Trump keeps winning, Democrats are screwed, more “questionable” Democratic vote drops, a couple of disturbing deaths (only one TDS-related), and a Disney princess dines on shoe yet again. Plus: Satan!
There is a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth among Democrats, following Donald Trump’s unexpected (by them) victory. How could this possibly have happened? is the question newspapers, television hosts, and Democratic pundits are asking.
It actually isn’t a hard question to answer. The Biden/Harris administration had an indefensible record, and Kamala Harris didn’t seriously try to defend it, absurdly presenting herself as the candidate of change, while at the same time unable to identify a single respect in which her administration would be different from Biden’s.
Voters were unhappy about inflation, about the economy in general, and about the border. The Democrats, having created these problems, had no solutions to offer. Instead, they tried to tell voters that their concerns were imaginary.
Also, Kamala herself was a lousy candidate.
But the reality is worse than that. As the dust settles, I think Democrats will realize they are in a deeper hole than they thought. It was no coincidence that Harris refused to say what her position was on a variety of issues, earning the title of the “no comment” candidate–something that must be unprecedented in presidential history. The problem wasn’t that Kamala was tongue-tied, the problem was that the Democrats no longer have a coherent policy agenda.
The one issue that Harris never refrained from talking about was abortion. That is, today, the Democrats’ signature–and arguably only–issue. Apart from a fervent devotion to abortion, up to the moment of birth and beyond, what do they stand for?
A few years ago, the energy in the Democratic Party was in its socialist wing. Several of its seemingly up-and-coming representatives were members of the Democratic Socialists of America, and Bernie Sanders is the grand old man of socialism. On one memorable occasion, Nancy Pelosi was unable to explain how a Democrat is different from a socialist.
But the bloom is off that rose. Socialism was never a serious alternative for America; it is a discredited ideology that has been rejected around the world. And socialism is not a plausible ideology for a party whose core demographic is people who earn over $200,000 a year.
The Democrats are the party of DEI and Kamala Harris was a DEI candidate, but DEI is widely unpopular. The United States has labored under affirmative action, of which DEI is the current iteration, for 50 years. But Americans don’t like race discrimination or sex discrimination, and they believe in merit. An unbroken history of polling, stretching back for decades, has found that race and sex discrimination in employment and education are unpopular. Despite the massive corporate, government and cultural pressure that has tried to force DEI on Americans, that remains true. DEI, now on its way out, can hardly be the basis for future Democratic campaigns.
Opening the borders and admitting millions of illegal immigrants has been the core policy priority of the Biden administration, as reflected in Biden’s day-one executive orders. But it was a policy prescription that Democrats were never able to openly articulate and defend. Thus, as the 2024 election approached they were reduced to making the absurd claim that “the Southern border is secure.” Open borders are deeply and correctly unpopular, and do not provide a platform on which any future Democrat can run, although no doubt we will see plenty of tearjerking stories about illegals who are being deported.
Etc. Democrats are on the loser side of pretty much every issue.
It’s confirmed that Trump won Arizona, completing his sweep of all swing states.
The most pro-Trump demographic in 2024 was…American Indians. Huh. Maybe they want jobs and oil and gas money more than “land grab statements” and changing the names of sports teams.
Just because Trump won an overwhelming victory doesn’t mean that Democratic Party vote fraud has stopped. “Bucks County Commissioners Vote to Count Illegal Ballots as Pennsylvania Senate Race Heads for Recount…”I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country, and people violate laws anytime they want,” Marseglia said. “So for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it.” I didn’t get the outcome I wanted so I’m going to break the law is quite the legal strategy.
The Texas Democrat Party Chairman, Gilberto Hinojosa, has announced his resignation after a significant statewide electoral defeat in Tuesday’s election.
Hinojosa, a South Texas lawyer first elected to the role in 2012, has overseen a period marked by Democrat losses, particularly among Hispanic voters and in border counties.
Despite ongoing claims that Texas was on the verge of “turning blue” for over a decade, Democrats have failed to secure a statewide victory in 30 years. In Tuesday’s election, President Donald Trump won Texas by more than 13 points, including victories in 12 of the state’s 14 border counties. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz also defeated his Democrat opponent by approximately nine points.
