They're Still At It

Ezra Klein at Vox is an ultra liberal pundit who got the entire election wrong.  He was anti-Trump during the GOP primary and told us all repeatedly how Trump would implode.  Once Trump won, Klein told us how he would destroy the GOP and all the down ballot races would be lost.  We were awaiting a major landslide for the Democrats -- or so Klein told us.  When the race tightened, Klein still assured us that Hillary would win; after all, the Democrats' blue wall would protect her.  Then the blue wall crumbled, the GOP won the senate and the house, and Trump won the electoral vote rather easily.

It's important to remember that history because today, Klein is telling senate Republicans how they can protect their party from destruction by Donald Trump.  After all, Trump cannot succeed, so any association with Trump will be a disaster (at least according to Ezra).

What a crock!  The man who was always wrong is still wrong.  Trump is not going to be opposed by the GOP.  The reality instead is that many Democrats are going to move towards Trump's positions due to fear of losing in 2018.  Does anyone think that the Democrat senators running for re-election in red states are going to lead the fight against Trump?  If you think that, then you are delusional.

Delusion...that brings me back to Ezra Klein.  Klein should just take a few months off and travel around the country.  Maybe if he met actual Americans who don't live in his bubble, he would realize how much he does not know.

Proof The Bubble Is Safe

Nancy Pelosi was re-elected the leader of House Democrats today by a vote of 134 to 63 among the members of the minority.  It's an amazing result.  Pelosi has failed to bring the Dems to a majority in year when Obama won, in off year elections, and this year when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.  To be clear, it's not just that the Democrats lost the House; the result was not even close.  For that enduring failure, the Democrats re-elected her as leader.

This is proof that the bubble that most Democrats in Washington inhabit is still safely in place.  The Democrats still think that identity politics is the way to win.  It doesn't matter what policies you support; it only matters that you cast your opponent as a racist or a sexist or a homophobe or ...well, you get the picture.  Out in the real world, people care about outcomes, not name calling.  Families across America worry about their jobs, their incomes, their safety, and the like.  Words alone just aren't enough.

The losing candidate who ran against Pelosi tried to get the party to move more towards policies that would help middle America.  He didn't even make it to one-third of the vote. 

There is one cautionary note for Pelosi.  Yesterday, her supporters were saying that there were only 12 congressmen who had come out for representative Ryan, Pelosi's opponent.  In the secret ballot today, another 51 voted against Pelosi.  She's in for now, but this will most likely be her last term.  Even in the bubble, people want to win.

A Nice Way To Say Goodbye

President Obama now has the highest approval numbers in years.  It's rather funny that as Obama gets ready to go, more and more people approve of him.  The reality, I think, is that people are just happy to see him go.  It is also true that there is very little attention on Obama at the moment.  The President Elect is the focus of the media.  Each appointment, each tweet, and each move by Trump is covered non-stop.  Obama took a major trip and, while it was covered, it took second place to every move made by Trump.  That means that people's views of Obama are moving more towards what they think of him as a person (which is good) and not what they think of his policies (which is not good.)

Hopefully, Obama will understand that his stock rises the most when he is out of sight and out of mind.  That would be a great future both for him and for America.

More Bad News For the Recount Loonies

A judge in Wisconsin denied a request by Jill Stein that the entire recount in that state be done by hand.  Since everyone agrees that there is absolutely no evidence that any of the machines that tabulate the vote were hacked, the judge ruled that there is no reason to avoid them.

The truth is that the request by Stein was just an attempt to delay the outcome of the recount so that Wisconsin would not be able to have its electoral votes counted.  Worse still is the fact that Hillary Clinton is supporting this effort.  It is just another demonstration of what it means to be a sore loser.

Carrier Staying In USA

CNBC is reporting that Donald Trump and his team have reached an agreement with Carrier to keep roughly 1000 jobs at the plant in Indiana that was previously scheduled to close.  Throughout the campaign Trump lambasted this closure.  Now, it appears that Carrier has blinked.

If this report is true, it is big news.  It means that even before taking office, Trump is saving jobs from going to other countries.  It also means that large American companies now understand that they will pay a big price if they shift jobs to other countries.  That alone ought to mean great benefits for our economy.

There is no official announcement yet, but let's all hope that the report is accurate.

The Hillary Clinton/Jill Stein Recount Effort in PA Collapses

Yesterday, the spokesman for the Secretary of the Commonwealth of PA announced that the deadline for a voter initiated recount of the presidential election passed over a week ago.  The effort by Jill Stein and joined by Hillary Clinton to get such a recount is too late.  It's important to keep in mind that the state government in Pennsylvania is controlled by the Democrats, so this is not some partisan attempt to thwart Stein and Clinton; rather, it is just the enforcement of the clear rules in the Pennsylvania election laws.

In order to get a recount in Pennsylvania now, Stein and/or Clinton will need to bring a suit in Superior Court in Dauphin County (where the state capital is located) and show proof that the election was flawed in some way.  Since no one has yet been able to produce any evidence that the election was hacked or that there was any sort of insidious plot to steal the election, that suit cannot succeed.  In fact, Stein has already admitted that she has no proof at all that anything wrong happened in the election.

There is not going to be any recount in PA.  Keep in mind that absent such a recount, there is no possibility of changing the Trump election.  Even were there a recount in Wisconsin and Michigan, and even were the results to flip which is highly unlikely, Trump still has 280 electoral votes and that is ten more than needed.

Stein and Clinton are wasting their time and the time of the election officials in these states.  At some point, they need to be adults and drop this whole thing.

Transportation Gets A Good One

Donald Trump is nominating Elaine Chao to be Secretary of Transportation.  Chao has worked in two previous administrations and understands how the federal government bureaucracy works.  She's a very good choice to head the department that will oversee a great deal of the major infrastructure construction that Trump has promised.  Chao ought to be able to get the program underway and completed unlike the Obama program for "shovel ready jobs" that never really got off the ground.

It's also worth noting that Chao is married to the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.  I assume that someone will soon start squawking about something because of that.  The key here, however, is that Chao has accomplished a great deal in her life wholly apart from her husband.  she is a fine selection.

The Price Is Right

Congressman Tom Price of Georgia is said to be the choice of President Elect Donald Trump to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.  As a doctor (orthopedic surgeon), Price has a much different perspective than those who have held the office in the past.  He well understands the effects of massive federal regulations on both the cost and quality of healthcare in America.  Turning healthcare into a bureaucracy rather than medical treatment should slow and hopefully reverse with Price as Secretary of HHS.  Even more important, Price will be able to help guide the repeal and replacement of Obamacare.  Indeed, the bill passed last year to do just that (which Obama vetoed) was written mainly by Price.

Without a doubt, Price will change the course of the department if anyone can.  He is an excellent nominee for the position.

Abdul Razak Ali Artan Was Not Danish

The terrorist who attacked at Ohio State yesterday was Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a Muslim refugee from Somalia who arrived in the USA two years ago.  The killer made clear his motives by posting on Facebook ahead of the attack.  The post told the USA to stop "interfering with other countries, especially Muslim Ummah".  Somalia, as is the case with Syria, is a place for which it is essentially impossible to vet those who are entering the USA as refugees. 

Last night, the mainstream media went into full coverup mode.  We were told that authorities are not sure if this was a terror attack.  After all, it might be a "lone wolf" attack.  Of course, there is no difference between the two, but that does not stop the media from pretending that there is.  Next, the media pretended not to know the motive for the attack despite the Facebook post.  When all attempts failed to portray the killer as some misguided youth who was unrelated to Islamic terror, the media just dropped the story.  This morning, I looked at the front page of the New York Times.  The terror attack did not make it there.  It became a non-story because it does not follow the terms of the narrative pushed by the mainstream media.

I am looking forward to January when we will have a president who will deal honestly with the terrorism problem.  That will not stop the media from doing their usual dance, but it will make it that much harder for them to succeed in burying the truth.

The Errors Are Just Too Much

Suppose someone asked you to name the ten biggest cities in Ohio.  Most people would not be able to do that without help, but they also would be able to name some of these cities.  The two that would seem to be the easiest to identify are Cleveland and Cincinnati.  After all, those are the two with MLB and NFL teams.  Columbus, which actually has more people than any other city in the state might also come to mind.

I mention the list of Ohio cities, because in the wake of this morning's non-shooting "active shooter" at Ohio State, the media rushed to put together a picture of gun deaths in Ohio.  One group put out a list of the murder rates in Ohio's ten largest cities.  Remember, this is something that reporters and editors first compiled from reference materials and then published to inform their readers.  The interesting thing is that the list was missing the city of Cleveland.  One has to wonder how these geniuses could put together the list while leaving off such a major metropolis. 

