SNL Skewers Their Own Bubble

November 21st, 2016

Enjoy Saturday Night Live oh-so-gently skewer the liberal bubble:

I know: It gently gums targets it should rip to shreds. Baby steps…

Concrete: Border Walls and Battlefields

November 20th, 2016

Since one of my readers has a keen interest in concrete (hello, Andrew!), I though this round up on the battlefield uses of concrete would be of interest. And by “interest” I mean “slow Sunday filler.”

One of the first uses for concrete on the battlefield was in response to growing numbers of IEDs. As early as 2004, the major tactical and technical focus in Iraq was oriented at stopping these roadside bombs. One of the primary tactics used to fight the IED threat was to line every major road with twelve-foot-tall concrete T-walls. Soldiers spent days, weeks, and months lining first every major highway and then other, smaller roads with concrete barriers. At over $600 a barrier, the cost of concrete during the eight years of the Iraq War was billions of dollars.

o be sure, concrete walls did not eliminate the IED threat. As with any protective obstacle, they should have been under direct observation, which was not always feasible. Consequently, the enemy adapted by placing IEDs in or on top of barriers. They also used advanced forms of IEDs from foreign sources—explosively formed penetrators, many of which US military officials believe originated in Iran—that could penetrate any concrete wall. This allowed IEDs to be placed on the opposite, non-road side of barriers. But the concrete walls did take away the ease of access for enemy forces to emplace IEDs, degrade the lethality of their homemade devices, and forced them towards specialized materials that could be interdicted at checkpoints—which themselves were most effective when concrete walls were used to canalize traffic to them. They also took away the ability of insurgents to freely transit Baghdad with large, vehicle-borne IEDs, which created mass casualties and threatened the authority of the Iraqi government.

IEDs were not the only major threat to American forces. Shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, US forces also began to come under direct attack by mortars and rockets in their outposts and bases. These attacks became even more dangerous when US forces moved out of large bases and into smaller outposts deep in cities and among the populations, where the ability to maintain safe standoff distances or retaliate to indirect fire was difficult for fear of causing civilian casualties. Again, the solution was concrete. Slabs were placed to form not only the walls of compounds, but also walls around and bunkers between every structure within them. This significantly reduced the effects of any enemy incoming fire.

They also used concrete to besiege Sadr City:

In March 2008, in what would later be called the Battle for Sadr City, coalition forces weaponized concrete. Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had ended a standing ceasefire in response to the government of Iraq’s offensive in the southern, mainly Shiite city of Basra, and set in motion large-scale attacks by loyal members of Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM), the Sadrists’ armed militia, against coalition and Iraqi forces across Baghdad. Their attacks included overrunning Iraqi security forces’ checkpoints, infesting Baghdad’s roads with IEDs, and launching 107-mm rockets and mortar fire at targets in Baghdad, including the International Zone (aka the Green Zone).

The keys to the enemy’s operation were their resources and support within Sadr City. This Shiite enclave is over thirteen square miles in size and, at the time of the battle, was estimated to have over two million residents. Coalition forces had previously conducted successful raids against JAM leadership in Sadr City. But any element that went into Sadr City had only a few minutes to get in and out before JAM forces were able to swarm like killer bees on the intruders. Finally, after an October 2007 air strike that killed a number of civilians, the Iraqi prime minister placed Sadr City off limits to US forces. This entire sector of Baghdad was a safe haven for enemy forces from which to launch attacks, and a no-go area without express permission from the highest command levels.

In response to the situation, the US forces basically engaged in siege warfare. But atypical to historic examples, instead of attacking to break through fortified wall, they imposed the siege on the enemy by building walls. Reminiscent of a medieval siege engine, each night US forces drove up to the limits off Sadr City with massive cranes and trucks loaded with twelve-foot-tall T-walls. On a good night, soldiers could emplace over 122 barriers. Enemy forces attacked the soldiers putting in the walls and it was not uncommon to be hanging concrete while attack helicopters, tanks, and Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles returned fire.

Within thirty days, soldiers emplaced over 3,000 T-wall sections to create a three-mile wall that interconnected with previously emplaced walls and ultimately completed the encirclement of Sadr City. The wall successfully restricted the ability of JAM to move supplies and conduct attacks outside the now-enclosed enclave, took away critical firing points outside the wall from which the International Zone was within range of their rockets and mortars, and created checkpoints were known terrorists could be separated from the population. Iraqi security forces and US soldiers did enter the city to clear major sections, but the wall allowed them to reduce external attacks and conduct operations at their initiative.

Their very effectiveness is the real reason Democrats oppose building the wall along the Mexico border: Walls work.

In other concrete news:

  • Other effective walls liberals hate include those Israel built around the West Bank and Gaza, which have radically reduced terrorist attacks by Palestinians. Lebanon must have leaned something from that approach, because now they’re building a tall concrete wall and watchtowers “around the Ain al-Hilweh [Palestinian] refugee camp in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon.”
  • Concrete that protects electronics from EMP attack.
  • In the “new-to-me” category, evidently concrete canvas is now available for both military and civilian uses.
  • (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

    Trump Taps Sen. Jeff Sessions as Attorney General

    November 19th, 2016

    Despite speculation that it would be Rudy Giuliani or Ted Cruz, Donald Trump has nominated Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama as his Attorney General.

    Hans A. von Spakovsky makes the case that Sessions is an excellent pick:

    President-elect Donald Trump has picked Sen. Jeff Sessions to serve as the 84th Attorney General of the United States—and he couldn’t have made a better choice. Throughout his career, Sessions has demonstrated unshakable commitment and fidelity to the Constitution, the rule of law, and protecting the freedom and liberty that is our birthright as Americans.

