Open Thread

Mark Noonan36 Comments

Personally, I think that Flynn is being railroaded and he copped a plea simply to make it end – unlike certain Clinton people we know, Flynn hasn’t amassed a gigantic fortune over his years of public service and thus can’t afford the massive legal team a drawn-out case would require…and as he’d be tried in DC, where 91% of the people voted for Hillary, even a first-rate legal defense might be unavailing. As there was no Trump/Russia collusion, there’s nothing Flynn can say, even if he wants to, which would in any way compromise the President. Given that Trump has been in the public eye for decades and has never run afoul of criminal law before, I suspect there’s nothing Flynn can say which will cause Trump legal trouble in that direction. He might be able to help Mueller get someone else on a process crime, but that would be about it. Given that one of Mueller’s investigators was revealed to be a pro-Hillary hack, there are grave doubts about the entire investigation. My view remains as it has been: fire Mueller. End this charade.

Our liberal friends are reacting to the Senate passage of the tax bill in the calm, reasonable way we’ve come to expect: America has been killed. Outside of that, there are some things to like, and some things not to like in the bill. Everyone, I think, can find things to delight and dismay in the bill…and such is the way of things when laws have to be enacted on consensus. The basic thrust of it – a reduction in tax rates – is unarguably good. Be better if there were deficit reductions attached, but we also know (“we” as in Conservatives; liberals don’t know this because they refuse to know it) that the spur to economic growth will result in revenues far in excess of those projected, so the long-term effect will be deficit reducing. I’m in favor of the elimination of the SALT deductions – sorry, high-tax-State fellow Americans, but I don’t think it right that low-tax States should essentially subsidize your profligate and almost entirely Democrat-run States. Don’t like it? Vote in some tax-cutting Republicans. Increasing the child-tax credit is generally a good thing, but anyone thinking that tax credits actually help in demographic matters is foolish: Americans aren’t having kids because they’ve lost hope. Restoration of hope will result in a higher birth rate.

Poll says Roy Moore is ahead. Poll says Roy Moore is behind. Polls are bogus. Especially the poll showing Moore behind – supposedly, Donald Trump is approved by 50% of Alabama voters. Just a year ago, Trump got 62% of Alabama’s votes…and I can’t think of a single thing Trump as done which would make Alabama voters sour on him. Still, don’t go with polls…remember, you’re being told to trust “free” information provided in a partisan election. No one provides “free” information in such a setting unless they’ve got an axe to grind, one way or the other. I think that this is what was missed in most polling over the past 50 years: the people providing the polls are not disinterested. And in these days of hyper-partisanship, just less so than before. Personally, I think Moore wins it by about 10 percentage points – but, we’ll see.

The latest Fake News flare up was ABC’s Brian Ross putting out a bogus report on the Flynn plea – asserting that something happened during Trump’s time as a candidate when it actually happened when Trump was President-Elect. The crucial aspect of this is that what Flynn did for President-Elect Trump was not only legal, but fairly routine for a Presidential transition. Ross reported it falsely and it stirred up quite a storm…even tanked the stock market for a bit. Ross is now on suspension. Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) has long advised that we should treat MSMers as Democrats with by-lines – I go a little further and advise to treat them like Pravda. The MSM, as it relates to Trump, has not the slightest interest in telling the truth. I can only assume they’ve got their marching orders from the DNC and have been told to just say whatever comes to mind, as long as it works out anti-Trump. This can’t just be error; it can’t just be partisan Democrats getting ahead of themselves – they are telling such stupid and egregious lies that it must be coordinated. Someone on the Democrat side has decided that this will work to Democrats long term benefit. I can only suppose they hope the constant drumbeat will eventually convince Republicans in Congress to abandon Trump. There is something to be said for that…but I think, in the end, too many GOPers in Congress know that crossing Trump is political suicide for themselves. A Corker, Flake or McCain out there doesn’t care…but I also note that Corker and Flake aren’t running for re-election while McCain’s prospect of surviving until his next election is thin. Unless something Earth-shattering comes out about Trump, the Congressional GOP will stick with him…and, meanwhile, the MSM lying all the time will just make it ever more likely that nothing Earth-shattering can come out because even if it did, no one will believe it.

