A Little Bit Of Humor

Since the media emphasizes bad news on a non-stop basis, I thought I would lighten your day with some really funny news.  I know these two stories make me laugh every time I think of them.

1.  NY Governor Andrew Cuomo is seriously considering running for president.
2.  NYC Mayor DeBlasio is seriously considering running for president.

It's hysterical.  These two are best described as buffoons.  Just this week we heard that DeBlasio seems to have "misplaced" 1.8 billion dollars in city funds.  He put his wife in charge of half of that amount for a particular program that never got started, but now the funds are gone.  This guy might not be able to get re-elected mayor next time, even in New York, but he's looking into becoming president.  The governor has just managed over the last three years to stay out of prison.  Almost everyone else in the top echelons in Albany has been tried and convicted for some sort of graft or corruption.  Most of Cuomo's top people have been in this mix of corruption.  So now he wants to be president.  I understand that Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker are very hopeful that DeBlasio and Cuomo jump into the race.  If that were to happen, they theorize that they would finally start to look good compared to other candidates.

The Dividends of Trump Hatred

The average activist in the Democrat party hates Donald Trump with a passion.  Most of them don't just want to beat him; they want to destroy him along with his Republican party.  The mainstream media (which is basically just a branch of the Democrat activists) feel the same way.  As a result, these people spend their days reading stories about the latest "horror" from Trump, further news about the terrible "damage" he is doing, and analysis that turns Trump into a criminal, idiot, or lunatic.  The result isn't just that the Democrat base hates Trump, but rather that they believe that no sane person could vote for him again, let alone like him and what he is doing for the country.  This belief which is the norm for those in the leftwing Democrat bubble is now paying dividends in a major way for the country. Consider the following:

1.  All but three Democrats in the Senate, including every Democrat presidential candidate, voted against a bill that required doctors to provide care to infants born alive after a failed abortion.  Let's be clear; the Democrats voted against a law which recognized babies already born as people with the right to life so long as the mother wanted that child dead.  There's no question that a few years ago, the Democrats would never have voted against that bill.  Now, however, they are so sure that Trump cannot win that they are displaying their true colors.  These people a rabid pro-abortionists who will not support any measure that they see as limiting abortion in any way even if the result is leaving babies to die or even affirmatively killing them.  It's a horrific position.

2.  Nearly every Democrat presidential candidate has endorsed the Green New Deal.  It's one thing to worry about climate change and to support measures that might fight it.  It's completely something different to support an end to all air travel, the banning of meat, milk and cheese from the American diet, the end of private cars that use gasoline, and the banning of coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear fuel as power sources in this country.  It's even more surprising to favor granting every American unwilling to work a monthly allowance.  And those are just part of the measures in the Green New Deal.  The totality would destroy the American economy, and the best part of the whole thing is that even the full Green New Deal would not stop climate change according to the so called "experts" who constantly predict climate disaster.  These are bizarre positions for most Americans.  There's no way they will ever gain majority support once voters understand the contents of the Green New Deal rather than it just being portrayed as "saving the planet".  The Democrat base, however, is so certain that Trump cannot win re-election that they are going all in on this nonsense.

3.  Again, nearly every Democrat presidential candidate has endorsed Medicare For All.  And the plan being pushed is one that would (1) end all private health insurance in America, (2) end Medicare as we know it, (3) end Medicaid for the poor, (4) limit payments to doctors and hospitals to lower levels than currently paid, and (5) put the entire healthcare system under government control.  It would be like a national VA system, and we all know the horrors that system created by forcing vets to wait for months to see a doctor.  This is the sort of massive government system that will not be supported by a majority of voters who are happy with their current insurance, but the Democrats are pushing it because they think they cannot lose.

4.  The Democrats have actually gotten to the point where they are proposing massive spending plans like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal with not even a hint of a way to pay for them.  Oh, all the Democrat presidential candidates are pushing for massive tax increases on the wealthy, but even with those increases, there will still not be enough money to come close to paying for the programs they are pushing.  The latest approach from many Democrats is that we will just print money to pay for the bills.  Voters, however, will understand rather quickly that printing money will lead to massive inflation and the destruction of what will be left of the American economy.  The Dems, however, know in their bones that they can't lose, so they figure they can push for what they really want and Donald Trump will still force the average voter to choose the Democrats.

It's rather strange to watch a mass delusion overtake such a large portion of the population.  One would think that after 2016 when these same Democrats "knew" that Hillary Clinton would win only to see her lose, that they would be a bit more open to the opinions of those who aren't Democrat activists, but they're not.  The effects of the delusion are already appearing in public opinion.  A recent Marist survey found that the percentage of people calling themselves pro-life jumped by about 15 points between January and February after the support being given by the Democrats to infanticide.  It seems, however, that the Democrats can't bring themselves to contemplate a possible Trump victory in 2020, so they choose to ignore that outcome.

