I suppose it was morbid curiosity and nothing more that caused me to be actually listening to the Democrat debate last night. The same kind of curiosity that drives people to watch trainwrecks, and listen to Yoko Ono albums. At least that’s what was driving me for as as long as I could leave it on without becoming violently ill. I suppose it is one of the few events on Earth anymore, where you can see softballs being tossed to the participants by their adoring cheerleaders, so, there’s that.
The truth of the matter is that what we were treated to last night, was not a debate by any measure. The entire thing was an exhibition, designed specifically to allow the candidates to out “woke”each other.
In general I must say that I heard absolutely nothing which counters my long- held belief that absolutely none of the people who have a chance of making it by the Democrat Party nomination process are going to make any serious impact in the general election.
A few specific notes:
# Nothing says pandering like a glaringly white Irish guy answering questions in Spanish with no prompting to do so. It’s almost like O’Rourke has never heard the phrase ‘cultural appropriation”. by the time I shut the thing off the moderator and a total of three of the various candidates had attempted speaking Spanish. To my ear only one of them managed it with any degree of success.
# it was almost comical watching the Democrats dance around real answers to economic questions. with the economy going great guns, it’s going to be difficult for them in the extreme to convince anyone at all that the economy needs changing, and that we need to go back to the way things were under say, Barack Hussein Obama. Last night was their first attempt at it and was a massive failure on that score. (As if it could have come out any other way.)
# For my final specific point I’ll turn things over to Roger Kimball, because I can’t think of a better way to put this than his eleven-year-old daughter did.
The best comment I heard tonight came from my 11-year-old daughter. Walking into my study at one point and overhearing something Elizabeth Warren said about ‘corporations’ or ‘Medicare for All,’ she asked ‘does she know about a thing called money?’ We exchanged a meaning glance because it was clear that neither Sen. Warren nor her Democratic colleagues know the first thing about money, a prerequisite for the job of president of the United States. Which is a major reason why none of them will have that title on their resumes, and thank God for small mercies.
And God help us, there will be more of these idiots on the tube tomorrow night.
Let’s start here:
So now, Mayor Pete, the next best hope of the Democrat Party, has called in an independent investigation by the federal government.
I wonder a great many things about all of this… And here is just a couple…
# Will the citizens of South bend who are obviously extraordinarily angry, believe what the feds say happens when the investigation is over? After all, these are largely Democrat Party constituents who by and large don’t believe a word of the Mueller report because it didn’t achieve the desired result. The desired, (and loudly stated) effect here is to fire the cops.
# I wonder what it’s going to take to get the constituencies of these larger towns to not immediately figure murder is racism on the part of The Police every time one of these situations pops up. of all of the question marks that has popped up in the last 20 years or so on these kind of affairs, how often if we found the cops guilty? A handful, if that. I’m forced to conclude that having lept to their wrong conclusion there is no steering them away from it.
Now, however that works out the one thing that we can positively say about all of this is that the mayor has successfully screwed up his presidential chances. There is no recovery from the damage done by this video. There is one other set of videos out there, that are of a kind with this one.. where he’s up on stage, and is basically afraid of his own constituents.
If he can’t deal with a bunch of his own constituency yelling at him, how in the world is he going to be able to deal with Vladimir Putin or for that matter a Ted Cruz? Or a Donald Trump?
Simply put, Pete Buttigieg is not presidential material and has now clearly exposed himself as such.
One down, 25 to go.
Addendum: Eric
An interesting read from Gail Heriot, stating the obvious. Namely if you really believe that black lives matter, maybe you should stop under estimating the value of a police presence in neighborhoods that are riddled by high crime.
If this mental midget Buttigieg had any brains at all that would have been the first point out of his mouth, and the last before he walked off the stage.
Dale makes an interesting point over at Q&O the other day. He was talking about the vote in the European Union, Brexit, Etc but I think that the formula can be applied easily to politics here in the states.