I’ve been saying that Never Trump would move over to Progressivism – and over the past couple days I’ve seen prominent Never Trumpers say the TEA Party was motivated by racial animus against Obama and that the tax reform plan is just a giveaway to the rich. So it goes – and I’m more and more convinced that the reason these people called themselves Conservative is because they didn’t want to be in a party which had working class people as it’s backbone. As the Democrats abandoned the working class, so have they become more acceptable to those we now know as Never Trump. It’s really just all an attitude on their part…and they spoke the words of Conservatism because, from Reagan to Trump, there was no real worry that being Conservative would have you associating with those uncouth, redneck morons. On reflection, this shift was inevitable once the TEA Party got started…once, that is, that common folks who aren’t government dependents started speaking up. Trump merely accelerated the process…and it makes me think that Trump saw what I saw: that there was a chance for the GOP to poach lots of Democrat votes if they’d jettison the Country Club/Chamber of Commerce style Republicanism. Never Trump – and the Democrats – think that they’ll now capture the suburbs and thus return to dominance. What they’re going to find out, however, is that playing well in the ‘burbs is nation-wide political poison. You’ve got to get working folks on your side – most Americans fall into the working stiff category. What I expect to actually happen over the next ten years it that the GOP, now Populist-Conservative, will start to make inroads into working class votes in the cities to go along with their working class votes in the rural areas. Never Trump will join their Progressives and be happy sneering at us…and we’ll be happy they keep losing.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan64 Comments

Trump calls out Faux-ahontas, gets her mad…but she really needs to come fully clean on her claims of Native ancestry.

Keith Olbermann has decided to call it quits on anti-Trump rants.

In case you’re keeping score, the gender wars are now up to “LGGBDTTTIQQAAP“.

Joy Behar, who some years back said she didn’t believe in God, is now saying that God is calling her to save our country.

There are reports that black Africans are being sold in slave markets in Libya – another of Hillary’s grand legacies.

Europeans are decorating anti-terror barriers for the Christmas holidays. I suggest if they’d actually become Christian and rediscover bravery, they wouldn’t need the barriers…but, that’s just me.

Leandra English, a Progressive hack holding an Obama-era sinecure at the CFPB, is suing President Trump in an attempt to prevent him from replacing her as director of the CFPB. The level of absurdity on the left just keeps growing.

The End of Conservative Never Trump

Mark Noonan29 Comments

We all understood it. Very many of us greatly sympathized with it. The idea that Donald Trump, long-time Democrat and close buddy of the Progressive Establishment was to be the Republican Party’s standard-bearer was a lot to swallow. It just didn’t seem right. Add to it Trump’s background of divorces, sharp business practices and general crudities, and it was just a bridge too far. It couldn’t be borne.

Some of us, though, did decide to bear it. I freely admit to happily voting for Donald Trump at the end of the day: I calculated that a Hillary Administration would be so destructive of our liberties (especially our right to free exercise of religion) and so hopelessly corrupt that nothing Donald Trump could do would be worse – and, relying on hope, I figured that some things I liked might get done, even if more by accident than design. But, still, there was a rational point to being a Never Trump Conservative right up to election day and beyond. But now we’re a year past election day and it is time to take stock.

Over this past year, we’ve had a bunch of strict constructionist judges appointed. It is impossible to over-state how important this is (I know our “law, all the time” Amazona is delighted with this). Are you irritated with all those judges who rule against the Constitution and plain common-sense just so they can virtue-signal against Trump Administration policies? That is what you get when you have Democrat Presidents: judicial appointees who aren’t remotely interested in the law, but only in whatever it is Progressives want at the moment. Four to eight more years of that and we could rely on it that the Judges would rule that the 2nd Amendment is void, that Free Exercise means “you can do it as we want, or not at all”, that Free Speech is trumped by alleged Hate Speech. Instead, we’re getting judges who will rule, for decades, the opposite of that – and Trump is just getting started. Unlike past Republican Presidents, Trump seems determined to find judges who are exactly what we want…there won’t be many, if any, stealth Progressives appointed by Trump to the bench. Over the next decades, these Judges will rule in favor of law to our immense benefit.

