Enjoy this traditional Easter offering of a .50 BMG round vs. a long row of Peeps. It’s hardly a fair fight…
.50 BMG vs. Peeps
March 27th, 2016Bomb Blast Targeting Christians in Lahore Pakistan Kills 56
March 27th, 2016Another day, another Jihad suicide bombing:
An explosion ripped through a crowded Pakistan park where Christians were celebrating Easter on Sunday, killing at least 56 people, officials told AFP.
About 150 people were injured when a suicide bomber detonated explosives in the parking area of Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park in the eastern city of Lahore, officials told Reuters.
The explosion reportedly occurred just outside the exit gate and near rides for children.
A police superintendent told Reuters most of the dead were women and children.
The Pakistani ISI has supported jihad as an instrument of state policy since at least the creation of the Taliban. It’s tempting to call the increasing number of in-country jihad attacks as blow-back, except I’m not entirely sure how much (if any) the ISI and their deep state allies really care about the deaths of Pakistani Christians…
That “Cruz Adultery” Story is Ludicrous
March 25th, 2016It looks like someone in Donald Trump’s orbit fed the National Enquirer a Ted Cruz adultery story originally peddled by Marco Rubio allies.
The story is pretty much laughable, not only for the fact that it’s deeply out of character, but also that it strikes me as logistically impossible.
Has no one ever seen Ted Cruz work on the campaign trail? The man’s a campaigning machine with a grueling schedule that would kill lesser mortals. When the hell is Cruz supposed to find time to have an affair? When on earth is he supposed to find time for one mistress, let alone five?
It’s almost as ludicrous a theory as Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls never being shot dead and secretly collaborating on a comeback album with Joe Biden.
Edited to add: Texas Monthly editor Erica Grieder finds the story as ludicrous as I do.
48 More Waco Bikers Indicted
March 25th, 2016Another update on the aftermath of the Waco shootout:
A Texas grand jury indicted 48 more bikers Wednesday in connection with a May 2015 shootout outside a Twin Peaks restaurant that left nine dead, bringing the total number of people facing felony charges to 154.
Prosecutors in Waco announced that all the bikers indicted are charged with engaging in organized criminal activity, meaning they’re accused of being complicit in the shooting that also left 20 people injured. They face 15 years to life in prison if convicted.
McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna won indictments against 106 other bikers in November. In a statement Wednesday, he did not rule out more indictments in what he called “an ongoing investigation.”
Six of the 48 people newly indicted have not been arrested, and their indictments remain under seal. But Reyna and the McLennan County district clerk’s office confirmed they were facing the same charge as other bikers. A spokeswoman for Reyna did not respond to a question about whether the grand jury declined to indict in any cases presented.
Reyna has been harshly criticized by attorneys who say he’s prosecuting dozens of bikers who were at the restaurant only for a peaceful gathering of motorcycle clubs.
Snip.
Prosecutors have not indicted anyone specifically for murder in the nine deaths. The organized criminal activity charge incorporates allegations that every person indicted was responsible for the deaths and injuries that ensued in the gunfire.
Dallas attorney Don Tittle said Wednesday’s indictments appeared to center on bikers who weren’t members of the two major clubs present — the Bandidos and the Cossacks — but rather part of smaller “support clubs.” Dozens of Bandidos and Cossacks have already been indicted.
DA Reyna seems to be working on the novel (to America, anyway) theory of “collective guilt,” that if he can just get a grand jury to indict every member of every motorcycle club present at Twin Peaks that day merely for being in a motorcycle club, that will make up for his inability to charge any individual with murder.
That’s not going to fly. Quantity is absolutely no substitute for quality in the criminal justice system. Ten months after the Twin Peaks shootout, public officials seem no closer to determining who killed who that day, and what role law enforcement overreaction and incompetence played in those deaths.
Most 538 Scenarios Show Trump Failing to Clinch 1,237 Delegates by the Convention
March 23rd, 2016For all that Donald Trump has roiled this primary season, he’s still far from clinching the nomination. In fact, the consensus scenario over at FiveThirtyEight shows him falling short at 1,208 delegates. More discussion of their methodology is here.
Note, however, that they had Trump picking up 4 delegates from Utah, when he actually picked up zero, meaning here’s already fallen (slightly) off their projected pace.
Trump could still win on the first ballot of the convention without an absolute majority of delegates going in, but that’s far from a sure thing. We could very well be headed for a brokered convention, and then all bets are off.
Cruz Wins Utah, Trump Wins Arizona
March 23rd, 2016Ted Cruz won Utah by over 50 points, with 69.2% of the vote to John Kasich’s 16.9%, with Donald Trump pulling 14% for third place. This means that Cruz picks up all 40 of Utah’s delegates.
Trump won Arizona by 46.9% to Ted Cruz’s 24.9%, which means he picks up all 58 of Arizona’s delegates.
Presidential Election Update for March 22, 2016
March 22nd, 2016Another important primary day, part of what seems a never-ending stream of them. There’s a republican primary in Arizona and a Republican caucus in Utah today. Mots recent polls have Cruz with a big lead in Utah, and Trump with a small er lead in Arizona.
The Democrats are kidding themselves if they think they are going to be able to rely on their usual attacks on Republicans with Donald Trump at the helm. They aren’t going to be able to launch into the tired war on women or talk about how Republicans hate poor people and sick people, etc., and make that stick. Nothing even close to those charges has stuck to Donald Trump so far. On CNBC, I recently likened Donald Trump to the dark force from the movie “The Fifth Element.” He seems to absorb attacks and grow in strength rather than be wounded.
