Friday, November 20, 2020
Thursday, November 19, 2020
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipeligo
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago Volume 1: An Experiment in Literary Investigation.
And also Volume 2 is available.
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Between Freedom and Communism
This is really essential and should be assigned widely in high school and college classes.
At the Epoch Times, "Election Fallout Reveals Battle Between Freedom and Communism: A choice that transcends the political right and left":
From the Editorial Board
— Epoch Times Opinion (@EpochOpinion) November 15, 2020
When the founders of @EpochTimes fled a #Communist regime to come to America, they never expected that this great nation would one day become the focal point of the battle between #Communism and #Freedom. https://t.co/x6matWenl0
When the founders of our newspaper fled a communist regime to come to America, they never expected that this great nation would one day become the focal point of the battle between communism and freedom.Many Americans believe communism is an abstract concept, something that only affects faraway nations, without realizing that it has already arrived at our doorstep.
Communism has spread in America under names such as socialism, progressivism, liberalism, neo-Marxism, and so on, in a slow process over decades of systematic subversion by first the Soviet Union, and now the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
This cumulative battle for the future of America—and with it, the rest of the world—is now coming to a head in the U.S. presidential election.
This is a conflict that transcends partisanship and party affiliation.
Belief in God has always been fundamental to America. The early colonists fled here so that they could practice their religion freely. This nation was founded on the belief that we are all created equal by God and endowed by the Creator with our rights. The U.S. motto is “In God we trust.”
Belief in God and the principles derived from that belief are the fundamental reasons why the United States can enjoy freedom, democracy, and prosperity, and why the United States has become the nation it is today.
In this great tradition, voting is a sacred duty in which each citizen may take responsibility for who governs. This year, a record number of Americans voted to choose their next leader.
We have since learned that this process has been subverted. Numerous credible allegations of voter fraud have emerged, pointing to a systematic effort to change the outcome of the election.
The far-left and the communist devil behind it—the same force that Karl Marx once described as haunting Europe—are using lies, fraud, and manipulation in an attempt to deprive the people of their rights and freedoms.
One of the two major U.S. parties, the Democratic Party, is no longer the political party it used to be. Over the decades, it has gradually been infiltrated by the same Marxist ideology that has created the most brutal and repressive communist regimes in history.
Communist ideology, including socialism and its associated ideas, is not a normal ideology. It is the ideology that has caused the unnatural deaths of at least 100 million people.
The communist ideology uses seemingly righteous concepts, such as “equality” and “political correctness,” to confuse people. Its ideology has infiltrated all fields in our society, including education, media, and art. It unscrupulously destroys everything that is traditional, including faith, religion, morality, culture, family, art, education, law, and so on, and leads people to fall into moral depravity.
This is the ideology of totalitarianism, one that drives once-thriving nations such as Venezuela into the abyss and that was able to destroy 5,000 years of culture in China, where people went from a belief in the divine to a devotion to the state.
It is the systematic undoing of all that is good that humankind stands for. It stands diametrically opposed to goodness, fairness, truth, and compassion.
This not only has undermined people’s spirits and their righteous faith in God, but has dragged the American people and all of mankind to the brink of danger.
A Choice Between Good and Evil This is a conflict that transcends party lines, a battle between whether we as Americans can stay true to our founding principles and follow God’s will, or whether we will be subjected to forces that seek to control and destroy our most fundamental rights.
This is not something we say lightly; because our newspaper’s founders lived through communist totalitarianism, they understand its destructive force.
As a media organization, we are independent and don’t take positions on political issues or candidates, but rather stand for truth and justice.
America has now come to the brink of falling into a communist abyss...
Keep reading.
Monday, November 16, 2020
Leftists Crushed at Failure of the 'Emerging Democratic Coalition' to Emerge
Radical leftists will never learn.
Sunday, November 15, 2020
With Trench Warfare Deepening, Parties Face Unsettled Electoral Map
This is good.
At NYT, "Voters delivered a convincing victory for Joe Biden, but a split decision for the two parties. Now Democrats and Republicans face perhaps the most up-for-grabs electoral landscape in a generation":
WASHINGTON — America’s two major parties had hoped the 2020 presidential election would render a decisive judgment on the country’s political trajectory. But after a race that broke records for voter turnout and campaign spending, neither Democrats nor Republicans have achieved a dominant upper hand. Instead, the election delivered a split decision, ousting President Trump but narrowing the Democratic majority in the House and perhaps preserving the Republican majority in the Senate. As Joseph R. Biden Jr. prepares to take office and preside over a closely divided government, leaders in both camps are acknowledging that voters seem to have issued not a mandate for the left or the right but a muddled plea to move on from Trump-style chaos. With 306 electoral college votes and the most popular votes of any presidential candidate in history, Mr. Biden attained a victory that was paramount to many Democrats, who saw a second Trump term as nothing less than a threat to democracy. Yet on the electoral landscape, both parties find themselves stretched thin and battling on new fronts, with their traditional strongholds increasingly under siege. Indeed, Democrats and Republicans are facing perhaps the most unsettled and up-for-grabs electoral map the country has seen in a generation, since the parties were still fighting over California in the late 1980s. This competition has denied either from being able to claim broad majorities and prompted a series of election cycles, which could be repeated in 2022, in which any gains Democrats make in the country’s booming cities and states are at least partly offset by growing Republican strength in rural areas. The election also represented a continuation of this trench warfare between two parties that are increasingly defined by their activist flanks and limited to only incremental advances. “We are more divided than any other time in my lifetime,” said Haley Barbour, the former Mississippi governor and Republican National Committee chair, whose first job in politics was on Richard M. Nixon’s 1968 campaign. “But usually when we’re at parity we’re bunched up in the middle — now we’ve got parity but with extreme polarity.” Mr. Biden and the Democrats viewed this election as an opportunity to deliver a crushing repudiation to Republicans and the movement known as Trumpism, while Mr. Trump and his allies saw the chance to cement a durable governing coalition led by the far right...
RTWT.
Thursday, November 12, 2020
'My Digital Landscape'
I'm shaking my head.
Over at Legal Insurrection, blogger Leslie Eastman is upset with the mainstream media. See, "My digital landscape is changing post election."
What, is she the right-blogger version of Rip Van Winkle, just waking up after four years and sees she doesn't like the leftist press? Pfft.
I changed my "digital landscape" years ago, and especially in 2016 when Trump won. And now she's mad at Fox News? I rarely watch it. Bret Baer drives me crazy. Neil Cavuto's a clown. They booted Shepard Smith a while back, and that barely made any difference in the leftist drift at the network.
She along with millions of other right-wing voters are mad at Fox News and any outlets that don't parrot the MAGA line. So, they're bellowing about how they're never going to watch Fox News again! (*Eye-roll*)
Look, I've said it a million times: Know your enemy. If conservatives further segregate themselves in an information bubble it will only exacerbate existing divides. We'll keep drifting toward two nations, and political violence will become more and more acceptable. A lot of folks don't care, okay? Then quit blogging and fighting about it all the time, because it's useless. Just pack up now to Idaho. Get your supplies, provisions, and ammo. Hunker down and wait for the new millennium.
