Before Donald Trump took office I was telling people two things which have come to pass in spades about his administration.
First, none of the “top-tier” political consultants would work for him. For the most part they were already committed to other candidates because they didn’t see Trump as a serious contender. As a result, Trump got many and assorted leftovers that he was able to cobble together into a victorious team.
Trump was at a disadvantage when cobbling his staff together because he started with who was available not necessarily who was the best. As you may recall, many folks in his administration have bragged about purposely undermining him. Some were people that he inherited from his predecessor and others were not vetted before hiring or not a good fit for their job. As he was able, he replaced these guys with more competent personnel or they rotated out on their own.
Trump took the oath of office for President of the United States on January 20, 2017. Four days later, Jan 24th as Trump was in the midst of setting-up staff in the Oval Office, the FBI sent two guys over to speak with then National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn.
Asked to describe how two FBI agents ended up at the White House to interview Flynn in January 2017, Comey, speaking to MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace during a forum discussion Sunday, said flatly: “I sent them.” Comey went on to acknowledge the way the interview was set up – not through the White House counsel’s office, but arranged directly with Flynn – was not standard practice. He called it “something I probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with in a more … organized administration.” Describing how it is usually done, Comey said, “If the FBI wanted to send agents into the White House itself to interview a senior official, you would work through the White House counsel, and there would be discussions and approvals and who would be there.” Recalling his decision to bypass those steps, Comey said, “I thought: ‘It’s early enough, let’s just send a couple guys over.’”
Note that Comey knew that the FBI visit was irregular and not protocol but did it anyway because he could get away with it; in part because Trump’s people weren’t Washington insiders. When the FBI spoke with Michael Flynn, they told Flynn that he need not have an attorney present for the interview.
General Michael Flynn
Oh, one of the guys that interviewed Flynn was Peter Stzok. Remember him?
In his report on FBI and DOJ misconduct during the Russia and Clinton probes, the IG additionally noted that Strzok, who was one of the two agents who interviewed Flynn and who was later also fired for violating FBI policies, had compromised the FBI’s appearance of impartiality by sending a slew of anti-Trump texts on his government-issued phone. “In particular, we were concerned about text messages exchanged by FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, Special Counsel to the Deputy Director, that potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations,” the IG report said. In one of those texts, Strzok wrote to Page in 2016 that Trump would not become president because “we’ll stop” it from happening.
If you read the linked articles, you will also see that the FBI notes for this meeting were written in August of 2017; six months after the meeting. But we are told, “Nothing to see here, move along”.
Which brings me to my second point, I said that Trump would go thru people almost as fast as they could get confirmed. This comment applied to his White House staff as well. Below is a story from Fox News that illustrates my point.
President Trump has long promised to create jobs, and has consistently delivered — especially in his own White House and Cabinet, where rapid turnover is showing no signs of slowing down as 2018 comes to a close. High-profile departures in the Trump administration — from former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and Press Secretary Sean Spicer to fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (whom Trump recently characterized as “lazy as hell” and “dumb as a rock”) — have attracted the most attention. They have contributed to what some analysts have called an unprecedented number of high-level Cabinet departures going back 100 years.
My third prediction is about to come into play. I said that Trump will wheel and deal with the Democrat majority in Congress and get some legislation passed that he couldn’t get Republicans to approve. If Reagan could do it, I think Trump can too.
As many of us know, Hollywood is much like a roach motel, good ideas check in but rarely check out. Studios buy the rights to all kinds of books and other stories but few get to the big screen. They get stuck in “development hell”. Trying to line up the director, script, studio, funding, marketing, etc.
The other complaint about Hollywood is that they are rarely faithful to the source material. Often they keep character names, scrap the plot, and create a film that has no resemblance to the story for which they purchased the film rights. Case in point is almost any “true story” made into a film. Often Hollywood admits this with a caption “based on actual events” at the beginning or end of a film. Other times they aren’t so honest. The Chronicles of Narnia movie Prince Caspian is nothing like the book. The movie created all kinds of stuff not in the book and moved the few scenes retained into a different order which further distorted the point of the whole story. The moral lessons that C.S. Lewis so painstakingly crafted into his story are completely lost long before the script was in its final draft.