I just saw another example of "great" reporting in an AP story about the fears of government workers now that the Trump Administration is approaching.  The AP mentions that Trump might abolish the Department of Education and cut the IRS and the EPA.  Then it provides a list of all federal departments and the dates when they were established.  You probably guessed that the AP left the Department of Education off the list.  Maybe the reporter thought that by not mentioning that department on the list, he would be able to protect it from being abolished.  That makes about as much sense as anything else.

These two are just examples of a major trend towards "junk news" or, more precisely, "news that is junk".  What's the point of reporters putting together stories that are easily seen as wrong? 

The Metamorphosis of Afghanistan Policy

I just read an article from the Huffington Post stating that Afghanistan is poised to become Donald Trump's first foreign policy "disaster".  It's an amazing article which laments, in advance, the Trump policy for Afghanistan.  Most amazing is that the article admits that it doesn't know what Trump will do in Afghanistan.  One does wonder how the author knows that we will witness a disaster if he doesn't know what is planned.

There's also a major change to the view of Afghanistan by the left which this article illustrates.  In order to point out the perils for Trump in Afghanistan, the reporter chronicles the failures of both the American and Afghan governments across the country.  The Taliban is resurgent and there are very few American troops to prevent the Taliban from reasserting the control that they lost in 2001.  Area after area is becoming more dangerous.  The Afghans who relied on the USA to protect them from the Taliban are being put at risk each day to a greater extent.  A rather bleak picture is painted of conditions across Afghanistan.  Then the reporter moves on to what Trump will do, and what is his biggest point?  This reporter laments that Trump may lose all of the gains that we have made in Afghanistan.  That's right; things are terrible and getting worse, and Trump, that amateur, may lose our past gains.  A rational and honest reporter might have pointed out the full extent of the destruction wrought by the Obama policy for Afghanistan.  That doesn't happen in the HuffPo, though. 

It seems as if we are about to go from virtual silence regarding Afghanistan on the left to a full scale assault on the new administration on the basis of the faults of Obama.

So what else is new?

Ohio State -- 2

At the moment, it is looking more and more as if the Ohio State attack today may have been a terror attack.  The attacker used a car to try to mow down pedestrians and then got out of the vehicle to try to stab those who went down.  This is a method of attack that was recently promoted by ISIS.  Some reports identify the attacker as a native of Somalia who entered the USA as a refugee.  That too would fit with Islamic terrorism.  The reality, however, is that we still don't know.

One thing is for certain, however:  the attack has no relationship to gun control.  The only guns used in the whole event were those carried by police.  The immediate hysterical reaction from the gun control crowd was misplaced and tawdry. 

Let's thank God that no one other than the attacker was killed.

Ohio State And The Inevitable Response

This morning news flashed that there was an active shooter at Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio.  Students and faculty were told to shelter in place if they could not escape the scene.  That was followed with reports that there were two shooters, that a car was used to ram fleeing students after the fire alarm in one building was pulled, that people were dead, that no one was dead, that the shooter was dead, that there is a second shooter in a parking garage, that there were no guns involved but only one attacker using a knife, and so on and so on.  Now we are being told that the scene is under control and the attack is over.  The attacker is dead, and at least ten people are wounded, one seriously.  It is still too soon to understand what actually happened.

So here we are in the middle of that attack and the confusion that surrounds it.  We get the inevitable response that goes immediately to gun control.  The political onslaught is cascading through social media and consists mostly of lamenting that another attack was not prevented due to lax gun control laws.

The only proper response to these ghouls who are more interested in their political points than in the lives of the people in danger is "Give it a rest."  Right now, we don't know if this was a terrorist attack or not.  We don't know if guns were used in the attack or not (although the police obviously used their guns to neutralize the attacker).  We don't know if there were two attackers or only one.  We also don't even know the identity of the attacker who is dead.  Once that has all been sorted out, there will be plenty of time to talk about the gun control issues.  For now, let's just wait.

Amazing What A Difference Two Weeks Make

During the presidential campaign, the constant theme from Hillary Clinton and the mainstream media was that Donald Trump's economic plans would not work.  Growth would be lower than under Hillary's plans.  Jobs would be lost if Trump won.  The stock markets would tank big time.  The only safe bet for the economy was to choose Hillary, or so they told us over and over and over.

Now we are a little over two weeks later, and the story has completely changed.  The stock markets have soared as investors celebrate the return of pro-growth policies which will be coming from Trump.  Now, the OECD has changed its forecasts for economic growth in the USA by doubling the expected rate of growth over the next two years.  The OECD is he Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.  It just revised the growth rate projected for 2018 to 3.0% which would be higher than any year during the Obama presidency.  It's important to note what that 1.5% increase in the growth rate means; 1.5% is the equivalent to about an extra quarter of a trillion dollars of output by the economy.  Just imagine how many people will be employed to produce that enormous amount of output.

The OECD is being a bit too conservative in its estimates.  By 2018, the USA should be closer to 4% than 3% in growth.  The precise number does not matter for present purposes, however.  The point is that after six plus months of being told by the media that Trump would be an economic disaster, the truth has emerged.  The Trump economic program will be strongly pro-growth.  For the first time in a long time, the president will view the American economy as something to promote rather than something to squelch.  The media knew this all along, but they just couldn't bring themselves to report the truth......until now.

Arson Terrorism

We need to pay attention to a new form of terrorism that has popped up in the Middle East.  It is "arson terrorism", and it showed up in Israel and the West Bank.  It has been quite dry in that region and so the landscape is subject to fires.  There has been a rash of arson fires all across Israel and in the West Bank too.  As of now, eleven Palestinians have been arrested for setting these blazes.  The hope of the arsonists has been to burn down Israeli cities or the Israeli settlements in the West Bank region. 

Arson terrorism is a crazy strategy, but it is something that one could expect from the terrorists.  Setting a wild fire is unleashing a dangerous force that is very difficult to control.  A fire could easily spread towards an Israeli settlement, but it just as easily could turn towards a local Palestinian village.  The fires put everyone at risk.

Terrorism never really makes sense, so this is no different.  Still, it seems bizarre to me that the terrorists threaten the lives of those whose interest that claim to represent.
 

Now They Are Trying For The Judges

Another big new push from the left in response to the Trump victory has arrived.  This time, they are trying to convince president Obama to make recess appointments to all open federal judge positions between the end of the current Senate session and the start of the next session.  It's a joke of a position.

The Constitution allows the president to make so called recess appointments during times when the Senate is in recess.  Just two years ago, the Supreme Court interpreted that section of the Constitution for the first time.  It held that for a recess appointment to be valid, the recess in question had to be long enough to prevent the Senate from being able to deal with a regular appointment in the usual manner.  The Supreme Court held that any recess shorter than ten days would not be enough to permit the president to use his power of to make recess appointments.  Here's the summary from the Court's syllabus of the decision:

The Clause does not say how long a recess must be in order to fall within the Clause, but even the Solicitor General concedes that a 3day recess would be too short. The Adjournments Clause, Art. I, §5, cl. 4, reflects the fact that a 3-day break is not a significant interruption of legislative business. A Senate recess that is so short that it does not require the consent of the House under that Clause is not long enough to trigger the President’s recess-appointment power.Moreover, the Court has not found a single example of a recess appointment made during an intra-session recess that was shorter than10 days. There are a few examples of inter-session recess appointments made during recesses of less than 10 days, but these are anomalies. In light of historical practice, a recess of more than 3 days but less than 10 days is presumptively too short to fall within the Clause. The word "presumptively" leaves open the possibilitythat a very unusual circumstance could demand the exercise of therecess-appointment power during a shorter break. Pp. 9–21.

So the Supreme Court has already held that Obama does not have the power to make the recess appointments that the left is currently pushing.  Why do they bother?

They're Fooling Themselves

The election was over almost three weeks ago.  So what are the lessons that those on the left have drawn from their loss?  There are a few:

1.  The results were probably rigged through fraud.  For year after year, as efforts were made to prevent voter fraud, these same people told us that there is no proof of elections being stolen.  Any effort to prevent voting fraud was nothing more than racism, or so we were told.  Now that Hillary lost, the same folks are certain that the election was stolen by internet hacking even though there is not proof of any such hacking and the voting machines are not even connected to the internet.

2.  The Russians stole the election by the use of "fake news" and propaganda.  The Washington Post is publishing a list of sites that push "fake news".  The reality, however, is that the Post's list is nothing more than a collection of conservative or libertarian sites that disagree with the leftist view of reality.  The Post and the rest of the mainstream media slant all of their coverage towards the leftist position, and that's fine with these fools.  When the conservatives or libertarians present opposing viewpoints, it is "fake news".  The reality is that this position is nothing more than a continuation of Hillary's calling Trump supporters a basket of "irredeemable deplorables".  They can't just disagree; they have to demonize.

3.  There were too many Americans who voted against their own interests; if the Democrats change their messaging a bit, then these same Americans will see the light.  In many respects, this is the weirdest conclusion of all.  No one missed or misunderstood the message of Clinton or the other Democrats.  It was, after all, that very message that led to the loss of the election by the Democrats. 