I'm not doing that. Not yet. I'll worry about moving to the hinterland when I retire.
I read and blog mainstream articles all the time. I actually like reading the L.A. Times and the N.Y. Times. If you're open minded, there's lots of cool stuff. Here's a good piece on Dave Grohl keeping it real during the pandemic, "Dave Grohl, 10-Year-Old Nandi Bushell and One Very Epic Drum Battle."
You didn’t need to know every note of Nirvana’s angst-rock classic “In Bloom” to marvel at the spectacle of a little girl drumming along to the song in perfect synchronization last November, her face scrawled over with joy and passion.
The internet is an open playing field for regular people performing impressive feats, and over a couple of years, Nandi Bushell, a resident of Ipswich, England, had attracted a solid audience by expressively covering famous songs by a genre-diverse range of artists including the White Stripes, Billie Eilish and Anderson .Paak. Sometimes her father, John, and brother, Thomas, accompanied her, but Bushell was the star, combining technical virtuosity with bright-eyed showmanship (and some enthusiastic yelling). The sight of Bushell wailing away immediately impressed Dave Grohl, the Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer who played “In Bloom” on the band’s 1991 breakthrough album, “Nevermind.” Grohl is not a social media user, and he only learned about the viral clip when the album’s producer, Butch Vig, sent it to him. “I watched it in amazement, not only because she was nailing all of the parts, but the way that she would scream when she did her drum rolls,” Grohl said in a recent video interview. “There’s something about seeing the joy and energy of a kid in love with an instrument. She just seemed like a force of nature.”*****
Not everything's politics. Leftist take to politics in place of religion. Conservatives need to avoid that like the plague. Just read widely, fitting your tastes. Watch Newsmax on YouTube, where streaming is no charge.
And everybody should be reading Instapundit daily. I should be reading over there more often, frankly, as well as AoSHQ. And don't quit Fox. I mean, don't quit Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham. They're great. If it wasn't for them, there'd be absolutely no conservative programming on prime-time network television in this country. If you don't support them, you're hibernating. You're cutting off your nose to spite your face. Sheesh, just flip the channel and watch something else if you can't stand Martha MacCallum.
And everybody's saying they're quitting Twitter to go to Parler? Why? I mean, what's so great about it? And Gab? Great place for neo-Nazis to gather, but not for me.
Besides, nobodies over there anyway. All the mainstream journalists are on Twitter. I follow them. (A lot of them.) Not because I like them, but because they might have some information I need. Frankly, I hate them, but they're useful. It's transactional. Don't get emotional about these things. If I'm booted off Twitter, then I won't use a short-message service. And Facebook? It's a lost cause. I quit using it the day after Trump won in 2016. I couldn't take it anymore. It was HATE, HATE, HATE nonstop. I can do without. I'm starting to post links to Facebook again, for the hell of it. But I don't linger. I don't read the comments. Fuck 'em, and I'm talking about people on both sides who act like spoiled children. It's pathetic and ridiculous. People need to grow up and get a grip. Don't transmogrify into that which you hate.
I set my Twitter page to private (send a follower request there, if you want to see my tweets). And I took my personal information off my Blogger profile. I'm still employed at my college, and after the last 12 years of blogging, and tweeting, and teaching my college classes, I've decided to finally go incognito a bit. They will try to cancel you. Leftists will come after you at your place of employment. Far-left cadres on the job will undermine you and try to get you fired. I'm a tenure professor, and I still have to take all these precautions. I should've started blogging under a pseudonym in 2006, but I was stupid. I thought I'd be some be blog professor and build some scholarly readership, or some bullshit. Nobody cares about that. It's all political warfare all the time. Every institution of American life is infected with critical race theory ideology and you need to protect your family. California's going to decriminalize mushrooms. Don't get me wrong, I'm up for a good psilocybin trip just like the next guy, but what about the children?!! Well, leftists don't care about your kids. They're out to destroy the nuclear family and they're doing a bang-up job of it. Get out of California while you still can.
California's a beautiful but bad state. I'm stuck here until I retire, so I'm just gonna chill and not get steamed up about it.
Anyway, read and watch what you want. Don't let folks on either side dictate your choices, and if they do, fuck 'em.
More later...
'But as someone pointed out earlier, with AOC being blamed, justifiably, by many Democrats for her party’s poor performance, she has to change the subject. And changing the subject from abject failures, to internal enemies, is also a classic part of leftism in action...'
"B--, b--, but, ... they didn't run any Facebook ads! Its' campaign malpractice!"
Heh, he's right. Changing the subject.
It's Glenn Reynolds, at Instapundit, "LISTS AND PUNISHMENTS ARE THE WHOLE POINT OF BEING A LEFTIST; THE REST IS JUST WINDOW-DRESSING: AOC & Co.’s loathsome plan to keep lists of pro-Trumpies."
The Most Extensive Psychological Warfare Operation in History
Roosh:
You're about to face the most extensive psychological warfare operation in history. Every controlled institution in the world, many thousands of them, will present Biden as President of the United States. Don't let them demoralize you or take away the truth you know.
— Roosh (@rooshv) November 7, 2020
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
Megan Kelley: 'Pennsylvania is my favorite challenge' (VIDEO)
This video is incredible.
She's not about to set unrealistic expectations, and I agree that a lot of the challenges are long shots, but keep listening to the part about Joe Biden and his hilarious cluelessness and his ridiculously laughable calls for "unity."
At Newmax, which should be one of your main information pickup stations starting now.
Tuesday, November 10, 2020
Fighting Election Results, Trump Employs a New Weapon: The Government
I know most Trump supporters hate the New York Times, but if you want to beat your enemy, you need to know him. And sometimes the Old Gray Lady serves it up for us on a platter.
I love this piece:
President Trump has been marshaling his administration and pressuring his Republican allies into acting as if the election outcome was still uncertain, even as the rest of the world has increasingly moved to accept President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.https://t.co/j7XzTa3VK5
— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 11, 2020
WASHINGTON — President Trump, facing the prospect of leaving the White House in defeat in just 70 days, is harnessing the power of the federal government to resist the results of an election that he lost, something that no sitting president has done in American history.
In the latest sign of defiance, the president’s senior cabinet secretary fueled concerns on Tuesday that Mr. Trump would resist handing over power to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. after legal challenges to the vote. “There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said.
Mr. Trump’s attorney general has at the same time authorized investigations into supposed vote fraud, his general services administrator has refused to give Mr. Biden’s team access to transition offices and resources guaranteed under law and the White House is preparing a budget for next year as if Mr. Trump will be around to present it.
The president has also embarked on a shake-up of his administration, firing Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper as well as the heads of three other agencies while installing loyalists in key positions at the National Security Agency and the Pentagon. Allies expect more to come, including the possible dismissals of the directors of the F.B.I. and the C.I.A.