There's a long, long time until November of 2020.  No one knows what will happen between now and then.  The President may fall from favor and get trounced in that election.  If Trump loses, however, it won't be because the Democrats took popular positions.  Trump hatred is working hard to have the Democrats hand him a win in 2020 on a silver platter.

The Truth Seems Irrelevant To the Media When It Comes To Trump

I just read an article highlighted by Yahoo News; the article was originally published on the Huffington Post.  The gist of the piece is that President Trump lied about why the summit with Kim Jung Un "failed" and that Kim told the truth about it.  It's a new low that the lefty media is so anti-Trump that they are supporting Kim Jung Un rather than the President of the USA.

Here's the issue:  the President said that the summit failed because the North Koreans wanted the US to lift all the sanctions and that was too much.  The North Koreans said that wasn't true.  Now the Huff Post is reporting that an (of course) unnamed State Department employee "admitted" that the North Koreans only wanted all the economic sanctions put on their country during the last three years to be lifted.  The sanctions against selling the North Koreans equipment or material used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons would not be part of lifting sanctions.  Even were this true, it doesn't contradict what Trump said.

For what it is worth, I checked on the NBC News site as well as a bunch of other mainstream media outlets.  If there were any validity to what the Huff Post is pushing, it would be all over MSNBC.  There's not even any mention of it, however.

Look, we all know that the Huff Post has the mission of non-stop attacks on President Trump.  If Trump said, "what a lovely sunny day," the Huff Post would publish a picture of a wispy cloud and call Trump a liar.  We get that.  Nevertheless, it is at best despicable that an American media outlet would publish such drivel as this article and use it to support North Korea over the President.  Mindless hatred of the sort pushed by the Huff Post and Yahoo News really ought to have no place in our public discourse.

A Brief Note About Otto Warmbier

There has been quite a storm in the media about the comments by President Trump about Otto Warmbier in the press gathering Trump held in Hanoi after the meeting with Kim Jung Un of North Korea.  Warmbier, of course, is the American college student who visited North Korea and was arrested when he took a poster that had been displayed in his hotel.  The North Koreans put him in prison where he was obviously mistreated.  He was returned to the USA after a few years, but he was in terrible condition and he died a few days later.  Trump was asked if he raised the Warmbier matter with Kim in Hanoi.  In response, Trump said that he had, indeed, raised the issue and that Kim had told Trump that Kim was unaware of what had happened to Warmbier while it was taking place.  Trump added that he would take Kim at his word.

Let's stop here for a moment.  Nothing so far indicates that Trump "forgave" or "condoned" what happened to Warmbier.  Trump just accepted that Kim was not personally involved or even aware of how Warmbier was being treated.  We all know that Kim is a dictator, but how many people actually believe that Kim was getting reports on the treatment in prison of an American college student who stole a poster?  Kim is in charge, but that doesn't mean he decides all details in the country.  The media, however, has reacted with horror at the thought that Trump has excused Kim for what happened to Warmbier.

Now we need to consider something else.  Warmbier was arrested by the North Koreas while Obama was president.  The Obama administration did nothing to seek Warmbier's release.  Obama left Warmbier to rot in a North Korean prison.  The media said nothing.  When Trump took office, he started applying pressure to the North Koreans to release all American prisoners/hostages that the NK's held.  Due to this pressure, Warmbier and the other Americans were released by the North Koreans.  The credit for achieving the release of Otto Warmbier belongs to President Trump.  The media has forgotten all this because Trump did not assign personal blame to Kim Jung Un for the treatment of Warmbier in prison.

Remember, Trump is trying to get the NKs to give up their nuclear weapons.  That effort is ongoing.  Just because there was no agreement in Hanoi does not mean the efforts have ended.  They haven't.  Assigning personal blame to Kim Jung Un for what happened to Warmbier in prison is not something that would be likely to help in the denuclearization effort.  The media knows this.  The shouting over what Trump said is dishonest at the least.

And Now Another One

Democrat John Hickenlooper, the former governor of Colorado is going to announce his bid for the presidency next week according to reports.  We're also hearing reports that former mayor Bloomberg of New York City is renting space for campaign offices in Manhattan, a pretty good sign that he too is running.

It's amazing just how many candidates there are.

