Posts Tagged ‘John Kasich’

LinkSwarm for March 5, 2021

Friday, March 5th, 2021

Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! More Democrats behaving badly, and Orange Man Bad simply refuses to abandon the spotlight…

  • Americans are in favor of confronting China over heinous human rights abuses, even if it means risking economic ties.
  • Trump Eviscerates Biden’s Record in Blistering CPAC Speech.” Shotgun, meet barrel of pike. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Despite having the entire American political establishment against him, Trump’s agenda is more popular than ever. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • The Biden Administration is already a disaster:

    What has this desiccated, old weirdo achieved in his six weeks of semiconsciousness in the Oval Office? Well, there’s putting tens of thousands of Americans out of jobs, including union guys who voted for him. There’s telling the American people that their kids can’t go to school because public school teachers take priority over children because of science or something. There’s another war in the Middle East. Those are kind of accomplishments, but not really good ones.

    His administration had someone named “Ducklo” who was mean to women. He had another who wants to be a woman and who wants to let your little boys be surgically turned into women. And Neera Tanden’s confirmation was blocked because she was a woman and totally not because she was an inept loudmouth.

    If this is normalcy, what’s a freak show look like?

    Are you * voters starting to feel a bit of buyer’s remorse? Let me ask it another way. Everybody enjoying your $2,000 check? Oh well. On the upside, they impeached Trump…and failed. Again, after sucking up two weeks of the Senate’s calendar. So, what do you have to show for yourself, * voters?

    Failure.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • The Democrats’ pork laden “relief” bill includes massive health care subsidies for the rich:

    The massive coronavirus relief bill racing through Congress provides substantial new health-insurance subsidies to upper-income households. A 60-year-old couple with two kids making $200,000 would receive a subsidy of $12,000. In some parts of the country where premiums are high, families with incomes exceeding half a million dollars will qualify for thousands of dollars in subsidies to buy an ObamaCare plan. In contrast, a family of four making $40,000 receives an added benefit of just $1,600.

  • It also includes 25 weeks of paid leave for bureaucrats with children in closed schools. Meanwhile, parents with closed schools held hostage to teacher’s union who aren’t bureaucrats can drop dead.
  • The fall of Michael Madigan, America’s last machine boss:

    Newly minted as a committeeman, Madigan was sent to the 1970 Illinois Constitutional Convention as a delegate representing Daley’s interests. He voted for the most constricting “pension protection” clause in the nation, which guaranteed government-employee unions benefits the government couldn’t afford in exchange for their backing of the Democratic machine, tying the state to an anchor of massive debt in perpetuity. He also voted for changes in the property-tax system that would later make him a millionaire through his law firm, Madigan & Getzendanner, which specialized in appealing the tax assessments of the most valuable real estate in the Midwest and skimming off the reductions granted by political allies who heard the firm’s appeals.

    Later that year, Madigan was elected state representative for the 22nd House District of Illinois. He would go on to be reelected 25 times, eventually being elevated to House speaker after he was made gerrymanderer-in-chief following the 1980 Census. The redistricting process had been expected to hurt Democrats badly, but Madigan’s cartographical cunning staved off a political bloodbath and earned him the title of “political wizard” from the Chicago Tribune. Many representatives now owed their seats to his pen, and they elected him speaker in 1983.

    For all but two of the next 38 years, he would hold the speaker’s gavel, wielding parliamentary rules that gave him more power than any other legislative leader in the country. His one-man rule was finally merged with the party power structure in 1998, when he became chairman of the Democratic Party of Illinois. This made him a one-stop shop for special interests looking to pass or kill legislation. Commonwealth Edison, the state’s largest utility provider, last year was forced to pay a $200 million fine for attempting to bribe Madigan by providing no-work contracts and other perks to the speaker’s inner circle. Though he denied wrongdoing, the scandal ultimately hastened his downfall.

    The wreckage of Madigan’s decades-long reign is obvious. When he became speaker in 1983, Illinois had a perfect credit rating. Since 2013, it’s had the worst credit rating in the nation, just one notch above junk. The reason is that while Daley built his political army with federal money, Madigan built his with state money, specifically state debt. Political foot soldiers owed generous pensions, early retirements, and other perks to the speaker’s protection. His fingerprints are on nearly every bill that enhanced state pension benefits, borrowed money to cover their costs, or shorted contributions to the systems to avoid difficult choices over the course of his 50 years in power.

    The result of all those unsustainable promises is the most severe public-pension crisis in U.S. history, one with far-reaching implications for Illinois government. Since 2000, the state has cut spending on child welfare and other programs that help those in need by one-third after adjusting for inflation. Over the same time, spending on pensions and pension debt has increased 501 percent. The same story plays out at the local level, as Illinoisans are saddled with property-tax bills on par with their mortgages — bills that sap home equity out of once-prosperous Black communities, particularly — in exchange for sub-par services that get worse each year.

  • “Liberal elites are driving minority voters from Democratic Party“:

    If you haven’t read New York magazine’s interview with David Schor, an Obama campaign veteran and liberal data analyst, it’s worth your time.