Speaking to KUT News on Wednesday, Hinojosa attributed the party’s loss partially to its focus on radical gender ideology. For example, during the party’s convention in June, delegates were addressed by a female drag queen (a woman dressed as a man dressed as a woman). When asked about “transgender rights,” he responded, “I think what the Democratic Party has to realize is that there’s some things that we can support and some things that we cannot. And when we’re pressed upon to take votes of these kinds, we need to be mindful of the long-term consequences of these choices.”
Of course, then he had to issue a groveling apology to the alphabet people. And that’s why you continue to lose…
Republicans select John Thune as the next majority leader, beating out John Cornyn and Trump pick Rick Scott (another Floridian), who came in a distant third. Senate’s gonna Senate.
Confirms an educated guess:
I VOTED TRUMP/MAHA/UNITY. I hope others will do the same.
For some reason, many people seem to think I’m not voting. For the record, that is NEVER my move. My typical approach is: “If you don’t have a candidate in this election, vote (as if) in the next one.” That usually means…
“The mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, Antar Lumumba, has been indicted on federal bribery charges. Also indicted: Aaron Banks, who is a councilman, and Jody Owens, the county DA…another city council member, Angelique Lee, pled guilty to “conspiracy to commit bribery” charges in August. I get the impression she hasn’t been sentenced yet, and I’m wondering if she’s now a ‘cooperating witness.'” I know you’ll be shocked to learn that Lumumba is a Democrat…
The wins keep coming. “Republicans Flip 23 Texas Appeals Court Seats. GOP judicial candidates won 25 of 26 contested courts of appeals races on Tuesday’s ballot.”
“Union Member in Austin Files Lawsuit Challenging Constitutionality of National Labor Relations Board. Dallas Mudd was prevented from holding a decertification election at his workplace.” Given recent Supreme Court rulings against the administrative state, this probably has a fair chance of success.
Major Nielsen ratings plunge at MSNBC since Trump won, practically every day since. Just one example – 10/30 Wednesday vs Fri 11/8 – Morning Joe 1st hour – down 39.6% Morning Joe 2d hour – down 36.9% Andrea Mitchell – down 39.7% Ari Melber – down 49.6% Joy Reid’s Reidout – down…
Speaking of Hollywood liberals who can’t help themselves, Rachel Zegler has, yet again, opened her mouth and inserted her foot, wishing hatred on Trump voters. There’s a brilliant strategy, alienating more than half the country in a fit of pique. Seriously, has any actress in all Hollywood history ever done more damage to a film’s prospects than Zegler has to the live-action Snow White reboot? Update: Disney forced her to apologize.
Costco recalls 80,000 pounds of butter because it doesn’t say it contains milk. They can’t define a woman or butter. Now enjoy a vaguely related Family Guy clip.
The wife of a well-known transgender writer has been charged with murdering her father with an ice axe the night of Donald Trump’s election to the presidency. She then allegedly shattered the windows of the $800,000 Rainier Valley, Washington, home in which she and her father lived in what she claimed was an “act of liberation,” according to charging documents.
Corey Burke, 33, who is married to transgender writer Samantha Leigh Allen, the author of “Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States,” was discovered after the death of her father, Timothy Burke, 67 — who had health issues — “smiling and clapping covered in her loved one’s blood, cops said,” according to The New York Post, which added that Burke “allegedly confessed to investigators the next day that she killed her father with the ax and also by strangling him. She also admitted to biting her father while choking him, the docs alleged.”
Yikes. I guess a lesbian who married a guy pretending to be a woman isn’t the most stable person in the world…
Another disturbing death: “Man found dead in Planet Fitness tanning bed three DAYS after entering gym.”
“Three Activists Charged with Burning-Cross KKK Hoax to Benefit Black Mayoral Candidate.” “Derrick Bernard Jr. (aka Phoenixx Ugrilla), 35; Ashley Danielle Blackcloud, 40; and Deanna Crystal West (aka Vital Sweetz and Sage West), 38, are accused of conspiring to stage the phony hate crime and then alerting the media to prop up Mobolade’s ultimately successful campaign.” All this to support candidate Yemi Mobolade…who won.
“Hollywood Braces for a Woke Backlash in the Wake of Trump’s Election.”
“Liberal users are leaving X in a huff in the wake of President Trump’s 2024 election victory over the support of its owner, Elon Musk, for the President-elect and the platform’s right-ward shift.” Why yes, when you just lost an election in which every single demographic group and region moved away from you and toward the candidate you hate, then obviously the problem is that you just came in contact with too many dissenting voices and the solution is to retreat further into your own echo chamber where non-leftwing/non-SJW thought cannot penetrate. Brilliant!
