Posts Tagged ‘Ralph Northam’

Thousands of Non-Deaths At Virginia Second Amendment Rally

Tuesday, January 21st, 2020

What if they had a Second Amendment rally in Virginia and and nobody got shot?

You and I know that there was never going to be any violence coming from Second Amendment advocates, and that if any started it was going to come from antifa. But oddly enough, antifa didn’t seem interested in showing up to confront armed opponents.

Funny how that happens.

It must have been a great blow to an MSM falsely accusing the event of being a “white supremacist” rally.

They were heartbroken:

“Nobody has so much as fired a shot. This is an unbelievable tragedy,” said one teary-eyed MSNBC reporter, clearly caught up in the anguish of the moment. “It’s tragic that we live in a country where reporters who are just minding their own business trying to push a narrative can have everything ripped away from them in an instant when protesters refuse to shoot at people.”

(Do I actually need to flag the preceding from the Babylon Bee?)

The media was hoping for a second Charlottesville, but without paid agitators and a police force willing to channel two sets of protestors into each other, it never materialized.

Again, funny how that happens. There were also too many non-white attendees to pass it off as a “white supremacist” rally:

Enjoy some tweets:

LinkSwarm for November 8, 2019

Friday, November 8th, 2019

Welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Trump is derailing the elite’s gravy train:

    Like the garbage French elite of long ago, our American garbage elite of today has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. For four years, it has been focused entirely on deep sixing Donald Trump for his unforgivable crime of demanding that our ruling caste be held accountable for its legacy of failure. Instead of focusing on not being terrible at their job of running America’s institutions, our elitists have decided that the real problem is us Normals being angry about how they are terrible at their job of running America’s institutions. So, let’s imagine that they finally vanquish Trump, though every time they come up against him they end up dragging themselves home like Ned Beatty after a particularly tough canoe trip.

    What happens then?

    What happens then is that it’s back to business as usual, and for decades, business as usual for our garbage elite has not merely been running our institutions badly but pillaging and looting our country for power, prestige and cash.

    The difference is that in the future they will be much more careful to ensure that no one who is not in on the scam will ever again come anywhere near the levers of power. You can already see it – the demands that we defer to the bureaucrats they own, the attacks on the idea of free expression, and the campaign to disarm us. Their objective is no more Trumps, just an endless line of progressive would-be Maduros with the march toward despair occasionally put on pause for a term by some Fredocon Republican who hates us Normals just as much as the Dems, but won’t admit it until after he’s out of office.

  • So #NeverTrumpers are upset because Trump called them scum? Well boo freaking hoo:

    If you were involved in the 2016 election and, at any point, decided that Hillary Clinton was very bad for the nation and that Evan McMullin was a f***ing bug-eating tool and that Donald Trump was not Beelzebub incarnate, then you became the target of abuse. In my personal experience, there are people who I’d considered friends for several years who I would no longer pee on if they were on fire today because of the abuse and scorn the heaped upon people who disagreed with them and the cheap bullying that they engaged in. Trumpkin. Trumptard. Trumpaloo. Trumphumper. And all manner of other cute names.

    Snip.

    For three years these people have degraded, demeaned, and libeled anyone who simply decided that, for all his flaws, Trump was better than any Democrat. No grace was offered to people who had considered them friends and colleagues. No common cause was allowed to be made. They stopped being conservatives and Republicans who simply disliked the candidate and then the president and became active Democrat partisans who simply called themselves something else. Every hoax and bad faith allegation made against the President and his administration, from the Russia bullsh** to defending illegal FISA warrants to the “Muslim ban” to “kids in cages,” was spearheaded by NeverTrumpers flagellating themselves with their principles and yodeling “we’re better than that.”

    In 2020, these people have a choice to make. They can either earn their way back in–Prodigal Son, and all that–or they can stay gone. I don’t care who they vote for because Trump won last time without them and he’s in a much stronger position today than he was in November 2016. But, no matter what path they choose, there should be no forgetting of how these people have acted and what they’ve done. No one should allow them to forget why no one–right or left–wishes to have anything to do with them. No one should ever forget that they are dangerous, timorous and unfaithful allies and should not be allowed to do any more than hold the coats for the rest of us.

  • Full State Department review of Hillary Clinton’s emails show nearly 600 security violations.
  • Former Virginia democratic governor forgives current Virginia democratic governor for wearing blackface. “We’ve moved on,” says former Clinton crony Terry McAuliffe. As Stephen Green says, “it’s easy to move on when your side can’t be held accountable.”
  • President Donald Trump begins process to formally withdraw from the Paris climate accord. I’m not sure this is strictly necessary, as it was never binding on the U.S. because it was never submitted to the senate for ratification. As opposed to being nonbinding on the rest of the world because they’re just lying about following it anyway.
  • Sanctions against Iran really biting into its oil revenues, especially as the U.S. becomes more sophisticated about counter attempts to evade it.

    As recently as mid-2019, Iranian leaders openly boasted of selling its oil to foreign customers despite the 2017 sanctions. At the time of that boast, Iran was getting a million BPD (barrels per day) out to export customers. In contrast, before the sanctions, Iran exported two million BPD. But by July 2019 exports had been reduced to 365,000 BPD and in August it was a record low 160,000 BPD and that did not change much in September. What the Iranians don’t issue press releases about is how well sanction enforcement efforts have been at reducing those illegal exports to record lows.

    (Hat tip: Austin Bay at Instapundit.)

  • The UK is finally having a general election after essentially a year of deadlock. If history is any guide, parties promising to deliver Brexit will win, then not deliver Brexit…
  • “Maryland Officials Drop Sanctuary Policy After Illegal Alien Sex Crimes.”
  • Related: Sanctuary city proposition goes down in flames in Tucson. Funny how not enforcing laws against illegal aliens enjoys crushing defeat when actual voters get a chance to chime in.
  • Meanwhile, the illegal alien debate in the Democratic Party is between the hard left and the loony left. “While the rest of America frets about illegal alien criminals escaping authorities with the eager help of liberal politicians, liberals are more concerned about proving to each other how wonderful and tolerant they are by opening the border and allowing anyone and everyone with a sob story to be welcomed and cared for.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Comedians Taking Sides In The Woke Wars.”

    A recent string of high-profile comments brought “Cancel Culture” to the fore. Stand-up routines by Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr and Sebastian Maniscalo forced the subject back into the limelight.

    “No Safe Spaces,” a documentary about the Left’s serial attacks on free expression, debuts this weekend at the near-perfect time. Comedian Adam Carolla and syndicated radio star Dennis Prager unite to explore how universities are clamping down on healthy debate, and why that woke sentiment is leaking into society at large.

    “Joker” director Todd Phillips, who previously helmed the “Hangover” series, amplified the cause. He told Vanity Fair he created “Joker” because making comedies is no longer fun.

