Californians Will Now Experience the Joys of One-Party, Union-Run Progressive Governance

I joked around earlier about the how California's the preview of a Democrat partisan realignment in --- and it ain't pretty. The Wall Street Journal lays out the case against unfettered blue-state radicalism, "California's Liberal Supermajority":

For Republicans unhappy with Tuesday's election, we have good news—at least most of you don't live in California. Not only did Democrats there win voter approval to raise the top tax rate to 13.3%, but they also received a huge surprise—a legislative supermajority. Look out below.

The main check on Sacramento excess has been a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds majority of both houses to raise taxes. Although Republicans have been in the minority for four decades, they could impose a modicum of spending restraint by blocking tax increases. If Democratic leads stick in two races where ballots are still being counted, liberals will pick up enough seats to secure a supermajority. Governor Jerry Brown then will be the only chaperone for the Liberals Gone Wild video that is Sacramento....

So now Californians will experience the joys of one-party, union-run progressive governance. Mr. Brown is urging lawmakers to demonstrate frugality and the "prudence of Joseph." As he said the other day, "we've got to make sure over the next few years that we pay our bills, we invest in the right programs, but we don't go on any spending binges." That's what all Governors say. Trouble is, merely paying the state's delinquent bills will require tens of billions in additional revenues if lawmakers don't undertake fiscal reforms.

The silver lining here is that Americans will be able to see the modern liberal-union state in all its raw ambition. The Sacramento political class thinks it can tax and regulate the private economy endlessly without consequence. As a political experiment it all should be instructive, and at least Californians can still escape to Nevada or Idaho.

With a Deep Sadness and No Little Fear

Hugh Hewitt's advice to glum conservatives, at IBD.

Looming Tax Hikes Come Into Focus After Obama's Win

At IBD, "Fiscal Cliff: Will Obama Yield On Tax Hikes In Time?":

Until President Obama's victory Tuesday, going over the fiscal cliff seemed like a distant possibility.

Reality may have begun to set in on Wednesday. Unless Obama yields, at least for now, on a central campaign plank — that taxes rise for higher earners — the Republican-led House will have little to gain by striking a deal before the tax cliff hits.
If tax hikes come to be seen as hurting the economy, the Republicans won't want to share responsibility.

The U.S. "may at least briefly go off the fiscal cliff at the end of the year," IHS Global Insight wrote. "This would be a recipe for turmoil in the financial markets, and would threaten such a severe shock to the economy that the pressure to come to some sort of compromise would be extreme."

Come Jan. 1, a series of tax hikes would take effect totaling $400 billion through the end of fiscal 2013 — just nine months.

On top of that, automatic spending cuts would kick in on Jan. 2, divided between the Pentagon and domestic programs. Extended jobless benefits would lapse and Medicare would slash payments to physicians.

Over the full year, the combined tax hike and spending cut would be at least 4% of GDP.

RTWT.

And see NYT, "Lawmakers Say They See Rising Urgency on Fiscal Deal."

Bill Whittle: An Unmitigated Disaster for This Country

This "Hot Seat with Bill Whittle" has some double meaning, since Bill's in the "hot seat" after being one who long ago predicted a tea party rout against the Obama regime. Another prediction bit the dust on Tuesday.

Resist Republican Despair

I think most folks are getting over this and tooling up for the long battle ahead, and I think Laura Ingraham evokes an excellent message (although scapegoating George W. Bush isn't helpful, especially in national security).

Kenneth Turan Reviews 'Lincoln'

At the Los Angeles Times, "Review: Steven Spielberg's 'Lincoln' a towering achievement":

Hollywood's most successful director turns on a dime and delivers his most restrained, interior film. A celebrated playwright shines an illuminating light on no more than a sliver of a great man's life. A brilliant actor surpasses even himself and makes us see a celebrated figure in ways we hadn't anticipated. This is the power and the surprise of "Lincoln."

Directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Tony Kushner and starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president of the United States, "Lincoln" unfolds during the final four months of the chief executive's life as he focuses his energies on a dramatic struggle that has not previously loomed large in political mythology: his determination to get the House of Representatives to pass the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery.

This narrow focus has paradoxically enabled us to see Lincoln whole in a way a more broad-ranging film might have been unable to match. It has also made for a movie whose pleasures are subtle ones, that knows how to reveal the considerable drama inherent in the overarching battle of big ideas over the amendment as well as the small-bore skirmishes of political strategy and the nitty-gritty scramble for congressional votes.

