In The president Trump criminal immunity case, the justices, even the leftist justices, are asking the real questions, not the questions being asked in the lawfare cases against Trump. Even far left judge Ketanji Jackson Brown, asking a left-leaning question, is addressing a legitimate concern, even if it doesn't apply in the Trump case.
Of course the conservative justices are asking the better questions but the two questions are flip sides of the same coin; "Can the president do whatever he wants with total immunity?" vs. "Can a political candidate be prosecuted for political reasons, by his opponents, with total immunity for the false prosecutors?"
Really they are the same question to some degree because it's what we are seeing the Let's Go Brandon administration trying to do to Trump; prosecute an opponent as president, with total immunity and no consequences.
The answer to the question should not be an easy simple one for political expediency. Suggesting the president can do anything he wants with total immunity (murder?) is dangerous. Suggesting that a president or former president or a presidential candidate can be prosecuted by anyone for any reason, real or fictitious, is equally dangerous. There must be some balance in the answer that supersedes the immediate political interests of the two political parties. That's not something to be solved with expedience. It requires a sound ruling from SCOTUS and a subsequent reasonable legislative discussion and eventual law based on that ruling.
That is not to Trump's immediate benefit, but it is to the country's benefit. What as Trump supporters we can hope for is something that lays waste to the lawfare for the time being while a longer, broader and more thoughtful approach takes place after the 2024 election.
I was digging through my old posts this morning, looking for a specific one (that I have yet to find). It led me just now to post on a tangential topic. And now it's led me to an entirely unrelated topic. This time, it's about a notion that actually relates to my previous post - Democrats keep making the same mistakes.
In that previous post, I noted that the Democrats' mistakes on Israel and Hamas are driven by politics rather than by morality or even national security. However, their mistakes on the economy and unemployment are driven by political and economic misunderstanding. Socialist policies lead to bad outcomes.
Some people look back on the Obama years with nostalgia, but it's undeserved:
The U6 president, unlike his Nobel Peace Prize, now has an accomplishment he has truly earned. He has presided over the longest stretch of unemployment above 8% in the history of unemployment in the United States (reported by HuffPo - emphasis added);
Stronger job creation could help President Barack Obama's re-election hopes. Still, the unemployment rate has been above 8 percent since his first month in office – the longest stretch on record. No president since World War II has faced re-election with unemployment over 8 percent.
Of course back then, spin mattered. Now it doesn't - few believe this "president" is doing a good, and few believe that spin matters more than who votes and which votes actually get counted. Sad but true.
None of this matters to Democrats, it's about accumulation and retention of power. That and their socialist agenda which they either believe completely or just use to help centralize their power. Nothing more. Hurt Israel, hell hurt Americans. As long as it serves their purpose it doesn't matter to them. That's evil.
As I've said many times over the years - they are either too stupid or too evil (or maybe both) to be allowed to lead the country.
In 2012 I shared a post about Democrats flip-flopping on their stance on Israel and Hamas. Back then the Democrats were tacitly trying to hold together a fragile coalition that included groups who apparently despise each other - to this day.
Here's an excerpt:
The Democratic National Convention, reeling from today’s chaotic fiasco surrounding the reinsertion of pro-Israel, pro-God language into the party platform, has announced that President Obama personally intervened to ensure that that language was revived. But Politico is now reporting that President Obama approved the original, Jerusalem-less, Hamas-less language less than a fortnight ago. He didn’t try to change the platform “until after Republicans jumped on the omissions of God and Jerusalem late Wednesday.” And his own party was clearly against it – the people on the floor of the convention probably didn’t even vote in majority numbers for the reinsertion of pro-Israel, pro-God language. They booed Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the DNC chairman, off the stage after he rammed through the measure on the third vote.
Their fragile coalition is fracturing finally. They can only hold the lies to both sides together for so long, and apparently that's about 12 years.
This has happened before. Remember when the left wing media held secret meetings to align their news stories back in 2012? I blogged about it, I'll find a link and add it ASAP. The point is this conspiracy is real, and it's not new news:
The left is an alliance of viciously self-interested groups. This why the Left will ultimately eat itself. It's why Trump is beating Let's Go Brandon in the polling, the sane left is abandoning the left altogether in a grasp at normalcy. The only way to stay on the left is to out-crazy the rest of the pack. Who can keep up with that? Who wants that? Obviously the elite do and so do the echo chamber nut jobs in the media.
