Sanders Refuses to Climb on the Cart

May 11th, 2016

Hillary Clinton and her sycophantic media have declared the Democratic presidential race over. Clinton has stopped spending money on primary advertising and her proxies have called for Bernie Sanders to drop out.

Evidently Sanders hasn’t gotten the memo. Last night he beat Clinton by 16 points in the West Virginia primary. Sanders is less than 300 pledged delegates behind Clinton, and says he’ll continue the fight all the way to the Democratic National Convention.

And a lot of Sanders supporters seem very, very bitter over Clinton’s dirty tricks and corruption, possibly far more than I’ve ever seen on the Democratic side of the race, at least since 1972 or so. Which may be the reason “a third of those who voted in West Virginia’s Democratic primary say they plan to back Trump in November, according to NBC News exit polls. Sanders won those voters by a wide margin. In fact, 39 percent of Sanders voters said they would vote for Trump over Sanders in the fall. For Clinton, nine percent of her voters say they plan to come out for Trump in the general election.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

In other Presidential race news:

  • Hillary helps out a Swiss bank, and the bank gives millions to the Clintons.
  • Trump surges in a new Reuters poll, now in a statistical dead heat with Clinton.
  • Other polls are also showing a tightening race. “A Harvard poll finds Clinton ahead only 46 percent to 40 percent nationwide and 45 to 41 in swing states; Quinnipiac finds Clinton leading by one point in Florida, leading by one point in Pennsylvania, and trailing by two points in Ohio.”
  • Rick Perry endorses Donald Trump.

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections | No Comments »

    Texas vs. California Update for May 10, 2016

    May 10th, 2016

    Time for another Texas vs. California update:

  • In a fiscal test of which states are best prepared for the next recession, Texas ranked best and California ranked worst. (Hat tip: Jack Dean of Pension Tsunami.)
  • And California didn’t just flunk the test, it flunked it badly. (Ditto)
  • A big reason is the top-heavy nature of income tax receipts. “Nearly half of the state’s personal income tax revenue comes from the top 1 percent of earners — 150,000 individual tax returns. And personal income tax revenue is 65 percent of total revenue, which means the One Percent provides 33 percent of the state’s total revenue.”
  • Here’s a handy comparison of Texas vs. California debt ratios using a number of different metrics. You can also look at several different metrics with the general pension tracker tool, put together by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • The same source tells us that California has the third highest market/pension debt ratio in the country, while Texas ranks 34th.
  • “During the Great Recession and since, Texas has been America’s jobs engine, creating 34 percent of all U.S. civilian jobs during the last eight years in a state with less than 10 percent of the nation’s population.”
  • Moody’s downgrades bond ratings for the Pasadena Unified School District right when the district passes a 6% salary increase.
  • Reno is increasingly benefiting from companies relocating from California.
  • Texas company wants to store California’s nuclear waste.
  • “In 2014, a study by the conservative American Enterprise Institute found that full-career state workers in five states — California, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas and West Virginia — earned more in retirement income than in their final salary.” I’m pretty sure Texas salaries on average were significantly lower than California’s, and that there were less of them…
  • Court strikes down California Attorney General Kamala Harris’s unconstitutional attempt to compel conservative nonprofits to reveal their donors. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ. )
  • Bay area law enforcement offices have “lost” over 500 guns since 2010.
  • The headquarters for Jamba Juice is relocating from Emeryville, California to Frisco, Texas. (Hat tip: Jack Dean of Pension Tsunami.)
  • The U.S. headquarters for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries relocated from New York to Houston.

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    Posted in Budget, Crime, Democrats, Guns, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 2 Comments »

    GOP Fundraiser Proposes Stupid VP Pick

    May 9th, 2016

    A fundraiser for the National Republican Senatorial Committee asked people to vote on a list of choices for Donald Trump’s Vice Presidential running mate. Never mind that they left off Ted Cruz, Rick Perry and Paul Ryan, the biggest problem is someone they included among the choices: Rudy Giuliani.

