trannies.’” Political correctness for thee, but not for me. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Democratic Governor of overtaxed New Jersey wants to hike taxes even more.
What if Ayn Rand was right?
“The Army’s Next-Generation Combat Helmet Has Arrived.”
“To Avoid Confusing Words, Ilhan Omar Will Now Respond To All Questions With ‘I Am Groot.'”
You know, Hayek’s Nobel Prize would look good on my mantle.
Random tweet:
Tags:#NeverTrump, Ayn Rand, Border Controls, Brexit, California, China, Crime, Democrats, Economics, economy, EU, F. A. Hayek, Guns, Ilhan Omar, Illegal Aliens, Jeremy Corbyn, Jews, LinkSwarm, Media Matters, Military, morons, Nancy Pelosi, New Jersey, oil industry, Phil Murphy, rape, San Jose, sanctuary cities, Sheffield, Theresa May, UK, Venezuela, Victor Davis Hanson, Vietnam, Welfare State
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Military, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
Saturday, March 9th, 2019
Not one, but two separate National Review pieces on the failure of Democrats to condemn Minnesota Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar shows the grip victimhood identity politics has on the Democratic Party.
First, Jonathan Tobin:
It turns out you can accuse Jews of controlling the world, buying Congress, and harboring dual loyalty to Israel and still be considered a heroine by much of the Democratic party. The reaction to the latest example of anti-Semitic invective from Representative Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) is a teaching moment for anyone previously unsure about how the toxic mix of identity politics, intersectional ideology, and naked partisanship could lead to a major American political party deciding that hatemongering from one of its members wasn’t deserving even of a slap on the wrist.
A week’s worth of national discussion over Omar’s anti-Semitic remarks didn’t result in her condemnation by the House. To the contrary, the House majority revealed itself to be deeply divided on the question of how to handle blatant anti-Semitism. The “compromise” Democrats finally agreed upon was a resolution that not only lumped in the question of the moment — the effort by one member of Congress to delegitimize Jews and supporters of Israel — with a laundry list of other hatreds. And they failed to single out Omar for her actions.
The result is an odd echo of those who criticized the Black Lives Matter movement by claiming that “all lives mattered,” a stand that was harshly criticized at the time by most liberals and Democrats as insensitive to — if not evidence of — racial bigotry. It is a stance they appear to have no shame echoing when it comes to anti-Semitism.
Indeed, Omar has emerged from this incident not only unscathed but also confident that many in the House, and several Democratic presidential candidates, consider her the aggrieved party in the discussion. With so many Democrats agreeing that Omar had been unfairly singled out because of her race and religion, that leaves Jews, one of the most loyal constituencies of the Democratic party, pondering the speed with which they had been discarded.
Jews and supporters of Israel are not the only losers in this incident. House speaker Nancy Pelosi made it clear to Omar a month ago that expressions of anti-Semitism would not be tolerated and forced the congresswoman to issue a contrite apology claiming, as she had done after a previous anti-Semitic statement, that she was unaware of the hurtful nature of singling out Jews for demonization.
Snip.
How is this possible?
Many on the left believe that as a woman of color, a Muslim, and an immigrant, Omar cannot, by definition, be a purveyor of hate and prejudice. One way that identity politics manifests is that those who are considered oppressed receive immunity to do things that those considered more privileged cannot do. Hence many Democrats, particularly members of the Congressional Black Caucus, sought to defend Omar rather than to disavow her.
Just as important is the way intersectional theory — which, taking its cues from critical-race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw, seeks to connect the struggle of all allegedly oppressed peoples — serves to legitimate anti-Semitism. For many on the left, the Palestinian war to destroy Israel is falsely linked to the struggle for civil rights in the United States. Not only does that cause them to ignore the complicated truth about the conflict in the Middle East, it also justifies BDS campaigns and efforts to demonize those who support Israel.