    His post-mortem of the 2020 election shows how Democrats have increasingly become a party of college-educated whites, whose hard-left views aren’t fully shared by the black and Hispanic communities they claim to champion. His findings echo the concerns of older progressive analysts such as John Judis.

    Between the 2016 and 2020 elections, Schor finds, Democrats gained 7 percent among white college grads, but lost 2 percent of African Americans and 8 to 9 percent of Latinos, as well as about 5 percent of Asian Americans.

    Socialism and “defund the police” were the chief reasons, Schor says: “We raised the salience of an ideologically charged issue that millions of nonwhite voters disagreed with us on.”

    Even on immigration, “If you look at, for example, decriminalizing border crossings, that’s not something that a majority of Hispanic voters support,” Schor says.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Far-left Social Justice Warrior and Hillary Clinton toady Neera Tanden withdrew her nomination to become director of the Office of Management and Budget when it became apparent she didn’t have the votes to be confirmed.
  • Speaking of Biden nominations in trouble, Xavier “I Hate Nuns” Becerra’s nomination is no slam dunk either.
  • When I saw a headline on a deadly crash involving an SUV carrying 25 people, I went “Obviously it must have been full of illegal aliens.” Well, guess what?
  • Just as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis lifted coronavirus restrictions month before Texas, so too he’s way ahead of Texas Governor Greg Abbott in proposing concrete election integrity laws.
  • Andrew Cuomo abused his power as Governor to sexually harass me, just as he had done with so many other women.” What, you’re saying it’s not perfectly normal for a governor to ask female aids to play strip poker?
  • Why is the media finally getting around to metooing Andrew Cuomo? To protect other Democratic governors from their disasterous coronavirus policies:

    In a just world not plagued by a fake and corrupt media, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) would be on the edge of resigning his office today, not over a handful of times he allegedly got aggressive with women, but over his sociopathic executive order that required nursing homes to accept patients still infected with the coronavirus.

    That, after all, is the real scandal here, the true scandal, an act so monstrous Cuomo knew he had to cover it up, which he did by falsely blaming the order on the Trump administration and then lying about just how many seniors died as a result.

    But instead of being pressured to resign over that, he’s being hit with perfectly-timed allegations of sexual misconduct, two involving former staffers, one involving a complete stranger he met at a wedding.

    As these things go, while his alleged behavior is inappropriate (especially in the workplace), it’s nothing compared to the credible allegations against His Fraudulency Joe Biden, which involve a full-blown sexual assault allegation. Biden got away with much, much worse, so…

    So what’s going on? Why is America’s corrupt media not at all interested in some 15,000 dead senior citizens while they tar and feather Cuomo over the allegations he made three left-wing women uncomfortable?

    The answer is obvious…

    Four other Democrat governors issued the same sociopathic nursing home order as Cuomo. Four other Democrats ordered infected coronavirus patients be admitted into nursing home facilities where 1) the most vulnerable live, and 2) they’re not set up to handle an infectious virus.

    What this means is that if the corrupt media were to do the right thing (like that will ever happen) and go after Cuomo over his deadly nursing home policy, it would open a Pandora’s Box against these four Democrat governors and the Democrat party as a whole, which is something our fake media will never do.

    Democrats must be protected at all costs, even if the cost is thousands and thousands of lives.

  • When a Cuomo marries a Kennedy.

    So welcoming was the Kennedy clan that the exes of either sex stayed on as friends. Andrew put a stop to that. For Kerry, that meant no more former boyfriends, not even those whom the Kennedys regarded as family. That was the word, and Andrew was dead serious about it. The new rule reinforced the doubts the family had had about Andrew from the start: he wasn’t fun; he didn’t get fun. He was, to put it mildly, a spoilsport. Unlike the Kennedys, too, he didn’t mask his ambition with charm, and no one, not even his in-laws, would stand in his way. And, as Andrew’s star at HUD rose, he seemed increasingly to regard those in-laws with disdain.

    He hated the gatherings in Hyannis; he always felt like the odd man out. The joshing around, the freewheeling talks—Andrew was just too tightly wound to join in. One night, as was typical, the family began singing songs, each member singing a favorite. “The Kennedys are terrible singers, but it’s one of the great joys,” explained Douglas Kennedy. “One time Joe [Jr.] is up there, and he sings ‘Danny Boy,’ and everyone is happy about it. Except Andrew. He’s on the couch with his arms folded, looking disgusted by the whole thing. Everyone is calling for someone else to sing a song. ‘Andrew, you sing,’ someone says. But he says, ‘No, I’m not Irish.’ So someone else says, ‘Sing something Italian.’ Andrew still won’t, so I sing ‘Volare.’”

    Andrew stopped going to Hyannis at one point, a family member recalled. But he made sure to be with the clan at any gathering covered by the media. Early on, the family noticed that at every visit to Arlington Cemetery to honor their father or uncle, Andrew situated himself just so. “He would always find the exact perfect place to stand so he could be in the newspaper the next day,” recalled a relative. “So if that meant grabbing [Ethel’s] hand and walking to the grave, or standing next to John or Caroline, he would get himself in the frame. That was his whole thrust.”