Similarly, Robert Mueller had the opportunity to tell the true story of what shenanigans were played leading up to the 2016 Presidential election. Instead he opted to retain the names of a few characters and then try to substitute his own script with the caption “based on actual events” to smooth over his application of creative license.
Mueller’s rewrite was leaked to the media yesterday and it really stinks. The plot of his story is so lame as to be laughable except for the fact that he has carte blanche to subpoena folks and send them to jail in order to affect the outcome of his story. Instead of investigating the facts and following them wherever they lead, Mueller has written the script and tried to backfill it with will dupes to connect the dots. After yesterday’s revelations, it is clear that he was gunning to undo the results of the 2016 election and that he has wasted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars trying to do just that.
Mueller’s story goes like this:
Paul Manafort, who briefly worked as Donald Trump’s campaign manager, is alleged to have contacted Julian Assange to coordinate the release of Democrat emails hacked by Russians so WikiLeaks could release them to do the maximum damage to Hillary Clinton’s Presidential aspirations.
That in a nutshell is his story. Based on what I read yesterday on this story, Mueller is looking at three individuals as the pipeline of information from the Trump campaign to WikiLeaks. After two years of investigating, that’s all he has which is bupkis.
Here are some reasons that I know this is wrong:
Julian Assange has repeatedly stated that he did not get the information from the Russians. Julian Assange has never released or said anything false about his document dumps on WikiLeaks so it is not reasonable that he lied in this instance.
When I resigned as Ambassador to blow the whistle on UK/US complicity in torture and extraordinary rendition, I had a number of official documents I wished to leak to prove my story. They were offered to WikiLeaks through two friends, Andrew and Jonathan. WikiLeaks declined to publish them because they could not 100% verify them.
Their reasons were firstly that they were suspicious of me and whether I was a plant; British ambassadors are not given to resigning on principle. Secondly a few of the copies were my own original drafts of diplomatic communications I had sent, not the document as it printed out at the other end.
That is how scrupulous they are. I can vouch for the fact that their record for 100% accuracy is no fluke, it is safeguarded by extreme caution and careful checking.
The person most likely in a position to release the Democrat emails to WikiLeaks was murdered shortly after they were published. Since this man’s death, no further leaks of Democrat communications have surfaced.
The report refutes Democrat politicians’ claims that it was Russia that hacked into DNC computers and released the emails. Instead, an unnamed federal investigator told Fox News that Democrat staffer Seth Rich sent the cache of internal emails to Gavin MacFayden, a London-based WikiLeaks director. WikiLeaks published the highly-damaging emails that detailed DNC leadership’s favoritism of Clinton over Sanders just 12 days after Rich’s death.
Seth Rich died under suspicious circumstances. He was shot in the back twice but not robbed. His cell phone, jewelry, and wallet were on him when he died leading most to suspect foul play.
The only Russian involvement ever alleged at the time of the election was via Hillary Clinton and the Democrats who paid for Christopher Steele’s dossier.
And so, on a warm day last June, Christopher Steele, ex-Cambridge Union president, ex-M.I.6 Moscow field agent, ex-head of M.I.6’s Russia desk, ex-adviser to British Special Forces on capture-or-kill ops in Afghanistan, and a 52-year-old father with four children, a new wife, three cats, and a sprawling brick-and-wood suburban palace in Surrey, received in his second-floor office at Orbis a transatlantic call from an old client.
“It started off as a fairly general inquiry,” Steele would recall in an anonymous interview with Mother Jones, his identity at the time still a carefully guarded secret. But over the next seven incredible months, as the retired spy hunted about in an old adversary’s territory, he found himself following a trail marked by, as he then put it, “hair-raising” concerns. The allegations of financial, cyber, and sexual shenanigans would lead to a chilling destination: the Kremlin had not only, he’d boldly assert in his report, “been cultivating, supporting, and assisting” Donald Trump for years but also had compromised the tycoon “sufficiently to be able to blackmail him.”
