Colion Noir on Dystopian Seattle

November 10th, 2018

Colion Noir takes a look at deep blue Seattle’s rampant heroin epidemic, where citizens wake up every morning to find used needles littering their streets and parks.

A few sobering takeaways:

  • Someone dies of a heroin or opioid overdose every 36 hours in King County.
  • Seattle gave homeless junkies a small encampment to live in. Result? 103% increase in area crime.
  • Jewish cemetery had problems with addicts and prostitutes, so they hired security guards. Suddenly, city officials took notice…of people having guns. “Jews with guns? Can’t have that!”
  • The police want to enforce the law, but elected official won’t let them.
  • “Seattle stopped enforcing their own laws.”
  • “I lived in New York under Giuliani, and I watched the broken windows thing in action. It showed how you can clean up a city.”
  • “MS-13 has moved into Seattle because they know no one is going to do anything about them.”
  • Homeless people walk into the local supermarket, grab stuff off the shelf, and walk out, and employees are instructed not to intervene.
  • “If you want to be a criminal, Seattle is a very good place to be.”
  • Keep in mind that the last Republican Mayor of Seattle was James d’Orma Braman, who left office March 23, 1969.

    LinkSwarm for November 9, 2018

    November 9th, 2018

    Texas election analysis is coming next week. Meanwhile, Democrats appear to be in the midst of voting fraud in Broward County, Florida.

  • Man who vandalized NYC synagogue was a gay black Democratic activist.
  • Another Obama-era intelligence failure resulted in dozens of deaths China. Thanks, Obama… (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Jeff Sessions resigns as Attorney General, replaced on at least an interim basis by his chief of staff Matthew G. Whitaker. Very early on in the Trump Administration, I decided that there were two things I wasn’t going to pay much attention to: 1. Reports of dysfunction or “chaos” among White House staffers, and 2. Trump tweets slamming various people. (See any of my previous posts on Trump persuasion techniques.) I have no particular insight into intra-White House squabbles, and reporting on this issue is so bad or overblown that there’s too much noise for me bother to extract signal from. So go elsewhere for how Sessions fits into the “Deep State vs. Trump” narrative. (Over at Powerline, they put up both anti-Sessions and pro-Sessions pieces.)
  • Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer wants House Democrats to impeach Trump. I’m sure there’s no way that could possibly backfire on them…
  • Nine more Hidalgo County voter fraud arrests:

    Nine individuals were arrested Thursday for their alleged roles in a 2017 voter fraud scheme involving the municipal election in a Texas border town.

    These arrests were part of an ongoing investigation into a coordinated effort by political workers to recruit people who would fraudulently claim residential addresses so they could vote in specific races and influence the results of the Edinburg city election held last year, according to information provided by the Office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

    “Illegal voting, particularly an organized illegal voting scheme orchestrated by political operatives, is an affront to democracy and results in corruption at the highest level,” said Paxton in a prepared statement.

    “Each illegal vote silences the voice of a law-abiding registered voter,” added Paxton. “My office will continue to do everything in its power to uncover illegal voting schemes and bring to justice those who try to manipulate the outcome of elections in Texas.”

    The nine Hidalgo County residents arrested were Guadalupe Sanchez Garza, Jerry Gonzalez, Jr., Araceli Gutierrez, Belinda Rodriguez, Brenda Rodriguez, Felisha Yolanda Rodriguez, Rosendo Rodriguez, Cynthia Tamez, and Ruby Tamez. Online jail records show bond was set at $20,000 for both Garza and Ruby Tamez. A $10,000 bond was set for Gonzalez, Gutierrez, Belinda Rodriguez, Brenda Rodriguez, Rosendo Rodriguez, and Cynthia Tamez. Felisha Yolanda Rodriguez’s bail was set at $1,000.

  • “Number of migrants, refugees from Venezuela reaches 3 million.” Or one out of twelve Venezuelans. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • More harassment of a conservative heretic at Sarah Lawrence College. (Hat tip: Amy Alkon on Twitter.)
  • 85-year old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg breaks three ribs in a fall.
  • After expressing approval of Antifa attacking Tucker Carlson’s house, Matt Yglesias deleted his entire Twitter timeline. Sadly, he’s started up again.
  • “Leftist Protesters: “If Tucker Carlson Didn’t Want To Get Mobbed In His Own Home, Then Why Did He Disagree With Us?'”
  • Mike Ward journalistic fraud follow-up: “Of the 275 people quoted, 122, or 44 percent, could not be found. Those 122 people appeared in 72 stories.” (Hat tip: Dwight.) (Previously.)
  • Dead pimp wins in Nevada. (Previously.)
  • In Tweet form:

  • Super-genius falls through the ceiling of an Alabama Waffle House, proceeds to fight the patrons on his way out the door. Bonus: He left his pants in the restroom…with his ID. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Hong Kong film pioneer Raymond Chow of Golden Harvest, dead at 91. You may not know his name, but he was instrumental in launching the careers of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and dozens of other Hong Kong film icons.
  • California marijuana delivery man says he was robbed by ninjas.” Old story, but how can you turn down that headline?
  • More 2018 Post Election Analysis

    November 8th, 2018

    Busy as hell today. Here’s some more election analysis of note:

  • Jim Geraghty:

    Dear God, did the Senate Democrats’ strategy on Brett Kavanaugh backfire on them on an epic scale. I do think that before the Kavanaugh fight, the Democrats were on the path to that “Blue Tsunami.” And then they decided that rerunning the Neil Gorsuch fight wasn’t going to be enough; they had to fully embrace a bunch of accusations that had no supporting witnesses.