Continue reading.

Vote Fraud in Philadelphia?

This story was bubbling up all day yesterday, although Weasel Zippers has the hot headline, "Philly Polling Stations Where GOP Inspectors Were Kicked Out Had 90% Voter Turnout, 99% Voted For Obama…"

And see the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Vote was astronomical for Obama in some Philadelphia wards."

The article takes the Democrat numbers in good faith. The rest of us know better.

Democrat Civility: Dead Pig in Romney T-Shirt Left at GOP Headquarters in Manhattan Beach (VIDEO)

No note was attached, but a dead pig, wrapped in barbed wire and wearing a Mitt Romney t-shirt, needs no further intimidating warnings.

At KABC-TV Los Angeles, "Dead pig left at Republican HQ in Manhattan Beach":

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. (KABC) -- A dead pig clad in a Mitt Romney T-shirt was left at a Republican campaign office in Manhattan Beach.

Manhattan Beach Police had to discard the pig's head and its feet in a trash bin, but not before several passersby saw it.

"I thought it was a dead body because of the way he approached it," said Manhattan Beach resident Andy Gaeta. "And then when he lifted the shirt, he saw the head wrapped in barbed wire and it's cut in half, the whole skull was. It looked like something from a butcher's market."

The pig was laid out at the doorstep of the Republican headquarters on Highland Avenue.

Tom Scully saw the display about 6:30 a.m. while he was out walking his dog.

"When I got closer I was like, 'Oh, this is kind of gross. There was like barbed wire on its head. It's nasty," said Scully.

Manhattan Beach Police Animal Control later removed the trash bin containing the pig's remains, taking it as evidence. Police say they're investigating the incident as an "illegal dumping of an animal carcass."

According to a police sergeant, they have no evidence suggesting any other crime was committed at this point...

There's video at the link.

No, not a crime, but pure Democrat villainy and hypocrisy no matter how bloodily you slice it.

The president who implored the nation toward greater civility after the Gabby Giffords shooting now has partisans exacting their "revenge" with macabre gangland-style political thuggery. It's going to be a long four years.

In Elections Since 1896, Obama Ranks 22nd Out of 30 in Size of Electoral College Majority

O's so-called "mandate" election doesn't seem all that impressive in historical context. See John Pitney, "Obama's Electoral Vote in Historical Perspective":

The 2012 race was the thirtieth presidential contest since 1896, which many scholars use as the beginning of "modern politics." If we look at those 30 contests, we find that the mean winning percentage of the electoral vote is 73.43% and the median is 71.27%.

In other words, President Obama's share of the electoral vote is below average for winning candidates. It ranks twenty-second out of thirty.

The data are displayed at the post.

Data Show Tectonic Shifts

I've been using the concept of plate tectonics in my discussions of Tuesday's elections. I'm seeing the term thrown out elsewhere as well, although I think it's better to really get a handle on the scope of things before jettisoning the demographic narrative outright, as some on the right are suggesting. That's not to say folks should cave to the left's demographics-is-destiny thesis. These idiots will call you racist no matter what you do. The point is to consider the real demonstrable shifts that are taking place. Here's this, from the Wall Street Journal, to that end, "Vote Data Show Changing Nation":

President Barack Obama's election victory exposed tectonic demographic shifts in American society that are reordering the U.S. political landscape.

The 2012 presidential election likely will be remembered as marking the end of long-standing coalitions, as voters regroup in cultural, ethnic and economic patterns that challenge both parties—but especially Republicans.

Older voters and white working-class voters, once core elements of the Democratic Party, have drifted into the Republican column. Rural and small-town voters, whose grandparents backed the New Deal, now fill the swath of the U.S. that leans reliably GOP.

But in cities and dynamic suburbs, a rapidly growing force of Latinos, Asian-Americans, African-Americans and higher-income whites emerged this week as the strength of Mr. Obama's winning Democratic coalition.

"The Democrats now own a coalition of emerging metro areas where the whites and minorities live together, and where they vote Democratic," said Robert Lang, a demographer who directs the Brookings Mountain West, a research center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

In northern Virginia's Fairfax County, for example, Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly represents a district where 20 years ago, he said, 3% of residents were born outside the U.S. Now, it is nearly 30%, with the majority Asian immigrants.

Mr. Obama won big there Tuesday, helping him to tally the once reliably Republican state of Virginia for the second straight general election.

