Bill Burr on ABC Spiking the Epstein Story

November 14th, 2019

Enjoy comedian Bill Burr’s pungent take on ABC burying the Epstein story. Very little new information, but a good articulation of the outrage most of the nation feels over the story, at perhaps a slightly higher level of profanity.

“Oh you mean the part where you had evidence of these f*cking super rich people banging kids, that’s a private moment of frustration, and it all goes away?”

(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

Joe Rogan on California’s Homeless Problem

November 13th, 2019

Joe Rogan discusses homeless problems in San Francisco and Los Angeles with Rich Benoit (who’s evidently a YouTuber who salvages wrecked Teslas):

Benoit talks about the huge number of homeless people on the streets of San Francisco, while Rogan discusses how crazy Los Angeles’ skid row section has become (which I discussed here).

They also discuss Los Angeles’ new ban on living in mobile homes. On one hand, I’m quote sympathetic to homeowners who wake up one day to find RV recidivists reenacting segments of Breaking Bad in front of their house. On the other hand, California’s endless environmental regulations and rent control have made it very difficult to build new housing, and lawful citizens living respectfully in their own RV without breaking the law shouldn’t be penalized for doing so, especially if they do it someplace legally (like a Walmart parking lot).

Austin Half-Asses Its Homeless Problem

November 12th, 2019

The problem with posting about Austin’s ongoing homeless problem is where to stop gathering data and throw up a post, since the left-wing politicians who created the problem refuse to do anything about solving it. So let’s just dig in:

When last we checked, Austin’s downtown areas had become increasingly overrun by homeless drug addicts thanks to Austin mayor Steve Adler and the City Council repealing the urban camping ordinance. After watching this clown show, a little over a month ago Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared that if Adler wouldn’t fix his own problem, the state would. As per his word, last week the Texas Department of Transportation started clearing homeless camps from underpasses.

In between then, faced with obvious evidence of a how massively they screwed up, and that actual citizens hated their newly trashed city, Adler and the city council boldly decided to half ass the issue:

After the Austin City Council voted to lift a ban on homeless camping, sitting and lying, city leaders have decided to make some changes at a council meeting Oct. 17.

The changes mean camping on all city sidewalks will be banned, but sitting and lying down will not – unless it is 15 feet from an operating business. Camping, sitting or lying downtown around the ARCH will be banned, within a quarter mile of the area. That rule will eventually apply to the South Austin homeless shelter when it is built.

Camping, sitting and lying will also be banned in high wildfire risk zones, which is 14% of the city, or if it is endangering the health or safety of the public. It was approved by a 7-4 vote.

The four nays were Kathie Tovo, Leslie Pool, Ann Kitchen and Alison Alter, who supported a more specific plan that would add bans in more areas and make the ordinance clearer for enforcement.

Underpasses were not addressed in the changes on Thursday.

So transients camping on business sidewalks are right out, but open public spaces next to ordinary citizens are evidently A-OK to camp and shoot-up on.

Two days ago, the Texas Department of transportation opened a camp for the homeless near 183 and Montopolis Drive. (Montopolis is one of the last ungentrified black neighborhoods in Austin.) DPS troopers are patrolling the camp 24 hours a day. My prediction is that this will help some, but the majority of homeless won’t avail themselves of it because they won’t be permitted to buy and use drugs there.

The City Council is also considering buying a motel for $8 million to house the homeless:

The Austin City Council on Thursday will consider allocating $8 million to purchase an motel in South Austin to provide housing for people who are homeless.

The property is a Rodeway Inn at 2711 Interstate 35 South, between Oltorf Drive and Woodward Street, with 82 units.

“The property is an ideal location given the proximity to areas where individuals who are experiencing homelessness live, accessible by public transportation, close to major arterials, and within reasonable distance of health care facilities,” city documents say.

That seems to be about four times what it’s actually worth:

I’m sure property owners in the Riverside/Oltorf area, which had been undergoing gradual gentrification from it’s immediate sleazy past, will be happy to have drug-using transients imported into their neighborhood on a permanent basis.

Chuck DeVore, who fled California’s dysfunction only to see it crop up again in Austin, has some clear-eyed observations on the problem:

Last summer, the all-Democratic 10-member Austin City Council voted to lift the city’s ban on sleeping or camping on public property, such as sidewalks and parks – except for City Hall itself.

Immediately following the vote, Austin’s visible homeless population soared, with people passed out in the doorways of businesses, erecting tents along busy parkways and, according to police, getting hit and killed by cars.

Responding to criticism from city residents, including Republican Gov. Greg Abbott (who lives in downtown Austin in the governor’s mansion), the City Council passed an amendment to its homeless camping ordinance last month. The new rules made it illegal for the homeless to camp within a quarter-mile of a large downtown homeless shelter.

The amended ordinance quickly pushed more of the homeless into the city’s business district, leading a manager of one of Austin’s famous food trucks to note that the increased chaos on the streets was threatening to his customers.

In his Fox News interview, Adler, a Democrat, repeatedly said the homeless problem can only be solved by giving people homes. He blamed the homelessness issue on the high cost of housing.

Adler also claimed that the new ordinance didn’t create more people experiencing homelessness, but rather simply drew them into the open from the woodlands and greenbelts where they had previously been staying, mostly out of sight.

However, a Fox News reporter recently interviewed a homeless man in Austin who had a different take, saying: “This is a famous place to live on the streets. Everybody knows that. If you want to live on the streets, go to Austin. You don’t even have to buy food. Everybody feeds you, give you money. You can party, it’s a blast.”

Adler referred to getting the homeless into homes at least a half-dozen times during his interview, mentioning medical care once. This is what’s known in policy circles as a “housing first” strategy. The mayor’s intent was made clear when, near the end of his interview, he claimed that Austin needed “no barrier housing.”

What is “housing first” and “no barrier housing”?

“Housing first” is a federal policy that prohibits nonprofits receiving federal grants from requiring the people they serve to comply with service participation requirements like sobriety or job training – this is also the “no barrier housing” to which Adler referred.

So, in short: Sturdy beggars comes to Austin to get high and mooch off bleeding hearts. We should start calling them “Adlers.”

Because up to 75 percent of unsheltered people struggle with substance abuse disorders, a one-size-fits all “housing first” policy often ends up harming the very people it purports to help – recovering addicts and domestic violence survivors – by placing them in close proximity to addicts and abusers. This incentivizes program models that don’t work.

Unlike the Trump administration’s successful approach to the opioid crisis – which recognizes individual needs – “housing first” failed to address the root causes of homelessness. For many people, the root cause of their homelessness is drug addiction and untreated mental illness. In that sense, “housing first” threatens to undermine the progress being made on the national opioid crisis.