    Claire McCaskill, gone. Finally. I laid out her devilish luck in yesterday’s Jolt; for at least twelve years, Missouri Republicans yearned for a chance to take her on in a relatively normal political environment with a candidate who wasn’t a walking Superfund site of toxicity. Lo and behold, with no political wind at her back, no good GOP rivals being knocked out by the political equivalent of anvils falling from buildings or alien abductions, Josh Hawley won . . . by about 144,000 votes. The old “Vote liberal for four or five years, veer back to the center in election years” strategy of red-state Democrats finally stopped working.

    Taylor Swift could not deliver Tennessee for Phil Bredesen. In retrospect, the hype around the former governor looks like wishful thinking on the part of Democrats. He last won a statewide race in 2006, and as soon as Marsha Blackburn nationalized this race, it was over. Blackburn won by about 245,000 votes last night. You figure that Democrats will have a hard time recruiting a top-tier candidate anytime soon.

    Rick Scott won in Florida! Never underestimate this man again. If aliens invade Florida in 2022, Scott will lead the forces of humanity to a narrow upset victory, because that’s what he does every four years — win something that nobody thinks he has a chance to win, by about one percent. Florida Democrats will console themselves that it was so close, but with the high turnout, four-tenths of a percentage point comes out to . . . about 34,000 votes. After the 2000 presidential election, that’s a Florida landslide.

    As of this writing, Mike Braun is on pace to win Indiana’s Senate by 10 points, or about 189,000 votes. A lot of people are pointing to this result as a polling failure, but remember that because of Indiana’s strict anti-robocall laws, pollsters survey this state less frequently because they have to use live interviewers. The lesson here is, trust your instincts! A GOP candidate in a longtime Republican-leaning state, the home state of the current vice president, up against a Democrat who won with 50 percent in a presidential year and who votes against Kavanaugh a month before Election Day . . . has a really good chance to win and win comfortably.

    Face it, we’re not even that upset that Joe Manchin won in West Virginia. His victory offers the lesson that any red-state Democrat could have improved their chances for reelection by voting for Brett Kavanaugh.

    We should give Beto O’Rourke a bit of credit; coming within three points is better than any Democrat running statewide in Texas since . . . Ann Richards, I think? But that’s . . . not a victory, which is a fair expectation when you raise $70 million and spend $60 million. And because of the scale of the turnout, those three points amount to 213,750 votes. Turnout was more than 8.3 million votes, and I recall seeing O’Rourke fans insisting that if turnout surpassed 8 million votes, then their man was certain to win. Guys, there are a lot of Republicans in Texas.

    Bad: Nancy Pelosi as Speaker again. Good: Getting to run against Nancy Pelosi again, since she’s now the highest ranking elected Democrat in the country.

  • Kevin D. Williamson:

    I am happy to see the admirable Senator Ted Cruz reelected in Texas, where you can almost buy a Senate race but not quite. I like Senator Cruz a great deal (and I like him even more when he’s not campaigning) but I’d have enjoyed watching a reasonably well-qualified ham sandwich defeat Robert Francis O’Rourke, one of the most insipid and puffed-up figures on the American political scene.

    Snip.

    The Democrats have gone well and truly ’round the bend. I spent a fair part of last night with Democrats in Portland, Ore. — admittedly, a pretty special bunch of Democrats, Portland being Portland and all. The professional political operators are what they always are — by turns cynical and sanctimonious — but the rank and file seem to actually believe the horsepucky they’ve been fed, i.e., that these United States are about two tweets away from cattle cars and concentration camps. The level of paranoia among the people I spoke to was remarkable.

    Fourth, and related: The Democrats don’t seem to understand what it is they are really fighting, which, in no small part, is not the Republicans but the constitutional architecture of the United States. The United States is, as the name suggests, a union of states, which have interests, powers, and characters of their own. They are not administrative subdivisions of the federal government. All that talk about winning x percent of the “national House vote” or the “national Senate vote” — neither of which, you know, exists — is a backhanded way of getting at the fact that they do not like how our governments are organized, and that they would prefer a more unitary national government under which the states are so subordinated as to be effectively inconsequential. They complain that, under President Trump, “the Constitution is hanging by a thread” — but they don’t really much care for the actual order established by that Constitution, and certainly not for the limitations it puts on government power through the Bill of Rights and other impediments to étatism.

    Noun. etatism (usually uncountable, plural etatisms) Total control of the state over individual citizens.”