“Documentary alleges 21,000 workers have died working on Saudi Vision 2030, which includes The Line,” AKA Neom. Now the Saudis are scumbags, and I wouldn’t put shockingly poor work conditions and covering up worker deaths past them, but those numbers are absolute bullshit, since that’s around four times as many as died during the entire period building the Panama Canal, and I’m pretty sure 21st century Saudi Arabia doesn’t have as big a problem with malaria as late 19th and early 20th century Panama.
“Democrats Denounce Satan As ‘Too Moderate.'” “Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly confided in aides that Satan was being kind of a pest by continually asking Democrats to pretend to be sane just for a while so he could get some of them elected. ‘The nerve of that guy!'”
In a classic case of unintended consequences, Democrats suing over a perceived Voting Rights Act violation could result is less Democrats in office.
A voting rights lawsuit that could cost Texas Democrats seats across all levels of government received a hearing Tuesday by the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, known as the most conservative federal appellate court in the country.
The Galveston County redistricting case is challenging how the appellate court has previously interpreted the Voting Rights Act, which was passed to protect individual minority groups but has been “twisted” for political advantage.
At issue is whether Section 2 of the law requires the county to create a majority-minority district by grouping a “coalition” of black and Hispanic voters.
Neither blacks nor Hispanics are a large enough group in Galveston County to create a majority district.
The county contends that the Voting Rights Act does not protect coalition districts—which represent political, not racial, alliances—nor does it guarantee that Democrats will be elected.
Courts in other federal circuits do not allow aggregating distinct minority groups to force what are almost always Democrat districts.
“The Voting Rights Act was meant to right wrongs. It wasn’t meant to subsidize political parties with legislative seats. That’s what this case is about—the real meaning of the Voting Rights Act, or, how it has been twisted by coalition districts,” said J. Christian Adams, President and General Counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, representing Galveston County in the case.
A win by Galveston County would be a blow to Texas Democrats.
The case began in 2021 when Galveston County’s Republican-majority commissioners court, headed by County Judge Mark Henry, drew new boundaries for the county’s four commissioner districts following the decennial census.
The plan eliminated the lone Democrat commissioner’s majority-minority precinct, a coalition district of blacks and Hispanics. The commissioner is black and has served on the court since 1999.
Three sets of plaintiffs then sued the county: a group of current and former Democrat officeholders (the Petteway plaintiffs), local chapters of the NAACP and LULAC, and the U.S. Department of Justice. The three federal lawsuits were consolidated into Petteway v. Galveston County.
Following a two-week trial last August, a federal judge in Galveston ruled in favor of the plaintiffs’ claim of vote dilution in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The decision was based on a nearly 40-year-old Fifth Circuit precedent supporting coalition claims.
Galveston County appealed to the Fifth Circuit.
After hearing arguments in November, a panel of three appellate judges said that the circuit court’s past decisions supporting coalition claims “are wrong as a matter of law” and “should be overturned.” Only a ruling by the full Fifth Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court can overturn the precedent.
In December, another three-judge panel granted the county’s request to use the new boundaries in the 2024 election. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld that decision.
During Tuesday’s en banc hearing, all Fifth Circuit judges heard arguments from attorneys representing Galveston County and the three plaintiffs.
Attorney Joe Nixon with the Public Interest Legal Foundation argued on behalf of Galveston County.
“There is nothing left for the court to decide,” Nixon told the judges. “You just need to look at Section 2. What words require coalition districts? There are none.”
Conclusion: “If Galveston County prevails in its challenge to coalition districts, Democrats in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi (states covered by the Fifth Circuit) stand to lose seats at the local, state, and congressional levels.”
It takes a special kind of dumb to lose numerous seats across three states in a effort to save one commissioners court seat in Galveston County.
The Voting Rights Act was a specific remedy at a specific point in time for a specific type of constitutional rights violation, namely that Democratic controlled states in the South were depriving black citizens of their constitutional rights to participate in elections. Over the years, Democrats have twisted it into a “No fair! Republicans are winning!” Get Out Of Competitive Elections Free card. Ironically, Republicans have used the precise terms of the Voting Rights Act to crowd blacks into a single district to help create more Republican seats.
