Welcome to another Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update! Amy Klobuchar is In, Mitch Landrieu is Probably Out, Elizabeth Warren gives a speech, and Biden is just biding his time.
Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Out. She didn’t launch a campaign during her state of the union response, so I think we can safely assume she’s out.
Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: Learning toward In. “‘We’ve got a million people that are going to run, which I think is great,’ Bennet said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. But, he added, ‘I think having one more voice in that conversation that’s focused on America’s future, I don’t think would hurt.’ Bennet, 54, cast himself as a centrist Democrat who would bring business and managerial experience to the crowded field.”
Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Likely In. “It appears a presidential run from Sen. Sherrod Brown is gaining momentum with voters.” And he gave a speech in New Hampshire.
Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Are you interested in a piece on Castro’s foreign policy ideas from the Council on Foreign elations blog? Me neither, but here it is.
Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Probably not. All quiet on the Clinton front this week. Those new Elder Signs must be working…
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo: Out.
New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio: Leaning toward In. Reportedly searching for staffers for a possible run, much to the horror of everyone around him. Upgrade from Maybe.
Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Out.
California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter feed. Tons of fawning in-the-tank MSM coverage omitted. But The Guardian wonders just how genuine Harris’ shift to the leftwing church of what’s happening now really is. Also, here’s more evidence that the establishment’s “in the tank for Harris”:
Hey @TwitterSupport. How do you see this as not a conflict of interest when the twitter platform is used for political discussion constantly? What measures do you have in place to ensure a fair platform? pic.twitter.com/cM3lqgOAmJ
Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder: Maybe. Has a speech scheduled in Iowa…but only one. Not seeing much activity, which begs the question: Is Holder not actively doing anything to support a possible run, or is the MSM freezing out mention of what he is doing to help clear the lane for Kamala Harris?
Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. He’s running on climate change and gun control. Why not not just go ahead and adopt “Screw You, Middle America” as your campaign slogan?
Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine: Out.
Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry: Not seeing any sign.
Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: Maybe? “U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, who was in New Hampshire last weekend amid speculation that he might run for president, will give a speech at the Brookings Institution next week where he plans to outline his ‘vision for the future of U.S foreign policy,’ according to his campaign.”
Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: Maybe? In his talk with Oprah Winfrey, he says he’ll decide by the end of February. He’s giving an anti-border wall speech in El Paso the same time President Trump is giving his speech in El Paso. Dallas Morning News writer wonders: “Has he missed his window of opportunity?”
“It feels a little saturated at the moment,” said Brigham Hoegh, the Democratic chairwoman in Audubon County, in western Iowa. “Kamala [Harris] made a big show and looks really strong in the last couple of weeks. I feel like he could still jump in, but there’s a ton of people in the race that are getting attention. He hasn’t been top of the mind lately.”
New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez: Constitutionally ineligible to run in 2020.
Ohio Democratic Representative Tim Ryan: Maybe?. You know that Sherrod Brown speech in New Hampshire? Ryan had signage there. “Youngstown-area Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan’s smiling face greeted the crowd of 350 who showed up to hear Brown’s speech, part of his visit to the early-voting states in the presidential primary.” Might be nothing. Might be just Ryan jacking with another Ohio Democrat. But still an upgrade over “Doubtful.” Entrails cloudy, ask again later.
California Representative Eric Swalwell: Leaning toward In. Soon: “He has already added staff and offices in some key early states as he builds out a national campaign infrastructure.”
Pretty soon we won’t have Robert “Bobby” Francis O’Rourke (AKA “Beto”) to kick around anymore, so let’s do a roundup of all his campaign’s most recent missteps, shall we?
First up, front and center, are the Project Veritas sting videos that have O’Rourke staffers on camera admitting they’re diverting campaign funds to transport illegal alien caravan members to the United States:
I believe the technical term for that is “campaign finance fraud.” Unless you prefer the term “embezzlement.”