The left is refusing to accept the truth that their candidates and their positions have been rejected.  They think the loss is due to something else.  That's a great conclusion for the rest of America.  It means that we are likely to see more of the same from the Democrats next time around.  It will make any recovery by the Democrats just that much harder.

Hillary Loses It

Hillary Clinton has officially lost it.  Her campaign is going to join the effort to get vote recounts in PA, MI and WI.  The purported reason for the recounts is to make sure that the voting machines were not hacked.  It is an effort that was originally pushed by Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

Here's the problem:  the voting machines are not connected to the internet.  In order to hack the voting machines, individuals would have had to connect to each machine and change the results.  In a state like Pennsylvania, this would have taken literally thousands of people to carry out such a plot.  There is no evidence of any hacking.  Even the people pushing the recount admit that there is no evidence of hacking, but they are going ahead with it anyway.

Hillary Clinton did the right thing on election night and conceded the race to Donald Trump.  Now, with this belated effort to seek a recount when there is literally no evidence whatsoever of any errors, Hillary has thrown away whatever dignity she had left.

"Keeping Healthcare"

The top article on the front page of today's New York Times says that "many" in states that Trump carried want "to keep healthcare".  It's an amazing bit of nonsense.

Think about that headline.  Are there many people anywhere in the USA that don't want to keep healthcare?  No.  It's not just the view in the states Trump carried; people want to keep healthcare in the states that Hillary won too.  The real issue is keeping Obamacare, not healthcare.  The Times, however, uses "healthcare" in the headline, in order to imply that Trump wants to take steps that will deny medical treatment to Americans.  So let's consider Obamacare.  Trump campaigned for over a year on the promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.  Then came the election and he won.  Now here comes the Times to tell us that "many" in the states Trump won still want Obamacare.  The issue, however, is not what "many" want; the correct issue is what does the majority want.  It's no surprise and certainly it's not newsworthy that there are people in Trump states who want to keep Obamacare; they mostly voted for Hillary.

Wouldn't it be refreshing if just one time the New York Times could publish an article like this that was both factual and unbiased?

Finally, He's On The Right Side Of History

President Obama and some of his supporters like to talk about being "on the right side of history".  It's a silly claim.  History doesn't have right or wrong sides; there are only the facts of what happened.  Still with the news today the Fidel Castro has died, we finally have reached an event for which the statement is appropriate.  Fidel is finally on the right side of history; too bad it took so long.

Conflicting Stories

It's a wonder that people on the left are still able to function each day.  There is just so much bad news for them.  A good example of this is today's pair of conflicting stories.

First, Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate is raising money to fund recount efforts in a few states.  She announced that she had gathered more than 1.1 million bucks to fund the recount in Wisconsin.  Stein has to raise the cash because a losing candidate like Stein has to fund the recount in most cases.  The left wing media is starting to get excited about this effort.  OOOOOhhh, maybe the recount will show that the votes were not counted correctly the first time.  This is not like Florida in 2000 where the margin was 529 votes or less than .01% of the votes cast.  No, this is in states like Wisconsin where the margin for Trump was over 18,000 votes, or roughly 1% of the total votes cast.  There's no way a recount will change the outcome.  But it doesn't matter.  The left is still clinging to the hope that continuing the election battle will flip the results.  It's even funny that Jill Stein (whose candidacy probably cost Hillary Clinton the election) is the vehicle that the left is using to keep on fighting. 

The second news item of the day is that the results in Michigan have now been officially certified and the 16 electoral votes from the state will go to Trump.  That makes Trump's lead in the Electoral College 306 to 232.  It took until now for the official Michigan vote announcement because since the day after the election, the counties in Michigan have been reviewing and certifying the vote count.  What this means is that for a recount to have any effect, at least three state results would have to be flipped in the outcome.  No one in their right mind would believe that three different states will change their results after an recount.

 

Sad News

One of the American soldiers fighting in Syria has been killed in action.  Remember those soldiers?  They're the ones who Obama says would never be sent to Syria.  They're the ones who are not "in combat".  After the death, Obama would probably still way that we have no boots on the ground in Syria.  It is as if reality doesn't matter.  Special operations forces who are elite ground forces somehow don't count as ground troops to Obama.  People facing danger from ISIS on the battlefield somehow are not in combat according to Obama.

America owes a major debt of gratitude to this soldier (still unnamed by the DOD) for his service in Syria fighting ISIS.  We also owe a major helping of scorn on Obama for his dishonesty about our brave soldiers.

A Great Pick For Commerce Secretary

The media is reporting that President Elect Donald Trump has chosen Wilbur Ross to be Commerce Secretary.  It's a dynamite choice.  Ross is well schooled in both domestic and international commerce.  He is not the sort who will be fooled in a negotiation or who would misunderstand the impact of a trade deal or a business merger.  Trump said repeatedly during the campaign that he would bring in great people who would improve the lot of the American worker.  The selection of Ross clearly meets that criteria.

Two caveats are in order:  first, there has been no official announcement about Ross.  The reports could be wrong (let's hope not).  Second, Ross is rather old (it is rumored that his first wife was Betsy Ross.)  I doubt that Ross lacks the energy to perform well as Commerce Secretary, but we will have to see how that unfolds.

A "Perplexing" Week

This morning, I read a column by Ryan Lizza in the New Yorker entitled "Donald Trump's Second Perplexing Week as President Elect".  I know, it's my own fault for bothering to see what Lizza had to say.  Given the author, the magazine and headline, I was sure it would be another sneering bit of mainstream media liberal attack nonsense regarding Trump.  Lizza didn't disappoint.  He went through the appointments that Trump made in his second week and gave a reason why each was bad.  For example, South Carolina Nikki Haley is (according to Lizza) a poor choice for UN Ambassador because she has no experience in negotiations.  That's pretty funny since Haley has been a successful governor of a mid sized state for the last six years.  Lizza seems to think that governors do not engage in negotiations.  That's like believing that the Yankees don't play baseball or that Macy's doesn't sponsor a parade on Thanksgiving.

Lizza also attacked Trump because he is supposed to be ensnared in conflicts of interests regarding his business and its potential effect on his role as president.  Lizza also threw a hissy fit because Trump is supposed to have said this week that regarding conflicts of interest, the law is on his side.  Lizza said that is the most dangerous statement regarding presidential power since 1977.  Actually, Trump was correct; the law is on his side.  All the laws regarding conflicts specifically exempt the president from coverage.  So a correct statement of the law is now "dangerous".  Imagine that! 

It's Thanksgiving, so I won't go on with more of the garbage being peddled by Lizza.  Suffice to say, I recommend that you skip the New Yorker. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

An Empty Threat

Connecticut governor Dan Malloy announced yesterday that if federal funds are cut off to sanctuary cities like New Haven, the state would sue the federal government.  It's an empty threat that could only work if the cut is done improperly.

Let's start with the law.  Once funds are authorized by Congress and appropriated, they must be spent by the executive branch unless specific authority is granted to the president to withhold or redistribute the money.  Congress, however, can change the spending prospectively at any time.  This rule of law is the result of a Supreme Court decision from the days when Richard Nixon tried to cut federal spending unilaterally (and ultimately unsuccessfully).

What this all means is that so long as Congress decides to withhold some or all of the funding for states, counties and cities that do not cooperate with the federal immigration enforcement actions, those funds will be cut off without recourse by the states no matter what lawsuit the governor of Connecticut brings. 

As of now, most federal spending is being funded by a continuing resolution that will expire before the end of president Obama's term.  It will be extended to keep the government running.  The current thinking is that the extension of funding will cover spending until some date in March of 2017.  When that date is reached, there is no reason why Congress could not include the new conditions on sanctuary cities.  This is a move which the Democrats cannot block by a filibuster.  All funding measures can be passed by reconciliation which cannot be blocked by a filibuster, so this prevents the Democrats from stopping the bill if the GOP stays unified.  Most likely, there will be Democrats who will support the measure as well.  Quite a few Democrat senators from states that supported Trump are up for re-election in 2018, and I doubt many will want to oppose Trump on sanctuary cities.

 

So Honest, So Honorable

President Elect Donald Trump held an off the record meeting with the leaders of the major TV news organizations yesterday.  The entire meeting was off record.  That means that none of what was said in the meeting was supposed to be reported.  It's not surprising, though, that so far today I have read three different accounts of what was said at the meeting.  The only thing different about these reports is that all of the supposed information is unattributed.  In other words, at least some of those who met with the President Elect broke their promise to keep the meeting confidential.

The point of an off the record meeting is to enable the participants to speak freely.  If there are problems between Trump and the mainstream media, the meeting was the place to discuss them and then to try to fix them.  Instead of that, however, the media snitches instead reinforce the truth to Trump that he cannot trust even the leaders of the media to be honest or honorable.

It's sad.