  • Sean Trende:

    Overall, Republicans had a tough night Tuesday. When all is said and done, Democrats look to have gained around 35 seats in the House, seven governorships and over 330 state legislators. Yet as rough as it was, it could have been much worse for Republicans. In Barack Obama’s first mid-term in 2010, Republicans picked up 63 House seats and 700 state legislative seats — numbers that were not out of the question for Democrats for a large portion of this cycle. In the Senate, Republicans actually expanded their majority — as it appears they will pick up 3 seats — whereas Democrats lost 6 seats in the 2010 midterms.

    In many ways, it was a strange election. If you had told me in August that Democrats were going to win more than 30 House seats, I would have bet a large amount of money that the Senate would also be in play. I would have a difficult time accepting that Florida would elect Ron DeSantis governor and (as it now appears) Rick Scott as senator. The notion that Ohio’s Senate race would fall into the mid-single digits, that Mike DeWine would win the Ohio governor’s race handily, or that Michigan’s Senate race would be decided by fewer than seven points all would have seemed ludicrous. Martha McSally keeping Arizona close (and possibly winning) would not seem possible.

    Snip.

    1. The GOP got killed in the suburbs. We can place Republican losses into three broad buckets: “perennial swing seats” (Colorado’s 6th, Arizona’s 2nd), “sleeping/problematic candidates” (Oklahoma’s 5th, South Carolina’s 1st), and suburban districts. This last category is by far the broadest, and it accounts for around two-thirds of the Republicans’ losses. This is a significant long-term problem for the party if it continues.
    2. This probably doesn’t count as a wave. If you look at the Index I referenced on Monday, our preliminary results suggest that things have moved about 23 points toward Democrats. That’s a substantial shift, but it falls short of even “semi-wave elections” such as 2014 (a shift of 26 points toward Republicans) and 2006 (a movement of 30 points toward Democrats). Obviously, as results trickle in this might shift further, but probably not by much.
    2. Money. One of the ways to resolve the tension between what we saw in the House versus the Senate (and to a lesser extent, governorships) is that Democrats had a massive fundraising advantage in the lower chamber. This allowed them to catch a number of incumbent Republicans napping, and to spread the playing field out such that the GOP just had too many brush fires to put out. Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District, for example, flipped in part because Michael Bloomberg’s team spent $400,000 on the air in the final week of the election. To the extent we wish to deduce anything about 2020 from these midterms, we should bear in mind that the next election will probably be fought on a more even financial playing field.

    Snip.

    This all takes place against the backdrop of a booming economy. Finally, it is important to note that Republicans should not have found themselves in this position amid a vibrant economy. It is quite unusual to have a result this bad in a time of peace and prosperity. Some of this is the suburban realignment, but some is driven by Donald Trump’s more extreme actions, which alienate suburban moderates.

    On the other hand, if Trump can smooth out the rougher edges that turn suburbanites off, he could prove to be a formidable candidate in 2020. Most of his states from 2016 continued to support Republicans this cycle. But, on the other hand, he hasn’t shown much interest in smoothing out those edges. And if the economy slides into recession, all bets are off.

  • Ed Rodgers:

    While Tuesday night was not a complete win for Republicans, there was no blue wave, either. By most measures, Republicans beat the odds of history and nearly everyone’s expectations, while Democrats were left disappointed as the fantasy of Beto O’Rourke, Andrew Gillum, Stacey Abrams and others winning fizzled. Not one new progressive Democrat was successful bursting onto the scene. It will take a few days to process the meaning of this year’s election returns, but the instant analysis is clear: Democrats may have won the House, but Trump won the election.

  • Jazz Shaw on what won’t be happening:

    Let’s look at what won’t be happening, despite the fever dreams of the Democrats. First, there will be no big ticket legislative packages going through. No major immigration reform supporting the highest priorities of either party. No new tax cuts, but also no tax increases. No new gun control legislation. The fact is, these folks will be lucky if they can name a new Post Office.

    The President isn’t going to be impeached. The Democrats would need to round up every one of their members in the House to get the ball rolling and too many of them are on record saying that would be too extreme. And even if they managed it in the House there is zero chance of a conviction in the Senate. Donald Trump will finish his first term at a minimum.

    The wall isn’t going to be finished. That’s somehow become a badge of honor among Democrats, despite being one of the most doable solutions to immigration problems imaginable. If we’re going to get any money at all for additional wall construction, the new House majority will want a massive pound of flesh in return.

  • Kurt Schlicter: “Look For Democrats To Blow Their Meager Success By Being Jerks”:

    No, they want all #resistance, all of the time, and they are going to do everything they can to appease their looney base by launching investigations and screaming and yelling. That’s not going to help the newbies keep those new House seats in 2020. It’s going to be especially funny when all these rookies who promised the suckers back home they would never vote for that San Francisco liberal monster get strong-armed into casting their very first vote for Mistress Nancy.

    And if they decide to obstruct and agitate, then Trump can be in opposition to them and run against the do-nothing House in 2020. Nobody is better than Trump when he has an enemy. I’m kind of hoping the Democrats choose the path of jerkiness just for the nicknames he’ll bestow in his tweets.

    Oh, and please, impeach him over Russia Treason Traitor stuff. Please. Toss the Trump in that briar patch and he’ll be president forever.

