Breaking: Bernie’s Blocked Arteries

October 2nd, 2019

Bernie Sanders has been hospitalized with blocked arteries. He’s suspended campaign events.

This should shake up the race. And Elizabeth Warren must have a very good voodoo doll maker on staff.

Update: He’s had surgery to have two stents installed. Seeing reports he’s cancelled Iowa ad buys as well. Hmmm…

Is Your Minimum Wage $15 An Hour? Behold Your Future!

October 2nd, 2019

If you live in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, or anyplace else the minimum wage is $15 an hour, and work in kitchen prep, behold your future:

After three years of quietly toiling away on a robotic food system, Seattle startup Picnic has emerged from stealth mode with a system that assembles custom pizzas with little human intervention.

Picnic — previously known as Otto Robotics and Vivid Robotics — is the latest entrant in a cohort of startups and industry giants trying to find ways to automate restaurant kitchens in the face of slim margins and labor shortages.

Snip.

Picnic’s platform assembles up to 300 12-inch pizzas per hour, far faster than most restaurants would be able to make the dough, bake and serve the pizzas. That speed comes in handy in places where large numbers of orders come in during a rush, such as at a stadium or in large cafeterias. It’s also compact enough that it could theoretically be installed in a food truck.

Machines have been making frozen pizzas for years, but Picnic’s robot differs in a few respects. It’s small enough to fit in most restaurant kitchens, the recipes can be easily tweaked to suit the whims of the restaurants, and — most importantly — the ingredients are fresh….The robot is also highly customizable, comprised of a series of modules that dole out what

There is a catch: “The dough preparation, sauce making and baking — the real art of pizza — is left in the capable, five-fingered hands of people.” How long do you think it will take before that part is automated as well?

I don’t think it’s any accident this startup hails from Seattle.

I don’t know how it tastes, but I’d certainly be willing to give it a try.

As always, the true minimum wage is “Zero.”

Why Nancy Pelosi Is Screwed

October 1st, 2019

Interesting piece on the politics and timing of the impeachment vote.

Why green-light the Full Monty impeachment farce three days later, when it was clear as day that this “bombshell” was already fizzling, just like all the other “bombshells”?

The answer is simple: the absence of impeachable offenses makes no difference whatsoever, because the outcome is pre-determined, and Pelosi’s options are stark: start the impeachment now, and retain control of the narrative, or start a month or two from now, and lose control completely, with the impeachment hearings dragging on into the primary season.

Pelosi understands perfectly that an election where the Democratic Party is framed as a single-issue party, whose sole concern is an impeaching a president over two casual sentences in a phone call, will be catastrophic. But she has run out of rope.

Impeachment proceedings are a given, because her caucus now almost unanimously demands it, and her caucus demands it because the Democratic Party has been hijacked by the Resistance crazies and the hard left. Pelosi has also run out of cute euphemisms for impeachment—the usual Pelosi mumbo-jumbo, like “inquiry,” “investigation,” and “official inquiry,” no longer work without giving the crazies the real deal.

Pelosi had to get ahead of the tidal wave before it drowned her. As Spartan women used to say to their men, “Return with the shield, or on it.” Pelosi, who generally does not lack in political courage, would rather return with the shield this time, and live to fight another day. So she chose the better of two bad options.

Snip.

With the House vote done by December, Pelosi can congratulate the troops, and move on, regardless of the result (not that it’s in any doubt). She can then proudly proclaim that the House Democrats have been diligent in saving the republic, while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and those nasty obstructionist unpatriotic Republicans in the Senate refuse to see the light.

With a straight face, she can tell the lunatics and the impeachment fanatics that she has given them exactly what they asked for, and that it is up to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer now. Then she can privately breathe a sigh of relief.

Pelosi can then spend 2020 working to retain her House majority, while hoping Republican voters lose their energy by next November. Democratic candidates can spend the next year talking about something else, anything else, and at least have a chance of defeating Trump.

Pelosi knows that if impeachment is on the voters’ minds next year, Trump will be reelected in a tsunami. Her majority and speakership will go the way of the Dodo bird. The only way to change that narrative is to do the impeachment show now, and forget all about it next year.

Read the whole thing. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.) However, his idea that the Senate can have a quick up-and-down vote on impeachment simply won’t happen. Article I, Section 3, Paragraph 6 of the United States Constitution states:

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

That means a real trial, presided over by Chief Justice John Roberts. That also means that President Trump’s defense team will probably be able to compel witnesses to testify, and given the Constitutional nature of the proceedings, it is entirely possible that witnesses will not be able to plead Fifth Amendment rights and refuse such testimony. Let the Senate call James Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Rep. Adam Schiff, Hunter Biden, Andrew McCabe, Bruce and Nellie Ohr and every Fusion GPS and CrowStrike employee involved in both the Russian collusion hoax and Hunter Biden’s crooked dealings in the Ukraine.

The Clinton impeachment lasted a month, had thirteen House members stating the case for the prosecution, and dealt with a much narrower case and criteria. There’s no reason a Trump impeachment wouldn’t take three to six times as long for a much more complex and sprawling case.

