December 30, 2018 By Thomas Lifson
Despite the temptation to abolish the crown after Hillary’s stunning performance as a sore loser in 2016, another Democrat is making a strong case for membership in the sore loser hall of fame, where she joins Al Gore and John C. Breckinridge (who was defeated by Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and went on to join the Confederacy as Secretary of War).
Whatever Bettie Cook Scott may lack in national prominence, she makes up with chutzpah. When she lost her bid to move from the Michigan House of Representatives to a Michigan State Senate seat by losing the Democrat primary, she simply stopped showing up for work. Her district, in the City of Detroit, only elects Democrats, so the primary was tantamount to electoral victory.
Tom Gantert of Michigan Capital Confidential reports:...........Read more
Showing posts with label 2018 Election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2018 Election. Show all posts
Sunday, December 30, 2018
Thursday, December 20, 2018
What the Russian Trolls Were Really Doing in 2016
Posted by Daniel Greenfield 0 Comments Thursday, December 20, 2018 @ Sultan Knish Blog
What if everything you knew about Russian election trolling was a lie?
That’s the problem faced by two Senate Intelligence Commission reports commissioned from two outside organizations which struggle with the problem of reconciling the facts about Russian election trolling with upholding the Clinton campaign’s conspiracy theory about Trump and the Russians.
The two reports, from New Knowledge and Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project, about Russian disinformation serve as their own disinformation campaign, pushing the same false claims that the Russians had sought to help Trump win, even when they were working against him.
New Knowledge is a purely partisan source and its involvement in a false flag operation to fake Russian support for Roy Moore's Senate campaign should disqualify it from ever being taken seriously. Its report amplifies echo chamber conspiracies about Trump, while Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project report is the adult in the room, occasionally conceding the more nuanced reality of the Russian campaign by noting that peak Russian propaganda volume actually occurred long after the election during the Syria missile strike: a key national interest area for Russia. It also confirms what Facebook has already told us, that Russian activity actually increased after the election.
That suggests an influence operation rather than election interference.
It also reveals that the Russians bought over 1,000 ads targeting African-Americans and less than 300 targeting conservatives. There were 81 social justice ads and only 24 patriotism ads, 66 pro-gun ads and 70 LGBT ads, 43 veteran ads and 57 Muslim ads, not to mention 143 Latin American culture ads.
The African-American ads also produced over 1.5 million clicks while the conservative ads produced well below 500,000. The former ads also racked up over 15 million impressions while the conservative ads scored below 6 million. Not only did the Russians seem to spend less time and achieve fewer result by targeting conservatives, but they produced more clicks, 548,139, by targeting Latinos.
So the actual story of Russia’s Facebook operations is that they targeted African-Americans and even Latinos more than conservatives. That would be entirely in line with Russia’s past propaganda, and its influence operations in the United States, but it doesn’t fit the Clinton conspiracy theory.
The Oxford report is even forced to concede that the Russians hit Muslims with “pro-Clinton” messages and that the Russians had “targeted Canadians with ads encouraging donations to Justin Trudeau’s campaign.”
That doesn’t fit the narrative, so it’s dismissed as confusing.
When Russia posted pro-Trump material, it’s touted as proof of Russian backing. But when the Russians supported Bernie Sanders, Justin Trudeau or other leftists, suddenly “it’s not what it looks like.”
But if the Russians had set out to influence elections in swing states (a popular lefty conspiracy theory) they were doing a particularly terrible job of it since 152 ads targeted New Yorkers, 127 ads were aimed at Texans, 75 at Californians and only 42 at people in Florida. Pennsylvanians were neglected with only 25 ads while Georgians were barraged with 119 ads.
The Russians gave Iowa the cold shoulder, with only 1 ad, while throwing 6 ads at Alaska.
Missouri was barraged with the most ads, but that seemed to have a lot more to do with Russia’s African-American outreach than an election strategy. This wasn’t a strategy to influence key swing states since the Russians targeted or neglected states for reasons having very little to do with their status.
Just ask Nevada and Colorado, both of which were ignored, while Louisiana was bombarded.
Meanwhile on Twitter, “Right and left activity levels tracked closely together, at almost even levels, until early 2017. By the middle of 2017, there was a marked surge of activity focused on conservatives.”
The Oxford report may be more nuanced, but ultimately, like the New Knowledge report, it exists to service a Clinton campaign conspiracy theory denying the legitimacy of the election.
But it’s vastly better than the New Knowledge report. That’s not surprising considering the source.
New Knowledge claims that it was inspired to set up shop by ISIS and Gamergate. The bizarre equation of Islamic beheading videos and protests by gamers against unethical behavior by gaming journalists neatly sums up its radical slant.
When NK’s CEO Jonathon Morgan talks about “extremists”, he means Republicans. “Radicalization didn't start on mainstream platforms like Twitter and Facebook. It was festering for years in spaces you never think about, like the comments section of Breitbart.” He tweeted.
NK’s non-profit arm, Data for Democracy, appears to receive funding from Pierre Omidyar, a French-Iranian billionaire bankrolling leftist initiatives and sabotage efforts aimed at Trump and Republicans.
Raina Kumra, a director at the Omidyar Network, writes that she led "investments" in, among others, Data for Democracy. And on Twitter, DFD thanked the Omidyar Network for its "continued support". The Omidyar Network’s most famous product is The Intercept, a pro-terrorist site which has justified anti-Semitic violence by Islamic terrorists and which famously served as a platform for Edward Snowden.
Morgan’s past also includes time at the famously Qatari-funded Brookings. And The Intercept has also allegedly served as a clearinghouse for Qatari election tampering and propaganda. The next vectors for the Russia conspiracy theory have been Saudi Arabia, Israel and the UAE: all enemies of Qatar.
The Senate Intelligence Committee hired a firm which appears to have received funding from a deeply partisan source that was used to aid Russia’s biggest intelligence coup against America in a generation to analyze a Russian disinformation campaign. This may be their worst decision since hiring James Wolfe.
And NK’s leadership uses the phantom menace of Russian propaganda to call for internet censorship.
When Facebook leadership attempted to investigate a campaign funded by George Soros, a notoriously anti-Semitic leftist billionaire, NK’s Morgan tweeted, “Facebook and the other social media companies should not be trusted to police themselves. The self-serving attempts to undermine the credibility of those holding these companies accountable are reprehensible.”
The core message of censorship had already been put out last year by NK’s Director of Research Renee DiResta in a piece titled, “Why Facebook and Twitter Can’t Be Trusted to Police Themselves”. Social media companies, she insisted, must ensure that their users see “authentic information".
Who decides what’s "authentic information"? The usual answer is media fact checkers.
People, in DiResta’s worldview, are passive consumers of information or misinformation who must be protected for their own good from the consequences of an open marketplace of ideas on social media.
She proposes an "independent government agency" that would regulate the "marketplace of ideas".
The Oxford report is more subtle, but finds its way to the same place. “We need to develop stronger rules and norms for the use of social media,” it insists. “We cannot wait for national courts to address the technicalities of infractions.”
These arguments, equating government responsibility to oversee financial transactions with a responsibility to monitor the legitimacy of ideas, to protect people from malfunctioning consumer products and protect them from dangerous ideas, are deeply disturbing false analogies.
"Democracy is predicated on an informed electorate," DiResta told CNN. "Things like misinformation, radicalization, pushing people into conspiratorial groups and then profiting from that because it drives engagement, that's just not a viable state for the information ecosystem to be in."
But who decides what’s information and what’s misinformation?
There are two possible answers. Individuals can decide these things for themselves. Or some central agency, corporation, regulatory body, or media echo chamber can be put in charge of deciding them.
Are the claims that Trump is a Russian puppet a conspiracy theory? Or is the claim that the Russia conspiracy theory is an attempt to overturn the election a conspiracy theory?
You can decide for yourself. But the people pushing the former theory would like to decide for you.
NK’s report pushes the conspiracy theory that Russia was backing Trump. It reconciles Russian engagement with leftists as part of its pro-Trump agenda. This is a classic example of a conspiracy theory in that it treats contradictory information as affirming, rather than contradicting, its central thesis by revealing a deeper level of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy theorists begin with a central truth that is fundamental to their worldview, in this case, the illegitimacy of Trump. All new data, no matter how contradictory, is used to support that truth.
And so the Senate Intelligence Committee brought in anti-Trump conspiracy theorists, with links to foreign interests, to produce a report propping up their conspiracy theory about foreign interests.
Morgan and DiResta keep calling for transparency, but New Knowledge doesn’t list its clients and Data for Democracy doesn’t list its donors. The same people who keep claiming that our elections are being influenced won’t say who’s influencing them. In the nebulous environment of the internet, we are told to distrust everyone and everything, except the people feeding national distrust at the highest levels.
That’s what the Russians did. It’s what the media and its political allies are doing.
In a free society, everyone gets to decide what is information and misinformation. Truth isn’t determined by spurious scientism nor is debate silenced with dark murmurs about foreign interests.
The Russia conspiracy crowd tells us that we have to “protect our democracy” through censorship. Censorship doesn’t protect democracy. Just ask the people living in any dictatorship. Including Russia.