  • George Neumayr thinks Trump helped in Florida:

    The national media portrayed Trump as a weight on Republicans. In fact, he was their source of energy. Had the Florida GOP been ambivalent about Trump and kept him out of the state, Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott would have lost. Journalists mocked DeSantis for “tying himself to Trump,” but they now fall silent as it becomes clear that that was perhaps his only winning strategy.

    The press propagandized relentlessly for Gillum, who was flush with money from George Soros and Tom Steyer, while kneecapping the scrappier DeSantis over minor lapses, and Gillum still couldn’t win. Notice also the media’s silence about Obama. Yet again the darling of journalists shows himself to be a crappy campaigner for others. In his narcissistic shade nothing grows.

    The media’s excited talk of a “blue wave” in Florida never struck me as very convincing as I walked around various cities in Florida. The media’s giddy keenness for Gillum was never reflected in any of the conversations I ever heard. In mid-October, I walked around the Volusia County mall in a MAGA hat as an experiment to test the media’s claims of a spreading anti-Trump backlash. Nobody seemed to care in the slightest. In fact, a self-described independent who said that he “had voted for Jimmy Carter” made a point of walking over to me as I sat in the mall’s food court to express his support for Trump’s policies. “I didn’t vote for him,” he said, “but he is delivering results.”

  • Dems are currently up 30 seats in the House, which puts them up to 225.

    Morning After 2018 Election Update

    November 7th, 2018

    A few quick updates:

  • Republicans are on-track to pickup five senate seats, including Arizona and Montana, but Republican Dean Heller lost in Nevada. (Update: Democrat Jon Tester back in the Montana Senate race lead narrowly.)
  • Democrats pick up 27 House seats (with some races still outstanding), enough to take control of the chamber and put Nancy Pelosi back in the speaker’s chair.
  • Democrats picked up seven Governor’s mansions, including booting Scott Walker in Wisconsin.
  • No blue wave. A bit of a blue ripple, but Democrats underperformed midterm averages, as the party in the White House usually loses senate seats.

    Republicans both taking a senate seat and holding the governor’s mansion in Florida without recounts in such a mixed midterm is a big of a surprise.

    Twitter really thinks Democrats are dumb:

    More later. Maybe tomorrow.

    Liveblogging the 2018 Election

    November 6th, 2018

    AZ, NV and MT Senate races all too close to call, but Republicans are leading in all three right now.

    I’m out of gas and heading to bed. Analysis tomorrow.



    Wisconsin Gov still too close to call.


    Takeaways seems to be:

  • Republicans tighten grip on senate
  • Democrats take the House.
  • Dumptrucks full of outside money and a good candidate can almost make Texas competitive.
  • Claire McCaskill concedes.


    Dems pick up Iowa 1.
    John Carter still up.


    Democrats pick up OK5.

    PBS praising Bloomberg for airdropping outside money into races.


    Scott Walker’s Gov race too close to call.

    Culberson looking like he’s going to lose.


    Never mind the election, Vincent Price is on the Carol Burnet Show on MeTV!


    Texas Lt. Gov Dan Patrick wins by six points, AG Ken Paxton by 4 points.


    McCaskill goes down, Heitkamp went down. “Just like the old Gypsy woman said!”



    Ted Cruz victory speech. He sounds really horse. Compliments O’Rourke on a hard-run race.

    “All the money in Hollywood couldn’t beat the good people of Texas!”


    Charlie Baker (R) reelected Governor of Massachusetts.




    Culberson behind in TX07.


    Nate Silver’s algorithm has evidently gone rogue. He’s now having to pull glowing memory sticks out of HAL.




    My state Rep. Tony Dale, currently behind John Bucy. Williamson County has gotten a lot more purple, alas.


    All republicans winning Texas statewide races, but more narrowly than expected. That Bobby Francis money is having a real effect.


    McMaster (R) wins SC Gov.


    Dems have picked up most of the PA redistricted competitive seats, but Republicans just got one.


    ABC projects Ted Cruz to win Texas!


    Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaking. Victory speech.


    NBC thinks Dems take the House.


    McSally up over MethLab in AZ.


    My congressmen, John Carter (R) up, but only by 2 points.


    Incumbent Democrats Sherrod Brown (OH) and Bob Casey (PA) projected as winners.


    Bob Sleazoid (D) declared winner in NJ Sen.


    Cruz now up 10,000 votes.


    Cruz 6,000 votes behind O’Rourke, 73% in.


    Cruz/O’Rourke virtually tied with 72% of vote in, with Midland/Odessa still out.


    O’Rourke up with 70% of the vote in. It would obviously be a huge upset if it holds. But I’m not sure 70% of thevote is actully in.


    Lindsey Graham (R-Like A Boss) on NBC.



    CBS calling WV for Manchin.


    Bob Schiffer says “The Senate is moving not only in Republican’s direction, but Trump’s direction.”


    Marsha Blackburn (R) called the winner in Tennessee.


    Cruz up by only 3% over O’Rourke. Hmmm.
    Braun declared winner over Donnelly. The last Stupak Bloc Flipper goes DOWN.


    They thawed out Tom Brokow.