The situation for which the Voting Rights Act was passed no longer exists. Instead of race-aware solutions, constitutional rights should be guaranteed in color-blind way for a nation in which all men are created equal. Rather than continue to insist on racial election carve-outs, the Act itself should be retired.
A coalition of Republican-led states is suing the Biden administration and the State of California in an attempt to prevent new electric vehicle mandates on truck owners and operators throughout the country from going into effect.
Two legal challenges were filed over the new emissions rules, Nebraska Attorney General Hilgers said in a statement on May 13.
They include a petition for review filed by a coalition of 24 states in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit which challenges the Biden administration’s new regulation setting stronger greenhouse gas emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles.
Texas isn’t mentioned in the article, but it is in the filing:
Under 42 U.S.C. § 7607(b)(1), Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 15, and D.C. Circuit Rule 15(a), the States of Nebraska, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming petition this Court for review of the final agency action taken by Respondents United States Environmental Protection Agency and Michael S. Regan, in his official capacity as Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, titled “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles—Phase 3,” published at 89 Fed. Reg. 29,440 (April 22, 2024). A copy of the agency action is attached to this petition.
Petitioners will show that the final rule exceeds the agency’s statutory authority and otherwise is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and not in accordance with law. Petitioners thus ask that this Court declare unlawful and vacate the agency’s final action.
That petition lists the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its administrator Michael Regan as defendants.
In the legal filing, plaintiffs argue the EPA’s rule imposing stringent tailpipe emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles effectively forces manufacturers to produce more electric trucks and fewer internal combustion trucks.
The EPA has said the new rules, which are set to take effect for model years 2027 through 2032, are needed to help combat climate change and will help avoid up to 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the next three decades.
However, the infrastructure needed to support such vehicles is “virtually nonexistent” and they also have shorter ranges and require longer stops, according to Mr. Hilgers.
The new regulation will also negatively impact the economy and put extra pressure on power grids, according to the lawsuit.
A separate coalition of 17 states and the Nebraska Trucking Association also filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California seeking to block a package of regulations that they say are “targeting trucking fleet owners and operators.”
That lawsuit lists the EPA and the California Air Resources Board as defendants.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are challenging a string of California regulations called “Advanced Clean Fleets” which aims to “accelerate a large-scale reduction in tailpipe emissions focusing on zero-emissions medium- and heavy-duty vehicles,” according to the California Air Resources Boards’s (CARB) official website.
The rules would ban big rigs and buses that run on diesel from being sold in California starting in 2036.
Nebraska AG Mike Hilgers seems to be walking point on this one but, as usual, Texas is joining in another lawsuit against Biden Administration regulatory overreach.
Better to get this law thrown out now than to wait until food become unaffordable because there aren’t enough reliable trucks to deliver it…
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, alongside Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and Gun Owners of America Texas director Wes Virdell, held a press conference on Wednesday morning announcing the filing of two lawsuits against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) regarding new rules about private firearm sales.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced new rules adding definitions of certain terms under the Safer Communities Act that will expand the circumstances requiring individuals to obtain Federal Firearm Licenses (FFL) and perform background checks to sell guns. This is to close the so-called “gun show loophole,” which has been a priority for the Biden administration.
If they are talking about the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022, there’s absolutely nothing in the text of the act about closing any “gun show loophole.”
Texas’ lawsuit was filed on the morning of May 1, 2024 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division. It was filed by Texas with the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Utah; Jeff Tormey; Gun Owners of America; Gun Owners Foundation; Tennessee Firearms Association; and the Virginia Citizens Defense League also listed as plaintiffs.
Kansas’ lawsuit was filed on the morning of May 1, 2024 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, Delta Division. It was filed by Kansas alongside the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming, with Phillip Journey, Allen Black, Donald Maxey, and the Chisholm Trail Antique Gun Association also listed as plaintiffs.
Both lawsuits seek declaratory and injunctive relief.
“Today, Texas is leading a multi-state coalition that is suing to stop the final rule issued by the ATF that criminalizes private firearm sales. Biden’s latest effort to unilaterally curtail our constitutional rights is completely illegal,” said Paxton in his speech.
“Yet again, Joe Biden is weaponizing the federal bureaucracy to rip up the Constitution and destroy our citizens’ Second Amendment rights. This is a dramatic escalation of his tyrannical abuse of authority. With today’s lawsuit, it is my great honor to defend our Constitutionally-protected freedoms from the out-of-control federal government.”