Pelosi and other mainstream Democrats have long accused Republicans of trying to use their ardent support for Israel as a wedge issue and thereby damaging bipartisan support for the Jewish state. What they failed to realize is that much of their party no longer wants any part of that consensus. Three of the party’s leading presidential candidates — Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris — all issued statements in support of Omar, even registering concern about her safety.
The second NR piece is from Matthew Continetti:
I have a new hobby. It’s collecting the excuses Democrats make for Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democratic congresswoman who has an unhealthy fixation on Jewish influence, Jewish money, and Jewish loyalty. Omar has said that Israel “hypnotized the world,” ascribing to Jews the power of mind control in the service of manipulating public opinion. She’s said the only reason Congress supports Israel is Jewish campaign donations. Most recently, using the classic anti-Semitic trope of dual loyalty, she criticized supporters of Israel for having “allegiance to a foreign power.” A real treasure, Omar is. A typical freshman congresswoman sees her mission as — forgive the expression — bringing home the bacon for her district. Not Ilhan. Her project is to mainstream anti-Semitic rhetoric within the Democratic party. Once upon a time, you’d have to visit the invaluable website of the Middle East Media Research Institute to hear such tripe. Now you just need to flip on C-SPAN.
And Democrats are powerless to stop it. They’re tripping over themselves, making rationalizations, dodging reality, and trying to clean up this anti-Semitic mess. Omar is new to this, they say. She never intended to come across as anti-Semitic. She can’t help it. “She comes from a different culture.” She didn’t know what she was saying — she’s a moron! She’s just trying to “start a conversation” about the policies of Israel’s government. And why are you singling her out, anyway. “She is living through a lot of pain.” She’s black, she’s a woman, and she’s Muslim. You can’t condemn her without also condemning white men of privilege. What are you, racist? Islamophobic? Shame on you for picking on this poor lady, who just happens to say that American Jews serve a foreign power by buying off politicians and using the Force to blinker people’s minds.
Before such “arguments” — they are really assertions of victimhood to intimidate critics — Nancy Pelosi shudders. She’s supposed to be this Iron Lady, returned to power after exile, ruling her caucus with a vise-like grip. But her hands are covered in Palmolive. She’s spent the first weeks of Congress doing little more than responding to the various insanities of Omar and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. Pelosi will condemn Omar one minute, before appearing with her on the cover of Rolling Stone the next. She’s lost a step. She can’t hold her caucus together when Republicans call for motions to recommit on the House floor. The policies her candidates ran on in swing districts vanished under the solar-powered glare of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal. We’re not talking about covering preexisting conditions, we’re pledging to rid the world once and for all of the scourges of air travel and cow flatulence. Pelosi’s trigger-happy committee chairmen, firing their subpoena cannons into the air at random, look like goofballs desperate to impeach President Trump.
Whatever control Pelosi had over her majority vanished the second she delayed the resolution condemning Omar. It then became undeniable that AOC & co. is in charge. Identity politics has rendered the Democrats incapable of criticizing anti-Semitism so long as it dons the wardrobe of intersectionality. It’s nothing short of incredible that three women from three different cities — New York, Detroit, and Minneapolis — can run roughshod over 233 other House Democrats with a little help from social media, woke 24-year-olds in the digital press, and the Congressional Black Caucus. If you’re Ocasio-Cortez right now, you must love life from the comfort of the test kitchen in your luxury D.C. apartment building. What’s next for this trio — two of whom are members of the Democratic Socialists of America, two of whom support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement that seeks Israel’s destruction, and all three of whom combine radical anti-American politics with radical self-regard — finding a candidate to primary pro-Israel Democrat Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, on which Omar sits? Challenging Chuck Schumer in the Democratic primary when he’s up for reelection in 2022?