    Since both Trump and Giuliani are from New York, Giuliani would be ineligible to receive New York’s electoral college votes as Trump’s vice presidential running mate under Article Two, Section 1, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution, which states: “The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves.”

    Some hold that this would prevent New York electoral college voters from voting for a Trump-Giuliani ticket at all, others that they could vote for Trump, but refrain from voting for Giuliani.

    In either case it’s a mess that should be avoided…

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans | No Comments »

    Turns Out Japanese People Are Just Fine With “Whitewashing”

    May 8th, 2016

    One of the latest bullshit Social Justice Warrior accusations is “whitewashing” (a subset of the bullshit “cultural appropriation” accusation) in which they condemn white actors for playing roles originated by non-white actors.

    So how do Japanese people feel about Scarlet Johansson playing Major Kusanagi in the live-action remake of the Japanese anime Ghost in the Shell?

    They’re just fine with it.

    In other news, every non-Italian actor and actress who has ever played Romeo or Juliet is a racist…

    (Aside: I actually think the plotlines of Ghost in the Shell:Stand Alone Complex series were a lot more compelling than those of the two movies…)

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    Posted in Social Justice Warriors, video | 1 Comment »

    Adventures in Drunk Driving

    May 7th, 2016

    Not to go all public servicey on you, but don’t drink and drive. Especially if you have children in the car.

  • Call Greg Redux: Billings lawyer Michele Lynn Braukmann arrested with a .247 blood alcohol content (BAC), an open bottle of vodka and three kids in the car, tells officer not to arrest her because she has “the police chief on speeddial.”
  • And this supergenius was found slumped in his car with a BAC of .604 and two kids in the car. Keep in mind that any BAC above .4 is potentially lethal from the alcohol poisoning alone. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
  • Strangely enough, that doesn’t even make the top 10 highest recorded blood alcohol levels. Number One was a South African sheep thief with a BAC of 1.41%.
  • No word on the BAC here, but you have to be pretty drunk to drive your car into a house.
  • Also, don’t drink and steer, like this Louisiana fisherman sentenced to 20 years for steering his commercial fishing boat into a dock, his fourth DUI offense.

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    Posted in Crime | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm for May 6, 2016

    May 6th, 2016

    Still digesting the Trump victory and what it means. In the meantime, have some links:

  • Roger Simon thinks Republicans should take a time out. Pretty much what I said a few days ago, though Simon is saying we should take a week rather than a day. Still good advice. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • “Trump is the warning shot. He’s the food riots before the revolution. He’s the stack of letters to the editor in protest over some issue. People do not go from happy to bloody revolt overnight. It’s a process and the early stages are warnings, at least they should be viewed as warnings. If the people in Washington insist on flooding the country with helot labor, despite what’s happening in the election, the people are going to insist on building scaffolds in Washington. The Trump phenomenon is the warning.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Five reasons why Trump might do better than expected. (Hat tip: Real Clear Politics.)
  • “The Hillary Story is far less entertaining than The Trump Story…Clinton is rich, and morally and ethically corrupt. So is Trump. But at least he’s entertaining.” Note: That’s from Jonah Goldberg, with whom Trump has exchanged numerous rounds of insults and putdowns. Goldberg seems much further along the Kubler-Ross cycle than his NRO compatriots…
  • How Hillary Clinton plans to disarm Americans. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • How the liberal welfare state destroyed black America. Not news to anyone who’s read Charles Murray’s Losing Ground (which came out over 30 years ago), but how many have? (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • North Carolina to the Obama Administration: Bite me.
  • Germany wants its own army controlling Europe. I think we’ve all seen that movie before…(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Larry Correia visits Europe. “I would like to institute autobahn style rules on I-15 in Utah. Sure, a few thousand people would probably die in the first weekend, but after that it would be awesome….The Czechs are a fun people. They have this kind of to hell with it sense of humor that meshes really well with mine. They’re big on long meals and animated conversations. They really hate socialists.”
  • Former McDonald’s CEO says that a $15 minimum wage will mean replacing humans with robots and self-service kiosks. But what would he know about fast food? (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Research following contestants on The Biggest Loser brings bad news about dieting: “As the years went by and the numbers on the scale climbed, the contestants’ metabolisms did not recover. They became even slower, and the pounds kept piling on. It was as if their bodies were intensifying their effort to pull the contestants back to their original weight.”
  • Everything you know about Ty Cobb is wrong. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)