(Also, is it just me, or is there a distinct like of activity in those shots from O’Rourke field headquarters. No phone-calling, no envelope-stuffing, just…kicking back and hanging out. Evidently having more money than any senate candidate ever doesn’t buy you motivated staffers…)
Then there’s that New York Times piece that, instead of the now-standard hagiography, actually reported on how O’Rourke got to where he is today: wealthy and powerful relatives, and a healthy dose of political self-dealing:
At a special City Council meeting in 2006, a billionaire real estate investor unveiled his vision for redeveloping downtown El Paso. To replace tenements and boarded-up buildings, he proposed restaurants, shops and an arts walk rivaling San Antonio’s River Walk.
Representative Beto O’Rourke, one of hundreds attending, wasn’t exactly a disinterested party.
Not only had he married the investor’s daughter, but as a member of City Council, he represented the targeted area, including a historic Mexican-American neighborhood.
Calling downtown “one piece of El Paso that was missing on the road back to greatness,” Mr. O’Rourke, now a congressman and the Democratic candidate for Senate in Texas, voted to take the first step forward with the plan.
Over the next two years, Mr. O’Rourke would defend the plan before angry barrio residents and vote to advance it. At other times, he would abstain. Business owners who opposed the plan accused Mr. O’Rourke of a conflict, citing the involvement of his father-in-law, the billionaire developer William D. Sanders.
Snip.
Mr. O’Rourke was perceived by many as siding with the moneyed elite against angry barrio residents, small business owners and even the Jesuit priests who ministered to the immigrant community at Sacred Heart Church.
“Mr. O’Rourke was basically the pretty face of this very ugly plan against our most vulnerable neighborhoods,” said David Dorado Romo, a local historian who added that the episode had resurrected longstanding race and class divisions in the city.
Barrio residents feared that they would lose their homes through eminent domain, and a city-funded branding study suggested that the residents of El Paso were perceived as “dirty” and “lazy.’’ Among some constituents, the hurt feelings have lingered.
Naturally there was great shock among O’Rourke fans that NYT would dare do actual reporting on a Democrat a week before the election. As Brandon Morse notes: “This deal O’Rourke was a part of has all the hallmarks leftists hate. Here’s a rich white guy screwing over poor minorities in order to further enrich himself and his family. Yet, for the longest time, you couldn’t get a peep out of mainstream press outlets.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Finally, there’s a new Emereson College poll that purportedly shows Sen. Ted Cruz up by only three points. By now you should know the reply every poll result brings up: show me the crosstabs. They oversampled Democrats and women. As usual.
Thanks to his fundraising, I expect O’Rourke to lose by less than the 16% Cruz beat Democrat Paul Sadler by in 2012, much less the 20 points Greg Abbott walloped Wendy Davis by in 2014.
Mexico’s drug war is one of those news stories that’s been crowded off America’s front pages by the tide of #FakeNews. How can the MSM find time to cover dead Mexicans if Donald Trump’s doorman might have once talked to a Russian?
I say “drug war” but that should probably be “drug wars,” in that each government crackdown on particular cartels, wars between rival cartels, and wars between different factions of the same cartel are all different events, and different parts of Mexico experience explosive violence and relative calm at different times. Juarez, the Mexican city just across the border from El Paso, experienced horrific drug violence between 2008 and 2012, peaking at 3,766 homicides in 2010, dropping back to 256 in 2015. (By contrast, in 2010 El Paso had a total of five murders.)
in 2017, a newly hot drug war is roiling Mexico just south of the border patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector. “The Reynosa faction of the Gulf Cartel lost its boss, Comandante Toro or Juan Manuel Loaiza Salinas aka Julian Loiza Salinas. The death sparked violent infighting and clashes with Mexican authorities. Residents in the area were forced to live under complete control of Toro, with even the news outlets having to answer to him.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
There are five border control sectors that cover Texas, from East to West: Rio Grande Valley, Laredo, Del Rio, Marfa, and El Paso. Reynosa is directly south of McAllen.
At least 36 people have been killed in drug violence in Reynosa alone this year. Just this week, they machine gunned to death a seven year old boy during a failed carjacking.
In other drug cartel news:
Just today, eight members of the La Familia drug cartel in Austin and San Antonio were sentenced to prison:
Oscar Maldonado, 32 of Austin, was sentenced to 78 months in prison.
Julio Rogel, 20 of Austin, was sentenced to 88 months in prison.