So why haven’t Adler and the City Council reversed course despite huge public opposition to their move? Some say because of all the money to be raked off for the “Homeless Industrial Complex”:

Here’s how the process works: Developers accept public money to build these projects to house the homeless – either “bridge housing,” or “permanent supportive housing.” Cities and counties collect building fees and hire bureaucrats for oversight. The projects are then handed off to nonprofits with long term contracts to run them.

That doesn’t sound so bad, right? The problem is the price tag. Developers don’t just build housing projects, they build ridiculously overpriced, overbuilt housing projects. Cities and counties don’t just collect building fees, they collect outrageously expensive building fees, at the same time as they create a massive bureaucracy. The nonprofits don’t just run these projects – the actual people staffing these shelters aren’t overpaid – they operate huge bureaucratic empires with overhead and executive salaries that do nothing for the homeless.

Many examples of how this works in California snipped.

Recognize that a special interest, the Homeless Industrial Complex – comprised of developers, government bureaucrats, and activist nonprofits – has taken over the homeless agenda and turned it into a profit center. They are not going to solve the problem, they are going to milk it. Their PR firms will sell compliant media a feel-good story about someone who turned their life around, living in a fine new apartment. What they won’t tell you is that because of the $400,000 they charged to build that single apartment unit, dozens if not hundreds of people are still on the street with nothing.

For examples of what Adler and company’s decisions have wrought:

More:

And it’s had extreme negative effects on Austin businesses:

Even former mayor Lee Leffingwell (hardly a conservative) says that the repeal of the camping ban was a huge mistake.

More complaints from the citizenry:

And Rep. Dan Crenshaw weighed in as well:

And today Austin is getting its first seasonal hard freeze, with homeless shelters expecting an influx.

None of the actions Adler and the Austin City Council have taken since repealing the camping ban have addressed the central issue: their actions made Austin streets a Mecca for sturdy beggars and drug-addicted lunatics. Either they restore the ban, or Austin voters need to recall and/or vote them out.

Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for November 11, 2019

November 11th, 2019

Bloomberg is getting in, Holder is thinking about it, Yang boosts Williamson, the Steyer campaign commits a felony, and Biden keeps bide bide biding along at the top of polls. It’s your Democratic Presidential clown car update!

Polls

  • New York Times poll of six battleground states:
    • Arizona: Biden 24, Sanders 16, Warren 15, Buttigieg 5, Harris 3, Yang 1, Klobuchar 1.
    • Florida: Biden 27, Warren 19, Sanders 13, Buttigieg 5, Klobuchar 2, Harris 1, Gabbard 1.
    • Michigan: Biden 30, Warren 21, Sanders 17, Buttigieg 3, Yang 1, Klobuchar 1, Gabbard 1.
    • North Carolina: Biden 29, Warren, Sanders 13, O’Rourke 2, Buttigieg 1, Harris 1, Gabbard 1, Booker 1.
    • Pennsylvania: Biden 28, Warren 16, Sanders 14, Buttigieg 4, Yang 2, Harris 1, Klobuchar 1.
    • Wisconsin: Warren 25, Biden 23, Sanders 20, Yang 2, Harris 1, Gabbard 1, O’Rourke 1, Booker 1.

    Very small samples sizes, ranging from 203 in Michigan to 324 in North Carolina.

  • Hill/Harris X: Biden 26, Warren 15, Sanders 14, Harris 6, Buttigieg 6, Klobuchar 2, Booker 2, Castro 2.
  • Monmouth: Biden 23, Warren 23, Sanders 20, Buttigieg 9, Harris 5, Booker 3, Yang 3, Klobuchar 2, Steyer 1.
  • Economist/YouGov (page 168): Biden 26, Warren 25, Sanders 14, Buttigieg 8, Harris 6, Castro 3, Gabbard 3, Klobuchar 2, Williamson 1, Bullock 1, Steyer 1, Yang 1, Delaney 1.
  • Quinnipiac (Iowa): Warren 20, Buttigieg 19, Sanders 17, Biden 15, Klobuchar 5, Harris 4, Gabbard 3, Yang 3, Booker 1, Castro 1, Bennet 1, Bullock 1.
  • Nevada Independent (Nevada): Biden 29, Sanders 19, Warren 19, Buttigieg 7, Steyer 4, Yang 3, Klobuchar 3, Harris 3, Booker 1, Castro 1, Gabbard 1, Williamson 1.
  • Maine People’s Resource Center (Maine): Biden 26.8, Warren 22.1, Sanders 15.4, Buttigieg 9.1, Harris 5.0, Booker 2.7, O’Rourke 2.2, Yang 1.7, Other 6.5. 723 respondents. What I don’t get is that Maine Democrats show overwhelming majorities for every far left socialist scheme anyone has proposed (socialized medicine, Green New Deal, etc.), but Biden still comes out on top of their poll.
  • LA Times/USC: Biden 28, Warren 16, Sanders 13, Buttigieg 6, Harris 4.
  • Politico/Morning Consult: Biden 32, Sanders 20, Warren 20, Buttigieg 7, Harris 5, Yang 3, Booker 2, Gabbard 2, Klobuchar 2, Bennet 1, Bullock 1, Castro 1, Delaney 1, Steyer 1, Williamson 1.
  • Emerson (Nevada): Biden 30, Warren 22, Sanders 19, Yang 5, Harris 5, Buttigieg 5, Steyer 3, Gabbard 1, Booker 1, Klobuchar 1, Bennet 1, Castro 1. I think this is the first poll that’s had Yang even tired with Buttigieg.
  • Texas Tribune (Texas): Biden 23, Warren 18, O’Rourke 14, Sanders 12, Buttigieg 6, Harris 5, Yang 4, Castro 2, Gabbard 2, Klobuchar 2. Poll conducted before O’Rourke dropped out (obviously), but it has to sting for Castro to be losing to Yang in his home state…
  • 538 offers up post-debate poll aggregation. Buttigieg and Sanders are up the most, while Warren is down the most.
  • Real Clear Politics
  • 538 polls
  • Election betting markets. Bloomberg has already zoomed up to fifth place, above Clinton, Yang, Gabbard and Klobuchar…
  • Pundits, etc.

  • Jonathan Chait has a bracing message for Democrats: “New Poll Shows Democratic Candidates Have Been Living in a Fantasy World“:

    In 2018, Democratic candidates waded into hostile territory and flipped 40 House districts, many of them moderate or conservative in their makeup. In almost every instance, their formula centered on narrowing their target profile by avoiding controversial positions, and focusing obsessively on Republican weaknesses, primarily Donald Trump’s abuses of power and attempts to eliminate health insurance for millions of Americans.