Similar shifts throughout the U.S. help explain how Mr. Obama was returned to the White House on support from young people, minorities, women and upscale whites, a coalition virtually identical to the one that carried him to victory four years ago.

Some political analysts thought that coalition came together only because of the historic nature of Mr. Obama's 2008 victory and wouldn't prove durable. That belief didn't hold up this week.

The question now is whether Mr. Obama and other members of his party can solidify this coalition into a foundation of the Democratic Party.

Republicans said their party won a smashing victory in congressional elections just two years ago, when they took control of the House of Representatives, illustrating that there is no clear claim for either party.

The 2010 election, they said, shows that even with modest inroads among Latino and Asian-American voters, the GOP can build a solid majority on the foundation of its strong white support. Republicans enjoy historically high levels of control over governorships and state legislatures, which they say shows the party's potential if it can improve its message to minorities.

In any case, both Democrats and Republicans see new contours of a split electorate.

I've placed in bold a key point I raised as well, in my essay, "Democrat Partisan Relignment."

More later...

Do Dems Really Have an Emerging Majority?

From Megan McArdle, at The Daily Beast, "Is Demography Destiny?"

There's no pullout quote so read it all at the lnk. She's skeptical and raises a lot of provocative issues.

And see William Jacobson as well, "Hope already on the horizon":

I will have more in coming days on the flawed demographic narrative.

You know, the one which liberals love to push particularly since Tuesday that because the percentage of non-white people is growing, Republicans are doomed. Because skin color is destiny to them.

I'll be interested to see how all the numbers shake out. But two things I know. (1) If California's a model for the Democrats nationally, I wouldn't discount the realignment thesis too quickly. Republicans are facing a tough political environment. (2) That said, Americans can't keep spending like a drunken sailor (or they can't keep having bare-backer sex like a Castro District homosexual, to choose a different metaphor) without the bills coming due. Something will change. Political alignments could shift. And the Republicans could once again lead the charge toward both good government and political sanity.

I too will have more on this. I think there's more to the demographic tide than left wing talking points. Tuesday was a big election. It wasn't just that Romney was a flawed candidate or what have you. There's some tectonic shifts taking place. Conservatives indeed have some serious thinking ahead of them.

Voters Reject Death Penalty Repeal in California

The defeat of Proposition 34 was one bright spot in an otherwise deathly blue election in California on Tuesday.

At the Los Angeles Times, "California death penalty repeal, Proposition 34, rejected."

And see, "Californians say they oppose death penalty, then vote for it":

The Field Poll has been querying Californians on the death penalty for more than 50 years, and in 2011 there was a notable shift. Although 68% of respondents said they were in favor of keeping capital punishment, a percentage that had fluctuated only slightly since 2002, the answers grew more interesting when the question was phrased a different way. Asked whether they would rather sentence killers to life without parole or the death penalty, a significant majority of Californians in 2011 said they preferred the former -- 48% favored life imprisonment vs. 40% for state-sponsored execution. Since the poll started asking this question in 2000, death had always trumped a life-in-prison sentence.

Proposition 34 would have done precisely what voters in 2011 said they wanted, resentencing the 726 death row inmates to life without the possibility of parole and eliminating capital punishment as an option in future cases. Yet the initiative lost, 52.8% to 47.2%. What happened?

It's possible the 2011 poll just wasn't all that accurate. Or maybe voters changed their minds when the possibility of ending the death penalty wasn't just theoretical but real. Or perhaps some version of the Bradley effect was at play: Under this theory, white voters are sometimes inclined to tell pollsters they intend to vote for a black candidate even though they don't intend to do so. Similarly, a voter whose brain tells him the death penalty is a seldom-carried-out waste of taxpayer money that risks the execution of an innocent person -- but whose gut tells him that an eye for an eye is the true definition of justice -- might be inclined to tell pollsters that his brain is in charge. Once in the voting booth, the bile takes over.

Wrong. It wasn't that. The freak progressives always blame it on RAAAAACISM!!

No, it was an aggressive blitz by No on 34 forces that powerfully exposed the moral bankruptcy of the initiative. Heinous murderers were about to have their death sentences commuted. The voters woke up when confronted with the brutal truth about progressive "compassion." There is hope toward stemming the tide against the bloody brutal wave of progressive decadence and decay. Conservatives can't sit around and pout. They've got to redouble the fight, even in the bluest of (black and) blue states like California.

More at the San Jose Mercury News, "Death penalty proposition: Statement from No on Prop 34."