Trump isn’t just a counter-puncher; he uses rhetorical counter-force weapons to deprive opponents of their favorite attacks. Remember how Trump stifled and silenced Hillary’s attempt to launch an attack on Trump as sexist? I would guess we will be hearing a lot more in the general election about Bill’s indiscretions and her complicit role in helping him concoct the lies and demonize his victims. But that will just be Trump getting warmed up. Trump will routinely go after Hillary Clinton in ways the Democrats have always thought would be off-limits. And he will do so to her face. The email controversies, the odd arrangements Hillary staffers had with the private sector, the coordination between the State Department and the Clinton foundation, the money that poured in from foreign and corporate sources who wanted easy access to the Clinton world, a variety of Clinton’s flaws and previous gaffes – even Chelsea’s employment – will all come roaring out of the Trump campaign. The Clinton campaign will spend a lot of time on their heels.
Democrats try to comfort themselves with the idea that there is no such thing as an Obama voter from 2008 or 2012 who will turn around and vote for Trump in 2016. It is easy to say Trump can’t win a general election. But that is the kind of rational thinking that has been applied to Trump ever since his campaign started. And it’s the kind of thinking that has been proven wrong time and time again. I can imagine Donald Trump pulling into a predominantly poor African-American neighborhood, standing on a platform, pointing to his wealth and saying, “If you want a chance to get rich, vote for me – look around, and if you want the status quo, vote for Hillary!” It could strike a chord with some young black voters who want a shot at a better life, not promises of incrementally more dependence and servitude to the Democratic establishment. I don’t dismiss the idea that Donald Trump could find a foothold in the African-American community.
Bomb Explodes in Brussels, 30+ Dead
March 22nd, 2016Twin blasts hit Zaventem airport at about 07:00 GMT, killing 11 people.
Another explosion struck Maelbeek metro station near the EU’s headquarters an hour later, leaving a further 20 people dead.
The Islamic State (IS) group said it was behind the attacks in a statement issued on the IS-linked Amaq agency.
An Islamic group responsible for a terrorist bombing? Inconceivable! Quick, someone Photoshop Brussels with a peace symbol! It’s vital Western Europe continue its Sacred Meaningless Gesture Rituals!
The New York Times has put the current death toll at 34. So in one day, Islamic terrorists have killed as many people as the Baader-Meinhof Gang/red Army faction killed in three decades.
One wonders if a bombing on its doorstep will finally shock the EU out of its complacency and denial regarding both the current wave of unchecked Islamic immigration and its refusal to deal systematically with the threat of jihad.
Merkel and the Revolt Against a Heedless Elite
March 21st, 2016Instapundit tweeted a link to this Der Spiegel piece on the success of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party against Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. It’s a lengthy and illuminating piece.
The immigration crisis is just the final straw for conservative German voters who have watched the Christian Democratic Union drift leftward. “He then lists all of the things that the CDU has done wrong in recent years: abandoning nuclear power, introducing a minimum wage, same-sex marriage…It is a rebellion targeting a CDU leader who has continually led her party to the left.”
But it’s more than that.
At its core, the rise of the AfD is the story of strife and of growing alienation between the chancellor and a portion of the German electorate. The triumph of the AfD is nothing less than a revolt against Angela Merkel.
It is a rebellion targeting a CDU leader who has continually led her party to the left, stripping many conservatives of a political home. It also targets a chancellor whose open borders policy in the refugee crisis may be attractive to left-leaning Germans, but is one which strikes more conservative voters as high-handed. Hotelier Schäfer, for his part, thinks it is naive to believe that so many Muslim refugees can be integrated into German society. “We are endangering our freedom when we take in too many people who don’t want this freedom,” he says.
Above all, however, the revolt is aimed at the chancellor as a symbol of the country’s elite — an elite which has supposedly lost sight of the people and their concerns. For many in Germany, Merkel has become the personification of a “ruling class” — a class that not only includes the CDU, the center-left Social Democrats and the Greens, but also business leaders, union leaders and the media.
Sound familiar?
When Merkel took over the CDU, she took a dispassionate view of the doctrines and rites that defined her party. She cleaned out the CDU’s political platform the way others dispose of worn socks from their sock drawer.
Old CDU traditions were of secondary concern for the new party chairwoman; she was more focused on expanding her party’s electorate. Instead of seeing politics as the great battle over the shape of society and grand ideas, she reduced it to strategy and the consolidation of power. She moved her party so far to the middle that it soon became difficult to distinguish it from the Social Democrats. She didn’t wrestle with the SPD over political positions, she simply copied theirs — and took over popular elements of the Green Party platform as well. Under her leadership, the CDU became a kind of Germany Party that leaned neither right nor left. Rather, it was “alternativlos,” as Merkel liked to say — there was no alternative.
Snip.
A vital part of any healthy democracy is having alternatives and parties that are distinguishable from each other. At the moment, it’s no longer possible to tell what it is that separates the CDU from the SPD or the Greens. The party is whatever Merkel says it is. There are close to no correctives left in Germany and there is no longer a balance of power. The more Merkel tries to peddle her policies as being without alternative, the greater the anger within the populace will grow.
The entire political situation in Europe arises from elites doing all they can to insulate their institutions and power from the crass rabble know as “voters.” But voters across Europe and America are sick and tired of the Permanent Incumbent Party doing what’s best for elite interests and ignoring the will of the voters.
And the longer elites refuse to change course, the more terrible the reckoning will be when it comes…