One particular irony is that a movement which combines “intersectionality” and institutional hostility to Jews and Israel may produce a white Jewish socialist as its Presidential candidate:
The most pressing order of business has got to be the 2020 presidential election. Omar, AOC, and Tlaib don’t strike me as Cory Booker supporters. Amy Klobuchar might be too much of a taskmaster for them. Most likely the radicals will line up behind the current frontrunner, Bernie Sanders, who has already surrounded himself with anti-Israel activists. Sanders has said criticism of Omar is just a means to “stifle debate” over Israel’s government. He’s too smart to believe that. As the most successful Jewish presidential candidate in history, he has a responsibility to draw lines. After all, he’s no stranger to the dual-loyalty charge — though of course in his case the other country was the Soviet Union.
Bernie Sanders has no interest in stopping Omar. He recognizes that she represents the impending transformation of the Democratic party into something more closely resembling the British Labour party. Labourites elected avowed socialist Jeremy Corbyn party leader in September 2015. The years since have been spent in one anti-Semitism scandal after another. Sanders wants desperately to be the American Corbyn. If anti-Semitism is the price of a socialist America, so be it. Remember what Stalin said about the omelette. I’m sure Bernie does. If Democrats can’t rebuke Omar swiftly and definitively, if they have trouble competing with Ocasio-Cortez’s Instagram cooking show, how will they be able to stop Sanders from carrying his devoted bloc of supporters to plurality victories in the early primaries, and using the divided field to gain momentum just as Trump did?
I’m not sure this is going to be the outcome. The party’s Social Justice Warrior leanings would suggest Kamala Harris as the candidate that checks the most diversity boxes, as well as a way to reknit the Obama coalition, but right now the enthusiasm for Harris’ candidacy seems confined to Democratic Media Complex’s chattering classes, with much less evident among actual Democratic voters.
Just as victimhood identity politics pushed white blue collar voters out of the Democratic Party, it’s now pushing Jews out. The old political joke about New York City Jewish voters was “they earn like Republican but vote like Puerto Ricans.” They’ve gone from being victims of oppression to being Super White in the eyes of Democratic activists. At an estimated 2% of the US population, Democrats have collectively decided that they need Muslim votes more than Jewish votes. But the Democratic Party will be hard-pressed to make the shortfall if Jewish donors realize that the party is actively hostile to them and stop giving entirely. Donors in New York and Los Angeles disproportionately fund many Democratic Party candidates nationwide, and Jewish donors make up a disproportionate share of the donors in both locales.
This shift in the Democratic Party has been underway for a long, long time, at least since the United States support Israel in The Six Day War and the new left added support for Palestinians terrorists to their adulation of the Viet Cong. By the 1980s, Democratic activists on campus were already hostile to Israel, and those people now make up the institutional core of the Democratic Party, electoral needs be damned. With the uptick in Muslim immigration under Obama, ideological opposition to Israel has been buttressed by actual hatred of Jews among a growing segment of the Democratic Party’s voting coalition. And social justice warrior victimhood identity politics has made Democrats institutionally incapable of resisting that trend.
This is another reason Democrats have been so desperate to smear Donald Trump as an antisemite, despite tons of evidence to the contrary. (And they become extremely testy when you try to point out they’re wrong.) They know the Democratic Party is increasingly institutionally hostile to Jewish interests, and only by projecting their party’s sins onto Trump can they hope to keep Jews as part of their coalition. After this week, I doubt that’s possible.
Tags:2020 Presidential Race, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, anti-semitism, Bernie Sanders, Democrats, Elections, Elizabeth Warren, Ilhan Omar, Israel, Jeremy Corbyn, Jews, Jihad, Jonathan Tobin, Kamala Harris, Labour, Matthew Continetti, Nancy Pelosi, National Review, Social Justice Warriors
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Jihad, Social Justice Warriors | No Comments »
Friday, January 11th, 2019
Welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! At least those of you not among the millions dead from the shutdown, assuming you already survived the tax cut and the end of Net Neutrality…
If you ignore the MSM-generated drama, 2018 was a great year for America:
In December, the United States reached a staggering level of oil production, pumping some 11.6 million barrels per day. For the first time since 1973, America is now the world’s largest oil producer
Since Trump took office, the United States has increased its oil production by nearly 3 million barrels per day, largely as the result of fewer regulations, more federal leasing, and the continuing brilliance of American frackers and horizontal drillers.