But the rest of the world increasingly moved to accept Mr. Biden’s victory and prepared to work with him despite Mr. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the results. Speaking with journalists, Mr. Biden called the president’s actions since Election Day “an embarrassment” that will not serve him well in the long run. “How can I say this tactfully?” Mr. Biden said. “It will not help the president’s legacy.”
The standoff left the United States in the position of the kind of country whose weak democratic processes it often criticizes. Rather than congratulating Mr. Biden and inviting him to the White House, as his predecessors traditionally have done after an election changed party control, Mr. Trump has been marshaling his administration and pressuring his Republican allies into acting as if the outcome were still uncertain, either out of faint hope of actually overturning the results or at least creating a narrative to explain his loss.
The president’s efforts to discredit with false claims both the election results and the incoming Biden administration is in many ways the culmination of four years of stocking the government with pliant appointees while undermining the credibility of other institutions in American life, including intelligence agencies, law enforcement authorities, the news media, technology companies, the federal government more broadly and now election officials in states across four time zones.
Throughout his presidency, Mr. Trump has tried to condition much of the American public not to believe anyone other than him, with evident success. Although the evidence shows there was no widespread conspiracy to steal the election in multiple states that Mr. Trump has invented, at least one poll showed that many supporters accept his claims. Seventy percent of Republicans surveyed by Politico and Morning Consult said they did not believe the election was free and fair.
“What we have seen in the last week from the president more closely resembles the tactics of the kind of authoritarian leaders we follow,” said Michael J. Abramowitz, the president of Freedom House, a nonprofit organization that tracks democracy around the world. “I never would have imagined seeing something like this in America.”
Mr. Abramowitz doubted there was much danger of Mr. Trump overturning the election. “But by convincing a large part of the population that there was widespread fraud, he is seeding a myth that could endure for years and contribute to an erosion of public confidence in our electoral system,” he said.
Mr. Biden has proceeded without waiting for Mr. Trump’s concession and spoke on Tuesday with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Ireland.
Jill Schlesinger Talks Surging Dow (VIDEO)
"Stock markets got a major boost from news of Pfizer’s #coronavirus vaccine trial success, and the results from #Election2020."
Yeah, and Trump should be getting the political credit for the vaccine, but you know, the pharma-deep state coordinated with the Biden campaign to delay the news of the successful trial? I mean, c'mon, a 90 percent success rate isn't something to be hiding, that is, unless you're colluding with the Democrat-Media-Complex.
At CBS This Morning:
I'm glad my Roth IRA and 403(b) retirement funds are recovering, sheesh.
New Playmate Iryna
Thank gawd lol.
Licking wet 😱 TEXT FOR MORE here https://t.co/M03maYOVmJ pic.twitter.com/gVDoxxYCog
— playmateiryna (@IrynaIvanova) November 8, 2020
Sweaty but so tasty. TEXT here https://t.co/M03maYOVmJ pic.twitter.com/VXXjaz5pNG
— playmateiryna (@IrynaIvanova) November 9, 2020
Ms. Katie Update
On Twitter:
tell me something good pic.twitter.com/N6xXAuEyTZ
— Katie Bell🦋 (@katieeeeebell) October 10, 2020
And previously: "Wonderful Ms. Katie."
'I don't know why I'm convinced I get Mick Jagger, but this...'
According to Althouse:
This is sarcasm .... I got there via Ed Driscoll at Instapundit who doesn't seem to be reading Mick's tweet as humor, but come on.
I’m so looking forward to coming back to an America free of harsh words and name calling and be amongst people who I know have common ground and harmony. It’s a challenge but it can be done!
— Mick Jagger (@MickJagger) November 7, 2020
'My daughter has already noticed that the folks in her circle who are most into ‘activism’ of various sorts are mostly the ones whose careers and lives seem to be going the worst.” And this is certainly not a coincidence. Political “activism,” as promoted by the Left, is entirely destructive in its goals. An eternal war against an unacceptable status quo appeals to malcontents and misfits...'
That's Glenn Reynolds, quoted at the Other McCain, "The Enemies of Happiness."
Portland's antifa scum as a case in point:
Monday, November 9, 2020
'Today I Woke Up Ready to Fight'
See LoveBreedsAccountability, "FRAUD-20 Superspreader Creates Immediate Need for Ballot Testing, Testing, Testing":
Yesterday I prepared myself for the absolute worst. We are potentially at an end-times level crisis point for our nation and I needed to take a minute to process that and the implications. And, miraculously somehow, I came out the other side of yesterday feeling prepared for whatever happens. And that was important.
Because today I woke up feeling good. Today I woke up hopeful. Today I woke up unafraid.
Today I woke up ready to fight...
'Top Republicans in Washington are reluctant to call Joe Biden the president-elect publicly, fearing a rebellion by grassroots conservatives loyal to President Trump that would sink the party's Senate majority...'
From David M. Drucker, at the Washington Examiner, via Memeorandum, "GOP fears conceding Trump loss would spark base revolt and loss of seats."
RELATED: At Politico, "Pressure mounts on federal agency to affirm Biden victory:Biden cannot access government funds or communicate with federal agencies until the GSA certifies his win."
This Woman Just Invited Me for a Beer
It's Tania Gail, on Facebook. I have't seen her since CPAC 2011. She moved to Idaho and wants to go out for a beer lol.
I'll keep you posted, heh.
Class Conflict Will Cripple the Democrats
It's Steve McCann, at American Thinker:
*****
In the midst of the post-election chaos a long-time acquaintance, who is a robotic Democrat voter, texted me “With Biden the violence and riots in the streets of the big cities will stop. That is why he needs to win.”
I texted back: “Not so fast my friend. If Biden wins, within six to twelve months the riots will get worse and more violent. Which is among the primary reasons why Trump must leave no stone unturned in contesting the election."
Besides if the Biden cabal steals the election, Trump must make certain the American people know the full extent of the fraud. The Biden presidency must begin with a dark cloud hanging over it after what Trump and his 70+ million supporters have endured for the past four years including the 2020 election.”
If Biden were to prevail and be sworn in as President on January 20, 2021, it will be solely due to his party executing the greatest fraud in American political history, along with considerable help. The Democrats’ co-conspirators in the Ruling Class provide financial and media collaboration, while the radical American left, with their organizing ability and willingness to unabashedly break election laws to justify the ends, provide the muscle.
*****
More.
Progressives Want Revolution, Not Just Change
It's Philip Giraldi, at the Unz Reader, "The Disappearing America."
U.K.'s Lord Kilclooney Called Out for Calling Kamala Harris 'the Indian'
He isn't wrong you know, although he's not too smart about our constitutional system. If the "Indian" become president, she'll appoint a new vice president who'll be confirmed by a majority vote in both the House and Senate.
Great story, in any case.
At NYT, "British Peer Criticized for Calling Kamala Harris ‘the Indian’."