Kobach also spoke at the announcement of the lawsuits.
“Biden’s latest attempt to strip away the Second Amendment rights of Americans through ATF regulations will make many law-abiding gun owners felons if they sell a firearm or two to family or friends. This rule is blatantly unconstitutional. We are suing to defend the Second Amendment rights of all Americans,” said Kobach.
“Until now, those who repetitively purchased and sold firearms as a regular course of business had to become a licensee… This rule would put innocent firearm sales between law-abiding friends and family members within reach of federal regulation,” the Kansas court filing reads. “Such innocent sales between friends and family would constitute a felony if the seller did not in fact obtain a federal firearms license and perform a background check.”
While not at the announcement, the attorneys general of Utah and Mississippi both offered statements in the lawsuit’s press release.
“Nearly 40 years ago, Congress condemned ATF for targeting innocent gun owners instead of focusing on felons, calling ATF’s actions ‘reprehensible.’ Congress even changed the law to limit ATF’s authority. But ATF is at it again, this time trying to require a citizen selling even a single firearm to obtain a license. Utah is proud to join the 26 states — in three separate lawsuits— protecting their citizens from this bureaucratic overreach.” said Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes.
“By seeking to treat every legal gunowner as a commercial gun dealer and every gun sale or trade into a commercial transaction, this rule unmasks the Biden Administration’s anti-gun agenda in ways many of its other actions have not. The Second Amendment could never have contemplated this kind of regulation and it will not withstand scrutiny in the courts. On behalf of Mississippi gunowners, we are proud to stand with the citizens who have come forward in this lawsuit,” said Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch.
Twenty-five states are suing the ATF across both lawsuits. Florida has also filed its own suit against the ATF for declaratory and injunctive relief about the same rule.
For those counting along on the home game, that’s more than half the states in the union suing the Biden Administration over their latest attempt at gun legislation by fiat.
This is not the first lawsuit that Paxton has filed against the ATF this year. In February, the State of Texas sued the ATF over the Biden administration’s recent decision to redefine firearms with pistol braces as short-barrelled rifles under the National Firearms Act (NFA).
Complete civilian disarmament has been a longterm goal of the Democratic Party, and to that end they would love to ensnare ordinary Americans in FFL laws and paperwork for private firearms transactions, despite such restrictions never being contemplated by the founding fathers. In the post-Bruen judicial landscape, expect the courts to be extremely skeptical of unconstitutional firearms regulation, especially those with no basis in the underlying statute language, and expect Paxton to notch another victory over the Biden Admistration in his belt.
The Biden administration is imposing new limits on states’ ability to access to Covid-19 antibody treatments amid rising demand from GOP governors who have relied on the drug as a primary weapon against the virus.
Federal health officials plan to allocate specific amounts to each state under the new approach, in an effort to more evenly distribute the 150,000 doses that the government makes available each week.
The approach is likely to cut into shipments to GOP-led states in the Southeast that have made the pricey antibody drug a central part of their pandemic strategy, while simultaneously spurning mask mandates and other restrictions. That threatens to heighten tensions between the Biden administration and governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis, who have emerged as vocal opponents of the federal Covid-19 response.
“How dare they pay for treatments that work while ignoring the one true path of vaccine righteousness?”
Which states are the feds rationing?
Demand from a handful of southern states has exploded since then, state and federal officials said, raising concerns they were consuming a disproportionate amount of the national supply. Seven states — Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama — accounted for 70 percent of all orders in early September.
Huh, I wonder what those states might all have in common? Maybe…Republican governors? Well, we can’t have those upstarts showing up vaccine-pushing blue states, can we?
“President Joe Biden has sharply criticized DeSantis and others for resisting efforts to encourage mask wearing and ramp up vaccinations, vowing in a speech last week that if ‘governors won’t help us beat the pandemic, I’ll use my power as president to get them out of the way.'”
Evidently this is code for “Stop fighting the holy narrative or I’ll make sure your citizens die!”
Multiple lawsuits over election fraud are preceding through the courts and appeal process. One of the most important is a lawsuit filed in the Supreme Court by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton yesterday against Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin seeking to have their state legislatures appoint electors due to widespread election fraud in those states:
The filing, first reported by Joel Pollak at Breitbart, is under a procedure where the U.S. Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in suits between states. That means the lawsuit does not need to be filed in District Court, then work its way through the normal appeals process.