It appears that there is still far more oil beneath U.S. soil than has ever been taken out. American production could even soar higher in the months ahead.
In addition, the United States remains the largest producer of natural gas and the second-greatest producer of coal. The scary old energy-related phraseology of the last half-century—”energy crisis,” “peak oil,” “oil embargo”—no longer exists.
Near-total energy self-sufficiency means the United States is no longer strategically leveraged by the Middle East, forced to pay exorbitant political prices to guarantee access to imported oil, or threatened by gasoline prices of $4 to $5 a gallon.
The American economy grew by 4.2 percent in the second quarter of 2018, and by 3.4 percent in the third quarter. American GDP is nearly $1.7 trillion larger than in January 2017, and nearly $8 trillion larger than the GDP of China. For all the talk of the Chinese juggernaut, three Chinese workers produce about 60 percent of the goods and services produced by one American worker.
In 2018, unemployment fell to a near-record peacetime low of 3.7 percent. That’s the lowest U.S. unemployment rate since 1969. Black unemployment hit an all-time low in 2018. For the first time in memory, employers are seeking out entry-level workers rather than vice versa.
The poverty rate is also near a historic low, and household income increased. There are about 8 million fewer Americans living below the poverty line than there were eight years ago. Since January 2017, more than 3 million Americans have gone off so-called food stamps.
Abroad, lots of bad things that were supposed to happen simply did not.
After withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, the United States exceeded the annual percentage of carbon reductions of most countries that are part of the agreement.
North Korea and the United States did not go to war. Instead, North Korea has stopped its provocative nuclear testing and its launching of ballistic missiles over the territory of its neighbors.
Despite all the Trump bluster, NATO and NAFTA did not quite implode. Rather, allies and partners agreed to renegotiate past commitments and agreements on terms more favorable to the U.S.
The United States—and increasingly most of the world—is at last addressing the systematic commercial cheating, technological appropriation, overt espionage, intellectual-property theft, cyber intrusions, and mercantilism of the Chinese government.
Read the whole thing. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
President Donald Trump visits the Texas border.
“The longer Donald Trump wrangles with his two superannuated cartoon antagonists, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, the stronger the president’s position becomes.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
“If the Dems Want to Lose the Wall Fight, All They Have to Do Is Keep Talking.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Secretary of State Secretary of State Mike Pompeo notes that Obama’s Cairo speech was full of shit.
Nobel Peace Prize secretary admits that giving the award to Obama was a mistake. In other news, Peter Dinklage will not be the starting center for the New York Knicks. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
“There is one thing that Palestine obsessives never seem obsessed with: the opinions of Palestinians. There’s no mystery here—asking what Palestinians believe exposes a fundamental problem with the liberal approach to the peace process, which is based on the belief that Palestinians are willing to live peacefully beside Israel.”
Flashback: How a Boris Yeltsin trip to a Randall’s in Clear Lake helped end the cold war.
The very first bill pushed by House Democrats takes aim at the First Amendment:
House Democrats are up and running, and their first bill is instructive. Couched as an anti-corruption and good-government measure, it is really an attempt to silence or obstruct political opponents.
A central part of H.R. 1 is “campaign-finance reform,” no surprise given the progressive fixation with money in politics, which oddly turns to mist when Tom Steyer or Mike Bloomberg are spending. The House bill requires some advocacy groups to publicly disclose the names of donors who give more than $10,000, even if the groups aren’t running ads that endorse candidates but merely inform voters about the issues.
The goal is to identify donors who don’t genuflect to progressive views, then bully or harass them to stop giving. Recall how the Mozilla CEO was driven out after he donated to California’s referendum opposing same-sex marriage.