A good part of the reason for our economic doldrums over the previous eight years was the suffocating tentacles of government regulation. Really, it had been going on since Reagan left office (neither Bush ever made a serious effort at deregulation), but under the Obama Administration it took off like a rocket. Eight more years of this and only well-established firms able to bribe the government would be able to exist in our economy – everyone else would be shut out by a mountain of red tape. Trump has vigorously attacked regulations since he took office and he looks to keep going strongly at it until his last day in office. The importance of this is vast – and twofold. It not only frees up the economy and allows us to grow, but it also reduces the power of government. As far as regulation goes, Donald Trump is a small-government Conservative’s dream…and a Libertarian’s dream, as well.

On taxes, Trump wants complete reform – but as it looks like he can’t get that at the moment, he’s at least pushing for across-the-board cuts. This is also good for the economy and also good for liberty because each dollar government extracts from the people is just one more small piece of personal liberty chipped away.

Trump wants Obamacare repealed and replaced. GOP fecklessness has prevented this, so far, but given time and continued GOP Congressional majority, it will happen.

Trump is not a Pen and Phone President – he wants his policies enshrined into properly enacted, Constitutionally-valid laws. This devolution of power from the Presidency back to Congress is crucial to the long-term health of our republic. Whether Trump is knowledgeable on the theory or just realizes that its better to use the system to fix the system is unknown and irrelevant – that he’s doing what needs to be done to redress the balance of power between the Executive and the Legislative is crucial.

Trump isn’t anti-immigrant – he’s just in favor of legal immigration over illegal immigration. This is a no-brainer even if you are a Conservative in favor of large immigration. Of course we want all immigrants to be legal immigrants. Duh! Only an idiot would want illegal immigration to be any part of our immigration system. Whether we take in ten per year or ten million, it must be according to law. Trump is the first President since Reagan who actually wants to get hold of the problem and fix it – really fix it; not fake-fix it where we pretend we’re reforming immigration but all we really do is legalize the illegals and do nothing to prevent another ten million illegals from showing up.

Trump wants to win the war(s). Trump is not a war-monger in the least. In the old, Isolationist American tradition, he’s actually quite a peacenik…but he also realizes that if you gotta fight, then you’d better fight all the way. No pettifogging concerns about i-dotting and t-crossing. Let the troops do their job, and watch their backs as they do it. Find allies who are willing to do the things we’d rather not, and then don’t get squeamish when they do it. Rebuild our military power (since the first Bush Administration, our military establishment has been gutted…and training and readiness have come in second to politically-correct twaddle). Let our enemies know that while we are the best friend anyone can have, we’re also the worst enemy anyone can have.

In the Reagan and two Bush Administrations, foreign policy remained largely in the hands of permanent State Department employees who were beholden to the Progressive idea of what foreign policy should be. Reagan managed to buck it enough to ensure that his program vis a vis the Soviet Union was carried out, but the two Bushes were continually undercut – mostly because they carried the false idea that the bureaucrats at State were patriots interested in what was good for America, rather than what they were: Democrats who’s primary loyalty is to the Democrat party. Tillerson is cleaning house at State – over the next years, the foreign policy of the United States will be under the control of the President elected by the people to conduct our foreign policy…and, more importantly, by clearing out the Progressive deadwood and putting in our people, even after Trump leaves office there will be a legacy of rational, pro-American foreign policy inherent in the State Department.