Only totalitarian movements believe that people need to be “protected” from different views.
The Russians set out to divide Americans by sowing mistrust in our institutions. A conspiracy theory pushed by a Russian intelligence source to a British ex-intel agent hired by the Clinton campaign to manufacture opposition research against Trump, that was then circulated by Clinton allies in the media and government to justify everything from eavesdropping on Trump allies to questioning the legitimacy of the election, allowed Moscow to succeed beyond its wildest expectations.
Our politics now inhabits a vast media echo chamber in which paranoid conspiracy theories advanced by special interests are used to justify the destruction of democracy and free speech on the internet.
The new war against disinformation is based on disinformation. Its strategy for winning isn’t truth, but censorship. Every populist movement from America to Europe to Asia that the Left disapproves of is immediately blamed on a Russian conspiracy enabled by an unregulated social media.
The past two years have produced a bumper crop of fake patriots warning that the only way to defeat Russian “fake news” and “protect our democracy” is to put them in charge of censoring the internet.
The best way to “protect our democracy” is with free speech. A genuinely free press creates trust by enabling debate. The media oligarchy that we have now creates mistrust and a perfect breeding ground for conspiracy theories and fake news, because of its abusive power and disregard for the truth.
People instinctively trust free institutions and distrust information distributed by central authorities.
Censoring the internet won’t make Americans more likely to trust the media. Like the Russians in the Soviet Union, they will instead believe that whatever the media reports, the opposite is true.
The Russians can’t destroy America. Only Americans can do that.
Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine at the above link.
Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.
Thank you for reading.
What if everything you knew about Russian election trolling was a lie?
That’s the problem faced by two Senate Intelligence Commission reports commissioned from two outside organizations which struggle with the problem of reconciling the facts about Russian election trolling with upholding the Clinton campaign’s conspiracy theory about Trump and the Russians.
The two reports, from New Knowledge and Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project, about Russian disinformation serve as their own disinformation campaign, pushing the same false claims that the Russians had sought to help Trump win, even when they were working against him.
New Knowledge is a purely partisan source and its involvement in a false flag operation to fake Russian support for Roy Moore's Senate campaign should disqualify it from ever being taken seriously. Its report amplifies echo chamber conspiracies about Trump, while Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project report is the adult in the room, occasionally conceding the more nuanced reality of the Russian campaign by noting that peak Russian propaganda volume actually occurred long after the election during the Syria missile strike: a key national interest area for Russia. It also confirms what Facebook has already told us, that Russian activity actually increased after the election.
That suggests an influence operation rather than election interference.
It also reveals that the Russians bought over 1,000 ads targeting African-Americans and less than 300 targeting conservatives. There were 81 social justice ads and only 24 patriotism ads, 66 pro-gun ads and 70 LGBT ads, 43 veteran ads and 57 Muslim ads, not to mention 143 Latin American culture ads.
The African-American ads also produced over 1.5 million clicks while the conservative ads produced well below 500,000. The former ads also racked up over 15 million impressions while the conservative ads scored below 6 million. Not only did the Russians seem to spend less time and achieve fewer result by targeting conservatives, but they produced more clicks, 548,139, by targeting Latinos.
So the actual story of Russia’s Facebook operations is that they targeted African-Americans and even Latinos more than conservatives. That would be entirely in line with Russia’s past propaganda, and its influence operations in the United States, but it doesn’t fit the Clinton conspiracy theory.
The Oxford report is even forced to concede that the Russians hit Muslims with “pro-Clinton” messages and that the Russians had “targeted Canadians with ads encouraging donations to Justin Trudeau’s campaign.”
That doesn’t fit the narrative, so it’s dismissed as confusing.
When Russia posted pro-Trump material, it’s touted as proof of Russian backing. But when the Russians supported Bernie Sanders, Justin Trudeau or other leftists, suddenly “it’s not what it looks like.”
But if the Russians had set out to influence elections in swing states (a popular lefty conspiracy theory) they were doing a particularly terrible job of it since 152 ads targeted New Yorkers, 127 ads were aimed at Texans, 75 at Californians and only 42 at people in Florida. Pennsylvanians were neglected with only 25 ads while Georgians were barraged with 119 ads.
The Russians gave Iowa the cold shoulder, with only 1 ad, while throwing 6 ads at Alaska.
Missouri was barraged with the most ads, but that seemed to have a lot more to do with Russia’s African-American outreach than an election strategy. This wasn’t a strategy to influence key swing states since the Russians targeted or neglected states for reasons having very little to do with their status.
Just ask Nevada and Colorado, both of which were ignored, while Louisiana was bombarded.
Meanwhile on Twitter, “Right and left activity levels tracked closely together, at almost even levels, until early 2017. By the middle of 2017, there was a marked surge of activity focused on conservatives.”
The Oxford report may be more nuanced, but ultimately, like the New Knowledge report, it exists to service a Clinton campaign conspiracy theory denying the legitimacy of the election.
But it’s vastly better than the New Knowledge report. That’s not surprising considering the source.
New Knowledge claims that it was inspired to set up shop by ISIS and Gamergate. The bizarre equation of Islamic beheading videos and protests by gamers against unethical behavior by gaming journalists neatly sums up its radical slant.
When NK’s CEO Jonathon Morgan talks about “extremists”, he means Republicans. “Radicalization didn't start on mainstream platforms like Twitter and Facebook. It was festering for years in spaces you never think about, like the comments section of Breitbart.” He tweeted.
NK’s non-profit arm, Data for Democracy, appears to receive funding from Pierre Omidyar, a French-Iranian billionaire bankrolling leftist initiatives and sabotage efforts aimed at Trump and Republicans.
Raina Kumra, a director at the Omidyar Network, writes that she led "investments" in, among others, Data for Democracy. And on Twitter, DFD thanked the Omidyar Network for its "continued support". The Omidyar Network’s most famous product is The Intercept, a pro-terrorist site which has justified anti-Semitic violence by Islamic terrorists and which famously served as a platform for Edward Snowden.
Morgan’s past also includes time at the famously Qatari-funded Brookings. And The Intercept has also allegedly served as a clearinghouse for Qatari election tampering and propaganda. The next vectors for the Russia conspiracy theory have been Saudi Arabia, Israel and the UAE: all enemies of Qatar.
The Senate Intelligence Committee hired a firm which appears to have received funding from a deeply partisan source that was used to aid Russia’s biggest intelligence coup against America in a generation to analyze a Russian disinformation campaign. This may be their worst decision since hiring James Wolfe.
And NK’s leadership uses the phantom menace of Russian propaganda to call for internet censorship.
When Facebook leadership attempted to investigate a campaign funded by George Soros, a notoriously anti-Semitic leftist billionaire, NK’s Morgan tweeted, “Facebook and the other social media companies should not be trusted to police themselves. The self-serving attempts to undermine the credibility of those holding these companies accountable are reprehensible.”
The core message of censorship had already been put out last year by NK’s Director of Research Renee DiResta in a piece titled, “Why Facebook and Twitter Can’t Be Trusted to Police Themselves”. Social media companies, she insisted, must ensure that their users see “authentic information".
Who decides what’s "authentic information"? The usual answer is media fact checkers.
People, in DiResta’s worldview, are passive consumers of information or misinformation who must be protected for their own good from the consequences of an open marketplace of ideas on social media.
She proposes an "independent government agency" that would regulate the "marketplace of ideas".
The Oxford report is more subtle, but finds its way to the same place. “We need to develop stronger rules and norms for the use of social media,” it insists. “We cannot wait for national courts to address the technicalities of infractions.”
These arguments, equating government responsibility to oversee financial transactions with a responsibility to monitor the legitimacy of ideas, to protect people from malfunctioning consumer products and protect them from dangerous ideas, are deeply disturbing false analogies.
"Democracy is predicated on an informed electorate," DiResta told CNN. "Things like misinformation, radicalization, pushing people into conspiratorial groups and then profiting from that because it drives engagement, that's just not a viable state for the information ecosystem to be in."
But who decides what’s information and what’s misinformation?
There are two possible answers. Individuals can decide these things for themselves. Or some central agency, corporation, regulatory body, or media echo chamber can be put in charge of deciding them.
Are the claims that Trump is a Russian puppet a conspiracy theory? Or is the claim that the Russia conspiracy theory is an attempt to overturn the election a conspiracy theory?
You can decide for yourself. But the people pushing the former theory would like to decide for you.
NK’s report pushes the conspiracy theory that Russia was backing Trump. It reconciles Russian engagement with leftists as part of its pro-Trump agenda. This is a classic example of a conspiracy theory in that it treats contradictory information as affirming, rather than contradicting, its central thesis by revealing a deeper level of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy theorists begin with a central truth that is fundamental to their worldview, in this case, the illegitimacy of Trump. All new data, no matter how contradictory, is used to support that truth.
And so the Senate Intelligence Committee brought in anti-Trump conspiracy theorists, with links to foreign interests, to produce a report propping up their conspiracy theory about foreign interests.