If Democrats want an impeachment, let’s give them an impeachment, good and hard.

Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for September 30, 2019

September 30th, 2019

The Biden clan gets rich, Klobuchar kills a duck, O’Rourke threatens a kitten and calls Journey punk rock, while Yang channels The Dead Kennedys and the Q3 fundraising deadline looms. It’s your Democratic Presidential clown car update!

Polls

Too damn many polls this time around…

  • CNN (Nevada): Biden 22, Sanders 22, Warren 18, Harris 5, Buttigieg 4, Steyer 4, Yang 3, Booker 2, Gabbard 1, Klobuchar 1, Ryan 1, Williamson 1. 4% is as high as we’ve seen Steyer in any poll. Is his airdropping money on his campaign finally moving the needle?
  • CNN (South Carolina): Biden 17, Warren 16, Sanders 11, Buttigieg 4, Harris 3, Steyer 3, Booker 2, O’Rourke 2, Gabbard 1, Klobuchar 1. These numbers are from the RealClearPolitics summary, as they’ve double-linked the Nevada poll on their source link.
  • Harvard/Harris: Biden 28, Warren 17, Sanders 16, Harris 6, O’Rourke 3, Buttigieg 3, Yang 3, Castro 2, Booker 2, Steyer 2, Klobuchar 1, Gabbard 1. be prepared to click the zoom button a lot…
  • Quinnipiac: Warren 27, Biden 25, Sanders 16, Buttigieg 7, Harris 3, O’Rourke 2, Klobuchar 2, Castro 2, Yang 2, Bennet 1.
  • Economist/YouGov (page 185): Warren 25, Biden 25, Sanders 16, Buttigieg 7, Harris 6, O’Rourke 2, Yang 2, Gabbard 1, Castro 1, Klobuchar 1, Delaney 1, Bennet 1, Ryan 1, Bullock 1.
  • LA Times/Berkeley (California): Warren 29, Biden 20, Sanders 19, Harris 8, Buttigieg 6, O’Rourke 3, Yang 2, Klobuchar 2, Booker 1, Castro 1, Gabbard 1, Bennet 1.
  • Landmark Communications (Georgia): Biden 41.4, Warren 17.4, Sanders 8.1, Harris 5.6, Buttigieg 4.9, Booker 2.0, Yang 1.9, O’Rourke 1.4, Klobuchar 1.1, Gabbard 0.8, Bennett(sic) 0.1, Steyer 0.1, Castro 0.0. While I should theoretically appreciate the greater precision, I don’t understand how you get a 0.1 out of a sample of 500. Doesn’t that work out to half a person?
  • Goucher College (Maryland): Biden 33, Warren 21, Sanders 10, Harris 6, Buttigieg 5, Klobuchar 1. Yang 1, Booker 1, O’Rourke 1, Delaney 1.
  • Emerson Biden 26, Warren 23, Sanders 22, Yang 8, Buttigieg 6, Harris 4, Booker 2, Castro 2, O’Rourke 1, Ryan 1, Gabbard 1, Sestak 1, Williamson 1. Small sample size of 462, but 8 is a new high for Yang. A couple more points and he’s in Ron Paul territory…
  • Politico/Morning Consult: Biden 32, Warren 20, Sanders 19, Harris 6, Buttigieg 5, Booker 3, O’Rourke 3, Yang 3, Klobuchar 2, Bennet 1, Bullock 1, Castro 1, Delaney 1, Gabbard 1, Ryan 1, Steyer 1, Williamson 1.
  • Monmouth (New Hampshire): Warren 27, Biden 25, Sanders 12, Buttigieg 10, Harris 3, Booker 2 Gabbard 2, Klobuchar 2, Steyer 2, Yang 2, O’Rourke 1, Williamson 1.
  • USA Today/Suffolk (Nevada): Biden 23.2, Warren 19.4, Sanders 14.2. Harris 3.8, Buttigieg 3.4, Yang 3.0, Steyer 2.8, Booker 2.4, Bullock 1, O’Rourke 1.
  • Real Clear Politics
  • 538 polls
  • Election betting markets
  • Pundits, etc.

    Today is the Q3 fundraising deadline, so expect leading candidates to crow about their respective hauls right after I click Publish.

  • Which candidate is putting the most money into campaign ads? Right now, Steyer…and almost nobody else.

    The other candidates have not yet started seriously spending on TV. To date, most candidates have been committed more resources to Facebook and Google ads than to television ads (Pete Buttigieg, for example, has spent $5.3 million on digital vs. just $302,200 on TV). After Steyer, the active candidate who has spent the most on TV is Joe Biden, who has aired 882 spots for an estimated $384,220, almost all of it in Iowa.