And in the aftermath of the publication of these explosive findings—as nothing less than the legitimacy of the 2016 U.S. presidential election was impugned; as congressional hearings and F.B.I. investigations were announced; as a bombastic president-elect continued to let loose with indignant tirades about “fake news”; as internal-security agents of the F.S.B., the main Russian espionage agency, were said to have burst into a meeting of intelligence officers, placed a bag over the head of the deputy director of its cyber-activities, and marched him off; as the body of a politically well-connected former F.S.B. general was reportedly found in his black Lexus—Christopher Steele had gone to ground.
So who interjected Russia into the WikiLeaks email dump, why the Old Gray Lady.
The release of a cache of emails from the Democratic National Committee by WikiLeaks last month has raised a great many questions — about the role of the D.N.C. in trying to influence the primary and about the alleged interference of Russian intelligence in an American election.
As for Mr. Assange’s animus against Hillary Clinton — he has written that she “lacks judgment and will push the United States into endless, stupid wars which spread terrorism” — that is evidence of bias, but no more than that. After all, many news outlets are clearly, and sometimes proudly, biased.
We still don’t know who leaked the D.N.C. archive, but given Mr. Assange’s past association with Russia, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that it was a Russian agent or an intermediary. Mr. Assange insists this is a mere distraction from the issue of D.N.C. interference, but the answer is also in the public interest. We should all be concerned (although hardly surprised) if it is that easy for the Russians to break into the D.N.C. and possibly United States government networks.
Meanwhile, Paul Manafort is threatening to sue the Guardian newspaper over reports he met with WikiLeaks’ Assange. Manafort categorically denies any such meetings, as does Assange.
WikiLeaks said on Twitter it was willing “to bet … a million dollars and the editor’s head” that the Guardian story was wrong and that the group is launching a legal defense fund.
As support for my arguments, this from Rush Limbaugh:
Limbaugh said Tuesday: “If anybody doubts the political nature of the Mueller investigation, all you have to do is take a look at the news today. For crying out loud, they really want us to believe that Paul Manafort met with Julian Assange three times before WikiLeaks published the Podesta emails?”
He said if that story was true, Obama and his buddies would have known back when they “were spying on the Trump campaign.”
Then there’s the claim from Mueller that Manafort lied.
“I don’t think Manafort’s been lying about anything. What Manafort’s refusing to do is to compose evidence, make it up!” he said.
Limbaugh said: “All of this is a political trap. This is not about the execution of justice. It’s not about law and order. It’s not about trying to get to the bottom of what happened in the 2016 election. It’s about trying to overturn it. And short of being able to do that, it’s about discrediting the winner.”
When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign then focused on undermining her expected presidency.
We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.
I will stipulate that many world leaders had it in for Hillary. She was a major screw-up as Secretary of State. She helped to destabilize many regions of the world and many people died as a result of her (and President Obama’s) incompetency.
Only after the U.S. media began blaming Russia for the Democrat email dump did Vladimir Putin fan the flames of Russian conspiracy.
In early September, Putin said publicly it was important the DNC data was exposed to WikiLeaks, calling the search for the source of the leaks a distraction and denying Russian “state-level” involvement.
Last time I checked, Rahm Emmanuel was still saying “You never let a serious crisis go to waste”. So why should Putin?
Rahm Emanuel
Putin was a bigshot in the KGB. If he was up to no good, he certainly wouldn’t have his fingerprints on the operation. Heck, look what Willie Brown was able to do in California for many years. Nothing ever was traced to him even when you knew he was behind it. Willie is a poser next to Putin.
Also of note, in the government report quoted above, the National Security Agency—the folks in the best position to know what is going on in other countries because they are the only part of the government that listens—were the most skeptical of the Russia tampering narrative put forth by the CIA and FBI.
I think the hole analogy works best.
We often hear that the first rule of holes is to stop digging. However, the first rule of holes when your enemy is digging is to offer to hold his coat and tell him what a great job he is doing.
I think Putin was performing the second. He was encouraging his enemies to double-down on stupid behavior.
I still maintain that all you have to do to hurt Hillary Clinton is tell the truth about her.
As I’ve stated before, China gets a pass on election tampering because they give millions of dollars to Democrats. China’s election tampering and spying on the United States is so well documented that nobody seems to care as long as our cell phones keep letting us play Candy Crush and watch cute videos.
Anyway, Mueller is out of ammo and the last few days have proven that conclusively.
I hope Trump or one of his appointees put this witch hunt down once and for all.