Morgan and DiResta keep calling for transparency, but New Knowledge doesn’t list its clients and Data for Democracy doesn’t list its donors. The same people who keep claiming that our elections are being influenced won’t say who’s influencing them. In the nebulous environment of the internet, we are told to distrust everyone and everything, except the people feeding national distrust at the highest levels.
That’s what the Russians did. It’s what the media and its political allies are doing.
In a free society, everyone gets to decide what is information and misinformation. Truth isn’t determined by spurious scientism nor is debate silenced with dark murmurs about foreign interests.
The Russia conspiracy crowd tells us that we have to “protect our democracy” through censorship. Censorship doesn’t protect democracy. Just ask the people living in any dictatorship. Including Russia.
Only totalitarian movements believe that people need to be “protected” from different views.
The Russians set out to divide Americans by sowing mistrust in our institutions. A conspiracy theory pushed by a Russian intelligence source to a British ex-intel agent hired by the Clinton campaign to manufacture opposition research against Trump, that was then circulated by Clinton allies in the media and government to justify everything from eavesdropping on Trump allies to questioning the legitimacy of the election, allowed Moscow to succeed beyond its wildest expectations.
Our politics now inhabits a vast media echo chamber in which paranoid conspiracy theories advanced by special interests are used to justify the destruction of democracy and free speech on the internet.
The new war against disinformation is based on disinformation. Its strategy for winning isn’t truth, but censorship. Every populist movement from America to Europe to Asia that the Left disapproves of is immediately blamed on a Russian conspiracy enabled by an unregulated social media.
The past two years have produced a bumper crop of fake patriots warning that the only way to defeat Russian “fake news” and “protect our democracy” is to put them in charge of censoring the internet.
The best way to “protect our democracy” is with free speech. A genuinely free press creates trust by enabling debate. The media oligarchy that we have now creates mistrust and a perfect breeding ground for conspiracy theories and fake news, because of its abusive power and disregard for the truth.
People instinctively trust free institutions and distrust information distributed by central authorities.
Censoring the internet won’t make Americans more likely to trust the media. Like the Russians in the Soviet Union, they will instead believe that whatever the media reports, the opposite is true.
The Russians can’t destroy America. Only Americans can do that.
Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine at the above link.
Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.
Thank you for reading.
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
6 'Deep Staters' tried to infiltrate Trump camp in 2016
'The question now is, who sent them and why?'
WND
WND
A reporter who has been breaking stories on the Russia investigation since it began two years ago points out that there were at least six different FBI or intelligence-related operatives with similar characteristics and modes of operation who made entrees to key figures in the Trump business organization or his presidential campaign between March and October 2016.
John Solomon, in a column for the Hill, noted that in the mafia’s heyday, the FBI was trained to pay attention if a mobster was in town. If five or more mobsters showed up in the same neck of the woods, “a meeting of consiglieri or La Cosa Nostra’s council was likely happening.” Another mob characteristic to note, he said, was that the mobsters usually had the same “calling card,” the same excuse for being in town.
“Early in my reporting that unraveled the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion probe, tying it to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and possible Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses,” Solomon wrote, “I started to see patterns just as in the old mob meetings: FBI or intelligence-connected figures kept showing up in Trump Town USA during the 2016 campaign with a common calling card.”...........President Trump can help by declassifying relevant documents, as he promised months ago.
“Early in my reporting that unraveled the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion probe, tying it to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and possible Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses,” Solomon wrote, “I started to see patterns just as in the old mob meetings: FBI or intelligence-connected figures kept showing up in Trump Town USA during the 2016 campaign with a common calling card.”...........President Trump can help by declassifying relevant documents, as he promised months ago.
“The American people deserve to know how much of the Trump-Russia probe was the result of agent provocateurs and political muckrakers and FISA cheaters, and how much was legitimate law enforcement work,” .........To Read More....
Saturday, December 1, 2018
Republicans Lost the House Due to Millennials Moving to Suburbs
November 30, 2018 By Chriss Street
Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives this year due to a big jump in liberal Millennials moving to the suburbs to buy houses, start families, and begin the transition into conservatives. The latest Ernst &Young LLP, Research regarding the changing preferences for the Millennial age group of 18 to 34 for the period from June 2016 to June 2018, found the percentage of older Millennials between the ages of 28 to 31 that owned a home spiked from 27 to 47 percent, and the percentage of younger Millennials between the ages of 20 and 23 that lived with their parents plunged from 63 to 36 percent.
Despite Millennials increasingly holding full-time jobs and the percentage feeling positive about the economy spiking from 28 percent in 2016 to 41 percent in 2018, only one-third believe their standard of living will be better than their parents in the long term.
A major reason for Millennial angst about the future is that 50 percent are paying off or plan to take out student loans. About 80 percent say student debt has forced them to delay home ownership. This burden may explain why Millennials’ median age for a first marriage has jumped by seven years since 1960 to 27.4 for women and 29.5 for men. As of result, only 38 percent of Millennials versus 50 percent of U.S. adults are now married............To Read More.....
Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives this year due to a big jump in liberal Millennials moving to the suburbs to buy houses, start families, and begin the transition into conservatives. The latest Ernst &Young LLP, Research regarding the changing preferences for the Millennial age group of 18 to 34 for the period from June 2016 to June 2018, found the percentage of older Millennials between the ages of 28 to 31 that owned a home spiked from 27 to 47 percent, and the percentage of younger Millennials between the ages of 20 and 23 that lived with their parents plunged from 63 to 36 percent.
Despite Millennials increasingly holding full-time jobs and the percentage feeling positive about the economy spiking from 28 percent in 2016 to 41 percent in 2018, only one-third believe their standard of living will be better than their parents in the long term.
A major reason for Millennial angst about the future is that 50 percent are paying off or plan to take out student loans. About 80 percent say student debt has forced them to delay home ownership. This burden may explain why Millennials’ median age for a first marriage has jumped by seven years since 1960 to 27.4 for women and 29.5 for men. As of result, only 38 percent of Millennials versus 50 percent of U.S. adults are now married............To Read More.....
Friday, November 30, 2018
Who's to Blame? Weak Leaders, Weak Institutions, Weak Voters?
Michael Barone
Nov 30, 2108
In the wake of the off-year elections, conservative analyst Yuval Levin saw no winners. "It is the weakness of all sides, and the strength of none, that shapes this moment."
You can see what he means. Donald Trump hasn't gotten everything he wanted -- not even the wall! -- from the Republican House of Representatives. And on one issue or another, he'll probably get something from Rep. Nancy Pelosi's Democrats he couldn't get from outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan's Republicans.
Now maybe House Democrats will overplay their hand and help Trump win re-election in 2020. And maybe Democrats, faced with a crowded field of presidential candidates, will choose an unelectable nominee.
But even though Republicans gained Senate seats and are in good shape to confirm conservative judges, Trump is weakened. Republicans lost just about every House seat he carried in 2016 by 5 percent or less. And he got only 46 percent of the popular vote.
Do the math. Forty-six minus five is 41. No way a 41 percent candidate gets 270 electoral votes in a two-way race...........To Read More.....
My Take - Michael Barone is highly respected for reasons I can't entirely understand. He asks a question, cites a lot of circumstances, and then provides no answers? I've followed him for years and although I think he's knowledgeable about the subjects he writes about, but nothing he's written has provided insights that are worth much....at least that's how I see it.
So why do I post his work? Because he cites circumstances that need to be looked at and need to be understood. But that understanding isn't going to come from him.
In the wake of the off-year elections, conservative analyst Yuval Levin saw no winners. "It is the weakness of all sides, and the strength of none, that shapes this moment."
You can see what he means. Donald Trump hasn't gotten everything he wanted -- not even the wall! -- from the Republican House of Representatives. And on one issue or another, he'll probably get something from Rep. Nancy Pelosi's Democrats he couldn't get from outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan's Republicans.
Now maybe House Democrats will overplay their hand and help Trump win re-election in 2020. And maybe Democrats, faced with a crowded field of presidential candidates, will choose an unelectable nominee.
But even though Republicans gained Senate seats and are in good shape to confirm conservative judges, Trump is weakened. Republicans lost just about every House seat he carried in 2016 by 5 percent or less. And he got only 46 percent of the popular vote.
Do the math. Forty-six minus five is 41. No way a 41 percent candidate gets 270 electoral votes in a two-way race...........To Read More.....
My Take - Michael Barone is highly respected for reasons I can't entirely understand. He asks a question, cites a lot of circumstances, and then provides no answers? I've followed him for years and although I think he's knowledgeable about the subjects he writes about, but nothing he's written has provided insights that are worth much....at least that's how I see it.
So why do I post his work? Because he cites circumstances that need to be looked at and need to be understood. But that understanding isn't going to come from him.
Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Electoral Three-Card Monte: How The Democrats Stole Orange County
While you were watching the Red Card in Florida, guess what they pulled in California?
Dov Fischer November 19, 2018
A nation riveted. Did Florida elect DeSantis their new Governor, or the anti-Semitic crook with the Hamilton tickets and the Tallahassee corruption scandal? Did Florida elect one of its finest-ever Governors, now term-limited, to the United States Senate, or did they go again for the mummy? And for those with Georgia on their minds, did Stacey Abrams finally figure out that 49 percent is less than 50 percent, or is she still working on the new math?