    He has almost the perfect professional background to be the attorney general. As the former U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of Alabama under President Ronald Reagan, he gained practical experience in the most important prosecutorial work that the Justice Department is supposed to do every day: enforce the criminal and civil statutes of the United States.

    That is something that the Justice Department has neglected to do in a number of areas—such as immigration—under the leadership of Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. In fact, Sessions’ most difficult job will be reversing the unprofessionalism and downright unethical conduct that has infected parts of the Department in recent years, the result of decision-making being driven by politics rather than a commitment to uphold the law.

    While many lawyers have the kind of practical experience Sessions gained as a prosecutor, not many have been a state attorney general. It is that experience that helps make Sessions the best choice. As the former attorney general of Alabama, Sen. Sessions won’t have a lengthy learning curve; he already has the administrative experience of running a law enforcement agency. More importantly, he has a keen appreciation of the fact that we are a federal republic, which means that state governments are independent sovereigns, not provincial subdivisions of the federal government.

    One things for sure: As a conservative Republican and a southerner, expect liberals to display more irrational loathing for Sessions than any Attorney General since Ed Meese.

    LinkSwarm for November 18, 2016

    November 18th, 2016

    Here we are, a week after one of the biggest political upsets in American history, and the reverberations are still being felt. Democrats seem to be stuck in the anger and denial phases of the Kubler-Ross grieving cycle, and probably won’t get to bargaining until the 2017 legislative session opens with Republicans in charge of the White House, Senate, and House.

  • While liberals were losing their minds over Trump, India was losing its mind by banning all bills over $1.50. The idea is evidently to force Indians to accept a cashless society (in the name of “fighting corruption”), but it’s actually grinding India’s economy to a halt.
  • More on the Democratic Party wipeout: “Republicans are now in control of a record 67 (68 percent) of the 98 partisan state legislative chambers in the nation, more than twice the number (31) in which Democrats have a majority.”
  • Conservatives have a once in a lifetime opportunity at the state level. Including supermajorities in a number of states, a Democratic Party which has gerrymandered itself into oblivion, and almost enough states to call a constitutional convention.
  • Mark Steyn. “If you keep insisting that half your fellow citizens are haters, maybe you’re the hater.” Also this: “One third of the Democrats’ representation in the House now comes from just three states – New York, Massachusetts and California. That’s one reason why they’re calling for the abolition of the Electoral College.”
  • Pundits who predicted Donald Trump’s rise. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Iraqi forces continue push into Mosul, driving out Islamic State forces.
  • Trump to hold post-election tour rallies in swing states. 1. He’s closed the sale, and now he’s servicing the account. 2. You know Obama has to be kicking himself for not thinking of that.
  • An even more thorough debunking of that “Trump is super extra mega ultra racist TurboHitler!” nonsense. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
  • Liberal lawyer Alan Dershowitz defends Breitbart head/key Trump aide Steve Bannon from charges of antisemitism.
  • Tired of liberal tears over Trump’s victory? Of course not:

    (Note: You can skip the last 30 seconds of conservative cruise line ads.)

  • Actually draining the swamp? “Trump Team Announces Five-Year Lobbying Ban for Appointees.”
  • Nancy Pelosi draws a leadership challenge from Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • More from the Democratic Party’s genius candidate selection process. “If you could choose any state in America where you might want to run a shemale candidate for the United States States, Utah probably wouldn’t be your first choice, nor anywhere in the top 40.”
  • Could Trump break up the EU? Let’s hope so… (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Threaten to kill random white people after Trump’s election? Expect to spend some time in involuntary committal for a mental assessment. Even if you’re a university professor.
  • Larry Coreia offers up A Handy Guide For Liberals Who Are Suddenly Interested In Gun Ownership.
  • Illinois tax hikes have lead to capital flight from the state.
  • ESPN admits that they have a problem with leftwing bias.
  • Not news: Man selling stolen firearms. News: Sheriff selling stolen firearms.
  • Rapper Kanye West says he would have voted for Trump…and will run for President in 2020. West is an idiot savant black nationalist car wreck married to Kim Kardashian, but after this year, would you really say he has no chance of being elected? (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

    I will say this for West: He knows where to steal his riffs:

    How many piece of Gnostic symbolism can you spot in that video?

  • Speaking of Gnostic, turns out that Pepe the Frog is actually an ancient Egyptian god summoned by the chaos magic of 4Chan. (And the post-election followup.)
  • Austin police Chief Art Acevedo to become Houston’s police chief. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Mother of the year candidate.
  • OK, I laughed.
  • Enjoy your weekend! Sometime next week I hope to tackle the DNC leadership race.

    Ted Cruz’s Name Floated as Attorney General

    November 16th, 2016

    Bloomberg is reporting that Ted Cruz is being considered as Trump’s Attorney General.

    Though it would suck to lose Cruz from the senate, he would make an excellent Attorney General. In addition to being Texas Solicitor General, he was also a Ninth and Tenth Amendment scholar. Cruz believes in the Second Amendment, in states rights on marijuana legalization and he could be trusted to carry out border enforcement duties, as well as going after corrupt politicians (see also: Clinton Foundation).

    Would Cruz be interested in the position? Hard to say. It would give him a higher national profile, but also make him more unpopular among non-conservatives (the Attorney General tends to be the most criticized and least liked of cabinet positions, no matter which party is in power). I think Cruz still wants to be President, and I think his willingness to take such a role (assuming it was offered) would be contingent on whether he thinks it would brig him closer to that goal or not.

    2016 Election Roundup Part 2: Reactions and Analysis

    November 16th, 2016

    I wanted to do a comprehensive roundup of analysis of last week’s election, so this post just grew and grew to its current Brobdingnagian size. So tuck in! There’s a lot to chew over.