Those who stick around for it will devolve back into their self-interested packs with their support my cause OR ELSE mentality. Alec Baldwin case in point:
Canada has long espoused multiculturalism under various Liberal governments for many decades now, dating back to the previous Prime Minister Trudeau (an equally bad leader to his son). The list of failures of this supposed approach to a social fabric, is that all it serves to do is rip the social fabric. Canada used to marvel that our "cultural mosaic" of multiculturalism was superior to the American melting pot approach to a social fabric (i.e. bring your own culture, but adapt and add only the best parts of what you were leaving behind to American society).
The truth is multiculturalism is an unabashed failure, and it's begun to take deep root in America. Do not allow yourselves as a nation to continue down this path to eventual failure:
Sheetz did criminal background checks on job applicants. The Let's Go Brandon administration is suing Sheetz because they said it was racial discrimination. No, it's about hiring people without criminal records. By the administration's logic they should be suing themselves for upholding policies and political positions (wittingly or not), that keep poor people poor and desperate enough to become criminals in the first place.
Canada has a monopoly problem. It serves as a cautionary tale for any economy becoming oligopolistic or worse, monopolistic. The trend in Canada has been towards fewer and fewer players in most major industries. It harms consumers, employees and stifles innovation. In Canada it has become a critical problem.
No worse monopoly than government, and there is no bigger monopoly than government. Socialists who are anti-business and prefer to consolidate power favor government as producer. They are in favor of an even bigger super-monopoly, refusing to see the error of their own illogic.
I'm a Gen-Xer, early enough in that generation to be just post-baby boomer. I'm not saying we were brought up properly. The Baby Boomer generation were not typically terrific parents, most of what was said in this clip was very typical of my childhood and also true of most everyone I knew growing up together. They made a lot of mistakes as parents. But I feel like I have a lot more resilience than I see in subsequent generations.
That lack of resilience probably enables Millennials and Gen Z susceptible to woke culture and safe spaces and all that that entails. And there's a lesson to be learned from that.
Let's stage a Let's Go Brandon clip, except they forgot to destroy the scripting part by mistake. If there's no script, Let's Go Brandon can only stammer. That's how we knew this sort of thing has always been scriptyed.
I'd like to tell Cher, Barbara Streisand, Meathead (aka Rob Reiner) et. al. "Do not come to Canada when Trump wins in November 2024. We don't want any of you and your socialist elite tripe." But instead, I'll let the facts, and others say it instead.
In summary, Canada is broken, really, really, badly broken. It's thanks to the socialist policies of Justin no-brains Trudeau.
And for the rest of America's sake, do not allow Let's Go Brandon to drag the United States further down this path. PLEASE!!!
That's how bad it really is, but it gets a lot worse. This video, is REAL!
Trudeau's popularity is in the gutter but we are stuck with him for another 18 months or so. You in America have a shorter window to try to fix things. GET IT RIGHT before this happens to you:
(For context, 1 liter is 0.264172 U.S. gallons, and the price per gas per liter has just gone up to $1.79, or $6.78 per gallon!)
There are so many more of these but here's a view from what seems to be the left side of the political aisle, and it explains why Justin Trudeau is so despised now:
It's not too late to stop this from happening in America. All you have to do is not vote Democrat. Vote Republican or this WILL happen in America, guaranteed.
I'm a Canadian, living in Canada. I like my country, but I don't love it. I certainly don't like our current facsimile of a leader. I do love what the United States is supposed to be, and throughout most of it's history, has been. In the United States you have your own facsimile of a leader at the moment. One who can barely stand, who can barely speak, barely walk, and clearly barely think, is no leader.
America has the capacity, as a country, of unparalleled greatness. If that greatness is not eroded by the people who would have you forget your history.
Here is one small sample of what it means to be American. This used to be celebrated. It should be celebrated again, instead of your pronouns:
A while back Joe Rogan responded to the viral video of Canadian opposition leader, and next Prime Minister, Pierre Poilievre disarming a leftist reporter. He was impressed but had trouble with the leader's name. This video will fix that for Joe Rogan, and others who have struggled with reading or pronouncing Pierre Poilievre's name:
Death to America chants includes death to the American government. It means her job, possibly even her safety. Does she care? Not enough to say anything. Her radical agenda comes first.
Once again I have a lot going on with my day job, my company was bought out by another and there's been a lot of transition work going on, both before and after the switchover. As a result I haven't been able to post as much in the way of my own thoughts as I'd like. I've been leaning on videos by others and just adding some of my own thoughts quickly to it. It's been less than ideal, but this blog has always been a time permitting situation. Nevertheless in previous years I have been able to still manage 500 posts per year relying on that formula.