Well, it seems for Republicans focused on those that all’s well that ends well. DeSantis is Florida Governor after an election and a machine recount. Rick Scott is United States Senator after an election, a machine recount, a manual recount, a partridge and a pear tree. Brian Kemp is Georgia Governor after withstanding Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, and the challenges of running against a sore loser who also cannot count.
So Georgia and Florida remain red enough for now, given the porous southern border and the Democrats’ brilliant decades-long strategy of importing millions of new voters who will vote for the candidates who promise them welfare, food stamps, free medical care, free education, and all things free. It’s hard for Illegals to kneel at “The Star Spangled Banner” when that anthem gets to the words about “The Land of the Free.”...............To Read More....
Dov Fischer November 19, 2018
A nation riveted. Did Florida elect DeSantis their new Governor, or the anti-Semitic crook with the Hamilton tickets and the Tallahassee corruption scandal? Did Florida elect one of its finest-ever Governors, now term-limited, to the United States Senate, or did they go again for the mummy? And for those with Georgia on their minds, did Stacey Abrams finally figure out that 49 percent is less than 50 percent, or is she still working on the new math?
Well, it seems for Republicans focused on those that all’s well that ends well. DeSantis is Florida Governor after an election and a machine recount. Rick Scott is United States Senator after an election, a machine recount, a manual recount, a partridge and a pear tree. Brian Kemp is Georgia Governor after withstanding Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, and the challenges of running against a sore loser who also cannot count.
So Georgia and Florida remain red enough for now, given the porous southern border and the Democrats’ brilliant decades-long strategy of importing millions of new voters who will vote for the candidates who promise them welfare, food stamps, free medical care, free education, and all things free. It’s hard for Illegals to kneel at “The Star Spangled Banner” when that anthem gets to the words about “The Land of the Free.”...............To Read More....
Monday, November 19, 2018
Voters Electing Democrats Who despise Them
November 18, 2018 By Taylor Lewis
Kyrsten Sinema might not be able to stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue, shoot someone, and lose no support, but she could and did insult the very voters she was trying to woo and be the next duly-elected senator from the Copper State.
The former Green Party gadfly and 9th Congressional District Representative has at last been declared the winner of Jeff Flake’s departed Senate seat. She’s the first Arizona Democrat to win a Senate election in 30 years. She’s also the first high-profile politician that I know who spent decades mocking her own constituents as drug-addled nincompoops, only to, in the end, receive their backing.
Sinema’s record of contempt for her own people is nonpareil. The way she openly and endlessly complains about the loons in her state is akin to an elderly crank who never stops complaining about the one time the cable company once tried to upcharge him for Showtime..........
Despite her best attempts to shower voters with disdain, Sinema defeated her opponent, Martha McSally, a decorated war pilot with the distinction of being the first woman to ever fly a U.S. Air Force combat mission. Perhaps the self-loathing Arizonan was right this whole time: Arizonans went with the pink-tutu accoutered Taliban sympathizer over a distinguished veteran..............Read more
Kyrsten Sinema might not be able to stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue, shoot someone, and lose no support, but she could and did insult the very voters she was trying to woo and be the next duly-elected senator from the Copper State.
The former Green Party gadfly and 9th Congressional District Representative has at last been declared the winner of Jeff Flake’s departed Senate seat. She’s the first Arizona Democrat to win a Senate election in 30 years. She’s also the first high-profile politician that I know who spent decades mocking her own constituents as drug-addled nincompoops, only to, in the end, receive their backing.
Sinema’s record of contempt for her own people is nonpareil. The way she openly and endlessly complains about the loons in her state is akin to an elderly crank who never stops complaining about the one time the cable company once tried to upcharge him for Showtime..........
Despite her best attempts to shower voters with disdain, Sinema defeated her opponent, Martha McSally, a decorated war pilot with the distinction of being the first woman to ever fly a U.S. Air Force combat mission. Perhaps the self-loathing Arizonan was right this whole time: Arizonans went with the pink-tutu accoutered Taliban sympathizer over a distinguished veteran..............Read more
Saturday, November 17, 2018
Surprise! Ilhan Omar lied to Jewish voters in her district
November 16, 2018 By Thomas Lifson
Newly elected Representative Ilhan Omar, the Somali-heritage Muslim from Minneapolis who replaces Keith Ellison, has already reversed her position on the BDS (Boyott, Divest, Sanction) Movement that seeks to delegitimize Israel now that she is safely elected. Since she has cited no reasons for changing her mind, she must have been lying. Brent Scher of the Free Beacon reports...........To Read More.....My Take - "She must have been lying"....well duh....and the voting public in Minneapolis is surprised? Especially the Jewish voting public? What's wrong with American Jews? What's wrong with Jews on the left? What's wrong with Jews living in Israel who support all this Islamic clabber? Oh, wait.....I know, I know......I really think I know the answer! They're all idiot savants!
See, definition leads to clarity.
Friday, November 16, 2018
Democrat Corruption is a Clear and Present Danger to America
By Patricia McCarthy November 16, 2018
On November 6, it seemed the Republicans might hold their majority in the Senate and in the House. Sadly, they lost their majority in the House. The mystery is why so many Democrat candidates who are so obviously ethically challenged won in races that should not have even been close.
How and why do Democrats continue to vote for unqualified, dishonest candidates?
Elizabeth Warren is a proven liar, a cheat who claimed Native American heritage in order to get a job at Harvard. Her baby, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was her plan to wield control over all bank and non-bank institutions without Congressional interference. In short, she is a hard-left socialist who means to control how Americans earn, spend and borrow money, how they use their savings. Warren is a blight on the Constitution and the guaranteed freedoms of US citizens. She is an advance operative for the socialist America the left envisions......
Then there is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the thoroughly-ignorant-of-everything candidate who won her district by 80%! This young woman knows nothing about how any government works, let alone ours. She is hopelessly uniformed; she knows even less about US history or the Constitution. She is clueless about the economy. When asked how she would pay for all the give-away programs she touts, she replied that that was a "puzzling question"! "You just pay for it" she answers. She has no idea; no idea about anything. She thinks she will be "inaugurated" to the House! Most fourth graders know more than she does about US history. And yet she is already thinking about running for President! .......... Read more
On November 6, it seemed the Republicans might hold their majority in the Senate and in the House. Sadly, they lost their majority in the House. The mystery is why so many Democrat candidates who are so obviously ethically challenged won in races that should not have even been close.
How and why do Democrats continue to vote for unqualified, dishonest candidates?
Elizabeth Warren is a proven liar, a cheat who claimed Native American heritage in order to get a job at Harvard. Her baby, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was her plan to wield control over all bank and non-bank institutions without Congressional interference. In short, she is a hard-left socialist who means to control how Americans earn, spend and borrow money, how they use their savings. Warren is a blight on the Constitution and the guaranteed freedoms of US citizens. She is an advance operative for the socialist America the left envisions......
Then there is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the thoroughly-ignorant-of-everything candidate who won her district by 80%! This young woman knows nothing about how any government works, let alone ours. She is hopelessly uniformed; she knows even less about US history or the Constitution. She is clueless about the economy. When asked how she would pay for all the give-away programs she touts, she replied that that was a "puzzling question"! "You just pay for it" she answers. She has no idea; no idea about anything. She thinks she will be "inaugurated" to the House! Most fourth graders know more than she does about US history. And yet she is already thinking about running for President! .......... Read more
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Not For Long
November 12, 2018
OK, so the Democrats did manage to pick up enough House seats — 32 as of Sunday night, with perhaps a couple more to be awarded after recounts of too-close-to-call races — to make Nancy Pelosi the next Speaker of the House.
At least, President Trump and the Republicans aiming to reverse the results of the 2018 midterms when the House is back up for re-election in two years, certainly hope it’s Pelosi. We already know the insane old woman from San Francisco is the best friend the GOP ever had, and she’s already signaling her second tour of duty as House Speaker will be every bit as toxic to her party’s political fortunes as her first was.
And this time, Pelosi won’t have the power to deliver any legislative victories like she did the first time, when a President Obama was available to sign bills Pelosi and then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid were able to ram through Capitol Hill. There will be no Obamacare, there will be no Dodd-Frank, and there certainly won’t be any of the other leftist fantasies like card check or cap and trade which couldn’t pass in 2009 or 2010.
There is a legislative victory available to Pelosi, if she’ll take it. That would be an infrastructure bill — a real one this time. Pelosi had an opportunity to pass a plan to rebuild the country’s roads, bridges, airports, seaports, waterways and other fixtures when Obama was inaugurated, but the so-called “stimulus” plan the Democrats in the House and Senate sent to his desk was light on pouring concrete and heavy on paying off public-employee unions..........To Read More....
Monday, November 12, 2018
Meet the House Democrats who will be running the show
Kevin Freking Associated Press November 11, 2018
Now that Democrats have captured control of the House for the next two years, the party's most senior members are poised to regain the wide-ranging power of committee chairmanships.
While some of the Democrats have gained fame in feuds with President Donald Trump, others are relatively little-known outside of Capitol Hill.