  • Evidently Saturday Night Live is still on, and they had a DNC Town Hall skit Saturday:

  • If you think this section is light this week, you’re right: I think the impeachment nothingburger has sucked a lot of the air out of the room for the 2020 race. One way or another, Trump always manages to do that…
  • Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: In. Twitter. Facebook. Says he’s staying in the race until New Hampshire. Gets a Politico interview, says he’s not on the impeachment train. Also says far left candidates hurt Democratic chances of beating Trump. He’s the third richest Democrat running, behind Steyer and Delaney. “Within days of the appointment [to the senate in 2009], Bennet sold off at least $2 million worth of stock, in companies like Philip Morris, Eli Lilly and Chevron, according to federal filings.”
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Wherever Joe Biden went, son Hunter cashed in.”

    Biden has been leading the Democratic field. The central case for his candidacy rests on the supposedly exemplary work he did as a senior member of Team Obama. Well, in 2016, acting as the Obama administration’s point man in Ukraine, the vice president — unlike Trump — openly threatened to withhold $1 billion in American loan guarantees if the embattled nation didn’t fire the country’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin.

    As Biden later bragged, “I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.’ ”

    Most of the media assure us that, though by the Democrats’ new standards this kind of ­intimidation constitutes a flagrant abuse of power, Biden’s reasons for threatening Ukraine were chaste.

    But simply repeating this talking point doesn’t make it true. Granted, Shokin was a shady character. Yet at some point he had been investigating Burisma, the largest gas company in Ukraine, which also happened to be paying Hunter Biden a $50,000 monthly salary as a board member.

    By coincidence, Hunter had landed this cushy gig in a foreign country only a few months after the Obama ­administration began dispatching his father, Joe, to the very same foreign country on a regular basis.

    There was, of course, absolutely nothing in Hunter’s résumé to indicate that he would be a valuable addition to foreign energy interest. He didn’t speak the language, and he had no particular expertise in the energy industry. Oh, he did have one thing, though: his last name.

    I suppose, that isn’t entirely fair. Hunter once ran a hedge fund with his dad’s brother, James Biden, and associated with a notorious Ponzi schemer. James would go on to snag a job as executive vice president of a construction company in 2010, despite having virtually no experience in the field. And only a few months into his tenure, the company would win one of its biggest contracts in its history, a $1.5 billion deal to build affordable homes in Iraq.

    By pure happenstance, Joe was also the Obama administration’s point man in Iraq at the time. Funny how these things work out.

    Liberal reporters, who are framing Trump’s conversation with Zelensky as the most perilous threat in the ­republic’s history, have shown little curiosity about Biden’s dealings with the Ukrainian government. Many media personalities, in fact, have rallied to ­Biden’s defense, calling any intimation of wrongdoing a smear.

    NBC’s Chuck Todd dismissed any Biden talk as a mere distraction. CNN called questions into the former vice president’s actions “baseless.” Other liberals now argue that the Biden firing of Shokin actually worked against the interests of Hunter.

    We have no way of knowing if this is true, either. According to The New York Times, Hunter’s work for Burisma had “prompted concerns” among Obama administration State Department officials, because it undermined diplomacy in Ukraine. Was Biden really the only person available to pressure Ukrainian officials while his son was raking in the cash? Does anyone really believe Biden’s claims that he never once spoke to his 49-year-old son about business in the two years they spent working in the same country?

    A comprehensive timeline of Hunter Biden’s business dealings:

    Late Summer 2006: Hunter Biden and his uncle, James Biden, purchase the hedge fund Paradigm Global Advisors. According to an unnamed executive quoted in Politico in August, James Biden declared to employees on his first day, “Don’t worry about investors. We’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden.” At this time, Joe Biden is months away from becoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and launching his second bid for president.

    The unnamed executive who spoke to Politico charged that the purchase of the fund was designed to work around campaign-finance laws:

    According to the executive, James Biden made it clear that he viewed the fund as a way to take money from rich foreigners who could not legally give money to his older brother or his campaign account. “We’ve got investors lined up in a line of 747s filled with cash ready to invest in this company,” the executive remembers James Biden saying.

    It’s not just Hunter:

    Joe Biden’s brother told executives at a healthcare firm that the former vice president’s cancer initiative would promote their business, according to a participant in the conversation, who said the promise came as part of a pitch on behalf of potential investors in the firm.

    The allegation is the latest of many times Biden’s relatives have invoked the former vice president and his political clout to further their private business dealings. It is the first that involves the Biden Cancer Initiative, a project Joe Biden made the centerpiece of his post-White House life following the death of his son Beau.

    Biden’s brother, James, made the promise to executives at Florida-based Integrate Oral Care during a phone call on or around November 8, 2018, according to Michael Frey, CEO of Diverse Medical Management, a health-care firm that is suing James Biden. At the time, James Biden’s business partners were pursuing a potential investment in Integrate, according to Frey and court records. Frey, who had a business relationship with James Biden and his associates, had introduced the group to Integrate.

    James Biden told the Integrate executives that he would get the Biden Cancer Initiative to promote an oral rinse made by the firm and used by cancer patients, Frey, who said he participated in the call, told POLITICO. He added that James Biden directly invoked the former vice president on the call. “He said his brother would be very excited about this product,” Frey said.