    “Go try to be funny nowadays with this woke culture,” he says. “There were articles written about why comedies don’t work anymore—I’ll tell you why, because all the f***ing funny guys are like, ‘F*** this s***, because I don’t want to offend you.’

  • Science Fiction tries to erase its past over crimes against Social Justice Warrior orthodoxy. To be fair, the people who handed out the (now being renamed) James Tiptree Award were always far-left radical feminist lunatics. The question is why have the theoretically more sober people behind the John W. Campbell and World Fantasy Awards also given in to this Orwellian, history-erasing lunacy?
  • Is anyone really surprised when a progressive treats institutional charity money as a personal slush fund?

    The former head of the L.A.-based anti-poverty nonprofit Youth Policy Institute improperly used the organization’s funds to pay the property taxes on his house, buy furniture for his home office and make national political donations, the group alleged in court documents filed this week.

    Dixon Slingerland, who was fired as the group’s chief executive in September, spent the nonprofit’s money on an array of unauthorized and personal expenses, including private tutoring for his children, contributions to his wife’s pension, and “lavish” dining, travel and entertainment, according to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing lodged by the nonprofit in federal court.

  • “Federal agents raided a Long Island tech firm early Thursday and arrested its top executives amid concerns the company was selling Chinese-made equipment to the U.S. military while claiming it had been manufactured in the United States. According to federal prosecutors, Aventura Technologies of Commack has been running the alleged scheme since 2006, selling equipment with “known cybersecurity vulnerability” to government and other customers.”
  • MSM amnesia:

  • Out-of-state Justice Democrats money props up Texas candidate:

    Texas candidate Jessica Cisneros has been one of the most high profile candidates backed by Justice Democrats, the liberal group seeking to defeat incumbents they perceive as insufficiently progressive. While Cisneros has received praise from freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), local residents appear more skeptical. She has received just $3,585 of her $190,000 (1.8 percent) in itemized contributions from inside the San Antonio district she hopes to represent.

    Cisneros is primarying Democratic incumbent Henry Cueller for the Texas 28th Congressional District. She does not appear to be former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros’ daughter.

  • “Democrat Elizabeth “Eliz” Markowitz and Republican Gary Gates are headed to a runoff to decide who will fill the unexpired term of State Rep. John Zerwas (R–Richmond)” for Texas House District 28. Gates is a seven time loser, the founding money behind the “Texas Citizens Coalition” (whose mailers I have not seen recently), and was last seen running a dishonest campaign against Wayne Christian for the Railroad Commission. Still, I can only imagine that he’ll be preferable to a Democrat, and even though Markowitz garnered more votes in the election, all the other candidates were Republicans for a Republican-leaning seat, giving Gates a good chance to retain it.
  • Harris County Clerk Diane Trautman tried to illegally transmit voting information over the Internet. (Hat tip: Holly Hansen.)
  • Disruptive Democrats crushed in The Woodlands.
  • Plastikov 3D printed AK. 900 rounds on the front receiver, 550 on the rear – with no signs of damage. 7.62×39 goodness in a 7 dollar PLA receiver.” Not quite a revolution, since he used metal parts for the ejector and rails, and spent a total of $393 for all the parts, but definitely interesting, since the receiver is what the federal government counts as the “gun.” Caveat: 7.62x39mm evidently generates lower firing pressure than 5.56 NATO. But I’m hardly an expert here. Still: interesting. (Hat tip: Sal the Agorist.)
  • Samsung lays off it’s entire Austin design team. I used to work in the building where it was housed, a few jobs ago…
  • Rudy Boesch, decorated Navy SEAL. He was also evidently on some reality TV show.
  • America: Hey Berlin, you want a statue of Ronald Reagan? You know, “tear down this wall” and all of that? Berlin: Nein. America: Too bad.
  • Another day, another fake hate crim—wait, a real one? Oh, against a Catholic Church. In New York City. Now I get it.
  • “Fringe Conspiracy Theorist Believes Epstein Just Killed Himself.”
  • Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for June 24, 2019

    Monday, June 24th, 2019

    Biden brags about his segregationist buds, a sleestak joins the race, Beto hires a Ralph Northam staffer, and New York Times and/or Google News screw up a lot of candidate photos. It’s your Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update!

    Polls

    Lot of damn polls this time around…

  • Economist/YouGov (page 162): Biden 26, Warren 14, Sanders 13, Buttigieg 9, Harris 7, O’Rourke 4, Booker 2, Bennet 1, Bullock 1, Castro 1, de Blasio 1, Delaney 1, Gabbard 1, Gillibrand 1, Klobucher 1, Yang 1. Hickenlooper, Messam, and Moulton not only got 0%, they got 0% across all demographic categories and subgroupsings (sex, age, race).
  • Hampton University (Virginia): Biden 36, Sanders 17, Warren 13, Buttigieg 11, Harris 7, O’Rourke 3, Booker 2, Castro 2, Yang 1, Bullock 1, Gillibrand 1.
  • Monmouth University: Biden 32, Warren 15, Sanders 14, Harris 8, Buttigieg 5, O’Rourke 3, Booker 2, Yang 2, de Blasio 1, Gabbard 1, Inslee 1, Klobucher 1, Williamson 1, Castro, Gillibrand and Ryan all with less than 1, everyone else with zero.
  • Suffolk University/USA Today: Biden 30, Sanders 15, Warren 10, Buttigieg 9, Harris 8, O’Rourke 2, Booker 2, Castro 1, Hickenlooper 1. Bennet, Delaney, Gabbard, Gravel, Inslee, Messam and Swalwell all got precisely zero votes.
  • Politico/Morning Consult: Biden 38, Sanders 19, Warren 11, Buttigieg 7, Harris 7, O’Rourke 4, Booker 3, Castro 1, Delaney 1, Gabbard 1, Gillibrand 1, Hickenlooper 1, Ryan 1, Williamson 1, Yang 1, Bennet 1.
  • Quinnipiac University (Florida): Biden 41, Sanders 14, Warren 12, Buttigieg 8, Harris 6, O’Rourke 1, Booker 1, Klobuchar 1.
  • The Hill/Harris X: Biden 35, Sanders 13, Warren 7, O’Rourke 6, Harris 5, Buttigieg 4, Booker 3, Castro 2. Caveat: Sample size of 424.
  • Texas Tribune (Texas): Biden 23, O’Rourke 15, Warren 14, Sanders 12, Buttigieg 8, Harris 5, Castro 3, Gabbard 3, Booker 1, Delaney 1, Gillibrand 1, Inslee 1, Klobuchar 1, Swalwell 1.
  • Real Clear Politics
  • 538 polls
  • Election betting markets
  • Pundits, etc.