Now that Democrats have captured control of the House for the next two years, the party's most senior members are poised to regain the wide-ranging power of committee chairmanships.
While some of the Democrats have gained fame in feuds with President Donald Trump, others are relatively little-known outside of Capitol Hill.
A look at the Democratic lawmakers expected to wield the gavels and shape the party's top priorities:
NITA LOWEY - Appropriations Committee...........
ADAM SCHIFF - Intelligence Committee............
ELIJAH CUMMINGS - Oversight and Government Reform Committee..........
JERROLD NADLER - Judiciary Committee............
MAXINE WATERS - Financial Services Committee..........
COLLIN PETERSON - Agriculture Committee............
JOHN YARMUTH - Budget Committee...........
ELIOT ENGEL - Foreign Affairs Committee............
RICHARD NEAL - Ways and Means Committee...........
BOBBY SCOTT - Education and the Workforce Committee............
FRANK PALLONE - Energy and Commerce Committee............
PETER DeFAZIO - Transportation and Infrastructure.............
ADAM SMITH - Armed Services Committee..........
BENNIE THOMPSON - Homeland Security Committee.............
RAUL GRIJALVA - Natural Resources Committee..............
MARK TAKANO - Veterans Affairs..............
JIM McGOVERN - Rules Committee..............
............To Read More......
Thursday, November 8, 2018
The World as I See it: The 2018 Midterm
By Rich Kozlovich
We currently have an economy that's on a high speed railroad track being conducted by a President with a fifty percent favorable rating, who’s cutting regulations, cutting taxes, winning the trade wars and embracing a foreign policy that's putting the world on notice the U.S. is no longer playing checkers while they’re playing chess. With all that, how could the Republicans lose so much? Well, let’s take a look into how much was lost and why.
For two years I’ve been saying the midterms were going to be a blood bath for both parties. Well, I was right and I was wrong. The Republicans avoided the blood bath in the primaries and the Democrats avoided a bloodbath in the election.
Why?
For the Republicans I felt it was going to be in the primaries for five reasons.
For the Democrats I felt their blood bath would be during the midterm election. Their conduct and policy positions since Trump was elected would have been considered insane thirty years ago, and treason sixty years ago. They’ve conducted themselves like spoiled brats having a fit because they couldn’t have their way. What’s worse, is they’ve promoted incivility and violence, or at the very least, condoned both.
Couple that with all their lunatic leftist programs that would increase spending, increase taxes and increase the size of an already abusive government, one would have to wonder: How could any sane person possibly believe they would take either the House or the Senate?
As we all know by now, they took a hit in the Senate, but they took over the House. How did that happen, and most importantly, how bad is that?
First, how did it happen?
Let’s get this out of the way right off. It’s my view the only reason they held on to the Senate was because of the spectacle the Democrats made of themselves during the Kavanaugh hearings. It certainly wasn’t the Republican leadership that made that happen. Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham, even though they all partially redeemed themselves in the eyes of conservatives regarding Kavanaugh, they are not considered part of the long-term solution by conservatives. They’re considered to be a part of the long term problem, which has now been exacerbated by the election of Mitt Romney as Orrin Hatch's replacement from Utah.
Kavanaugh saved the Senate.
Now on to the other election results.
Illinois is now a Republican waste land. The Republican governor destroyed any chance for his party by agreeing to a Democrat budget that was a “spit in the face of conservatives who elected him”. He’s being blamed for dragging down incumbent GOP congressmen as a result. Lesson? If you’re going to be unelected be unelected for the things you believe in and have the courage to stand up for.
Ohio elected Mike DeWine as governor, but the election was close from the beginning and if he hadn’t gotten Jon Husted to join him on the ticket that may not have happened.
Here's the big question Ohioans who voted for Cordray should be asking. Who was Richard Cordray before this and what did he stand for? Cordray was the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which became a corrupt and out of control unaccountable dictatorship, without any oversight by Congress. Which the Supreme court found unconstitutional.
Under his oversight his agency spent like drunken sailors, there was evidence of widespread discrimination against women and minority staffers while filing discrimination charges against companies, reinterpreted established rules to suit his aggressive belligerent attitude against private industry and his refusal to answer a Congressional subpoena.”
And we have to believe this is what he would have brought to any administration he ran in Ohio, and no one noticed? And yet it was still a close election. Is this what Ohio wants?
DeWine thanked Ohioans and says he won’t let us down? Really? The truth is conservatives aren’t any more enamored with DeWine than they are with Renacci, who lost to Sherrod Brown, a far left Senator, who has dreams of running for President.
Renacci was a disaster from the beginning and a symptom of what’s wrong with the Ohio Republican Party. In his first year in the House he and a number of new Republican Congressmen signed a letter asking the Republican leadership to promote wind energy. I knew then he was a waste, and he did nothing since then to change my mind, and he ran a stupid campaign. Ask yourself this: Can I remember what he stood for?
But think on this. Only 16 of Ohio's 88 counties voted for Sherrod Brown resulting in a vote difference of 16,112 for Brown and 15,494 for Renacci. That's not a tsunami, or a resounding vote of confidence.
Scott Walker has been defeated by a “moderate” democrat who’s “a staunchly pro-public education Democrat”. This is a “moderate” Democrat who wants to increase “public school funding by $1.4 billion ……. freeze the school voucher program as a first step toward its eventual phase-out, strongly supports community schools that help meet the needs of students and families in the local community, and plans to place in statute requirements for teacher voice to be part of all education-related decision and policy-making initiatives.”
Teachers’ union President Ron Martin applauded union members saying: “Today is filled with possibilities and opportunities, leading us to a better future”……This victory belongs to you. But more importantly, it belongs to our kids.” “We have lots of work to do now,” Martin said. “We have a partner who’s willing to listen to us, and we need to be there to provide the kind of advice and support that he will need to lead this state”.
What’s wrong with the people of Wisconsin? Is this really what they think is good government, and good education?
So, what happened? Was it health care or public education that turned the state against him? I really can’t find anything that explains it clearly. But this I know. Tony Evers margin of victory was extremely small. The key is who he brings in to run his administration, and guess what? With few exceptions, they’ll all be radical Democrats, because he now owes the teacher’s union his job. It will be just like California, except he has to face a Republican legislature……but who knows what that means, since Republicans don’t know who they are most of the time, and without a strong leader to take the heat, they’ll probably buckle.
Then there’s voter fraud. Monica Showalter says:
“There hasn't been too much in the way of contested elections based on claims of voter fraud in the Trump era, but hotly contested Texas is an exception. Here is James O'Keefe's Project Veritas video.”
She goes on to say:
The left will crow and strut that this was an indictment of President Trump and his policies, but perhaps we should put this is a little perspective. No matter how much the left and the media crow about this election - this was not a blue tsunami wave!
It appears, as of today, Donald Trump lost 36 seats [Update: 37 seats] in the House and picked up two seats in the Senate, and the governorships still remain largely split. That's not a tsunami. However, Bill Clinton lost 54 House seats, 8 Senate seats and 10 governorships in the 1994 midterms. Barack Obama lost 63 House seats, 6 Senate seats and 29 governorships in the 2010 midterms. Now those were tsunamis.
But what will this mean? Now Trump has fewer “RINOs, Never-Trumpers and moderates, not on the same page with the president’s policies......” Congressmen who hated him for doing things they promised to do and didn't. Those Republicans who did get elected are far more on the same page with President Trump.
But what about the Democrats who’ve been chosen over Republicans? The number one question is – are they really united? Heretofore the Democrats knew how to rule. The all voted the way Nancy Pelosi told them to vote – or else!
Now we possibly see different Democrats in the making. Those who won in red states didn’t run as typical Democrats. They clearly stayed as far away from Pelosi and Shumer and that crowd as possible. They presented themselves, and their position on issues, as being far more moderate and willing to work with Republicans. How will these Congressmen get along with their lunatic left resist everything colleagues? That will be interesting to watch, and the idea that Nancy Pelosi is a shoo in as speaker may be a bit premature, although I think she’s in.
But her being Speaker and lunatics like Maxine Waters chairing the Financial Services Committee, Elijah Cummings chairing the Committee on Oversight, Adam Schiff chairing the House Intel Committee Chair and Jerry Nadler as Judiciary Committee Chair, they will be gifts that keep on giving until the 2020 general election.
As Scott Morefield said on November 5th in his article, Four Reasons Why Democrats Winning The House Might Not Be So Bad:
But as the as the reporter in the movie Charlie Wilson's War said:
"We'll See!
We currently have an economy that's on a high speed railroad track being conducted by a President with a fifty percent favorable rating, who’s cutting regulations, cutting taxes, winning the trade wars and embracing a foreign policy that's putting the world on notice the U.S. is no longer playing checkers while they’re playing chess. With all that, how could the Republicans lose so much? Well, let’s take a look into how much was lost and why.
For two years I’ve been saying the midterms were going to be a blood bath for both parties. Well, I was right and I was wrong. The Republicans avoided the blood bath in the primaries and the Democrats avoided a bloodbath in the election.
Why?
For the Republicans I felt it was going to be in the primaries for five reasons.