    “Is Impeaching Trump Really About Kneecapping Joe Biden?”

    Make no mistake: This is a risky game the Democrats are playing. On the one hand, their most energetic voters practically demand Trump’s immediate removal. On the other hand, most voters are apathetic at best to the idea of impeachment, and will probably turn against it quite sharply if yet another investigation fails to reveal enough dirt on Trump. But as I wrote at Instapundit earlier today, maybe the only thing worse to the Democrats’ kamikaze wing than not going ahead with an impeachment inquiry would be an unsuccessful one.

    But for some Democrats, that might be a risk worth taking. So let’s go back to our earlier thought, courtesy of GMU law prof David Bernstein.

    The payoff here for “some very powerful Democrats” — and it wouldn’t be prudent to point fingers at anyone in particular — might be well worth the risk. Weaken Trump and force Biden out of the race, probably before Iowa? You can picture a particular presidential candidate or three saying “Deeeeeeliiiiiicious” in their best Dr. Evil voice.

    How bad is the scandal hurting Biden? “Biden Campaign Demands TV News Execs Stop Booking Giuliani.” Long 538 piece on Biden’s popularity among black voters, and how he could lose it.

    In order to win the nomination in a crowded race, Biden needs to cultivate support across demographic groups, to at least feint at his ability to win back the Obama coalition in the general election. His bedrock of support is black voters. Black voters made up around one-quarter of the 2016 Democratic primary electorate and are a crucial demographic group for any candidate. According to Gallup, 63 percent of non-Hispanic black Democratic voters self-identify as moderate or conservative. This, even as the Democratic Party overall has gotten more liberal — 2018 was the first year that over half of Democrats (51 percent) identified as liberal (in 1994, that number was only 25 percent.)

    But while black voters have remained more moderate or conservative, white voters have become increasingly likely to identify as liberal — 65 percent of non-Hispanic white Democrats called themselves liberal and have become rapidly more liberal on issues of race over the past 10 years. With white liberals comprising a key demographic not just in the first two primary states, Iowa and New Hampshire, but also in the media, it’s no wonder that Biden’s campaign has felt the pile-on of Twitter chatter.

    Caveat: Includes analysis from Al Sharpton.

  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. Announced he met the donor threshold for the November debates. Can he raise enough money to stay in?
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: In. Twitter. Facebook. Unveiled a public lands proposal.
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. Plans to take on Sanders and Warren on socialized medicine. He campaigned in Reno. At a campaign stop in Sparks, he was literally left in the dark during a power outage.
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. Swears he’s not going to run for the senate even if he drops the presidential run. Which is understandable, since (like O’Rourke) he would lose either. “Julián Castro’s campaign manager says fundraising email not ‘a threat to quit.'” Like I said last week about Booker, it’s the standard campaign solicitation shuck.
  • Former Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. His Iowa State Director Monica Biddix left the campaign to “pursue other opportunities,” which is hardly reassuring for Delaney’s longshot hopes. “His campaign announced later Friday that it had named Brent Roske the new Iowa state director. Roske earlier served as Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson’s Iowa state director.” I’m guessing this is a step up in neither prestige nor likelihood of success, but probably a much stronger chance of receiving additional paychecks until the caucuses. BEEEEEFCAAAAKE!
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. Qualifies for October debate. Caves on impeachment. Every day a little more of her “not quite as insane as the rest” credibility slips down the drain.
  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. Declining popularity in her home state. “The highs and lows of Kamala Harris’ roller coaster summer.” You know, the sort of roller coaster that climbs one big hill near the beginning, and then it’s all downhill…
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Twitter. Facebook. She killed a duck while golfing. The fact this is the big news of the week for her should give you an inkling of her chances…
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: In. Twitter. Facebook. No Messam news this week. Trust me, I looked.
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: In. Twitter. Facebook. He’s reached the “don’t give a shit” phase of his campaign, or at least he’s come up with a brand new form of phoniness. Also commits the unpardonable sin of calling Journey “punk rock.” “Give me money or I’ll kill this kitten!”
  • Ohio Representative Tim Ryan: In. Twitter. Facebook. Says he’s not dropping out.
  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Plans to step up the campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire. He wants national rent control, because he’s obviously not satsified with it just screwing up New York and California. Wants to register but not ban AR-15s.
  • Former Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak: In. Twitter. Facebook. Appeared at something called the Harry Hopkins Democratic Dinner in Sioux City, Iowa.
  • Billionaire Tom Steyer: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets interviewed by the Council on Foreign Relations. Naturally he’s crowing about leading the impeachment charge.
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. It’s not just the Biden Family profiting from the insider sleaze. “Elizabeth Warren’s daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, is reportedly chairwoman [of] Demos, a liberal think tank, which gave the Working Families Party $45,000 in 2017-2018. This is significant because the Working Families Party just issued a surprise endorsement of Elizabeth Warren for president.” What do you know, some people are taking that unconstitutional wealth tax proposal personally: “Wall Street Democratic donors warn the party: We’ll sit out, or back Trump, if you nominate Elizabeth Warren.”