    The Democratic presidential field has largely abandoned that model. Working from the premise that the country largely agrees with them on everything, or that agreeing with the majority of voters on issues is not necessary to win, the campaign has proceeded in blissful unawareness of the extremely high chance that Trump will win again.

    A new batch of swing state polls from the New York Times ought to deliver a bracing shock to Democrats. The polls find that, in six swing states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona — Trump is highly competitive. He trails Joe Biden there by the narrowest of margins, and leads Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

    Normally, it is a mistake to overreact to the findings of a single poll. In general, an outlier result should only marginally nudge our preexisting understanding of where public opinion stands. This case is different. To see why, you need to understand two interrelated flaws in the 2016 polling. First, they tended to under-sample white voters without college degrees. And this made them especially vulnerable to polling misses in a handful of states with disproportionately large numbers of white non-college voters. The Times found several months ago that Trump might well win 270 Electoral College votes even in the face of a larger national vote defeat than he suffered in 2016.

    All this is to say that, if you’ve been relying on national polls for your picture of the race, you’re probably living in la-la land. However broadly unpopular Trump may be, at the moment he is right on the cusp of victory.

    What about the fact Democrats crushed Trump’s party in the midterms? The new Times polling finds many of those voters are swinging back. Almost two-thirds of the people who supported Trump in 2016, and then a Democrat in the 2018 midterms, plan to vote for Trump again in 2020.

    Snip.

    The debate has taken shape within a world formed by Twitter, in which the country is poised to leap into a new cultural and economic revolution, and even large chunks of the Democratic Party’s elected officials and voting base have fallen behind the times. As my colleague Ed Kilgore argues, the party’s left-wing intelligentsia have treated any appeals to voters in the center as a sign of being behind the times.

    Biden’s paper-thin lead over Trump in the swing states is largely attributable to the perception that he is more moderate than Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. Three-quarters of those who would vote for Biden over Trump, but Trump over Warren, say they would prefer a more moderate Democratic nominee to a more liberal one, and a candidate who would find common ground with Republicans over one who would fight for a progressive agenda.

    There are lots of Democrats who are trying to run moderate campaigns. But the new environment in which they’re running has made it difficult for any of them to break through. There are many reasons the party’s mainstream has failed to exert itself. Biden’s name recognition and association with the popular Obama administration has blotted out alternatives, and the sheer number of center-left candidates has made it hard for any non-Biden to gain traction. Candidates with strong profiles, like Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar, have struggled to gain attention, and proven politicians like Michael Bennet and Steve Bullock have failed even to qualify for debates.

    But in addition to those obstacles, they have all labored against the ingrained perception that the Democratic party has moved beyond Obama-like liberalism, and that incremental reform is timid and boring. The same dynamic was already beginning to form in 2016, though Hillary Clinton overcame it with a combination of name recognition and a series of leftward moves of her own to defuse progressive objections. Biden’s name brand has given him a head start with the half of the Democratic electorate that has moderate or conservative views. But it’s much harder for a newer moderate Democrat lacking that established identity to build a national constituency. The only avenue that has seemed to be open for a candidate to break into the top has been to excite activists, who are demanding positions far to the left of the median voter.

    Golly, who else has been saying such things? Besides, you know, me and pretty much every right-of-center blogger over the last three years.

  • Look at New Hampshire voters. Buttigieg, Yang and Bennet all get mentioned.
  • Vox tells us that neither the current candidates nor voters are sold on Michael Bloomberg. Ya think?
  • Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: In. Twitter. Facebook. He seems to be pinning his hopes on New Hampshire. Him and Joe Sestak…
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. Twitter. Facebook. “In midst of 2016 election, State Department saw Burisma as Joe Biden’s issue, memos show.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.) “Consulting Firm Hired by Burisma Leveraged Biden’s Name to Secure Meeting with State Dept.”

    A consulting firm representing Burisma Holdings used the Biden name to leverage a meeting between the gas company and State Department officials, according to documents released this week.

    The firm, Washington-based Blue Star Strategies, mentioned the name of Hunter Biden, who then sat on Burisma’s board, in a request for the Ukrainian natural gas company executives to meet with State Department officials, according to internal State Department email exchanges obtained by journalist John Solomon and later reported by the Wall Street Journal.

    Blue Star representatives also mentioned Biden’s name during the resulting meeting, which they claim was scheduled as part of an effort to rehabilitate Burisma’s reputation in Washington following a corruption investigation.

    Biden allies are worried about Bloomberg getting in. As well they should be. I doubt Millionaire McMoneyBags is going to be pulling too many Warren or Sanders voters over. Biden slams Warren’s sneering elitism: “If only you were as smart as I am you would agree with me.”

  • Update: Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Getting In? Twitter. So the prophecy has foretold:

    Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is preparing to jump into the 2020 Democratic primary for president.

    Bloomberg, 77, a billionaire, has mulled over a presidential bid for months, according to the New York Times. Bloomberg has publicly downplayed and, at times, outright denied that he would enter the race for 2020.

    Bloomberg still has not yet made a decision on whether to jump into the crowded Democratic primary field, but he is expected to file paperwork in at least one state, Alabama, designating him a contender in the primary. He has hired staff and sent them to Alabama to collect enough signatures to qualify for a run. The deadline to file paperwork for a presidential run in Alabama is Nov. 8.

    “We now need to finish the job and ensure that Trump is defeated — but Mike is increasingly concerned that the current field of candidates is not well positioned to do that,” said Howard Wolfson, a Bloomberg adviser. “If Mike runs, he would offer a new choice to Democrats built on a unique record running America’s biggest city, building a business from scratch and taking on some of America’s toughest challenges as a high-impact philanthropist.”

    And indeed, he has filed paperwork for the Alabama primary. So I guess he’s already a declared candidate, even if he hasn’t made an official announcement. Should we take him seriously?

    The reason, though, why Bloomberg is considering a last-minute bid is that he is reportedly worried about the way the Democratic primary is unfolding, as one adviser told the Times. Back in March, Bloomberg said he believed that it was essential that the Democratic nominee be able to defeat President Trump, and last month it was reported that he would reconsider his decision not to run if former Vice President Joe Biden continued to struggle. Presumably, Bloomberg has now changed his mind after seeing Sen. Elizabeth Warren — whose ideas, especially the wealth tax, he has lambasted as socialism — gain ground in the polls and Biden struggle with fundraising.