    Election watching Rich: “I haven’t been this excited since Hillary Clinton won the White House.”


    Manchin (D) holding on in WV.


    “For the first time in Georgia, we have a progressive Democrat running in Georgia.” And she’s getting WHOMPED.


    They called KY for Barr (R) over McGarth (D), the candidate the MSM kept lauding. Suggests Dems won’t take house.

    Dave Brat still up by 1 pioint, 86% in.


    Stacey Abrams still getting walloped in Georgia,


    Hugin up by 4 point over Sleazeball (NJ). 6% in.


    DeSantis (R) up narrowly in Florida.


    Hugin (R) winning narrowly over Sleazebag (D) in New Jersey, 1% in.
    Hawley walloping Planetoid Claire, but only 1% in there as well.

    PBS: “No blue wave.”


    Frum Brooks has arms crossed on PBS. Not looking happy.


    Wow:

    Stacey Abrams (D) losing big early, but only 2% in.

    Braun still up 16 points with 27% in.


    Nancy Pelosi on PBS. Looks like she’s had another round of Botox.


    Republican Greg Pence, older brother of VP Mike pence, has reportedly been elected to Indiana’s 6th congressional district. (via Twitter)


    Florida Sen: Scott (R) 50.5%, Nelson (D) 49.5%, 4% in, via RCP.


    Indiana: Braun 58% to Donnelly’s 38% with 10% in (via PBS)
    No, delusional PBS host, O’Rourke did NOT run a negative-free campaign.


    5:50 PM: First results from Indiana via Real Clear Politics: “Donnelly 34.7, Braun 61.3, Brenton 4.0” with 2% reporting (presumably some early voting results).


    Just a placeholder for now, but I expect to start liveblogging/livetweeting the 2018 election starting at 7 PM CST.

    2018 Election Day Post

    November 6th, 2018

    Happy election day, everyone!

    1. Go vote, if you haven’t already.
    2. A list of Williamson County voting locations can be found here.
    3. A PDF of Travis County voting locations is here.
    4. A list of my endorsements for Round Rock ISD and other down-ballot Williamson races can be found here.
    5. I will be live-blogging/live-tweeting the election results tonight around 7 PM.

    Now some links:

  • “Early Voter Turnout Surges As Republicans Hold Lead In Battleground States.”
  • Last week: “Voters were told that DeSoto is a Democratic voting location only and if voting for any Republicans or write-ins they need to go north to Dallas.”
  • Borepatch covers the 2018 midterms as an exercise in game theory:

    The Middle Class has been playing cooperatively for decades, as the Progressives have been pushing and taking advantage of that cooperation. It’s worked very well for Progressives, and very badly for the Middle Class. As I said in that post (almost a year before the 2016 election) it led to the rise of Donald Trump.

    The last two years has been a series of Trump victories where he has shown the Middle Class that you can push back against the Progressives and win. I believe that this is a fundamental shift in American politics, as the “deplorables” have not only had enough, but have seen that they can win.

    Sure, the hard core Democrats hate Donald Trump with the fire of a thousand suns and will turn out heavily to vote against Republicans. But the rest of their party doesn’t seem to feel that way: Blue Collar/Union Democrats are making more money now, Blacks and Hispanics are making more money now, everyone has better employment prospects, Trump’s favorability numbers are up.

    There’s a split between the core of the party and the rest of the party.

    At the same time the Republican base has been energized and united – the Kavanaugh hearings in particular seem to have been a huge blunder for the Democrats. Sure, it energized the Democratic base, but it seems to have united the GOP base against them.

    And so we’re seeing big turnouts in early voting, and Republicans out voting Democrats pretty much everywhere. I don’t think that any of the election models predicted or planned for this, and so none of the polls or predictions carry any weight. Like I said, we’ll see tomorrow but I think it will be a glum evening for the Democrats.

    But I said earlier that this gives me hope for the Republic. The reason is that tit-for-tat results in a game theory stable outcome. If Republicans stick to push back, but also keep the Middle Class “we’re all in this together” spirit from the last few decades, game theory suggests that the Democrats may have to adjust to a less confrontational style of politics (if for nothing other than preventing the evaporation of the non-rabid part of their party). We’ll have to see how that plays out. As I said in my post 3 years ago:

    Tit For Tat is essentially a reputational game – get a bad reputation by screwing your opponent and you pay the price. The mathematics is unmistakeable on that.

    The Middle Class finally has an option to play against their opponent. An opponent who has a deservedly poor reputation.

    No wonder Trump’s support seems rock solid. The mathematics is unshakeable.

    If the Blue Wave disappears in the face of an enraged GOP base, then the Democrats will have to change their tactics – or keep losing elections.

  • “A reporter for a Michigan newspaper called Michigan Senate Republican candidate John James’s campaign looking for an interview and thought she hung up the phone before leaving a voicemail saying ‘fucking John James…that would suck.'” Note that polls show James within two points of Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow. (Update: The reporter has been fired. Good for the Huron Daily Tribune upholding basic journalistic standards. Meanwhile, racist Sarah Jeong is still employed by the New York Times…)
  • Heh:

  • Your Obligatory “Day Before the Election” Horserace Post

    November 5th, 2018

    Election day is tomorrow! So here’s a brief roundup of the state of play:

  • Here’s the way Real Clear Politics breaks down Senate races:

    They show North Dakota Democrat incumbent Heidi Heitkamp as gone, which already brings Republicans up to 50 seats with victories in Tennessee (likely) and Texas (even more likely).