  • See Saturday’s piece on the case against narrowing the Democratic field. Despite the fact I’d love to stop writing about most of the no-hopers here…
  • The New York Times asked short video interview questions of 21 of the Democratic Presidential contenders…Joe Biden conspicuously not among them. Has he already adopted an Ivory Tower strategy as frontrunner? Even if you’re not going to watch any of those interviews, you might want to click on the link to look at the weird way NYT has looped little video snippets of all 21 candidate talking heads silently mouthing answers. The effect is somewhat…disturbing. It also reminds you that the vast majority of Democratic voters couldn’t pick most of these people out of a police lineup if their life depended on it.
  • 21 of the candidates (including Biden) were in South Carolina for the state convention and “US Rep. Jim Clyburn’s ‘World-Famous Fish Fry.'”
  • Another report from South Carolina. Evidently not a lot of sparks.
  • Time previews the debates.
  • CNN asks which Democrat is number two. (Insert your own Austin Powers joke here.) Their ranking is currently Biden, Warren, Sanders, Harris, Buttigieg, O’Rourke, Booker, Klobucher, Yang, and Castro. So Castro’s in the top ten and still below the Andrew Yang Line…
  • 538 would like to remind you that Florida is not redder than Texas.
  • Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Maybe? She’ll be on Capitol Hill this week to testify about “voter suppression.”
  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Michael Bennet pushes sweeping plan to remake political system. The Colorado senator says reforms on campaign finance, gerrymandering and lobbying are needed to push American forward.” Maybe he views all those as easier tasks than winning the Democratic nomination. More on the same theme. Democrats are still obsessed with the Citizens United decision, since they believe only left-leaning billionaires, tech companies, and union slush funds should be able to buy elections…
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. Twitter. Facebook. Biden really stepped in while bragging about how well he worked with segregationist in the senate like late Mississippi Senator James Eastland. “‘I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,’ the former vice president said while putting on a Southern drawl. “He never called me boy, he always called me son.” Yeah, that’s because you’re not black, moron. This is about the clumsiest and stupidest way you could brag on your ability to work with others. Will being Obama’s Vice President for eight years insulate him from charges of racism? Maybe with voters, but not with his fellow candidates (see below). Just another stop on the Biden Damage Control Tour. Has the Biden campaign bought lots of fake twitter accounts? Sure seems that way. (Hat tip: Director Blue.) Biden compared Trump’s election to MLK and JFK’s assassinations, which doesn’t sound at all like crazy talk. “Hunter Biden Still Active in Chinese-Sponsored Investment Fund.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.) Indeed, the media actually seem to be reporting on Hunter Biden’s shady deals, possibly because his segregationist samba removed the Obama Protective Shield of Media Disinterest in his scandals.
  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. He slammed Biden for his bragging about how well he worked with segregationists, which marks a shift in campaign strategy for Booker. When you’re hovering at 2% in the polls, it probably behooves you to get more aggressive in attacking the frontrunner (unless you’re actually running for VP). Booker also “announced a plan to offer clemency to more than 17,000 inmates serving time for nonviolent drug-related offenses on the first day of his presidency.” Not a bad idea, but the small number rather gives lie to the assertion by some that “millions” are locked up for smoking a joint. Gets a Polifact bio that doesn’t tell you anything you don’t already know if you’ve been reading these updates.
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: In. Twitter. Facebook. He’s still whining about being left out of the June debates, though he’s evidently qualified for the July debates.
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. Buttigieg got targeted by #BlackLivesMatter after an officer-involved shooting in South Bend. “Some of the fiercest criticism at the march came from Logan’s mother, South Bend resident Shirley Newbill, who told Buttigieg that she’s ‘been here all my life’ and officials have not done a ‘thing about me or my son, or none of these people put here. It’s time for you to do something … I’m tired of talking now … and I’m tired of hearing your lies.'” He tripled his campaign staff in New Hampshire. Evidently his fundraising is going well. “Hollywood’s Top Gay Donors Have Mixed Feelings About Buttigieg. The young mayor’s candidacy may be historic, but many gay bundlers and donors in Los Angeles are skeptical of his ability to win in 2020.” He held a town hall in North Augusta, SC.
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. He called for a federal surge in spending to end homelessness, ignoring the fact that the more taxpayer money California pours into “helping” the homeless, the more homeless people they seem to get.
  • New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio: In. Twitter. Facebook. De Blasio finally topped a poll…as the candidate primary voters most want to see drop out of the race. Now we know what de Blasio’s purpose in the race is: blasting Joe Biden as a racist for bragging about working with segregationist Democratic senators.
  • Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. He gets a Miami Herald profile:

    Delaney is perhaps the candidate most familiar with that Wall Street bell — he lists among his top bona fides the co-founding of two publicly traded companies before he turned 40. At one point, he was the youngest chief executive with a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

    The first, HealthCare Financial Partners, offered financing to mid-sized healthcare providers. The company sold to Heller Financial for about $483 million in April 1999, according to the Baltimore Sun. He partnered to start a second lending firm in 2000, this time to finance small businesses. Delaney was first elected to Congress in 2012 while he was CEO of CapitalSource, which was eventually merged with PacWest Bancorp.

    A New Jersey native, wealthy businessman and proud son of a union electrician, Delaney surprised Maryland Democrats when he first ran after the Sixth District was redrawn in the party’s favor. A Washingtonian profile of Delaney from that year described a “nasty, expensive primary campaign” that ended with Delaney’s besting another candidate seen as the next in line by party officials.

    Seven years later, Delaney’s presidential candidacy could again be viewed as unique. He was one of the wealthiest representatives in Congress when he served, according to a March 2018 Roll Call analysis. He declared nearly three years before the 2020 Democratic convention, and has been barnstorming through Iowa ever since in advance of the caucuses in February.

    Yet despite his 29 campaign trips in the past two years, he is not polling at the same levels as many of his opponents. The Des Moines Register reported this week that many Iowans still don’t know him or remain undecided about him. A mid-June Iowa poll showed 1 percent of respondents rated Delaney as their top choice, and 1 percent said he was their second.

  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. She criticized Warren and Harris for criticizing Biden on the segregationist stuff. “Joe Biden did not ‘celebrate’ or ‘coddle’ segregationists. His critics have unfairly misrepresented his important message to score cheap political points.” A study shows her in second behind Cory Booker for Asian American donations, though Biden evidently hadn’t entered the race in the period analyzed. Also, I can’t tell is someone at New York Times or Google news was asleep at the switch for this one:

  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: In. Twitter. Facebook. Here’s the latest “why isn’t she doing better” piece: “Why Kirsten Gillibrand’s campaign is stuck at 0.3%.” “Gillibrand is failing to leave voters with much of an impression. Two-thirds of the voters interviewed – including 15 of the 21 who just saw Gillibrand’s 10-minute lightning round of a stump speech – said they don’t know enough about her to have a strong opinion of her.” Finally, a break for her campaign:

  • Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel: In. Twitter. Facebook. It’s another campaign run by three teenagers piece. He slammed Buttigieg: “The media has given Buttigieg a pass on a lackluster record in South Bend that shows him to be more concerned about public acclaim than the lives of average people. Why the pass? Because he’s an articulate white kid with all the right credentials. His constituents know the truth.” You may not think much of Gravel’s “troll higher polling candidates’ strategy, but at least it is an apparent strategy, which is more than I can say for some…
  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets a fawning Washington Post column about “stepping out of her comfort zone,” which evidently involves being loudly woke. She bragged on her past as a prosecutor, which I’m not sure will appeal to today’s Democratic activist base; they seem to be more concerned with easing the plights of various lawbreakers.
  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper: In. Twitter. Facebook. He too gets a Miami Herald profile, and there’s not a lot new there. Here’s a profile of him as “an extreme moderate.” “John Hickenlooper, a moderate, all the way through. He approaches a lighter shade of gray. Hickenlooper is so close to center he might be invisible.” And then one paragraph down it says “He supports reentering the Paris Accords, and imposing a Carbon Tax.” Those are not, in any way, shape or form, moderate positions that most Americans support. You don’t get to brag you’re a moderate because you’re slightly less radical than the most radical Democrats. And NYT/Google News do it again:

  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. Twitter. Facebook. Speaking of radical environmental proposals, Inslee wants to ban fossil fuel production on private land, ban fracking, and institute a punishing carbon tax, all 2030. In short, he wants us dependent on Middle East oil and to bring France’s yellow vest riots to America. No word on how the federal government will deal with those outlaws still using gasoline-powered engines in 2030. Naturally I’m imagining death squads.

  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Twitter. Facebook. She’s in fourth place, behind Warren, Biden and Sanders, in her home state. “Sen. Amy Klobuchar looks for breakout moment at high-stakes primary debate.”

    dozen minutes into a debate with U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar last October, her Republican opponent went on the attack.

    The Minnesota Democrat, Jim Newberger said, “has a 90% rubber-stamp, compliant voting record with her leadership, so when you talk about reaching across the aisle and achieving things … I’m not seeing it.”

    Klobuchar was ready: She had voted more than 40% of the time with Republican senators from South Dakota, North Dakota and Alaska, she said. “I try to work in the middle with people that want to find actual solutions to things and not just grandstand on them.”

    Yeah, try pitching your awesome record of bipartisanship to the Democratic Party base. Can’t possibly see that failing…

  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: In. Twitter. Facebook. Has an interview with South Florida Caribbean Radio. Or at least I assume he did. My Adblock blocked everything but the top banner bar. He spoke at that Columbia, South Carolina. But there’s only 50 seconds of video there. Even when he gets coverage, events conspire to deprive him of coverage…
  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets a Polifact bio. It’s slightly more interesting than usual:

    Seth Moulton served four tours of duty in Iraq as a Marine, then won election three times to a U.S. House seat in Massachusetts, representing the district where he grew up.

    Moulton, 41, earned three degrees from Harvard University — a bachelor’s, an M.B.A., and a master’s in public affairs. After earning his undergraduate degree in physics, Moulton joined the Marines, shortly before 9/11.

    Moulton was among the first troops to enter Baghdad in 2003, and he was later assigned by Gen. David Petraeus to serve as a liaison to tribal leaders. Moulton earned two decorations for heroism. Personally, though, he had doubts about the war.

    Moulton told The Atlantic that he remembers the moment in Iraq when he decided he wanted to enter politics. “It was after a difficult day in Najaf in 2004,” he said. “A young marine in my platoon said, ‘Sir, you should run for Congress someday, so this s— doesn’t happen again.’”

    In 2014, Moulton defeated a scandal-weakened Democratic incumbent in a primary, then won the general election with 54% of the vote. He won reelection twice.

    In Congress, Moulton took an active role on military issues as a member of the House Armed Services Committee. At times, he criticized President Barack Obama, including when Obama declined to describe the post-war military deployment to Iraq as a combat mission.

    Why is it that every picture of Moulton, he either looks to be in pain, or his mouth is partially open? (It’s almost as common as Sanders’ “Enraged Squirrel Glare.”) Well, except this one:

    Mainly because that’s John Delaney…

  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: In. Twitter. Facebook. He added more policy staffers:

    O’Rourke has hired a former Obama administration official and policy executive at the left-leaning Center for American Progress to oversee his campaign’s expanding policy arm.

    Carmel Martin, a former assistant secretary for policy and budget at the Department of Education, has joined O’Rourke’s campaign as his national policy director, an O’Rourke adviser confirmed to POLITICO.

    Her hiring is a boon to O’Rourke, who is seeking to regain his footing in the Democratic primary.

    Martin served as a policy adviser for John Kerry and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns. And her position as executive vice president for policy at CAP has been held in the past by heavyweights in Washington policy circles, including Melody Barnes before she left to join Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008.

    Martin, before joining the Obama administration, worked as general counsel and chief education adviser to the late Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy on his Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee.

    In addition to Martin, O’Rourke will continue to be advised by Ali Zaidi, a former associate director at Obama’s Office of Management and Budget and O’Rourke’s senior adviser for policy.

    He also hired four people for his comms team:

    Despite consistently trailing five Democratic foes in national and early-voting state polls in recent weeks, the former Texas congressman is continuing to attract well-regarded Democratic talent to his campaign — and is ahead of most of his competitors in building on-the-ground organizations in the early states.

    O’Rourke’s latest hires are deputy communications directors Rachel Thomas, hired from the Democratic digital organization ACRONYM, and Ofirah Yheskel, who was Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s communications director.

    Thomas, a former EMILY’s List communications director and aide to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, is O’Rourke’s deputy communications director for strategic content.

    Yheskel, who prior to working on Northam’s 2017 campaign was Hillary Clinton’s Wisconsin press secretary in 2016 and worked on Wendy Davis’ bid for Texas governor, is O’Rourke’s deputy communications director for states.

    O’Rourke hired Aleigha Cavalier as his national press secretary. Cavalier, a former Planned Parenthood public affairs director, was most recently a top Tom Steyer aide as communications director for Steyer’s NextGen America, and involved in Steyer’s heavy spending to encourage impeaching President Donald Trump. O’Rourke has also called for Trump’s impeachment.

    Anna Pacilio, who was communications director for Texas Rep. Marc Veasey, was hired as O’Rourke’s director of women’s messaging.

    I’m not sure Ralph Northam’s communications director would make my “must hire” list. O’Rourke also did some Robert Kennedy quoting that I’m sure in no way is a cynical ploy to remind voters how he looks a little like Bobby Kennedy. You know who O’Rourke doesn’t look like? Bill de Blasio:

  • Ohio Representative Tim Ryan: In. Twitter. Facebook. Asked who his hero was, he said the quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. And another image snafu:

    I feel compelled to screenshot media cock-ups that get through layers and layers of fact-checkers before they disappear.