    But there is arguably very little appetite among Democratic voters — donors may be a different story — for yet another presidential candidate. In October, a YouGov/HuffPost poll found that 83 percent of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters were either enthusiastic or satisfied with their presidential choices. And it looks like there is even less appetite for Bloomberg specifically. According to last week’s Fox News poll, just 6 percent of likely Democratic primary voters said they would definitely vote for Bloomberg should he enter the race. And a hypothetical Harvard-Harris Poll of Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Bloomberg mixed in with the rest of the Democratic field gave Bloomberg the same 6 percent of the vote.

    And those polls would probably qualify as good news for Bloomberg, given that he was generally registering around 2 or 3 percent in national primary polls before first taking his name out of consideration in March (which is also when pollsters largely stopped asking about him).

    In a field this crowded, entering the race in the high single digits wouldn’t even necessarily be a bad thing, but the problem is that it might be harder for Bloomberg to build on that support than it would be for other candidates. In an average of polls from January and early February, I found that 62 percent of Democrats knew enough about Bloomberg to form an opinion (which was pretty high), but his net favorability (favorable rating minus unfavorable rating) was only +11 (which was pretty low).

    “History suggests Bloomberg’s low favorability ratings would be a major obstacle to winning the nomination.” You don’t say. The last candidate to have a lower rating was also a New York City mayor.

    On the other hand, de Blasio didn’t have billions of his own money to throw at the campaign. Bloomberg’s net worth is around $52.3 billion, so if he wanted to, he could just buy every single minute of airtime on every TV station in Iowa and New Hampshire.

    That would certainly have a negative effect on longshot candidates trying to break through. Of course there is that tiny little problem that he recently said we need to take guns away from male minorities between the ages of 15 and 25. Because hey, what’s a little racism, collective guilt, and trampling civil rights next to the holy goal of gun control? Besides, the Northam blackface scandal showed that Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) don’t care about racism as long as the person committing it has a (D) after their name. President Donald Trump has already dubbed him “Little Michael” and says he relishes the opportunity to run against him. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.) But this is the real kiss of death:

  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. He attended an “environmental justice” forum in South Carolina. Also attending: Warren, Steyer, Delaney, Williamson and Sestak. Pictures on Twitter of Warren speaking there suggests it was sparsely attended.
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets an interview with Austin’s KVUE, which suggests he thinks he has a chance to make it to Super Tuesday, a rather optimistic assumption. Also got a USA Today interview.
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. “The new candidate of the young elite.”

    Pete Buttigieg was quickly locking down a solid lane in the Democratic primary: a young, vibrant, gay, midwestern, war veteran mayor with progressive ideas and plenty of money — but both feet planted in fiscal prudence.

    Young Wall Street and tech-entrepreneur types were starting to fall in love — with his poll numbers and fundraising totals underscoring the Buttigieg boomlet. He was the “Parks and Recreation” candidate in the Democratic field and an alternative to seventy-somethings Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders who are both looking to lock down the hyper-online progressive, anti-Wall Street crowd as well as blue collar workers across the Midwest.

    And Buttigieg is a lot younger than former Vice President Joe Biden, who has lagged in fundraising and hardly taken off in the big-donor crowd the way many expected. Buttigieg was poised to perhaps emerge as the leading moderate alternative to Biden.

    But then a funny thing happened last week: Another 70-something candidate beloved on Wall Street — billionaire mogul Michael Bloomberg — made an unexpected splash by suggesting he may still enter the race.

    Bloomberg will not steal Buttigieg’s momentum with younger, wealthier Democratic voters and donors, people close to the South Bend mayor say. But the former NYC mayor does give Big Finance, Big Tech and other more corporate-friendly Democrats another progressive prospect as an alternative to Biden, Sanders and Warren.

    (Which raises the question: Why would anyone donate to Bloomberg? Let moneybags 100% self-fund.) “Why Pete Buttigieg Annoys His Democratic Rivals.” “Many of their campaigns have griped privately about the attention and cash directed toward Buttigieg. They said he is too inexperienced to be electable and that his accomplishments don’t merit the outsize appeal he has with elite donors and voters. His public punditry about the race has prompted eye rolls from older rivals who view him as a know-it-all.” I linked a very similar story about a month ago. Is Buttigieg really annoying, or does one of his rivals keep pitching this story to a compliant press? “Pete Buttigieg Pitches Himself As The Obama Of 2020.”

    Like a gay white thirty-something mayor is going to tap two centuries of white guilt. That trick only works once, and not for you. OK, now I see why they say he’s annoying…

  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. “With an Eye Toward Beto Voters, Castro Campaign Limps On.” Oh yeah, that’s what you want to do: add the 1% of voters who supported the guy who just dropped out to your 1%.

    When former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke dropped out of the race last week, Castro made the call and then made some more. And it worked. As the last Texan standing, he flipped nine Lone Star State endorsements that previously belonged to O’Rourke to his own campaign.

    He also launched a new ad campaign in Iowa. That, plus the endorsements, are evidence, his campaign manager said, of how Castro is prepared to “supercharge the coalitions needed to beat Donald Trump.”

    You snagged nine second-hand endorsements from your own state. Hoo freaking ray. That would almost matter in a statewide, but he won’t run one of those because he knows he’d lose.

    Except a supercharger requires an engine with some gas, and Castro bus appears to be dangerously close to empty. The endorsements come at a moment when the candidate has stripped his campaign down to bare bones. He laid off campaign teams in New Hampshire and South Carolina over the weekend.

  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Probably not? But: Another week, another Clinton strategist saying she might run, this time Mark Penn.
  • Former Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. criticized Warren’s health care plans, which have become the pinata everyone can bang on.
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. She’s in the November debates. Gets an extensive Vice profile:

    CONCORD, NH — About 50 of her most devoted and bundled-up supporters gathered in the cold on the state house steps last week to watch Rep. Tulsi Gabbard firebomb the establishment.

    Over the next half hour, her fire was directed left and right: At Democratic leaders and President Donald Trump, at Saudi Arabian monarchs and at plutocratic warmongers, all of whom have become the bogeymen — or bogeywomen, in the case of Hillary Clinton — of her scrappy presidential campaign.

    She brought up Tim Frolich, a 9/11 survivor, to allege a conspiracy at the highest levels to conceal information about the true Saudi Arabian masterminds of the terror attack.

    It’s an unusual speech to deliver directly after filing paperwork to run in the state, especially amid a presidential primary field almost preternaturally occupied with health care. But Gabbard is an unusual candidate. And that’s exactly what is giving the four-term representative’s improbable presidential run a toe-hold in this early primary state.

    Her campaign got a polling bounce here after Clinton implied on a podcast that Gabbard is a Russian stooge and Gabbard replied in a tweet that Clinton is “the queen of warmongers” leading a conspiracy to destroy her reputation. Clinton is not exactly beloved in New Hampshire, after all; Sen. Bernie Sanders blew her out in the 2016 primary before she went on to beat Trump by just under 3,000 votes.