    The races they have as tossups are:

    • Arizona: The late John McCain’s seat. I expect former fighter pilot and Republican Martha McSally to beat Kyrsten “Meth Lab of Democracy” Sinema based on the latter’s baggage and blunders, and the importance of border control to Arizona residents.
    • Florida: Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is in a very tough fight with Republican Governor Rick Scott, but Republican turnout seems to be surging. Keep in mind that in 2014, Scott beat the odious Charlie Crist by only 64,000 votes. It being Florida, it may not be decided until the recount.
    • Indiana: Democratic incumbent Joe Donnelly (D), the last of the Stupak Block Flipper still in office, has been in a virtual tie with Republican challenger Mike Braun. Trump walloped Hillary by 19 points in 2016, while Donnelly managed to eek out 50.04% of the vote in the very Democrat-friendly year of 2012. I think he’s toast and Braun wins.
    • Missouri: Republican challenger Josh Hawley has lead polls against incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill ever since the Kavanaugh vote in a state Trump won by 18 points in 2016. Stick a fork in her.
    • Montana: Incumbent Democrat Jon Tester should be in deep trouble in a state Trump won by 21 points, but polls show him with a small but sustained lead over challenger Matt Rosendale. Chalk this up as the toss-up Senate race Republicans are most likely to see slip away.
    • Nevada: Polls show Republican incumbent Dean Heller slightly behind challenger Jacky Rosen. See the mention of big crowds at Trump rallies further down in a state Hillary won by just over two points. Heller eked out a two point win in face of Obama’s big 2012, and I think he survives by the skin of his teeth this year as well.
    • West Virginia: You would think that Democratic incumbent Joe Manchin would be in deep trouble in a state where Trump walloped Hillary by 42 points, but he’s maintained a small but persistent lead over challenger Patrick Morrisey. The Last Blue Dog may survive 2018, but I suspect this one will go down to the wire.

    Any “Likely Democrat” races Republicans can pull an upset off in? Maybe New Jersey where, despite substantial leads, Democrats have been pouring last minute funds in to save indicted sleazebag Robert Menendez. But that’s a pretty high mountain for Republican challenger Bob Hugin to climb.

  • Vegas oddsmaker Wayne Allyn Root, who correctly predicted Trump’s upset win two years ago, similarly sees another GOP win in the offing:

    Don’t look now, but it’s all happening again. Nate Silver says Democrats have a 80%+ chance of winning the House. Cook Report says Democrats will win the House by 40 seats. All the experts say it’s over- Democrats will win. I’ll go out on a limb and disagree again.

    I see Florida Democrat Governor candidate Andrew Gillum holding a rally with Bernie Sanders and the whole place is empty.

    Barack Obama could not fill a high school gym in Milwaukee.

    I witnessed firsthand Joe Biden and Obama at separate events here in Las Vegas playing to small crowds.

    Meanwhile I was opening speaker for President Trump’s event in Las Vegas last month- with 10,000 waiting in line for hours in a place where no one cares much about politics. This is a phenomenon.

    Does that sound like the GOP is losing 40 seats? Dream on delusional Democrats.

  • National Review‘s Jim Geraghty sees Democrats pulling off an extremely narrow win to take the House.
  • One of the seats he see’s flipping is the Texas 32nd Congressional District, currently held by Republican Pete Sessions. The district went very narrowly (1.9%) for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but went for Romney by over 15 points in 2012. I tend to think Sessions barely wins reelection, based on a strong economy, the long-time Republican nature of the district, and incumbency.
  • My prediction: Republicans keep the Senate, and we won’t actually know if they keep the House until most of the recounts are done.

    Willie Horton, Willie Horton

    November 4th, 2018

    Ann Althouse links a Washington Post piece that declares “Trump revives ‘Willie Horton’ tactic with ad linking illegal immigrant killer to Democrats” based on this Trump tweet containing a (NSFW) ad:

    What can we learn from this?

    1. GOP ads talking about illegal alien crime must be working, or the Post wouldn’t be complaining about them. Remember, the Democratic Media Complex hates any advertising that’s effective for Republicans, so they seek ways to stigmatize them to deter Republicans from using them. That’s why they turned “Swift Boating” into a verb, because the Swift Vote Veterans for Truth ads were so effective at turning John Kerry’s self-mythologizing “Reporting for Duty” facade against him.
    2. They’re doubly effective with migrant caravans filled with criminals making their way to the U.S. border and Democratic campaign staffers illegally diverting campaign money to help them. All of which helps tie into the “Jobs Not Mobs” theme of the midterms.