    Some big bank executives and hedge fund managers have been stunned by Warren’s ascent, and they are primed to resist her.

    “They will not support her. It would be like shutting down their industry,” an executive at one of the nation’s largest banks told CNBC, also speaking on condition of anonymity. This person said Warren’s policies could be worse for Wall Street than those of President Barack Obama, who signed the Dodd-Frank bank regulation bill in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown.

    She’s all about leading the charge…except when it comes to fulfilling her actual senate voting duties:

  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets a New York magazine profile. “How Spiritual Snobs Became the New One Percent. Enlightenment is the new status symbol for the elite, and Jack Dorsey, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Marianne Williamson the undisputed gods of the wellness aristocracy.” Eh, it’s a sort of irritating, scattershot attack on a real issue. Oh, and in that SNL skit, Williamson appeared via astral projection…
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. While Beto was calling Journey punk rock, Yang was declaring his devotion to the real thing:

    $5 for anyone who can find a video of him doing a karaoke cover of “Holiday in Cambodia.” Gets a BBC profile. He proposed a VAT, which a New York Times writer says will raise more money than Warren’s wealth tax. In truth, both will earn exactly the same amount: zero, since neither has a hope in hell of passing.

  • Out of the Running

    These are people who were formerly in the roundup who have announced they’re not running, for which I’ve seen no recent signs they’re running, or who declared then dropped out:

  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti
  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams
  • Actor Alec Baldwin.
  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown
  • Former one-term President Jimmy Carter
  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
  • New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
  • New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (Dropped out September 20, 2019)
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (Dropped out August 29, 2019)
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum
  • Former Vice President Al Gore
  • Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (Dropped out August 2, 2019)
  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (Dropped out August 15, 2019; running for Senate instead)
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: Dropped Out (Dropped out August 21, 2019; running for a third gubernatorial term)
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe
  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley
  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton (dropped out August 23, 2019)
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda (Dropped out January 29, 2019)
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (constitutionally ineligible)
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell (Dropped out July 8, 2019)
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey
  • Like the Clown Car update? Consider hitting the tip jar:





    Bill Maher Slams White Guilt

    September 29th, 2019

    Ignore the usual “white privilege” throat clearing, as Bill Maher takes aim at the risible nature of white liberal guilt:

    “Hating all whites is just tedious virtue signaling.”

    (Hat tip: Jack Posobiec on Twitter.)

    Will Hurd Running For President? That’s Not Happening

    September 28th, 2019

    At a Texas Tribune forum, retiring Texas Republican Rep. Will Hurd floated the idea of running for President in 2024.

    As for the running part, well, who knows? Lots no-hope candidates delude themselves into running for President every year, people with names like “Wayne Messam” and “Tom Steyer” and “Bill Weld” and “Joe Walsh” and “Kirstin Gillibrand” and “Even McMullin” and…

    You get the idea.

    As for the idea of Will Hurd securing the Republican nomination for President, well, that’s not happening.

    In many ways Hurd was a perfect fit for TX-23, the only true swing district in Texas until 2018. A moderate Republican and squish on border enforcement, he probably did reflect the rough consensus of his majority Hispanic San Antonio-to-just-short-of-El Paso district. But the moderate views that were such a virtue in getting elected (and re-elected) would be a non-starter in the Republican primary. There are at least two other Texas Republican office holders (Rep. Dan Crenshaw and Sen. Ted Cruz) who would be much stronger first-tier contenders for a 2024 Presidential run, and several others who could do better than Hurd as well were they to run (and Rep. Mike McCaul could probably self-finance his run at least as well as John Delaney…er, never mind).

    That said, I could see Hurd as a dark horse VP pick for a non-Texas nominee (pesky Twelfth Amendment). Which puts his overall chances of ever being President better than Beto O’Rourke’s…

    LinkSwarm for September 27, 2019

    September 27th, 2019

    Welcome to fall, or, as we call it in Texas, still freaking summer. It might get as low as 70° next week…at three in the morning.

  • “Democrats were first to enlist Ukraine in US elections“:

    Earlier this month, during a bipartisan meeting in Kiev, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) delivered a pointed message to Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

    While choosing his words carefully, Murphy made clear — by his own account — that Ukraine currently enjoyed bipartisan support for its U.S. aid but that could be jeopardized if the new president acquiesced to requests by President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani to investigate past corruption allegations involving Americans, including former Vice President Joe Biden’s family.

    Murphy boasted after the meeting that he told the new Ukrainian leader that U.S. aid was his country’s “most important asset” and it would be viewed as election meddling and “disastrous for long-term U.S.-Ukraine relations” to bend to the wishes of Trump and Giuliani.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Did California Representative Adam Schiff actually set up the nothingburger?
  • Why Democrats have gone insane:

    What’s really going on here? Why have the Democrats, to put it bluntly, gone berserk? Why are they risking a backlash of cosmic proportions (other than appeasing their psychotically-inflamed base, of course)?