Jose Duenas, 35 of Austin, was sentenced to 60 months in prison.
Jorge Arellano, 36 of Austin, was sentenced to 88 months in prison.
Javier Jaimes, 28 of Austin, was sentenced to 72 months in prison.
Javier Alvarez, 26 of San Antonio, was sentenced to 57 months in prison.
Jaime Carbajal, 26 of Austin, was sentenced to 42 months in prison.
Hugo Rodriguez, 31 of Austin, was sentenced to 70 months in prison.
“Investigators found 75 kilograms of methamphetamine during their investigation, along with nine kilograms of cocaine and around $175,000 in cash.” Three more members await sentencing.
Cruz will still be a prohibitive favorite incumbent with a national profile, a battle-tested campaign team and demonstrated fundraising prowess running in a deep red state. However, in O’Rourke he faces something he’s never run into in a statewide race: A serious Democratic office holder who actually wants to run, something notable absent in 2012.
O’Rouke is not someone to sleep on. The same year Cruz was elected to the Senate, O’Rouke knocked off 8-term Democratic incumbent Silvestre Reyes in a district that’s 79.5% Hispanic. I suspect that he would make a much more formidable general election opponent than the much-better-known Rep. Joaquin Castro. But whether he can get by the likely better-funded Castro in the Democratic primary is another matter.
But the El Paso Democrat is earnestly bullish that he will go to the Senate through a strategy of bringing retail politics to a state of 27 million people.
He has no pollster and no consultants at this point, and said he has no interest in hiring operatives of that ilk.
“Since 1988, when Lloyd Bentsen won re-election to the Senate, Democrats have spent close to a billion dollars on consultants and pollsters and experts and campaign wizards and have performed terribly,” he said.
The approach offers a clear contrast with Cruz, who has used his own consultants to devastating effect in his races for the U.S. Senate and the White House. Last month, several members of Cruz’s political team showed attendees at the Conservative Political Action Convention a presentation of his presidential campaign’s investment and innovations in data analytics.
Certainly Democrats need to change something about running statewide campaigns in Texas, but the “blame the consultants” strategy seems to be yet another case of Democrats ignoring the fact that their liberal policies are unpopular with the Texas electorate.
Then there’s the money issue:
Cruz begins the race with $4.2 million in campaign money. And the early signs amid O’Rourke’s run is that Tea Party groups and establishment organizations will line up with tens of millions of dollars to back Cruz at the slightest sign of trouble.
Nationally, Democrats have no appetite at this point to spend serious money in Texas, and O’Rourke is not accepting money from political action committees. He, like all federal candidates, has no control over whether a super PAC opts to get involved.
But anyone opposing Cruz is a likely magnet for angry liberal dollars. And O’Rourke could have the makings of a Bernie Sanders-type fundraising operation. He is one of the most adept politicians when it comes to social media and was an early adopter of building a following with Facebook Live, a means of broadcasting events through that website.
That’s the problem for Texas Democrats: The message that pulls in nationwide liberal dollars is not the message that wins statewide in Texas, as Wendy Davis can attest.
And that will be the problem for O’Rourke, who seems to be a doctrinaire liberal on just about every issue, from gun control to the border wall to abortion. Indeed, there does not seem to be any issue where O’Rourke is any less liberal than Davis, and he’s arguably worse on gun control.
If O’Rourke makes it past Castro in the primary, Democrats will probably find out, yet again, that the liberal Democratic policies are still out-of-step with Texas voters.
Bonus: O’Rourke was in a punk band called Foss in college. Here they are pretending to be a gospel band to get on a Christian access show:
Well, O’Rourke probably made the right decision not to pursue a musical career. I don’t think Johnny Rotten and Jello Biafra were hearing footsteps…
For the record, here’s the FBI’s current top ten list. Note that four of the top 10 (Alexis Flores, Yaser Abdel Said, Robert Francis Van Wisse and Eduardo Ravelo) are foreign born, while two (Said, wanted for honor killing his own daughters in Irving, and Van Wisse, wanted for murdering a woman in Austin in 1983) have ties to Texas.
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.)
Another day, another Democratic congresscritter indicted. “Corrine Brown, the House rep from the 5th District of Florida, was indicted (along with Ronnie Simmons, her chief of staff) on federal charges of mail and wire fraud.”
First, there is no state income tax in Texas. Some people know this and some don’t—few really grasp what it means practically. It means that if you make decent money and decide to move here and rent something affordable, it’s essentially free to live in Texas. If you make $150,000 a year, your state income taxes in California are roughly $12,000 per year (in NYC it’s closer to $15,000). Or, you can put a thousand bucks a month toward your rent here. If you decide to buy, property taxes are high—but what you get for the money more than makes up for it. My editor at the Observer recently tried to cajole me into coming back to New York. Our house now—which has its own lake and is 29 minutes from the airport which never has lines—costs less than the rent we were paying for our lofted studio apartment in Midtown. Are you kidding?
“The average full-career California teacher receives a pension benefit equal to 105% of their final earnings. CalSTRS CEO says the plan isn’t generous enough.”
Texas’ 2016 Fiscal Year started September 1st. “Several taxes that were eliminated on September 1 include the Inheritance Tax, Oil Regulation Tax, Sulphur Regulation Tax, Fireworks Tax, Controlled Substance Tax Certificates, and the Airline/Passenger Train Beverage Tax.”
Evidently California’s Democratic politicians stay up late at night devising ways they can make the state go broke even faster. The answer: Host the Olympics again.
Korean-owned businesses in LA consider relocating to El Paso. “Kim makes the case that El Paso, once home to plants for denim companies including Levi’s and Wrangler, has abundant skilled laborers, fewer regulations, much cheaper rent and direct flights from Los Angeles.”
You’ve got to hand it to the Obama Administration: They’ve taken an issue (a flood of illegal aliens) that was most heavily impacting the border states, and found a way to piss off pretty much the entire nation.
As Senator Jeff Sessions noted: “The crisis on our border is the direct and predictable result of President Obama’s sustained effort to undermine America’s immigration laws. As the president’s previous director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), John Sandweg recently acknowledged: “if you are a run-of-the-mill immigrant here illegally, your odds of getting deported are close to zero.” Enforcement has collapsed.” Sessions further notes that Obama’s $3.7 billion request does not ask for enhanced deportation authority.
The leftist ideologues who form the core of the administration evidently never gave up their love of forced busing, since they seem to want to forcibly bus illegal aliens into every state (or perhaps fly them to Alaska and Hawaii).
They’re certainly pissing off people in Arizona, as well as elsewhere. “Federal officials have been dumping illegal immigrants in places like Arizona, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Illinois without telling state and local officials beforehand and then demanding the states use their limited resources to care for the illegal immigrants.”
Even Obama’s fellow Democrats in Texas are saying he should visit the border. Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke “added that he has been surprised by the anger he has heard toward the immigrants from many of his El Paso constituents, who “feel like we can’t take care of everyone, and these children and their families are gaming the system.’”
And if Hispanic constituents in heavily Democratic El Paso are pissed off, how do you think people in other parts of the country feel about illegal aliens being force bused into their neighborhoods?
But doing that might keep out the illegal alien felons Obama so seems to love. Like the Mexican national who had already been deported four times being charged with molesting a 9-year old. Evidently molesting our children is one of those jobs Americans won’t do…
And Americans know who is to blame for the problem: “Nearly half of U.S. voters believe the Obama administration has prompted the flood of illegal immigrant children at the border, and most want them sent back home right away.”
If this is a scheme to panic Republicans into passing illegal alien amnesty, it seems to have backfired spectacularly.
No wonder Democrats are nervous. 2014 is shaping up an awful lot like 2010, if not worse…
Also speaking of rockets, in Iraq ISIS seizes control of one of Saddam’s chemical weapons sites, filled with rockets full of nerve gas agents. You know, the ones liberals swore didn’t exist in 2004…
Hillary’s book drops off the Amazon 100 list. Evidently there are tens of millions of Democrats who found that not buying Hard Choices was, in fact, an easy choice…
Public employees union AFSCME severs ties with the United negro College Fund because they took money from the Koch brothers. So it’s more important to display their hate than to help black people go to college…