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    Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Elections, Guns, Military, Republicans, Welfare State | 1 Comment »

    Venezuela’s So Poor Soldiers Steal Goats To Survive

    May 5th, 2016

    For all the depression over an ascendant Donald Trump, let’s remember remember that a lot of other countries, much further down the road to serfdom than we are, have it much worse.

    Take, for example, Venezuela, where The Magic Power of Socialism™ has so wrecked the economy that soldiers are stealing goats to survive:

    Over the weekend, six members of the Venezuelan military were detained by local authorities for stealing goats, the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional reported Sunday. It said the soldiers confessed to stealing the goats and said they did it to feed themselves, since they had no food left in their barracks.

    “It’s not a good sign when your military doesn’t have enough food, and when the military has been relegated to guarding and protecting food lines,” said Jason Marczak, director of the Latin America Economic Growth Initiative at the Atlantic Council. “This is endemic of the problems going on across the country.”

    A military without enough food to eat. Boy, that’s a swell recipe for happiness in Latin America. (Hat tip: Instapundit.) As the Washington Post‘s Wonkblog put it: “It’s a grim race between anarchy and civil war.”

    Venezuela’s opposition evidently has enough votes to recall idiot socialist President Nicolas Maduro:

    Venezuela’s right-wing opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), turned over 1.8 million signatures in support of a recall referendum against President Nicolas Maduro to the National Electoral Council (CNE) on Monday.

    As part of the initial requirement to solicit a recall, the MUD was given 30 days to collect signatures from 1 percent of the electorate in each of the 23 states– 197,721 total signatures nationwide– a target which the coalition managed to surpass in a matter of days, accruing as many as 2.5 million overall.

    There are still considerable barriers to a recall election even if the government doesn’t cheat (and what are the odds of that?).

    Also, beer production has stopped. Just an all-around recipe for for happiness.

    So cheer up, America! We have to face the horror of a Clinton-Trump presidential race, but at least we’ll do so with food, water, electricity and beer…

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    Posted in Budget, Communism, Military, Welfare State | No Comments »

    John Kasich Finally Abandons The Delusion He’s a Presidential Candidate

    May 4th, 2016

    John Kasich finally acknowledged reality that he’s not a serious Presidential candidate, something that’s been apparent to objective observers for months.

    Maybe he had a bet with someone he could stay in the race longer than Ted Cruz…

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans | No Comments »

    Warren Zevon: “I Was in the House When the House Burned Down”

    May 4th, 2016

    Seems like a good day for a musical interlude, and this seems like a good choice for today…

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    Posted in video | No Comments »

    Everybody Take a Deep Breath

    May 4th, 2016

    If you’re a conservative, today is probably going to be rough.

    We’re certainly living through interesting times, but today is not the day to apply for Australian citizenship, burn down the nearest Republican Party headquarters, or climb up on a high ledge.

    Ted Cruz is still a Senator, the Constitution hasn’t been nullified overnight (as much as the Supreme Court is working on it), and Republicans still hold majorities in the House, Senate and Governor’s mansions that owe no allegiance to Donald Trump.

    America survived a revolution, a civil war, two World Wars, the Cold War, disco, and Barack Obama. It will survive Donald Trump.

    Now’s a good day to take a deep breath, hug your kids, kiss your wife, pet your dog, and put off thinking about politics until you’re less angry and depressed.

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    Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

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