Lord Kilclooney, a member of the British House of Lords who previously called an Irish politician a "typical Indian," is defending a tweet referring to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as "the Indian." He said he hadn't known her name when he wrote it. https://t.co/rlF4RO0nsJ
— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 9, 2020
This tweet is cancelled
— Lord John Kilclooney (@KilclooneyJohn) November 9, 2020
I understand from the media that Speaker Fowler has criticised my tweet about the USA Presidency without having the courtesy of speaking to me beforehand. He is misinformed but I am not surprised!
— Lord John Kilclooney (@KilclooneyJohn) November 9, 2020
Would the Party of Moral Authoritarianism Cheat on Elections?
Nah. At Issues & Insights, "Of Course the Party of Moral Authoritarianism Would Cheat on Elections":
The moral authoritarians of the left are so hungry to rule over others, so convinced of their own virtue that they will do almost anything to muscle a path to unchallengeable authority. In their minds, stealing an election is a legitimate means to their ends.
Fight them. Defeat them. Never stop.
What Socialism? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Walks Back Radical Democrat Agenda After Epic Shellacking on November 3rd (VIDEO)
They're liars. They're pathological liars. And they're dangerous. Especially AOC.
Fight them. Beat them. Destroy them.
At Free Beacon, "Dems Turn Away From ‘Defund the Police’ and ‘Socialism’."
Jennifer Delacruz's Monday Forecast
We ha some winter weather this weekend, and I think it's here to stay for a while.
Let's hear it from the fabulous Ms. Jennifer, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
Sunday, November 8, 2020
Maggie Haberman is Quitting the Trump Beat
Her job is done.
She, by the tone of the piece, almost single-handedly destroyed the Trump presidency.
At NYT, "The Trump Presidency Is Ending. So Is Maggie Haberman’s Wild Ride."
I like her, actually, but she's a stone-cold bitch.
The Election Week Travails of a Die-Hard Massachusetts Trump Supporter
This could be the story of untold millions of Americans. You gotta love it. And especially the elite media-prog condescension.
Thursday, Nov. 5 By Thursday morning, the Roccos had given up on Fox. “There’s definitely people at Fox who don’t like Trump,” Mr. Rocco said. “The commentators, they are normally aggressive. I think they got a leash put on them somehow, some way.” He took the position that the vote count should have ended on Nov. 3. He reassured his wife that the decision would finally lie in the hands of the Supreme Court. “They’re doing anything they can to stop him from becoming president,” he said. “It’s not over yet. He’s going to win. It’s just a matter of who has the balls to close down first.” But an alternative path was beginning to take shape in his mind, in case Mr. Biden prevailed. Maybe the Republicans could impeach Mr. Biden. Maybe a Republican Senate could tie his hands for four years. Maybe, after a long-planned Caribbean vacation, Mr. Rocco would fly out to Arizona and join the protesters. Maybe he would post new yard signs. “Like I told you, I hate to lose,” he said. “If he loses, I’ll feel like I’ve lost.” When Mr. Trump delivered remarks at the White House, Mr. Rocco was struck by his appearance. The president looked drained and serious, no longer a happy warrior. The message the president conveyed was grave: that American democracy is a farce. “He’s been telling us about that for months, and I think it’s actually happening now,” he said. “How are we ever going to be able to vote for a president again, now that we know that fraud has been going on?” Friday, Nov. 6 The news on Friday morning was no surprise. Officials in states that had not been called had spent much of the night meticulously counting ballots, in the presence of observers from both parties. Mr. Biden was a hair’s breadth from the presidency, on course to win at least 270 electoral votes. “Every time I went to bed, it was the same,” Mr. Rocco said. “I go to bed, he was winning, I wake up, he was losing.” Ms. Rocco sounded resigned. “I think that basically it’s pretty much done,” she said. “But they cheated. But it’s done.” The people she had spent the summer with, the Trump activists, she could see them packing it in, returning to normal life. “They’re just going to want to move on,” she said. “My aunt’s already saying, ‘Stop being a crybaby.’” Mr. Rocco was not ready to give up, though. The president would not concede, he was sure of that. “I’d be pissed at him if he did because I would never do that,” he said. “He’s not that type of person. He doesn’t give up easily. I see a lot of myself in him.” Casting his mind into the future, past this election, he could imagine any number of outcomes. He could imagine the United States splitting into two countries, one governed by Mr. Trump and one not. He could imagine suspending elections so Mr. Trump and his family could rule without interruption for 20 years. “I guarantee you, Trump supporters would not care,” he said. “I guarantee you, if you got 69 million Trump supporters, and you said, ‘Would you be good with Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump as president?’ a lot of people would be 100 percent behind that.” He was gathering his things — he had a shift at the salon — and his tone was calm. He is only 26. There is plenty of time. He was waiting for cues from his leader. “In Trump we trust, and as far as everything else, it’s all going to fall into place,” he said. “It’s not happening today, and it’s not happening tomorrow.”
See, "For a Trump Fan, a Week When Victory Ebbed Away":
A sad but unsympathetic man mourns the loss of Trump in a sad but unsympathetic (and perfect) feature by @EllenBarryNYT https://t.co/xMF6UMFyRT
— Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) November 8, 2020
Thursday, Nov. 5 By Thursday morning, the Roccos had given up on Fox. “There’s definitely people at Fox who don’t like Trump,” Mr. Rocco said. “The commentators, they are normally aggressive. I think they got a leash put on them somehow, some way.” He took the position that the vote count should have ended on Nov. 3. He reassured his wife that the decision would finally lie in the hands of the Supreme Court. “They’re doing anything they can to stop him from becoming president,” he said. “It’s not over yet. He’s going to win. It’s just a matter of who has the balls to close down first.” But an alternative path was beginning to take shape in his mind, in case Mr. Biden prevailed. Maybe the Republicans could impeach Mr. Biden. Maybe a Republican Senate could tie his hands for four years. Maybe, after a long-planned Caribbean vacation, Mr. Rocco would fly out to Arizona and join the protesters. Maybe he would post new yard signs. “Like I told you, I hate to lose,” he said. “If he loses, I’ll feel like I’ve lost.” When Mr. Trump delivered remarks at the White House, Mr. Rocco was struck by his appearance. The president looked drained and serious, no longer a happy warrior. The message the president conveyed was grave: that American democracy is a farce. “He’s been telling us about that for months, and I think it’s actually happening now,” he said. “How are we ever going to be able to vote for a president again, now that we know that fraud has been going on?” Friday, Nov. 6 The news on Friday morning was no surprise. Officials in states that had not been called had spent much of the night meticulously counting ballots, in the presence of observers from both parties. Mr. Biden was a hair’s breadth from the presidency, on course to win at least 270 electoral votes. “Every time I went to bed, it was the same,” Mr. Rocco said. “I go to bed, he was winning, I wake up, he was losing.” Ms. Rocco sounded resigned. “I think that basically it’s pretty much done,” she said. “But they cheated. But it’s done.” The people she had spent the summer with, the Trump activists, she could see them packing it in, returning to normal life. “They’re just going to want to move on,” she said. “My aunt’s already saying, ‘Stop being a crybaby.’” Mr. Rocco was not ready to give up, though. The president would not concede, he was sure of that. “I’d be pissed at him if he did because I would never do that,” he said. “He’s not that type of person. He doesn’t give up easily. I see a lot of myself in him.” Casting his mind into the future, past this election, he could imagine any number of outcomes. He could imagine the United States splitting into two countries, one governed by Mr. Trump and one not. He could imagine suspending elections so Mr. Trump and his family could rule without interruption for 20 years. “I guarantee you, Trump supporters would not care,” he said. “I guarantee you, if you got 69 million Trump supporters, and you said, ‘Would you be good with Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump as president?’ a lot of people would be 100 percent behind that.” He was gathering his things — he had a shift at the salon — and his tone was calm. He is only 26. There is plenty of time. He was waiting for cues from his leader. “In Trump we trust, and as far as everything else, it’s all going to fall into place,” he said. “It’s not happening today, and it’s not happening tomorrow.”