I could go on but, seriously, what more do you want? For a Conservative, this is a bonanza. This is, policy-wise, better than Reagan. Yes, we’re missing a few things – be nice to have Trump be serious about debt reduction, for instance. But, you can’t ever get all that you want. But we’re getting plenty. Trump’s actions over the past year have completely negated any actual Conservative concern about the direction of Trump Administration policy. Whatever he was before he announced himself a candidate, he’s all we can ask for or reasonably hope to get. Even his outrageous Twitter antics are obvious, now, as tactics to irritate his opponents and fire up his base. Irritated opponents do stupid things – and we see Trump’s opponents getting stupider by the day. A fired up base means you retain the political capital necessary to take policy risks. All in all, Trump has been excellent. So, why do we still have Conservative Never Trump?

Well, I don’t think we do. Bill Kristol, a standard-bearer of Conservative Never Trump, the other day Tweeted out that Trump’s policies are bringing out his inner socialist. Indeed. Of course, no Conservative has an inner socialist. Quite honestly, you can’t carry a bit of socialist in you and be Conservative. But Kristol’s inner socialist is coming out – and that reveals that he never was a Conservative to begin with. And, at this point, no person who holds to Never Trump can be Conservative. How can you? What are you fighting against? Conservative judges? Tax reform? Strong military? Rule of law? If you’re doing any or all of that, then I’ve got a news flash for you: you aren’t Conservative. So, there’s no need to retain the concept of “Never Trump Conservative” any longer – Conservatives are on Trump’s side. He’s done the things we need done – and done them enough to fully justify a conviction that he’ll keep doing them…and thus earn ours support for his re-election in 2020. We can now just say that Trump’s opponents are all Progressives – that some will still hold on to the title of Conservative for a while is irrelevant: we’re used to Progressives hiding their real desires behind false fronts.

It’s good this happened – we now know why we kept on losing even though Conservatism is the only rational political ideology to have: we had Progressives in our midst who continually cut us off at the knees and found justifications for accepting Progressive innovations. Trump has torn the mask off them and they have self-purged from our movement. We can now go forward knowing that those who are on our side are actually on our side. This will work well for us long term – we might even keep winning for a while.

Corruption Everywhere

Mark Noonan21 Comments

I absolutely insist that any man who has driven more than one woman over a bridge be forever excluded from the Senate! I will call this the Ted Kennedy Lion of Liberalism Standard for Moral Excellence.

The Conyers story is most interesting on the assertion that, apparently, taxpayer funds were used to payoff his accusers…and some are saying that many millions of dollars over recent years was forked out in such cases. If so – and, in this case, I have few doubts that at least the basics are correct in the story – then this definitively shows the corruption of our government. That there would be even one such payout is an outrage – and all of the Congressional leadership, Republican and Democrat, must have been in on it. I can’t figure a way to get money appropriated for harassment claims without getting sign off from the leadership. This puts Speaker Ryan’s qualities in doubt – I’d always thought him an honorable man. I hope that something comes out to show he wasn’t involved…but I can’t imagine a situation where he wasn’t involved…and even if he’s clear of it, what does that say about his leadership abilities?

Back during 2016, I talked to the Mrs a bit about the overall “swamp” situation. She, naturally, was mostly bored and irritated with me for talking about it because she wisely despises politics…but I still recall saying words to the effect of, “they are working so hard against Trump because they are afraid of him. They are afraid of having someone in the White House who has no loyalty to the system. But here’s the kicker: by turning on him – and they were all his best buddies before he ran – they are making sure that he doesn’t give a damn how many of them go down.”

I think we’re starting to see that play out – possibly with a nudge or two from Trump, who probably knows where a lot of the bodies are buried in Hollywood, Corporate America and government. Right now, the President, Senator Paul and Senator Cruz are the only people I trust in DC to play it straight…there might be more, I hope there are more, but that is it, for now.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan49 Comments

I’ve been trying to think of a time when the Elite of any nation actually got it right. Now, to clarify, there have been times when a member of the Elite hit upon the right solution, but the Elite, as a class, has been consistently wrong in all ages as far as I can see. I think this stems from the fact that once safely ensconced in the Elite, you rapidly lose whatever touch you had with reality…you can’t see how what you do will effect flesh and blood people who aren’t Elite and thus can’t afford to pay the price for Elite mistakes. If anyone wants to call me wrong and pick out where the Elite went right while Joe Average went wrong, I’m all ears. But, remember, it has to be an all right/all wrong thing…no cheating by finding something where, just maybe, the Elite was slightly less stupid than the mob.