- So many RINO’s were suffering from Trump derangement syndrome, and it was hard to tell them from Democrats.
- Too many Republicans were clearly intellectually and philosophically out of step with the direction of the party’s rank and file.
- For decades they promised to fix all the abuses of an over reaching federal government and its bureaucracy, and they didn’t.
- The promised to get spending under control, yet the spending by the Republican Congress was at least as bad if not worse than the Democrats.
- They didn’t fix any of what they've been promising, and the Republican base was fed up with them.
For the Democrats I felt their blood bath would be during the midterm election. Their conduct and policy positions since Trump was elected would have been considered insane thirty years ago, and treason sixty years ago. They’ve conducted themselves like spoiled brats having a fit because they couldn’t have their way. What’s worse, is they’ve promoted incivility and violence, or at the very least, condoned both.
Couple that with all their lunatic leftist programs that would increase spending, increase taxes and increase the size of an already abusive government, one would have to wonder: How could any sane person possibly believe they would take either the House or the Senate?
As we all know by now, they took a hit in the Senate, but they took over the House. How did that happen, and most importantly, how bad is that?
First, how did it happen?
Let’s get this out of the way right off. It’s my view the only reason they held on to the Senate was because of the spectacle the Democrats made of themselves during the Kavanaugh hearings. It certainly wasn’t the Republican leadership that made that happen. Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham, even though they all partially redeemed themselves in the eyes of conservatives regarding Kavanaugh, they are not considered part of the long-term solution by conservatives. They’re considered to be a part of the long term problem, which has now been exacerbated by the election of Mitt Romney as Orrin Hatch's replacement from Utah.
Kavanaugh saved the Senate.
Now on to the other election results.
Illinois is now a Republican waste land. The Republican governor destroyed any chance for his party by agreeing to a Democrat budget that was a “spit in the face of conservatives who elected him”. He’s being blamed for dragging down incumbent GOP congressmen as a result. Lesson? If you’re going to be unelected be unelected for the things you believe in and have the courage to stand up for.
Ohio elected Mike DeWine as governor, but the election was close from the beginning and if he hadn’t gotten Jon Husted to join him on the ticket that may not have happened.
Here's the big question Ohioans who voted for Cordray should be asking. Who was Richard Cordray before this and what did he stand for? Cordray was the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which became a corrupt and out of control unaccountable dictatorship, without any oversight by Congress. Which the Supreme court found unconstitutional.
Under his oversight his agency spent like drunken sailors, there was evidence of widespread discrimination against women and minority staffers while filing discrimination charges against companies, reinterpreted established rules to suit his aggressive belligerent attitude against private industry and his refusal to answer a Congressional subpoena.”
And we have to believe this is what he would have brought to any administration he ran in Ohio, and no one noticed? And yet it was still a close election. Is this what Ohio wants?
DeWine thanked Ohioans and says he won’t let us down? Really? The truth is conservatives aren’t any more enamored with DeWine than they are with Renacci, who lost to Sherrod Brown, a far left Senator, who has dreams of running for President.
Renacci was a disaster from the beginning and a symptom of what’s wrong with the Ohio Republican Party. In his first year in the House he and a number of new Republican Congressmen signed a letter asking the Republican leadership to promote wind energy. I knew then he was a waste, and he did nothing since then to change my mind, and he ran a stupid campaign. Ask yourself this: Can I remember what he stood for?
But think on this. Only 16 of Ohio's 88 counties voted for Sherrod Brown resulting in a vote difference of 16,112 for Brown and 15,494 for Renacci. That's not a tsunami, or a resounding vote of confidence.
Scott Walker has been defeated by a “moderate” democrat who’s “a staunchly pro-public education Democrat”. This is a “moderate” Democrat who wants to increase “public school funding by $1.4 billion ……. freeze the school voucher program as a first step toward its eventual phase-out, strongly supports community schools that help meet the needs of students and families in the local community, and plans to place in statute requirements for teacher voice to be part of all education-related decision and policy-making initiatives.”
Teachers’ union President Ron Martin applauded union members saying: “Today is filled with possibilities and opportunities, leading us to a better future”……This victory belongs to you. But more importantly, it belongs to our kids.” “We have lots of work to do now,” Martin said. “We have a partner who’s willing to listen to us, and we need to be there to provide the kind of advice and support that he will need to lead this state”.
What’s wrong with the people of Wisconsin? Is this really what they think is good government, and good education?
So, what happened? Was it health care or public education that turned the state against him? I really can’t find anything that explains it clearly. But this I know. Tony Evers margin of victory was extremely small. The key is who he brings in to run his administration, and guess what? With few exceptions, they’ll all be radical Democrats, because he now owes the teacher’s union his job. It will be just like California, except he has to face a Republican legislature……but who knows what that means, since Republicans don’t know who they are most of the time, and without a strong leader to take the heat, they’ll probably buckle.
Then there’s voter fraud. Monica Showalter says:
“There hasn't been too much in the way of contested elections based on claims of voter fraud in the Trump era, but hotly contested Texas is an exception. Here is James O'Keefe's Project Veritas video.”
She goes on to say:
"Project Veritas' undercover journalist, posing as the girlfriend of a potential DACA voter, visited a polling station in Travis County, Texas to ask election officials if he could vote. "If he has his ID that’s all he needs. If he’s registered," an election worker told the undercover journalist. “Right. It doesn’t matter that he’s not a citizen?" the PV journalist replied, adding that she had heard on the internet that he could not vote. "No, Don’t pay any attention to that. Bring him up here," the official said. Another woman, who appeared to be an election official, said that there was not an issue with DACA recipients voting, saying, "we got a lot of 'em.""You've got a lot of them?" the journalist asked. "Mmhmm," the woman replied. "From early voter. We've got tons of them. Tons of DACA voters. Okay."So, now let’s deal with how bad is this?
The left will crow and strut that this was an indictment of President Trump and his policies, but perhaps we should put this is a little perspective. No matter how much the left and the media crow about this election - this was not a blue tsunami wave!
It appears, as of today, Donald Trump lost 36 seats [Update: 37 seats] in the House and picked up two seats in the Senate, and the governorships still remain largely split. That's not a tsunami. However, Bill Clinton lost 54 House seats, 8 Senate seats and 10 governorships in the 1994 midterms. Barack Obama lost 63 House seats, 6 Senate seats and 29 governorships in the 2010 midterms. Now those were tsunamis.
But what will this mean? Now Trump has fewer “RINOs, Never-Trumpers and moderates, not on the same page with the president’s policies......” Congressmen who hated him for doing things they promised to do and didn't. Those Republicans who did get elected are far more on the same page with President Trump.
But what about the Democrats who’ve been chosen over Republicans? The number one question is – are they really united? Heretofore the Democrats knew how to rule. The all voted the way Nancy Pelosi told them to vote – or else!
Now we possibly see different Democrats in the making. Those who won in red states didn’t run as typical Democrats. They clearly stayed as far away from Pelosi and Shumer and that crowd as possible. They presented themselves, and their position on issues, as being far more moderate and willing to work with Republicans. How will these Congressmen get along with their lunatic left resist everything colleagues? That will be interesting to watch, and the idea that Nancy Pelosi is a shoo in as speaker may be a bit premature, although I think she’s in.
But her being Speaker and lunatics like Maxine Waters chairing the Financial Services Committee, Elijah Cummings chairing the Committee on Oversight, Adam Schiff chairing the House Intel Committee Chair and Jerry Nadler as Judiciary Committee Chair, they will be gifts that keep on giving until the 2020 general election.
As Scott Morefield said on November 5th in his article, Four Reasons Why Democrats Winning The House Might Not Be So Bad:
“If they win the majority in the House, they get to pick the speaker, the chairmanships, and set the agenda. They get to investigate, hold hearings, subpoena Trump officials, and even - should the ever-growing wing-nut-wing of their party prevail - vote to impeach President Trump. Sure, the whole circus promises to be extremely entertaining and a gold mine for reporters like myself, but it’ll be ugly, and the chances of anything really conservative coming through are about the same as California going red. …………. Far from being “lights out” for Trump’s agenda, in some ways I think there could be a few silver linings to having to endure Democrat control of the House for the next two years, and they don’t all have to do with getting millions of clicks from the coming hilarious hijinks from the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”
“Those of us who study politics understand the reasons why President Trump hasn’t yet been able to get some of the things he wants - reasons like squishy Republicans and the stupid filibuster rule in the Senate - but the average Joe who has better things to do than to keep up with this stuff all day simply sees a Republican House, Senate, and Executive branch and wonders why on earth Trump’s agenda keeps getting stalled. So yeah, Nancy Pelosi and Crazy Maxine wielding gavels will make far better foils than Paul Ryan and Jeff Flake ever did.”
“Combine that with the fact that, especially with a stronger Senate majority, Trump’s agenda in many ways can and will continue unabated. Judicial appointments will keep rolling, regulations will keep disappearing, and governmental departments in the hands of the good guys will keep plugging along.”