    Let me first note that all the pundits were wrong about this race, save two not normally regarded as pundits. Scott Adams said early on that Trump was going to win the nomination and the race through persuasion techniques (and also that human beings are fundamentally not rational, which gives me no joy at night), and Michael Moore said that Trump was going to sweep the rust belt due to blue collar anger. So props to them for getting the fundamentals right when so many others (myself included) got them wrong.

  • First, this lengthy Washington Post semi-insider look back at the race is unavoidable. (I say “semi” because many of the big names for Hillary Clinton’s Permanent Traveling Circus of Corruption (for example, Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills) are missing.) The piece confirms the impression that Hillary Clinton is the Æthelred the Unready of American politics. One big difference between the camps that struck me: The Trump side of the story includes lots of interaction between the candidate and his staff. Clinton? No back and forth interaction recounted at all. It’s like she was a ghost in her own campaign.

    Also this:

    It was like looking at the lottery ticket and saying, “I think these are the winning numbers, but I’m going to go confirm them again.” . . . “Anthony Weiner.” “Underage sexting scandal.” “Hillary Clinton.” “FBI investigation.” There is no combination in which that word jumble comes up net politically positive.

  • Trump added to Romney’s totals in several key states, while Clinton generally lost votes compared to Obama in 2012:

    Iowa: Trump by 148,000 votes (9.6 points)
    Trump: 68,000 more votes than Romney
    Clinton: 172,000 fewer votes than Obama

    Michigan: Trump by 12,000 votes (0.3 points)
    Trump: 164,000 more votes than Romney
    Clinton 297,000 fewer votes than Obama

    Ohio: Trump by 455,000 votes (8.6 points)
    Trump: 111,000 more votes than Romney
    Clinton: 511,000 fewer votes than Obama

    Pennsylvania: Trump by 68,000 (1.2 points)
    Trump: 223,000 more votes than Romney
    Clinton: 155,000 fewer votes fewer than Obama

    Wisconsin: Trump by 27,000 votes (1.0 points)
    Trump: 1,500 more votes than Romney
    Clinton 238,000 fewer votes than Obama

    There were also states where Trump won votes, but not enough to win the state, where both lost votes, etc. Interesting wonky stuff.

  • County by county results in Texas. Trump lost Fort Bend (which has to be worrisome to the state GOP) but picked up Jefferson, where Beaumont features one of the few significant concentrations of black voters outside the major cities. Also, Libertarian Gary Johnson beat Green Party candidate Jill Stein in every county but one: Loving county, the least populated in both Texas and the nation, where she beat him 2 votes to 1. On the other hand, Stein didn’t receive a single vote in Hall, Kenedy, Kent, King, Roberts, Shackelford and Terrell counties.
  • Even in California, Stein only beat Johnson in three counties: Humboldt, Mendocino and San Francisco. If the Greens can’t do better than in a safely blue state with the most corrupt Democratic Party candidate ever, and the most corrupt DNC ever rigging the race against Bernie Sanders, their outlook would appear grim.
  • The epic, historic nature of Hillary’s collapse:

    Most devastating electoral defeats in United States history at least had some mitigating circumstances. In 1984, Walter Mondale got blown out by Ronald Reagan, a popular incumbent President presiding over an improving economy. Barry Goldwater lost the 1964 election by a large margin, but his opponent was another incumbent President with extensive resources to marshal.

    Hillary Clinton’s stunning collapse is different. It’s hard to think of a historical analog that could come close to resembling the magnitude and depth of the failure. She had a popular incumbent President campaigning for her furiously; the popular First Lady did likewise. The economy is far healthier than it was eight or even four years ago.

    The elite media almost universally loathed her rival — a conformity of opinion that we’ve never seen before in modern American politics. Wall Street was 99% behind her. The polling industry put out a constant deluge of bogus data pronouncing Donald Trump’s certain defeat.

    With all these massive advantages, Hillary still somehow managed to lose to the guy from “The Apprentice.”

  • A majority of white women voted for Trump. (Exit poll caveats apply.) Evidently those years of “war on women” blather were all for naught… (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • Despite what some of her supporters are asserting, Clinton didn’t get a majority of the popular vote:

    Six million, seventy-thousand, eight-hundred and two people voted for one of the many third-party candidates running for President. To put it into perspective, that’s more than the combined population of Houston and Chicago.

    That means that the total number of people who voted against Hillary Clinton was 65,682,480 people.

    In other words, Hillary Clinton received 47.6% of the popular vote.

    For those keeping score, that means the majority of votes cast did not, in fact, go to Hillary Clinton.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • From election eve: Bernie supporter trashes Hillary at her own rally.
  • Dear Alec MacGillis: How dare you commit actual journalism rather than prop up Democratic talking points???

    Back in Dayton, where Clinton never visited during the entire campaign, I had run into two more former Obama voters after Trump’s March rally there. Both Heath Bowling and Alex Jones admitted to having been swept up in the Obama wave, but had since grown somewhat disenchanted. Bowling, 36, a burly man with a big smile, managed a small siding and insulation business, and as he’d grown older he’d had gotten more bothered about the dependency on food stamps he saw around him, especially among members of his own generation, and demoralized by the many overdose deaths in his circle.

    Jones, 30, who worked part-time at a pizza shop and delivering medicines to nursing homes, joked at first that his vote for Obama might have had to do with his having been doing a lot of drugs at the time. He grew serious when he talked about how much the Black Lives Matter protests against shootings by police officers grated on him. Chicago was experiencing soaring homicide rates, he said — why weren’t more people talking about that? He was upset that when he went out on the town in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine bar district, he had to worry about getting jumped if he was on the street past a certain hour — and that he felt constrained against complaining against it. “If I say anything about that, I’m a racist,” he said. “I can’t stand that politically correct bullshit.” He had, he said, taken great solace in confiding recently in an older black man at a bar who had agreed with his musing on race and crime. “It was like a big burden lifted from me — here was this black man agreeing with me!”