(Hat tip: MQ Sullivan on Twitter.)
“WaPo’s embarrassing indulgence in hyperbole describing the attendance at Democratic candidates rallies.” Remember: Trump filling arenas is nothing, but when 200 Democrats turn out, it’s “filled to the rafters.”
Second dead black man found in the home of prominent gay California Democratic donor Ed Buck. I guest the first was just a “gimme” under California law.
“Hey officer, I have a dead body in my apartment, along with a bunch of illegal drugs.” “It’s cool. No worries.”
Tam suggests that people do not need to clean their gun as frequently as the old military guys suggest.
Laws are for the little people: “He’s been a staunch supporter of gun control measures for decades, but in a surprising twist, federal prosecutors revealed Thursday that nearly two dozen firearms were discovered in Ald. Ed Burke’s offices during their raids in November.” (Hat tip: Snowflakes in Hell.)
Woe unto those who own a house inadvertently mapped as a default location for unmapped IP addresses.
Being anti-communist is now evidently a hate crime in Seattle. (Hat tip: Gail Heriot at Instapundit.)
Twenty-one bodies found in north Mexico after gang clash near Texas border.
Media Matters head and Hillary Clinton crony David Brock says that Bernie supporters must be silenced in 2020.
Brazil:
Jair Bolsonaro is “far right” and the media means that as a pejorative.
Turns out he favors the private sector and wants to get rid of government owned industry.
He favors expansive gun rights as a way to combat crime and let people protect themselves. This has led to massive media backlash in the United States.
He favors conservative social policy including a rollback of the LGBT agenda in Brazil. Again, this has led to massive media backlash in the United States.
Most damning in the eyes of many in western media, he favors abandoning restrictions on private property that could threaten Amazonian forest growth, i.e. he’s bad for climate change.
The media has focused a lot on Bolsonaro talking favorably about Brazil’s American backed military dictatorship that ruthlessly exterminated communists and other dissident groups from the 1960’s into the early 1980’s. They suggest Bolsonaro might bring it back.
So far, the only thing Bolsonaro seems to be doing is keeping his campaign promises to fight corruption, roll back progressive social policies his socialist predecessor supported, and expand gun rights. But the American commentariat can do nothing but see everything through the lens of Trump and if you hate Trump, you must hate Bolsonaro apparently.
Cahnman says cut Will Hurd some slack on some meaningless political posturing. I tend to agree, especially since here he might actually be voting the way his constituents favor.
Dan Crenshaw seems to be settling into his new job nicely:
Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke Instagrams his trip to the dentist. Because that’s what voters really want to see.
Related snark:
Open office plans suck. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“I’m attacking the Death Star…and I’m not wearing any pants!” (Link corrected.)
Tags:Bernie Sanders, Beto O'Rourke, Border Controls, border fence, Boris Yeltsin, Brazil, Cairo, China, Chuck Schumer, Cold War, Communism, Crime, Dan Crenshaw, David Brock, Democrats, Donald Trump, Ed Buck, Ed Burke, Eqypt, Guns, Instagram, Israel, Jair Bolsonaro, Jihad, LinkSwarm, Media Matters, Media Watch, Mexico, murder, Nancy Pelosi, Palestinians, Soviet Union, Star Wars, Tamaulipas, Texas, Washington Post, Will Hurd
Posted in Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Texas | No Comments »
Thursday, November 29th, 2018
Just as the prophecy foretold, Nancy Pelosi easily crushed a small band of Democratic rebels to regain the Speaker’s gavel in 2019:
Representative Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) was nominated Wednesday to serve as the next speaker of the House, despite strident opposition from a small subset of her Democratic caucus. Pelosi’s nomination was all but guaranteed as the House Democrats opposed to her nomination failed to present an alternative candidate.
Awful hard to beat something with nothing, especially when the “something” has a steely, unwavering will to power, a vindictive streak and a long memory.