“If the Democrats take the House, expect President Trump’s approval ratings to rise bigly. Which could lead to…President Trump having an easier path to re-election in 2020”There may be something to his analysis, especially when looking at this map showing how each county in every state voted. That's not a picture of a Democrat tsunami. Based on history, the potential for reversal is very real in 2020.
"We'll See!
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
Mitt Romney slams Trump’s attack on Fake News; defends CNN
November 2, 2018, 115 comments
Republican Senate candidate Mitt Romney penned a blog post Thursday criticizing President Trump for routinely labeling the so-called “fake news” media the “enemy of the people.”
Mr. Romney, in a post titled, “The Free Press, a Pillar of Democracy,” emphasized the “vital role played by professional news organizations” in an era when people are being constantly influenced by “propaganda from a campaign, from a political party, or even from a foreign adversary.”
“America is indebted as a democratic nation to the free press for truths it has uncovered, for truth it has disseminated, and for falsehoods it has repudiated,” the former presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor wrote.
He highlighted two tweets by the president that attacked left-leaning news networks, particularly CNN, for spreading “false information”: ........To Read More.....
My Take - You need to read the comments. It's my conviction after today Romney's RINO political career is over. Harry Truman was criticized for not running his campaign like a Republican.....what ever that may have meant in that day. Harry's reply was if the public had a choice between a Republican and a Republican they would choose a Republican every time. The converse is also true. If Utah has a choice between a Democrat and a Democrat - they'll choose a Democrat.
Update: Oh Well! Prediction is really hard. Especially about the future. RK
Republican Senate candidate Mitt Romney penned a blog post Thursday criticizing President Trump for routinely labeling the so-called “fake news” media the “enemy of the people.”
Mr. Romney, in a post titled, “The Free Press, a Pillar of Democracy,” emphasized the “vital role played by professional news organizations” in an era when people are being constantly influenced by “propaganda from a campaign, from a political party, or even from a foreign adversary.”
“America is indebted as a democratic nation to the free press for truths it has uncovered, for truth it has disseminated, and for falsehoods it has repudiated,” the former presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor wrote.
He highlighted two tweets by the president that attacked left-leaning news networks, particularly CNN, for spreading “false information”: ........To Read More.....
My Take - You need to read the comments. It's my conviction after today Romney's RINO political career is over. Harry Truman was criticized for not running his campaign like a Republican.....what ever that may have meant in that day. Harry's reply was if the public had a choice between a Republican and a Republican they would choose a Republican every time. The converse is also true. If Utah has a choice between a Democrat and a Democrat - they'll choose a Democrat.
Update: Oh Well! Prediction is really hard. Especially about the future. RK
NYT Columnist: Let's Face It, All Republicans Are Just Bad People
Matt Vespa
Nov 05, 2018
So, after all this talk about dialing down the rhetoric, let’s be clear about something: that’s never, ever going to happen. As long as there is a Democratic Party, it won’t happen. You cannot reason with these people. We said the same thing after the assassination attempt of former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ). It didn’t take.
Why?
It’s because Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, red states and blue states are different. We have different cultural attitudes, different views on patriotism (Democrats hate outward displays of national pride), and DEEP differences on how government should run the country. We disagree on abortion, gun rights, immigration, taxes, and Halloween costumes. ...................But to condemn all of us all as “bad people” because you disagree with us on policy is just another sign that things aren’t going to get better regarding the so-called charged rhetoric.
Now, on the flip side, I’m 100 percent okay with this. I like knowing who my enemy is and where they stand. Partisanship cuts through the BS. It allows both sides to unite their bases and weed out the cancers that still yearn for this ‘let’s come together, kumbaya’ return to politics. It’s dead. Gone. And it’s never coming back. It’s also an election year. Take kumbaya and shove it. It’s about winning. It’s always been about winning. ...........To Read More.....
Four Reasons Why Democrats Winning The House Might Not Be So Bad
Scott Morefield
Nov 05, 2018
Don’t let the headline deceive you. I’m hopeful, even somewhat optimistic, about Republican chances on Tuesday, and the thought of losing even one iota of ground to these sanctimonious blowhards repulses me to my core.
But I’m also realistic to the possibility that Tuesday could be a good day for Republicans, especially in the Senate, yet - because of a variety of factors at play - the House of Representatives may be lost.
Don’t let the headline deceive you. I’m hopeful, even somewhat optimistic, about Republican chances on Tuesday, and the thought of losing even one iota of ground to these sanctimonious blowhards repulses me to my core.
But I’m also realistic to the possibility that Tuesday could be a good day for Republicans, especially in the Senate, yet - because of a variety of factors at play - the House of Representatives may be lost.
Yes, it could be a slim margin, but whether it’s one member or twenty, for the next two years the results will be the same as far as the House is concerned. As Ann Coulter aptly stated in this Daily Caller video about preventing a “Blue Tsunami,” “there’s no dimmer switch” when it comes to House control. “It’s on or it’s off. If they win, the Democrats win by one vote. It’s lights out for the Trump agenda.”..........To Read More....
Saturday, November 3, 2018
2018 looks like a different midterm to me
By Silvio Canto, Jr. November 3, 2018
We've heard for years about "first midterm blues" -- the president losing seats after his election. Recently, we saw it with President Clinton in 1994 and President Obama in 2010.
We did not see it with President Bush in 2002 but maybe that was an outlier or related to the patriotic reaction after 9/11. What happens in 2018? For some time, we've been hearing about "the blue wave". However, in recent days, we are hearing of a GOP enthusiasm boost that could make comparisons to the past useless.
The first obvious sign of a GOP boost is the U.S. Senate. As of today, Nevada is the only seat that the Democrats could flip. On the other hand, North Dakota and Missouri look like GOP flips. Indiana and Montana could flip to the GOP, too. In a worst case scenario, the GOP could end up with 52, or 55 in a best case scenario. I won't mention New Jersey, Michigan, and Florida where a surprise could also bring us a GOP victory............. Read more.........
We've heard for years about "first midterm blues" -- the president losing seats after his election. Recently, we saw it with President Clinton in 1994 and President Obama in 2010.
We did not see it with President Bush in 2002 but maybe that was an outlier or related to the patriotic reaction after 9/11. What happens in 2018? For some time, we've been hearing about "the blue wave". However, in recent days, we are hearing of a GOP enthusiasm boost that could make comparisons to the past useless.
The first obvious sign of a GOP boost is the U.S. Senate. As of today, Nevada is the only seat that the Democrats could flip. On the other hand, North Dakota and Missouri look like GOP flips. Indiana and Montana could flip to the GOP, too. In a worst case scenario, the GOP could end up with 52, or 55 in a best case scenario. I won't mention New Jersey, Michigan, and Florida where a surprise could also bring us a GOP victory............. Read more.........
Sinema Verite: Arizona Dem Gets Taliban Wish
By Daniel John Sobieski November 3, 2018
One wonders what Arizona Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, candidate for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Jeff Flake, thinks of the news that the five members of the Taliban, dubbed their “Dream Team”, that President Barack Hussein Obama traded for the traitor and deserter Bowe Bergdahl, have officially returned to the Taliban, their mission once again to kill Americans and, presumably, Arizonans.
Let me take a wild guess and suggest that it is doubtful Sinema will express condemnation of and regret for Obama’s move to excuse a traitor and reward an enemy of the United States, an enemy that tried to kill and are still trying to kill the likes of her Senate opponent, GOP representative and former A-10 Warthog pilot Martha McSally............."Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, the Democratic Senate candidate in Arizona, said in a resurfaced radio interview from 2003 that she does not care if people fight for the Taliban against the United States"…........... Read more
One wonders what Arizona Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, candidate for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Jeff Flake, thinks of the news that the five members of the Taliban, dubbed their “Dream Team”, that President Barack Hussein Obama traded for the traitor and deserter Bowe Bergdahl, have officially returned to the Taliban, their mission once again to kill Americans and, presumably, Arizonans.
Let me take a wild guess and suggest that it is doubtful Sinema will express condemnation of and regret for Obama’s move to excuse a traitor and reward an enemy of the United States, an enemy that tried to kill and are still trying to kill the likes of her Senate opponent, GOP representative and former A-10 Warthog pilot Martha McSally............."Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, the Democratic Senate candidate in Arizona, said in a resurfaced radio interview from 2003 that she does not care if people fight for the Taliban against the United States"…........... Read more
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
So, Where's the Beef?
By Rich Kozlovich
Many years ago there was a hamburger commercial with a little old lady asking: "Where's the Beef"? A legitimate question considering how small some beef patties are at some fast food joints. Well, I also think it's a legitimate question for what's going on in American politics and society today. So, let's see if we can find it?
Commonsense & Wonder is a news blog that links something from Paradigms and Demographics on most days, which I appreciate. But yesterday they also posted a link to an October 19th article by Joe Schoffstall entitled, GOP Women’s Group Attacking Trump Funded Solely by Male Democratic Donor, which reports:
"The PAC's October quarterly filing—the first from the group—also shows that the group of Republican women is bankrolled by just one donor: Reid Hoffman, a venture capitalist and co-founder of LinkedIn, who is a major donor to Democrats. Hoffman cut a $400,000 to the PAC on Sept. 27, its filings show."