    One, distraction. They live in absolute fear of the coming revelations about the Russia probe, from Inspector General Horowitz but even more from the DOJ’s John Durham, who can actually put people in jail. The Dems know — if they have a brain (and a few do) — these revelations are likely to point up the line at the leaders of the Democratic Party all the way to President Obama. They were all involved to one degree or another with illegally spying on or undermining Trump and his administration and supporters before and after the election. The extent of this we are only beginning to understand.

    To put it mildly, not good. Whether you call this treason is up to you, but you can be sure Middle America (i. e. those elusive independent voters) will not appreciate it.

    But there’s something worse — and Pelosi’s knows it. The only hope for Democrats to defeat Trump is, remote and quixotic as it may be, impeachment. In the midst of the current brouhaha, Joe Biden — their great (alas white male) hope — is being exposed as not just a senile plagiarist, but a senile, corrupt plagiarist with a freaky family out of a Southern gothic novel with tentacles reaching into China and Ukraine. Again, not good.

    Unfortunately, the rest of the Dems have tacked so far to the left that they wouldn’t be able to win an election in Shenyang. Sanders, speaking of senility, is almost risible. He wants to restrict population for reasons of “climate change” when every one of the myriad social programs he so vehemently urges depends on strong continued population growth for economic survival, irrespective of taxes. (Is he that stupid? I don’t think so. He’s just a liar.)

    As for his somewhat subtle clone, Ms. Warren, her proposals are if anything more extreme because she fails to acknowledge (though Colbert did his best to encourage her) that they are going to cost a ton of taxpayer money that approaches national bankruptcy. Even taxing the rich at one hundred percent won’t come near supporting her ideas. Wait until Trump gets ahold of that.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • What’s the magic word that made Democrats go extra apeshit over the Ukraine meeting? Crowdstrike:

    To understand how important this is, we must remember the foundation for the entire Russian election interference narrative, ‘Muh Russia – writ large, is built on the claim Russians hacked the servers of the Democrat National Committee (DNC), and subsequently released damaging emails that showed the DNC worked to help Hillary Clinton and eliminate Bernie Sanders.

    Despite the Russian ‘hacking’ claim the DOJ and FBI previously admitted the DNC would not let FBI investigators review the DNC server or cloud-based network. Instead the original claim was that the DNC provided the FBI with analysis of a technical review done through a cyber-security contract with Crowdstrike.

    According to the original FBI statements made by James Comey: Crowdstrike did the captured imaging of the DNC network (servers/cloud), then conducted analysis, then provided a report to the DNC with their findings; and that report was given to the FBI. At least that was the original 2017 claim. However, during court filings in the case against Roger Stone, the DOJ/FBI later admitted they never even saw the Crowstrike final report.

    Lawyers representing Roger Stone requested the full Crowdstrike report on the DNC hack. When the DOJ responded to the Stone motion they made a rather significant admission. Not only did the FBI not review the DNC server or cloud data, the FBI/DOJ never even saw the final Crowdstrike report.

    The narrative around the DNC hack claim was always sketchy; many people believe the DNC email data was downloaded onto a flash drive and leaked. Crowdstrike was a private contractor holding a strong conflict of interest over Clinton and DNC interests. With this FBI court admission the scale of sketchy increased exponentially.

    There was, and still is, absolutely no evidence the DNC was “hacked” (WikiLeaks claims the information was an inside job of “leaking”), and even John Podesta admitted himself he was a victim of an ordinary “phishing” password change scam.

    This admission meant the FBI and DOJ, and all of the downstream claims by the intelligence apparatus; including the December 2016 Joint Analysis Report and January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, all the way to the Weissmann/Mueller report and the continued claims therein; were based on the official intelligence agencies of the U.S. government and the U.S. Department of Justice taking the word of a hired contractor for the Democrat party….. despite their inability to examine the server and/or actually see an unredacted technical forensic report from the investigating contractor.

  • “Pelosi’s impeachment theater is boob bait for her rabid radicals.”

    If politics were regulated the way that consumer goods are, Nancy Pelosi might be charged by the FTC with deceptive packaging for her ridiculous announcement yesterday that an “official” impeachment inquiry is underway. It is pure theater, designed to appease the radicals like Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, who two days ago denounced the failure to impeach as worse than Trump’s “crimes.” With radical primary challengers and a San Francisco constituency given to backing lunatic schemes and politicians, she fears for her political career.

    The only way that impeachment begins is with a floor vote of the House, after which time subpoenas can be issued and the facts assembled for Articles of Impeachment to be presented to the House, and, if voted by a majority, submitted to the Senate for trial, which requires a two-thirds majority for conviction. What Pelosi offered was deceptively packaged oversight hearings by six committees. All she is doing is adding five more committees to the hearings already underway by Rep. Jerrold Nadler’s Judiciary Committee.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Why Democrats lie to blacks:

    The obvious is that they are fishing for votes. Warren has a putative weakness with African American voters. Tom Steyer is unknown to them (as he is to a lot of people). Harris is sinking fast and needs to shore up her rep and Julián Castro’s campaign has barely been registering enough to keep him on the debate stage.

