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Thursday, February 8, 2018

Today's Tidbits

It's one of those days that brings a series of small stories that deserve comment.

First, former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder is thinking of running for president in 2020.  It's a story that is its own punch line.  Holder is the guy who approved Fast and Furious, an action in which the DOJ arranged for the sale of 2000 guns to the Mexican drug cartels.  Supposedly, the point was to track the guns, but that failed.  Instead, the guns were used in crimes (including murder) across Mexico and the USA.  Imagine Holder running the country.  Maybe he could import 200 tons of heroin into the USA so as to try to track where those drugs go.

Holder is also the guy who undertook surveillance of the AP office in Washington, of James Rosen then of Fox News, and of a series of other reporters.  If President Trump had done that, there would be 24/7 coverage for months.  Holder's police state tactics were mostly ignored because he was Obama's AG.  It doesn't excuse the move, however.

Holder dropped a voter intimidation charge against a black group in Philadelphia that kept white voters from the polls in 2008.  The defendants had already been convicted and the charges were dropped before sentencing.  Holder said that blacks could not intimidate white voters; only the reverse was possible.  It was just another example of ideology triumphing over Holder respecting the rule of law.

There's much more, but these should illustrate the point.  There's no way that Holder should be considered as a potential president.

Second, the media is pushing the idea that the House will not cooperate in passing the new budget deal reached by the congressional leadership.  After all, Nancy Pelosi spoke for 8 hours yesterday in the House to protest the lack of a DACA fix in the deal.  She said she would oppose the budget deal unless there is a DACA deal voted upon in the House.  This is nothing but a cynical ploy from Pelosi.  I mean think about it for a moment.  The deal was reached in negotiations among four people:  McConnell, Schumer, Ryan and PELOSI!  She made the deal and then marched out to protest her own deal.  She was just trying to mislead the Democrat base into believing that she had not abandoned them.  (but she had.)  By the time the vote comes in the House, there will be enough Democrats voting for the plan to guarantee passage if there are not sufficient GOP votes.

Third, the media is also crowing about the decline in the stock market and the volatility which has followed.  As the market went up in value by something like 8 trillion dollars, the media didn't much cover the move and certainly gave President Trump little credit for it.  Now that we have a decline of half a trillion dollars in value, they are all over the story.  They are thrilled to see negative economic news that they can attribute to Trump.  It's interesting to see how little they understand that what is happening is a normal market correction.  For the media, everything is Trump.

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