    His “thrust” seems to have changed a bit…

  • Pro-#BlackLivesMatter Portland city councilwoman Jo Ann Hardesty allegedly fled scene after hitting another car. Try to contain your shock. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Speaking of Hellhole Portland: “Defunded Police Were Too Busy With Shootings to Stop Antifa Rioters.”
  • Ninth Circuit Vacates California Magazine Ban Decision.” Good, though there’s still a chance for an en banc hearing.
  • Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy convicted of corruption and influence-peddling, and sentenced to a year in prison.
  • Why Arab armies suck:

    [Kenneth Pollack’s Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness] identifies key aspects of Arab culture relevant to the book: conformity, centralization of authority, deference to authority and passivity, group loyalty, manipulation of information, atomization of knowledge, personal courage, and ambivalence toward manual labor and technical work. One can see how these values and behaviors will negatively affect military performance, especially the most glaring problem for Arab armed forces: poor tactical leadership from junior officers. Consistently, these officers fail to show any initiative or creativity—they rarely if ever adapt quickly to changing circumstances in battle. This makes perfect sense, though, if one considers these soldiers were trained to conform and defer to authority. This stands in stark contrast to the Israeli military, whose soldiers were raised in the “Start-up Nation,” which encourages innovation from all ranks.

    The education system in Arab societies drilled in these values to the point that they became central to soldiers’ behavior. “Typical Arab educational practices relentlessly inculcated the values, preferences, and preferred behavior—the culture—of the wider society,” Pollack writes.

    Pollack also explains that Arab military programs are modeled on the educational methods of the larger society, reinforcing certain patterns of behavior and conditioning soldiers to act and think in “ways that reflect the values and priorities of the dominant culture.”

  • You didn’t really think that Google Chrome’s incognito mode would protect you, did you?
  • Fighting woke racists at Smith College.

    I was told on multiple occasions that discussing my personal thoughts and feelings about my skin color is a requirement of my job. I endured racially hostile comments, and was expected to participate in racially prejudicial behavior as a continued condition of my employment. I endured meetings in which another staff member violently banged his fist on the table, chanting “Rich, white women! Rich, white women!” in reference to Smith alumnae. I listened to my supervisor openly name preferred racial quotas for job openings in our department. I was given supplemental literature in which the world’s population was reduced to two categories — “dominant group members” and “subordinated group members” — based solely on characteristics like race.

    Every day, I watch my colleagues manage student conflict through the lens of race, projecting rigid assumptions and stereotypes on students, thereby reducing them to the color of their skin. I am asked to do the same, as well as to support a curriculum for students that teaches them to project those same stereotypes and assumptions onto themselves and others. I believe such a curriculum is dehumanizing, prevents authentic connection, and undermines the moral agency of young people who are just beginning to find their way in the world.

    Although I have spoken to many staff and faculty at the college who are deeply troubled by all of this, they are too terrified to speak out about it. This illustrates the deeply hostile and fearful culture that pervades Smith College.

  • “Baltimore HS Student Who Passed Only Three Courses in Four Years Ranks in Top Half of His Class.” It’s a real mystery why they have the highest VD rates in the country
  • One thing both Democrats and Republicans agree on: John Kasich is a worthless pile of nothing.
  • Sad news: Austin-based movie theater chain The Alamo Drafthouse has filed for Chapter 11. That’s reorganization, so most theaters will stay open. A good thing, too, since I’ll probably see Godzilla vs. Kong there…
  • Papa Johns founder John Schnatter vindicated. Laundry Service “the branding company hired which was hired by Papa John’s to improve its image, was caught on a ‘hot mic’ brainstorming ways in which it could use comments made by Schnatter to damage his image.”
  • In Soviet Russia, guitar shreds you! (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • “Sanitizer”:

  • “Estimated 9 Billion Already Dead From Texas Mask Mandate Reversal.”
  • “Texas Governor Hailed As Conservative Hero For Ending Unconstitutional Mandates He Implemented.”
  • “G.I. Joe To Be Replaced With Genderless G.I. Pat.”
  • “Can You Find All 17 Instances Of Racism On This Page From A Dr. Seuss Book?”
  • “Report: Women In Hell Still Trying To Turn Up The Thermostat.”
  • “Lunchtime!”

  • LinkSwarm for August 21, 2020

    Friday, August 21st, 2020

    Welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! This one may be a little short because I was busy buying books last night. This roundup is also light on Democratic National Convention news because, really, who has time to watch that garbage?

  • President Donald Trump is the last bulwark against the deluge:

    Perhaps 70 percent of Trumpism remains a hodgepodge of Reaganism: strong defense, realist foreign policy, deregulation, smaller government, big deficits, tax cuts, energy growth, and stars-and-stripes traditionalism.

    But it is the other unorthodox 30 percent that excited his base, terrified conservative apostates, and won Trump the 2016 election by energizing between 4 million and 6 million voters in swing states who had either given up on Republicans, or on elections altogether. NeverTrumpers talk of Trump’s demise and their own resurrection as Phoenixes to rebirth the GOP. They have no idea that those who despise them had ensured their Beltway-preferred candidates could rarely win; nothing has changed since.

