Future Speaker Table Cloth, b/k/a Nancy Pelosi, has yet to decide on the curtains for her old and now new office, and President Donny has struck.
From the top. Done, the Presidents has asked for and received Attorney General Jeff Sessions resignation. In turn the President has designated Sessions Chief of Staff, Matthew G. Whitaker, as Acting Attorney General. Then Senate Minority Leader, Chuckles Schumer, has soiled his nappies and demanded that Whitaker also recuse himself. Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein has a White House meeting.
Reported, Rosenstein has been removed from oversight of the Mueller probe. Mueller to report to AG Whitaker. Rosenstein to resign within two weeks.
Hat tip: Ace of Spades.
First, I had a reader ask what the number of seats lost to individual presidents in their first midterms was. I found this, I hope it answers the question:
The Usual Suspects were saying that this was going to be a referendum on Trump. Given the historical data on these things, it would appear Trump isn’t doing so badly.
Editor’s note; this was written before some of the west came in. The ultimate total as of this rewriting is 35 which place is it towards the low end of the center of the above list. Still not all that worrisome.
…
The election last night was supposed to be a slap in the face to Trump and the Republicans and a referendum on Donald Trump who of course everyone hates if you listen to the media and the Democrats, (but I repeat myself).
It turns out that the only place that the Democrats were getting by with the only thing that they had to run on… namely “we hate Trump”, was in areas where they had a vastly superior enrollment, usually better than 50%.
The pollsters were as usual inflating the Democrats chances, in this case the saying that we should have seen a 50 seat swing in the house. The Democrats got a total of 27 instead.
The Socialist Stacey Abrams lost in Georgia, Gilliam lost in Florida..
The fake Mexican with the Irish background spent 80 million dollars on that Senate race and still lost. I think we’ve got a reasonable argument that he shouldn’t be anywhere near appropriating tax money. It must be an absolute bear spending 80 million dollars, having a complicit and biased press helping you, and still losing to somebody that you clearly consider to be inferior to you. So hard are the Democrats scrambling to cover their losses on this one, that they’re coming up with garbage like this;
Surprisingly tight by whose standard?
The Democrats literally poured money in, in spite of their professed belief that America is disgusted with Donald Trump and a ground change had occurred. A Blue Wave. A blue wave that simply didn’t happen. every one of the high-profile races, Folks, every single one where the Democrats were in there pulling out all the stops and pouring every dime they could into, they lost.
And while we’re here, let’s make note of the fact that’s Battle Ground State Democrats who opposed Brett Kavanaugh all lost their reelection bids. Every one of them.
Every candidate that Barack Obama stumped for, lost. Every candidate that Donald Trump stumped for, won.
Every single one. Just think about that for a minute. Let it sink in.
Sorry, that doesn’t strike me as being a pervasive mandate for the Democrats… at the very least impeachment doesn’t seem likely with so small a majority.
But let’s consider the wins that the Democrats had.. admittedly, there were a few… among them, a man known to prey on underage prostitutes, along with the series of corruptions that would take longer than I have to type them. An anti-semitic America hater who married her brother and another anti-semitic racist who beats on women, and an avowed socialist with the approximate IQ of a door stop. and up in the Looney State of California, they managed to put in the governor’s mansion the only person in California who was actually worse than Jerry Brown.
Yes, Nancy Pelosi and The Usual Suspects will be running things in the house for the next two years. But as I have said in these spaces before, the biggest prevention of the re- election of Democrats, is Democrats in power. In two years after watching Nancy Pelosi and her insane and corrupt band of guano salesmen in action, at the very least Donald Trump is a lock for reelection. And I suspect a great deal more.
The new House will be under democrat control, with an old leadership team, from Daily Wire:
President Trump just got an early Christmas present.
[…]
For Trump, though, losing the House — but getting Pelosi back as a target for 2020 — is a dream come true. And he knows it.
Speaker Tablecloth is back.
* First of all, perspective.
For the last hundred years the first midterm election of every president, the president’s party has lost seats in the House, and usually the Senate, with it. As an example of votes Bill Clinton and Barack Obama lost seats in both houses of Congress at their first midterm election.
As of this writing, the seat shift in the House is 34 or 35 to the Democrats whereas in the Senate the Democrats lost three seats. So, in other words in light of the historical standards, the Democrats pulled off a mediocre midterm at best. This despite or perhaps as a direct result of them running at volume 12 so the last two years.