    3. That’s why Democrats hated the various Willie Horton ads, because they were effective at painting Michael Dukakis as soft on crime. In the modern era, Democrats are congenitally soft on crime, due to victimhood identity politics. That’s why canny, centrist Democratic politicians went out of their way to inoculate themselves by way tough stances on crime. Hence Bill Clinton’s “superpredators” and him leaving the campaign trail to oversee the execution of convicted cop killer Ricky Ray Rector in 1992. That effectiveness is why the Democrat Media Complex tried so hard to label Willie Horton ads as racist in order to discourage future Republicans from using similar ads against soft-on-crime Democrats. It’s important to note that while third party ads showed Horton, George H. W. Bush campaign’s own “Revolving Door” ad never mentioned Horton by name:

    1. Hence the need for “racist dog-whistle,” which means “Republicans have come up with an effective tactic, so we need to call it racist.”
    2. All of which explains why Democrats have resurrected the ghost of the still-living convicted murderer Willie Horton, who committed rape while given one of Dukakis’ ill-advised “weekend furloughs” from prison. But the question remains why any of them think this tactic would be effective, as the race it was an issue in was 30 years ago. Anyone who was of voting age during the original Willie Horton controversy is at least 48 years old now. Do they think invoking Willie Horton is going to change the mind of anyone who was around at that time? Why not decry Douglas Stringfellow or Teapot Dome while you’re at it?

    Democrats know they’re losing the crime and border control debates badly, and are desperate to keep Republicans from using the issue against them. Judging from the volume of direct mail advertising I get mentioning the issue, they’re failing badly.

    Beto’s Boners & Bungles

    November 3rd, 2018

    Pretty soon we won’t have Robert “Bobby” Francis O’Rourke (AKA “Beto”) to kick around anymore, so let’s do a roundup of all his campaign’s most recent missteps, shall we?

    First up, front and center, are the Project Veritas sting videos that have O’Rourke staffers on camera admitting they’re diverting campaign funds to transport illegal alien caravan members to the United States:

    I believe the technical term for that is “campaign finance fraud.” Unless you prefer the term “embezzlement.”

    (Also, is it just me, or is there a distinct like of activity in those shots from O’Rourke field headquarters. No phone-calling, no envelope-stuffing, just…kicking back and hanging out. Evidently having more money than any senate candidate ever doesn’t buy you motivated staffers…)

    Then there’s that New York Times piece that, instead of the now-standard hagiography, actually reported on how O’Rourke got to where he is today: wealthy and powerful relatives, and a healthy dose of political self-dealing:

    At a special City Council meeting in 2006, a billionaire real estate investor unveiled his vision for redeveloping downtown El Paso. To replace tenements and boarded-up buildings, he proposed restaurants, shops and an arts walk rivaling San Antonio’s River Walk.

    Representative Beto O’Rourke, one of hundreds attending, wasn’t exactly a disinterested party.

    Not only had he married the investor’s daughter, but as a member of City Council, he represented the targeted area, including a historic Mexican-American neighborhood.

    Calling downtown “one piece of El Paso that was missing on the road back to greatness,” Mr. O’Rourke, now a congressman and the Democratic candidate for Senate in Texas, voted to take the first step forward with the plan.

    Over the next two years, Mr. O’Rourke would defend the plan before angry barrio residents and vote to advance it. At other times, he would abstain. Business owners who opposed the plan accused Mr. O’Rourke of a conflict, citing the involvement of his father-in-law, the billionaire developer William D. Sanders.

    Snip.

    Mr. O’Rourke was perceived by many as siding with the moneyed elite against angry barrio residents, small business owners and even the Jesuit priests who ministered to the immigrant community at Sacred Heart Church.

    “Mr. O’Rourke was basically the pretty face of this very ugly plan against our most vulnerable neighborhoods,” said David Dorado Romo, a local historian who added that the episode had resurrected longstanding race and class divisions in the city.

    Barrio residents feared that they would lose their homes through eminent domain, and a city-funded branding study suggested that the residents of El Paso were perceived as “dirty” and “lazy.’’ Among some constituents, the hurt feelings have lingered.

    Naturally there was great shock among O’Rourke fans that NYT would dare do actual reporting on a Democrat a week before the election. As Brandon Morse notes: “This deal O’Rourke was a part of has all the hallmarks leftists hate. Here’s a rich white guy screwing over poor minorities in order to further enrich himself and his family. Yet, for the longest time, you couldn’t get a peep out of mainstream press outlets.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

    Finally, there’s a new Emereson College poll that purportedly shows Sen. Ted Cruz up by only three points. By now you should know the reply every poll result brings up: show me the crosstabs. They oversampled Democrats and women. As usual.

    Thanks to his fundraising, I expect O’Rourke to lose by less than the 16% Cruz beat Democrat Paul Sadler by in 2012, much less the 20 points Greg Abbott walloped Wendy Davis by in 2014.

    But lose he will.