I don't expect that to change. I just wanted to offer an explanation as to why my posts have been probably more reliant on videos by others of late as compared to earlier this year, where I tried to offer more exposition than in the past few years. Early on in this blog's history it was mostly my own exposition. I sincerely wish to return to that and at some point this year, I believe it will be the case again. Short term though, likely not.
Blogger has afforded me a platform, but not much of an income (I only make about $30-$50 per year from AdSense). So while it is an enjoyable pursuit, a worthwhile pursuit, it's not a living. Therefore, sadly, the day job must come first, at least until I retire.
More frequent expositional posting will return, as soon as possible.
Courtesy of Paul Joseph Watson, Jimmy Kimmel ignores the fact that where America is unclean, is predominantly the progressivist bastion cities he applauds for other reasons. Kimmel is willfully blind to the correlation of leftist policies and resulting filth.
When Democrats say these things it's supposedly not violence. Then they make up falsehoods about violence on the right. Not blanketing all Democrat voters, but those who do espouse violence are vile people.
Nebraska is trying to get Donald Trump one more electoral college vote. About time. This notion of proportional allocation is a miasmic sewer hole of ways to shift votes to Democratic candidates. You don't see New York or California doing this, why should a solidly Republican state do it?
Recently Piers Morgan had YouTubers Nerdrotic and The Critical Drinker (a personal favorite) on his show to discuss Disney's recent parade of flop movies. It was a good discussion but my takeaway went in an entirely different direction, not involving Disney except peripherally . Firstly, here's their discussion before I pivot away. Notice there are two other guests to round out the panel debate but meh, who cares.
As I said, a good discussion, but not my point. My observation is that more and more we are seeing (no offense intended) second tier YouTubers show up on more mainstream outlets. Let me be clear, neither of those gentlemen are second tier in terms of content. I mean that they are not at the level of say a Joe Rogan or Jordan Peterson in terms of viewership. Not yet at least.
Why are these people being elevated to mainstream status? Again, I am fans of both of these YouTubers, this is not meant as a slight at them. They are talented, educated, intelligent and well spoken. But why them, why not say Ben Affleck (whom I would be much less likely to watch on Piers Morgan's show)? I think I know the answer, or at least a few possible answers.
Firstly, I already answered it in part; who wants to watch Ben Affleck pontificate on anything? We have already seen him make a clown out of himself on Bill Maher's show. So there are ratings to consider. But then why not Ben Shapiro, who is clearly a top tier catch? Maybe it's because he is already a known commodity. Media is always looking for the next new thing, and when you have people like Nerdrotic and The Critical Drinker who can do just as good a job as guests, you are in the right (perceived) lane as mainstream media. Furthermore, you can't just keep doing the same thing and expect to maintain ratings. If that was the case, TV shows would all be reruns, music artists would only make one album, and Gone With The Wind and Wizard of Oz would be the only movies in theaters. New and different don't always work, but they do often enough to be absolutely 100% necessary.
Secondly, Nerdrotic and The Critical Drinker have become a bit more than just second tier. They have over a million and nearly two million subscribers respectively. These are not small players. The media in general is at a point where has to embrace these independent content producers because they are continually losing ground to the likes of YouTube. As the saying goes, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Unfortunately I think much of the mainstream media, and I'm not talking about Piers Morgan here, have not understood the main lesson here. The reason people are going to YouTubers, is the same reason they had started moving to Netflix; you are producing crap that people do not want to watch. The woke message hammering in movies and shows is not a winning formula. Ironically, this was the Piers Morgan Disney debate's topic in the above clip.
Disney is still not getting the message it seems.
As an aside, I've noticed this happening more on the right side of the political aisle than the left side. That could be an observational bias since I watch very little left leaning content, it's hard to stomach for long. But the idea that it's predominantly a right sided phenomenon does make sense. The right has far fewer celebrities and therefore needs more 'celebrities' than does the left. The right is more open to conversation from outside the echo chamber; we are not a lockstep thinking group. Therefore we need new perspectives, the left mostly does not.
If the left eventually comprehends all this, it will hopefully be too late to save their media hegemony.