    But beneath this are more disturbing beliefs, one of which is on the edge of disgusting and actually racist: that African Americans prefer to be lied to than told the truth. The corollary to this is that they are easily lied to if you stir them up. The level of disrespect in this is off the charts.

    Also at play here, as it is everywhere in Democratic precincts, is Fear of Trump. African Americans are doing better under Trump than they ever have been in this country with unemployment at record lows and salaries up.

    Further, Trump really did something never done before — spearheaded and signed criminal justice reform legislation. Better not remind black people of that. Distract them or lie to them instead. Call Trump a racist, though why would a racist do such a thing?

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at instapundit.)

  • How ObamaCare screwed up health care, in one chart.
  • Man starts a program to help other men get off heroin. The Southern Poverty Law Center called him a white supremacist. Now he’s suing their ass for $4.8 million, and a district judge just gave the green light to start discovery.
  • Hey kids, Scott Adams wants you to know that climate change is not an existential crisis and that nuclear power will help solve the problem.
  • “‘No Climate Emergency‘: MIT Climate Expert, 500 Prominent Global Experts Write In Letter To UN.”
  • Former Admiral McRaven sounds the warning about China’s military buildup.
  • “What’s Wrong With Chinese GDP Data?” “Since 2013, GDP figures look suspiciously smooth.”
  • If proven, this deserves serious prison time: “California Sheriff Under Investigation For ‘Pay To Play’ Concealed Carry Permits.” Namely to campaign donors. (Hat tip: Say Uncle.)
  • “Some 600,000 vacationers were stranded when Thomas Cook, a travel company that has been in business for 178 years, collapsed on Sunday.”
  • Dumbass Texas teen sentenced to 20 years in prison for attempting to join Pakistan Islamic terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
  • Captain Alfred Haynes, RIP. He’s the reason anyone walked away from the Sioux City crash landing following the loss of all hydraulic control systems.
  • Austria’s oldest Holocaust survivor dies at 106. Marko Feingold lived through four camps, including Auschwitz. Suck it, Hitler.
  • The Air Force sets PHASERS to kill (drones).
  • Friend of the blog Karl Rehn joins some pretty illustrious company.
  • Every now and then I stumble across Crazy Possum Lady’s YouTube channel. Here’s a nice sampler:

  • New Pulitzer Prize to honor destroying people’s lives.
  • The Nothingburger of Nothingburgerton

    September 26th, 2019

    Shortly after House Democrats launched an unofficial official impeachment inquiry for the now-laughable “whistleblower” scandal, President Donald Trump released the transcript of the conversation at the heart of the non-scandal showing there was no talk of freezing Ukraine aid or of any “quid pro quo.”

    You can read the transcript itself to see what a nothingburger it is.

    But partisan and radical is their business model! (Well, that and all the graft.)

    This didn’t keep some of the media’s worst outlets from continuing to hype the non-story:

    The irony is that Democrats actually did what they laughable accused President Trump of doing:

    WIll this cause Democrats to close their impeachment proceedings and apologize? Of course not. They’ll keep it humming along until their extensions in the media can gin up another fake scandal for them to hype until that nothingburger explodes in their face as well. Repeat until November 2020.

    It’s nothingburgers all the way down, forever and ever amen.

    Democrats Get Ready To Throw Br’er Trump In The Brier Patch

    September 25th, 2019

    Can Democrats let President Donald Trump’s constant Twitter jabs at them lure them into throwing him into the brier patch?

    On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) admitted her plans to put a resolution on the House floor Wednesday to investigate President Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal, a process that will likely grow into an impeachment inquiry as Democrat demands for impeachment grow ever more insistent.

    “Confirmed: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi planning to put a resolution on the House floor tomorrow to address the Ukraine issue as there are increasing calls by Democrats to start the impeachment process for President Trump,” PBS White House Correspondent Yamiche Alcindor tweeted.

    In an interview with CNN Monday night, Pelosi declined to say whether or not she would fully endorse an impeachment inquiry, but she suggested a move toward impeachment proceedings was certain. “We will have no choice,” she said.

    The renewed push for impeachment gained steam following reports that President Trump pressured Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter in cooperation with the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. On Tuesday, Trump announced he would release the full transcript of the call, during which he reportedly pressured Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden no fewer than eight times.

    Hunter Biden was a board member of Ukrainian firm Burisma Group when Joe Biden served as secretary of State. During his tenure, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.

    Yes, a scandal where a sitting Democratic Vice President withheld aid from a foreign country unless they stopped investigating his crooked son’s crooked deals is somehow Trump’s fault. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

    The whole thing is transparently yet another “get Trump at any cost” ploy by Democrats.

