The New Jersey disconnect

MetLife Stadium is in New Jersey, the state Democrats are trying to say the won in the 2021 gubernatorial election.  Meanwhile at a recent soccer match, the entire MetLife stadium did this (warning, language):

The whole stadium was chanting, or at least nearly so. There's a disconnect between counted votes and the reality on the ground.  Make no mistake, "found ballots" will always be enough to put Democrats over the top in some states, but there is an emergent disconnect between winners and reality.

3 things you need to know about the left (just from today only)

Things you need to read about the left, from just today:

1. You knew it already, now you have proof.  Democrats want illegal immigration amnesty, because votes:

The Center For American Progress (CAP) Action Fund circulated a memo on Monday calling illegal immigrants brought here at a young age — so-called “Dreamers” — a “critical component of the Democratic Party’s future electoral success.”...

CAP Action’s memo says protecting DACA is not only a “moral imperative” for Democrats, it also key to getting votes.

“The fight to protect Dreamers is not only a moral imperative, it is also a critical component of the Democratic Party’s future electoral success,” reads Palmieri’s memo, obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“If Democrats don’t try to do everything in their power to defend Dreamers, that will jeopardize Democrats’ electoral chances in 2018 and beyond,” reads the memo. “In short, the next few weeks will tell us a lot about the Democratic Party and its long-term electoral prospects.”

It's already told us a lot about Democrats' cynical views on human worth - a vote is a vote, right? 

2. They don't care about the law, just their agenda. Anti-Trump FBI agent Peter Strzok, he formerly of the Mueller probe on Russia collusion is even more sinister than previously imagined. He may have been one of those leaking of information to the media inapporpriately.

The Hill article says contacts between the FBI and the media aren’t necessarily problematic but given Strzok’s involvement in two major cases (Hillary emails and Russian collusion) and his previously uncovered bias for Hillary and against Trump, what he said to reporters prior to the election seems worth investigating.

3. They advance their agenda at any cost, even if erstwhile allies get hurt in the process. Hillary Clinton was trying to sting Green Party candidate Jill Stein with fake Russia collusion.

“This is a year’s worth of a smear campaign that began actually by some Democratic party operatives after the embarrassing emails revealed collusion by the Democratic party with Hillary Clinton’s campaign in order to interfere with our election,” Stein said. “The same people who launched that smear campaign are now celebrating that I’m being investigated, really as a consequence of this smear.”

Stein then addressed a widely circulated image of her at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s table at a 2015 banquet honoring the Russian propaganda channel RT.

Is there any part of the Democrat party that is not corrupt at this point?

Thursday Hillary Bash - Math

Hillary Clinton is calculating her votes. You can see it in her odd triangulation efforts on the situation in Israel and her criticisms of president Obama, and how that contrasts with her other positions. The Washington Post draws three conclusions (which it treats as observations) from Hillary's latest pronouncements:

"Great nations need organizing principles -- and 'Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle," Clinton told the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg in a line that surely launched a thousand grimaces (or worse) in the White House. She went on to explain that she doesn't actually believe that statement sums up Obama's entire foreign policy. “I think that that’s a political message. It’s not his worldview," she said. “… I think [Obama] was trying to communicate to the American people that he’s not going to do something crazy."

But Clinton, of course, knew what she was doing -- picking a prominent foreign policy writer to make a pointed critique of the current Administration's policies at the very moment when President Obama's ratings are at -- or damn close to -- their lowest ebb of his time in office. So, why did she do it -- and what does her willingness to so publicly break with the Obama Administration tell us about how she's positioning herself for 2016?

The WaPo claims she's not at all worried about the primary. For Hillary opponents that's good news in my opinion. However, the point that she is thinking about the general election seems valid - she's not worried about Warren and the likes of Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are not serious political threats. She's aiming for more centrist voters, Jewish voters (see below~) and military hawk voters. She doesn't need to win all of any of those voting blocks but she needs to take away the misgivings of enough of them to be competitive and to add to her voter totals in 2016. To do so she has to prove she's tough. That goes directly to the WaPo's second and third points, that she wants people to believe she'll be ready from Day 1 and that she doesn't always agree with the floundering president Obama.

The timing couldn't be better for her to add her two cents. It's more evidence that Hillary Clinton will indeed be running for president in 2106. It's more evidence she's thinking end game instead of next step (primaries) which was her weakness in 2008. Expecting a coronation is the best way to ensure you don't get one.

Via Huffington Post*:

NEW YORK –- Hillary Clinton on Sunday offered a “vociferous defense” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following four weeks of war in Gaza that have left more than 1,900 Palestinians dead.

In an interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, Clinton also echoed Netanyahu's recent claims that journalists didn't tell the full story while reporting in Gaza, an allegation that numerous journalists have disputed.

On Wednesday, Netanyahu said reporters withheld information because of “restrictions and intimidation” from Hamas, the militant faction that controls Gaza and has fired thousands of rockets into Israel. On Thursday, Netanyahu told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he hoped journalists who have left Gaza can now “report the truth.”

Looks like she's looking at the Jewish voting block to get behind her as well, as they slip away from a comfort level with president Obama. 

Another silly question on health care

Axelrod et. al are out all over the Sunday talk shows saying they have the votes on health care to call a vote now.  President Obama delayed his Asian trip to be ready to sign a bill immediately.  And yet Democrats like Rep. James Clyburn say the votes just aren't there.

Here's the question - does the White House want to call the vote now so that it gets defeated? Hear me out.  It's possible that the White House has done the calculus on this and have come to the following conclusion.

As they inch closer to a possible yes vote, the White House has figured out that they simply are going end up a few votes short, and that the votes have become too entrenched to move.  By saying the vote can go now (i.e. has to go now), they are deliberately sabotaging their own agenda item.  Why?  Because if they simply can't get it to pass right now, dragging it out does Democrats and the President more harm than good.  It makes them seem clingy with health care, in the face of unbeatable opposition and more urgent economic matters.  By cutting it short, and getting a defeat, at least they get a result.  and it's a result they might (mistakenly) believe they can take to the polls.

If they bring to the polls a 'look how close we got' message into the mid-term elections, and if they believe that people are behind the basic idea of universal health care, perhaps they figure that they can use it for a push to increase Democratic seats rather than compiling massive seat losses.  Hey, it's a crazy approach but maybe they figure that's the best way to play a rotten hand.

What still plagues me is the question of how Pelosi's insistence that she has the votes helps anyone in the Democratic universe.  Either she does, and we're all being played.  Or she really is crazy.