  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. He appeared on Face the Nation and promised to cancel eveyone’s student debt; I guess he’s feeling the heat from Warren on his left flank. Bernie’s always been free with other people’s money. Also: “Last time around you have to win 51 percent of the vote. This time I don’t believe anyone is going to come close to 50 percent, so it’s a very different race with 24 candidates.” 25 now (see below). An interview with Sanders’ top foreign policy advisors (Matt Duss) makes Sanders sound less dovish than billed. “Sanders has views about military intervention that are more complicated than his campaign rhetoric. And that may explain why he hasn’t delved into much detail about foreign policy.” Centerist Democrats are spooked by Sanders:

    A two-day conference hosted here by the centrist Democratic group Third Way focused on helping Democrats figure out “the way to win” in 2020 — and they’re sick of economic messages that focus on “free stuff” rather than opportunity, as former North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp put it.

  • They’re not down with Medicare for All, and shared data to back up their fear. Among 1,291 Democratic primary voters polled by Third Way, there’s a 17-point difference in support for Medicare for All between “Twitter Democrats” and Democratic primary voters as a whole.
  • In fact, they’d love if all the 2020 Democrats got off Twitter entirely. Listening to the Twitterverse “will help re-elect Donald Trump,” according to Lanae Erickson, Third Way’s SVP for social policy and politics.
  • They’re also trying to obliterate the “blue bubble” created by liberals — perpetuated, they say, by appearances on networks like MSNBC and an obsession with online reach. “If you killed it on that podcast, I assure you we did not hear you,” said Steve Benjamin, mayor of Columbia, S.C.
  • Things like free college are “fluffy” and perceived as “handouts,” said Anna Tovar, mayor of Tolleson, Arizona. Particularly with Latinx Democrats, she said, “They want to work towards [those opportunities] and be proud of that.”
  • “But Elizabeth Warren — who’s viewed as the closest candidate to Bernie ideologically — gets a pass with these moderates. They say she’s focused on a Democratic capitalist message, while they view Bernie as a full-blown socialist.”

  • Addition: Former Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak: In. Twitter. Facebook. He announced he’s running and Dave Weigel spotted him in Iowa. What sort of man looks at the current Democratic field of 24 a few days before the first debate and says “You know, someone else really needs to jump in, and I’m just the guy”? Evidently Joe Sestak. Then again, his spirit animal is an extremely slow moving lizardman:

    Sestak, 68, had a 31-year naval career before going into politics, rising to the three star rank of Vice Admiral, and his campaign logo says “ADM JOE.” Sestek did render the nation one great service: He knocked vile turncoat Republican-turned-Democrat incumbent senator Arlen Specter out of the race in 2010 before losing to Pat Toomey. (He tried running again in 2016, but the DSCC poured $1.1 million to back primary opponent and Clinton fav Katie McGinty, evidently as payback for running against Specter. McGinty won the primary, then lost to Toomey in the general.) He’s for soft illegal alien amnesty and “sections of fencing where needed and appropriate.” (If I thought he had a snowball’s chance in Hell, I’d screenshot that page as proof for when hard left activists make him take it out.) Scanned his policy positions for any departure from Democratic orthodoxy and didn’t see much (bring back ObamaCare, global warming, taxpayer subsidized abortions, overturn Citizens United, etc.); it’s all boilerplate. Calling it vanilla insults a vastly underrated flavor. Says he was late jumping in because his daughter was diagnosed with brain cancer. It’s hard to see Democrats turning to a high-ranking ex-military guy after the “John Kerry War Hero” narrative blew up in their faces in 2004 (a failure that I’m sure is still seared, seared into their memory). Biden campaigned for McGinty in 2016, so I wonder if Sestak is running a revenge campaign against him, which would be hilarious. Besides that, it’s tough to see any justification for Sestak to jump into the race this late.

  • California Representative Eric Swalwell: In. Twitter. Facebook. Bearing Arms examines his stupid gun control proposals in detail. (Hat tip: Director Blue.) His “movement” for gun control initiatives is less than massive. Like other Democarts, he constantly misspells “illegal aliens” as “Hispanics.”
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. Members of the Warren-aligned Progressive Change Campaign Committee think she can poach Biden voters. Presumably the pitch won’t be “Hey, they’re both really old and really white!” The lefty policy wonks behind Warren’s blizzard of policy proposals:

    The head of the policy team, Jon Donenberg, makes the same as the campaign manager and other senior leaders.

    “It’s all we can do to keep up with her,” said Donenberg, a Capitol Hill veteran who worked for former Rep. Henry Waxman and Sen. Richard Blumenthal before he joined Warren’s 2012 campaign and then served as legislative director in her senate office. “The job of the policy shop is to help her fill in the details around these proposals, to present data, and to talk through the costs and benefits of various approaches.”

    Longtime Warren confidante Ganesh Sitaraman, an old friend of Pete Buttigieg from their time as undergrads at Harvard, is not on her campaign’s payroll given his job at Vanderbilt. But he has taken a lead role in formulating her domestic policies.

    Sasha Baker is the former deputy chief of staff to Obama’s Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and focuses on national security. And Bharat Ramamurti, a longtime Senate aide who Warren pushed to fill a seat on the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2017, has been handling financial issues. The campaign said that both have been expanding their portfolios to other domestic policy topics as well.

    Now Warren is promising reparations for gay people, a small demographic group that’s traditionally had above-average incomes, for what? The affront to their obviously not gay ancestors? Why not just adopt the campaign slogan “Free Money For Every Social Justice Warrior Victimhood Group?”

  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. She gets a profile in New York Magazine where Burning Man gets mentioned more than once:

    Williamson avoids using notes or prompters, never mutters an “um” or an “ah” or a “like.” She starts with the children, who are living in what she calls “America’s domestic war zones,” with their schools poorly funded and violence and starvation at home. She calls out the problem of corporate money in politics as little “more than a system of legalized bribery,” adding that she herself believes in “capitalism with a conscience.” Like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Williamson supports Medicare for All and a $15-an-hour minimum wage.

    She also supports financial reparations for the descendants of slaves. “If you’ve been kicking someone to the ground — particularly if you’ve been kicking them to the ground for two and a half centuries — then you have a moral obligation to do two things,” she says. “No. 1 is to stop kicking. No. 2 is to say, ‘Here, let me help you up. We stopped kicking.’ ”

    Williamson has often called for the formation of a Cabinet-level Department of Peace, and she wraps up her talk by articulating her position on national defense, describing 100 B-21 bombers the White House had ordered at a cost of $550 million each: “You think about what that $550 million could do for those chronically traumatized children. Your karmic fingerprint’s on that. The nation gets a karmic blowback from that.

    “The only way to defeat dog whistles is to drown them out with angel forces.”

    Snip.

    Williamson found A Course in Miracles around the time of its publication, when she was, she says, “muddling through” her 20s, aimless and directionless. She has said she wasn’t ready the first time she picked it up, but about a year later, while working in the bookshop at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles, she was; she started lecturing about it, initially at the suggestion of the society’s president. It was the height of the AIDS crisis, and there were a whole lot of people looking, and hoping, for miracles. By the mid-’80s, Williamson had a local following, particularly among the gay men most devastated by AIDS. The word on the street was that a woman was proselytizing a nonjudgmental God who “loved you no matter what,” and the audiences came.