Paraphrasing him, he suggests that when you’ve got 10 guys with tiki torches, that can be labeled “the far right”. When you’ve got something just under 50% of the electorate, that’s no longer the far right. That’s mainstream.
The Democrats are forever labeling any opposition to them as “far right”. The fact of the matter is it’s anything but.
I suppose it’s easy for the Democrats to blame massive opposition they are seeing on a vast right-wing conspiracy… (Hillary Clinton call your office) …but in fact thats too easy. In labeling it as such, what they avoid is having to face the idea that the opposition that they are seeing is due to their own overreach to the left…. That the left is being rejected by the voters. Far from being isolated to the far right, the opposition to their nonsense has gone mainstream. They’ve gone too far even for the supposed political center. That it is in fact they who have become disconnected from the minds and hearts of the American people, the American voter. thus, the election of Donald Trump with the overwhelmingly clear mandate that he is to clean house, and that mandate has the establishment of both parties working overtime to protect their little fiefdoms.
Nor, I think, is this limited so these not so United States. Consider the Brexit movement. Consider the recent elections in Germany. Consider the rather startling unpopularity of Macron in France. Consider Viktor Orban over in Hungary. The umbrella movement in Taiwan.
Everywhere you look around the globe, we are seeing long empowered establishment politics being removed or at least resisted, and for the most part the people taking this action have not been heretofore involved with politics all that much. That’s a trend that has the left panicking these days.
On a personal note, I must say that I am disappointed that we haven’t seen anything out of the guys the last couple of weeks.
John Hinderaker says:
Project Veritas’s latest project is exposing the left-wing bias that pervades “big tech.” That such bias exists is no surprise, but documenting it–and, more important, its effects–is something else. Yesterday Veritas released a new video, about 25 minutes long, on Google. It consists of two parts: an interview with an unidentified Google employee whose voice is altered so that he sounds like Darth Vader, and footage secretly taped of a conversation with Jen Gennai, Google’s “Head of Responsible Innovation.”
So, does the evidence presented amount to a bombshell that finally confirms what many have long suspected about Google’s effort to steer America’s information ecosystem to the left? I would answer with a qualified Yes.
That “yes” is made even more potent by the idea that Google removed the video less than 24 hours after it went up. Gee, I can’t imagine why they’d do that.
You know, maybe now we’ve got a pretty good idea of how the ChiComms operate, huh? I mean, you didn’t think they were going to limit their political activities to satisfying the Murderous Chinese Communist regime did you?
The video is still available here, by the way.
Addendum: Eric
Eric referred to the advice columnist E. Jean Carrol as a lunatic. She is but so much more. Carrol is also a cougar. Carrol on Charlie Rose (1996), video:
Carrol appears to hold as universal all her personal ideas. As some women, such as Carrol, like the idea of a cave man dragging them away by their long hair, all women do. Then why does Carrol wear her hair so short? Notice how Rose and Breslin like a third rail.
Carrol also describes women’s, her, memories as malleable. Maybe Carrol does remember Trump molesting her in the changing room, or maybe she just wishes he had.
Note to Anderson Cooper, have you fired your producer yet? He set you up with an interview with a lunatic.
Advice for Carrol, Donny likes models. You are no model. Then unlike Cooper, Donny does like girls. Just not you.
Look up the word “lunatic” in the dictionary…. Or, you can just watch this video.
Mike Gallagher, the 8th most recognized talk radio personality, in the U.S.A., is heard by over 2.25 million
listeners weekly. He compiled and wrote the following essay entitled,
“Obama: It was You.”
* It was you who spoke these words at an Islamic dinner – “I am one of you.”
* It was you who on ABC News referenced – “My Muslim faith.”
* It was you who gave $100 million in U.S. taxpayer funds to re-build foreign mosques.
* It was you who wrote that in the event of a conflict- “I will stand with the Muslims.”
* It was you who assured the Egyptian Foreign Minister that – “I am a Muslim.”