    LinkSwarm for November 2, 2018

    November 2nd, 2018

    I already voted and the election is next week, so there is light at the end of the tunnel! And if political bloggers are already sick of this election season, just think how sick of it ordinary voters are. None of which will keep me from live-blogging/live-tweeting it election night…

  • October economic statistics: “250,000 Jobs Added, Wages Increased 3.1%.”
  • How Democrats’ Kavanaugh ambush destroyed their own momentum:

    Six weeks ago, Democrats were expecting a blue wave to rival the Republican victory of 2010, when the GOP picked up 63 House seats. Everything was in their favor. History—the party in power almost always loses seats. Money—Democrats continue to outraise Republicans by staggering amounts. The opposition—some 41 GOP House members retired, most from vulnerable districts where Donald Trump’s favorability is low. Democrats were even positioned to take over the Senate, despite defending 10 Trump-state seats.

    Democrats obliterated their own breaker in the space of two weeks with the ambush of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The left, its protesters and its media allies demonstrated some of the vilest political tactics ever seen in Washington, with no regard for who or what they damaged or destroyed along the way—Christine Blasey Ford, committee rules, civility, Justice Kavanaugh himself, the Constitution. An uncharacteristically disgusted Sen. Lindsey Graham railed: “Boy, y’all want power. God, I hope you never get it!”

    A lot of voters suddenly agreed with that sentiment. The enormous enthusiasm gap closed almost overnight as conservative voters rallied to #JobsNotMobs. Even liberal prognosticators today forecast that Republicans will keep the Senate and Democrats will manage only a narrow majority in the House, if that. It’s always possible the polls are off, or that there is a last-minute bombshell. But it remains the case that the ascendant progressive movement blew an easy victory for Democrats.

  • Antisemetic hate crimes in New York are on the rise, yet “during the past 22 months, not one person caught or identified as the aggressor in an anti-Semitic hate crime has been associated with a far right-wing group.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • More facts about that “refugee caravan“:

    Over 270 individuals along the caravan route have criminal histories, including known gang membership. Those include a number of violent criminals – examples include aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, sexual assault on a child, and assault on a female. Mexican officials have also publicly stated that criminal groups have infiltrated the caravan. We also continue to see individuals from over 20 countries in this flow from countries such as Somalia, India, Haiti, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.

    (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • Georgia’s Democratic Candidate For Governor Calls For Banning AR-15s.” (Hat tip: Say Uncle.)
  • Are you ready for the Peak 2018 story? “Bomb Suspect Cesar Sayoc And Stormy Daniels Worked at the Same Strip Club.” I can only assume this is a viral marketing campaign for Florida Man: The TV Show.
  • Daniels, of course, not only had her lawsuit dismissed, but was ordered to pay President Trump’s legal fees. That may detour the Michael Avenatti for President juggernaut…
  • Giant Russian floating dry dock isn’t. It may or may not have damaged Amiral Kuznetsov, Russia’s only aircraft carrier (antiquated though it is) when it went down. Now the Russian Navy is in a world of hurt in the north because no other dry dock north of the Black Sea is capable of hosting either the Kuznetsov or many of Russia’s largest submarines. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • More reminders of just what sort of Administration Lightbringer McLegTingle ran:

  • President Trump slaps sanctions on Venezuela’s gold sector, denouncing the country as part of a “troika of tyranny” along with Cuba and Nicaragua. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Aww, no one wants to campaign with Bill Clinton anymore. “‘Inability to reckon with his sexual indiscretions’? Does the NYT use the phrase ‘sexual indiscretions’ when writing about other celebrities who’ve been accused of rape and sexual harassment?”
  • Workers walk out of Google in protest of their protecting sexual harassment among executives:

    Perhaps no company deserves to be destroyed by feminists, but if any company does, none deserves it more than Google. Having built the world’s most powerful search engine, the company then developed or purchased a series of other innovations — Gmail, YouTube, etc. After obtaining a hegemonic position in the online world, however, Google then inexplicably sold its corporate soul to “social justice” ideologues.

    The extent to which Google has been captured by left-wing totalitarians, and become an active agent of intellectual repression, became apparent last year after the company fired James Damore for writing an internal memo that criticized their “diversity” policies. Damore sued his former emoployer (“Google Lawsuit Exposes Stalinist Climate Protecting Anti-White, Anti-Male Bias,” Jan. 10) and Google was also subsequently sued by a former member of its “technology staffing management team” who said the company implemented illegal hiring quotas. Only female, black or Latino candidates were eligible for hiring at Google, the lawsuit by Arne Wilberg alleges, and recruiters were ordered to “purge entirely any applications by non-diverse employees.”

  • Texts from the Nevada Democratic Party: “F—K Trump. Stupid Republican retard. Trump is the anti-christ. Trump loves misery and hates Mexicans. Trump wants you to die. Trump wants to murder Mexicans.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • What the hell? “North Dakota Democrats Promote Message Telling Hunters They May Lose Their Licenses if They Vote.” (Hat tip: Greg Pollowitz in Twitter.)
  • “Trump declares his first national monument, honoring African-American troops.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • How The Guardian works: “Here are some slanted statistics and biased questions. Now let me know a good interview time so I can ask if you’ve stopped beating your wife yet.”
  • Whitey Bulger whacked.
  • In case it wasn’t clear from Black Mass, he was not a nice man.
  • In the UK, Huddersfield child gang rapists sentenced:

  • Roseanne without Roseanne=Roseanne without ratings.
  • Only one thing can save America: lots of yelling.
  • Game on.