    Snip.

    Most hated Trump not because he hated or ridiculed them, but because he found them useless, as we saw from the fixations of John Brennan and James Clapper to the dazed pundits of NeverTrump to the wise men of the retired military.

    What created the hatred of Trump and his supporters, then, was not a rather heterodox political agenda (see below), but a style that took on the Left on its own terms, and shocked a Republican establishment—again not just by conjuring the specter of Lee Atwater, but by shrugging as irrelevant his ostracism by the traditional conservative beltway insider.

    Overview of Trump economy snipped.

    Joe Biden has claimed the recent historic establishment of diplomatic relationships between Israel and the United Arab Emirates was not of the Trump Administration’s own making, but the logical epilogue to years of hard Obama Administration foundational work.

    Biden is right in a sense. For eight years, his Obama team sought to empower Iran—through the lifting of sanctions; through the flawed Iran Deal; through appeasement of Hezbollah, the Assads, and Hamas; through estrangement of the Arab Gulf States and Israel—all as a bizarre Persian/Shiite counterweight to the Sunni Arab world and the U.S.-Israeli special relationship.

    Obama and Biden so succeeded that they drove Israel and Gulf States to seek an-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend realist partnership, whose fruition we witnessed last week.

    We forget, however, when Trump entered office, that Israel was isolated. Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf States were bewildered by U.S. neutrality in the Middle East. Iran was ascendant. The “jayvees” of ISIS had overrun much of Iraq with delusions of caliphate grandeur. The Ottomanizing Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was supposedly our new trusted “bridge” between East and West.

    Less than four years later, Iran is isolated, broke, and a veritable client of China. ISIS was bombed out of existence. Israel and much of the Arab world are more worried about Iran than they are about each other. The Palestinians are not the key to regional peace. Turkey is recognized as the rogue that it had become while relations with Greece have warmed.

    The United States is energy independent of the Middle East, as is Israel—because of the expansion of fracking and horizontal drilling that a Biden-Harris Administration claims would cease upon assuming office.

    Snip.

    For all the hoax of “Russian collusion,” Vladimir Putin is in terrible shape and has not fooled the administration as he did with “reset” in the Obama years. In the last four years, the United States upped sanctions on Russia, crashed the world export market of natural gas and oil so dear to Moscow, beefed up NATO spending, hectored Germany about its new energy dependence on Putin, increased U.S. military capability, reached out to frontline Eastern Europe, left an asymmetrical missile deal with Russia, obliterated Russian mercenaries in Syria, sold lethal weapons to Ukraine—even as the likes of James Clapper, John Brennan, James Comey, and an array of retired generals sermonized that Trump was a Russian “asset.” Translated that means the president who contained Putin they loathed, and the Obama presidency that empowered him they idolized.

    Snip.

    Trump is neither a traditional conservative in the Ronald Reagan mode nor a centrist establishmentarian Republican like John McCain or Mitt Romney. But he has done more culturally for the conservative cause than any president since Calvin Coolidge. Like him or not, he has appointed more constructionist federal judges at all levels than any prior Republican president in a single term.

    He likewise has been more opposed than any prior Republican to the current culture of abortion on demand. His education secretary is trying to enforce the Bill of Rights on what have become sometimes neo-fascistic college campuses, and to discourage race-based set asides and de facto discrimination on the basis of race.

    He is a defender of the police while acknowledging the need for greater oversight, and opposed both violence in the streets, and the appeasement of it by blue state governors and mayors. In some sense, there are no conservatives, either by temperament or by political ability, eager to stop the summer madness of statue toppling, arson, spiraling crime, shakedowns, cancel culture and the vows of Antifa and BLM that all this is the beginning of a complete rewriting of American history and a radical recalibration of our shared futures.

    Between the abyss and what goes on in Portland and the Magnificent Mile, there is for the moment nothing else but Trump standing in the breach.

    No president in the history of the Republic has ever been targeted for removal by the opposition party, the permanent bureaucracy, and members of his own party, and in such an illegal and unethical manner.

    There was the first impeachment effort, the Beltway punditry in early 2017 calling for his removal by coup if necessary, the voting machine suits, the Clinton-Obama-Steele subversion of the Trump campaign and transition, the Hollywood assassination chic, the effort to take out former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, the farce of the 25th Amendment that included the bathos of high federal officials contemplating wearing wires in private conservations with the president to the psychodrama of Professor Bandy Lee testifying before Congress about Trump’s mental state, the silly Emolument Clause gambit (Trump has lost over $1 billion while in office and taking no salary), the subversion of the FISA courts, the Russian hoax, Robert Mueller’s two-year long and $35 million witch hunt, the fabricated Steele dossier implanted in the bowels of the Obama government and media, the one-phone-call impeachment circus, the revolt of the retired generals, and what has rightly lately been called “coup porn,” the hysteria over Ukraine and the caricaturing of Trump in 2020 as Typhoid Mary, Herbert Hoover, and Bull Connor as the Left weaponized the contagion, quarantine, and rioting.