Certainly, the “Blue Wave”, that the lamestream press spent agonizing months on end trying to convince us was going to happen, simply did not happen. So, we’re going to have to watch to see whether or not the Democrats bedwetting is now over. I doubt it. If the recent past is a prologue, the next two years of activities in the now Democrats controlled lower house will focus on two things… Obstruction and vengeance. With what we know of their personalities and their histories, they simply won’t be able to help themselves.
* West Virginia’s Manchin won by perhaps two points. (Though of course, it’s early, that needs to settle down a little bit.) That thin margin of victory suggests that if he hadn’t voted for Brett Kavanaugh, West Virginia would have fliped Republican. like it or no for the majority of the country the Democrat Antics with the cabinet hearings did not play well.
* The Trump effect is obviously still in play, Big Time. The races where the Democrats spent the most money was where he went. Texas and Florida, for example… the people in the GOP that embraced Trump and his agenda did pretty well. The ones that didn’t, not so much. This is going to play a huge in 2 years.
* The left is busy saying this morning that Healthcare was their big issue. There is however a problem with that claim, as you might expect….if Healthcare was there strong issue, where are the gains in the Senate?
* Watch what happens with the markets later this morning. They know very well the effect of having a Democrat controlled House will have on the economy.
* With about 45 Democrats saying that they will not vote for Nancy Pelosi as speaker, the Democrats aren’t going to be getting much done for the first six to eight months while they conduct an intramural power fight.
*Claire McCaskill is gone… there’s going to be a lot of claims as to what caused that, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that what really caused her demise was her staff letting loose the idea that she really wasn’t as Centrist as she claimed…. Thus showing her dishonesty. That factor too, is going to play a large in 2 years elsewhere in the country. (Good show, Project Veritas!!)
This is what we’re up against…
Remember guys, this is the party that claimed the Russians were hacking our election system. This is right out of Saul Alinsky’s Play Book. Accuse others of what you’ve been doing yourself.
You know, I probably could have taken all three of the topics posted today, this one and the previous two and put them all into one post. The tolerant left Rides Again.
This one, in NYC comes from the Daily Caller…
The suspect in a synagogue vandalism act that forced the cancellation of a Democratic event is reportedly a former City Hall employee who worked on anti-hate crime issues and is a Democratic activist, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.
Seems to me we got something of a trend of going here.
The New York Times and a Jewish couple helped the impoverished gay black man attend college where he studied African American studies, according to The Times.
He resented New York liberals as patronizing, and railed against Israel and cultural appropriation, according to his Facebook profile.
Now, here’s the kicker…
Before knowing his identity, politicians said the vandalism demonstrated why voting Democratic was needed and highlighted government programs to combat such incidents.
I honestly don’t think I have to take this one any further. I figure the point’s been made.
So we see James Cromwell a fairly decent character actor acting as if he doesn’t have any brains at all.
Speaking to Variety at the event, he warned of the turn that he sees America taking and cautioned there will be “blood in the streets” if Republicans remain in control.
Obviously he’s not thought this one through. Leaving the criminality of this comments aside for the moment, let’s consider the logic involved.
On one side we have a group of people that has all the guns, and about 8 trillion rounds of ammunition.
Then on the other side, we have a group of people who still can’t figure out what bathroom to use.
Guess which is which.
You know, somehow I don’t think that this is going to quite play out the way he had in mind.
Take a close look at this photograph:
Yes-siree-bob, that’s Alec Baldwin your typical peaceful leftist, pounding the crap out of somebody because he wanted the parking space.
This is the guy whose advise we’re supposed to be taking as regards presidential temperament.
Now look, I know full well that parking is a real problem in Manhattan…. But that’s what Baldwin signed on for when he decided he wanted to live there. And by the way what he wants to rest of us to sign on for. We’re all supposed to be living in big cities to save the planet, remember.
I think I’ll just leave that there.
Addendum: Eric
Sorry, I can’t resist this one that comes to us by way of Scott Ott;
If Saturday Night Live had a sense of humor they’d get Donald Trump to play Alec Baldwin in a sketch tomorrow night.
— EVAN SAYET
“When somebody says like the person you just mentioned who I’m not going to advertise for, that he’s going to bring all these jobs back. Well how exactly are you going to do that? What are you going to do? There’s no answer to it,” Obama said, refusing to even say Trump’s name.
“He just says, ‘I’m going to negotiate a better deal.’ Well how? How exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have? And usually the answer is, he doesn’t have an answer,” Obama continued condescendingly.
So, abracadabra.
U.S. employers added a better-than-expected 250,000 jobs in October, soaring past expectations for an increase of 190,000 jobs in the last jobs report before the midterm elections and on the heels of an incredibly volatile month for the stock markets.
The unemployment rate remained at 3.7 percent, the lowest rate in nearly 50 years, while the labor force participation rate increased to 62.9 percent from 62.7 percent during the month. Average hourly earnings meanwhile rose by five cents to $27.30, or 3.1 percent year-over-year, the highest it’s been since the Great Recession.
Over at Outside the Beltway we see:
Jobs Growth in October exceeded expectations, as did wage growth. It’s unclear, though, how long these numbers can be sustained.
(Sigh)
The answer is that’s the kind of question posed by somebody desperately looking out from the jaws of victory for defeat to come along and save them.
Not only did the jobs report exceed expectations, it’s tripled those expectations.
All this rather makes one wonder what it’s going to take to get The Usual Suspects to admit that conservative policies actually worked as promised and that their policies were wrong.
Here’s the thing:
Obama had no clue about jobs, nor, in point of fact, any care about jobs. He had no clue as to how to deal with the economy because he thinks everything is government driven.
Along Comes Trump and gets government out of the way and in the doing, creates more jobs than Obama’s worst nightmare. and, full-time jobs too, not just the part-time jobs that occurred on Obama’s watch.
That’s not because of any serious virtue on the part of Trump, but rather it shows the value of getting government out of the way.
This doesn’t show how good Trump is, but how bad Obama was.
Understand… that’s not a specific hit on Obama per se, but upon anyone who refuses to get government out of the way and thinks government is the solution to economic issues.
The reason the economy is doing so well at the moment is that Trump is not suffering from the socialist “big government is everything” illness that Obama was.
Let me put it this way…
The problem isn’t Obama, and the solution isn’t Trump.
The problem is government and the solution is reducing it in power and scope and essentially getting it out of the way.
There’s no more denial, nothing the left can say anymore. Their policies are wrong, always have been wrong, and we are living in the proof of it.
All that’s left is for the Democrats to admit it. And no, I’m not betting they ever will.
So, the woman who claims Brett Kavanaugh raped her, now admits she never met him. notice that the sites this information comes from is not exactly mainstream media. There’s a reason for that. It doesn’t meet their criteria of pushing the narrative. (Twitchy covered this one, too)
I gather that she’s been referred for prosecution.
Meanwhile, the name Michael Flynn has started to Bubble Up Again.
The FBI has reviewed intercepted phone calls between national security adviser Michael Flynn and the Russian ambassador to the US and has found no evidence of wrongdoing, it was revealed Monday.
…and once again, we find that the mainstream media won’t touch this because it doesn’t follow the narrative.
I suggested if they touch these stories at all it will be after the midterm elections.
Meantime, let’s consider a story that the mainstream media has been sitting on since well, forever.
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller is winning plaudits from both sides of the aisle for being named by the Department of Justice to serve as special counsel to investigate allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election and rumors of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
But given Democrat abhorrence of all things Russian, how will they react to Wikileaks’ disclosure that in 2009, then-Director Mueller delivered a sample of stolen highly enriched uranium to the Russians on a trip there?
Do you begin to understand what Americans are up against?
Glenn Reynolds quotes Stacy McCain this morning:
There has been a remarkable failure of journalism in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. The gunman, 46-year-old Robert Bowers, remains a cipher. Except for the fact that he posted anti-Semitic rants on the Internet, worked as a truck driver and lived alone in an apartment, we know nothing about Bowers. Who are his parents? Does he have any siblings? Girlfriends? Did he have any hobbies other than hating Jews?
We know none of the answers to such questions. The guy’s a complete mystery. If there are any reporters trying to fill in the background on this guy, so far they have produced nothing, and so the question of why and how this guy turned into a mass murderer cannot be answered.
This bothers me, for some reason. Think about any previous mass murder or terrorist attack — the Boston Marathon bombings, the Parkland massacre, etc. — and remember how within 72 hours we had a vast pile of biographical background on the killers. Obviously, we want to know this information, since it helps us understand the motives. What created the monster? What are the warning signs? Who is vulnerable to online appeals to hate? But in this case, we’ve got nothing.Three reporters for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette worked on a profile of Bowers, who dropped out of Baldwin High School sometime after his junior year. His photo appears in the school’s 1989 yearbook, however: “He is not listed as taking part in any clubs or activities, and classmates reached by the newspaper said they had no recollection of him.”
A total blank — a neo-Nazi NPC, you might say. The blankness of Robert Bowers should disturb us.