You cannot force people to recognize a holiday they don't recognize. You especially cannot do it on Easter. That, is exactly what Let's Go Brandon and the far left LGBT social mafia are still trying to do:
I'm no longer sure that tyranny is an eventuality. In 2009 I despaired it was inevitable. It isn't. There are real reasons that the danger exists, as Academy of Ideas points out:
But ultimately, there are cycles that tyranny begets liberty which in turn begets liberty. Everything is cyclical. Tyranny is certainly part of that list of cyclical things. But when I say tyranny is not inevitable, I mean specifically a few things.
tyranny is not inevitable at this point in history
tyranny is not an inescapable end state for all
tyranny is not universal in the sense that it will exist in all places at all times
tyranny cannot ultimately overcome our God given, inalienable rights
Tyranny as is argued in the video exists in many forms. The video is not wrong. But there are degrees of tyranny and different locus points for tyranny; for example woke culture's attempted tyranny is as much tyranny as government's impositions. But the spirit of freedom is a flame that cannot be snuffed. And so long as that's true, tyranny cannot only not be absolute, but it can be held at bay for long periods of time, It can be pushed back. It can be fought and defeated withe every successive generation, if they choose to do so. That is an encouraging thought.
Calling out the New York Times does not matter. Mostly it doesn't matter to be more precise. The New York Times will not change it's stripes because people who already thought they were vile, disgusting, manipulative and deceitful see this as vile, disgusting and manipulative (and probably deceitful too). The New York Times is what it is: a radical left propaganda vehicle, and nothing more or less. It will not change, it's too late. It will go down to absolute bankruptcy continuing to do what it has been doing for decades; lying for the left's ignoble cause.
Where this does matter, is to those who pay attention that they may be reminded of what the NYT is, and to those few who happen upon the story on Fox and are awakened to the ill intent and evil of that rag.
WAS THIS DELIBERATE? RFK Jr. announced his VP running mate, Nicole Shanahan, and she is a raging leftist establishment type. He's shot any chance of a successful presidential campaign in the foot. I'm not sure what the strategy was here; RFK Jr. may feel he's garnered as many conservative supporters as he could and is now making a play to pull voters from Let's Go Brandon's base. He certainly stands to lose some of his independent supporters as a result of a radical leftist pick. And it's hard to see how the left will gravitate to RFK Jr. when they seem to think a defense of democracy is the most pressing issue facing America in 2024. They'll have to vote for Let's Go Brandon out of fear (aka TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome). But maybe, this was a deliberate self-sabotage.
Nicole Shanahan, the 38-year-old lawyer and investor who will now be Kennedy’s running mate, provides a helpful injection of cash to the campaign, having donated more than $4.5 million to his bid thus far.
Shanahan is a longtime staple of the Silicon Valley scene as an early AI executive, an ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin and, according to the Wall Street Journal, an alleged one-time paramour of Elon Musk.
But potentially more significant than the money she delivers is the way her politics squares with Kennedy’s existing supporters, and what it means for U.S. party alignment.
Looking at Shanahan’s track record, she at first seems the paragon of a loyal Democrat: She contributed to Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg in 2020, and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), her local representative.
She was a major donor to Measure J, an anti-incarceration California ballot initiative, and her Bia-Echo Foundation names “the world’s greatest challenges” as “Reproductive Longevity & Equality, Criminal Justice Reform and a Healthy and Livable Planet” — which, whatever it actually does, manages to invoke a lot of progressive-sounding buzzwords.
That might make her selection jarring, considering RFK Jr.’s campaign has thus far appealed to a more right-leaning crowd.
It's clear where RFK Jr. is looking to expand his voter appeal; leftward. I don't think it really helps him win anything. But it could torpedo his support and maybe that was the point. It's long been argued that he will pull more support from Let's Go Brandon than he will from Trump, maybe this was a way to end his own campaign so that anti-Trump support drifts back to Let's Go Brandon out of that aforementioned fear of Trump.
As of Monday, per RealClearPolitics polling averages, Trump held a popular-vote lead of 1.7% in a hypothetical one-on-one rematch.
Trump’s advantage, however, rose to 2.3% in the current five-way race, which includes Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independents Cornel West and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
So if he is trying torpedo himself it would be a good strategy. But it honestly draws potential support from the wrong side if that is the case. The only way it works as that plan is if it doesn't help him in the polls and he withdraws from the race. It seems likely he will bleed almost as much support as he gains from this move, if not more.
Worse still, she's such a big tech investor type, it almost undercuts his big pharma skepticism that has garnered a lot of support from the types who hate Let's Go Brandon but cannot pull the lever for Trump. It's an odd enough move I could see him bleeding support from both sides. The impact will shake out over the next month.
The conservative Gert Wilder's party won the election in the Netherlands last year. He needs to form a coalition government and negotiates are STILL going on. This is simply politics over governance, and politics derailing common sense. What a shame for the Netherlands.
