Have a blessed Easter

 

Sunday verse

 

A pre-Easter Babylon Bee skit

Poland moving back to common sense

Polish farmers intensify protests against E.U. and their pro-EU Polish government.  They aren't alone in Europe:

RFK Jr. will get next to no votes now

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.

Here's how Politico described her:

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.

Here's a good longer form take on it:

RNC actually doing stuff

Cultural rot courtesy of Star Wars' latest example

Star Wars is exemplary of what has happened to Hollywood - cultural rot, devoid of anything worthwhile.

What's next in the Letitia James debacle?

Possibly this:

And yes, this is her debacle, not a Trump legal issue.  It's a Letitia James debacle.

Meanwhile in the Netherlands

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.

Kamala Harris is the cringe Queen

 No joke folks... Actually the whole team is an abysmal joke but that's for another day.

Why the Left fears beauty

An interesting take on why the left fears beauty.

Sunday verse

 

Letitia James' unjust "justice"

It's not democracy, it's dictatorial fascism.

My stagflation predictions coming true?

I was expecting this earlier (like 2022/2023), but some are predicting stagflation is arriving now.

Prosecutorial misconduct

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:

RFK Jr's facts on Israel are good, but...

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.

He goes further, as Breitbart points out: 

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.

This is how you handle Russian aggression

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. 

Full gamut: Democrats lie, cheat and steal from Trump

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.

Fake News double down

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.

Elon Musk's change of heart on Trump

...And not just Trump, he's calling for a red wave in 2024.

Surprise: Mainstream media lies about Trump (again).

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.

Addendum:

Sunday verse

 

Fani Willis anti-Trump case falling apart

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 .

Newt is bright, I hope he's right

Newt Gingrich discusses TikTok and Trump. And he provides an interesting take on Trump's possible paradigm shifting impact on politics.

Brandonomics

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:

Trump has locked up the nomination

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.

Tax the billionaires! Wait, what?

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.

Should TikTok be banned?

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.

No poll watching this year.

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.

Sunday verse

 

Why religion matters

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.

RNC upgraded

Getting rid of Ronna McDaniel will alone prove to be an upgrade over time, but it should get better than that.

Walk Away keeps churning out realizations

College Democrats founder walks away form the Democratic party.

By all means, continue to support this guy (for now)

Just remember to come to your senses in November. Or, just send him to congress as he's asking.

Letitia James gets the reception she deserves

Going after president Trump, on trumped up charges gets you the reception you deserve.

SOTU-damn stupid

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.

Secret flights?

Out of control. Insane.  Must be stopped. Share this with those you know.

Democrats: please keep doing this

This sort of discussion helps, a lot (warning language at the end of the video). You are making a real difference. Keep up the great work.

Not even close

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). 

And here's AOC unable to cope

As you sew, so shall you reap.  Except AOC doesn't care about all that. She also, cannot cope.

More misguided coping

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.

An attempt to cope

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:

Why the Nikki Haley win doesn't matter

Via Mark Dice:

SCOTUS could decide Trump ballot case today

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.

Possible conservative senate seat...in California?

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:

Sunday verse

 

Meanwhile in Canada: Pierre Poilievre calls B.S.

It's hard to argue with facts.  Justin Trudeau tries to do it, but Pierre Poilievre keeps calling him out on it.

Let's Not Get Carried Away Here

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.