Abigail Shrier: My Book's Getting Cancelled by Silicon Valley Gender Activists (VIDEO)
She's the author of, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.
*****
The notion that this sudden wave of transitioning among teens is a worrying, ideologically driven phenomenon is hardly a fringe view. Indeed, outside of Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, and college campuses, it is a view held by a majority of Americans. There is nothing hateful in suggesting that most teenagers are not in a good position to approve irreversible alterations to their bodies, particularly if they are suffering from trauma, OCD, depression, or any of the other mental-health problems that are comorbid with expressions of dysphoria. And yet, here we are.
The efforts to block my reporting have been legion, starting with staff threats at a publishing house, which quickly reversed its original intention to publish my book. Once I obtained a stalwart publisher, Regnery, Amazon refused to allow that company’s sales team to sponsor ads on its site. (Amazon allows sponsored ads for books that uncritically celebrate medical transition for teenagers).
Because the book tackles an interesting phenomenon, a number of established journalists wanted to review it. The issue of trans-identification has seemed to come out of nowhere with Gen Z, the generation begun in 1995 whose large-scale mental-health crisis already has us so on edge. And the issue has created surprising bedfellows. Religious conservatives are concerned about the trend—but so are lesbians, who look upon the shocking numbers of teen girls transitioning with abject alarm. Many suspect that all this transitioning of girls is effectively euthanizing a generation of young lesbians.
In any case, every major newspaper and legacy magazine summarily turned interested journalists down. Whether they would have reviewed my book favorably or unfavorably, I have no idea—and it doesn’t matter. Kirkus, which reviews 10,000 titles per year, including self-published and obscure works—pretended my book didn’t exist. Its editors, too busy heaping praise on the Trans Teen Survival Guide, When Aiden Became a Brother, Jack (Not Jackie), Rethinking Normal, and of course, Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out.
Alternative media rushed in where legacy media feared to go. Joe Rogan hosted me on his show, and for two hours, we explored why a growing number of researchers believe social contagion is at play when clusters of girls suddenly announce, as if as one, that they are boys. Gender dysphoria has always existed, but until recently, afflicted males almost exclusively. While gender dysphoria has always been vanishingly rare among females, social contagion has not. These are the same high-anxiety, depressive (mostly white) girls who, in previous decades, fell prey to anorexia and bulimia or multiple personality disorder. Now it’s gender dysphoria, sometimes along with some or all of those other conditions. Parents are being presented with the seductive idea of transition as a utopian cure-all...
*****
And at the Joe Rogan Experience:
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem: 'Election Day Needs to Be Fair, Honest, and Transparent, and We Need to Be Sure We Had an Honest Election Before We Decide Who Gets to Be in the White House...'
She's so cool, calm, and collected, and George Stephanopoulos is left nearly speechless and bumbling, "Buh buh but Governor Noam, do you have any evidence that it wasn't an honest election...", blather, spittle, dribble, belch!
At ABC News, on our country's most dangerous news organizations:
Trump Won’t Concede Election Amid Several Lawsuits, Challenges
At the Epoch Times, "Rudy Giuliani: Trump Won’t Concede Election Amid Several Lawsuits, Challenges":
Former New York City Mayor and President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said the president will not concede the election amid a series of lawsuits filed by Trump’s campaign. Several news outlets and Democratic challenger Joe Biden declared victory on Saturday. “Obviously he’s not going to concede when at least 600,000 ballots are in question,” Giuliani told reporters in Philadelphia on Saturday. Giuliani alleged that ballots were tampered with in Pennsylvania, which appeared to give Biden an Electoral College win needed to take the White House. Trump was leading in the state on Tuesday night, but after counting apparently started again on Wednesday, Biden appeared to cut into the president’s lead. Giuliani said he has statements from several election watchers and said 50 people had similar stories about possible fraud being committed. “I could have brought about 50 with me,” Giuliani said, adding that “50 is too many,” alleging that some were afraid of retribution. Trump’s team will file federal lawsuits alleging the “uniform deprivation of the right to inspect,” while adding that the “Democratic machine in Philadelphia” was involved in tampering with the election in the city. “Seems to me somebody from the Democratic National Committee sent out a note that said don’t let the Republicans look at those mail-in ballots,” Giuliani added. Giuliani said that Biden’s lead increase after Tuesday’s election is proof there is something amiss in the process. “You just don’t lose leads like that without corruption,” Giuliani said. The Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General issued a statement for the state’s Democratic secretary of state, Kathy Boockvar, saying that there is “no evidence” that a county is “disobeying that clear guidance to segregate these votes, and the Republican Party offers only speculation that certain unidentified counties may ignore that repeated guidance or that the Secretary will inconsistently change course.” Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency appeals for Pennsylvania, ordered the state’s county elections officials to keep mail-in ballots segregated if they arrived after 8 p.m. on Tuesday. On Saturday, in Arizona, another battleground state, Trump continued to cut into Biden’s lead. Biden has seen his lead dwindle to just 10,000 votes on Nov. 8. If the margin between Biden and Trump ends up falling within 0.1 percent or less, an automatic recount will be triggered. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said that elections officials are working on counting the votes...America is fighting for our Constitution!!! God bless Trump @Potus ♡
— Susan Ertelt (@susanertelt) November 8, 2020
Rudy Giuliani: Trump Won’t Concede Election Amid Several Lawsuits, Challenges https://t.co/2PTWV6VHZP
Download our app to read more for free at https://t.co/eEg23H5rlt
The Left is Not What It Claims to Be
It's Paul Godfried, "The Modern Left Is Not Marxist, It's Worse":
*****
Is the current left Marxist? In a provocative commentary, Bill Lind explores this genealogical question, and, unless I’m mistaken, the left and much of its media opposition would second his conclusions. Since Antifa describes itself as Marxist, when it’s not calling itself anarchist, and since leading figures of the Democratic Party, like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have certainly not shunned the Marxist label, it would seem today’s left is authentically Marxist.