    “When I heard Hillary do that, the first thing I said was, ‘Oh my god,’ and the second thing I said is, ‘This is going to be great, because that’s going to really help Tulsi,’ — and it has,” said Peggy Marko, a Gabbard supporter and physical therapist in Candia, New Hampshire. “She has crossover appeal … and I think the folks in New Hampshire especially value that.”

    Gabbard recently polled at 5 percent here, outlasting sitting senators and governors by securing a spot on the November debate stage. Just 1 percent higher in two more New Hampshire polls would meet the Democratic National Committee’s threshold for entry to the next debate in Los Angeles in December. And from there on, who knows?

    So as candidates like Sen. Kamala Harris and Julián Castro have all but given up on the Granite State, Gabbard is digging in. This notoriously nonpartisan state is her ticket to staying in the race. Independent voters make up 40 percent of the electorate, and the state’s semi-open primary laws allow anyone to change affiliation up to the day of the primary to vote for whomever they want.

    “We’re seeing support coming from people across the political spectrum and building the kind of coalition that we need to be able to defeat Donald Trump, and it’s encouraging,” Gabbard told VICE News.

    Usual grains of salt apply, especially when it says she’s pulling in Trump voters. I can see a few, but not remotely enough to lift her up even to the 15% delegate threshold in New Hampshire. But Democrats are still freaking out about her:

    In 2012, Nancy Pelosi described Tulsi Gabbard as an “emerging star.” In 2019, Hillary Clinton decried the Hawaii congresswoman as a “Russian asset.” Suffice to say, the honeymoon is over.

    Gabbard is a major target of the liberal elite’s disgust. She feuded with the party organs in 2016 over her backing of Bernie Sanders. Now, during the 2020 election, she is upping the ante — Gabbard isn’t just criticizing the party mainstream; she’s doing so as a candidate for president. She hasn’t pulled punches, toed the party line, or been silenced by criticism from her peers or intraparty backlash. She’s an outsider and a long shot, but her poll numbers have edged slightly higher as she battles the Democratic old guard.

    Says she’s not going to run a third party campaign.

  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. Just when you thought Democrats couldn’t find new ways to make ordinary people hate them, Kamala Harris wants to expanded the school day to match the work day. So she found a way to piss off students, parents, teachers, bus drivers, and anyone who actually understands how the real world works.
  • Update: Former Attorney General Eric Holder: Thinking of Getting In?

    Eric Holder, the former attorney general and self-proclaimed “wingman” to President Barack Obama, may be on the brink of diving into the Democrats’ nomination fight, Newsweek reported Friday.

    The hint came from Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, who tweeted that Holder has been “consulting strategists” about launching a campaign.

    Holder’s potential bid follows Michael Bloomberg’s late entry into the race last week – and would swell the historically huge Democratic field, with only 86 days to go until the Iowa caucuses.

    I just don’t see it. He’s not independently wealthy, and he’s never run in any political race, ever. Does he expect to yell “Obaminations, conglomerate!” and the Obama 2012 Campaign will magically come flying in, perform a superhero landing, and carry him off to contention?

  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Twitter. Facebook. She went all catfight on Buttigieg and Bloomberg. Angry Amy is Best Amy…
  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Sanders joins the crazy immigration plan party:

    Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Thursday released a sweeping immigration plan that would impose a moratorium on deportations, “break up” existing immigration enforcement agencies, grant full welfare access to illegal immigrants and welcome a minimum of 50,000 “climate migrants” in the first year of a Sanders administration.

    The plan effectively establishes Sanders at the far left of the immigration debate, as he aims to energize a base that helped drive his 2016 primary campaign amid competition from other liberal candidates in the field this time around.

    Following the heart attack and flush with cash, Bernie is going to buy more ads. Also, please stop:

    “Bernie Sanders Promises Crowd He Will Lock Trump Up And Also Millions Of Others Once The Gulags Are Up And Running.”

  • Former Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak: In. Twitter. Facebook. He gets a USA Today interview on health care. Pitches defense reform. Maybe his entire campaign is a job audition to be Secretary of Defense.
  • Billionaire Tom Steyer: In. Twitter. Facebook. Bad week for Tommy Make-A-Wish: Not only is he stuck at 1% in the polls, but, with Bloomberg getting in, he’s no longer the richest guy in the race either, Plus It looks like the Steyer campaign committed a federal felony by privately offering “campaign contributions to local politicians in exchange for endorsing his White House bid.” Oopsie!
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. A lot of Democratic Wall Street rainmakers are telling dems that they get no money as long as Warren is in the race. Warren’s health care plan is “the longest suicide note in recorded history. There’s no reason for the entire Democratic Party to sign it.” More on that plan’s fundamental dishonesty:

    It is hard to overstate how utterly insane and dishonest this is. Warren claims that in order to finance the $52 trillion her plan would entail over its first ten years, she’d ‘only’ need to raise taxes by approximately $20 trillion, to cover new spending. This math amounts to a $14 trillion shortfall, based on the nonpartisan consensus about the true mathematical cost of her plan (overall, her basket of proposals would double the annual federal budget). She does not even attempt to account for this staggering amount of money. Experts and commentators have been punching gaping holes in Warren’s proposals, including proving that her ‘not one penny of tax increases on non-billionaires’ assertion (even ignoring the $14 trillion gap) is a dramatic, fantastical, bald-faced lie.

    Where is Warren going to get $20 trillion in new taxes?

    Not only does this pie-in-the-sky funding scheme rely on dubious — some would say, “dishonest” — number crunching, it self-evidently breaks her promise not to raise middle-class taxes….

    Warren and her team are relying on a compliant media and other allies to hide her tax hike. That $9 trillion payroll tax is not coming from the super-rich or the undeserving wealthy. It won’t bleed billionaires or stick it to the upper class. That “head tax” will fall squarely on the shoulders of the American worker. And Warren’s shameful dishonesty is more than political posturing. It’s an assault on the middle class.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.) Warren is the WeWork of Candidates:

    Are presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren and WeWork founder Adam Neumann the same person? I mean, they have different hairstyles and all, but their philosophies are more alike than not.

    They both claim, falsely, to be capitalists. Ms. Warren told the New England Council last year, “I am a capitalist to my bones.” She then told CNBC, “I am a capitalist. Come on. I believe in markets.” It was almost as if she didn’t believe it herself. Then came the caveat: “But only fair markets, markets with rules. Markets without rules is about the rich take it all, it’s about the powerful get all of it. And that’s what’s gone wrong in America.” She clearly doesn’t understand capitalism.