    The Left, the media, and the NeverTrump Right rarely now any more argue all of the above was warranted or based on verifiable wrongdoing, but see the mish-mash instead as a righteous “any means necessary” tactic to achieve the noble end of destroying a president that they detest.

    That Trump is still standing is an unrecognized tribute to his resilience, stamina, and willpower to fight it out to the bitter end.

    His critics say 2020 is not 2016. This time the polls are right on, not rigged by the sort who trafficked in absurd Russian hoaxes or were mesmerized by Michael Avanetti. The silent Trump voters no longer exist, they add. The suburban mom, we are told, fears Trump’s temper more than Antifa. The fence-sitter is bothered more by tweeting than Biden’s ever-longer moments of confused silence. And on and on.

    Perhaps.

    But Americans at some point empathize with an underdog fighter on behalf of what they fear may be a fading America, even someone they are not always fond of, but who does not give up when bullied and subjected to a level of unwarranted abuse that they themselves know they could never endure. The Left never wished to beat Trump at the polls (indeed they feared such an ordeal); they instead wanted to destroy his person, his family, and everyone who followed him.

    That Trump withstood such illegal, unconstitutional, and unethical venom also says something about those who dished it out—and, in the end, did so viciously and yet so impotently.

  • “I think the Democrats want Trump to win“:

    One of the more perplexing things was the DNC giving a speaking slot to former Ohio governor and noted mailman’s son John Kasich. Kasich brings slightly less excitement than dryer lint to any gathering he graces but what was most amusing was that during the somnambulant lead-up to the DNC, the Democrats were acting like Kasich was a real big get for them.

    He’s a milquetoast squish Republican whom no Republicans like anymore, so he tucked tail and went begging for attention crumbs from the Democrats, which is the way of the spineless squishes. After backstabbing his own party to score points with the Democrats and their flying monkeys in the media, Kasich then — as Matt details at Townhall — crapped all over his hosts by disparaging Bartender of the Year Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

  • Speaking of the Russian collusion hoax, Kevin Clinesmith, the now Ex-FBI lawyer near the center of Crossfire Hurricane, just pled guilty, “admitting that he altered an email that he used to apply for a FISA warrant against former Trump-campaign adviser Carter Page…The guilty plea marks the first conviction in the probe of the Russia investigation led by U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham.”
  • A bit more Clinesmith background:

    Of all of the Obama administration loyalists who contributed to the Russia collusion hoax, Clinesmith is the one most obviously guilty of a felony: he altered an email he received from the CIA to say that Carter Page was NOT a CIA source, when in fact the email said Page WAS a CIA source, and submitted that fake document to the federal court in order to obtain a FISA warrant. That is worth five years in prison and, of course, the end of his legal career. Clinesmith’s guilty plea is significant, in part, because he may be willing to implicate others who are higher in the DOJ chain of command.

  • Soon:

  • Ninth Circuit Court rules that magazine limit bans are an unconstitutional infringement of the Second Amendment. “It should be noted that this will likely go to a full hearing of the 9th Circuit, but it also should be noted that the court is now majority Republican-appointed. If a full hearing brings the same result, then this all but forces Chief Justice John Roberts to stop being a coward and to take this up.” Flipping the Ninth is a huge achievement for the Trump Administration.
  • The Supreme Court declines to stop construction of the border wall.
  • “The Hint is ‘GET _ _ _ _ GO _ _ _ _ _.’ “Nike Suffers $790 Million Loss, CEO Confirms Layoffs.”
  • Goodyear goes full Social Justice Warrior, allows #BlackLivesMatter, bans Blue Lives Matter and All Lives Matter. Now swears it was all a mistake.
  • Democrats remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. How long until they cut the “flag,” “republic,” “one nation,” and “liberty” parts out as well and just pledge directly to Social Justice? (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Democratic big money donor Ed Buck hit with four more felony charges.
  • Wait, the government can secretly plant cameras on your property as long as they’re outside?
  • Scott “I ordered my cops to let Parkland kids die” Israel defeated in his attempt to win his old job back.
  • Microsoft put off a Day Zero fix for two years.
  • A thread on how lack of concrete engineering know-how in the third world has led to numerous deaths. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Heh:

  • True dat:

  • Boom:

  • “Democratic Convention Viewer Wishing They Would Just Get To The Part About All The Free Stuff
  • “Brilliant Trump Puts Himself On All Postage Stamps, Forcing Democrats To Push For Abolishing USPS.”
  • Presumably an Acme piano:

  • Repeat: “DNC Crowd Erupts As Kermit Gosnell Gives Surprise Speech From Prison.”
  • “Might I suggest the Faceripper 9000?”
  • “I am Mark Zuckerberg. I am human just like you.” (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Smart dog:

  • Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for January 21, 2019

    Monday, January 21st, 2019

    This week in the clown car update: Lots climbing in, one getting out. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and California Senator Kamala Harris are both In and Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey. JR. is Out. Plus a few more no-hope longshots considering a run.

