The Clinton Foundation has issued a brief statement: No Refunds. #election2016 #WheresHillary
— Chris Hagen (@chrishagentb) November 9, 2016
Heh.
Archive for 2016
November 9, 2016
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: You’ll need a background just to buy ammo in California.
This would be a good time to open an ammo shop near along any Interstate in Nevada or Arizona.
TYRANNY ADVANCES: China Cracks Down On Hong Kong Localists.
Beijing has ruled: the two independence activists at the center of a dispute in Hong Kong’s legislature will not be allowed to take their seats. . . .
As we noted last week, Beijing’s decision to intervene in an active Hong Kong court case set a major precedent. The ruling itself will have even greater repercussions. Beijing has now removed elected Hong Kong officials by decree. And rather than ruling narrowly against the two people in question, China has taken a broader position, barring independence activists from seeking office and pressuring the Hong Kong government to comply.
The ruling comes at a time when President Xi is consolidating his power on the mainland and clamping down on internal reform. The news will likely stir up passions in Hong Kong over the notion that Beijing is expanding its control and directly interfering with the rule of law in a supposedly autonomous region.
Hong Kong’s young localists have apparently overplayed their hand in calculating that they could openly defy China and still enjoy their new political privileges. The backlash in Hong Kong will be something to watch for: perhaps Beijing has overplayed its hand, too?
Let’s hope.
2015 FLASHBACK: Liberals have chosen The Donald as their ‘Destructor.’
SPENGLER: Trump’s Victory Was Obvious from the Outset.
IT AIN’T OVER YET: Obama’s last chance of ending Israeli occupation.
President Loki still has until January 20 to create more mischief. I get the feeling that Bill Clinton’s last-minute flurry of legal (and practical) booby traps could pale in comparison.
FROM THE ALWAYS-INSIGHTFUL JOEL KOTKIN: The Improbable Demographics Behind Donald Trump’s Shocking Presidential Victory.
America is a nation of many economies, but those that produce real, tangible things — food, fiber, energy and manufactured goods — went overwhelmingly for Trump. He won virtually every state from Appalachia to the Rockies, with the exceptions of heavily Hispanic Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, and President Obama’s home base of Illinois.
Some of his biggest margins were in energy states — Texas, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Wyoming, North Dakota — where the fracking revolution created a burst of prosperity. . . .
Class has been a bigger factor in this election than in any election since the New Deal era. Trump’s insurgency rode largely on middle- and working-class fears about globalization, immigration and the cultural arrogance of the “progressive” cultural elite. This is something Bill Clinton understands better than his wife.
Trump owes his election to what one writer has called “the leftover people.” These may be “deplorables” to the pundits but their grievances are real – their incomes and their lifespans have been decreasing. They have noticed, as Thomas Frank has written, that the Democrats have gone “from being the party of Decatur to the party of Martha’s Vineyard.”
Many of these voters were once Democrats, and feel they have been betrayed.
Well, that’s because they have been. Democrats preferred feeling smugly superior to these voters over getting their votes. Trump felt the other way. Last night, both got what they were after, but only one seems happy about it today.
UPDATE: Heh.
PETER THIEL: Trump victory means ‘all hands on deck.’ “Congratulations to President-elect Donald Trump. He has an awesomely difficult task, since it is long past time for us to face up to our country’s problems.”
WHEN RUSH LIMBAUGH SAID SOMETHING SIMILAR IN 2008, IT WAS RACIST: Progressive group vows to obstruct Trump presidency.
HOW THE POLLS GOT IT WRONG: “The electoral map leaves no doubt as to how Mr Trump won. In states where white voters tend to be well-educated, such as Colorado and Virginia, the polls pegged the final results perfectly. Conversely, in northern states that have lots of whites without a college degree, Mr Trump blew his polls away—including ones he is still expected to lose, but by a far smaller margin than expected, such as Minnesota. The simplest explanation for this would be that these voters preferred him by an even larger margin than pollsters foresaw—the so-called ‘shy Trump’ phenomenon, in which people might be wary of admitting they supported him. But in fact, the 29-point margin he ran up with this group was an almost perfect match for the 30-point gap that showed up in previous polling. That suggests an alternate interpretation: this group, which historically has had a low propensity to vote, turned out in far greater numbers than pollsters could predict.”