Conflict of Interest and/or Bribery

I made the mistake of switching to MSNBC for a moment tonight.  The commentator was going on at length about how Donald Trump may have conflicts of interest or may receive bribes from foreign governments in the form a breaks given to Trump projects in particular countries.  The commentator explained that such bribes would be banned by the Constitution.

This was a weird thing to watch.  We just completed a campaign in which the Democrats ran a candidate who took tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments and businesses while those governments and businesses had matters pending with the State Department.  MSNBC was basically quiet about the entire Clinton matter.  So the network was silent about thing that actually happened, but it is nearly apoplectic about something that could happen in the future with Trump but for which we have no reason to expect it to actually occur.

 

Is It Bad To Deport a Murderer, Drug Dealer or Armed Robber Who Is Here Illegally?

The debate about deportation of illegal aliens has really reached a strange place.  At the moment, what we know is that the new Trump administration is planning to launch a massive effort starting from day one after the Inauguration to deport criminal illegal aliens.  That means that gang members, drug pushers, robbers, rapists, murders and the like who are here illegally will be sought out and deported.  Despite the focus on criminals, the liberals are lining up to declare that they will oppose this effort.  For example, the mayor of New York said that the city would not cooperate with the effort and would do what it could to prevent it.

Think about that.  The illegal immigration debate has now gotten Democrat office holders pledging to protect criminals from deportation.  Maybe I'm wrong, but my guess is that an overwhelming majority of Americans support the idea of getting rid of the criminals included among the illegal aliens.  Even Hillary Clinton promised during her losing campaign to focus first on deporting criminal illegal aliens.  The announced position of the Obama administration is that criminal aliens are to be the focus of deportation efforts.  Now, it is true that no one believed that Obama or Clinton would ever actually deport anyone while Trump is likely to follow through on this plan.  Nevertheless, it is truly bizarre to think that the Democrats are trying to appeal to the American people by protecting criminals.

To a certain extent, this debate mirrors the abortion debate.  Poll after poll shows that Americans are strongly against partial birth abortion, a late term procedure in which the baby is partially delivered only to have his or her head crushed by the doctor.  These are children who could survive if separated from the mother.  Nevertheless, because banning partial birth abortion would mean limiting abortion rights in a small way, the Democrats oppose this in order to satisfy a vocal part of their base.

The reality is that protecting criminals from being deported is not popular now and it is unlikely to ever be popular with the American people.  Nevertheless, now that the election is over and the Democrats lost, they are still lining up in support of this unpopular position.  As I said above, it is really a strange place.

The Strange View Of Fair Reporting

In the last few days, there have been the usual nonsensical disputes in the media.  After the cast of Hamilton decided to deliver a lecture from the stage to Vice President Elect Pence, Donald Trump said that an apology was due from that cast.  Oh, the horror of it all.  The far left media (that's most of it) went into a near meltdown because Trump said this on Twitter.  Understand what the criticism purports to be.  If a reporter asked Trump what he thought of the Hamilton stunt, it would supposedly be fine with the media if he said that the cast ought to apologize to Pence.  Saying the same thing on Twitter is just too unpresidential according to the media.  Then there's Saturday Night Live from last weekend.  The show started with a skit that brought back Alec Baldwin to do his Trump impression.  Last week, we were told that Baldwin would not be back; too bad that was untrue.  The skit was the sort of unfunny parody that has come to be the norm on SNL for at least the last decade.  Trump, however, sent out a tweet again so the media is gathering its outrage again.  Trump called the show unfunny.  He was right there.  But why is it that if Trump comments we get an avalanche of responses saying that Trump should be working on America's problems and not tweeting?  In the last eight years, president Obama has spent something close to eight months on vacation.  None of these people who are now hyperventilating said anything about that.  Donald Trump sends one tweet and he's shirking his duties.

I doubt that anyone other than the left's true believers care about the back and forth regarding Trump's tweets, and I wouldn't have commented about this stuff at all except for one thing:  the extreme nastiness of the media.  For example, in one article the "reporter" doesn't say that Trump tweeted.  No, according to this obviously unbiased reporter, Trump "used his stumpy orange fingers" to tap out a message.

I keep hoping that we will finally get to the point at which the personality based disputes and the nastiness will abate and things can get done to help the people of this country.  This all proves that we are not there yet.

It's Too Windy For Trial Balloons

There was a Thanksgiving parade yesterday in Stamford, Connecticut.  Because of high winds, however, the big balloons were left out of the march.  I didn't attend the parade (although I got stuck in traffic nearby.)  For me, the parade was more a metaphor for the current political environment.  Each day, we hear a few more names of people being considered by President Elect Trump for his cabinet.  It's hard to tell where all these names come from.  Surely, some actually leak from the Trump transition team.  I suspect that others come from those named as possible candidates or their supporters.  It doesn't matter.  Each name is treated as a trial balloon.  The mainstream media dutifully attacks each new person.  You know the drill.  This one is a racist.  That one has a conflict of interest.  The third one failed to give proper change in one instance when he ran a lemonade stand on his front yard when he was eight years old.  The supposed potential appointees get bashed about as if they were in a tornado.

I have a suggestion for the media.  Stop it.  America doesn't really care about every possible appointee.  When the names are announced, you can focus your hate (excuse me, your investigation) on the actual people.  There will be plenty of time for character assassination.  In the interim, you might try covering policy issues.  We just went through an election in which policy was treated by the media as an afterthought.  That was enough.

This Is Hard To Believe

Sometimes, things happen that are so idiotic that you have to stop for a moment and consider what in the world is going on.  There was such a moment earlier today when I heard of a new article posted on the Huffington Post by Hofstra law professor Leon Friedman.  Here's the headline that Friedman chose for his column:  "Is The Electoral College System For Choosing Our President Unconstitutional?"  I'm not joking.  A law professor actually wrote an article considering whether or not the electoral college expressly called for by the Constitution is unconstitutional.  That's pretty bad, but it gets worse.  Friedman's conclusion is that the electoral college may well be unconstitutional. 

I've been a lawyer for many decades, and I've seen some pretty poor legal reasoning.  This, however, is the worst ever, and it comes from a law professor.  I can't wait for Friedman's next columns.  Perhaps he can write one entitled "Are Atheists Christian?"  How about "Is there a difference between Night and Day?"

What a moron!

The Media/Democrats' Hate Offensive Continues

As the presidential campaign unfolded, both the mainstream media and the Democrats embarked on a "hate offensive".  Hillary told us that half of Donald Trump's supporters were "deplorable" and "unredeemable".   The hate offensive participants told us that Trump is a racist and will put LBGT people at risk.  They used slogans like "love trumps hate" in an endless bout of name calling and derision against not just Donald Trump but also against anyone who supported him.  It was a major part of Hillary Clinton's campaign strategy; the main reason she gave to elect her was that she wasn't Donald Trump.  There was essentially nothing positive she advocated; it was the quintessential negative campaign.

Now that the election is over and Clinton lost, the hate campaign is continuing.  It's getting ridiculous.  Nearly everyone involved with Trump and the transition is still being called a racist.  The latest target is Alabama senator Jeff Sessions who Trump selected to be Attorney General.  Sessions is not a racist, but it doesn't matter.  The hate offensive will try to demonize him.  The argument is not being made on reality; the hate offensive just marches on. 

The weird thing is that the Democrats know that the hate offensive didn't work in the election, and it certainly won't work now.  Americans, for the most part, are fair people.  They are going to wait to see how Trump works out as president before they decide how he is doing.  One thing is certain, anyone who lived through the last eight years understands that when the Democrats call someone a racist, It doesn't mean anything. 

The media is still in full anti-Trump mode as well.  My favorite example of this trend today is a column from Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post.  She writes that since election day, Trump has not become "more presidential".  It's a bizarre column.  Since election day, Trump has been at work on the transition.  He did give an interview to Sixty Minutes which went fine.  He made no other speeches or public appearances.  He also sent out a few tweets.  It's hard to imagine criticism of that sparse public activity as unpresidential.  It doesn't matter to Ruth Marcus.  She's all in on the hate offensive.

I understand that the Dems and their media allies are unhappy with the election results.  There should come a time, however, when they focus on what is good for the country rather than on their own hurt feelings because the country rejected them.  Hillary lost because she couldn't be bothered with the concerns of millions of voters.  It wasn't enough to be "not Donald Trump".  These voters wanted solutions to their problems, something that Hillary never offered.  She just offered hate for Trump.  If the Democrats don't watch out, they will make the shift to the GOP permanent for many of those voters. 
 

Blatant Lies From the AP

The AP is out with a "fact check" article regarding Donald Trump and the American auto industry.  It's amazing that in the guise of a "fact check", the AP just gushes lies.  Here are some examples:

The AP says, "Trump's tweet on Thursday asserting that he had dissuaded Ford from moving a Kentucky factory to Mexico was a stretch, at the very least."

Here is what Trump said in his tweet, "Just got a call from my friend Bill Ford, Chairman of Ford, who advised me that he will be keeping the Lincoln plant in Kentucky - no Mexico."

Look at that tweet, the only one on the subject that Trump sent.  He doesn't assert that he had dissuaded Ford from moving.  He just says Ford told him that they are not moving the plant to Mexico.  So the AP criticizes Trump for allegedly saying something that he clearly never said.

Here's another example:  Trump said during the campaign that auto jobs had fled the country and been moved to other places like Mexico.  In this article, the AP says, "As for jobs fleeing the U.S., the U.S. auto industry has actually added 300,000 jobs since June 2009, when the recession ended."  Earlier in the same article, the AP says this, "There aren't as many jobs at U.S. auto plants as there were a decade ago."  So, AP, which is it?  Are there fewer auto jobs than there were ten years ago, or has there been a boom in auto employment?  It can't be both.

Anyone can make a mistake, so possibly the AP reporter and his editor just erred in the article.  I doubt it.  The AP well knows that its so called facts are wrong.  I doubt we will ever see a correction, however.

Putting Romney Into the Trump Administration

I was asked today why I haven't written about the possibility of Mitt Romney joining the Trump Administration.  The simple answer is that I don't really view it as likely.  President Elect Trump and Mitt Romney are scheduled to meet in New Jersey tomorrow.  The rumor mill says that the President Elect is considering Romney for Secretary of State.  So what.  Yesterday, we heard about how SC governor Nikki Haley was being considered for Secretary of State.  Before that, we were told that Rudy Giuliani had a lock on that job.  And let's not forget how ambassador John Bolton was the likely Secretary of State.  The actual reality is just that we can safely rule out John Kerry staying on in the position or Trump bringing back Kerry's predecessor, Hillary Clinton.

Still, one should consider if it would make sense for the President Elect to put Romney in the position or in any position in his cabinet.  In order to analyze that, however, one has to remember what Romney had to say about candidate Trump during the campaign.  It is not just that Romney opposed Trump in the primary election; many Republicans did that.  No, Romney was one who refused to support candidate Trump after he obtained the nomination.  In my view, that is a major problem particularly for someone leading the State Department.  Would Romney actually take his lead from Trump or would Romney decide to branch out on his own.  In such an important position, it would greatly undermine a Trump foreign policy if the head of the State Department were to be going rogue.  On the other hand, Romney is a man of great talent, particularly when it comes to running big organizations.  Perhaps he could become head of the Veterans Administration.  Goodness knows, the VA needs a major overhaul.  Romney might also be a great trade negotiator except for the fact that he disagrees strongly with Trump on the idea of fair trade.  The reality is the places where Romney might make sense in the cabinet are probably positions that Romney would not accept.

There's been a lot of talk of Trump scoring political points by adding Romney to his cabinet.  I doubt that there are many in Trump's coalition who are longing to see Mitt at cabinet meetings.  The political gain would be almost exclusively with people who don't like Trump at all.  In other words, this argument may sound good to the mainstream media, but it's just another story line in the endless attack on the President Elect.  There's no reason for him to cooperate.

A Look Back At The Polls

During the election campaign, one story that I heard on multiple occasions was that the Monmouth Poll was the "gold standard" of polling.  It was to be considered the gospel, or so we were told.  Well now we have actual results that can be compared to the poll numbers.  Of the eleven major polling groups, guess whose poll came in last for accuracy?  If you guessed Monmouth, you are correct.  The poll that came closest to the final numbers was the Rasmussen tracking poll which pegged the election results at 1.7% for Hillary.  The actual results came in at roughly 1% for Hillary.  (These are popular vote figures.)  Rasmussen was repeatedly criticized in the media as a pro-Republican poll that was not publishing accurate figures.  It seems the poll was correct, while the media was just fooling itself.

Another poll that came quite close was the IBD tracking poll.  That poll had been the most accurate in 2012, 2008 and 2004.  This year, it had Trump up by 1% in the final number and came in second in accuracy.

It's also worth remembering that all the polls from the big name organizations like CBS, NBC, Fox News and ABC were way off.  WAY OFF!

Let's Get Ready For The Attack On Sessions

According to news reports, President Elect Donald Trump has offered the position of Attorney General to Alabama senator Jeff Sessions.  Clearly, the senator would make a great attorney general just because of his first name.  Seriously, senator Sessions is well suited to the position of AG.  He was a US Attorney and also the state attorney general.  He has been a senator for nearly twenty years.

None of Sessions' history will matter to the media in the coming months.  Back in the eighties, Sessions was nominated to be a federal judge, and he was attacked for allegedly making a few racist comments to lawyers who worked in the US Attorney's office.  Sessions denied making the statements.  It was the era of Bork, however, when Democrats first started attacking Republican nominees as racists.  In those days, people actually believed the attacks.  It was enough to force the Sessions' nomination to be withdrawn when its prospects became iffy.

Now we have another 30 years of Sessions' exemplary history to examine.  The old charges look silly from today's perspective.  You can be sure, however, that the mainstream media and the Democrats will talk of nothing else.  Sessions will be called an unrepentant racist.  It won't be true, but that won't stop them from the effort.  Hopefully, Sessions' senate colleagues will ignore the nonsense and approve the nomination.

Actually, this nomination will be a test for the new leader of senate Democrats, NY senator Chuck Schumer.  The current leader, the disgusting Harry Reid, would surely make a big deal out of phony attacks on Sessions; Reid is, after all, an unapologetic liar.  Schumer, however, has known Sessions for decades.  He knows Sessions is no racist.  He has a chance to show actual leadership.  Schumer's response will be a good indicator of just how the Democrats in the senate will behave moving forward.

Does Obama Even Realize How Bad His Words Are?

In Berlin today, president Obama decided to lecture President Elect Donald Trump about how to deal with Russia.  The result was bizarre, and that is something of an understatement.  Here's how the AP reported Obama's words:

Offering pointed foreign policy advice to his successor, President Barack Obama expressed hope Thursday that President-elect Donald Trump will stand up to Russia when it deviates from U.S. "values and international norms" and not simply "cut some deals" with Vladimir Putin when convenient....[Obama] said Trump shouldn't "simply take a realpolitik approach and suggest that if we just cut some deals with Russia, even if it hurts people or even if it violates international norms or even if it leaves smaller countries vulnerable or creates long-term problems in regions like Syria, that we just do whatever's convenient at the time."

Think about that for a moment.  Obama, after all, is the man who dropped all the sanctions placed upon Russia for its invasion of Georgia.  That hurt millions of people in Georgia but it was "convenient at the time."  Obama is also the man who let Russia prop up the Assad regime in Syria when it was failing.  Literally hundreds of thousands of Syrians died in the continued fighting, but it was convenient for Obama to avoid any confrontation that might actually stop the Syrian slaughter.  Obama also is letting Russia bomb and attack the non-terrorist Sunni rebels in Syria; those rebels are supposed to be America's allies.  I guess to Obama standing silent while Russia destroys our allies and brutally kills thousands is inconvenient.  And let's not forget Crimea and Ukraine.  Russia invaded these areas and took control.  I always thought that opposition to aggression by one nation against another was one of America's values as well as being an international norm.  Indeed, it is supposed to be the value that underlies the United Nations.  But Obama let it go with barely a comment.

It's just amazing that Obama could be so unaware of his own actions when he lectures Trump.  The truth is that Obama is not unaware; he's just a hypocrite.

 

Another Reality Check

It's been nine days since Donald Trump was declared the winner of the election.  If you watch the mainstream media, you would think that Trump's transition is totally chaotic and in disarray.  There haven't been any cabinet positions named.  We only have heard of two appointments.  How bad is that?

This has been and continues to be a big story on the mainstream media.  Last night, I watched Chris Matthews lamenting the terrible transition that Trump is running.  Okay, to be fair, I only watched for about twenty seconds; I have a limit on watching Matthews.  What was interesting was then to see the facts covered on Special Report on Fox News.  They looked back at prior presidential transitions to see when cabinet appointments were announced in order to compare the present Trump effort with those earlier days.  If one goes all the way back to Richard Nixon in 1968, the earliest cabinet appointments came after three weeks following the election, and the average was five weeks before the first selections.  There is only one exception to this, and that was when George H.W. Bush was elected.  His administration, however, was a continuation of the Reagan years, so he kept some people in office and they were announced at two weeks after the election.  The new people, however, were appointed later.

So what does this mean?  The simple answer is that the mainstream media either knows the real facts and is telling lies or that the media is just too lazy to even bother checking on the real facts before reporting their narrative.  They are all so intent on Trump being a failure, that they will report anything that might make him look that way no matter its validity.

It's a sad day for America when most of our media is reporting blatant lies for political purposes.