I came across an editorial in the Orange County Register newspaper Saturday, it was written by a Republican strategist (whatever the hell is that?) and proclaimed that the Party in California isn’t dead, they just need to change their messaging. It spoke about how John Cox picked up more than 500k votes than the Republican congressional candidates statewide! The editorial was kind of much ado about nothing, made claims about how the tax cuts didn’t help anyone, etc. I’m going to give my take on what happened and the steps to take to rebuild the Party.
The Party is dead. This is due to many reasons, but generally due to the consultants and upper political elites who run the Party.
This rung true under Ron Nehring, who used the GOP job as a reason to take multiple trips to Australia??? Thomas Del Beccaro who used the GOP job as a personal dating service, and current chair, former State Senator Jim Brulte, who is basically just a graveyard caretaker, we will have a new chair in January. While none of these three are directly involved in the loss of several House, Assembly, and State Senate seats, nevertheless, they are the chairmen, the Party’s decline falls on them.
I blame the consultants on many levels, first being that they essentially territorialized the Party. Meaning they have a candidate for Congress, maybe a candidate for a State Senate seat, but they care very little after that. This is very apparent in far northern CA, think Chico, Redding, Roseville, and Rocklin areas, the central valley area, and in Orange and San Diego areas. These consultants have also become very adept at protecting their own, want to run against one of their people? Prepare to be carpet bombed.
I witnessed this personally by a central valley/bay area based consultant. I was at a fundraiser for a candidate for Assembly in San Ramon. At this event, the consultant walked up to a rumored future candidate and told them he would personally see to it they are defeated for re-election to the seat they were running for as a result of thinking about running! This person was a Republican, essentially being told, screw off. Want to run against a Democrat in a safe seat? You will get no money and no support from the Party apparatus. Keep in mind, the Party leadership largely signs off on this.
Our candidates didn’t understand the political climate. We have a very unpopular president in this state at the top of the ticket, our governor nominee was largely running a “I know I’m going to lose but I want to make the Democrats spend money campaign”….I don’t fault him for our struggles. No offense to Mr. Cox, but it was a bloodbath in the statewide races and the trickle down was brutal. Diane Harkey and Jeff Denham never took their races seriously post primary. In the case of Denham, I don’t think he took it seriously at all. I think these seats are lost for good. Dana Rohrabacher was a weird incumbent and made enough weird comments to doom his re-election, I think we win can back this seat in 2 years. Steve Knight and Mimi Walters seats are harder to predict. I think we could win them back but they may well be lost for good in 2022 after redistricting. The seat Young Kim ran for is tougher to read; however, I think it’s gone. There was a strange ethnic twist here being it was an Asian American against a Hispanic American. I think its likely toast after redistricting.
The bloodshed continued in the State Assembly and Senate. We even lost seats that we should have won handily! In my opinion our incumbents suffer from what I call Dan Lungren syndrome. Lungren worked hard to get elected, then stopped working the district and as a result faced a very close election in 2008, he lost in 2012. He fell victim to the thought “I have been elected so many times how could I possibly lose?”
Now back to the consultants and these seats we lost, who do we run in 2 years? That is a question that cannot be answered. We have no bench in many of these areas. In reality, you could argue the Democrats have better future candidates then we do. This speaks to the fact that consultants have essentially locked out other Republicans from seeking elected office in “their territories” as they wanted to keep their own brand.
Now how I would fix the Party in California, keep in mind this will take about a decade or so. Here are some ideas.
Republicans need a full-time chair and a full-time professional staff.
We need to seek out fresh thinkers and new ideas, not settle for a journeyman or a newbie looking to hop from one job to the next. Mark Standriff did this years ago. He was press secretary, spoke to a local group of Republicans about how we are doing great things and he was so happy to be a part of it…he took a job the following day in Fresno.
Break up the consultant good old boy network. They never bought a franchise, so why do they have territorial rights?
Work closely with local GOP groups. This should go without saying, but it’s funny how most of these groups don’t even communicate with each other.
Have a slate card that involves ALL GOP Candidates running in the election. The Democrats do this why don’t we? Their campaigns coordinate….so why don’t we?
We need a platform stating our policy positions on everything, this should be done ASAP. We also need to enforce the platform so candidates don’t agree with it when campaigning and sell us out once they get to Sacramento or Washington.
Also, how come we don’t play in every race? We have essentially become a regional Party; playing in rural northern CA, some parts of the valley, Orange County and surrounding areas, and parts of San Diego. When I say play everywhere, obviously we won’t be winning anytime soon, but in most of those other area’s people refuse to vote for us because they have never heard our message. Work the area, put a token candidate up and see what happens, maybe after several election cycles we could make inroads. This is how Donald Trump won, he wasn’t afraid of the inner city.
We need to partner with every small Party in the state to overturn the top 2 primary! This is a no brainer, the other parties are just as jilted as us, take this to the Supreme Court if need be. This likely nets us a gain of about 6-8 seats in various districts.
Challenge the citizens redistricting in court as well, this is a sham! I would argue just like the Pennsylvania Democrats did, how come the GOP gets 40% of the vote, yet we have just 20% representation, and have judges draw a new map. This could net 10 new seats.
We all know that whenever necessary, Democrats will cheat at the ballot box. This is nothing new. You can go back to the 1960 Presidential race between Nixon and Kennedy. Nixon was winning until the dead vote in Chicago came in and stole Illinois from Nixon.
As the years have gone by, the election results have grown more and more ridiculous. Democrats manufacture voters out of thin air each and every election. It’s how they roll. In the last Presidential race some counties had more votes cast than adults living in them. Often precincts will have over 130 percent voter turnout. This is not unusual; especially in Liberal strongholds. Please note that this phenomenon doesn’t happen in Republican areas. Earlier this month, Broward County in Florida has 200,000 more votes cast than registered voters. Despite this fraud, Republicans still won the US Senate seat and Florida Governor’s race.
Now this out of Orange County California; how is it that the Republican candidate for Governor John Cox won the county but every congressional seat went to Democrats?
While the county went for Republican John Cox over Democrat Gavin Newsom in the governor’s race, all six House districts were won by the Democratic candidate, points out the Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft.
In 2016, the Republicans won four of those races.
Hoft believes voter fraud could be an explanation for the split-ticket voting.
He points out that 299,931 more Democrats voted for the Democrats in the Orange County congressional races than voted for Newsom for governor.
Hoft cites a reader who argues Cox “ran a horrible campaign and was virtually invisible.”
“I find it hard to believe that voters would split the ticket — voting R for an unknown guy Governor and D for a super liberal congressperson,” the reader wrote. “Just seems like a BIG red flag.”
At the same time voter fraud is rampant, I find it curious that there is only one acknowledged instance in California. Back in September, the Los Angeles Times ran a story about voter fraud on skid row.
A dollar goes a long way on skid row, Los Angeles Police Capt. Marc Reina said.
So investigators were not completely surprised to find homeless people there taking $1, food or cigarettes to forge signatures of registered voters on petitions to qualify initiatives for the ballot, police said.
Now, an LAPD crackdown this year on suspected election fraud on skid row has yielded eight felony arrests, including three last week, booking records show.
Fox News ran a follow-up story yesterday because the wheels of justice have begun to turn in the case which stems back to May.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office says it is charging nine people in total with felony counts related to the offenses, which are said to have happened during the 2016 and 2018 election cycles.
The charges, it added, include “circulating a petition with false names; use of false names on a petition; voter fraud, registering a fictitious person; and voter fraud, registering a nonexistent person.”
Some of the nine charged were identified as Kirkland Kauzava Washington, Harold Bennett, and Louis Thomas Wise – who are each facing eight counts. The others: Richard Howard, Rose Makeda Sweeney, Christopher Joseph Williams, Jakara Fati Mardis, Norman Hall and Nickey Demelvin Huntley, are each facing four counts. Their ages range from 28 to 62, and each could end up having to serve a maximum of around five to six years in prison if convicted.
I guess that now that the elections are over, they can prosecute the token offenders.
The Times story provides more details:
In May, Christine Hooks, a signature gatherer, set up a card table at 6th and San Julian streets, Joseph said, and opened for business at 5:50 a.m., when homeless people were breaking down their tents and likely to be the only ones around.