    It’s ironic that this so-called whistleblower scandal is going to be the thing that kicks off an actual impeachment inquiry, since it looks like just another nothingburger in a long line of nothingburgers:

    The democrats in the House of Representatives are at it again. Is this their third or fourth call for impeachment of the president? Each week it seems media bring us a new sensational story of theft and intrigue, that then very quietly falls by the wayside once the facts emerge.

    This time the controversy centers around business dealings that former Vice President Biden’s son had in the Ukraine. Allegedly, Biden’s son was on the board of a company that bribed Ukrainian officials to end a corruption investigation into it. Democrats now allege that the President threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine should it not reopen the investigation into Biden’s son. The President denies this claim, and intends to release the transcript of the phone call in question. Currently Speaker Pelosi and her cohorts are planning impeachment, before any real evidence of misconduct has come to light.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

    The way the House is going about sounds less like an impeachment proceeding than a clown show:

    Outside the hard left, the public is not wild about the idea, with 61% of all registered voters opposed:

    Perhaps because it’s obvious that the entire thing is politically motivated by Democrats’ irrational hatred of President Trump:

    Democrats seem not to have noticed that Trump thrives in environments of opposition and chaos. There are a lot of people (not just among Republicans) who believe that actual impeachment is several bridges too far, that Br’er Trump is going to thrive in the impeachment brier patch, and that instead of derailing President Trump’s reelection, it’s going to ensure it.

    Kat Timpf expounds on why this is a bad idea:

    Team Trump sure seems ready for it:

    But it’s also possible that this is just a mime show for the hard left rubes, that Pelosi has no intention of allowing an actual a vote on impeachment:

    Remember that the House tabled an impeachment motion against Trump three months ago. 137 Democrats voted to table the motion then. Does Trump look any weaker today?

    Buckle up…

    The Twitter Primary Revisited for September 2019

    September 24th, 2019

    As I did in previous months, here’s an update on the number of Twitter followers of the Democratic presidential candidates, updated since last month’s update.

    Last month I started using a tool that gives me precise Twitter follower counts.

    I do this Twitter Primary update the last Tuesday of each month, following Monday’s Clown Car Update. Today’s falls on the 24th, while last month’s fell on the 27th, so feel free to adjust accordingly for the three day difference.

    The following are all the declared Democratic Presidential candidates ranked in order of Twitter followers:

    1. Bernie Sanders: 9,695,041 (up 101,797)
    2. Cory Booker: 4,357,161 (up 14,798)
    3. Joe Biden: 3,747,843 (up 52,558)
    4. Elizabeth Warren: 3,187,498 (up 124,085)
    5. Kamala Harris: 3,129,357 (up 49,935)
    6. Marianne Williamson: 2,763,349 (up 4,148)
    7. Beto O’Rourke: 1,611,598 (up 55,055)
    8. Pete Buttigieg: 1,442,981 (up 53,657)
    9. Andrew Yang: 878,076 (up 147,817)
    10. Amy Klobuchar: 767,019 (up 14,092)
    11. Tulsi Gabbard: 573,937 (up 34,068)
    12. Julian Castro: 389,362 (up 13,251)
    13. Tom Steyer: 245,075 (up 276)
    14. Steve Bullock: 185,762 (up 847)
    15. Michael Bennet: 39,477 (up 945)
    16. Tim Ryan: 37,374 (up 374)
    17. John Delaney: 36,270 (up 516)
    18. Joe Sestak: 12,938 (up 499)
    19. Wayne Messam: 8,599 (up 509)

    Removed from the last update: Kirsten Gillibrand, Bill de Blasio

    For reference, President Donald Trump’s personal account has 64,699,182 followers, up 1,133,230 since the last roundup, so once again Trump has gained more Twitter followers this month than all the Democratic presidential contenders combined. The official presidential @POTUS account has 26,750,341, which I’m sure includes a great deal of overlap with Trump’s personal followers.

    A few notes:

  • Twitter counts change all the time, so the numbers might be slightly different when you look at them. And if you’re not looking at the counts with a tool like Social Blade, Twitter does significant (and weird) rounding.
  • Andrew Yang gained the most of all the contenders, up almost 150,000 followers, passing Amy Klobuchar for ninth place. At that pace he’ll break the million follower mark next month.
  • Cory Booker gaining less than 15,000 followers since last month, despite starting with over 4 million, is a strong indication his campaign is dead in the water.
  • Marianne Williamson’s mere 4,000+ gain is even more pathetic. Clearly her magic ride is over.
  • Most pathetic of all is Tom Steyer, who has reportedly been throwing fistfuls of money into social media advertising…and gained 276 followers. That’s less than last-place Wayne Messam gained. Steyer could have gained more by posting cute puppy memes.
  • As predicted, Elizabeth Warren zoomed past Kamala Harris into third place, but her momentum has slowed, as she gained roughly half the followers in September she gained in August.
  • In fact all candidates seemed to slow the rate at which they acquired new followers. Maybe younger people stopped paying as much attention to politics after returning to school after summer vacation.