    Her own first book, published in 1992, was called A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles, and her subsequent books have been built on its philosophy as well, including A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever, which suggests that “a way to repair a broken childhood is to allow God to re-parent you,” as well as pasting photographs of your face onto photographs of hot bodies and then taping them up around your house. In A Return to Love, Williamson, channeling the self-doubt of her reader, asks, “Who am I to be brilliant, talented, gorgeous, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.”

    Williamson grew up in Texas, the Jewish daughter of an immigration lawyer (she has said that if her Jewish education had been stronger, she might have been a rabbi). She left Texas for Pomona College, and after two years of studying philosophy, she dropped out and moved to New Mexico, where she took some classes at UNM and lived in a geodesic dome. Two years after that, as Beto O’Rourke would do 20 years later, Williamson moved to New York with dreams of singing on a stage. In her books, she describes a period of dissatisfaction and unhappiness and hints at addictions but does not make the circumstances explicit. “I sank deeper and deeper into my neurotic patterns,” she writes in A Return to Love, “seeking relief in food, drugs, people, or whatever else I could find to distract me from myself.” She acknowledges a “nervous breakdown” and that she was “addicted to her own pain.” She is, like Cory Booker, vague about her personal life. She has described an early marriage as “the best weekend I ever had,” and when it comes to the father of her daughter, a 29-year-old Ph.D. candidate in London, she says simply, “I don’t go there.”

    The O’Rourke comparison is interesting, with early aimlessness as the most defining character trait. But in the unlikely event she does become the nominee, expect her vague early history to be dragged into the light very quickly. In a bit of bicoastal synchronicity, she also gets a Los Angeles Magazine profile:

    A cynic might interpret her presidential bid as the world’s most expensive book tour, but she insists she’s legit. Her last time at the campaign rodeo left her finishing fourth out of 16 candidates. “When that was over,” she confesses, sipping an Arnold Palmer at her campaign’s temporary HQ at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott, “I felt like I’d scratched whatever political itch I’d come down with. So I was surprised—and somewhat inwardly jolted—by this presidential impulse that emerged in 2017. It was either a moment of clarity or a moment of craziness. “Then the New Age practicing Jew explains: “The Yiddish word meshuga means both ‘inspired’ and ‘crazy.’ Look, I think we need a political visionary right now more than we need a political mechanic.”

    Here’s a Daily Beast piece calling her “a dangerous wacko” for her anti-vaccination stance. The writer’s not wrong, but he’s swatting a butterfly with a sledgehammer.

  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. He gets another piece that pairs him up with Williamson.

    Yang’s campaign, centered on his proposal to provide all American adults with a universal basic income of $12,000 a year until they’re eligible for Medicare, has attracted support from young progressives, a fair amount of libertarians, and despite his disavowals, even some white nationalists. He’s drawn thousands to his rallies across the country and inspired meme-filled Yang Gang anthems on YouTube. Yang blew past the 65,000-donor mark in March and told me he’s already closing in on the 130,000-contributor threshold the DNC set for its debates in the fall. He regularly hits 1 percent—and occasionally a bit higher—in the polls, and while he’s not threatening Biden’s front-runner status, Yang consistently registers in the top half of the crowded Democratic field, ahead of more established names like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York; Julián Castro, the former federal housing secretary; and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

    Yang’s website features an eclectic mix of 104 policy proposals, among them Medicare for All; term limits for members of Congress and the Supreme Court; statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.; a call for “empowering MMA fighters” and to pay NCAA student athletes; “free marriage counseling for all”; and the elimination of the penny. (He’s also come out against male circumcision.) But the centerpiece—indeed, the entire premise of Yang’s candidacy—is his embrace of a universal basic income, or what he calls the “freedom dividend.” (“It tests well on both sides of the aisle,” he told me of the branding.)

    It is Yang’s answer to what he sees as the biggest, and most inevitable, threat facing the American economy, and a large part of the reason that Trump was elected in 2016: automation. The retail sector, call centers, fast-food chains, the trucking industry—all those job engines will be crushed in the coming years by advances in technology, Yang said, necessitating not only a government rescue of displaced workers but a reorientation of the federal safety net. By 2030, he told me, 20 to 30 percent of all jobs could be subject to automation: “No one is talking about it, and we’re getting dragged down this immigrant rabbit hole by Trump.”

    And illegal aliens taking entry level jobs aren’t impacting legal American citizens right now? Americans lacking jobs right now don’t have the luxury of worrying about the Looming Robot Menace. “Some Asian Americans are excited about Andrew Yang. Others? Not so much. An April analysis of donor data found that Yang has received about $120K from Asian Americans, placing fifth out of 14 candidates examined.” That study has him behind Booker, Gabbard, and Harris.

  • Out of the Running

    These are people who were formerly in the roundup who have announced they’re not running, or for which I’ve seen no recent signs they’re running:

  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti
  • Actor Alec Baldwin
  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown
  • Former one-term President Jimmy Carter
  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
  • New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Removed from the master list for this update.
  • Former Vice President Al Gore
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe
  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (constitutionally ineligible)
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick
  • Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey
  • Like the Clown Car update? Consider hitting the tip jar:





    LinkSwarm for May 10, 2019

    Friday, May 10th, 2019

    Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Here in Texas we’re enjoying intermittant torrential rains, which means that walking your dog after one is like breathing warm soup.

  • Obama took Hillary’s loss as a personal insult:

    Former President Barack Obama was unhappy with Hillary Clinton and her failed “soulless campaign” in 2016, saying he saw her loss as a “personal insult.”

    The new details come from a recently released update to New York Times Chief White House Correspondent Peter Baker’s book Obama: The Call of History.

    The new edition, which includes Obama’s reaction to the 2016 election, said Obama compared himself to Michael Corleone, the titular character of “The Godfather.” Obama thought he “almost got out” of office untouched, like a mob boss avoiding a hit job.

    Obama found himself shocked by the election results, thinking before Nov. 8 there was “no way Americans would turn on him” and “[h]is legacy, he felt, was in safe hands.”

  • The Midwest’s broken blue wall:

    The president’s standing in the Midwest now is arguably stronger than when he nearly swept the region in 2016. Polling shows Trump’s job approval rating in the Midwest is in the mid-forties, and his overall favorability rating is highest in the Midwest. Trump’s approval rating in the region is roughly the same as Obama’s was during the same point in his presidency, according to Gallup tracking polls.