I don’t know how many of your know who Justice Willett is, but he’s the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court, Trump’s nominee to fill a seat on the 5th Circuit…and one heck of a funny Twitter user. Once upon a time, during one of our interminable marriage debates, he Tweeted out that he could support a Constitutional right to marry bacon. Naturally, his Democrat critics took the joke seriously.

Roy Moore is not backing down. How will it come out? I was getting sure that he was going to lose next month, but Larry Sabato just switched the race to “Leans Dem”, so I figure Moore has it in the bag. It is a very confusing thing, in my view: there are lots of accusers, but plenty of holes in their stories…which shows the impossibility of really judging events decades in the past which weren’t brought forward at the time. I honestly don’t know what the best course is – I don’t want to allow the Democrats to win a turn, but I also don’t want someone who would do what Moore is accused of in office. On the other hand, it’s not like the Senate is some bastion of moral probity, to begin with. I’m just glad I don’t live in Alabama so I don’t have to make an actual choice.

Someone, aside from me, is calling the Student Loan Program what is is: a scam.

Do Trump’s Liberal Critics Seem Increasingly Unhinged? Yes. Next question?

Economists around the world are stunned that by some, strange magic, middle class people are doing better under Trump…they just can’t figure out why.

The Supreme Court will take up a case challenging a California law which requires anti-abortion health care providers to provide information on abortion options. It is a free speech case and I hope the Court rules correctly.

Trump’s Own Foreign Policy

Mark Noonan49 Comments

There’s a story out that Tillerson is decimating the staff at State:

The State Department is in disarray and losing essential leaders at a “dizzying speed” under the Trump administration, according to an essay written by a top ambassador.

Plummeting morale, a rash of top diplomats jumping ship and a hiring freeze imposed under Trump have sent shock waves through the Foreign Service, wrote Ambassador Barbara Stephenson, the president of the Foreign Service officers’ union.

“There is simply no denying the warning signs that point to mounting threats to our institution — and to the global leadership that depends on us. There is no denying that our leadership ranks are being depleted at a dizzying speed.”…

First off, this sort of thing explains the rapid decline in the number of leaks. Secondly, it shows that Tillerson – and Trump – are determined to have people they can rely on to carry out Trump Administration policy. I can’t quite say where Trump policy is going – he’s keeping to his rule of not telegraphing his punches. We can glean a bit from statements and from actions, but the end game is hazy. In the Middle East, for instance, it appears that Trump has decided to go with Saudi Arabia and Israel as our primary partners…which is a bit of a fall-back to the pre-2001 US policy, but with a twist in that we seem to be willing to aid Israel and Saudi Arabia to take concrete actions against enemies – theirs and ours. If it works – and this will be highly dependent upon the new leadership in Saudi Arabia prevailing – then Trump might break the log-jam in the Middle East. We’ll just have to see – but, meanwhile, he’s going to have his people doing it his way.

Whether or not Trump’s people are going to be good at this remains to be seen. At all events, however, whomever he picks can’t possibly do worse than those who are being pushed out…the same sort of people who have been running US foreign policy for a century and have never, not once, got things right. Remember, these are the guys who started off this century of foreign policy folly by figuring we should break up the Hapsburg Empire and keep Germany intact. From there, they went on to such genius things as normalizing relations with Stalin’s Russia, using the UN as cover for us to get into Korea with a declaration of war, signed arms control agreements which merely hamstrung American power and, to wrap it all up, signed off on allowing Iran to move forward with nukes under Obama. These people aren’t just wrong, they are kind of stupid. Breaking the chain by clearing them out and bringing in new voices can only help.

Looking at the Political Field

Mark Noonan14 Comments

Our Democrat and Never Trump friends are giving out squeals of joy over the results from Virginia – it is the harbinger of Trump Doom. Forget it. It’s over. Trump is toast. Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer, here we come…and if Trump doesn’t get impeached after that, then President Kamala Harris will fix all he’s done.