Now Cooperation Is Bad

The all out media attack on Donald Trump's transition to president is getting to the stage where it is just ridiculous.  This afternoon, Reuters put out a report in which it reported that "Democrats and traditionalist Republicans" were alarmed because when President Elect Trump spoke to Russian president Vladimir Putin, they agreed to aim for "constructive cooperation" between the USA and Russia.  So are we now supposed to believe than any cooperation between Russia and the USA is a bad things?

If president Obama or Hillary Clinton (had she won) talked of cooperation with Putin and Russia, the media would be praising them for being peacemakers.  Trump talks of cooperation with Russia and it is cause for alarm among the same group. 

The media clearly has no idea how to report on Trump and his activities.  Through the campaign, they adopted the position that no matter what Trump said or did, it was bad.  That did not work; Trump won.  Now that Trump is President Elect, the constant sniping is not going to work either.  All that will happen is that the remnants of the mainstream media are going to look more and more deranged.

How to Keep Pre-Existing Conditions and Children on Parent's Policy to 26

The latest salvo in the left's Obamacare narrative is that Donald Trump will not be able to keep insurance available to those with chronic illnesses or to allow children to stay on their parent's policy to age 26 without all the taxes that Obamacare includes.  It's an article in the New York Times, so it must be correct, or so they are telling us.  (One might remember that the same New York Times had the odds of a Hillary victory at more than 95% early in the evening on election day.)

There's a problem with this story; however.  Basically, it's completely wrong.  Here's why:

1.  The biggest cost of Obamacare has been the payment by the federal government of all the costs for the people added to the Medicaid rolls in many states.  If that cost is reduced because eligibility goes back to more reasonable levels, there will be a lot of money made available.

2.  Another major cost of Obamacare has been the massive bureaucracy set up to administer the program.  If Obamacare is gone, so too the salaries of all those bureaucrats will disappear.

3.  A third major cost of Obamacare has been the items required by the law to be included in every health insurance policy.  How many people really need pediatric dental coverage?  Everyone has it, but those without children don't need it.  How many gay couples need maternity coverage?  How many people could do quite well without an unlimited cost ceiling?  Millions of people did quite fine for many decades with an annual maximum recovery.  Getting rid of many of these items will reduce the cost of insurance; that will reduce the massive cost of subsidies currently being paid to individuals.  That means more federal savings.

4.  Keeping children on one's policy need not be free.  It would make sense for there to be some sort of sliding scale.  Maybe at age 21, there would be a small additional payment above the family rate.  At age 22 that would rise until at age 26, the full amount would be charged.  The idea of keeping children on their parent's policies has been to help people newly entering the workforce to afford coverage.  There's no reason why the rest of us have to pay the full amount.

5.  Similarly, those with illnesses should not just get a free ride.  People ought to pay something for the extra costs of their medical care.  For example, there can be high risk policies for those who could not have gotten insurance in the days before Obamacare.  Those policies might cost 50% more or even double the policies for everyone else.  For people who are unable to afford this coverage, there could be federal assistance, but that would be far from everyone. 

6.  If the federal subsidies for low income individuals were replaced with some sort of federal health savings credit for every low income taxpayer, the cost structure could change dramatically.  Imagine no subsidies but instead people getting funds that can be used only for medical costs.  The point here is not that this is the plan pushed by Trump, but rather that by adjusting such a plan, costs could be reduced while medical care could be increased.

 

The Hill -- Is That Short For Hillary?

I just saw an article in The Hill about who would be likely to replace senator Sessions of Alabama if he joins the Trump cabinet.  The replacement senator would be selected by Alabama's Republican governor.  As a charter member of the mainstream media, The Hill seemed unable to keep the article serious.  The article lists two state legislators and two congressmen as potential replacements.  It sounded as if it were drafted by the DNC.  First, the article made a point of mentioning one state legislator who was recently arrested for DUI.  Really?  Is there any chance that the governor will pick that guy for the senate?  Of course not.  The Hill also pushes forward the name of congressman Martha Roby.  She doesn't have any chance to be selected.  She denounced Trump after the Billy Bush tape and suggested that he step down as the candidate.  As a result, she just squeaked by in her re-election bid.  There's really no chance that the governor will pick someone clearly on the outs with the new president and who demonstrated that she could be beaten.  So The Hill names four possible candidates and half of them are a joke.  It seems that The Hill would rather push bad candidates for the GOP than report actual facts.

Maybe We Really Will Be Energy Independent

At the last presidential debate, Hillary Clinton made a point of saying that the USA was "energy independent."  She was wrong.  America still imports roughly half of the crude oil that we use each day.  That's hardly independence.  Now, however, we may be moving towards the point at which we really don't have to import oil.  The most recent data out on the Permian basin in Texas indicates that the field may contain about 75 billion barrels of shale oil.  To put that in context, the USA uses over 5 billion barrels of oil each year; that's around 2.5 billion barrels produced at home and a similar number imported.  Since the size and density of the Permian oil fields is such that they can be produced profitably even at current oil prices, there should soon be a major upturn in American oil production.  That is especially true given the policy positions taken by President Elect Trump during the campaign; Trump wants to encourage domestic energy production.

Just imagine what would happen if we stopped spending over 100 billion dollars a year on imported oil.  There would be some jobs lost in the oil importing business, but there would be many, many more jobs created in the oil production industry.  On top of that, the extra wealth produced here in America would create a ripple effect that will further energize our economy.

The other benefit of a huge increase in domestic production is that the USA would no longer be dependent on foreign oil sources and the world price of oil would stay lower.  That would take leverage away from many countries that are not our friends, and it would also lessen the ability of some of the world's biggest sponsors of terrorism to afford that continuing support.

 

The Long Term Scientific View -- Or More BS

Ruy Teixeira is someone who strongly believes that demographic changes make a Democrat majority inevitable in this country.  He has now written an article to that effect in Vox; the GOP victory is just a temporary aberration according to Teixeira. 

Here's the funny part:  Teixeira has been writing on this subject for more than a decade.  When president Obama was elected in 2008, Teiseira was the leader of the group that told us that the GOP was likely to disappear of to become a rump party in the South only.  Since then, the Republicans have won and held the House since 2010, won and held the Senate since 2014, taken two thirds of the nation's governorships, taken control of two thirds of the state legislatures across America and now won the presidency.  To an apparently untrained eyed like mine, it looks more and more like the Democrats are a rump party on the coasts only.

Some day, the Democrats and their theorists like Teixeira have to realize that people are not just racial and ethnic groups.  They are individuals who vote based upon their personal preferences.  That is not to say that identity politics plays no role in elections; of course they do.  Nevertheless, a view like the one held by Teixeira and many Democrats that Hispanics will necessarily vote for the Democrats is amazingly racist.  Why should all Hispanics or blacks or Hindus or whatever group all vote one way?  It reduces the group to a stereotype, the very thing that the Dems always claim they are against.

It's time for the Democrats to realize that racial and ethnic caricatures are not only offensive, but also they do not work.

Trump Went Out To Dinner with His Family, and The Media Melts Down

Last night, Donald Trump took his family out to dinner in New York.  He went without alerting the media.  In fact, once the reporters found out where Trump had gone, they were not allowed into the restaurant when they got there.  So Trump ignored the demands of the media for never-ending coverage and had a family dinner.

That doesn't sound like much, does it.  The response from the mainstream media, however, was hysteria.  They announced that Trump was attacking the First Amendment freedom of the press.  Really, some actually said that.  These people who spend their days attacking Trump non-stop with stories that are frequently completely untrue are now offended that Trump went out to dinner and did not tell them.  How dare he!

My guess is that it will soon dawn on these media people that they really aren't that important anymore.  Normally, a new president does not want to offend the media because he does not want to lose their support.  It's too late for that.  The mainstream media just spent many months doing all it could to defeat Trump, but he still won.  Now, the relationship with the media will move forward on Trump's terms.  He will not cut them out, but their needs will no longer dictate anything.

For the country, it's a big victory.

If HuffPo Says It, It Must Be True, Right?

I keep thinking that I've seen the lowest that the media will go, and then it gets worse.  Tonight, I saw an article on the Huffington Post that reports that Donald Trump is having trouble finding people who want to work in his administration.  No, really, that's what the article says.  It's amazing.  Earlier today, I saw report after report about all the people who are trying to get positions in the new administration.  Now, suddenly, the HuffPo is telling us that there's just no one who wants to work for Trump.  It's total BS, but it does make one wonder what the point of such phony articles is.  Surely, the article will be revealed as nonsense as the avalanche of appointments starts coming from Trump Tower.  Of course, by that point, the HuffPo will no doubt be on to the next phony story.

I really had hoped that after the election we might see some semblance of sanity returning to the media.  Sadly, that has not happened.  Instead, we still get the mainstream media that was all in for Hillary continuing on its anti-Trump vendetta.  At some point, these people have to realize that they are hurting America with this crap.  Clearly, they are not helping themselves; no one believes them anymore.  Obviously, they don't hurt Trump; that's obvious in the election returns.  So they should stop with the phony stories.