The lawsuit is in the form of a Motion for Leave to File Bill of Complaint. (The Brief in support of the Motion appears starting at page 50 of the pdf. A more complete pdf. with all filings, including the Motion for Preliminary Injunction and a Temporary Restraining Order is available here starting at pg. 111)
The relief sought is a delay of the December 14 statutory deadline for electors to vote, arguing that the Supreme Court has the power to delay that deadline since “[t]he only date that is mandated under the Constitution … is January 20, 2021. U.S. CONST. amend. XX.” The purpose of the delay would be for state legislatures to consider appointing the electors given the unreliability in the way the elections were handled.
This is in line with some commenters here suggesting that January 20 is the only real Constitutional deadline.
I’m not sufficiently familiar with this procedure to opine right now on whether it is proper procedurally…
You and me both!
…but if it works it puts the election squarely in the hands of the Supreme Court. There is no guarantee that if the issue were put to the legislators in these states that they would select Trump electors in the face of certified vote counts showing Biden the winner.
The suit alleges a variety of different constitutional violations in each state, all relating to the loosening of mail-ballot processing rules. Some of the changes were implemented by state and local election officials using the Chinese coronavirus as a pretext; others pre-date the presidential election and COVID.
Texas argues the impact of the rules’ changes was the same in each of these battleground states, saying election officials “flooded their people with unlawful ballot applications and ballots while ignoring statutory requirements as to how they were received, evaluated and counted.”
The requested remedy is the same, as well: toss out all mail-ballot votes and the presidential election results for all four states, which currently show Joe Biden receiving more votes than President Donald Trump.
To safeguard public legitimacy at this unprecedented moment and restore public trust in the presidential election, this Court should extend the December 14, 2020 deadline for Defendant States’ certification of presidential electors to allow these investigations to be completed.
“Trust in the integrity of our election processes is sacrosanct and binds our citizenry and the States in this Union together,” Paxton said in a press statement. “Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin destroyed that trust and compromised the security and integrity of the 2020 election. The states violated statutes enacted by their duly elected legislatures, thereby violating the Constitution. By ignoring both state and federal law, these states have not only tainted the integrity of their own citizens’ vote, but of Texas and every other state that held lawful elections.”
“Their failure to abide by the rule of law casts a dark shadow of doubt over the outcome of the entire election,” he added. “We now ask that the Supreme Court step in to correct this egregious error.”
My fear is that the very novelty of this lawsuit will work against it. I’m not sure any state has ever filed to alter election results from other states, or that the Supreme Court would grant standing in the lawsuit. But by making it a state suing another state, it makes it a clear Supreme Court case under Article III of the Constitution.
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge is also supporting the lawsuit:
Indeed, seven states have joined the lawsuit: Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, and South Dakota. It’s quite possible that more have joined by the time you read this.
Important traffic notice for Austin residents: Half of I-35 is going to be closed between 290 and Rundberg starting at 9 PM tonight and lasting through 5 AM Monday, June 3, while they take down the St. John’s bridge and route southbound traffic down two northbound lanes, squeezing traffic in both directions. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s going to screw up traffic everywhere between Georgetown and Slaughter Lane. Avoid if at all possible…
Alan Dershowitz thinks that Mueller acted shamefully in going beyond his prosecutor’s mandate:
Virtually everybody agrees that, in the normal case, a prosecutor should never go beyond publicly disclosing that there is insufficient evidence to indict. No responsible prosecutor should ever suggest that the subject of his investigation might indeed be guilty even if there was insufficient evidence or other reasons not to indict. Supporters of Mueller will argue that this is not an ordinary case, that he is not an ordinary prosecutor and that President Trump is not an ordinary subject of an investigation. They are wrong. The rules should not be any different.
Remember that federal investigations by prosecutors, including special counsels, are by their very nature one-sided. They hear only evidence of guilt and not exculpatory evidence. Their witnesses are not subject to the adversarial process. There is no cross examination. The evidence is taken in secret behind the closed doors of a grand jury. For that very reason, prosecutors can only conclude whether there is sufficient evidence to commence a prosecution. They are not in a position to decide whether the subject of the investigation is guilty or is innocent of any crimes.