    The working class, the nearly 70 percent of Americans without a college degree who have been ignored and even ridiculed by both political parties, is flourishing. Five of the top ten cities enjoying the greatest job opportunities for lower-wage workers are in the Midwest. “A majority of the metro areas with the highest shares of opportunity employment are located in the Midwest . . . after adjusting for cost-of-living differences, median annual earnings tend to be relatively high in that region,” according to an April 2019 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

    Finding enough workers “is a problem playing out in many parts of the Midwest, a region with lower unemployment and higher job-opening rates than the rest of the country,” according to an April 2018 Wall Street Journal report, citing hiring challenges by employers in Iowa, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Southwestern Ohio, solid Trump country, is in the midst of a warehousing boom. The construction industry is thriving nationwide, but the Midwest is leading the pack.

    The administration’s attempts to secure the southern border are gaining popularity in the Midwest. According to a recent Washington Postpoll, 40 percent of Midwesterners say Trump’s approach to illegal immigration will make them more likely to support him in 2020, compared to 36 percent who say they are less likely. Further, 83 percent of Midwesterners called the situation at the Mexican border a crisis or a serious problem. It will take some smooth convincing by the Democratic presidential candidate to not only disabuse Midwesterners of their views, but to assure them that open borders are best for families in Racine and Grand Rapids.

  • After the Mueller report, former FBI Director James Comey knows he’s in trouble:

    Comey will claim that everything he did in the FBI was by the book. But after the investigations by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz and U.S. Attorney John Huber, along with Barr’s promised examination, are completed, Comey’s mishandling of the FBI and legal processes likely will be fully exposed.

    Ideally, Barr’s examination will aggregate information that addresses three primary streams.

    The first will be whether the investigations into both presidential nominees and the Trump campaign were adequately, in Barr’s words, “predicated.” This means he will examine whether there was sufficient justification under existing guidelines for the FBI to have started an investigation in the first place.

    The Mueller report’s conclusions make this a fair question for the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign. Comey’s own pronouncement, that the Clinton email case was unprosecutable, makes it a fair question for that investigation.

    The second will be whether Comey’s team obeyed long-established investigative guidelines while conducting the investigations and, specifically, if there was sufficient, truthful justification to lawfully conduct electronic surveillance of an American citizen.

    The third will be an examination of whether Comey was unduly influenced by political agendas emanating from the previous White House and its director of national intelligence, CIA director and attorney general. This, above all, is what’s causing the 360-degree head spins.

    Oh, should we use the word “bombshell” or the phrase “the walls are closing on?”

  • Luke Rosiak is on the case of corruption in Flint, Michigan:

    The company Flint, Michigan, hired to replace lead water pipes had no experience with the work, according to a councilwoman and a contractor, despite that the city has received more than $600 million in state and federal aid for its water crisis.

    And the city ignored a model showing where lead pipes are and paid to dig up every yard, the vast majority of which had copper pipes, according to meeting minutes.

    The city also prohibited contractors from using an efficient method of digging holes known as hydrovac excavation, Flint Councilwoman Eva Worthing told The Daily Caller News Foundation. That leveled the playing field for a contractor, WT Stevens, with no experience or the appropriate equipment — and let it bill far more to taxpayers, she says. All of these factors, she adds, needlessly led to more waiting for anyone who actually has lead pipes.

    Huge amounts of aid dollars — including $100 million from the Environmental Protection Agency — have flowed to the small city of 90,000 residents to address lead in its water supply, even though it doesn’t have a chief financial officer and, until recently, its finance chair was a gun felon.

    The federal money “should be a good thing for the city,” Worthing told TheDCNF, “but given the mismanagement of the pipe replacement program, I am concerned that it’s not going to get used properly.”

    The city “chose to dig up yards that they knew were copper, and they decided to hand dig instead of hydrovac,” Worthing told TheDCNF. “That was because WT Stevens didn’t have the ability, and you get more money [digging by hand]. It costs $250 [to hydrovac] versus thousands” to dig a large hole without the equipment.

  • What part of No Collusion is hard to understand?” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Democrat slips up, admits that “I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach this President, he will be reelected.”
  • Hey, remember when journalists reported on all the scandals among Virginia’s state leaders, until they noticed the (D)s after their names? “Northam, who largely won on anti-Trump anger, is now less popular than the president in the state.”
  • Alabama Democratic state representative John Rogers last week: “Some kids are unwanted, so you kill them now or you kill them later. You bring them in the world unwanted, unloved, you send them to the electric chair. So, you kill them now or you kill them later.” Rodgers this week: “I am now a candidate for United States Senate.” He’s primarying incumbent Democratic Senator Doug Jones, who only got in because of the Roy Moore fiasco.
  • Remember how sure all those economic “experts” were that Trump would tank the economy if he got elected? Good times, good times…
  • A lot of what you think you know about gun control in Australia, New Zealand and the UK is probably wrong.

    Recent data show that the U.K.’s gun control experiments are actually causing more harm than good. Like its Australian counterpart, which also implemented draconian gun control in the 1990s, negative criminal trends have started to surface since new gun control laws were enacted.

    Sexual assaults have seen an alarming rise from 1995 to 2006, specifically increasing by 76.5 percent according to Howard Nemerov’s book 400 Years of Gun Control. All the gun control in the world has not been able to save the U.K. from steadily increasing rates of violent crime.

  • The FBI’s New York office forms a squad dedicated to MS-13.
  • “The century-long relationship between American Jews and the nation’s elite universities has rotted away. Now is the time for all of the good people involved—students, parents, donors—to get out, and fast.”
  • Believe women…unless they’re raped by a homeless person. “Seattle’s activist class seems, then, to have more compassion for transient criminals than for the victims of their crimes.”
  • New Jersey Democratic Governor Phil Murphy raids fund for fallen firefighters.
  • Followup:

  • New York: No new pipelines. Gas company: OK, that means no more gas hookups for new buildings because we’re at capacity.
  • Leaked Trump Peace Plan? I’d sort of like President Trump to stay away from all peace plans, as they all seem to be asking for trouble. This one is interesting. It calls for a two state solution, some Egyptian facilities for Gaza, incorporating settlements into Israel, a lot of non-U.S. countries picking up the bill, and penalties for rejecting the deal. It make so much sense that Palestinians will surely reject it out of hand…
  • U.S. Seizes North Korean Freighter Violating U.N. Sanctions.”
  • More on China’s play for technological dominance: “Huawei Technologies, the spearhead of China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), isn’t a Chinese company, but an imperial juggernaut that crushes its competition and employs their intellectual resources. By 2013 it employed 40,000 foreigners–mostly in R&D– out of a workforce of 150,000.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • The New York Times had a story in which they breathlessly told us that Trump lost a billion dollars in the late 1980s and early 1990s. You know, just like Trump himself told us in his book The Art of the Comeback. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • “Facebook co-founder says Zuckerberg ‘not accountable,’ calls for government break up.” Better idea: Make all social media companies publish clear, defined reasons for suspending or banning users, and make the processes by which those decisions are made transparent. Nah, they’d never go for that, as that would keep them from arbitrarily banning conservatives… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Facebook Allows Terrorist Who Beheaded Canadian Tourist To Keep Account & Actively Post.” That would be Bhen Tatuh of the Abu Sayyaf Group in the Philippines. (Hat tip: Charlie Martin.)
  • Jim Goad says Facebook should leave Louis Farrakhan alone…because he’s hilarious. “This cat is one of the most accomplished mind-fuckers in American history, and I’m glad to call him a fellow citizen.”
  • “Facebook SWAT Team Arrests Man For Illegal Possession Of Conservative Views.”
  • “Man Whose Headless Body Was Found Floating in Fish Tank Was Murdered.” That’s some mighty fine forensic analysis there, Lou… (Hat tip: Mickey Kaus.)
  • “Nation’s Politicians Mock Trump For Only Wasting A Mere Billion Dollars.”
  • “That’s not a knife!” (Unleashes Hellfire missile with 100 pounds worth of blades.) “Now that, that’s a knife!”
  • Entire New Orleans Times-Picayune staff laid off after paper sold to competitor. Among other things, they did that fine story on the homeless Super Bowl player.
  • Speaking of football: “XFL Reaches Deal With Fox, Disney To Broadcast Games.”
  • How a World War II field kitchen worked.
  • The return of the giant knotweed.
  • The 106 greatest crime films of all time, as ranked by Otto Penzler (still in progress).
  • “Is that an alligator in your pants, or are you just happy to see me.” Bonus: Florida Woman.
  • “Ilhan Omar Blasts Israel For Refusing Palestine’s Generous Gift Of Rockets.”
  • Moving The Extending Arms of Christ: This probably won’t mean anything to you unless you grew up in Houston, but there was a large, striking mosaic above the emergency room entrance on Houston Methodist Hospital that had to be moved to an interior atrium under construction due to the hospital’s expansion.
  • Punxsutawney Phil Says Six More Weeks of Northam

    Sunday, February 3rd, 2019

    Virginia’s Democratic Governor Ralph Northam has had a bad week.

    First he comes out for post-natal abortion, then tries to walk it back, and then it turns out that he appeared in either a Klan outfit or blackface back in medical school, an event immortalized in his yearbook photos.

    Immediately liberals tried to draw comparison with the Brett Kavanaugh nomination fight. (Or, even stupider, the Billy Bush tape, because they still haven’t gotten over how that “bombshell” failed to derail Trump’s campaign.) Except for the tiny detail that Northam’s offense to current norms is real, and those of Kavanaugh were entirely made up. If Kavanaugh had worn blackface, we all know he would have been forced to withdraw his nomination. But the rules are always different for Democrats.

    Oh, and in college before med school, his friends called him “coonman.” Because that’s a perfectly normal nickname for a random white person to have.

    After all that, Northam set out to prove that there’s no political crisis that you can’t make worse by lying about it.

    First he apologized for the photo, then, the next day, claimed that he wasn’t in the photo but did dress in blackface on another occasion, namely a Michael Jackson contest.

    The problem with Northam’s new modified limited hangout is the sheer stupidity of actually making things worse and less believable. So it took him three decades before he noticed an offensive photo on a two page yearbook spread that wasn’t him? Think he maybe should have addressed that a wee bit earlier? “Wow, I’ve never been in blackface or a Klan outfit! Should I tell the yearbook staff they goofed? Naaaaahhhhhhhh….”

    The cherry on the top: Back in the 2017 gubernatorial election, Northam allies ran on painting opponent Ed Gillespie and Republicans as racists, including an ad where a pickup truck with a Gillespie sticker flying a confederate flag literally tries to run over black children:

    Now Northam is steadfastly insisting he won’t resign despite numerous calls for him to from across the political spectrum. That’s probably the ideal outcome…for Republicans.

    Do I believe people should resign over something stupid in their yearbook photos from 30 years ago? No. But do I believe that elected Democrats should resign over same? Awww, hell yes! Democrats have been the ones enabling the Social Justice Warrior mob outrage rules lo these many years, so now they can live by them. Only when they’re forced to live by their own rules will the rules change.

    Some related Tweets:

    LinkSwarm for October 20, 2017

    Friday, October 20th, 2017

    Enjoy another complimentary Friday LinkSwarm:

  • The Imran Awan scandal could result in hundreds of federal charges. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Remember Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that came up with the ludicrously fake Trump Dossier? They were called to testify before congress…and plead the fifth. “So you have what seems to be the Democrats, and Fusion GPS and these officials — intelligence agency bureaucrats — all blocking every single attempt we’re making to get the most basic information about this document, which … may have been the single document that sparked the entire Russia investigation in the first place.”
  • Bonus: That fake dossier may have been the basis of the FISA warrants used in the Trump unmasking scandal.
  • Kurt Schlichter is unimpressed with Salon’s list of Fredocons:

    The media only hires nominal conservatives who already agree with liberals, liberals have no idea what real conservatives think or why. This is the reason they end up baffled when they lose and lose and lose again – sure, Felonia von Pantsuit was also stupid and drunk, but you get the point. As Sun Tzu observed, and I believe this is a verbatim translation from the original Chinese text, a wise general must seek to know and understand the true nature and schemes of his enemy lest he end up as forlorn and humiliated as a foxy fern in the Miramax head office.

  • DNC Chair Tom Perez purges supporters of one-time rival Keith Ellison while filling key positions with Clinton supporters.
  • Speaking of which: Heh.
  • “Ralph Northam, Virginia’s Democratic nominee for governor, deleted his black running mate from his campaign fliers. His campaign says that’s not a big deal.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Plurality of Americans believe the media fabricate stories. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Try to protest by blocking roads? Welcome to a jail cell.
  • This piece on how Facebook changed the 2016 election is peppered with the usual left-wing slant (has any liberal media outlet ever been labeled “hyperpartican”?), but is also filled with nuggets of insight on how liberal complacency and conservative mastery of social media blind-sided Democrats.
  • Republicans gain in voter registration:

    In short, among the truly contested states in 2016, the only ray of hope for the Democrats is Colorado, and even there, the trends have flattened some. They have stabilized New Jersey and Delaware, but Republicans continue to gain significant ground in Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, North Carolina, Iowa, Nevada, and above all, Pennsylvania. If these trends continue through 2020, Florida would be have a slight Republican registration edge, North Carolina would be nearly even, and New Mexico would be close enough that it could never be taken for granted. Moreover, Pennsylvania and Iowa would be solid Trump states.

    The remarkable thing about the Republican trending states is that they have moved steadily ever since last November, in almost every case without a single break. Democrats continue to lose voters, and they are not becoming independents. All of this appears to be due to Trump and Trump alone, as the Republican Party has not offered any reasons to embrace it.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • One of Obama’s “Dreamers” murders high school girl. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Denison Whataburger fires employee for refusing to serve police officers. Good.
  • Kobe Steel, Japan’s third largest steel manufacturer, falsified quality reports, affecting over 500 manufacturers. Enjoy your flight.
  • Heh 2. (Hat tip: Dwight.)