Evidently, any random loner — the quiet, nondescript high-school dropout with no friends or family — could log onto the Internet, find some kind of hate that appeals to him, and become a mass murderer. And in all the world of journalism, nobody except some reporters for the local newspaper will expend any effort to figure out what went wrong in this guy’s life. Why? Because they can explain it all with one word: Trump.
That’s the answer, you see.
Reynolds agrees, saying:
If they’re not telling us anything, it’s because they’re afraid anything they told us would hurt the narrative.
More correctly, it’s probably because they know whatever they told us would hurt the narrative. And that’s really what this is all about.
To show this, we move to the National Review, where we find Karol Markowicz:
After every horrible mass shooting, when we should be mourning together, looking for solutions to stop future attacks, consoling the families of the victims, there’s an immediate rush to make sure conservatives know they do not belong to that wider American community feeling the pain. Worse, there’s a constant allusion to the fact that those on the right are responsible for the slaughter. Republicans spend the time following these attacks not in mourning like they should be but beating back the sickening idea that they inspired the shooter.
With the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, the message from the Left is that it’s President Trump’s rhetoric that is to blame. While Trump indeed uses irresponsible language and inflames the country’s division with his words, blaming him for a crazed shooter is one step too far.
As James Robbins pointed out in his column in USA Today, the shooter actually believed Trump was part of the Jewish conspiracy he imagines controls America. “Bowers was explicit in his dislike of the president, saying he did not vote for him and had never ‘owned, worn or even touched‘ a (Make America Great Again) hat.” Challenging the media narrative that President Trump praised Nazi demonstrators in Charlottesville in 2017, Bowers agreed with another extremist that the president had “betrayed” right-wing radical protesters by “comparing them with a violent mob.”
That he hated Trump is irrelevant to the accusers harping about Trump’s rhetoric. Trump is still to blame.
So, first of all I have problems with the claim of “irresponsible language…”
(If Trump doesn’t stand up for Trump, who will in the Press? Nobody, and that’s exactly what’s behind the call for him to be silent on Twitter. )
But what Karol Markowicz shows at least is that Reynolds is precisely right when he says that anything they might come up with would hurt the narrative. My assumption here is that Robbins investigation just barely scratched the surface of this guy, and already cracks are beginning to show in the leftist narrative on this business.
It seems clear that any further serious investigation on the matter would blow The Narrative wide open which is something the left is press dare not do.
Withholding the truth is in fact a lie.
There can be no argument here that the truth is being withheld from us, and we are being lied to so as to support a narrative.
What is the purpose of the narrative? I suppose we can best answer that particular with the question, ” What is it that they actually want us to unify with?”
Billy Beck points out, and I think correctly:
People keep crying for “unity”. There is never going to be “unity” over the categorically-opposed principles of collectivism and individualism.
And so it is that we see the Left pushing anyone that doesn’t agree with their collectivist agenda out the door while calling for Unity. Unity, (to the surprise of absolutely nobody) behind them and their agenda.
At the end of the day, so far as the left-wing in this country is concerned, (and in this I include the Press) …the shooting at the Tree of Life was just another event to be used toward a political end. Toward collectivism.
Shameful? Hell, yes. But after watching the left for the last 40 years and most specifically since Hillary Clinton lost her bid for the presidency, would you really put it past them?
Addendum: Eric
I note with interest this morning that the rabbi at the Tree of Life who came out publicly and stated Donald Trump was welcomed in Pittsburgh is getting death threats.
Absolutely disgusting.
Related: Monica Showalter
Donald Trump did not bring division to this country. He was elected because division was already here, brought on by Decades of the establishment of both parties moving in precisely the wrong direction.
Heaven has walls, and gates and a very specific set of rules for anyone wishing to enter. You must be of a specific mindset. Hell, meanwhile, has an open borders policy and will take anyone regardless of their mindset.
The biggest single mistake that we have ever made as a country, a culture, a people… Was to turn the education of our young over to the government. If we don’t reverse that and soon, that choice will ultimately destroy us… People who are not taught the value of individual freedom, and its relationship with prospe\nrity and morality and limited government, will never believe in it, and will eventually work to destroy it.
Socialism and globalism are being rejected by the people who are subjected to them every time it’s tried. There’s a reason for that….
Neither one actually works to the advantage of the people.
Because a concept like Socialism or global warming has been disproven several times over does not by any means suggest that its backers will stop pushing those ideas. It’s all they’ve got to go with.
When speaking the plain truth is considered objectionable, Beware of the people that consider it so.