    Also this:

    A few days after the release of the tape, which was followed by a string of accusations from women saying they had been sexually harassed and assaulted by Trump, I checked back in with Tracie St. Martin to see if she still supported him. She was working on a new gas plant in Middletown, a working-class town near Dayton that was the setting of the recent best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.” Here’s what she wrote back in a text message: “I still appreciate the honesty in some of his comments. Most of his comments. I still favor what he says he may be able to do. I am voting against Hillary, come what may with Trump. It’s important to me that ‘we the people’ actually have political power. And electing Trump will prove that. I am AMAZED at the number of people voting for him. The corruption is disgusting in the press. Yes, as of right now I am voting FOR Trump.” She was sure he would win, she said: “His support is crazy! The polls have to be wrong. Have to be fixed.”

    And she shared an anecdote that reflected how differently Trump’s comments had been received in some places than others. “I’m setting steel for this new gas plant…I’m operating a rough terrain forklift,” she wrote. “So today, I kept thinking about the debate and the audio was released…And I got underneath a load of steel and was moving it…I was laughing and laughing and one of the iron workers asked ‘what are u laughing at.’ I said ‘I grabbed that load right by the pussy’ and laughed some more…And said ‘when you’re an operator you can do that ya know’, laughed all fucking day.”

  • Mark Steyn:

    The problem for the left is that, when everyone’s Hitler, nobody’s Hitler.

    At which point, enter the Teflon Pussygrabber.

    As for the “divisive” policy positions – a wall to keep out Mexicans, a moratorium on Muslim immigration – “divisive” appears to be elite-speak for “remarkably popular”. As with Brexit, in any functioning party system the political establishment can ignore issues that command widespread public support only for so long. In that sense, the rise of a Trump figure was entirely predictable. Indeed, I see an old quote of mine has been making the rounds on the Internet in the last couple of days. I wrote it over twelve years ago in The Daily Telegraph:

    In much of western Europe, on all the issues that matter, competitive politics decayed to a rotation of arrogant co-regents of an insular elite, with predictable consequences: if the political culture forbids respectable politicians from raising certain issues, then the electorate will turn to unrespectable ones.

    At which point – all together now – enter the Pussygrabber. His supporters didn’t care about his personal foibles (anymore than Rob Ford’s did) because he was raising issues nobody else wanted to talk about.

  • Victor Davis Hanson on why Trump won:

    What was forgotten in all this hysteria was that Trump had brought to the race unique advantages, some of his own making, some from finessing naturally occurring phenomena. His advocacy for fair rather than free trade, his insistence on enforcement of federal immigration law, and promises to bring back jobs to the United States brought back formerly disaffected Reagan Democrats, white working-class union members, and blue-dog Democrats—the “missing Romney voters”—into the party. Because of that, the formidable wall of rich electoral blue states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and North Carolina crumbled.

    Beyond that, even Trump’s admitted crudity was seen by many as evidence of a street-fighting spirit sorely lacking in Republican candidates that had lost too magnanimously in 1992, 2008, and 2016 to vicious Democratic hit machines. Whatever Trump was, he would not lose nobly, but perhaps pull down the rotten walls of the Philistines with him. That Hillary Clinton never got beyond her email scandals, the pay-for-play Clinton Foundation wrongdoing, and the Wikileaks and Guccifer hackings reminded the electorate that whatever Trump was or had done, he at least had not brazenly broken federal law as a public servant, or colluded with the media and the Republican National Committee to undermine the integrity of the primaries and sabotage his Republican rivals.

    Finally, the more Clinton Inc. talked about the Latino vote, the black vote, the gay vote, the woman vote, the more Americans tired of the same old identity politics pandering. What if minority bloc voters who had turned out for Obama might not be as sympathetic to a middle-aged, multimillionaire white woman? And what if the working white classes might flock to the politically incorrect populist Trump in a way that they would not to a leftist elitist like Hillary Clinton? In other words, the more Clinton played the identity politics card, the more she earned fewer returns for herself and more voters for Trump.

    Snip.

    The Democratic Party is now neither a centrist nor a coalition party. Instead, it finds itself at a dead-end: had Hillary Clinton emulated her husband’s pragmatic politics of the 1990s, she would have never won the nomination—even though she would have had a far better chance of winning the general election.

    Wikileaks reminded us that the party is run by rich, snobbish, and often ethically bankrupt grandees. In John Podesta’s world, it’s normal and acceptable for Democratic apparatchiks to talk about their stock portfolios and name-drop the Hamptons, while making cruel asides about “needy” Latinos, medieval Catholics, and African-Americans with silly names—who are nonetheless expected to keep them in power. Such paradoxes are not sustainable. Nor is the liberal nexus of colluding journalists, compromised lobbyists, narcissistic Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, family dynasties, and Clintonian get-rich ethics.

    The old blue-collar middle class was bewildered by the leftwing social agenda in which gay marriage, women in combat units, and transgendered restrooms went from possible to mandatory party positions in an eye blink. In a party in which “white privilege” was pro forma disparagement, those who were both white and without it grew furious that the elites with such privilege massaged the allegation to provide cover for their own entitlement.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Michael Barone ponders why the polls failed. A variety of reasons, including this one:

    3. Clinton campaign targeting: staggering incompetence. In an excellent Washington Post article, Jim Tankersley points out that in the closing weeks of the campaign, the Clinton campaign put more ads on the air in the Omaha market (aiming, presumably, at the 1 electoral vote of Nebraska 2, since Iowa’s 6 votes were clearly already lost) than in Michigan and Wisconsin combined (26 electoral votes). By one metric, during one period Republicans ran 405 ads in Michigan and 2,319 in Wisconsin while Democrats ran only 31 in Michigan and 255 in Michigan. This, despite the fact that the Clinton campaign had lots more money than the Trump campaign.

