Archive for 2016
November 24, 2016
BEN CARSON ACCEPTS JOB as HUD Secretary.
HEH:
"Ben Carson is unqualified for HUD Secretary!", say people that put the last 8 years of their lives in the hands of a community organizer
— Josh Earnst (@NotJoshEarnest) November 24, 2016
FIVE THIRTY EIGHT: Demographics, Not Hacking, Explain The Election Results. “According to a report Tuesday in New York Magazine, a group of computer scientists and election lawyers have approached the Hillary Clinton campaign with evidence they believe suggests the election might have been hacked to make it appear that Donald Trump won the Electoral College when Clinton really did. The hacking claim appears to be based on concerns about tampering with electronic voting machines. We’ve looked into the claim — or at least, our best guess of what’s being claimed based on what has been reported — and statistically, it doesn’t check out.”
Doesn’t matter, it’s just agitprop to keep the base angry.
WHAT TO EXPECT FOR THANKSGIVING TRAVEL: By air, by road, by rail.
Be careful.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: The Chart That Shows How Long You Should Cook Your Turkey.
EVERYBODY GETS COCKY WHEN THEY WIN A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, AND THEY’RE ALWAYS WRONG. NOBODY HAS A “PERMANENT MAJORITY.” Why the GOP shouldn’t get too cocky after winning in November.
In 2017, Republicans will control an overwhelming majority of governorships and state houses, along with the White House and Congress. Even though Republicans were defending more seats and Democratic nominee Clinton vastly outspent Donald Trump, the Grand Old Party is firmly in control of all levers of political power.
Moreover, expect President-elect Donald Trump to nominate a replacement to the vacant seat left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, which could also shift the balance of power on the Supreme Court in favor of conservatives.
However, though the GOP is firmly planted in the catbird seat, it would be prudent not to overreach or interpret the Nov. 8 victories as a mandate to move the country further right.
Trump’s unorthodox campaign gave him a shocking Electoral College victory, also helping vulnerable House and Senate Republicans survive spirited challenges.
Yet, look closely at the numbers behind the triumph, and danger could be lurking for the GOP.
Trump received a smaller percentage of the overall vote total than 2012 GOP nominee nominee Mitt Romney. In fact, when the final numbers are tallied, Clinton will finish with an approximate 2 million ballot advantage in the popular vote.
Additionally, while Trump was able to smash through Clinton’s “blue wall” of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — an impressive feat not accomplished by a Republican since 1984 — his closer-than-expected victories in traditional red states like Arizona, Georgia and Texas suggest a GOP expansion of the electoral map could be tougher than expected in future White House races.
My take: Trump was a celebrity candidate. The regular turnout/voting rules don’t apply to celebrity candidates. They do apply to regular candidates.
November 23, 2016
DEMOCRATS PREPARE TO enjoy the holidays. “It isn’t worth the trouble to fact-check this whole mass of talking points, but I note that it requires some nerve to allege that ‘Under Trump, it’s estimated that the national debt would rise by $5.3 trillion over the next decade,’ when we have just seen the debt rise by more than $9 trillion in less than eight years of the Obama administration. What they’re saying is that the increase in the debt would be slowed under Trump’s policies by more than 50%. One of the things I am thankful for this year is that there won’t be anyone at our Thanksgiving dinner who comes armed with partisan talking points in hopes of winning arguments with his or her relatives.”
EXCUSES: Obama goes ‘Full Bernie’: Goldman-Sachs speeches killed millionaire Hillary’s campaign. “Here we see the beleaguered president, watching his legacy fade into the sunset, settling into his natural habitat.”
OH, GOODY: New estimates suggest the ‘big one’ in San Andreas could be much worse than we thought.
UPDATE: Here’s an earthquake preparation list I’ve posted before. And I actually keep one of these, along with some food and water, in a shed in case the house falls down.
MORE: Earthquake prep link was bad before. Fixed now. Thanks! (Bumped).
MAYBE JUST SHUT THE UNIVERSITY DOWN AND START OVER SOMEWHERE ELSE? NCAA investigating alleged academic fraud at Mizzou.