That determination of guilt or innocence requires a full adversarial trial with a zealous defense attorney, vigorous cross examination, exclusionary rules of evidence and other due process safeguards. Such safeguards were not present in this investigation, and so the suggestion by Mueller that Trump might well be guilty deserves no credence. His statement, so inconsistent with his long history, will be used to partisan advantage by Democrats, especially all those radicals who are seeking impeachment.
Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw on the issue:
My take on this Mueller press conference:
Nothing changed. Still no Russian collusion and no conclusion on obstruction.
But the President’s adversaries will continue to move the goalposts and push impeachment, ignoring what the American people really want: good governance.
President Donald Trump has given Attorney General William Barr authority to declassify to declassify Scandularity documents (like FISA warrents aimed at the Trump campaign), and Democrats are freaking out.
Related: “It’s Not Your Imagination: The Journalists Writing About Antifa Are Often Their Cheerleaders.”
Of all 15 verified national-level journalists in our subset, we couldn’t find a single article, by any of them, that was markedly critical of Antifa in any way. In all cases, their work in this area consisted primarily of downplaying Antifa violence while advancing Antifa talking points, and in some cases quoting Antifa extremists as if they were impartial experts.
“Why Are Top Obama Officials Working Cushy Jobs for Chinese Company We Now Consider a Threat?” (I think we all know the an$wer to that que$tion.) “Samir Jain — a former senior director for cybersecurity policy under Obama’s National Security Council and now a partner with the international law firm Jones Day — was recently hired by the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei as a lobbyist. Jain works alongside James Cole, who was Obama’s deputy attorney general from 2011 to 2015. Huawei hired Cole for legal representation in 2017, the Examiner reported.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
This is interesting: Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz and New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are talking about teaming up to impose a lifetime ban on former members of congress becoming paid lobbyists. It’s a good idea that I expect to go nowhere, as it takes potential graft money out of too many congressional pockets. But this is not the only idea the hard left and the hard right could propose to fight the swampy center.
When my grandparents arrived in Israel, together with 850,000 other Jews who lived in the Middle East and North Africa, they understood three things.
First, they understood that they were being forced to leave their Arab homelands. My Iraqi grandparents, for example, had very clear memories of the Farhud, the 1941 pogrom that left more than 180 Jews dead at the hands of their neighbors. They finally fled their native country in 1951, pushed out by an Iraqi government determined to rid itself of all of its Jews.
When they arrived in Israel, my grandparents did not see themselves as Palestinian Jews—they had never before lived in Mandatory Palestine. They saw themselves as Jews of Iraqi descent returning to the ancient homeland they and their ancestors had dreamed of and prayed of for thousands of years, the land from which they were once expelled and to which they were overjoyed to return. And they also understood themselves to be distinct from their Ashkenazi brothers and sisters: They were all Jews, but my grandparents were proud of their Mizrahi heritage just as the 200,000 Israelis of Ethiopian descent are proud of theirs.
They’re hordes of freaks and geeks, socially promoted like the retards in Common Core to grease the retirement skids of a pack of careerist Courtney Massengales not fit nor capable to pour piss out of their own boots even with the instructions stamped on the heel.
Else we wouldn’t have Rangerettes who can’t climb a short wall, Navy officers who can’t conn a ship without hitting everything afloat, as they dredge up parts from museum pieces to keep their current aircraft flying, Air Force generals pimping for a white elephant plane that cannot fly, missile officers cheating on their proficiency tests, Marine recruits in combat arms who can’t throw a grenade without killing themselves, or “combat leaders” who couldn’t pass a ruck march, West Point “leaders” who condone open communism from faculty and students, and promote a pack of Affirmative Action cadets who couldn’t pass a PRT or meet basic weight and appearance standards, while flashing Black Power signs in uniform. We wouldn’t be doing gender reassignment surgeries instead of physical therapy for combat wounded, we wouldn’t be spending more money on gender sensitivity counseling than on marksmanship training, and we wouldn’t be wavering the insane and drug-addicted into the military in record numbers, just to appease a pack of blue- and pink-haired SJWs.
The US military is broken.
Hugely so. Nearly hopelessly so.
Nostalgia for a time long past when it was otherwise won’t paper over the reality that right now we’re as weak as kittens, with a military that’s going to have its own ass handed to it on a platter, and body bags filled by the gross, because it’s so hamstrung with PC that it cannot accomplish the most fundamental missions assigned to it, eight days out of seven.