    This wasn’t the only example of campaign malpractice. The Clinton campaign spent time and money on winning Arizona and Georgia, and while it performed better there than Obama had, it was not by enough to carry their 11 and 16 electoral votes, respectively. At the same time, Clinton didn’t set foot in Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) after its April 5 primary. In effect, Clinton was aiming for her 340th electoral vote and ignored the need to campaign for her 270th, which is the one that counts.

    The 70-year-old Bill Clinton apparently repeatedly advised Clinton campaign chairman Robby Mook and others to campaign in white working class areas. The 36-year-old Mook spurned — perhaps ridiculed — his advice. None of this going after men who wear trucker hats unironically; let’s show Brooklyn-type Millennials that supporting Hillary is really cool.

    Isn’t it just a little too pat that a guy named “Robby Mook” is being set up as the scapegoat for the Clinton campaign? Are we sure they didn’t just invent him last week just to take the fall?

  • Another explanation, the polls weren’t wrong, they were fixed. “They did not get it wrong. They chose to lie to you the American electorate.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Why Clinton lost: “The ‘conspiracies’ were true, and the mainstream media lied to you to about everything.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • How the Democratic Party has been more than decimated under Obama:
    “Since 2008, by our estimates, the party has shed 870 legislators and leaders at the state and federal levels — and that estimate may be on the low side. As Donald Trump might put it, that’s decimation times 50.”

  • Stephen Green: “For now then the Democratic Party is a wounded beast, and it will lash out ferociously. The interior fights will be ugly; the desperate attacks on the GOP will be uglier. Try not to get too near.”
  • The Trump wave clobbered Democrats in Ohio.
  • People in West Virginia supported Trump, but thought he was going to lose, and were overjoyed when he won:

    “I had faith that the country had to change. It was about working-class people that rose up against the system—against both parties. I had hoped for something that would immediately bring jobs, or at least stop the bleeding, and overregulation can be stopped with a stroke of the pen. I’m excited that Obamacare could change—that’ll be a big benefit to us if we get a better health system. I’m excited about the Supreme Court. I don’t think Roe v. Wade needs overturning, but I think there are reasonable restrictions that could be put in place. This is the biggest political event in my lifetime, and I’ve lived through a lot of elections. I couldn’t be happier.”

  • Not only do celebrity endorsements not help, they actually hurt:

    That increase in middle-income households meant a mere $2,798 extra in annual income, and was 1.6 percent less than in 2007. The top 5 percent of earners saw a stratospheric jump of 21.8 percent in income, while the poorest Americans, a cohort of 46.7 million, are poorer than they were in 1989.

    Four days before the Census Bureau’s report was released, Clinton called half of Trump’s supporters “a basket of deplorables” — something J.D. Vance, author of the best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” told The Post was “incredibly reductionist.”

    “Like a lot of people on the left, Hillary seems to want to put the Trump phenomenon on racial anxiety,” he said. “It’s a really oversimplified way to address the concerns of millions of people who feel invisible to elites.”

    Plus celebrity election reactions that, once again, make them sound like smug, entitled pricks.

  • Speaking of smug, entitled pricks, how the New York Times blew it:

    Had the paper actually been fair to both candidates, it wouldn’t need to rededicate itself to honest reporting. And it wouldn’t have been totally blindsided by Trump’s victory.

    Instead, because it demonized Trump from start to finish, it failed to realize he was onto something. And because the paper decided that Trump’s supporters were a rabble of racist rednecks and homophobes, it didn’t have a clue about what was happening in the lives of the Americans who elected the new president.

    Snip.

    Trump indeed was challenging, but it was [executive editor Dean] Baquet who changed journalism. He’s the one who decided that the standards of fairness and nonpartisanship could be broken without consequence.

    After that, the floodgates opened, and virtually every so-called news article reflected a clear bias against Trump and in favor of Clinton. Stories, photos, headlines, placement in the paper — all the tools were used to pick a president, the facts be damned.

    Now the bill is coming due. Shocked by Trump’s victory and mocked even by liberals for its bias, the paper is also apparently bleeding readers — and money.

    I’ve gotten letters from people who say they canceled their Times subscriptions and, to judge from a cryptic line in a Thursday article, the problem is more than anecdotal.

    Citing reader anger over election coverage, Rutenberg wrote, “Most ominously, it came in the form of canceled subscriptions.”

  • More on the same subject:

    For starters, it’s important to accept that the New York Times has always — or at least for many decades — been a far more editor-driven, and self-conscious, publication than many of those with which it competes. Historically, the Los Angeles Times, where I worked twice, for instance, was a reporter-driven, bottom-up newspaper. Most editors wanted to know, every day, before the first morning meeting: “What are you hearing? What have you got?”

    It was a shock on arriving at the New York Times in 2004, as the paper’s movie editor, to realize that its editorial dynamic was essentially the reverse. By and large, talented reporters scrambled to match stories with what internally was often called “the narrative.” We were occasionally asked to map a narrative for our various beats a year in advance, square the plan with editors, then generate stories that fit the pre-designated line.

    Reality usually had a way of intervening. But I knew one senior reporter who would play solitaire on his computer in the mornings, waiting for his editors to come through with marching orders. Once, in the Los Angeles bureau, I listened to a visiting National staff reporter tell a contact, more or less: “My editor needs someone to say such-and-such, could you say that?”

    The bigger shock came on being told, at least twice, by Times editors who were describing the paper’s daily Page One meeting: “We set the agenda for the country in that room.”