FASTER, PLEASE: Turning back the aging clock. “Researchers from Caltech and UCLA have developed a new approach to removing cellular damage that accumulates with age. The technique can potentially help slow or reverse an important cause of aging. Led by Nikolay Kandul, senior postdoctoral scholar in biology and biological engineering in the laboratory of Professor of Biology Bruce Hay, the team developed a technique to remove mutated DNA from mitochondria, the small organelles that produce most of the chemical energy within a cell. A paper describing the research appears in the November 14 issue of Nature Communications.”
THE NUMBERS ARE IN: Trump wins Michigan by 10,704.
IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? How beer can help mend our differences this Thanksgiving.
AT AMAZON, Black Friday Deals Week.
YES: Untrustworthy journalists left us vulnerable to fake news.
Each January, tens of thousands of pro-lifers descend upon our nation’s capitol to mark the solemn occasion of the Roe v. Wade anniversary. That’s the month in 1973 the Supreme Court used a fake law to create a fake right to kill our own offspring, and a body count that has now reached well over 50 million began.
Each January, this mass demonstration of conviction rarely gets more than perfunctory coverage by major U.S. newspapers, cable news networks and the nightly broadcast news. However, last weekend a few blocks away from the site of the march, the meeting of a couple hundred racists trying to rebrand themselves as the “alt-right” received days of coverage.
Type “March for Life” into Google News and 4.6 million results come up. That’s a pretty hefty number until you type in “alt right” and see it returns more than 6 million. How come a term most of us hadn’t heard of, until the just-concluded 2016 presidential election, gets more attention than a national protest that is older than Google itself?
Talk about your fake news.
But a different kind of fake news spread on social media is what a growing chorus of journalists, liberals and tech leaders (three overlapping groups obviously) at least partially blame for Donald Trump’s election victory.
For most Americans, it is hardly a new phenomenon. It’s been going on for quite some time, actually: Dan Rather’s fake gotcha story on George W. Bush during the 2004 election. ABC News’ failure to disclose ties between George Stephanopoulos and Hillary Clinton before his fake interview about the Clinton Foundation. The more than 24 “journalists” who took their fake objectivity with them to work in the Obama administration. When CNN, PBS NewsHour, Mic.com, The Washington Post, Slate and many others thought fake news was kinda cool because the fake news was written by liberal comedians for cable satire shows.
See, our industry has been peddling quite a bit of hackery and partisanship as “news” for years now, so the public no longer trusts us.
To be fair, why should we?
CONRAD BLACK: A Vanquished Press Fails To Comprehend Its Defeat by Trump.
The mountain of Mr. Remnick’s adulation gives birth to a tiny, squeaking mouse. His explanation of Mr. Trump’s success, the tedious screed about Trump the psychotic, extremist dumbbell, is just a jangling echo of the Democratic campaign: a coast-to-coast, wall-to-wall smear job in the absence of any argument for the reelection of the Democrats. It would have been no less fair for the Republicans to have tied Mr. Obama hand-and-foot to Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.
Mr. Trump won because the United States has had the 15 worst years of misgovernment by all branches and both parties, and the only period of absolute and relative decline, in its history. The new president will have a clear mandate for reform of taxes, spending, health care, immigration, and campaign financing; for a workfare program to address decrepit infrastructure; and for a redefinition of the national interest between George W. Bush’s mindless interventionism andMr. Obama’s Panglossian crusade to make friends of America’s enemies.
Donald Trump is the oldest and wealthiest person elected president, the first not to have had a public office or high military command, the first to pay for his own campaign, and the first since Washington to waive his salary. He has defeated the Clintons, the Bushes, the Obamas, and almost all the dishonest, myth-making national press (including David Remnick). The national political press has declined even more precipitously than the political class, and the president-elect was elevated despite the animosity of both, a signal achievement whose significance those who have been vanquished show no signs of grasping.
True.
DIGITAL DATING DIFFERENTIALS: Tinder users can express their gender in 37 different ways.
This is going to put “there’s someone for everyone” to the test.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Sex Workers Describe Their First Day on the Job.
AT AMAZON, save in Arts Crafts and Sewing.
TO BE FAIR, THEY’RE NOT READY FOR US, EITHER. Unexpected ‘Arrival’: Humanity’s Not Ready for Aliens.