    Before we get to the individual candidates, here’s a table from that January 14 Marist poll on Democratic contenders:

    Usual poll caveats apply, but Biden has a huge advantage over the rest of the field in both favorability and name recognition. And for all the Betomania among the chattering classes, the majority of possible Democratic voters have never even heard of him. Highest unfavorables are Bernie Sanders (bitter Hillary cadres at work there) and Michael Bloomberg. In fact, Bloomberg is alone in having a net favorability rating of zero.

    538 offers up speculation on how longshot Democrats could potentially build a winning coalition, with pentagonal diagrams that look vaguely like cutaways of a Wankel rotary engine. They’re also doing a similar weeekly update of candidate and potential candidate doings that I only noticed when I was about 80% through this post.

    Oh, and National Review says all the Democratic candidates suck.

  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Probably Out, considering a senate run instead.
  • Creepy Porn lawyer Michael Avenatti: Out.
  • Addition: Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: Considering a run. Bennet told Colorado Public Radio he was seriously considering a run, and just changed his Twitter handle from “BennetForCO” to “MichaelBennet.”
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: Leaning toward running. His completely-devoid-of-interest Twitter feed. There was talk of Biden announcing on Tuesday, but he also has an event in Grand Prairie, Texas on Thursday. Chris Smith at Vanity Fair says Biden is the sell high candidate. Since this comes from Vanity Fair, my working assumption is that it must be wrong…
  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Making noises like he’s getting in. Says he’s not too old to run (the same age as Bernie Sanders). That National Review piece says “He doesn’t mesh with the Democratic party we see every day in the national media, but he’s intelligent, shrewd, and willing to spend more money than Croesus on securing the nomination and defeating Trump. Only a fool would dismiss him.”
  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: Probably in. New Jersey law lets him run for both the Presidency and for reelection to the senate simultaneously. He picked up the all-important Jimmy Carter endorsement. This is two Democratic Presidential Clown Car updates in a row I’ve mentioned Jimmy Carter. I’m not such which of the seven seals that opens.
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown: Doesn’t sound like it.
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Probably running. He’s visiting a bunch of early primary states, including Iowa.
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: Leaning toward In, but is reportedly going to wait until Montana’s legislative session finishes, which would be May 1.
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: Probably in. Has a Facebook page. This week he got a fawning Washington Post profile.
  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.: Out. “After two months of considering it, I have concluded that the best way for me to fight for the America that so many of us believe in is to stay in the U.S. Senate and not run for the presidency in 2020.”
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Campaigning in New Hampshire, he says he would not pardon Trump. Also promises not to punch out Mike Tyson.
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Probably not. Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue. Beautiful plumage…
  • New York Governor Andrew Cuomo: Out.
  • New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio: Maybe. He’s sure acting like he’s running. “People who criticize de Blasio for being more interested in national politics than the local scene aren’t wrong.” Translation: As Mayor, he sucks!
  • Maryland Representative John K. Delaney: In. Has raised nearly $5 million. I misspelled his name “Delany” last week and nobody noticed. Want to know his views on Israel? I didn’t think so, but here they are anyway.
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter feed. Howard Dean says she’s not qualified to be President. And if anyone knows about not being qualified to be President…
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti: Leaning toward a run, but it’s sort of hard to run for president when you have to deal with a teacher’s strike.
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Probably Out.
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: In. Official website. Official Twitter feed. Ended 2018 with over $10 million in her campaign bank account.
  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter feed. She announced today, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, as befitting the MSM favorite they hope can re-knit the Obama coalition. The New York Times piece says the date was also meant to evoke Shirley Chisholm, the black Democratic congressman who ran for President in 1972, which suggests that Harris will come in 7th against a nominee who eventually loses 49 states to Trump. Evidently she’s leaning toward Crack Charm City as her headquarters. National Review has “Twenty Things You Probably Didn’t Know about Kamala Harris,” including her being Willie Brown’s mistress, and her anti-civil liberties stance on things like linking collected DNA evidence to family members and charging the parents of truant kids.
  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper: Probably in. No real news, so enjoy the delusional fantasy of two USA Today writers calling for a Hickenlooper-Kaisch national unity ticket. I’m sure the notion was very well-received down at the coffee shop nearest the shuttered offices of The Weekly Standard.
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. Twitter feed. Here he is yammering about climate change in the Washington Post.
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine: Probably Out.
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry: Not seeing any sign.
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: Leaning toward In, playing “the family wants me to run” card.
  • New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu: Maybe.
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe: Leaning toward a run. Because we just haven’t had enough of the Clintons…
  • Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley: Maybe. Right now he’s making “Fundraising is hard!” sounds. Most recently seen banging the impeachment drum over that Buzzfeed fake Russian collusion “bombshell.”
  • Addition: Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: Considering a run. Because there just weren’t enough longshot congressmen on this list to update before.
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama: Out.
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: Probably In. Says he’s hitting the road because he’s “in a funk,” and I’m presuming it’s not the James Brown kind. Between this and the Instagram dentist visit, I’m wondering if O’Rouke is going to be the presidential candidate equivalent of The Woman Who Overshares Her Depression On Facebook Fishing For Sympathy, because that would be both really sad and weirdly hilarious. An Oprah interview looms next month.
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez: Constitutionally ineligible to run in 2020.
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: Out.
  • Ohio Democratic Representative Tim Ryan: Doubtful. I’m not seeing any signs of a run.
  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: Probably running. He’s in South Carolina for MLK weekend. I think Bernie likes the attention of running for President too much to stop.
  • Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer: Out.
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell: Still considering.
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter feed. She’s also visiting South Carolina.
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey: Out.
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: Running but no one cares.
  • Last week I linked to a prediction market website that had Democratic presidential odds. Last week O’Rourke was on top. This week he’s been eclipsed by Harris. Their current ranked odds on the Dem nominee are:

    1. Kamala Harris
    2. Beto O’Rourke
    3. Joe Biden
    4. Bernie Sanders
    5. Elizabeth Warren

    John Kasich Finally Abandons The Delusion He’s a Presidential Candidate

    Wednesday, May 4th, 2016

    John Kasich finally acknowledged reality that he’s not a serious Presidential candidate, something that’s been apparent to objective observers for months.

    Maybe he had a bet with someone he could stay in the race longer than Ted Cruz…

    Cruz Picks Carly Fiorina as VP

    Wednesday, April 27th, 2016

    Ted Cruz has named Carly Fiorina as his Vice Presidential running mate. Assuming, of course, he gets the nomination.

    Fiorina is OK, but there are better candidates, and candidates that help you more in the general election. Of course, Cruz has to get the nomination first. Can he pick up more Republican women with the pick? Maybe, but I’d be surprised if it really moves the needle. Fiorina’s own campaign didn’t set the world on fire, and if women weren’t already alienated by Donald Trump, I don’t see Fiorina pulling them into the Cruz camp.

    I do see four potential positives:

    1. It helps put Trump’s very good Tuesday night (where he won every state) in the shade.
    2. Maybe it gives women voting for John Kasich an excuse to vote Cruz?
    3. Maybe it forces the press to cover Fiorina going after Trump full-bore.
    4. Maybe it makes Cruz slightly more competitive in California.

    Can it keep Trump from getting a first ballot win? Maybe, though Trump was already slightly off pace to clench anyway. But I’m not sure it alters the fundamental dynamics of the race.

    Presidential Race Update for April 26, 2016

    Tuesday, April 26th, 2016

    Today primary voters go to the polls in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. A few Presidential race updates:

  • Tonight’s primaries “look very favorable for Trump,” but they are generally closed primaries. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Technically all Pennsylvania’s Republican delegates are uncommitted, but (Lionel Hutz voice) there’s uncommitted (shakes head) and uncommitted (nods vigorously). Here’s a guide to which delegates are supporting who. (Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
  • Thomas Sowell: “For conservatives especially, there is finally a real choice for a change — and a sharp contrast with Donald Trump. Senator Ted Cruz has a track record that leaves no doubt as to his adherence to conservative principles. And he is as thoroughly versed in the issues facing this country as anyone who has run for President since Ronald Reagan.” (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
  • “Moderates will need to abandon John Kasich and unite behind Cruz in order to defeat Trump.”
  • “The excessive and fawning coverage given to Kasich has deformed the GOP race…Kasich serves as a useful proxy for the media, which leans consistently to the left — a way for them to criticize the GOP without having to do so directly.”
  • Shall Not Be Questioned weighs in Pennsylvania candidates from a Second Amendment perspective.
  • Basketball coach Bobby Knight to campaign for Trump in Indiana. Yes, all the chair throwing jokes have already been made. The Knight/Trump comparisons are apt to a point, but Trump would never have lasted six years at West Point… (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Cruz-Kasich Detente in Indiana, New Mexico, Oregon

    Sunday, April 24th, 2016

    Ted Cruz and John Kasich have evidently come to an understanding about clearing the way for the other to fight Donald Trump in the states they’re respectively strongest in:

    Tonight, Kasich for America chief strategist John Weaver issued the following statement:

    “Donald Trump doesn’t have the support of a majority of Republicans – not even close, but he currently does have almost half the delegates because he’s benefited from the existing primary system. Our goal is to have an open convention in Cleveland, where we are confident a candidate capable of uniting the Party and winning in November will emerge as the nominee.”

    Blather about Kasich’s awesomeness snipped.

    Due to the fact that the Indiana primary is winner-take-all statewide and by congressional district, keeping Trump from winning a plurality in Indiana is critical to keeping him under 1237 bound delegates before Cleveland. We are very comfortable with our delegate position in Indiana already, and given the current dynamics of the primary there, we will shift our campaign’s resources West and give the Cruz campaign a clear path in Indiana.

    In turn, we will focus our time and resources in New Mexico and Oregon, both areas that are structurally similar to the Northeast politically, where Gov. Kasich is performing well. We would expect independent third-party groups to do the same and honor the commitments made by the Cruz and Kasich campaigns.

    This is a smart move against Trump, and one that keeps Cruz’s real hopes (and Kasich’s delusional ones) alive.