But, except at its edges, the present left is not what it claims to be. Today’s left has a different origin and orientation from what has been historically understood as Marxist or Marxist-Leninist; and using that term to designate the characteristics of our current left is at best problematic. Neither Marxists nor Marxist-Leninist governments evidenced the cultural radicalism that today’s left expresses every day. Although there have been Communist Party members in Western countries who have been sexual exhibitionists, and even a brief period in Russia after the November 1917 Revolution when free love was allowed, generally communists have been on the conservative side of issues like homosexuality and the questioning of fixed sexual identities. The traditional left would have attributed our LGBT activities to “bourgeois decadence.”
In the Soviet Union and for a long time throughout the Soviet bloc, artistic experimentation was frowned upon, including music of the Second Viennese School’s twelve-tone technique, as well as abstract expressionism. Communist regimes sent gays to labor camps, and communist revolutionaries like Fidel Castro and Che Guevara raged against homosexuality and, in Guevara’s case, blacks.
It is hard to view these Marxist revolutionaries as precursors of the present intersectional left. Indeed, corporate capitalists stand much closer to this force than traditional Marxists do or did. Are the executives at PepsiCo, Citibank, and the NFL, who support Black Lives Matter (BLM) and wish to stamp out opposition from the cultural right, economic revolutionaries yearning for a socialist society? Pardon my skepticism!
Real Marxism has been about socioeconomic contradictions and transformations, not about the need for transgendered restrooms and the abolition of gender roles. Communist parties in Western Europe after World War II vehemently opposed the immigration of cheap labor from abroad, viewing it as an attack on the indigenous workforce. The current left, by contrast, is about open borders and filling Western countries with impoverished Third World populations as an act of contrition for white Christian racism, or as a source of so-called cultural enrichment.
The Soviet regime and Communist parties outside the Soviet Union condemned the Critical Theory philosophy of the Frankfurt School as a distortion of Marxism. One can only imagine what they would have thought of the further evolution of what Lind and others have styled “cultural Marxism.” Lind correctly observes that the Frankfurt School in interwar Germany provided the cradle for this movement, which tried to fuse Freud’s theories about sexual repression with socialist economics. But the result looked much more like a cultural war against reactionary social attitudes than a serious effort to plan a Marxist economy.
After Critical Theory migrated to the U.S. by way of Columbia University in the 1930s, it came to look even less like Marxism and much more like a prelude to our current cultural revolution. Some socialist boilerplate remained attached to this brand of thinking, but it became extraneous to its real message, which is the subversion of what seemed to me as a child in the 1950s to be a normal society.
I am unwilling to concede to cultural Marxists a Marxist pedigree simply because they have claimed that ancestry. Nowadays, media and political celebrities claim all kinds of labels for themselves, and one can easily prove the falseness of most of them. What makes a lesbian feminist on Fox News a “conservative” other than the fact that she appears on a generally Republican channel and claims that she votes for the GOP? What makes a culturally radical commentator on CNN a “liberal” other than the fact that some in high places decided to apply this term to themselves? What does columnist Jonah Goldberg have in common politically or philosophically with Edmund Burke, or for that matter, CNN anchor Jake Tapper with Thomas Jefferson? If I decide to call myself something I am not, it does not become any more true regardless of how much media support I can find to back me up.
I concede to Lind that today’s cultural radicals, who are unfortunately becoming mainstream, are of the left. They are leftists because they are driven by four defining leftist principles or practices. One is globalism or universalism, which in the case of the current left takes the form of a boundless revulsion for Western Christian society and its majority white population. The left in its essence denies particularity and the sanctity of local and national traditions.
The second quintessentially leftist principle that informs our cultural revolutionaries is the worship of equality as the highest value. One can easily imagine non-leftists recognizing some limited good in the idea of equality, for example, granting legal equality to all authorized citizens or subjects of a state. But the left is fixated on equality and seeks to harness political and educational power to obliterate human distinctions.
The third leftist principle or practice is the call for expansions of what they call human rights, since the historically grounded natural rights do not advance equality or “human dignity,” by which they mean the extinction of social and historical distinctions. This inverts Aristotle’s sage advice at the beginning of Book Four of the Politics, that laws (nomoi) should fit specific governments (politeiai). The leftist position is exactly the opposite: Long established customs and conventions should give way to what journalists and academics deem conducive to greater equality.
A fourth leftist belief concerns the putative fluidity and malleability of human nature, seen for example in the insistence that all gender identities are subject to change. Public administrators and courts must defend our right to redefine our gender whenever we want; and others should then be required to treat us in accordance with our changing gender identity. This last leftist belief stands in striking contrast to the conservative notion that human identities are rooted in tradition and nature. Perhaps nowhere more than in this emphasis on gender fluidity do we behold the most radical form of the left, perhaps in an even more grotesque manifestation than in such harebrained schemes as nationalizing the economy...
*****
Still more at that link.
Saturday, November 7, 2020
R.S. McCain on the Coming Cataclysm
Here's my old blogging pal, Robert Stacy McCain, at the Other McCain, "Poised on the Brink of the Abyss."
*****
What inspired this, mainly, was Tim Pool on YouTube. While I am not generally a fan of political video, much preferring the written word as a means of communication, Tim is an exception. His audience is larger than most daytime shows on CNN, and it’s easy to see why. The guy is extremely smart and has a knack for finding the important inflection points amid the daily headline noise. For months now, Tim has been talking to his audience about the potential of civil war, even while acknowledging that most people will think he’s crazy for bringing up the topic. Back during the late 1990s, I recall how some people saw America drifting toward a conflict like the one that devastated the former Yugoslavia. The 1992 Los Angeles riots, the Branch Davidian showdown at Waco, the Oklahoma City bombing — it was a scary time. Back then, at various events, warnings about civil war were being issued by guys who knew what they were talking about — grizzled veterans of the various post-colonial struggles in Third World places like Algeria, Vietnam and what used to be called Rhodesia. The Cold War era had been an age of guerrilla warfare in lots of “hot spots” around the globe, and there was a certain authority behind the pronouncements of danger when they came from such sources as a scarred Afrikaner veteran who had fought Castro’s troops in Angola. We have had a bit too much peace lately, which is why talk of civil war now sounds like lunacy, but we can’t afford to take these things lightly. One of the strange things about such historical disasters is how, in retrospect, the allegedly intolerable state of affairs that preceded the outbreak of war was mild in comparison to what happened once the shooting started. Go back to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 and ask yourself what was so wrong in Europe as to necessitate four years of carnage and everything that followed in the aftermath of World War I. Ever heard of the Pottawatomie massacre? Five people were murdered in that 1856 incident, part of the struggle over “Bleeding Kansas” that shocked Americans at the time. Over a period of about three months after that massacre, about 30 more people were killed in Kansas, and this outbreak of guerrilla warfare on the frontier was viewed at the time as a grievous tragedy. Yet in the war that followed, the death of a few dozen men was a minor detail of outpost skirmishes. Most Americans today know absolutely nothing about, for example, the Battle of South Mountain in September 1862, in which 750 men were killed and a little more than 3,000 wounded. Now think of some of the police shootings that have sparked Black Lives Matter protests, and compare those cases to the wholesale death that might result if civil war were to break out. It’s simply unthinkable, yet there is a danger in not thinking about it.*****
More at the link.