America Goes Into the Darkness

From the inimitable Melanie Phillips:

Four years ago, America put into the White House a sulky narcissist with an unbroken history of involvement in thuggish, corrupt, far-left, black power, Jew-bashing, west-hating politics. Obama’s agenda has been crystal clear from the get-go: to increase the power of the state over the citizen at home, and to neutralise American power abroad. Four more years of this and he’ll almost certainly have succeeded.  The impact upon western security could be cataclysmic.

Britain and the Europeans love Obama because they think he will end American exceptionalism and turn the US into a pale shadow of themselves. What they don’t realise is that, all but lobotomised by consumerist rights, state dependency, victim culture, sentimentality, post-religion, post-nationalism and post-Holocaust and Empire guilt, Britain and Europe are themselves fast going down the civilisational tubes.

Romney lost because he refused to provide an alternative to any of this for fear of being labelled a warmonger, flint-heart or social reactionary. He refused to engage with any of the issues that made this Presidential election so truly momentous. Up against the bullying of the totalitarian left, he ran for cover. He played safe, and as a result only advertised his own weakness and dishonesty. Well, voters can smell inconsistency from a mile away; they call it untrustworthiness, and they are right.

Romney lost because, like Britain’s Conservative Party, the Republicans just don’t understand that America and the west are being consumed by a culture war. In their cowardice and moral confusion, they all attempt to appease the enemies within. And from without, the Islamic enemies of civilisation stand poised to occupy the void.

With the re-election of Obama, America now threatens to lead the west into a terrifying darkness.

'There is much to life beyond politics...'

Ann Althouse offers some consolation, at Instapundit, "THANKS TO GLENN..."

And from Ann's blog, "'Listen, I like stopping by Althouse, but let's get real. Althouse and Meade are living a high-income, privileged life that many of us can only dream about'."

Gay Marriage Victories May Signal Larger Shift

Perhaps broader social acceptance of homosexuality is genuinely breaking through. The gay marriage movement saw some of its first state-level victories on Tuesday night. Progressive depravity is getting a pass at the polls.

At the Los Angeles Times:

Four years ago, opponents of gay marriage celebrated a winning streak, having persuaded California voters to end marriage rights for gays. If courts or legislatures bowed to the pro-marriage forces, the opposition figured it could just go to the ballot box to restore marriage bans.

But all that changed Tuesday, when gay marriage supporters succeeded in the four states where the question was on the ballot. Until then, voters had consistently opposed marriage rights, most recently in May in North Carolina.

The opposing sides differed on the significance, with Christian conservatives considering the election a blip and gay rights activists describing it as a monumental sea change. But the results emboldened activists to target other states for marriage rights and left their opponents reeling.

Gay rights activists singled out President Obama's change of heart in favor of same-sex marriage as a key ingredient in Tuesday's victories. Just four years ago, the sponsors of Proposition 8's ban on same-sex marriage made robocalls to California homes with a recording of Obama saying he opposed gay nuptials.

"His shift caused a lot of other politicians to feel free to change their positions as well and made it easier for African American churches to change their positions," said Jon W. Davidson, legal director for Lambda Legal, a gay rights organization.

With election victories in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington, gay rights activists said Wednesday that they would focus next on winning marriage rights both in the federal courts and in state legislatures, which could include states such as Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii and Illinois.

"When you have momentum on your side, it's the time to double down," said Chad Griffin, who launched the legal fight against Proposition 8. "That's exactly what we've got to do: We've got to take this momentum and move forward."

RELATED: "Bishop E.W. Jackson: ‘It Is Time For a Mass Exodus from the Democrat Party’."

BONUS: "Gay Marriage is Not a Civil Right."

Against Despair

From Jonah Goldberg, at National Review:

I’ll be blunt: I do not think Mitt Romney ran a good campaign. Don’t get me wrong, I think he worked his heart out as did many who worked for him. I think he made himself into the best candidate he could (which is different from saying he was a great candidate). But I also think that Romney’s theory of the contest was wrong. As I wrote at the time, the Republican convention was a mess. I think Romney strategist Stu Stevens’s contempt for ideas — never mind conservative ideas — was absurd. I think the failure of the Romney campaign to offer a compelling explanation of any kind (at least until the second debate) for how it wasn’t a third Bush term was fatal (as I discussed here and elsewhere). Politics is about persuasion. And persuasion requires making serious arguments. Stevens, by all accounts, has contempt for serious arguments.