The Media Is Still Fooling Irself

I just happened to pass my wife watching Brian Williams on MSNBC.  Williams was asking an NBC reporter about the appointment of Steve Bannon by President Elect Trump.  Specifically, Williams asked if there is any sign that Trump understands the "depth of the protest" against the nomination.

Let's stop here.  The "depth of the protest" is in interesting phrase.  It assumes that someone other than the usual loud mouths in the media and among the Democrats have said something, anything, about Bannon.  That's a faulty assumption, however.  The Washington talking heads have commented, but the real people across America have had nothing to say on the subject.  So once again, the media is telling the American people that the views of the media pundits and professional Washington politicians matter while the views of the American people don't.  But let's move on.

It was the response to Williams' question that really caught my attention.  The MSNBC "reporter" told Williams that the Trump interview on Sixty Minutes showed Trump's reaction to the protests regarding Bannon.  Time to stop again.  Here's what you need to know.  Last Friday, Sixty Minutes filmed an interview by Leslie Stahl with Trump and his family.  It was shown on Sunday.  The Bannon appointment was announced over the weekend, after the Sixty Minutes interview had been completed.  Obviously, neither Leslie Stahl nor Donald Trump knew about any reaction to the Bannon appointment which had not yet happened.  So there I was watching Brian Williams nod somberly in response to a reporter who obviously had no idea what he was talking about.

The reality is that the mainstream media is still fooling itself.  It still thinks that it can say whatever it wants and no one will notice the lack of truth in the report.  It used to be that the reports were just a little slanted.  These days, however, many of the reports are in complete denial of reality.  The problem for the media, however, is that people notice.

More Hogwash From the AP

Here's the headline on this afternoon's report from the AP on transition activities underway by Donald Trump and his advisors:

Amid signs of transition trouble, Trump huddles with Pence

The headline was news to me because I had not seen any signs of trouble from the transition team.  I read the AP article.  Why don't you guess what the "signs of transition trouble" are that AP references in the headline.  If you guessed that the answer is "there are none", you win the prize.  The article just talks about the various candidates being considered for this job or that.  Other than the old bogus criticism of Steve Bannon from last weekend, there is nothing that the AP could possibly call trouble.

The problem, of course, is that a great many people do not bother to read anything other than the headline.  By promoting a false narrative, the AP is trying to undermine Trump as somehow incompetent.

It really is disgusting that the AP is trying so hard to attack Trump less than a week after the country chose him to be our next president.

Ben Carson Says No Thanks

According to multiple media reports, Dr. Ben Carson was offered the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services.  Those same reports say that Carson turned down the position and said that he could do more outside the Trump administration.

Let's start at the beginning here.

1.  Before the mainstream media gets going, let's be clear that turning down the offer is not sour grapes by Carson.  There are few more honorable and honest people in national life than the estimable Dr. Carson. 

2.  Carson is someone whose insight would be a great addition to the president's cabinet.  Nevertheless, soon to be President Trump will still be able to call on the good doctor for advice.

3.  We've never seen Dr. Carson run a massive endeavor.  HHS is one of the most massive sections of the federal bureaucracy.  It is perhaps second in complexity only to the Defense Department.  Given his character, Carson would never accept doing a second rate job in the position.  He may well feel that he wants to have time to do other things with his life at this point.

No matter how this all turns out, one thing is certain:  Carson is a brilliant and moral man.

Is Pelosi On Her Way Out?

The Democrats in the House of Representatives just postponed their election for minority leader until after Thanksgiving.  Translating that into the actual news, this means that Nancy Pelosi is no longer certain to hold that position.  Pelosi wanted to hold the leadership elections later this week.  When the members objected, she backed off.

From the Democrats' point of view, it may well be time for some new leadership.  Pelosi is in her late 70's.  She has led the Democrats in the House to three straight crushing defeats.  It really may be time for some new blood.  At least in the Senate, the Dems will finally get rid of that human piece of garbage Harry Reid who is at long last retiring.  If the Democrats are ever again to win the majority in the House, they will certainly need newleadership.

Some Real Truth -- Just Like I Said

A few days back, I wrote about the claims that Trump supporters were threatening blacks and gays and others across America.  I said at the time, that I had seen precious little to back up those charges.  I also said that what might be happening is that after the election, the Democrats were once again setting up phony events so that they could denounce them.  We all remember that Wikileaks uncovered the truth that it was the Clinton campaign that had its employees provoke violence at a Trump rally, something that Hillary and the media denounced the next day as indicative of Trump's violent nature.  It seems that my suspicions were right.

At Northwestern University, a church on campus was vandalized a few days back when racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay graffiti was painted on the walls inside the structure.  Next to the spray painted swastikas and racist commentary, there was the name TRUMP painted in big black letters.  There it was, the first attack at Northwestern by the evil Trump supporters against these threatened minorities.  Fortunately, the church is protected with security cameras.  The perpetrators were filmed, identified and arrested.  It turns out that two leftist students (one Hispanic and one Jewish) carried out the vandalism while trying to make it appear like an attack by Trump supporters.  These two thugs were arraigned the other day and had to post bail of $50,000.

Meanwhile, things have taken a turn out in Oregon as well.  In the riot/protest in Portland, over 100 people were arrested for violence and vandalism.  The local media has done a review of these people and found that more than 60% either did not vote in the election or were not even registered to vote.  Of the remaining 40%, half voted and the voting status of the other half could not be determined.  So there you have it.  The majority of the protesters who claim to be upset by the election results did not even bother to participate in the election.  One really has to wonder just how many of these people really care about the outcome and how many are on the payroll of some George Soros financed "action group".

One Or The Other

Here are two names in the news:  Steve Bannon and Keith Ellison.  Bannon was just named senior adviser to the president.  Ellison is becoming the leading choice of Democrats to become chair of the Democrat National Committee.  If you've followed the news on these two, then you have no doubt heard that one of them is whispered (or actually shouted) to be a racist and an anti-Semite.  So what's the truth?

According to the media, Bannon is a racist and an anti-Semite because he ran the Breitbart organization.  That news site ran some articles that supposedly talked about protecting "white identity" and which were neo-Nazi.  The funny thing about that argument is not just that it is untrue, but more importantly it is ridiculous.  Is Marc Zuckerberg racist because of the things that get posted on Facebook?  No.  Is the head of the Associated Press anti-Semitic because of some of the clearly erroneous articles about Israel that get published by the AP?  No.  Is the publisher of the New York Times responsible for every op-ed that the paper contains?  No.  So, let's forget whether or not articles advocating the protection of white identity ever ran on Breitbart, the basic point that someone who neither wrote nor edited those articles is responsible for their content is nothing but a joke.

That takes us to Ellison.  There is no outcry in the mainstream media that Ellison is a racist or an anti-Semite.  In the case of Ellison, however, there is ample basis for such a charge.  Years ago, Ellison got involved with the Nation of Islam.  That is an organization that is often called the Black Muslims.  It was begun by Ellijah Muhammed.  He preached that all whites were "devils".  The organization was totally racist and extremely anti-Semitic.  It still is.  After Ellijah Muhammed passed away, he was replaced at the helm of the organization by Louis Farrakhan.  Anyone who has paid attention knows that Farrakhan and his followers are extraordinarily racist and anti-Semitic.  Ellison was associated with the organization for more than a decade.  So where's the outcry about Ellison?  There is only silence.  The "tolerant" Democrats are selecting a racist and anti-Semitic leader, but we hear nothing.

It would have been nice to hope that after the election, the media might decide to opt for truth.  It did not happen.  We still get all pro-Democrat lies all the time.

Paul Krugman Gets A Nobel Prize For CYA Writing

If you follow the debates in the media over economic policy, you well know who Paul Krugman is.  Krugman is a winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics for his specialized work in international trade.  He is also writes a column in the pages of the New York Times in which he supports any liberal policy that is being discussed.  Krugman told us during the election that Trump would be a disaster for the economy while Hillary Clinton would be a big success from an economic standpoint.  On election night, as Trump clinched victory, Krugman told the world that a "Trump recession" was both imminent and likely to be severe.

Now that a few days have passed, Krugman has realized that his call of an imminent and severe Trump recession might be very damaging to his reputation when it did not materialize as predicted.  That brought today's column.  Krugman now retracts his call for an immediate recession.  In fact, Krugman now says that Trump's policies are likely to bring economic growth in the short term (like the next 2 or 3 years.)  After that, we will all face disaster, especially at the hands of climate change.

It's amazing to watch an intelligent man make a fool of himself.  Krugman will now keep telling us how in the future Trump's policies will cause problems, but how for the present they may cause growth.  It's the ultimate in CYA writing.  Maybe Krugman can get a new Nobel for best CYA writing by an obvious jerk.

Trade Negotiations Are Underway Already

Since the election last week, trade negotiations of a sort have already started.  First, the leaders of Canada and Mexico have both said that they are open to the renegotiation of NAFTA.  For those "experts" who told us how Trump would paralyze North American trade as Canada and Mexico fought with Trump, this should come as welcome news.  It is also just a clear manifestation of reality.  Neither Canada not Mexico could afford a battle with the USA.

Second, the TPP is now dead.  It too will no doubt be subject to renegotiation.  The Obama approach of playing dead will no longer be the one that the USA uses in these negotiations.

Third, the trade front with China is also heating up.  The Chinese newspapers have published editorials and articles describing the counter-offensive that China will launch should Trump impose tariffs on Chinese made goods.  As usual, the financial portion of the mainstream media is in full panic this morning after the article appeared in the Chinese press.  The key here, however, is not that a semi-official Chinese paper is making threats.  We are a long way from Trump imposing tariffs or China retaliating.  The true key is that Trump has certainly gotten the attention of the Chinese.  Instead of staying silent while waiting for Trump to take office, the Chinese are sufficiently worried about what he might do that they are trying to deflect his course already.  The Chinese know that a trade war with the USA would be a disaster for them and it would not be good for the USA either.  The difference now is that for the first time in a while the Chinese also know that the USA will not accept bad deals with them.  Trade will need to be moved to a win-win situation before America will accept the result.  Trump will be fine with the Chinese profiting from trade with America, but that will only be true so long as America also profits from the arrangement.  The days of China wins and America loses which have prevailed under Obama are now officially over.

Fourth, in Europe, both the UK and France have avoided an EU meeting that was looking like it might turn into an anti-Trump forum.  The UK needs to enter into a strong trade pact with America now that Brexit will be starting.  Prime Minister May will not want to alienate our new president. 

All of this is encouraging.

So Where Is The Basis For These Claims?

I watched the interview with Donald Trump on Sixty Minutes last night.  Leslie Stahl asked the President Elect about the black, gays, and women being harassed by Trump supporters.  Trump said he was unaware of the attacks but told his supporters to "stop it".

That got me thinking.  I've seen stories and videos of Trump supporters being attacked by angry protesters.  I've seen coverage of Democrats rioting in a number of cities across this country.  What I haven't seen are stories of anyone actually being harassed by Trump supporters.  The only stories that I have been able to find involved graffiti.  At a school in Manhattan someone spray painted a swastika and the word Trump on a wall.  That is being investigated by the NY authorities as a "hate crime", although to me it seems more like an attack on Trump than on his opponents, especially since this happened in Manhattan where there are essentially no Trump supporters.  There were also two instances of swastikas being painted on buildings in upstate New York.  At least in those locations, there are Trump supporters, but there is nothing that links the graffiti to them.

I looked further.  I found reports of students at the University of Pennsylvania getting nasty text messages from a student from the University of Oklahoma.  There was also a claim that a group of white students knocked down a black woman at Villanova University while chanting Trump's name.  There were no witnesses to this alleged attack.  Meanwhile, the SCLC has said that there have been over 200 reported attacks across the nation, but the SCLC also said that it had not verified any of them.

So what do we really know?  Were there any of these attacks?  Could these claims be real?  Or are these stories like the violence at the Trump rallies that we learned through Wikileaks was actually arranged by Democrats so that they could then condemn Trump?  I truly doubt that many of these things actually happened.  That is not to say that it would be acceptable were this actually happening; it would be completely unacceptable.  Nevertheless, there is too much of this that just rings untrue.

At the same time, it is hard to equate a nasty text message to a crowd of protesters rioting in Portland.  One is clearly worse.

This Gets Coverage?

I just read what is perhaps the most surreal article ever.  It is a report on a push to get president Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court approved during the upcoming lame duck session.

Let's review where we are.  Justice Scalia died about eight months ago.  The Senate majority leader immediately announced that there would be no consideration of any replacement nominee and that the choice would be left to the American people when they voted for president.  Obama, nevertheless, nominated judge Merrick Garland to the post.  The senate ignored the nomination.  Garland did not get a vote or even a hearing.  Finally, the American people selected Donald Trump as president elect.  Further, the voters also kept the senate with a Republican majority.

The idea that the senators will now vote for Garland after refusing to do so for over six months is bizarre.  Indeed, many pundits now say that by refusing to vote for the Supreme Court nominee, the senators handed the election to Trump.  There were a great many voters who said that Supreme Court nominations were key to their vote for president.  There is no way that the senators would, after winning the election, throw away the fruits of that victory.

Portland or Losing Their Minds

Voters in Multnomah County, Oregon went for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by a margin of 76% to 17%.  Inside the city of Portland which has roughly 85% of the county's population, the Clinton margin was even higher. 

I thought that fact was worth noting after watching the protesters smashing cars and breaking shop windows in Portland.  These people are just taking their rage out on other Hillary voters.  There's an image often used after elections of the losing side organizing a "circular firing squad".  In Portland, they seem to be trying to take the image and bring it to life.

Cuomo and DeBlasio?? Oh My!

The New York Post is pushing the idea that the 2020 presidential election candidate for the Democrats may be either New York governor Andrew Cuomo or the mayor of New York City Bill DeBlasio.  It merits a fast comment.

First, STOP!!!!!  The endless 2016 election just ended this week.  There must be complete silence about 2020 for now.  America needs a rest.  America deserves a rest.

Second, ARE YOU KIDDING?  I know the Post is centered on all things New York, but Cuomo and DeBlasio?  Cuomo will be lucky if he is not indicted in the next two years for corruption.  The Obama appointed US Attorney already got convictions on two of the three most powerful politicians in Albany and there are persistent stories about there being an ongoing investigation aimed at Cuomo.  I don't know who the Democrats will nominate in 2020, but it won't be someone under criminal investigation.  On the other hand, DeBlasio will be lucky to be re-elected mayor.  He is so far left that he makes Bernie Sanders look conservative.  He will never play across America.

I now will stop talking about 2020.  I hope not to even mention that presidential election again until 2019.

Just For Once

Just for once, I agree with Bill Maher.  He said on his show this week that many Americans see the Democrats as a "boutique party of fake outrage and social engineering."  He's right.  Just look at the response to the election.  We have fools marching in the streets to express their outrage.  Many have apparently been paid to participate, although some are genuine.  Still, essentially every American understands that these marches are a futile gesture.  Participation AFTER the election does not change the outcome.  If these people are so upset, they should have been involved BEFORE the election.  The whole thing will soon fade away; most people accept reality after a while.  Still, the entire business once again shows the silly and fake outrage pushed by the Democrats.

And how about all those celebrities who were surely moving out of the USA if Trump won?  Why are they still here?  It was just more fake outrage on display. 

More Media Bias

There are some demonstrations still going on in New York, LA and other cities.  The point of the demonstrators is unhappiness with the results of the election.  It's an immature and pointless response.  The demonstrations won't and can't change anything.  Donald Trump is the President Elect.  Nevertheless, some portions of the mainstream media are really getting into this story as if it were meaningful.  For example, NBC and MSNBC are trying to paint Trump as being under siege by the protesters.  It's amazingly dishonest.  People have to right to march through Manhattan if they want to waste their time doing so.  The point, however, is that the march has no effect at all on Trump.  For NBC, however, that doesn't matter.  In the latest story from that network about the demonstration Saturday afternoon in New York, NBC talks about Trump Tower as the place where Donald Trump is "holed up".  Actually, Trump Tower is the place where Donald Trump and his family live.  He was in his office this afternoon meeting with his team and working on the transition. 

Why is it that NBC can't be honest?  Why can't it be impartial?  If the NBC reporters want to tell us about the protest, that's fine.  I doubt many people care about it, but NBC can still report on it.  It's just wrong, however, for the jerks at NBC to try to paint a phony picture of reality.  They should stop.  They did enough damage during the campaign with their biased stories.  Most likely, Trump would not have won but for the reaction of the American people against the obvious lies of the media.  But it's even worse.  The media sponsored poll after poll that turned out to be wrong.  Then they reported over and over again about those erroneous polls.  Remember three weeks ago, the big story in the mainstream media was that Hillary had clearly won the election and was busy trying to expand the field into as many states as possible and to work to help Democrat candidates up and down the ballot.  Then two and a half weeks later, Hillary lost, the Democrats in Congress lost, the Democrats did not even take back the senate despite having the best possible chance to do so, and the Democrats in state races got creamed.  America knows this; we understand that the media is either delusional or dishonest.  So now, once this has all been revealed, one would think that the mainstream media would be trying to regain the trust of the average American.  They're not.  Instead, the mainstream media is pushing a new dishonest storyline.  To make matters worse, it's a storyline that is OBVIOUSLY dishonest.  Telling lies is bad enough; telling lies that most people can easily see to be lies is just plain crazy.