Trump Campaign Infighting as Biden Declared Winner
It's to be expected, but whatever happens, Trump should not concede and fight this out until January 20th, and after, if that's what it takes, he should declare martial law in D.C. and refuse to leave the White House. Let's see the Dems drag him out.
At WSJ:
Campaign officials met w/Cipollone on Thurs to go through remaining legal options & determined they had pursued every avenue to that point.
— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) November 6, 2020
Some advisers acknowledge there is little path forward, politically or legally, that would prevent a Trump loss.https://t.co/3cvdX3qeB4
Let the Games Begin. #RealResistance
— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) November 7, 2020
Thursday, November 5, 2020
Democrats Got Crushed
I'm traveling, otherwise I'd be blogging the election like a banshee.
I've been reading all kinds of stuff on my phone, and watching the theft of Trump's victory in real time.
More on all of that later, when I get back to the O.C.
Meanwhile, check this Damon Linker piece, at the Week. It's anti-Trump, but he powerfully eviscerates the left --- and their Democrat Party enablers and allies.
See, "The left just got crushed":
Monday, November 2, 2020
'Stay'
I've probably posted this video before, but not this version, featuring famed session guitarist Andrian Belew. (Yep. Searching the blog brings up this ten-year-old post, "'Cause You Can Never Really Tell When Somebody...", where I discuss my music blogging at the time.)
Well, I don't commute to work anymore (during the continuing state school lock-down), so my normal "drive-time" music blogging is all messed up, lol.
I probably just hang out in my Challenger now more nowadays, and I'll just listen to songs on YouTube. (I don't have satellite radio, which my wife reminds me about constantly.) I was also listening to music on Pandora over the summer (my sister, Chris, up in Boise, plays it while she's cooking). I'm not into subscription music services, though, so if I can get fine classic rock radio, I'm good. I've been recently sampling 95.5 KLOS Los Angeles. It's been around for decades, but I never liked it as much as KMET (the "Mighty Met"), but that station's ancient history.
In any case, more on Bowie at the Guardian U.K., "My favourite album: Our writers are picking their favourite albums. Here, Alex Needham takes a journey through 'Station to Station'."
Jennifer Delacruz's Monday Forecast
It's beautuful fall weather. Great for getting out to vote, not that it'll make any difference to the California G.O.P, despite the surge of open Trump support in the state.
The lovely Ms. Jennifer is back in her home studio for this forecast, at ABC News 10 San Diego.
Sunday, November 1, 2020
Expect Election Day to Be a Repeat of 2016
At least someone's willing to say it.
Hat Tip: Instapundit, "IS IT JUST ME, OR HAS THE MEDIA’S TONE SHIFTED IN THE LAST FEW DAYS?"
Contrary to the prevailing wisdom among the cognoscenti, history and current circumstances suggest President Donald Trump is going to defeat former Vice President Joe Biden — for some of the very same reasons he came from behind in 2016 to shock the Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. It is understandable why conventional wisdom is getting this wrong again. Trump is down in the polls, the nation’s demographics are continuing to change in ways unfavorable to Trump and Republicans, the coronavirus has wrought death and economic destruction throughout the land and Trump’s personality provokes stormy oceans of antipathy — perhaps most crucially among women and suburban voters. But Biden and his campaign are making mistakes that will ensure little of this matters. And the polls are almost certainly wrong again. The only question is by how much. The economy is turning around, playing to Trump’s strength. The president has made significant outreach to minorities, and a relative handful of Black voters switching from Democrat to Republican could help him secure states like Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina. Not to mention that Trump — unlike Biden — is actually campaigning for the job. Think of it. Clinton wandering around the woods near her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., kicking herself for not appearing even once in Wisconsin. Meanwhile Biden is only now belatedly hitting the trail — a little. This is a risky experiment. Every modern presidential candidate has traveled as much as humanly possible — and then traveled some more. Meeting and speaking to voters — responsibly — is key. Biden is exploring the political equivalent of eating consommé with a fork. Campaigning does not just reach voters. It imparts a sense of vigor, industriousness and sociability that people want in a leader. I don’t think Trump should be drawing so many people to celebrations that feature sardine-packed, mask-less supporters whose health is at risk. But his rallies suggest that better days are ahead — the theme of most winning presidential campaigns. Thursday, there was a significant indicator that happy days may indeed soon be here again. The Commerce Department released the U.S. gross domestic product number for the third quarter, showing growth rate of around 33 percent. This will feed directly into Trump’s argument that he is best positioned to save the economy. Trump complains endlessly about mail-in ballots, ignoring that they may help him. Many more Democrats are voting by mail than Republicans. But these ballots are more likely to be rejected because mistakes were made filling them out or they were late — or simply got lost. And while the Covid-19 numbers are rising, this does not necessarily benefit Biden. Trump has been arguing that it is time to open up the economy and stop worrying so much about the spread of the virus. People have pandemic fatigue, and they are eager to go back to their regular, pre-Covid lives, even if this sometimes means endangering themselves or others. And not only is Biden staying home, his army of volunteers and canvassers have been cooped up as well, doing outreach on their parents’ Wi-Fi instead of out seeing voters. The Biden campaign only recently emerged from the basement — with the exception of its leader — after Trump’s operatives had already spent months contacting voters on their doorsteps. Refusing to mobilize voters by showing up in their neighborhoods early and often is another likely ill-fated Biden experiment in ignoring modern campaign practice. You also should not underestimate the vast amount of damage created by Biden’s second debate suggestion that he would eventually eliminate the oil industry. When moderator Kristen Welker asked him whether he would “close down the oil industry,” Biden answered “Yes,” he would transition from it. When Welker then asked why he would do that, he responded, “Because the oil industry pollutes, significantly.” Although the economy may be on the upswing, the American public is still suffering...