Hooks, 30, who police said was homeless, allegedly told them she had downloaded voter registration lists off the internet, Joseph said. The lists were of people from Orange and San Diego counties and Monrovia, Joseph said.
People hired to get initiatives on the ballot are often paid by signature, typically $1 to $2, although a recent glut of proposed ballot initiatives has pushed the rate as high as $6 a signature, officials said.
But they can’t pay people for signatures, and having them forge signatures off registered voters lists is an obvious violation.
“It’s not really voter fraud, in terms of illegal voting and manipulation,” Logan said. “But I am certainly concerned about any activity that causes voters to lose faith in the process.”
Why are the only folks getting singled out for fraud the homeless? Since no photos of these guys exist, it is a safe bet that they are probably black. Lest you think I’m racist, to the contrary, I’m accusing these folks of racism since as we learned with the BOE fiasco, only the black Democrat gets thrown under the bus by fellow Dems.
If you go back to the original reports of these arrests in May, the NBC Los Angeles story concludes with this killer quote from local election officials, “This is the first voting fraud arrest that they can remember, ever”.
Please note this is the only arrest, ever. Really, in all of Los Angeles County? This claim was made in 2018 despite the fact of such well known cases of fraud as this back in 2016:
The Los Angeles County Registrar is investigating how 83 ballots were sent to a single address at a San Pedro apartment.
The unused ballots were found on Saturday by tenant Jerry Mosna, sitting on top of the mailbox center at his apartment building in San Pedro.
The ballots were all addressed to a two bedroom apartment upstairs from Mosna’s, belonging to an 89-year-old woman.
All of the names on the ballots were different, and Mosna did not recognize the names on the ballot envelopes.
To faithful readers, if you are getting the vibe that this particular prosecution is not a coincidence then congratulations. This arrest and prosecution are remarkably similar to the campaign model used to abolish the Board of Equalization 18 months ago. The “tell” is buried in the LA Times article quoted above which happens to mention this gem:
Jerry Brown this month vetoed a bill banning per-signature payment for petition circulators, saying the law could enhance ballot control by “the wealthiest interests.”
FYI: Brown vetoed this is bill (AB1947) in September 2018.
See if this outline looks familiar:
1. Bills are introduced in both the Senate and Assembly. In this case, to abolish paid signature gathering
2. A high profile event happens to highlight the problem.
3. Politicians pile-on decrying the ill addressed by the bill.
4. As a result of the campaign, bill successfully navigates both chambers of the Legislature.
5. Governor decides fate of this crucial bill.
If you compare the timeline of the bill’s travel through the legislature with the timing of the original arrests, it dovetails rather nicely. Both AB 1947 and its companion bill SB 1394 were voted out of their committees and sent to the opposite chamber within days of the initial news reports of fraudulent signature gathering.
Despite the veto, there’s no doubt that this bill will be back again next session with a new Governor ready to “do the right thing” by signing.
The interesting corollary to this story of voter fraud that isn’t voter fraud is that government can point to this single instance as proof they are doing something. Thus the status quo is preserved and symbolism over substance wins again.
Conclusion: voter fraud is the purview of the establishment. All others beware!
In 1980, the presidential contest between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan was called by the “Big Three” networks at 5 PM Pacific Time, three hours before the polls closed on the Left Coast. This resulted in many unexpected Republican victories in the western United States because Democrats had no reason to go to the polls and thus their down-ticket candidates got skunked.
As a result, the networks promised never again to call the election until polls close in the Continental US. Well not until this year anyway.
I find it curious that when the media called the House of Representatives going to the Democrats before 4 PM on Election Day, when the online results were showing the Democrats up only two seats, nobody complained about the resulting voter suppression in the Western States. The closeness of the Arizona and Montana Senate races prove that the outcomes were affected by this proclamation as were many House seats here on the Left Coast.
Again, since Democrats benefitted and this is the natural order of things in the media, nobody complained.
The media doesn’t think they are biased. They are Democrats in their thinking regardless of their voter registration. When something benefits or advances the Democrat agenda that is not remarkable to them, it is “normal”. Anything that goes contrary is concerning and perhaps newsworthy.
Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published a shocking news article that Facebook and “big tech” might not be the friends Democrats thought after all. The article has lots of pop-culture mythology in it that illustrates that many still bitterly cling to the Russia interference myth created by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Facebook accidentally helped Republicans in 2016. Please note that Facebook helping Democrats in 2008, 2012, 2016 is not newsworthy because that is what is expected of them thus “normal” behavior. The article quotes many leading Democrats—mostly Senators where they are the minority—decrying that “big tech” may need regulation. The author shockingly concludes that Facebook, Google, et al are just corporations and not the friends that Democrats thought after all.
One of my old pastors used to say that one of the ways that God judges people is to give them what they want (as opposed to what they need). Given the anointing of Gavin Newsom on Tuesday by the voters along the coastal part of the state, look at the news since then. Coincidence or an omen of things to come?
Coastal counties vote overwhelmingly for Gavin Newsom (Lt Green areas)
Wednesday begins with Gavin interacting with various folks in the media as he promises once again to do battle with Washington and resist President Trump.
California cemented its role as a defiant counterweight to the federal government Tuesday as the state’s voters elected Gavin Newsom, an enthusiastic adversary of President Trump, as their next governor.
Mental health issues are the main reason for homelessness; an issue which has dominated much of the news of San Francisco in the last two years. Ironically, Gavin has promised to bring his San Francisco track record to Sacramento to do likewise for the rest of the State. He claimed to reduce homelessness during his time as mayor but the statistics don’t prove it.
Newsom cherry-picked his numbers when the reality is that the number of homeless was about the same at the beginning and end of his term as mayor despite shipping 5,000 homeless folks to other communities via Greyhound Buses.
Newsom has said his policies reduced the homeless street population in San Francisco by 40%, an accurate claim for the years 2002 to 2009, according to city statistics. But Newsom was mayor from 2004 to 2011, and the city didn’t perform a count of its homeless population the year he took office, making it difficult to determine the exact number of homeless who left the streets during his tenure.
San Francisco’s homeless count was 7,499 in 2017, compared with 8,640 in 2002, according to the San Francisco Human Services Agency.
The state’s homeless population topped 134,000 in 2017, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a 13.7% jump from the previous year and the largest increase in the nation.
Thursday California’s only Paradise was wiped off the map. Yes, in a single day, the city of Paradise was burned to the ground.
The entire town of Paradise was under evacuation as several homes in the area became engulfed in the fire, Cal Fire Public Information Officer Scott McClean said at a press conference Thursday. McLean said the town was largely destroyed and while it was impossible to know the exact number of buildings destroyed, it was “a couple of thousand or more.”
“[Paradise] is devastated, everything is destroyed. There’s nothing left standing,” said Scott Maclean, the state’s forestry and fire protection spokesman.
Many years ago, a young man seeking to improve his lot in life was given the advice to “go west, young man”.
Now, a hundred odd years later, folks in California are echoing Davie Crocket, “you may all go to hell and I will go to Texas”.
About 130,000 more residents left California for other states last year than came here from them, as high costs left many residents without a college degree looking for an exit, according to a Sacramento Bee review of the latest census estimates.
They most often went to cheaper, nearby states — and Texas. Since 2001, about 410,000 more people have left California for Texas than arrived from there. That’s roughly equivalent to the population of Oakland.
California has seen more than 15 consecutive years of net resident losses to other states. The trend was sharpest at the height of the housing boom between 2004 and 2006. It slowed markedly during the housing bust but quickened again during recent years.
Folks the conservative trickle will become a tsunami under Gavin Newsom as the middleclass seeks refuge elsewhere as Gavin does for the State what he did to San Francisco.
However, lest you think the grass is greener, this warning from Texas.
When economist James Gaines gave a talk recently about the economy and the real estate market, his biggest audience response came from an unexpected topic.
Gaines, chief economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, told hundreds of local real estate agents what to expect in the years ahead regarding the state’s population growth and demographic changes.
“Do you know what Texas looks like in 30 years?” Gaines asked the audience.
“California,” he offered as the whole ballroom of folks groaned and rolled their eyes.
Nothing gets a bunch of Texans more riled up than to tell them they are turning into California.
“I’m serious about it,” he said. “The problems, the issues, politically, socially, economically, land use, housing resources — go down and tick off the issues. We are going down the same path.”
A house in Texas’ most expensive metro area — Austin — that will cost you just over $300,000 will go for twice that in Los Angeles and more than $1.5 million in San Francisco.
With soaring home and apartment prices on the West Coast and a shortage of affordable labor, no wonder everyone, from recent college grads to Amazon’s top brass, is looking east for greener pastures. And Texas is at the top of their shopping list.
Bottom line: Liberalism doesn’t work here so don’t take it with you when you leave. Don’t turn the rest of the country into a third world cesspool like California. If you aren’t willing to adopt traditional American values, stay home.
The maps below tells the tale of two Californias. These are from the Secretary of State website. If you’re serious about splitting the state, its clear where to draw the lines.
Blue Wave or not tomorrow, the Democrats lose anyway. But what a preposterous claim you ask? Not really. Let’s discuss the dynamics.
Right now, conventional wisdom says that Democrats lose a few seats in the Senate and take control of the House.
Senate I agree that the Republicans will likely increase their majority in the Senate. Please note that this is unusual for a midterm election following a new President taking office. The new Republican controlled Senate looks to be more conservative than it was when Trump took office.John McCain and Jeff Flake are gone, and Lindsey Graham seems to have grown a spine. Who would have predicted that? Ted Cruz owes his reelection to Trump and many of the newly elected Senators as well.
This victory insures that Trump will populate vacancies in Federal Courts with conservative jurists.Look for the Ninth Circuit to move from being an accomplice to our crazy laws in California to becoming an obstacle and a check on the nuttiness here in the once Golden State. Remember too that Trump will likely be replacing Ginsberg and Thomas with younger, conservative judges.
Conclusion—Trump wins tomorrow and Democrats lose.
Trump the Negotiator
House
If Republicans hold the House tomorrow, they owe it to Trump. Trump has remade the House and the new members elected tomorrow will be more conservative than the previous group.Remember that over 40 Republicans quit and did not run for reelection; including, Speaker Paul Ryan. Thank you, Lord.
Trump has had an openly adversarial relationship with the Republicans in the House and either way that ends tomorrow. Trump has crushed any talk of a Democrat wave sweeping the country. He was greatly assisted in his efforts by Senator Dianne Feinstein’s attacks on Brett Kavanaugh.
Yes, tomorrow Democrats will do well in New York, California, Illinois, and other Liberal places but that don’t really matter. The voter turnout thus far seems to suggest that Republicans are voting in high numbers and there is a definite undercurrent that the models used to project Democrat dominance tomorrow might be overly optimistic. But let’s suppose they take the House. How does that translate to a Trump victory?
When Republicans control the House, Trump can’t go around calling the members of his own Party “the enemy”. Politically that doesn’t fly even though we all know it is true. However, if the Dems win, he can go to war with the House all he wants and since they are the opposition Party such rhetoric is expected.
If the Dems win, what is their mandate?We don’t like Trump? Impeach him? OK, so now what?
Trump will probably get more done with Democrats in charge than he could with Republicans running the place. Trump will wheel and deal like Monty Hall.
He will peal off some for this and others for that. Once Dems start working with the guy it will be terribly hard to demonize him when many areas of traditional party gridlock don’t happen.
At the same time, Trump gets to do what I have been saying he wants to do; run a slate of his own people in 2020. Guess what, this slate may not be a Republican only slate. What if he puts forth a bipartisan slate? Any slate that Trump puts forth also nationalizes the election. This neutralizes the impact of the “all politics is local” mantra and makes the Contract with America look like a middle school scrimmage.
If Republicans keep the House Trump gets the credit. If they lose then Trump gets a green light to remake the Republican Party with his own slate and will take back the House in two years. With Democrats in charge, Trump will get to school the country on “The Art of the Deal”.
Unlike Obama, Trump has a positive track record of accomplishments creating jobs and boosting the economy. His job in the next few years is to convert his Executive Orders during the last two years into legislation approved by the Congress so that when the next guy comes along, he can’t undo what Trump has done. Much of Trump’s wheeling and dealing will be to get these changes codified into Federal Law.
Thus, whatever happens tomorrow, Trump wins. A win for Trump is a win for America.
Republicans need a full-time chair and a full-time professional staff.