I don’t know. To be sure, the GOP took a shellacking in Virginia – the Democrats seem to have worked out a killer plan to flip State legislative seats where they voted Hillary in 2016, the Democrat candidate for governor benefited greatly from that. OTOH, there are still some seats out there held by Democrats but Trump won the district in 2016…so, the GOP can play the same game. Not as effectively, of course, because given how well the GOP did at the State level the previous 8 years, there’s not a lot left for them to grab. And that is where my mind is going – this is just part of an expected snap-back. A good election cycle doesn’t mean a party is going anywhere. The GOP picked up 81 House seats in the ’38 midterms and it meant absolutely nothing…just a blip in the Democrats 60 year stranglehold on American politics.

What I can’t see is people being so disappointed in Trump that they’d return to power people like Pelosi and Schumer…or anyone like them. It could happen, of course, but I just don’t think it will. As I wrote last year, given that this will be Trump’s first midterm, the cards are stacked against the GOP…only the vast number of Democrats up for re-election makes the Senate pretty secure, while the House actually should be reachable by the Democrats. The Democrats need a net gain of 24 in the House to take a bare majority. There are 23 House seats won by GOPers but which voted Hillary in 2016; there are 12 House seats won by Democrats but which voted Trump in 2016. Only in 3 or 4 of each batch, however, was the Presidential margin a lot larger than the Congressional margin. Outside of a wave election for the Democrats, I think it comes out a wash…with maybe the Democrats netting 4 or 5 House seats.

Without a doubt, the 2018 midterms will be nationalized – the usual caveat that all politics is local will be highly attenuated next year. The United States is deeply divided on partisan lines. The GOP base – especially the Trumpster part of it – is deeply disappointed in the Congressional GOP. But I think that will manifest itself in more primary challenges…and more RINOs deciding to retire. When push comes to shove, the GOP base – and especially the Trumpster part of it – knows that it is political suicide to flip a lot of seats over to the Democrats. Not only will Trump’s agenda grind to a complete halt, but the whole purpose of the Democrat majority would be to go on scandal hunts to try and bring Trump down. The Democrat base is also very much fired up – they hate Trump with a white-hot passion. But my thinking is that the Democrat base is now, for the first time since the 1920’s, smaller than the GOP base. This follows a trend which has been going on for more than 30 years as everyone who isn’t a flat-out Progressive grows increasingly dismayed with the Democrat party. There was no way the old line GOP was ever going to get these people with any sort of consistency…but Trump, I think, can and will.

And that, in the end, is why I think 2018 will be good for the GOP…and good for America. The election will be nationalized, courtesy of the Democrats, and Trump will be able to hit the hustings proclaiming himself besieged by people who want to stop Making America Great Again. With the lower overall turnout always found in midterm years, I think the now-larger GOP base, fired up by Trump, will prevail. I could be wrong, of course; we’ll see. But I look to the future with calm confidence.

Reliving Election Night, 2016: a Progressive Nightmare

Mark Noonan15 Comments

Esquire has an article out – The Untold Stories of Election Day 2016. If you haven’t read it yet, do so: it will bring pure joy to your heart. Here’s the crux of the matter:

Omarosa Manigault, Trump campaign: If we believed what was on the television, we would have thought we lost. But looking at the numbers that were in front of us in the key battleground states, we were up…or we were neck and neck, with expectations of higher turnout and more enthusiasm. We were going off of our own internal data. What was being shown on CNN and MSNBC and some of these other networks was showing a stark contrast to what was in front of us.

That was it, all along. The race was always tight – it never was anything but. Hillary did have her chances to win, but it was never going to be a walk over. It is like everyone in the Expert Class simply refused to remember that she was terribly unpopular and an absolutely awful retail politician. The whole of the MSM – including Fox – was feeding out this story that Trump was just terrible and Hillary was so polished and accomplished and was sure to win…and to support it, they rolled out poll after poll showing Hillary ahead.

Now, as I wrote back then, I was unsure who was going to win going into election day. I was off from work that day and was also scheduled off the following day: perfect for the political junkie. I didn’t pay the least attention to what was going on through the day: I knew from experience (especially from 2004), that the early reports would not only be wrong, but would be done deliberately wrong to try and boost Democrat turnout while depressing GOP turnout. No sense watching that sort of thing: best to wait until there were some actual votes. I already had my mental marker on how the night would go: if FL and/or PA was called fast for Hillary, she had won…if either of them were delayed, or called for Trump, it was all over for Hillary. I went out and about with the Mrs and, after dinner, came home to settle in for the watch. I think I clicked around a few channels but the coverage was so annoyingly pro-Hillary that I quickly got irritated. I actually decided, I think, to watch something else and just follow on Twitter, but I eventually surfed by Fox Business and Stuart Varney was on doing early coverage…he’s a huge Trumpster, but after the nauseating coverage on the other networks, he seemed to be completely fair and detached. I stayed on it.

I was watching out of one eye, checking Twitter (especially Decision Desk – a must-follow for election day) and really just waiting for it. Keep in mind that I’m on Pacific time: the first polls would close at 4 pm my time. I tuned in about 5 pm. The Mrs periodically checked in on me – she seemed pretty sure that Trump would win it, and she’s always right about how elections will go (don’t know were she gets the intuition from: she hates politics with a passion…but once she sees a bit about how a campaign is going, she always gets it exactly right). As I continued to watch the TV, it switched over to Neil Cavuto hosting – don’t know if he’s a Conservative, but he’s always a level-headed guy who goes with the facts as far as he can find them. During one tune out, he mentioned offhand that there were odd numbers in Michigan. That was my first inkling – this was before Ohio was called at 7:36pm my time…but I had been looking at Ohio and wondered by 6pm why it hadn’t been called for Trump already. My guess was that if Ohio was going Trump – and it was – then Florida likely would as well. I expected Trump to win all of Romney’s 2012 States (I never believed the BS that AZ and UT were in play). Add FL and OH to Romney’s 2012 total and Trump was up to 253 electoral votes…add Michigan to that, Trump was at 269. When Ohio was called for Trump, in my mind, it was over – at 7:36pm Pacific. The Mrs checked in a few minutes after that – and I said words to the effect of, “I think Trump might have this”. She said, “told you so” and exited.

By the time the MSM got around to calling Florida at 7:50pm my time, I was starting to perceive – looking at numbers elsewhere, as well – that the MSM was slow-walking the State calls because they didn’t want to get out in front of Hillary and her team. Until they told the MSM it was ok to call the race, the race wouldn’t be called. From that point on, the night got merely irritating. The sycophancy of these people! The numbers were the numbers; the votes were being counted. They were holding back calling States which had 90%+ in and all of Hillary’s territory reported. It really isn’t as difficult to call a State as the MSM was making out that night…and the number-crunchers working for the MSM were doing all they could to let everyone paying attention know that it was all over. They kept going back to the un-called States and pointing out, relentlessly, that there simply weren’t enough possible Hillary votes to overcome Trump leads in State after State. The Mrs hung it up at 10pm our time and went to bed – I kept hanging on, hoping to see Hillary concede. It was only after the report flashed that Hillary had called Trump that the MSM called the necessary States to show Trump over 270.

To me, the lesson of the night was simply to ignore the MSM, entirely. They will not do anything against the wishes of the Democrats. There is really just no point in listening to them any more, except for laughs. In areas non-political, they might some times get things right, if only by accident. But in anything which can be construed as political, they are just going to take their marching orders – and talking points – from the DNC, no matter how divorced from reality DNC press releases are. What will happen over the next years is unknown – but the last thing I’ll do is follow the lead of the MSM. I’m going with whatever facts I can find…and I should have been more bold in 2016 when I saw that a net 100,000 people had switched from Democrat to Republican in Pennsylvania. That, right there, was the whole story: people were abandoning the Democrats in droves. And I’ve seen reports, buried deep, that they have continued to abandon the Democrats all through 2017, as well. The proof will be in the pudding, of course – we’ll see how things shake out when the votes are counted. But I’m betting that they’ll be counted mostly in Trump’s favor for quite a while.