    This is not only the strangest Presidential election of our lifetimes, it’s probably the strangest Presidential election since 1876 (the last time the House of Representatives choose Republican Rutherford Hayes over Democrat Samuel Tilden due to double sets of returns from southern states still undergoing reconstruction), and possibly since 1860…

    Cruz Wins Utah, Trump Wins Arizona

    Wednesday, March 23rd, 2016

    Ted Cruz won Utah by over 50 points, with 69.2% of the vote to John Kasich’s 16.9%, with Donald Trump pulling 14% for third place. This means that Cruz picks up all 40 of Utah’s delegates.

    Trump won Arizona by 46.9% to Ted Cruz’s 24.9%, which means he picks up all 58 of Arizona’s delegates.

    Presidential Election Update for March 22, 2016

    Tuesday, March 22nd, 2016

    Another important primary day, part of what seems a never-ending stream of them. There’s a republican primary in Arizona and a Republican caucus in Utah today. Mots recent polls have Cruz with a big lead in Utah, and Trump with a small er lead in Arizona.

  • “If Cruz can win Arizona and Utah before moving on to victory in Wisconsin — another winner-take-all state where voters like politicians who play nice — he’ll pick up 140 delegates, bringing Trump’s lead under 100.” The problem? John Kasich. “Kasich must be betting that the party’s donor class and insiders will be so tickled by his pro-immigration, don’t-worry-about-religious-liberty stance that they will be willing to destroy the party by nominating him.”
  • Or, as Cruz suggests, maybe Kasich is auditioning to be Trump’s VP.
  • Ted Cruz was for building a border wall back when Trump was still supporting illegal alien amnesty. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Looks like Trump, just like Bill Clinton, was a fan of “Lolita Express to Orgy Island” sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Democrats shouldn’t be so sure they can beat Trump:

    The Democrats are kidding themselves if they think they are going to be able to rely on their usual attacks on Republicans with Donald Trump at the helm. They aren’t going to be able to launch into the tired war on women or talk about how Republicans hate poor people and sick people, etc., and make that stick. Nothing even close to those charges has stuck to Donald Trump so far. On CNBC, I recently likened Donald Trump to the dark force from the movie “The Fifth Element.” He seems to absorb attacks and grow in strength rather than be wounded.

    Trump isn’t just a counter-puncher; he uses rhetorical counter-force weapons to deprive opponents of their favorite attacks. Remember how Trump stifled and silenced Hillary’s attempt to launch an attack on Trump as sexist? I would guess we will be hearing a lot more in the general election about Bill’s indiscretions and her complicit role in helping him concoct the lies and demonize his victims. But that will just be Trump getting warmed up. Trump will routinely go after Hillary Clinton in ways the Democrats have always thought would be off-limits. And he will do so to her face. The email controversies, the odd arrangements Hillary staffers had with the private sector, the coordination between the State Department and the Clinton foundation, the money that poured in from foreign and corporate sources who wanted easy access to the Clinton world, a variety of Clinton’s flaws and previous gaffes – even Chelsea’s employment – will all come roaring out of the Trump campaign. The Clinton campaign will spend a lot of time on their heels.

    Democrats try to comfort themselves with the idea that there is no such thing as an Obama voter from 2008 or 2012 who will turn around and vote for Trump in 2016. It is easy to say Trump can’t win a general election. But that is the kind of rational thinking that has been applied to Trump ever since his campaign started. And it’s the kind of thinking that has been proven wrong time and time again. I can imagine Donald Trump pulling into a predominantly poor African-American neighborhood, standing on a platform, pointing to his wealth and saying, “If you want a chance to get rich, vote for me – look around, and if you want the status quo, vote for Hillary!” It could strike a chord with some young black voters who want a shot at a better life, not promises of incrementally more dependence and servitude to the Democratic establishment. I don’t dismiss the idea that Donald Trump could find a foothold in the African-American community.

  • On the other hand, polls show Hillary leading Trump. In Utah.
  • Trump: “Hillary Clinton has been involved in corruption most of her professional life!” Cruz: “Then why did you contribute thousands of dollars to her?”
  • An amusing inside look at the dramatic collapse of Jeb Bush’s campaign from inside the confines of his Right to Rise Super-PAC. It’s a buffet of black humor. “It’s always darkest before it goes completely black.” “These people all used to have great careers in politics. Now we’re going to Kinko’s to print off some résumés. We understand there’s a job fair at Quiznos.”
  • Updated Voting Results from Yesterday

    Wednesday, March 16th, 2016

    Donald Trump won everywhere but Ohio, where John Kasich won. Ted Cruz was only .2% behind in Missouri, and less than four points in North Carolina.

    Judging from his numerous fundraising emails, Kasich seems disinclined to take his participation trophy and go home.

    A few links:

  • Rubio lost because of Rubio.
  • “It is still mathematically possible for Cruz to get beyond 1,237 delegates. He will perform well in Utah and Wisconsin and has a solid ground game…There is a way to stop Trump. But that way is rallying to Ted Cruz. That is the only option at this point.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Trump could still fall short in the delegate count. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Low-information Democrats are going for Trump.
  • Now everyone is waiting to see if Rubio endorses Cruz…