DAVID BROOKS: “Sociologically, this campaign has been an education in how societies come apart.” “Any decent society rests on codes of etiquette and a shared moral ecology to make cooperation possible, to prevent economic and political life from descending into a savage war of all against all. But this year Donald Trump has decimated the codes of basic decency without paying a price.”
FLASHBACK: How David Brooks Created Donald Trump.
Brooks is, of course, horrified at Trump and his supporters, whom he finds childish, thuggish and contemptuous of the things that David Brooks likes about today’s America. It’s clear that he’d like a social/political revolution that was more refined, better-mannered, more focused on the Constitution and, well, more bourgeois as opposed to in-your-face and working class.
The thing is, we had that movement. It was the Tea Party movement. . . .
Yet the tea party movement was smeared as racist, denounced as fascist, harassed with impunity by the IRS and generally treated with contempt by the political establishment — and by pundits like Brooks, who declared “I’m not a fan of this movement.” After handing the GOP big legislative victories in 2010 and 2014, it was largely betrayed by the Republicans in Congress, who broke their promises to shrink government and block Obama’s initiatives.
So now we have Trump instead, who tells people to punch counterprotesters instead of picking up their trash.
When politeness and orderliness are met with contempt and betrayal, do not be surprised if the response is something less polite, and less orderly. Brooks closes his Trump column with Psalm 73, but a more appropriate verse is Hosea 8:7 “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” Trump’s ascendance is a symptom of a colossal failure among America’s political leaders, of which Brooks’ mean-spirited insularity is only a tiny part. God help us all.
He doesn’t seem to have learned much. Also, “decimated,” which means “reduced by a tenth,” is not a synonym for “devastated.” I rather doubt that Brooks means that Trump has reduced basic decency by 10%. Amazing that that got by an editor.
And really, you backed Hillary Clinton and you’re talking about basic decency? Really?
WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-RUN CITIES SUCH CESSPITS OF ELECTORAL MISBEHAVIOR? Philadelphia Republicans Claim Voter Intimidation, Voter Fraud.
The answer, of course, is because there are no consequences. I hope that President Trump’s Department of Justice will put more energy into ensuring voter access and ballot integrity than we’ve seen in recent years.
GOOD: Rolling Stone verdict should help fraternity also suing magazine.
For the fraternity, evidence presented in Eramo’s trial revealed that Erdely began writing her article with a severe bias against fraternities. Erdely, in her interview with the rape hoaxer Jackie, said the fraternity members who allegedly gang-raped the accuser represented a “banality of evil” and that she wanted to “get these guys.”
Erdely also cited to Jackie research she had found that claimed fraternity members were “more likely to rape people” and hold “rape-supportive attitudes.” It was clear from this interview that Erdely had a preconceived notion about fraternities and indeed wanted to attack them.
A lawyer for Eramo perhaps summed it up best in his closing arguments: “Once they decided what the article was going to be about, it didn’t matter what the facts were.”
Journalism.
FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Republicans take the Kentucky House after 95 years of Democratic control. “Republicans last led the chamber in 1921. Going into Election Day, the Kentucky House was the only law-making chamber in the South still controlled by Democrats, who held a 53-47 majority. Longtime House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, was among 17 Democratic incumbents swamped in the Republican wave. . . . As of 11 p.m. Tuesday, the GOP led Democrats 64-35, with one seat still too close to call.”
ILYA SOMIN: Time To Take Political Ignorance Seriously.
Well, yes, but in particular we need to look at the political ignorance of our elites, who want to run a country they’ve never been to.
SEEN ON FACEBOOK: “Immigration to Canada is trending. Why not Mexico, you racists?”
TO ALL THE ANGRY, EMBITTERED, AND BEWILDERED DEMOCRATS LASHING OUT TODAY, let me recommend Dana Loesch’s book, Flyover Nation: You Can’t Run a Country You’ve Never Been To.
EMBITTERED DEMOCRATS ENGAGE IN RACIST OUTBURSTS: CNN’s Van Jones: “This Was a Whitelash Against a Changing Country.”
TRIGGERED! Yale Professor Cancels Exam for Snowflake Students Distraught at Election Result.
The PC idiocy at America’s universities — in which Yale was huge — played a major role in electing Trump. No wonder they’re distraught.
PAUL KRUGMAN: You’re dead to me, America. You know, he has the same initials as Pauline Kael. . . .
PAPER BALLOTS ARE THE ANSWER: Merkel fears Russian meddling in German election.
Also, if you don’t want your email about doing illegal stuff hacked, don’t do illegal stuff.