Lot of News Open Thread

Mark Noonan60 Comments

So much, that I can’t really think of it all…but this is the stuff which has stuck in my mind today:

Democracy for America has pulled it’s support for Virginia’s Democrat candidate for governor – he, apparently, was insufficiently in tune with the Party Line on immigration. Now, why did Northam fall into heresy? I can only surmise that the Republican candidate’s attacks on the immigration issue are bearing fruit and Northam felt he had to so something with the election coming on Tuesday. Stay tuned.

Trump called for the death penalty for the NYC terror suspect and our Progressives friends got themselves into a snit that he didn’t call for the death penalty for the Vegas shooter…forgetting, I guess, that the Vegas shooter is already dead. Details – our Progressives ain’t too good with them.

A guy on his way out of employment at Twitter shut down Trump’s Twitter account. Liberals were temporarily pleased.

Democrats seem to have decided to throw Hillary under the bus: starting with Donna Brazile admitting that the primaries were rigged for Hillary. Also admitting that Obama left the DNC $24 million in debt. Also also admitting that Hillary seemed to use donations to the DNC as a slush fund for her Presidential campaign. Also also also Brazile glossing over her responsibility for all this. The only question is whether they are doing this just to get rid of a political barnacle, or whether they’ve been tipped off by Mueller’s team that bad news is coming.

Melania Trump to be protected by an all-female Japanese security team – which sounds really, really awesome. I hope she’s got a lair in some island volcano somewhere…

The GOP tax plan strips out the ability of illegal immigrants to get various tax credits. Which is a big, “no duh” for most of us because, you know, they are illegal and not supposed to even be in the country, let alone getting tax credits. There are other good things in there – also some things which seem a bit more dodgy. We’ll have to see what finally comes out of the Congressional sausage factory.

The Bolsheviks are calling for Revolution on November 4th. Not particularly worried. Don’t get me wrong: these guys ever get on top and you and I are going to be sharing bunks at the re-education camp; but these guys are simply nuts, at the moment.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan36 Comments

In the Progressive paradise of Sacramento, California, 200 women have signed a letter claiming massive sexual harassment. Not a single person is surprised. But I did make Twitchy for the second time over it.

I’ll give you a moment to, once again, bask in my reflected glory.

This has been noted in the comments here, but it is worth it’s own entry: George Washington’s Church – the Church helped pay for, that is, and worshiped in for many years of his life – wants to take down a plaque in his honor. As you know, I was ok with tearing down Confederate statues (or, at least, moving them away from public squares), but now I’ve reconsidered: this isn’t about who and how we honor, but just a foot in the door in erasing all of American history. If the left wants to fight a political battle over this issue, then let’s have at it: we win.

Medical science is hard at work on anti-aging treatments. I don’t like this, all that much. I know it’d be great to keep the eyesight and not lose muscle and bone mass as we age. I totally understand that. But do we really want to live to be 150 or 200 years old? We can barely contain our wickedness with 80 years…give us people who at 110 are just as vigorous as people today are at, say, 40, and we’ll be opening up a can of worms which we might well come to regret. People who start to think themselves immortal are going to start getting ever more filled with pride. Everyone is still going to die: living a very long life is probably just going to make it harder for people to do so. I’m just glad this thing won’t be fully developed until I’m out of here.

Sometimes, a RINO has a purpose: Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) calls for DNC and Clinton campaign officials to re-testify about the Trump dossier.

The Virginia governors race is turning on the immigration issue: the bottom line question is whether or not Democrats agree we should have borders. The Experts are telling us that the Democrat is set to win…but the Experts also told us Hillary was going to win. We’ll have to see how it comes out…but if the Republican wins (I rate it 50/50), it will be just more evidence that the electorate is changing.