Opinion | Keith Koffler: Biden is leading Trump in 2020 polls. But expect Election Day to be a repeat of 2016. https://t.co/WmAK8HQBlc - @NBCNewsTHINK
— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 1, 2020
Contrary to the prevailing wisdom among the cognoscenti, history and current circumstances suggest President Donald Trump is going to defeat former Vice President Joe Biden — for some of the very same reasons he came from behind in 2016 to shock the Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. It is understandable why conventional wisdom is getting this wrong again. Trump is down in the polls, the nation’s demographics are continuing to change in ways unfavorable to Trump and Republicans, the coronavirus has wrought death and economic destruction throughout the land and Trump’s personality provokes stormy oceans of antipathy — perhaps most crucially among women and suburban voters. But Biden and his campaign are making mistakes that will ensure little of this matters. And the polls are almost certainly wrong again. The only question is by how much. The economy is turning around, playing to Trump’s strength. The president has made significant outreach to minorities, and a relative handful of Black voters switching from Democrat to Republican could help him secure states like Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina. Not to mention that Trump — unlike Biden — is actually campaigning for the job. Think of it. Clinton wandering around the woods near her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., kicking herself for not appearing even once in Wisconsin. Meanwhile Biden is only now belatedly hitting the trail — a little. This is a risky experiment. Every modern presidential candidate has traveled as much as humanly possible — and then traveled some more. Meeting and speaking to voters — responsibly — is key. Biden is exploring the political equivalent of eating consommé with a fork. Campaigning does not just reach voters. It imparts a sense of vigor, industriousness and sociability that people want in a leader. I don’t think Trump should be drawing so many people to celebrations that feature sardine-packed, mask-less supporters whose health is at risk. But his rallies suggest that better days are ahead — the theme of most winning presidential campaigns. Thursday, there was a significant indicator that happy days may indeed soon be here again. The Commerce Department released the U.S. gross domestic product number for the third quarter, showing growth rate of around 33 percent. This will feed directly into Trump’s argument that he is best positioned to save the economy. Trump complains endlessly about mail-in ballots, ignoring that they may help him. Many more Democrats are voting by mail than Republicans. But these ballots are more likely to be rejected because mistakes were made filling them out or they were late — or simply got lost. And while the Covid-19 numbers are rising, this does not necessarily benefit Biden. Trump has been arguing that it is time to open up the economy and stop worrying so much about the spread of the virus. People have pandemic fatigue, and they are eager to go back to their regular, pre-Covid lives, even if this sometimes means endangering themselves or others. And not only is Biden staying home, his army of volunteers and canvassers have been cooped up as well, doing outreach on their parents’ Wi-Fi instead of out seeing voters. The Biden campaign only recently emerged from the basement — with the exception of its leader — after Trump’s operatives had already spent months contacting voters on their doorsteps. Refusing to mobilize voters by showing up in their neighborhoods early and often is another likely ill-fated Biden experiment in ignoring modern campaign practice. You also should not underestimate the vast amount of damage created by Biden’s second debate suggestion that he would eventually eliminate the oil industry. When moderator Kristen Welker asked him whether he would “close down the oil industry,” Biden answered “Yes,” he would transition from it. When Welker then asked why he would do that, he responded, “Because the oil industry pollutes, significantly.” Although the economy may be on the upswing, the American public is still suffering...
Friday, October 30, 2020
Alex Curry, Dang!
Hubba hubba!
The #Friday office 🎃 pic.twitter.com/K3I0W9AzrL
— Alex Curry (@Alex_Curry) October 30, 2020
Mark Levin Absolutely Explodes
Man, I like Mark Levin, but sheesh, he needs some mood stabilizers or something.
Dang!
My appearance on Hannity TV last night pic.twitter.com/ghhC7M85bE
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) October 30, 2020
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Trump Gets Late Election Bounce with Florida's Democrat-Leaning Colombian Constituency
More on Florida, at Foreign Policy.
Just watch Florida next Tuesday. Florida's results should come right around at 5:00pm, and absentee ("mail-in") ballots are counted before election day. We'll know who's winning in the Sunshine State.
The rest is all fluff. Well, actually, if Trump wins both Florida and Pennsylvania ... well, it's going to be a laugh riot.
See, "In Florida, Many Colombian Americans Fear Biden Is Soft on Socialism."
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
What If Biden Loses Florida?
He's toast, says Nate Silver.
But you gotta click through, at Althouse, for the link.
Trump Up 48-to-44 in Florida?
So that's why the leftist "Latinx" journos at LAT are alarmed.
See, "For Latinos, combating disinformation about the election often starts at home."
Hmm. Florida Hispanics are Cuban. There might be some newer arrivals from other countries, but like Cubans, they're also escaping communism and tyranny. With the Democrats going so far left this year, and the anarchy of antifa and Black Lives Matter, this poll, at AoSHQ, is not surprising.
See, "American Greatness Poll: Trump Takes Four Point Lead in Florida."
Sunday, October 25, 2020
V-Shaped Recovery in U.S. Manufacturing
This is interesting. Frankly, you have to read WSJ just to get straight economic news.
A couple eager for a kitchen upgrade sold their existing refrigerator, stove and dishwasher, planning to replace them immediately. They were shocked to find out new appliances would be out of stock for months. https://t.co/6uBdrLjchM
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) October 25, 2020
From makers of cars to appliances to paint cans, U.S. manufacturers are falling behind on demand for goods that Americans are buying up as the Covid-19 pandemic drags on.
Factory production of consumer products has largely recovered after shutdowns this spring related to the virus crippled manufacturing across the country.
But as companies rush to restock, buyers are snapping up items at an even faster pace, leading to inventory shortages on goods that have recently surged in popularity with people spending more time at home and nervous about travel, executives, retailers and analysts say.
Five months after vehicle production restarted, car dealers are still seeing their stockpiles dwindle as public transit-averse buyers flock to the new-car lot and more people relocate to the suburbs and countryside.
A surge in home-improvement projects has left paint producers with not enough cans and appliance makers short on parts to produce refrigerators, kitchen mixers and washing machines.
Supply-chain disruptions, worker absences and other challenges related to virus-proofing the workplace are further complicating manufacturers’ efforts to catch up. Some executives say it won’t be until early next year before stock levels return to normal.
“We do not have the inventory on the new side or the preowned side to meet the demand that’s out there,” said Mike Jackson, chief executive for AutoNation Inc., the U.S.’s largest publicly traded dealership chain. He said he expects availability to improve next year.
Some manufacturers with big consumer businesses, including 3M Co. MMM -0.53% , Harley-Davidson Inc. HOG 1.93% and Ford Motor Co. F -0.61% , are expected to report earnings for their latest quarters this coming week, likely offering more insight into the state of U.S. supply chains.
Production of long-lasting consumer goods, like appliances, trucks and furniture, was down nearly 50% in April from January levels, according to data provided by the Federal Reserve. But over the summer it rebounded, and in September, production was up 1% from January, the data shows.
For buyers, shortages can be a letdown. But for businesses, there is also upside. With inventory tight, auto makers and dealers say they are able to charge more for vehicles, driving stronger profits. And the pent-up demand should help keep sales robust into next year, some executives say.
“It’s good that we have an exceptionally strong order book, but we are, of course, trying to minimize any customer frustration,” Marc Bitzer, chief executive of appliance maker Whirlpool Corp. , said on a call last week with analysts.
After widespread plant closures this spring, manufacturers began bringing workers back in late May under new safety protocols, many scheduling overtime to make up for lost production.
But the restart efforts were slow-going at first, with suppliers also struggling to reopen and factories confronting high rates of worker absences.
It wasn’t until August that many U.S. factories were back to a normal level of production, but by then, demand had also bounced back faster than many had expected, depleting inventories and creating a bigger supply gap, executives and retailers say.
Auto makers, in particular, have been straining to keep up with demand for new vehicles as low interest rates, extra cash from stimulus checks and growing interest in owning a car have stoked sales.
Part of the problem is that auto makers continue to grapple with supply-chain shortages, particularly on items from Mexico, and aren’t always able to get parts needed for the features and configurations buyers want, analysts and executives say.
*****
Still more.
Friday, October 23, 2020
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