With the nomination secured by a vote of 203-32, the California progressive must now win over a majority of the House in a floor vote in early January before she can claim the gavel. Since the entire Republican caucus will likely vote against her, Pelosi can only afford to lose the support of 17 Democrats if she hopes to win the speakership.
There’s no living Republican House Democrats would be willing to back over Pelosi. Or even any dead one. Were Abraham Lincoln miraculously restored to life to seek the job, within minutes Democrats would be calling him a tool of patriarchy and running black-and-white attack ads in which the unseen, ominous-voiced narrator asks: “Lincoln: Is he really against slavery?”
While Pelosi was running unopposed, the party modified the standard nomination ballot to include a “no” option, so that freshman Democrats who ran on opposing her could tell their constituents they followed through on their respective pledges.
And last Saturday I went on a hunger strike to protest all the injustice in the world. Or, as other people call it, “skipped lunch.”
Pelosi reportedly supported those freshmen lawmakers, giving them the go ahead to vote “no” to preserve their political capital.
Translation: Democrats think their constituents are idiots who will forgive transparent lies as long as some sort of meaningless symbolic placating gesture is made. Given the sort of Democrats they elected, can we really say that judgment is wrong?
Tags:Democrats, Nancy Pelosi
Posted in Democrats | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, November 21st, 2018
Remember how 16 House Democrats all said it was time for new leadership and swore up and down that they wouldn’t be voting to restore Nancy Pelosi to the speaker’s chair?
One of Pelosi’s rumored rivals was Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio, the former Congressional Black Caucus chairwoman.
Well, guess what?
Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) endorsed Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for Speaker in the next Congress in a surprise move Tuesday, abandoning the idea of challenging her.
Fudge, who huddled with Pelosi in the Capitol on Friday, said Pelosi has offered to restore a defunct subcommittee on elections, and to make Fudge the chairwoman.
Those 16 remaining anti-Pelosi votes make up a whopping 6% of the Democratic caucus. The truth is that if every one of them stuck to their pledge to dump Pelosi, she still has enough votes to be elected speaker without them. There’s lots of talk of Democrats who made anti-Pelosi noises during their campaigns, but we all know how much that’s worth.
Their rebellion is essentially over before the voting starts.
The Anti-Pelosi faction did manage to hold out slightly longer than the 45 minutes Sultan Khalid bin Barghash managed to resist the British in the Anglo-Zanzibar war of August 27, 1896…
Tags:Democrats, House of Representatives, Marcia Fudge, Nancy Pelosi
Posted in Democrats | 2 Comments »
Thursday, November 8th, 2018
Busy as hell today. Here’s some more election analysis of note:
Jim Geraghty:
Dear God, did the Senate Democrats’ 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 “Blue Tsunami.” And then they decided that rerunning the Neil Gorsuch fight wasn’t 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 yesterday’s 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 wasn’t 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 “Vote liberal for four or five years, veer back to the center in election years” 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 that’s what he does every four years — 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, that’s a Florida landslide.
As of this writing, Mike Braun is on pace to win Indiana’s 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 Indiana’s 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, we’re 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 O’Rourke a bit of credit; coming within three points is better than any Democrat running statewide in Texas since . . . Ann Richards, I think? But that’s . . . 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 O’Rourke 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.
Kevin D. Williamson:
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 he’s not campaigning) but I’d have enjoyed watching a reasonably well-qualified ham sandwich defeat Robert Francis O’Rourke, one of the most insipid and puffed-up figures on the American political scene.
Snip.
The Democrats have gone well and truly ’round the bend. I spent a fair part of last night with Democrats in Portland, Ore. — admittedly, a pretty special bunch of Democrats, Portland being Portland and all. The professional political operators are what they always are — by turns cynical and sanctimonious — but the rank and file seem to actually believe the horsepucky they’ve 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.