    Having lived at one time or another in small-town Pennsylvania, some lower-rung Detroit suburbs, San Francisco, Oakland, Tulsa and, now, Santa Monica, I could only think, well, “Wow.” This is a very large country. I couldn’t even find a copy of the Times on a stop in college town Durham, N.C. To believe the national agenda was being set in a conference room in a headquarters on Manhattan’s Times Square required a very special mind-set indeed.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Samples from the liberal media meltdown. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • CNN offers 24 different explanations for Trump’s victory, none of which include “because the American voter was tried of lying outlets like CNN acting as extensions of the Democratic Party.”
  • Another look at how Democrats screwed themselves:

    Too many of my progressive friends seem to have forgotten how to make actual arguments, and have become expert instead at condemnation, derision and mockery. On issue after issue, they’re very good at explaining why no one could oppose their policy positions except for the basest of motives. As to those positions themselves, they are too often announced with a zealous solemnity suggesting that their views are Holy Writ — and those who disagree are cast into the outer political darkness. In short, the left has lately been dripping with hubris, which in classic literature always portends a fall.

    (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)

  • More on the same theme: “Dems didn’t seem to like many of the people who they expected to vote for them. Do not expect this to get better anytime soon, as Dems trot out their continued hatred for flyover country, along with calling all the Trump voters racists, sexists, xenophobes, and so forth.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • In fact, the Clinton campaign colluded with the media to give Trump the GOP nomination. Well, that didn’t work out so well for her, did it?
  • Saturday Night Live’s cold opening treats Hillary’s loss like it was 9/11. Evidently they were mourning the death of their own self-importance…
  • Erik Erickson admits he was wrong, wrong, totally wrong:

    Donald Trump is going to be the President of the United States.

    In July I wrote the piece I put up this morning acknowledging a Hillary Clinton win. It is fitting that it is the ultimate bit of being wrong after a year of being wrong about the election. I genuinely presumed Donald Trump could not win. All of the data agreed. And I and the data were wrong as were so many others.

    Snip.

    Democrats overplayed their hand on cultural issues. They had a Supreme Court impose gay marriage on the country and then tried to force men into women’s bathrooms. On top of that, they ruined healthcare for many Americans and drove up premiums. Then they nominated the worst politician in American history. Within the next 12 hours they will take off the mask and show just how much contempt they have for the very white working class that just kicked their ass.

    This piece was published the day after the election and, boy, did he get that one right.

    I have never seen anything like this election. The disdain for Hillary Clinton is obvious, but the real struggles and hurt of many voters went unregistered. The data that I have long relied on to help shape my opinions is no longer reliable and, frankly, a lot of people I thought were full of crap turned out to be as right as I was wrong. There are really two Americas and I have to do better relating to one I thought I knew already.

    I’m still a conservative. I still believe limited government is best and a strong man in Washington is a dangerous thing. I think protectionism is a bad idea. But I think the #NeverTrump Republicans need to do a reset and give Donald Trump the chance we did not give him up to now. There clearly were voters who would not admit to supporting Trump and they have sent a strong signal that they should be listened to.

    I was wrong about so much about this election and so were so many others. The sooner we get over our pride, eat some crow, and realize we missed the mood of the country, the sooner we can move on. The Brexit polling was more accurate than the American election polling this year. That is stunning. But it is also somewhat exciting to be flying blind into the future knowing the gauges we’ve always used to see where we are going no longer work.

  • Bill Mitchell’s revenge:

    The media mocked him ruthlessly for putting undue weight behind rallies over polling — a fatal error, according to Mitchell. “Rallies equal newly engaged voters,” he said. In 2008 Obama had tens of thousands who stand in line for six hours because they want to experience and taste and feel all this.” Mitchell refers to them as the “monster vote” and suggests that it’s these perhaps previously disenfranchised voters who aren’t on pollster call lists. “And so the big question was, will the 20 million who didn’t vote in 2012 come out for Trump? I kept saying it’s going to happen, no question — it’ll be something like 2008 where the previously quiet black vote came out for Obama. And it did.” It’s also worth noting — while his predictions were overly enthusiastic — that Trump would do better with Latino and black voters, and there’d be a low black voter turnout.

  • Instapundit on the great campus freakout that followed Trump’s victory.
  • Matt Walsh: “Liberals, it’s clear that you wish to continue losing.”

    You found the taste of defeat so novel and exciting that you’ve become intoxicated by it. Indeed, you’ve done everything you possibly could over these past few days to ensure that your losses are magnified and replicated in the future. Not satisfied to simply lose in 2016, you’ve now begun the project of losing in 2020 and beyond.

    Truly, your performance since Tuesday has been astounding in its tone deafness. It’s hard for me to believe that anyone could paint such a masterpiece of ineptitude and self-destruction by accident. I can only conclude that you’re doing it on purpose because, for whatever reason, you are not satiated by just one stunning, historic loss. You want more. And if that is in fact your aim, I would like to make a few suggestions to help you accomplish the goal.

    Including this:

    5. Continue calling everyone who disagrees with you racist.

    It’s a settled fact on the Left that Trump won because 60 million people are slobbering, inbred racists. On that point, I’d like to arrogantly quote myself from a piece I wrote last week:

    It turns out that white people don’t like being called racists every second of the day. It seems that guilt, shame, and self-loathing are not the best ways to generate electoral turnout. Evidently, “Repent, you bigots!” is not the most effective rallying cry.

    On a related note, it’s not true that all white people are racist. Of course it isn’t true. Again: stop being ridiculous. You can’t take some random sin or vice and assign it to an entire group of people based solely on their skin color. In fact, do you know what it’s called when you accuse everyone in a certain racial group of possessing some negative characteristic? Racism, by definition.