    Neither does Mr. Neumann, who said of WeWork, “We are making a capitalist kibbutz.” Talk about mixed metaphors. In Israel, a kibbutz is often defined as “a collective community, traditionally based in agriculture.” WeWork’s prospectus for its initial public offering mentioned the word “community” 150 times. Yet one little secret of kibbutzim is that many of them hired outsiders to do menial jobs that the “community” wouldn’t do, similar to migrant workers on U.S. farms. A capitalist kibbutz is a plain old farm, much like a WeWork building is plain old shared office space. Big deal.

    Ms. Warren wants to reshape capitalism, while Mr. Neumann wants to “revolutionize your workspace.” Meanwhile, the Vision Fund, with capital from SoftBank and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, has thrown good money after bad, writing off $9.2 billion in its quest toward this WeWork revolution. The same mismatch between communitarian vision and market realities would doom Ms. Warren’s economic reshaping. It’s hard to repeal good old capitalism.

    The commonalities go on. Last year, Ms. Warren proposed the Accountable Capitalism Act. If it became law, large companies would have to obtain a federal charter that “obligates company directors to consider the interests of all corporate stakeholders,” or dare I say, community. For each company, Ms. Warren insists that “40% of its directors are selected by the corporation’s employees.” Back to the kibbutz?

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. Rival Yang fundraises for Williamson, much the way she herself did for the now-departed Mike Gravel. If only all the longshots could Voltron themselves together into one viable candidate…
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. He’s spending $1 million in TV advertising in Iowa.

    Gets a Wired profile:

    He’s a true nerd, and he’s making arguments common in the nerd capital of the world, Silicon Valley. Except for one thing: Much of his stump speech lacerates Silicon Valley.

    Yang’s candidacy is something of a toxic bouillabaisse for the tech industry. He presents himself as someone of the industry, wearing a lapel that says “math” instead of one with a flag. Pundits call him a tech entrepreneur, though he actually made his money at a test-prep company. He talks about breaking problems apart and finding solutions. He played D&D as a kid, read science fiction, and understands blockchain.

    He has run his campaign in the most modern of digital ways too. The guy is dynamite on Reddit, and he spends time answering questions on Quora. And that is part of why he’s going to win, he hollers from the stage. He can beat Trump on his own terrain—“I’m better at the internet than he is!”

    But the tech-friendly trappings mask a thorough critique of technology itself. His whole message is premised on the dangers of automation taking away jobs and the risks of artificial intelligence. He lambastes today’s technology firms for not compensating us for our data. If there’s a villain in his stump speech, it’s not Trump—it’s Amazon. (“We have to be pretty fucking stupid to let a trillion-dollar tech company pay nothing in taxes, am I right, Los Angeles?”)

    If Yang is the candidate of Silicon Valley, he’s the one driving a Humvee up the wrong side of the 101. Or, as Chris Anderson, one of my predecessors as editor of WIRED and now a drone entrepreneur, tweeted the night of the fourth Democratic debate, “I turned on the radio for 6 seconds, enough to hear that the Dem debates were on and @AndrewYang, who I thought I liked, was talking about how autonomous trucks were endangering driver jobs. Head slapped, vote changed. Bummer.”

    As Yang wraps up, he has another message: “What does this look like to you, Los Angeles? This looks like a fucking revolution to me.” That may be a bit much. It’s more an evolution, and it’s a killer party. Still, Andrew Yang has found his voice, found his message, and found his people.

    So it’s entirely possible that, long after most of the other candidates have dropped out, Yang will still be there tweeting, jumping onto Reddit threads, grabbing microphones, and using the best of modern technology to explain why modern technology is leading America into the abyss.

  • Out of the Running

    These are people who were formerly in the roundup who have announced they’re not running, for which I’ve seen no recent signs they’re running, who declared then dropped out, or whose campaigns are so moribund I no longer feel like wasting my time gathering updates on them:

  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti
  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams
  • Actor Alec Baldwin.
  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown
  • Former one-term President Jimmy Carter
  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.
  • New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
  • New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (Dropped out September 20, 2019)
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (Dropped out August 29, 2019)
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum
  • Former Vice President Al Gore
  • Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (Dropped out August 2, 2019)
  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (Dropped out August 15, 2019; running for Senate instead)
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: Dropped Out (Dropped out August 21, 2019; running for a third gubernatorial term)
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe
  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley
  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton (Dropped out August 23, 2019)
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: In, but exiled to the also-rans after raising $5 in campaign contributions in Q3.
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda (Dropped out January 29, 2019)
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke (Dropped out November 1, 2019)
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (constitutionally ineligible)
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick
  • Ohio Representative Tim Ryan (Dropped out October 24, 2019)
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell (Dropped out July 8, 2019)
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey
  • Like the Clown Car update? Consider hitting the tip jar:





    Veterans Day: Honoring Hershel “Woody” Williams

    November 10th, 2019

    For Veterans Day 2019, I’m honoring Hershel “Woody” Williams, Marine corporal and flamethrower operator during the Battle of Iwo Jima, one of two living Medal of Honor winners left from World War II. His citation reads:

    For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as demolition sergeant serving with the 21st Marines, 3d Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands, 23 February 1945. Quick to volunteer his services when our tanks were maneuvering vainly to open a lane for the infantry through the network of reinforced concrete pillboxes, buried mines, and black volcanic sands, Cpl. Williams daringly went forward alone to attempt the reduction of devastating machinegun fire from the unyielding positions. Covered only by 4 riflemen, he fought desperately for 4 hours under terrific enemy small-arms fire and repeatedly returned to his own lines to prepare demolition charges and obtain serviced flamethrowers, struggling back, frequently to the rear of hostile emplacements, to wipe out 1 position after another. On 1 occasion, he daringly mounted a pillbox to insert the nozzle of his flamethrower through the air vent, killing the occupants and silencing the gun; on another he grimly charged enemy riflemen who attempted to stop him with bayonets and destroyed them with a burst of flame from his weapon. His unyielding determination and extraordinary heroism in the face of ruthless enemy resistence were directly instrumental in neutralizing one of the most fanatically defended Japanese strong points encountered by his regiment and aided vitally in enabling his company to reach its objective. Cpl. Williams’ aggressive fighting spirit and valiant devotion to duty throughout this fiercely contested action sustain and enhance the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.

    Rank: Corporal

    Organization: U.S. Marine Corps

    Company:

    Division: 21st Marines, 3d Marine Division

    Born: 2 October 1923, Quiet Dell, W. Va.