Overstated? Probably. Almost certainly. And don’t underestimate “freaks and geeks.” Or both viewpoints are true: Our armed forces aren’t what they’re shaped up to be, but are still miles beyond other country’s armed forces. Or it could be a case of inter-service differences: The army, honed by two decades at the point of the knife in the global war on terror, is the best in the world but the Navy and Air Force have problems. Or anywhere in-between those extremes. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
Former Mississippi Republican Senator Thad Cochran has died at the age of 81. Cochran was Mississippi’s first Republican senator since Reconstruction, was a stalwart advocate of the Reagan revolution, and then slowly drifted into a more moderate direction as he stayed in the senate 45 years.
I think it's legitimate to prefer one culture to another
For example, I prefer cultures that do not tolerate female genital mutilation.
Will this will be considered racist by all those who hover, eagerly hoping that someone will offend them – on someone else's behalf, naturally https://t.co/4WbZDFjs3o
At Hillary Clinton’s confirmation hearing for secretary of state, she promised she would take “extraordinary steps…to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.”
Later, more than two dozen companies and groups and one foreign government paid former President Bill Clinton a total of more than $8 million to give speeches around the time they also had matters before Mrs. Clinton’s State Department, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
Fifteen of them also donated a total of between $5 million and $15 million to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, the family’s charity, according to foundation disclosures.
Six things a Washington Post reporter found out following Ted Cruz around. “The majority of the undecided voters I have spoken with have said they were very impressed after hearing Cruz speak. Many of them said they were undecided coming into a rally and supported him when it was over.”
“Unfortunately, 2016, the little of it that we have so far seen, is already beginning to look like another year of Grim Slide, of a world stumbling down a slippery slope to become less secure, less stable, and less free.”
Iran and Saudi Arabia have severed diplomatic relations over Saudi execution of a Shiite cleric, and Kuwait has recalled their ambassador from Tehran; don’t be surprised if the other Sunni nations follow suit. Good thing we have a Nobel Peace Prize winner in the White House…
Turkey’s Prime Minister: Hey, you know who was a model of effective leadership? Adolf Hitler.
It looks like Karachi, Basra, and Mogadishu all rolled into one. People sell drugs openly just next to the Gronland subway station.
It’s not Norway or Europe anymore, except when there is welfare money to be collected. The police have largely given up. Early in 2010 Aftenposten stated that there are sharia patrols in this area, and gay couples are assaulted and chased away.
Mass sexual assaults involving up to 1,000 Arab men on New Year’s Eve in Cologne.
Rahm Emanuel’s failure in Chicago is emblematic of the blue model failure in America’s cities. “The city’s bloated pension obligations have already forced Emanuel to make severe education cuts. It will continue to force cuts in city services in various cities, making it harder and harder for mayors to govern, and increasing the antagonism among various constituencies.”
Confessions of a social justice warrior white knight. “Their communities thrive on self loathing disguised as elitism…SJWs insist their goal is to make everyone equal, and for a long time I believed it, but their communities actually enforce factionalism and division.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
The last six days of blogging have been pretty packed, so here’s a LinikSwarm for a lazy (and very hot) Friday:
Christopher Hitchens on Turkey. He glosses over the fact (maybe he only had so many words) that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk could be quite a murderous bastard himself when it suited his interests…
Amazon isn’t the problem in California. “How perverse is it when wanting to keep money that you’ve earned is considered being greedy?”
Here’s a movie about an an Islamic punk band with female and gay members who drink beer and smoke pot. Sadly, and predictably, it’s completely fictional.
You may remember my previous mention of the new definition of “flash mobs,” i.e. large groups of black youths that gather together to commit crimes and then disperse. Evidently they’re a big enough problem in Cleveland that they passed an ordinance to crack down on the phenomena, which was vetoed. Alas, from the description, the Ohio ACLU is probably correct in calling it “both ineffective and unconstitutional.”
Randall Munroe, the guy who does XKCD has an interesting post up on the possibility that the current Mississippi flood may overwhelm the Old River Control Structure that keeps the river from shifting course to the Atchafalaya, as I discussed last week.
And continuing the Peter Gabriel kick from my other blog, here’s a young Peter Gabriel doing “Here Comes the Flood” on the Kate Bush Christmas Special circa 1979:
In other news, there was a Kate Bush Christmas Special…