I have some questions.
Hoffman has donated millions to far left politicians, and since he's the only person funding this "grass roots" group why would anyone believe he's open minded, or would support anyone who really is open minded? That seems to be a far more important question to be answered, especially since "The co-founders of Republican Women for Progress previously led Republican Women for Hillary during the 2016 elections."
Well, maybe this is legitimate, but if so, I have to ask: If they can stomach Hillary Clinton, an exemplar of corruption and crime, what has Trump done that could possibly upset them so much?
Where's the Beef?
On October 22 Dov Fischer published an article entitled, Ever Get the Feeling Someone Out there Is Bi-Poller?, saying maybe they want:
Then the author says perhaps they're upset over:
So we have to ask, if this upsets them what exactly do they want? Fischer mockingly goes on to say:
Well, here's something to beef about. "The world has now amassed $247 trillion in debt, including $63 trillion borrowed by central governments". Some day there will be a reckoning for all this debt. Are we to believe Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Kamala Harris, Diane Feinstein, the Democrat party, and many in the Republican party are the solution?
Picture Diane Feinstein as Senate Judicial Committee chairman, Bernie Sanders as Senate Budget Committee chairman, Adam Schiff as Intelligence Committee chairman and Maxine Waters as Financial Services Committee’s chairman. Are we to believe any of them are better at fixing this than Trump? If so, I've not seen one thing any of them has done in their careers that could possibly make any rational person believe that.
We've been told by Democrats over and over again that character doesn't count when determining who should be elected. All those listed above keep getting elected so it shows that must be true.
You don't have to like Trump, but that's a separate issue that's largely immaterial, especially since all he's been criticized for was while he was a private citizen, not a public official, unlike all those listed whose corruption while in the public's service has been largely ignored by the media.
Now that's something to beef about.
Many years ago there was a hamburger commercial with a little old lady asking: "Where's the Beef"? A legitimate question considering how small some beef patties are at some fast food joints. Well, I also think it's a legitimate question for what's going on in American politics and society today. So, let's see if we can find it?
Commonsense & Wonder is a news blog that links something from Paradigms and Demographics on most days, which I appreciate. But yesterday they also posted a link to an October 19th article by Joe Schoffstall entitled, GOP Women’s Group Attacking Trump Funded Solely by Male Democratic Donor, which reports:
"A new Republican women's group who is "fed up with Trump" and pouring cash into toss-up congressional districts is bankrolled solely by a male billionaire venture capitalist who is a major donor to Democratic campaigns and causes, Federal Election Commission filings show."
"Republican Women for Progress, a Washington, D.C.-based "grassroots" nonprofit, was founded by Jennifer Pierotti Lim and Meghan Milloy and is comprised of "right-leaning" women who are opposed to President Donald Trump. The group has garnered glowing national media profiles that include a ten-minute segment on CBS News and articles in publications such as Glamour, Slate, and others."
"We think the best thing that we can do for the party and for the country right now is to make sure there are good women—Democrat or Republican—that are elected to office and who can serve as a check on this administration and on the president," Milloy told the Detroit Metro Times. "[This effort] really was inspired by us talking to Republican women in these districts where they said there was just no way that they could vote for the Republican."
"The group established a political action committee, the Republican Women for Progress PAC, on Sept. 13 to support their work for the midterms and has since spent $231,000 on independent expenditures for voter recruitment and advertisement productions in the toss-up districts in three states."And guess who's the sole donor bankrolling this effort?
"The PAC's October quarterly filing—the first from the group—also shows that the group of Republican women is bankrolled by just one donor: Reid Hoffman, a venture capitalist and co-founder of LinkedIn, who is a major donor to Democrats. Hoffman cut a $400,000 to the PAC on Sept. 27, its filings show."
I have some questions.
- Does this seem just a little bit wacky to anyone else besides me?
- How did they connect with Hoffman?
- Should we really think this is truly all about finding "good women", irrespective of party to run for office?
- What qualifies as a "good woman" politician?
- Are these women really members of the Republican party?
- Is this nothing more than a leftist scheme to fool Republican women?
Hoffman has donated millions to far left politicians, and since he's the only person funding this "grass roots" group why would anyone believe he's open minded, or would support anyone who really is open minded? That seems to be a far more important question to be answered, especially since "The co-founders of Republican Women for Progress previously led Republican Women for Hillary during the 2016 elections."
Well, maybe this is legitimate, but if so, I have to ask: If they can stomach Hillary Clinton, an exemplar of corruption and crime, what has Trump done that could possibly upset them so much?
Where's the Beef?
On October 22 Dov Fischer published an article entitled, Ever Get the Feeling Someone Out there Is Bi-Poller?, saying maybe they want:
"Maxine Waters to chair the House Committee on Financial Services. Indeed, what Caucasian married woman in America does not wear a button that says “Please, Maxine, Destroy My Family’s Finances”? .............That appeals to women voters:"
"Eric Holder urging them to kick Republicans. Cory Booker urging them to get in Republicans’ faces. And Hillary telling them that the only thing holding them back is that their husbands and sons control their minds and tell them how to vote?"Or perhaps these Fifth Columnists think America wants to return to the "Obama pseudo-economy that never exceeded 2 percent GDP growth because — as President Trump always has feared — they just are sick-and-tired of winning."
Then the author says perhaps they're upset over:
- a robust economy.
- deregulation of the Obama strangleholds on business.
- expansion of energy exploration from hydraulic fracturing to ANWR leading to American energy independence.
- strengthening and complete rebuilding of the United States military.
- revamping healthcare for veterans.
- moving the American Israeli embassy to Jerusalem.
- staring down North Korea and stopping the Doughboy’s missile launchings.
- staring down Vladimir Putin and arming Ukrainians as Obama never did.
- destroying the ISIS caliphate in Raqqa.
- forcing NATO countries to pony up on their payments before America withdraws from protecting their derrieres.
- successfully renegotiating NAFTA by inducing Mexico to agree to new terms that advantage American workers and then leaving Trudeau with no choice but to back down and agree likewise to America’s terms of renegotiation.
- pulling out of the ridiculous Paris Climate Accord that allowed everyone to sit back and watch American industry handcuff itself and allow our jobs to go to China, India, and other emerging powers.
- walking out of the perilous Iran Deal.
So we have to ask, if this upsets them what exactly do they want? Fischer mockingly goes on to say:
- If only we could have a return to Hillary and Benghazi.
- Eric Holder and “Fast and Furious”.
- Susan Rice and her television interviews attributing the 9-11 Benghazi massacres to a YouTube video that only she and Hillary saw.
- Susan returning to glory by hailing Bo Bergdahl for his “distinguished” service.
- Lois Lerner weaponizing the IRS to use tax levies and withdraw tax accreditations based on politics.
- Loretta Lynch meeting with #MeToo Bill at the tarmac to pervert justice.
- [a] corrupt FBI upper-echelon made a mockery of investigation and justice when they confronted Hillary’s felonious spoliation of evidence during the scandal over her bathroom computer server.
- Maybe......[they] miss the days when we were losing our manufacturing base to China and India. Maybe they have identified blocs of voters who are nervous that, in the event of a serious war, we now are assured that we always will have a thriving steel and aluminum industrial base at home.
- Maybe they felt more comfortable knowing that, in war time, we always could rely on other countries to divert all their aluminum and steel to us. Like, why would Great Britain or Japan or Germany give themselves priority over America in supplying aluminum and steel during war time?
- Maybe [there are] districts of people who can’t stand winning the re-shaping of the federal judiciary to reflect a respect for the Constitution as it is written and as it was conceived by our Founders. Maybe the suburban voters rue the reduction of judges who basically skip over the Constitution, ignore precedent, defy stare decisis, and just wake up in the morning and decide: “Here’s the new law I am going to legislate today from the bench — and then I will issue a nationwide injunction coercing every other court in America to follow the great idea that I came up with over my organic corn flakes and almond milk.”
- Maybe there is a wave
of voters breathlessly panting for their homes to become Sanctuary Cities, too,
where Illegals can return again and again — after being deported again and
again — and , sooner or later, kill someone innocent like a Kate Steinle… and
then have a jury let them off.
Well, here's something to beef about. "The world has now amassed $247 trillion in debt, including $63 trillion borrowed by central governments". Some day there will be a reckoning for all this debt. Are we to believe Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Kamala Harris, Diane Feinstein, the Democrat party, and many in the Republican party are the solution?
Picture Diane Feinstein as Senate Judicial Committee chairman, Bernie Sanders as Senate Budget Committee chairman, Adam Schiff as Intelligence Committee chairman and Maxine Waters as Financial Services Committee’s chairman. Are we to believe any of them are better at fixing this than Trump? If so, I've not seen one thing any of them has done in their careers that could possibly make any rational person believe that.
We've been told by Democrats over and over again that character doesn't count when determining who should be elected. All those listed above keep getting elected so it shows that must be true.
You don't have to like Trump, but that's a separate issue that's largely immaterial, especially since all he's been criticized for was while he was a private citizen, not a public official, unlike all those listed whose corruption while in the public's service has been largely ignored by the media.
Now that's something to beef about.
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