If you want to know who runs your life, look directly at those who you may not criticize. (okay, yeah that’s not mine. Follow the link and you’ll see why I brought it up)
Today’s feminism, isn’t.
For proof of this one look no further than the large number of self- proclaimed feminists who spend a great deal of time trying to look like men.
Additionally, the reason most feminists claim to hate men is because they surround themselves with liberal men who in the final analysis are not men at all, really.
There are two Sexes. Male and female. You can have all the operations you want, but it won’t matter… your DNA is not going to change. The surgical blade is not a means by which one can run away from the reality of ones self.
Claims to the contrary not withstanding, because one is of the Republican Party does that make one a conservative. Remember, the establishment GOP wasn’t too happy about Reagan winning elections either, and have subsequently gone well out of their way to erase his legacy.
At the same time, John F Kennedy wouldn’t want anything to do with the Democratic party of today. Indeed it’s a wonder is that the Democrats hold Kennedy to be an icon of the party at all. Think: When’s the last time you saw a Democrat mention the man?
The proximate cause of most of our problems is the establishment of both parties, who have come to love the power of government too much. ..more than is good for the upkeep of the principles put forward in the American Revolution… Principles we desperately need to return to if we are to survive as a nation, a culture, a people.
Indeed, the most glaring lesson taught us by the election of Donald Trump was that both parties rank-and-file are rejecting their own establishment. The rank-and-file voters recognize the dangerous situation we are in with both parties
The rank-and-file of both political parties in this country come down to the right of anything that either party has coughed up in national elections for many years.
The cause of World Peace would be best served by the removal of the United Nations from the planet.
Anyone who waves the gun-control banner in the name of “safety” is an abject idiot and should be treated as such, including the “I love me” vest, and the rubber wallpaper.
90% of what gets passed off as racial issues are actually cultural in nature.
A nation without borders ceases to be a nation, almost immediately. That is in fact the goal of pushing for open borders.
You’re welcome.
If you want an object lesson on how vindictive the left has become, older man dating of lockstep, I offer two words… Megyn Kelly.
I quietly predicted this one, when she jumped ship at Fox some time ago… Not that it was all that hard. The woman was naive enough to think that she could overcome the biases that have been displayed by NBC for decades. Surprise, it didn’t work.
It’s interesting though, how the usual leftist outfits are spinning this thing.
This is interesting as well… The charge that she was canned because she put too much of a spotlight on the $metoo problem that NBC has had four decades.
this kind of vindictiveness though is the standard play for Democrats when they are required to live up to their own standards.
Well so much for our European readers. The so-called Court of Human Rights has negated the Right of Freedom of Speech, from Mike LaChance, Legal Insurrection:
In 2009, an Austrian woman conducting a seminar on Islam argued that Muhammad’s marriage to a six year old girl meant he was a pedophile. She was convicted for this by an Austrian court, and now the European Court of Human Rights agrees.
Story, from DW:
Calling Prophet Muhammad a pedophile does not fall within freedom of speech: European court
An Austrian woman’s conviction for calling the Prophet Muhammad a pedophile did not violate her freedom of speech, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday.
The Strasbourg-based ECHR ruled that Austrian courts carefully balanced the applicant’s “right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria.”
The woman in 2009 held two seminars entitled “Basic Information on Islam,” during which she likened Muhammad’s marriage to a six-year-old girl, Aisha, to pedophilia.
Reax, Jim Treacher:
In 2018 Europe, you can’t say that Mohammed was a pedophile or the law will come after you. Punishing you for insulting a man who’s been dead for 1,400 years isn’t a violation of your human rights, because you’ve offended a protected class. You’ve pissed off the wrong people, and now you’ll pay.
Think about this phrase: “The right of others to have their religious feelings protected.” Isn’t that wonderful? You’d better watch what you say, because other people have religious feelings and they have the right to be protected from your harmful words. They have the right to “religious peace,” so you’d better not disturb it by saying something you shouldn’t.
A human right is protection that is afforded to all members of a group. A privilege is power granted to some, but not others, members of a class. Those according to the ECHR, a non-Muslim right of free speech stops when some jurist rules that such speech might offend a Muslim. This is far closer to George Orwell than Thomas Jefferson.
You might well argue that this Austrian woman slandered Mohammad. Fine. Let Mohammad sue her for Slander.
And everywhere, liberal heads are exploding.
And yeah, I know, Infowars, yada yada. at the moment they’ve got the most complete coverage of this thing. More as I find