    The other problem with writing off all of your political opponents as racist is that, if you come to believe your own propaganda, you’ll quickly develop a deep hatred for the half of the country that disagrees with you. And if you hate people, you tend to alienate them. For example, take the Democrat strategist on CNN who sarcastically blurted out, “Oh, poor white people” when she was asked about the white Trump voter who’d been savagely beaten by a group of black protesters.

    If you really believe that all white people are despicable racists — or at least the white people who don’t vote Democrat — you will not be able to muster even the pretense of empathy or concern when white people are attacked. White middle class voters have taken note of this, understandably. And now they are a bit hesitant to vote into a power an ideology that detests them.

    Plus this great line about the perpetually clue-deprived Lena Dunham: “A regular woman doesn’t wake up the morning after an election and declare that the results made her vagina hurt.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Michelle Malkin on Trump and the end of victimhood identity politics:

    Beltway chin-pullers expediently focused on Trump’s white and conservative supporters who are rightly sick and tired of social justice double standards. But they ignored the increasingly vocal constituency of hyphen-free, label-rejecting American People Against Political Correctness who don’t fit old narratives and boxes.

    And the same “Never Trump” pundits and establishment political strategists who gabbed endlessly about the need for “minority outreach” after 2012 were flummoxed by the blacks, gays, Latinos, women and Democrats who rallied behind the GOP candidate.

    The most important speech of the 2016 election cycle wasn’t delivered by one of the presidential candidates. It came from iconoclastic Silicon Valley entrepreneur/investor and Trump supporter Peter Thiel who best explained the historically significant backlash against the intolerant tolerance mob and phony diversity-mongers.

    “Louder voices have sent a message that they do not intend to tolerate the views of one half of the country,” he observed at the National Press Club last week. He recounted how the gay magazine The Advocate, which had once praised him as a “gay innovator,” declared he was “not a gay man” anymore because of his libertarian, limited-government politics.

    “The lie behind the buzzword of diversity could not be made more clear,” Thiel noted. “If you don’t conform, then you don’t count as diverse, no matter what your personal background.”

    Trump’s eclectic coalition was bound by that common thread: disaffected individuals tired of being told they don’t count and discounted because their views do not properly “match” their gender, chromosomes, skin color or ethnicity. That is exactly why the more they and their nominee were demonized, the stronger their support grew.

  • Ann Althouse isn’t impressed with Peggy Noonan’s analysis:

    Trump needs help, she says. And these people need jobs and power, she doesn’t say. The elite, her people, lost the election, but they should have the victory anyway, because a “young man” and a “beautiful lady” spoke of fear. Throughout the whole political season, Trump was battered with the fear of fear, and now he’s won and he’s told to pander to the people who said whatever they could to oppose him, the people who stoked the fear that he needs to prioritize calming. As if it could ever be calmed, as if his opponents will ever stop stoking it.

  • Behind the scenes at Team Trump as the victory results came in.
  • Trump’s victory will set union workers free by ushering in more right-to-work states.
  • Why OPEC fears Donald Trump. (Hat tip: Instapundit.
  • Did Clinton get violent with her staff election night? No hard proof, but I wouldn’t put it past her…
  • Saving this image in case I need to troll my lefty Europhile Brit friends:

  • Slate commentator says that the Democratic Party establishment is finished:

    The Democrats will now control next to nothing above the municipal level. Donald Trump will be president. We are going to be unpacking this night for the rest of our lives, and lives beyond that. We can’t comprehend even 1 percent of what’s just happened. But one aspect of it, minor in the overall sweep, that I’m pretty sure we can comprehend well enough right now: The Democratic Party establishment has beclowned itself and is finished.

    However, he also says that those rebuilding the party “have to do so in a way that doesn’t erode the anti-racist or anti-sexist planks of the modern party, which are non-negotiable.” So, in other words: Though Shalt Not Question the Holy Social Justice Warriors, and we’re going to keep calling our political opponents racist, sexist bigots, because that worked out so well this year. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • Liberals rioting in the streets might want to heed Dionne Alexander’s message:

    “You are the exact reason Donald Trump won the election. We’re tired of you crybabies!”

  • Speaking of tantrums, Trump calls on supporters not to attack anyone (not that they actually were)…and CBS refuses to air the clip. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • The actual headline here should be “Liberals Act Like Total Douchebags to Their Relatives.”
  • Washington Post runs a piece declaring states “a relic of the past.” I’m betting most Americans are far more likely to see the Washington Post as a relic of the past…
  • CEO of data security company PacketSled fired for threatening to kill Donald Trump.
  • Garbage in, garbage out. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • About those communists rioting in the street:

    From reading the various mainstream media accounts of these events, one comes away with the distinct impression that they are grassroots actions that began organically among ordinary, concerned, well-meaning citizens.

    But alas, if one were to think that, one would be wrong.

    Contrary to media misrepresentations, many of the supposedly spontaneous, organic, anti-Trump protests we have witnessed in cities from coast to coast were in fact carefully planned and orchestrated, in advance, by a pro-Communist organization called the ANSWER Coalition, which draws its name from the acronym for “Act Now to Stop War and End Racism.” ANSWER was established in 2001 by Ramsey Clark’s International Action Center, a group staffed in large part by members of the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party. In 2002, the libertarian author Stephen Suleyman Schwartz described ANSWER as an “ultra-Stalinist network” whose members served as “active propaganda agents for Serbia, Iraq, and North Korea, as well as Cuba, countries they repeatedly visit and acclaim.”

    Since its inception, ANSWER has consistently depicted the United States as a racist, sexist, imperialistic, militaristic nation guilty of unspeakable crimes against humanity—in other words, a wellspring of pure evil. When ANSWER became a leading organizer of the massive post-9/11 demonstrations against the Patriot Act and the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, it formed alliances with other likeminded entities such as Not In Our Name (a project of the Revolutionary Communist Party) and United For Peace and Justice (a pro-Castro group devoted to smearing America as a cesspool of bigotry and oppression).