* It was you who bowed in submission before the Saudi King.
* It was you who sat for 20 years in a Liberation Theology Church condemning America and professing Marxism.
* It was you who exempted Muslims from penalties under Obamacare that the rest of us have to pay.
* It was you who purposefully omitted – “endowed by our Creator ” – from your recitation of The Declaration Of
Independence.
* It was you who mocked the Bible and Jesus Christ’s Sermon On The Mount while repeatedly referring to the ‘HOLY’ Qur’an.
* It was you who traveled the Islamic world denigrating the United States Of America.
* It was you who instantly threw the support of your administration behind the building of the Ground Zero Victory mosque overlooking the hallowed crater of the World Trade Center.
* It was you who refused to attend the National Prayer Breakfast, but hastened to host an Islamic prayer breakfast at the
White House
* It was you who ordered Georgetown Univ. and Notre Dame to shroud all vestiges of Jesus Christ BEFORE you would
agree to go there to speak, but in contrast, you have NEVER requested the mosques you have visited to adjust their decor.
* It was you who appointed anti-Christian fanatics to your Czar Corps.
* It was you who appointed rabid Islamists to Homeland Security.
* It was you who said that NASA’s “foremost mission” was an outreach to Muslim communities.
* It was you who as an Illinois Senator was the ONLY individual who would speak in favor of infanticide.
* It was you who was the first President not to give a Christmas Greeting from the White House, and went so far as to hang
photos of Chairman Mao on the White House tree.
* It was you who curtailed the military tribunals of all Islamic terrorists.
* It was you who refused to condemn the Ft. Hood killer as an Islamic terrorist.
* It is you who has refused to speak-out concerning the horrific executions of women throughout the Muslim culture,
but yet, have submitted Arizona to the UN for investigation of hypothetical human-rights abuses.
* It was you who when queried in India refused to acknowledge the true extent of radical global Jihadists, and instead
profusely praised Islam in a country that is 82% Hindu and the victim of numerous Islamic terrorists assaults.
* It was you who funneled $900 Million in U.S. taxpayer dollars to Hamas.
* It was you who ordered the United States Postal Service to honor the MUSLIM holiday with a new commemorative stamp.
* It was you who directed our UK Embassy to conduct outreach to help “empower” the British Muslim community.
* It was you who funded mandatory Arabic language and culture studies in Grammar schools across our country.
* It is you who follows the Muslim custom of not wearing any form of jewelry during Ramadan.
* It is you who departs for Hawaii over the Christmas season so as to avoid past criticism for NOT participating in seasonal
White House religious events.
* It was you who was uncharacteristically quick to join the chorus of the Muslim Brotherhood to depose Egypt’s Hosni
Mubarak, formerly America’s strongest ally in North Africa; but, remain muted in your non-response to the Brotherhood
led slaughter of Egyptian Christians.
* It was you who appointed your chief adviser, Valerie Jarrett, an Iranian, who is a member of the Muslim Sisterhood, an
off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
* It was you who said this country is not a Christian nation.
Lloyd Marcus at the American Thinker:
Trump’s speech revealed a far more ideologically conservative Trump than he was is 2016. When Trump ran for the presidency, he was not ideological. His leanings appeared to be towards the left. He probably thought conservatives were a bit paranoid and over-the-top sounding the alarm about how Democrats seek to undermine our country’s best interests. But when the American left responded with furious wrath and anger against Trump for his “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan, Trump’s eyes were opened. Incredibly, the American left’s vitriolic, insane 24/7 relentless rebuke and hatred for everything Trump does for America has pushed Trump further to the right.
Ehhh… No, not quite.
What’s done that is the wild popularity he has received every time he’s gone right. Trump is if nothing else a pragmatist. He understands that you go with what’s worked for you. It is precisely that wild popularity that Trump sees every time he goes to the right which has made the Democrats so scared and angry, (aside from the looming threat of jail time for a large number of them.)