The ridiculousness of what has been happening to Donald Trump is ridiculous. So ridiculous that I needed to use the word twice in the first sentence. Letitia ("Don't you dare boo me") James' prosecutorial misconduct make mafia vendettas look tame by comparison. And this is only one case of the prosecutorial misconduct:
I'm no fan of Robert F Kennedy Jr.. He often says things that conservatives agree with but he's not a conservative. He's right on many things, but not enough of them to garner my support. He's far left for example on climate activism. In fact, I would not put it past Democrats to have positioned him as a Manchurian candidate for independents, libertarians and conservatives so as to stop them from voting for Trump. Call me a skeptic. Granted I was skeptical of Trump initially too, but while he is an imperfect candidate he did well and will do well again when he wins again.
Back to RFK Jr. As I said, he gets some things right, and I'm not afraid to share it when he does. His latest proclamation on Israel is spot on:
“Any other nation that was adjacent to a neighboring nation that was bombing it with rockets, sending commandos over to murder its citizens, pledging itself to murder every person in that nation and annihilate it, would go and level it with aerial bombardment,” Kennedy said.
“But Israel is a moral nation. So it didn’t do that. Instead, it built an iron dome to protect itself so it would not have to go into Gaza.”
He said Hamas gave Israeli leaders no choice after fighters stormed into Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Rather than pressuring Israel, Kennedy said, the U.S. should be pressuring states that currently support Hamas.
He's exactly right. If Mexico or Canada was doing that to the United States, how would you expect America to react? The response would be swift and total. So don't be hypocritical
Here's the interesting thing about his position on Israel. Politically this is a problem for Let's Go Brandon; as he bleeds support from far left Gaza/Hamas supporters (or sympathizers) he's been left with his weak Israeli support to bolster his support. But if RFK Jr. is going to siphon off support, this would come from Let's Go Brandon supporters more so than Trump supporters. Trump supporters who are pro-Israel already know what he has done for the country; recognizing Jerusalem as the capital, the Abraham Accords are two big items. They aren't about to shift to RFK Jr. based on his truthful pronouncements about Hamas.
Via Breitbart, the EU uses some political Jiu-jitsu on Putin:
The European Union is pressing ahead with a plan to use the profits generated from billions of euros of Russian assets frozen in Europe to help provide weapons and other funds for Ukraine, a senior official said Tuesday.
...The 27-nation EU is holding around 200 billion euros ($217 billion) in Russian central bank assets, most of it frozen in Belgium, in retaliation for Moscow´s war against Ukraine. The bloc estimates that the interest on that money could provide around 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) each year.
“The Russians will not be very happy. The amount of money, 3 billion per year, is not extraordinary, but it is not negligible,” Borrell told reporters.
A small group of member countries, notably Hungary, refuse to supply weapons to Ukraine, so these windfall profits would be divided up. Around 90% of the money would be put into a special fund that many EU countries already use to get reimbursed for arms and ammunition they send.
The other 10% would be put into the EU budget to help bolster Ukraine´s defense industry. Countries that object to sending weapons could then claim that they are not arming the country, Borrell said.
Well done Europe. Well, if you actually get this done.
If you can't win at the ballot box, steal your opponent's assets. That's the latest approach Democrats are taking to beat Trump's reelection bid. There is no low to which they will not sink to defeat not only Trump, but real democracy.
The mainstream media, aka Fake News is doubling down on an already debunked lie about president Trump. Why? Because they can still influence some uniformed people with the lie being told often enough.
This is why NOBODY trusts you mainstream media. Instead of continuing to lie, maybe learn that distorting the truth to suit your narrative, isn't working. The bloodbath Trump was clearly talking about was in reference to the automotive industry.
Bit by bit the anti-Trump lawfare is falling apart. Fani Willis' misconduct with special prosecutor Nathan Wade has caused him to resign from the ridiculous Georgia case, after several charges have already been thrown out by the judge. This is only going to get worse for them .
I'm not gonna call it by the name even president Trump calls it. I still refuse to use that man's name. That said, this Trump video spells out how bad Let's Go Brandon has made things while in office:
Same with that other Let's Go Brandon guy. I think. He may get booted out still by the party that hates democracy. Still, Trump's nomination is the one that really matters.
In the recent State of the Union address that I refused to watch, Let's Go Brandon took the usual Democrat jabs at billionaires for not paying enough in taxes. The trope is even more ridiculous when you realize that most billionaires are Democrats. It's even more laughable when you realize the amount of money gained from further taxing billionaires is a drop in the governmental bucket.
All that aside, a lot of people aren't concerned about the debt because it doesn't directly affect them. It does actually but it isn't obvious. Many Democrats and Republicans also believe you can grow your way out of debt. That's debatable, but it certainly IS NOT true if you tax those who are the engines of growth to the point that growth is not possible. Again, the ridiculousness of the idea is either lost on Democrats or they don't care because it's a a good vote-getting thing to say. Or else, even if they were to enact the legislation to increase taxes, it's most likely they would deliberately leave loopholes for their billionaire buddies anyway. It's only about the optics. for them. That so many people for generations have not caught onto that is annoying to say the least.
Compounding the stupidity of additional taxation is that it would just go to more spending and not to any sort of fiscally responsibility of debt reduction. That is the real problem, not boogeyman billionaires not paying enough taxes.
The consensus supporting fiscal irresponsibility is embedding rising public debt into the very structure of the US economy. Every year’s delay in addressing the problem makes it harder to solve.
At some point, the fiscal outlook will start to drive long-term interest rates higher, which adds to the debt, which worsens the outlook, and so on.
In the end, what's needed is fiscal responsibility not more division through phony class warfare.
Listening to Breitbart on Sirius XM's Patriot Channel this morning, a lot of conservatives were calling in defending TikTok saying it shouldn't be banned. It was a little disheartening. From a national security perspective, it's collecting vast amounts of data that can (and likely is) being shared with it's communist Chinese overlords. From a societal perspective it is a contributor to social decay. It's not alone, Facebook and Instagram and others have the same effect, but TikTok is Facebook and Instagram on steroids. It encourages groupthink and shortens attention spans in a far worse way than other platforms.
I understand that banning something is counter to the conservative principles of the free market, but the purpose of government is to help set boundaries. Murder is illegal, heroin is illegal. They are illegal for a reason; the common good. For some TikTok is like heroin. What someone does with their free time is their own business. I get that, I agree with it. But when their habits begin to affect society, when their hobbies affect national security, limits are needed. It's not like there aren't alternatives for TikTok in any case, American alternatives.
In the case of X (Twitter) there's an owner who is sincerely trying to provide a service, that generates a profit but still is trying to do what's in the best interest of Western society. Elon Musk doesn't always get it perfectly right, but the intention is there. This is clearly not the case with TikTok. I believe a ban makes sense.
If you think I'm wrong (or right) please let me know in the comments. I haven't given much thought to TikTok, since it's not a big thing in my household and I've never used it. I'm open to being proven wrong, or right.
Every (primarily presidential) election cycle I used to track the polls that appear on RealClearPolitics to try to extrapolate a realistic result by filtering out polls that are what I would consider statistically unreliable. Some were too small (high margin of error), some oversampled Democrats (not a truly random sample, therefore biased), some polled adults or registered voters instead of likely voters. Some may have even defined likely voters oddly. They needed to be filtered out in order to get a clearer view of how race really looked. It worked in 2016, I was seeing a Trump narrow win over Hillary Clinton. I thought I had to be wrong and it turned out I was; I understated president Trump's electoral performance.
In 2018 I looked at Senate races and my filtering method still did pretty well. But in 2020 I did not see a Let's Go Brandon victory. In 2022 I didn't do that well in senate races either. I'm not convinced that my methodology was wrong, but I think the polling has changed in a way that is not clear to me. That could mean I am doing something that is wrong that perhaps used to work, I don't know. But the point is, as a poll watcher, I do not trust my input data any longer.
I've enjoyed looking at the What-If scenarios, and I may still do it this year. I like statistics and doing the analysis. But until I can figure out why the polls are different and my previous method of filtering out suspicious results can be fixed, I don't think it's productive to share my results here, at least for this election cycle.
Besides, I don't believe, as Rush Limbaugh used to say, poll watching is the best use of our time. I'll find another way to be productive and useful to the conservative cause. What does it matter if the polls show a close race and it turns out that hundreds of thousands of Let's Go Brandon votes appear at 2 a.m. in Pennsylvania for Let's Go Brandon, with a corresponding (and statically impossible) zero votes for Trump.
But outrage over suspicious results won't change the results. What will change the result is a rejuvenated RNC that does it's job properly. Let's hope the RNC's new leadership is up to the task.
An essay from Academy of Ideas on why a lack of religion breeds mental illness, and explains a lot about our current state of affairs. My personal belief, as a Christian, is that not just any religion can provide what we require, because they do not all stem from absolute truth.
I skipped the State of the Union address. With Let's Go Brandon, it's pointless. Here are a few highlights, if you care about the drivel this man spews. I don't. Everything he has done to damage the country and the world, speaks for itself.
This result speaks volumes, and is why Nikki Haley is going to bow out of the GOP primary race later this morning:
Former President Trump absolutely DOMINATED the Super Tuesday contests. As of this writing, he has won Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. In the night's only surprise, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley won Vermont with 50.5% to Trump's 45.7% with 99% reporting.
The states where Trump won were blowouts—he garnered anywhere from 60.5% (Massachusetts) to 83.7% (Alabama).
We're still waiting on Utah and Alaska to report and will update when we have those results.
Update 2:56 a.m.: Trump has won Alaska. At publishing time he had a whopping 87.6% of the vote with 48% reporting. We are still waiting on Utah.
Super Tuesday was not even close (exactly as we all expected).
This can still happen!! Technically Congress can do something but they are not going to do anything because (1) it's stupid and (2) it brings up the no conviction debate to the Supreme Court, which is a different headache and one that only the loonies are holding out hope to see.
The attempts to cope are actually so bizarre, they are sad.
The Supreme Court ruled 9-0, yes even the 3 ultra-liberal justices sided with Trump, that Colorado could not remove president Trump from the 2024 ballots. Liberal heads have been exploding everywhere, but the truth is, the Constitution won and the wackos lost. Here's one particular coping attempt that looks like it's not going well:
After the dramatic Nikki Haley primary win in D.C. (sarcasm), Donald Trump could use some good news and the Supreme Court could deliver that today. The question really is not if the court will decide in his favor, but rather when they will decide in his favor.
The video below focuses on Let's Go Brandon but the first minute discusses the SCOTUS ruling about to come down,
Wait, you didn't know Nikki Haley won something? Washington D.C. is a dumpster fire of Democrats and RINOs. It doesn't matter that the district has a closed primary, this 'win' is still a non-event. Tomorrow is Super Tuesday. She's going to get smushed.
Former MLB first baseman Steve Garvey, could end up winning the senate seat for California vacated by Dianne Feinstein and upending the senatorial hopes of congenital liar Adam Schiff. But let's not get carried away here. While he's likely to be on the ballot in November, he's less likely to win:
Let's Go Brandon is doing terribly in the primaries and Trump is doing as great as expected. But let's not get carried away here, Democrat voters don't really need to turn out during primaries. They can be apathetic now, it's November that matters. We do ourselves a disservice by forgetting that reality.
The enthusiasm is good, but don't let it blind you to the truth: this race isn't near over yet. Democrats are crossing party lines to try to destabilize Trump in the primaries. Many are not voting because even though they may not like Let's Go Brandon, they will vote for a bag of rotten potatoes to stop Trump. In the primaries they don't have to do anything.
It's a matter of truth, not AI's creators' supposed truths. Google's AI Gemini is clearly flawed. The warning is not about the AI, it's about the garbage-in-garbage-out process that has been warped to beyond stupid.
I tried to get to this yesterday but I ended up going far deeper than I had planned. Ronna McDaniel is out as RNC chair. Here's why:
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Compared to her predecessors Ronna was not very good. On her watch, she is 0 for 1 in presidential elections, 1/3 in senate elections with a net loss of three seats, 2 for 3 in congressional elections but with as combined net loss of 19 seats, and 0 for 2 in gubernatorial election cycles with a net loss of 7 governorships. Even former RNC chair (who now spends his time on MSNBC) did better. Granted Steele happened to be chair during a paradigm shift that he benefitted from straddling. He was in the Tea Party Obama-blowback window.
Of course not all of the failures and wins can be attributed to the individual RNC chairs. Mike Duncan for example, was RNC chair during the Obama wave of 2008-2009. During Ronna McDaniel's time as chair there was a coordinated, heavy anti-Trump coalition of media, big tech and academia (among others) working against Trump. There was a veritable tide to push against. But that was her job.
On every front (legal, messaging and fundraising to name a few), she did not do enough. Proving that it would have been better or worse with someone else is impossible. But there is ample evidence she did not perform well. She never capitalized on Trump's win. It was a huge opportunity missed.
Additionally, she'd been in the role far longer than any of her relatively recent predecessors. Reince Priebus lasted several years immediately before her but as time wore on, his effectiveness lagged from his early years. Sometimes time just becomes the enemy. It leads to complacency and lack of new ideas. That I think was the case for McDaniel, and she didn't even start strong.
I have no animosity towards Ronna McDaniel, I just think she was the wrong person at the right time for the job. I hope her successor has a better time of it.