    Departed: No

    Entered Service At: West Virginia

    G.O. Number:

    Date of Issue: 10/05/1945

    Accredited To: West Virginia

    Place / Date: Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands, 23 February 1945

    He returned to his native West Virginia, served a couple more stints in the Marine reserves, and created a foundation in his name to help Gold Star Families.

    Here’s a news segment on him:

    Here’s him remembering his World War II service:

    He fought on Guam before landing on Iwo Jima. He too out seven Japanese pillboxes.

    On October 5, 1945, he was invited with twelve others to the White House, having no idea he was about to receive the Medal of Honor from President Harry Truman.

    He’s 96 and still travels to support his foundation and Gold Star families 200 days year. Here’s the foundation’s official Twitter feed.

    From all America, thanks to your service, Mr. Williams.

    (The other living Medal of Honor winner from World War II is Charles H. Coolidge, who helped hold a hill in France from four days of German attacks. He lives in his native Tennessee, and his son, Charles H. Coolidge, Jr., made Lieutenant General in the Air Force.)

    The Permanent Coup and Its Media Enablers

    November 9th, 2019

    Lovers of irony got a double dish this week when the Washington Post mused aloud whether Republicans would accept political outcomes they didn’t like:

    It takes a lot of damn gall for the Washington Post, one of the Democratic Media Complex’s premier peddlers of the Russian collusion fantasy and the Ukraine impeachment farce, to talk about “accepting the results of an election they don’t like,” since they’re at the tip of a the spear of what Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi, neither a conservative nor a fan of President Donald Trump, call a permanent coup:

    We are speeding toward a situation when someone in one of these camps refuses to obey a major decree, arrest order, or court decision, at which point Americans will get to experience the joys of their political futures being decided by phone calls to generals and police chiefs.

    My discomfort in the last few years, first with Russiagate and now with Ukrainegate and impeachment, stems from the belief that the people pushing hardest for Trump’s early removal are more dangerous than Trump. Many Americans don’t see this because they’re not used to waking up in a country where you’re not sure who the president will be by nightfall. They don’t understand that this predicament is worse than having a bad president.

    The Trump presidency is the first to reveal a full-blown schism between the intelligence community and the White House. Senior figures in the CIA, NSA, FBI and other agencies made an open break from their would-be boss before Trump’s inauguration, commencing a public war of leaks that has not stopped.

    Snip.

    It was also a bold new foray into domestic politics by intelligence agencies that in recent decades began asserting all sorts of frightening new authority. They were kidnapping foreigners, assassinating by drone, conducting paramilitary operations without congressional notice, building an international archipelago of secret prisons, and engaging in mass warrantless surveillance of Americans. We found out in a court case just last week how extensive the illegal domestic surveillance has been, with the FBI engaging in tens of thousands of warrantless searches involving American emails and phone numbers under the guise of combating foreign subversion.

    The agencies’ new trick is inserting themselves into domestic politics using leaks and media pressure. The “intel chiefs” meeting was just the first in a series of similar stories, many following the pattern in which a document was created, passed from department from department, and leaked. A sample:

  • February 14, 2017: “four current and former officials” tell the New York Times the Trump campaign had “repeated contacts” with Russian intelligence.
  • March 1, 2017: “Justice Department officials” tell the Washington Post Attorney General Jeff Sessions “spoke twice with Russia’s ambassador” and did not disclose the contacts ahead of his confirmation hearing.
  • March 18, 2017: “people familiar with the matter” tell the Wall Street Journal that former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn failed to disclose a “contact” with a Russian at Cambridge University, an episode that “came to the notice of U.S. intelligence.”
  • April 8, 2017, 2017: “law enforcement and other U.S. officials” tell the Washington Post the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge had ruled there was “probable cause” to believe former Trump aide Carter Page was an “agent of a foreign power.”
  • April 13, 2017: a “source close to UK intelligence” tells Luke Harding at The Guardian that the British analog to the NSA, the GCHQ, passed knowledge of “suspicious interactions” between “figures connected to Trump and “known or suspected Russian agents” to Americans as part of a “routine exchange of information.”
  • December 17, 2017: “four current and former American and foreign officials” tell the New York Times that during the 2016 campaign, an Australian diplomat named Alexander Downer told “American counterparts” that former Trump aide George Papadopoulos revealed “Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.
  • April 13, 2018: “two sources familiar with the matter” tell McClatchy that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office has evidence Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was in Prague in 2016, “confirming part of [Steele] dossier.”
  • November 27, 2018: a “well-placed source” tells Harding at The Guardian that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort met with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
  • January 19, 2019: “former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation” tell the New York Times the FBI opened an inquiry into the “explosive implications” of whether or not Donald Trump was working on behalf of the Russians.
  • To be sure, “people familiar with the matter” leaked a lot of true stories in the last few years, but many were clearly problematic even at the time of release. Moreover, all took place in the context of constant, hounding pressure from media figures, congressional allies like Democrats Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, as well as ex-officials who could make use of their own personal public platforms in addition to being unnamed sources in straight news reports. They used commercial news platforms to argue that Trump had committed treason, needed to be removed from office, and preferably also indicted as soon as possible.

    A shocking number of these voices were former intelligence officers who joined Clapper in becoming paid news contributors. Op-ed pages and news networks are packed now with ex-spooks editorializing about stories in which they had personal involvement: Michael Morell, Michael Hayden, Asha Rangappa, and Andrew McCabe among many others, including especially all four of the original “intel chiefs”: Clapper, Rogers, Comey, and MSNBC headliner John Brennan.

    Russiagate birthed a whole brand of politics, a government-in-exile, which prosecuted its case against Trump via a constant stream of “approved” leaks, partisans in congress, and an increasingly unified and thematically consistent set of commercial news outlets.

    These mechanisms have been transplanted now onto the Ukrainegate drama. It’s the same people beating the public drums, with the messaging run out of the same congressional committees, through the same Nadlers, Schiffs, and Swalwells. The same news outlets are on full alert.

    The sidelined “intel chiefs” are once again playing central roles in making the public case. Comey says “we may now be at a point” where impeachment is necessary. Brennan, with unintentional irony, says the United States is “no longer a democracy.” Clapper says the Ukraine whistleblower complaint is “one of the most credible” he’s seen.

    As a reporter covering the 2015–2016 presidential race, I thought Trump’s campaign was disturbing on many levels, but logical as a news story. He succeeded for class reasons, because of flaws in the media business that gifted him mass amounts of coverage, and because he took cunning advantage of long-simmering frustrations in the electorate. He also clearly catered to racist fears, and to the collapse in trust in institutions like the news media, the Fed, corporations, NATO, and, yes, the intelligence services. In enormous numbers, voters rejected everything they had ever been told about who was and was not qualified for higher office.