None of this means that all of the talk about changing demographics and long-term structural challenges for the GOP is without merit. I have strong views about all of that as well.

In fact, I have a different view from some about the coming wave of recriminations: I welcome it. I don’t know that things need to be vicious or personal, but they do need to be honest. And honesty requires we say things that may feel personal to our friends. This is one of the great and abiding strengths of the conservative movement and the thing I love about it most. Contrary to the conventional wisdom among liberals, conservatives are actually far more willing to examine their dogma and their first principles than liberals or “centrists” are. This has been the source of conservatism’s lasting strength.

It’s going to take a while to sort through this mess...

I like that part about Mitt's seriously flawed campaign.

I said so much in September, although Mitt's debate performances were excellent (even the third debate, which Bill O'Reilly pegged as weak and costing Romney the election, which is absurd).

But read Goldberg's piece in full, at the link.

Obama Supporters Celebrate: 'No More Israel...'

This brief video clip is truly a microcosm of the future of our country. Conservative despair needs no explanation when you have such ready examples of the Obama coalition's human pustules.

From Anne Sorock, at Rebel Pundit (via Memeorandum):

David Horowitz's Post-Election Epistle

At my inbox yesterday, from the David Horowitz Freedom Center:

Dear Donald,

Watching last night's returns, conservative commentators talked mournfully about how America is a changed country—demographically, culturally, and most of all morally. Because of these changes, we are no longer the country we have always been.

We don't buy it. Yes, America is a divided country. But half of the people are holding fast to traditional values and voting no to policies that are leading to bankruptcy at home and defeat abroad. To believe, moreover, that the other half has turned its back forever on our national ideals and national greatness would be to sell them and America short.

It would also be selling short those of us who are willing to take the fight to the left to defend this country; it would be to give up on our ability to change minds with the power of our ideas.

What lies ahead is not only an opportunity to change the course on which we are headed but a solemn obligation to our children and to ourselves. We must educate more Americans about the threats to our liberty at home and abroad. That is what the Freedom Center has always done; it is not only our mission but our reason for being. It is what we intend to do—now more than ever.

To take one example of why this election is not a verdict on America: We are in the midst of a global war against Islamic fascism; our government has been penetrated by Islamists; our president has abetted the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East and the spread of al-Qaeda terrorism in Libya, Mali, Syria and elsewhere. Our ambassador in Benghazi has been murdered along with three heroic Americans who gave their lives defending our consulate but whom our government refused to deploy our military forces to save. Our president has surrendered Iraq to Iran and has passively abetted the mullahs in their pursuit of nuclear weapons. Yet none of these horrific events were issues in the election. Despite the fact that they are the key responsibility of the president who is our commander-in-chief.

The Center's mission is to educate the American public in these realities, to school conservatives in the nature of the left and its plans for the American future.

Today is a time to think about what just happened to our country. But, more importantly, it is a time to renew the fight to save it. That fight is against a leftist media and educational system; against the socialist policies that seek to fundamentally transform our economy and political system; against the appeasement of our enemies and the weakening of our allies like the state of Israel; and the fight is against the Islamists and their progressive allies who wish to silence our free speech by reviving blasphemy laws and embargoing criticism of America's enemies. These are the issues that face us and the ground on which we must fight.

We at the Freedom Center know the left too well to think that this fight will be easy. Today I received an email from someone describing himself as a "Pitchfork Patriot." The note said: "I was wrong — not by that much. That is no consolation. Losing sucks. I am out of politics for awhile — Maybe a long while." This is exactly the wrong attitude to take out of yesterday's election. What kind of pitchfork patriot throws in the towel after an election in which half the country voted no to the policies that are leading us down the path to bankruptcy at home and defeat abroad? If George Washington's troops had decided to take a break from the cause during the grim and losing years of the revolutionary war, would there have been an America at all?

Think of this moment as the middle of the war to save our country. The David Horowitz Freedom Center is ready to fight if you will continue to support us. Its mission of educating Americans to the nature of the enemy and the battle lines that have been drawn is more needed than ever. Please use the form attached to make your contributions and to divert some of the money that the Obama government will otherwise take and invest it in the cause of defending our liberty and country.

Sincerely,

David Horowitz

The Real Tears Are Only Just Beginning

Via Instapundit, "REASON TV: Sorry little girl, but while the election may be over, the real tears are only just beginning."

NewsBusted: 'President Obama Re-Elected...'

Hey, laughter's the best medicine, via Theo Spark: