LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Tents, Rocks, Rifles and Much, Much More. “What is interesting about this presser is that 2 networks cut away from Trump’s speech or as Politico describes it, Trump’s ‘fiery remarks’.”
Archive for 2018
November 2, 2018
IF THERE WERE A DEMOCRAT IN THE WHITE HOUSE, THE ECONOMY WOULD DOMINATE THE NEWS: Economy adds robust 250,000 jobs in October in last employment report before election. “The unemployment rate was unchanged at a near 50-year low of 3.7 percent. Annual wage growth topped 3 percent for the first time in nine years.”
Related: Is America Running Out Of Workers? “It’s fashionable in media circles to laugh at President Trump’s non-stop salesmanship about the performance of the U.S. economy on his watch. But there’s no doubt that workers are benefiting from a historically tight labor market. Companies are eager to hire.”
HE HAS LEARNED NOTHING AND FORGOTTEN NOTHING: Mitt Romney, who once drove with a dog carrier on the car roof, can’t conceive of the media as an enemy. “If the lessons of Harry Reid’s tax claim, Seamus on the roof, binders full of women, Joe Soptic’s wife, and ‘moderator’ Candy Crowley can’t educate him, then nothing ever will………..”
THE ECONOMIST: A lawsuit reveals how peculiar Harvard’s definition of merit is: The university’s reputation for fairness and impartiality emerges bruised. Well, shameless lying in support of deliberate racism will do that. “Harvard insists that it has no racial quotas or floors, which would fall foul of Supreme Court rulings and jeopardise the university’s federal funding. Yet the share of Asian-Americans it admits has stayed near 20% over the past decade. This is true even as the number of Asian-Americans in high schools has increased. Caltech, a top university without race-based affirmative action, saw its share of Asian-Americans increase dramatically over the same period.”
HMM: Early vote totals in at least 17 states already surpass 2014 turnout at this point.
In some cases, early and absentee vote totals are on track to double since four years ago. The numbers are so high in some states that early voting may exceed total vote counts — including Election Day tallies — from four years ago.
The heightened participation reflects in part a surge of interest among Democrats, who stayed home in large numbers in 2014, when Republicans took control of the Senate and widened their control of the House.
But data from several battleground states with marquee Senate or governor’s races show Republicans are also very engaged — as much as they were four years ago — suggesting many hard-fought races could be even closer than surveys are predicting.
That’s fine, but if I were king for a day, in no particular order I’d:
• Require photo ID to vote
• Outlaw early voting/voting by mail
• Absentee ballots only in case of travel or medical necessity
• Paper ballots only
• No same-day voter registration
• Purple fingers
• Mandate nationwide purge voter rolls every five years — if renewal is good enough for drivers licenses, it’s good enough for voter registration
Did I miss anything?
AT THIS POINT, NOBODY SHOULD BE COCKY: Sabato: Dems should win House majority, but warns of 11th hour ‘sputtering out.’
OH: Report: Some In New Migrant Caravan Heading To US Have Weapons, Guns, Molotov Cocktails. “Three hundred Salvadorans left the nation’s capital of San Salvador on Sunday, according to a report from Reuters. The report details how law enforcement is struggling to deal with the new group, which is allegedly using violent tactics against Mexican border agents.”
That’s the behavior of an invading horde, not a caravan of migrants.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LAW-SCHOOL SHUTDOWN EDITION: Valpo law school closing; teach-out plan in the works.
HAS #METOO UNLEASHED A CULTURE OF VIOLENCE? A nightclub worker is facing felony charges for knocking out a bouncer, who she mistakenly thought had touched her backside.
AT AMAZON, Van Heusen Men’s Poplin Regular Fit Solid Point Collar Dress Shirt.
Plus, Early Black Friday Deal, EPAuto 3/8-Inch Drive Click Torque Wrench.
WORST WHITE-SUPREMACIST PRESIDENT EVER: Trump Declares His First National Monument, Honoring African American Troops. “In the first such use of his executive powers, President Trump on Friday designated a national monument, establishing a 380-acre site in Kentucky to honor African Americans’ role as soldiers during the Civil War.”
PAR FOR THE COURSE WITH TODAY’S DEMOCRATS: Gillum’s Ties to Anti-Israel Radicals More Extensive Than Previously Known.
HMM: In deep-red Kansas, a House race poses a test for Trump and Pelosi.
Here in the 2nd Congressional District of Kansas, Republicans are mounting a furious push to save a seat that has been in their party’s control for a decade — one of two seats in this deep-red state that President Donald Trump won by more than 20 points but could flip to the Democrats come Election Day. The GOP gave an opening to Democrats with the retirement of Republican Rep. Lynn Jenkins and nominated a political novice who has faced serious questions about whether he inflated his resume — all the while facing an experienced Democrat who is raising far more money than his opponent.
But while a victory here could help flip the House to the Democrats — and help make Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California the speaker again — it also underscores the challenges for a party on the cusp of returning to power. Democrats like Davis are running away from their party’s leader — and may need to continue keeping their distance from their leadership to hold on to their seats in conservative districts.