    Trump’s campaign antagonism toward the military and intelligence world was at best a millimeter thick. Like almost everything else he said as a candidate, it was a gimmick, designed to get votes. That he was insincere and full of it and irresponsible, at first at least, when he attacked the “deep state” and the “fake news media,” doesn’t change the reality of what’s happened since. Even paranoiacs have enemies, and even Donald “Deep State” Trump is a legitimately elected president whose ouster is being actively sought by the intelligence community.

    Snip.

    Trump, at least insofar as we know, has not used section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to monitor political rivals. He hasn’t deployed human counterintelligence “informants” to follow the likes of Hunter Biden. He hasn’t maneuvered to secure Special Counsel probes of Democrats.

    And while Donald Trump conducting foreign policy based on what he sees on Fox and Friends is troubling, it’s not in the same ballpark as CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post and the New York Times engaging in de facto coverage partnerships with the FBI and CIA to push highly politicized, phony narratives like Russiagate.

    Trump’s tinpot Twitter threats and cancellation of White House privileges for dolts like Jim Acosta also don’t begin to compare to the danger posed by Facebook, Google, and Twitter – under pressure from the Senate – organizing with groups like the Atlantic Council to fight “fake news” in the name of preventing the “foment of discord.”

    I don’t believe most Americans have thought through what a successful campaign to oust Donald Trump would look like. Most casual news consumers can only think of it in terms of Mike Pence becoming president. The real problem would be the precedent of a de facto intelligence community veto over elections, using the lunatic spookworld brand of politics that has dominated the last three years of anti-Trump agitation.

    That piece also spawned a very interesting comments thread, including this comment from a Chuck McClenon:

    We’ve long whispered about the Deep State, assuming that the Intelligence Community should have counter-intelligence responsibilities, out of sight, protecting the Executive branch from moles planted by foreign foes, and that our secret agents would, if necessary, quietly dispatch a Manchurian Candidate. But we assume that he deep state are protecting us from foreign foes, and that the less said beyond that, the better. And we assume they operate out of some sub-basement of the CIA in Langley.

    But what we appear to have here is an alternative version in which the Deep State protects the Domestic interests of the Elite — that group of financial powers of whom nobody went to jail for any misdeeds leading to the 2008 crisis, that group which also happen to control the media which control the boundary lines of permissible political discussion, as Matt has documented in his precious book. Let us suppose that the Washington Swamp works for that elite, serve it and profit from it. And let us suppose that the Deep State are not there to protect the constitutionally designated Executive branch, but to guard and protect the Swamp.

    And so for a candidate from outside of those boundaries to be elected president, that’s not merely a threat to the power of the institutional media, it’s an existential threat to the security of all the swamp creatures. Alligators are usually solitary and don’t usually work in teams, but we suppose they are wired to respond with the same instincts and to swarm and attack the intruder.

    And since you and I understand that the alligators in the moat, or in the swamp, are there to protect against invaders, and we see them attack, we are conditioned to cheer for the alligators. They are doing their job. And if they are promoting the story that they are protecting us from Russians, all the better.

    But who do the alligators serve? Who can protect us against them? That’s the context in which Matt has framed the question, which is the worse choice to lead the country, Donald Trump, with all his known flaws and evils? Or the swamp gators? I heard Rudy Giuliani last week say something to the effect that Trump was elected on the promise of draining the swamp, but none of us has a clue how bad the swamp was. Say it ain’t so.

    Too extreme? Only if you believe that every CIA operative and MSM reporter are in on the scam. But when you see that vast swathes of our theoretically neutral elites have signed on to undo President Trump election because it hurts the interlocking interests of the permanent ruling class and the Democratic Party, it doesn’t seem like a stretch at all.

    LinkSwarm for November 8, 2019

    November 8th, 2019

    Welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Trump is derailing the elite’s gravy train:

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

    What happens then?

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

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

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

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

    Snip.

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

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

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

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

    (Hat tip: Austin Bay at Instapundit.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    November 7th, 2019

    Assuming you’re not getting your news from unreliable sources like ABC, you’ve probably already seen the Project Veritas tape with ABC news reporter Amy Robach, about how her network spiked a story on Jeffrey Epstein’s pdophile ring three years ago. But just in case you haven’t, here it is:

    Like every other normal person in America, she thinks Epstein was murdered.

    Naturally, when this story came out, ABC vowed to find out who spiked the Epstein story and terminate them.

    Ha! Just kidding! They’ve sworn to track down and punish the leaker. Because what’s protecting a serial pedophile compared to punishing those who have tarnished your reputation by revealing the truth?

    Katie Pavlich thinks the main person behind spiking the story is Clinton-crony-come-on-air ABC personality George Stephanopoulos.

    While the mainstream media tries to stonewall the story (yet another reason they all deserve to be abandoned by advertisers and shutdown), just about every blogger has thrown in their two cents worth. So rather than anything like analysis, enjoy this Twitter reaction roundup sampler:

    *Is -palooza a sufficiently OK Boomer suffix to snark with, or do I have to reach all the way back to -stock or -gate?

    Interview With Tenured Columbia Professor Who Resigned Over SJW Policy

    November 6th, 2019

    Here’s an interesting Romanian TV interview with former Columbia tenured acting professor Andrei Serban, who resigned over imposition of social justice warrior ideology over talent and common sense. Here’s a short interview with him (if you don’t see the subtitles, click on the Closed Caption (CC) button before watching).

    Serban escaped communist-dominated Romania, and he says that Columbia is “some sort of socialist left, on its way toward full blown communism.”

    If you’re not going to believe it from conservative bloggers, maybe you’ll believe it from a guy who actually grew up under communism.

    (Hat tip: Twitter user Vallachian, who translated the dialog for the captions, via Daddy Warpig.)

    Texas Reminder: Vote Today!

    November 5th, 2019

    This is your reminder that there is a Texas Constitutional Amendment Election today, as well as various local elections. At the very least, show up to vote for Amendment 4, which constitutionally bans a state income tax.

    Links covering other races around the state:

  • Houstonians have a chance to vote out corrupt incumbent Sylvester Turner. I hear good things about Bill King, but he’s in a tough race with trial lawyer Tony Buzbee (who went from backing Bill Clinton to supporting Rick Perry, David Dewhurst and Donald Trump) to make the runoff against Turner. Either would likely be an improvement over Sylvester.
  • There’s a Williamson County bond election. Empower Texans has some issues with who’s backing it. I’m tentatively planning on backing the road bond and voting down the park bond.
  • Ballotpedia has links for other Texas elections, including four special elections for state representatives, local elections, and school board elections.