Marcus has this one at least partially correct…
Back in 2016, Donald Trump was aiming at the mythical political center. However, almost immediately upon arriving in the oval office Trump began to realize that his real strength came from the long ignored and long castigated right.
For the last several generations, since before Ronald Reagan, both Democrats and Republicans have been trying to convince America that the popular mood of the country was at or near what both parties defined as the center. What Trump has discovered is what I’ve been saying since Reagan… That the political center as defined by the establishment of both parties does not exist. ….that the American electorate is much farther to the right than anything that either party has coughed up since Reagan.
Which, in turn, explains the wild cultural popularity of both Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. ( And thus, their political popularity.)
For generations now the electorate has felt itself disconnected from the establishment of both parties. Along comes Donald Trump who shares in that disconnection and puts a thumb in the eye of the establishment of both parties, reminding both parties who it is they’re supposed to be working for.
I still insist that Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan. You see, Reagan understood these equations as one does the matter of breathing, as does Ted Cruz. (Which explains my support for Ted Cruz in the last cycle.)
Trump, meanwhile, understands it only as a matter of political calculation. Thing is, that still puts him head and shoulders,at this point, above anybody else in the field.
The Democrats understand this too, which is why we see the party leadership essentially rejecting the far left.. the Bernie Sanders /Cory Booker/ Pocahontas/ etc crowd, and trying desperately to hang on to the only hope that they’ve got… Joe Biden… Scant though that hope is.
It’s becoming increasingly clear they won’t succeed in getting Biden nominated…. and even if they do, he won’t win in the general.
All that to the side, the speech in Orlando reveals and reinforces everything that I’ve been saying about all these things for the last three years now.
It appears that we have China in a bit more of a vice than the news media here in the States has been telling us.
Bloomberg, this morning:
Giant Manufacturing Co. saw the writing on the wall early on. The world’s biggest bicycle maker started moving production of U.S.-bound orders out of its China facilities to its home base in Taiwan as soon as it heard Donald Trump threaten tariff action in September.
“When Trump announced the plan of 25% tariffs, we took it seriously,” Chairwoman Bonnie Tu said in an interview at Giant’s Taichung City headquarters in Taiwan. “We started moving before he shut his mouth.”
Giant is part of a growing number of global firms that are pivoting production out of China in reaction to the increasingly hostile trade relations between the two superpowers. Intel Corp. this week became the latest to say it’s reviewing its global supply chain, while Li & Fung Ltd., the world’s largest supplier of consumer goods, said the trade war is spurring it to diversify away from China.
That’s just two suppliers of many that are in the process of moving out of China and two more Western friendly sources if not directly to the United States.
A third: Black & Decker is leaving China and putting a plant up in the states. and so on, and so on, and so on right on down the line, this is happening.
These are the jobs that BHO told us we’re never coming back. Well guess what? They’re back and our economy is once again the envy of the world.
There are those who argue against tariffs, claiming they support free markets. I suggest that markets with a Communist dictatorship that refuses to follow international agreements is anything but free trade.
Reynolds adds an important point, referring to recent Iranian actions, and showing us that tariffs are not the only actions being taken…
Just remember, before fracking we had to be able to keep the Straits of Hormuz open. Now all we have to be able to do is keep them closed. And if Iran decides to close down oil shipments from the Gulf, it’s basically an oil embargo on China.
So not only are orders to manufacturers in China dwindling at what China should be considering an alarming rate, China’s manufacturing ability will also be disappearing given the state of energy supplies in that country.
The Chinese has been playing us for fools, ever since Nixon. I for one am glad to see someone with the stones to put the stop to it. I say once again, Trump was never my guy but I have to admit, he’s got this one 100% correct.
Here we go;
Jackson Cosko, a former aide to Senator Maggie Hassan and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, is headed to prison on Wednesday. Cosko is responsible for doxxing GOP senators during the Kavanaugh hearings last fall.