First, though, Pelosi will have to win the gavel — without the support of Democrats like Davis.“There isn’t a circumstance in which I’m going to support Pelosi,” Davis told CNN in Lawrence, Kansas. “I think Democrats generally are going to have to figure out who’s the candidate that can get to 218 votes.”
Whether or not Davis would vote for Pelosi, a vote for Davis is almost certainly a vote for Pelosi.
ALL THOSE #METOO TORPEDOES THEY PUT IN THE WATER FOR TRUMP KEEP CIRCLING AROUND ON THEM: No One Wants to Campaign With Bill Clinton Anymore. “In an election shaped by the #MeToo movement, where female candidates and voters are likely to drive any Democratic gains, Mr. Clinton finds his legacy tarnished by what some in the party see as his inability to reckon with his sexual indiscretions as president with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, as well as with past allegations of sexual assault. . . . Rebecca Kirszner Katz, a veteran Democratic strategist, says many Democrats have reassessed the party’s support for Clinton’s behavior in light of changing views about women, power and sexual misconduct.”
SO BASICALLY, WHAT MAKES THE AD “RACIST” IS THAT IT’S EFFECTIVE:
WaPo identifies the man as Luis Bracamontes, who — after he’d been deported twice — killed 2 California law enforcement officers. In the video, Bracamontes laughs about the killings and says he wishes he’d killed more of those “motherfuckers.”
One way to counter this intense presentation of the illegal immigration issue is say it’s the “Willie Horton” approach, which good people are supposed to understand and know to be racist. . . .
The argument is that people are too afraid of crime, and we need to calm down and discount our primal reaction because to be virtuous we ought to discount our fear because we understand that some portion of it comes from inappropriate racial sensations. Nudged to restructure your feelings, watch Luis Bracamontes again and tell me whether you felt more calmly rational about the problem of crime in America. . . .
I suspect that those making the argument that Trump’s ad is a “Willie Horton” move don’t mean for us to make a precise adjustment and consider the issue of border control after discounting the part of our thinking attributable to racism. I think they too are attempting to produce an excessive and emotional reaction. They would like us to think Trump is deliberately stimulating racist impulses in the deep reaches of the human psyche, and that makes him so despicable that he must be completely opposed. But that offers nothing to those of us who have — after discounting for racism — a genuine, justified fear of crime.
The hypocrisy on this stuff is mind-boggling.
UGH: Trump Admin Poised to Cave on Iran Sanctions.
Senior State Department officials working on the Iran issue are said to have convinced Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to permit Iran to remain connected to the international banking system, providing a key lifeline to Tehran as its economy teeters on the brink of collapse.
While President Donald Trump vowed to enforce a bevy of new sanctions, senior officials in both the State and Treasury Departments caved to pressure from European allies and Iran, officials confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon.
Iran is now set to continue doing business on the international banking system known as SWIFT, sources said. Additionally, the Trump administration will grant waivers to several countries allowing them to continue purchasing Iranian oil, another concession that the administration once said would not take place.
These concessions, pushed by European allies seeking to keep doing business with Iran as the United States readies new sanctions on Nov. 4, have sparked outrage among Iran hawks on Capitol Hill and among some within the administration who have been pushing for a hardline on Iran.
What a mess.
ALL CAREERS AND PROFESSIONS HAVE THESE. TO LOSE THEM OR BE DELIBERATELY CUT OFF FROM THEM (THINK CULTURAL REVOLUTION OR WHAT THEY’RE TRYING TO DO HERE, CONVINCING EVERYONE THAT OLDER WHITE MALES SHOULD NEVER BE LISTENED TO) IS TO TAKE SEVERAL STEPS BACKWARDS: Aviation and Oral Traditions.
Go learn from your tribal elders while you can. When they’re gone, knowledge of your field will diminish. (And I’m forever blessed in having known and learned from Jerry Pournelle.)
YEAH, BUT YOU KNOW, THEY STOPPED BAD THINK AND BAD SPEECH, SO WIN FOR THEM: ABC Orders Only One More Episode of Roseanne-Free “The Conners” After Ratings Do Exactly What You’d Expect Them To Do
NAH, BUT LET ME WARN YOU THAT FOR ABOUT A YEAR DRIVERS WILL BE BEYOND ERRATIC. AFTER THAT THEY FIGURE OUT DYI LAWS DO APPLY: Day after Weed Day: post-Apocalypse!
Favorite moment just post legalization in CO. I got up early morning in our then downtown Colorado Springs neighborhood, and I decided to make a big breakfast before the kids got up. I was out of something (possibly maple syrup) so I decided to drive to the grocery store half a mile away. Beautiful morning, spacious tree-lined street of Victorian houses. I realize there’s a car driving towards me on my lane. It’s driving VERY slowly. I change to the other lane in the same direction, and car goes by me. New VW bug. Couple inside hadn’t cut their hair since the sixties, but hair had gone completely white. I got the impression the gentleman was gripping the wheel with a death grip. He was leaning forward, eyes wide. Clouds of pot smoke wafting out the windows. Car doing about ten miles an hour on the wrong lane. I figure they thought they were doing 80. Or perhaps that they were on a busy highway or something…
I DON’T KNOW. THEY TEND TO PUT ME TO SLEEP: Are Hard Left Celebrity PSAs Losing Steam?