So who is left?  There's Hillary Clinton, of course.  She could win against this group of losers.  Then there's former VA governor Terry MacAuliffe.  We also have Ohio senator Sherrod Brown.  And let's not forget current NY mayor Bill DeBlasio.  I'm also expecting ex California governor Jerry Brown to throw his hat into the ring.  There are also rumors that governor Wolfe of PA is considering a bid.

I'm sure there will be others too, but there are already so many candidates that it's doubtful that all of them will be able to fit on the first page of a ballot during the primaries.  We could actually see the contest decided by idiotic things like which candidates make it to page one.  Remember, a big batch of voters won't even realize that there are multiple pages of candidates and will just vote for someone on the first page.

 

AOC Is Not AOK

The media star of the current Congress is freshman representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a Democrat from New York.  Ocasio-Cortez, who is known as AOC, has been a driving force behind the Green New Deal.  She has also managed to make more misstatements and shown more confusion on TV in two months than the rest of Congress combined.  Despite her many misstatements, AOC is still the poster child for the current Democrat majority.  That's why her latest moves are so important.

1.  Yesterday, AOC blew up in a meeting among House Democrats.  She was upset that an amendment had been passed to the latest gun control measure.  That amendment requires that when a person fails a background check for purchase of a gun, that person must be reported to ICE if he or she is an illegal alien.  The focus of the amendment was to try to help locate illegal aliens who are gang members or criminals and who seek to buy weapons.  There were over twenty Democrats who joined with the Republicans to pass the amendment.  AOC was livid about that.  She told her fellow Democrats that anyone who voted with the Republicans like that again would have their name put on a list to be faced with a primary opponent in 2020.  In other words, AOC made clear to her fellow Democrats that if they ever cooperated with the GOP, she would try to drive them from Congress.

Think about that for a moment.  Here we have the Democrat star of the moment making clear that the Democrats do not want to "work across the aisle."  They don't want compromise or bipartisanship.  They want total power no matter what the cost.

2.  AOC also attacked the Wall Street Journal for writing an article about her that she didn't like.  Think about that one too.  We've just gone through 2 years during which the Democrats endlessly condemned the President because he counterattacked against the media when that media attacked him.  People like AOC told us that Trump's statements were anti-American, inappropriate and undemocratic.  Now here's the Democrat star doing the same thing.

3.  AOC got caught not having a residence in her district as required by law.  She also got caught putting her boyfriend on the Congressional payroll in violation of ethics rules.  Her response has been to deny everything but then to go on the attack against those who found out these facts.  Shouldn't we have an investigation run by the DOJ into this mess?

More Democrats Joining In

The news today is that Joe Biden is about to join in the presidential race for 2020.  In addition, the Democrat governor of Washington Jay Inslee.  Inslee says his main issue will be dealing with climate change.  Biden hasn't said what the focus of his campaign will be, but to be fair, he may have forgotten what it is.  Right now, Biden seems satisfied that he can remember where he put his keys.

It seems sad that a loser like Biden could see himself get the nomination just because of a combination of name recognition and the party rules.  After the DNC and Hillary rigged the process in 2016 to defeat Bernie Sanders, the party was forced to change the rules.  Under the DNC rules, each state must award convention delegates in proportion to the number of votes obtained by a candidate in a caucus or primary.  However, in order to get any delegates, the candidate has to obtain at least 15% of the caucus/primary vote.  This makes sense if there are three or four candidates.  If the results of the primary are candidate A gets 45% of the vote, B gets 34% and C gets 21%, then the delegates are awarded 45%, 34% and 21% respectively.  But what happens if there are 25 candidates and candidate A gets 16% while the other 84% is split in smaller numbers among the rest?  The answer is that A gets 100% of the delegates.  And what happens if the leader gets only 14% of the vote?  In that case, all the delegates selected are uncommitted.  They can vote for whomever they want.

The problem for most of the Democrat candidates is that they will have real trouble getting over 15% in the early races.  Who can get over 15% in Iowa?  The answer is basically the two ancient ones:  Biden and Sanders.  Unless one of the candidates actually catches fire and stands out -- which seems unlikely given the horde that is running -- the Iowa caucus may well be decided by the votes of poorly informed voters who just remember Biden and Bernie from the past.  The bulk of the voters will want someone else, but Biden could take this because of the 15% minimum in the rules.  New Hampshire may turn out the same way.  At that point, unless a large number of candidates drop out, we could get to Super Tuesday with a very fragmented election still the result.

Right now, both Biden and Bernie have small followings among Democrats.  The key, however, is that when asked whether they prefer a familiar name or someone new as a candidate, Democrat voters say they want someone new by a margin of more than two to one.  They may want someone new, but the rules will just bring another old retread.