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Moe than half of those arrested in Portland’s anti-Trump riots didn’t vote in Oregon elections. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Trump reiterates that the United States will indeed be building a border wall.
  • Indeed, the fund have already been allocated. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Immigration enforcement agents are thrilled at Trump’s victory. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Hillary’s post-election speech strikes one observer as less of a concession than repositioning Clinton Inc. 2.0.
  • Chelsea Clinton being groomed for congress. Does anyone, anyone, outside the corrupt Clinton machine think this is a good idea?
  • Indian Americans voted for Trump in significant numbers.” Caveat: No statistics offered, so take it with a grain (or more) of salt.
  • Why Democrats lost, in a Tweet:

  • Donald Trump will never be President supercut:

  • Six Austin Communists Arrested for Assaulting Trump Supporters

    November 15th, 2016

    Forgot all those fake hate crimes the left is saying came from Trump supporters. The documented assaults all seem to be coming from the anti-Trump forces.

    Take, for example, these super-geniuses:

    The Texas Department of Public Safety says it arrested 6 members of a local communist group, Red Guards Austin, for assaulting pro-Trump members in Sunday’s protest.

    DPS troopers arrested Jarred Roark, 34, after he allegedly assaulted an individual on South Congress and 11th Street adjacent to the State Capitol.

    Roark was arrested on felony aggravated assault, resisting arrest and evading arrest.

    Troopers also arrested five other suspects related to the initial incident:

  • Taylor Tomas Chase, 21, interference with public duty and resisting arrest
  • Joseph Wayne George, 36, interference with public duty
  • Samuel Benjamin Lauber, 21, interference with public duty and resisting arrest
  • Jason Peterson, 24, interference with public duty and resisting arrest
  • Jade Tabitha Shackelford, 19, felony assault on public servant
  • They all look like real winners:

    Nothing says “unlimited job prospects” quite like face and neck tattoos.

    And what’s with the identical gray striped shirts? Did they make a bulk order at the Gray Striped Gulag Shirt Emporium?

    Austin breeds some extra special snowflakes…

    (And yes, that giant post-election roundup is still coming. Look for it tomorrow.)

    Batman, Iron Man…Trump?

    November 14th, 2016

    Still working on a big post-election reaction roundup, but in the meantime it occurred to me: Have half the superhero films Hollywood was made this century been mentally preparing America for a Trump presidency?

    Billionaire vigilante has to work outside the system to protect common people. His wealth is a tool to achieve that aim, and he has no trouble flaunting it when he needs to, or to dropping a well-timed quip at the expense of his opponents.

    Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark…and Donald Trump. Sure, he’s considerably older, with worse hair, but he still fits the mold.

    For all Hollywood’s leftism, they’ve spent the past decade plus (Batman Begins came out in 2005, Iron Man in 2008) mentally preparing the American public for a Trump presidency.

    Irony! It’s what’s for dinner!

    Trump Taps Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff

    November 13th, 2016

    As one of his first staff announcements, President-elect Donald Trump tapped Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus as White House Chief of Staff.

    It’s a serious pick for a man who evidently aims to be a serious President.

    Priebus did an excellent job at the RNC, helping Republicans grab and maintain House and Senate majorities in 2014 and 2016. He is widely credited with being the diving force behind a huge technology upgrade to RNC efforts, including increased get-out-the-vote efforts for those two elections.

    Another huge plus is that, despite close ties to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (Priebus was previously head of the Wisconsin Republican Party before being elected RNC head), and unlike DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz, he didn’t put his thumb on the scale for any of the 2016 GOP Presidential contenders. When Trump clenched the nomination, Priebus put the organizational weight of the RNC behind Trump despite vociferous arguments from the #NeverTrump faction to cut him lose and reallocate the money to House and Senate races. Priebus’ support, and Trump’s greater focus during the last month of the race, is why we have President-Elect Trump rather than President-Elect Clinton.

    My guess is that Priebus will be a great Chief of Staff, and his position there should reassure conservatives worried that Trump will go too far off the reservation. The saying is that “personnel is policy,” and Priebus will be in the ideal situation to make sure policy doesn’t fall pray to Trump’s whims.

    The only downside is the necessity of the RNC to find a capable replacement for Priebus. That may prove a difficult task.

    Great Lefty Rant On Why Trump Won: “The Left Did This”

    November 12th, 2016

    I was going to do a post called “How My Liberal Facebook Friends Elected Donald Trump.” (Indeed, I still may.) But this lovely rant make some of the same points.

    Tom Walker is a comedian whose shtick is pretending he’s a reporter called Jonathan Pie caught telling shocking, unspeakable truths between real reporting segments. He’s reliably lefty, but this post-Trump election rant hits home:

    Some choice segments:

  • “How many times did the vote not have to go our way before we realize that our argument isn’t won by hurling labels and insults?”
  • “But I can’t say this to any of my friends, Tim. People like me. I’d get fucking lynched!”
  • “The left is responsible for this result, because the left has now decided to any other opinion, any other way of looking at the world, is unacceptable. We don’t debate anymore because the left won the cultural war, so if you’re on the right you’re a freak! You’re evil! You’re racist! You’re stupid! You are a basket of deplorables! How do you think people are going to vote if you talk to them like that? When has anyone ever been persuaded by being insulted or labeled? So now if you’re on the right or even against the prevailing view you are attacked for raising your opinion. That’s why people wait until they’re in the voting booth, where no one’s watching anymore, there’s no blame or shame or anything, and you can finally say what you really think, and that is a powerful thing.”
  • “If my mansplaining is triggering you you can either fuck off to your safe space or you can engage and debate me and tell me what I’m getting wrong.”
  • Watch the whole thing.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)