The establishment strategy and tactics are going to change. Nikki Haley got absolutely trounced in her home state of South Carolina in the 2024 GOP primary. She has no path to victory. So why does she keep running? The common theories are that she's delusional, or that she's staying in the race to secure a VP spot, or as a fallback in case president Trump is forced out for legal reasons, OR she's in it to hurt Trump's chances of winning because she's an establishment puppet. This morning I had another thought. What if the latter theory is true, and she wants to hurt Trump? What is the best way to do that?
It's not going to cut it with her staying in the race and losing state after state. She's not hurting Trump much at all. Her support is coming from establishment Republicans and crossover primary voters (Democrats) who want to see anybody but Trump win. Firstly take a look at a few clips as the premise for my thinking.
1. Trump is doing everything right and it's no contest at this point:
Keep in mind that ABC is cherry picking to try to find how this is not good news for Trump when they talk about the electability of Trump after a possible conviction of a crime. Keep that 36% in mind.
2. MSNBC exit polls tell an interesting story:
Yes, it's MSNBC, and yes it's just exit polls (and early ones at that), but there are still some takeaways that add context to the of the ABC report. Firstly 31% non-Republicans voted. That could, and probably does account for the largest chunk of that 36% mentioned in the ABC exit polls about a Trump conviction. Not all, but probably the majority.
Secondly, this means for Nikki Haley, is she does not have a shot among Republicans, who will always represent the vast majority of voters among the remaining primaries. In some cases, they represent the entire primary electorate. It means she CANNOT win the GOP nomination. But yet she persists, hence all the theories as to why she is staying in the race.
3.Her establishment financial support is also slipping away now too:
This makes her GOP primary win even more impossible (if that's even a thing). So what next? She's still not dropping out, and people like the Koch brothers are backing away because they are wasting money at this point. Her strategy will have to change, and her tactics will have to also as a result of the strategy shift as well.
No matter the scenario that proves out to be the reason she is staying in the race, the following holds true: she would do better as a third party candidate. Let's take a look at the possibilities.
She's delusional: If she believes she can win the GOP nomination, she is delusional. She has no path. But she's gotten pretty far politically prior to her run for president this cycle, and that doesn't happen because of delusions of grandeur. I don't believe she's delusional, she has an agenda. That agenda may be to become president but we cannot pretend she doesn't understand the polls. But to entertain the notion, if she truly just wants to win the presidency, doing it as a GOP candidate is not her path. An easier approach would be to run as a third party candidate and take the voters from both Trump and Let's Go Brandon with whom she believes she has a connection and can secure enough votes.
The VP slot: She's not really in it to secure a VP slot. Trump has already intimated that she's not on the list. It's another scenario I'd simply rule out.
The fallback candidate: She does not represent the logical fallback candidate just because she was the last opponent standing. Loss after loss does not inspire confidence. She is hurting her chances in that scenario. Instead going third party and trying to stand on her ideas seems more like the high road. If for some (highly unlikely) reason Trump cannot serve as the Republican nominee, being called back in from an independent run seems far more positive and perhaps even gracious; stepping in to rescue the party from it's own flawed electoral 'mistake'.
The Establishment puppet: This scenario, to me, makes the most sense. The GOP establishment and the establishment writ large, want to hurt Trump; they want to stop Trump by hurting him, constantly. Death by a thousand cuts if necessary. Keep hitting Trump with criminal cases, civil cases, a primary challenger, and whatever else they can throw in his way, so that (i) he cannot focus on his campaign, (ii) they find something that sticks and forces him to bow out and/or (iii) turns off his voter base. In that case having Nikki Haley in the reason is just one more speed bump for Trump.
But it hasn't been working; Trump's support continues to grow (or at least, not falter) with each roadblock they attempt. Despite his focus being split his campaign seems to be humming along just fine. And with each case crumbling, finding something to stick on Trump seems to be not only falling further out of reach, it's making the establishment look more and more desperate, more and more suspicious and galvanizing support for Trump. It's all a failure, which is why you are seeing the Koch money pull out. The strategy has to change.
It won't make Nikki Haley president but that's not the establishment goal. The goal is to stop Trump. A third party run might do to Trump what the RFK Jr. run does to Let's Go Brandon; siphon off enough votes to make a difference. And the Koch money for Haley pulling out of the GOP primaries might be the signal to her to switch strategies.
To be clear, it's not likely to stop the Trump train, but the establishment is running out of options at this point. They may end up trying to ditch Let's Go Brandon as their last play, and if they do it's a sign of desperation. If they do though, it's also a clear sign the GOP establishment and the Democrat establishment are the same establishment, or at a minimum, they have almost identical agendas. And that goes well beyond president Trump.