The former aide, Jackson Cosko, pleaded guilty in April to crimes related to an unparalleled effort to ransack a Senate office, extorting a Democratic senator, illegally harming Republicans for their political views, and blackmailing a witness.
Given what we’ve been seeing out of the Democrats lately, this is the tip of the iceberg. I am not at all convinced that this guy acted alone and without direction.
And let’s just for the sake of argument say that he was acting alone and without instruction. Are Hassan, and Sheila Jackson Lee, arguably two of the most wack doodle people in government, going to be asked to take responsibility for creating the environment where this kind of thing happens, or are they going to find some way to blame Trump for it?
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (Moron-NY) wants to have it both ways on abortion. One Silly Gilly declares being pro-life a religious belief. It isn’t. Sobeit. Two, she then proposed to ban pro-lifers from holding federal office, see Legal Insurrection.
The problem for Silly Gilly is that the Constitution bans a religious test for office, from Legal Information Institute:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
Whenever, Silly Gilly votes on the basis of her religious test for office she violates her Oath of Office.
“There are more people in line for the bathroom at Trump’s rally than Biden had at his entire rally.”
-Dan Bongino, Former Secret Service Agent to president Clinton
As I have said previously the real tragedy here is not the perception that Biden is the best candidate the Democrats have, it’s that the perception is accurate.
It’s time to come back to reality and recognize for once and all that government has been destroying Health Care since the sixties… To the precise degree that government has been put in charge of it in the name of saving it.
Look closely at when healthcare costs started getting out of control. Lbj’s “great society”. Every single time the government decides to step in to lower healthcare costs, the costs respond by going through the ceiling.
Want to lower healthcare costs? Make it affordable? Get government out of healthcare entirely. It’s the only answer.
A collection of one or two lines thoughts that have occurred to me over the last few weeks:
# If a baker cannot be allowed to deny service to a homosexual couple supposedly because the bakery is a public accommodation, why is it that we still allow Facebook and Twitter to shut down accounts?
# TMZ reports:
Britney Spears’s longtime manager Larry Rudolph says the singer may never perform again
Uh huh.
Promise?
# Billy Beck: “The whole root of the concept of “justice” lies in bringing human action into accord with reality.” That’s true enough, and well said… But how does one explain reality to a Democrat? If these last two years have shown us anything, it’s that the Democrats consider reality to be an entirely new concept.
#Issues and Insights has a new article entitled Venezuela: A Humanitarian Crisis The Left Couldn’t Care Less About.
Oh, they care all right. It’s just they haven’t been able to figure out any way to blame the right for it.
# In a similar vein, Rick Moran asks: Are Hong Kong’s Days of Freedom Numbered?
The answer is, “probably”. We’ve heard it from the left so many times now it’s become knee-jerk. “Democracy dies in darkness”. Yet, the left-wing press in this country refuses to touch what is likely the largest story of our times. could it possibly be that they don’t like the idea of projecting the truth of the matter, a left-wing government is the oppressor? That, as with Venezuela, they haven’t figured out a way to blame the right for that oppression?
So says the New York Post this morning:
Notorious race-faker Rachel Dolezal has publicly announced that she is bisexual, just in time for Pride month.
Dolezal, who infamously posed as black to become president of the NAACP‘s chapter in Spokane, Wash., took to Twitter on Saturday for the unexpected update on her sexuality.
As I said in May of last year, following her welfare fraud conviction..
There’s a number of questions that spring from this, however. Chiefly among them why would she be trying to pass yourself off as black if she didn’t think there was some kind of an advantage to it?
Some kind of, shall we say, privilege?
But perhaps it’s time to consider another parallel.
We just got through spending two years with fake charges of collusion with the Russians. That and of course the fake polling data, which suggested that Donald Trump had absolutely no chance to win the election. We had the Jessie Smollett affair. Global warming, where in the we’ve been fed fake data for years and of course much more.
Now, of course, all of this comes from the left.
Rachel Dolezal is a Democrat.
Do you see the trend yet?