Fourth, and related: The Democrats don’t seem to understand what it is they are really fighting, which, in no small part, is not the Republicans but the constitutional architecture of the United States. The United States is, as the name suggests, a union of states, which have interests, powers, and characters of their own. They are not administrative subdivisions of the federal government. All that talk about winning x percent of the “national House vote” or the “national Senate vote” — neither of which, you know, exists — is a backhanded way of getting at the fact that they do not like how our governments are organized, and that they would prefer a more unitary national government under which the states are so subordinated as to be effectively inconsequential. They complain that, under President Trump, “the Constitution is hanging by a thread” — but they don’t really much care for the actual order established by that Constitution, and certainly not for the limitations it puts on government power through the Bill of Rights and other impediments to étatism.
“Noun. etatism (usually uncountable, plural etatisms) Total control of the state over individual citizens.”
Sean Trende:
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 Obama’s 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 Ohio’s Senate race would fall into the mid-single digits, that Mike DeWine would win the Ohio governor’s race handily, or that Michigan’s 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: “perennial swing seats” (Colorado’s 6th, Arizona’s 2nd), “sleeping/problematic candidates” (Oklahoma’s 5th, South Carolina’s 1st), and suburban districts. This last category is by far the broadest, and it accounts for around two-thirds of the Republicans’ losses. This is a significant long-term problem for the party if it continues.
2. This probably doesn’t 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. That’s a substantial shift, but it falls short of even “semi-wave elections” 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. Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District, for example, flipped in part because Michael Bloomberg’s 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 Trump’s 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 hasn’t shown much interest in smoothing out those edges. And if the economy slides into recession, all bets are off.
Ed Rodgers:
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 everyone’s expectations, while Democrats were left disappointed as the fantasy of Beto O’Rourke, 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 year’s election returns, but the instant analysis is clear: Democrats may have won the House, but Trump won the election.
Jazz Shaw on what won’t be happening:
Let’s look at what won’t 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 isn’t 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 isn’t going to be finished. That’s somehow become a badge of honor among Democrats, despite being one of the most doable solutions to immigration problems imaginable. If we’re 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. It’s 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. I’m kind of hoping the Democrats choose the path of jerkiness just for the nicknames he’ll bestow in his tweets.
Oh, and please, impeach him over Russia Treason Traitor stuff. Please. Toss the Trump in that briar patch and he’ll be president forever.
George Neumayr thinks Trump helped in Florida:
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 “tying himself to Trump,” 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 couldn’t win. Notice also the media’s 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 media’s excited talk of a “blue wave” in Florida never struck me as very convincing as I walked around various cities in Florida. The media’s 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 media’s claims of a spreading anti-Trump backlash. Nobody seemed to care in the slightest. In fact, a self-described independent who said that he “had voted for Jimmy Carter” made a point of walking over to me as I sat in the mall’s food court to express his support for Trump’s policies. “I didn’t vote for him,” he said, “but he is delivering results.”
Dems are currently up 30 seats in the House, which puts them up to 225.
Tags:2018 Election, 2018 Texas Senate Race, Andrew Gillum, Beto O'Rourke, Border Controls, Brett Kavanaugh, Claire McCaskill, Democrats, Elections, Florida, George Neumayr, Georgia, Indiana, Jim Geraghty, Joe Manchin, Joseph Donnelly, Josh Hawley, Kevin D. Williamson, Kurt Schlichter, Marsha Blackburn, Michael Bloomberg, Mike Braun, Nancy Pelosi, Phil Bredesen, Portland, Republicans, Rick Scott, Sean Trende, Stacey Abrams, Ted Cruz, West Virginia
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Wednesday, November 7th, 2018
A few quick updates:
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.
Twitter really thinks Democrats are dumb:
More later. Maybe tomorrow.
Tags:2018 Election, Arizona, Dean Heller, Democrats, Elections, Florida, Montana, Nancy Pelosi, Republicans, Scott Walker, Wisconsin
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans | 1 Comment »