Donald Trump Needs Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin to Win the Electoral College Vote (VOTE)

The New York Times had this piece the other day, "Electoral Map Looks Challenging for Trump."

We're going to see lots of different "hot" takes on how the Electoral College will shape up for November, but for now just remember, it's a long way off until the general election. A lot can happen before then.

In any case, here's John King's argument, at CNN:

'When traditional religion is rejected, the odds are pretty good that something cultish will be chosen to replace it...'

Heh. So true.

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "CALIFORNIA VEGANS ASSEMBLE THE CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD: Top L.A. Vegan Restaurant Owners Receiving Death Threats for Slaughtering Animals."

Anne De Paula Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Casting Call 2017 (VIDEO)

More, early prep for next year!

Deal of the Day: Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny Desktop Computer

This is pretty cool.

At Amazon, Lenovo ThinkCentre M93p Desktop Computer - Intel Core i5 i5-4570T 2.90 GHz - Tiny - Business Black 10AA002CUS.

Also, Intex Pillow Rest Raised Airbed with Built-in Pillow and Electric Pump, Queen, Bed Height 16 1/2".

More, Yamaha NS-AW570BL Speaker (Black).

Plus, from Yuval Levin, The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left, and The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in the Age of Individualism.

Daron Acemoglu, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty.

Still more, from Don Watkins and Yaron Brook, Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality.

BONUS: John Micklethwait ane Adrian Wooldridge, The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State.

Mother's Day in Home, Garden, and Kitchen

At Amazon, Mother's Day Gift Guide.

Make Mother's Day Great Again https://t.co/d1cW1v9K8Y

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) May 6, 2016

Republican Field Began with 17 Candidates, and Trump's Branding of His Opponents Helped Knock Them Out of the Race (VIDEO)

Heh.

This is killer, lol.

 Is the American Party System About to Crack Up?

Here's Danielle Allen, at the Nation, "Communications Breakdown":

In 1999, the libertarian party helped transform American politics by launching a campaign that ultimately sent hundreds of thousands of e-mails to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to protest its proposed “know your customer” banking regulations. The FDIC withdrew the rules, and the era of digital politics was born. Roughly a decade later, social media propelled “birtherism” to the forefront of the national conversation, reinstating nativism as an active ideology in the United States. In 2009 came the Tea Party movement, followed by Occupy Wall Street in 2011, both of which drew on new online organizing mechanisms to build solidarity networks around a particular analysis of social reality. The question for students of American politics now is whether these changes can drive a fundamental realignment of our political parties.

Transformations in communications technology have made it more possible than ever before for dissenters from the Democratic and Republican parties to find one another and to form sizable communities of interest. The result is lowered barriers to entry for the work of political organization, with consequences announced daily in headlines about the 2016 presidential campaign. Insurgent candidates in both parties have drawn on the organizational power that has developed over the past decade within ideologically defined communities: Donald Trump has summoned the anger and xenophobia of the birthers, Bernie Sanders has channeled Occupy’s critique of rampant inequality, and Ted Cruz has marshaled the forces of the Tea Party universe. By attaching other groups of voters to their original, more ideologically concentrated constituencies, these candidates have achieved greater success in their respective primary campaigns than anyone thought possible just one year ago.

Regardless of whether they succeed in taking over their parties, these new coalitions have the potential to remake American politics if either the insurgents or the party faithful are driven to seek refuge in existing third parties or to create entirely new ones. For the 2016 campaign at least, that latter possibility is already foreclosed, so a takeover (hostile or otherwise) of a third party seems more likely—both the Libertarian Party and the Green Party can place candidates on the ballot in a significant number of states. Even so, our first-past-the-post electoral system makes it very hard for third parties to challenge the top two. Barring the emergence of new habits of collaboration and alliance formation among small parties, only a fundamental change to our system of voting—the introduction of proportional representation, for example—would allow for a more fluid political system to develop.

 Speculating on what the future holds for America’s political alignment requires thinking through a complex array of factors: voting rules, political egos, the time horizons of charismatic leaders, questions of succession, the intensity of various ideological commitments, and a famously mutable public opinion. What we are most likely to see is more of the new normal: incredibly bitter fights among plurality-sized groups for total—if temporary—control of one of the major parties. Will this also worsen gridlock at the national level, thereby exacerbating the intensity of those intraparty battles and further destabilizing our political system overall? If these dynamics play out simultaneously in both parties, the most unified side will triumph.

There's more, FWIW, from Rick Perlstein and Daniel Schlozman at the link.

Jackie Johnson Forecasts Possible Showers and Thunderstorms

Well, it was pretty lovely weather today, mostly overcast but cool and pleasant.

Here's the forecast though, via CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Elizabeth Hinton, From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime

This looks interesting -- especially as how I really need to get up on the academic debates on mass incarceration. It's all the rage on the left, and the idiot progs are obviously having a significant policy impact (considering how the Obama White House is releasing hardened criminals onto the streets, to say the least).

Out Tuesday, and available at Amazon, Elizabeth Hinton, From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America.

Happy #CincoDeMayo!

From The Donald, on Twitter:

Happy #CincoDeMayo! The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics! https://t.co/ufoTeQd8yA pic.twitter.com/k01Mc6CuDI

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 5, 2016

I'm not sure how well that Latino outreach is going, lol. But check Memeorandum, heh.

In the Mail: Matthew Desmond, Evicted

Crown Publishers sent me a copy of Matthew Desmond's fantastic new book, Evicted.

I've read the first couple of chapters and it's amazing. I'm going back to it as soon as I finish The Closing of the Liberal Mind.

Check it out, at Amazon, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City.

In this brilliant, heartbreaking book, Matthew Desmond takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge. Arleen is a single mother trying to raise her two sons on the $20 a month she has left after paying for their rundown apartment. Scott is a gentle nurse consumed by a heroin addiction. Lamar, a man with no legs and a neighborhood full of boys to look after, tries to work his way out of debt. Vanetta participates in a botched stickup after her hours are cut. All are spending almost everything they have on rent, and all have fallen behind.

The fates of these families are in the hands of two landlords: Sherrena Tarver, a former schoolteacher turned inner-city entrepreneur, and Tobin Charney, who runs one of the worst trailer parks in Milwaukee. They loathe some of their tenants and are fond of others, but as Sherrena puts it, “Love don’t pay the bills.” She moves to evict Arleen and her boys a few days before Christmas.

Even in the most desolate areas of American cities, evictions used to be rare. But today, most poor renting families are spending more than half of their income on housing, and eviction has become ordinary, especially for single mothers. In vivid, intimate prose, Desmond provides a ground-level view of one of the most urgent issues facing America today. As we see families forced into shelters, squalid apartments, or more dangerous neighborhoods, we bear witness to the human cost of America’s vast inequality—and to people’s determination and intelligence in the face of hardship.

Based on years of embedded fieldwork and painstakingly gathered data, this masterful book transforms our understanding of extreme poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving a devastating, uniquely American problem. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.

Rush Limbaugh: Donald Trump Will Crush Hillary Clinton in Landslide (AUDIO)

At Memeorandum, "Rush Limbaugh: My Gut: Trump Beats Hillary in Landslide."

How Donald Trump Staged a GOP Takeover

At WSJ, "How Trump Won — and How the GOP Let Him":

With his victory in Indiana, Donald Trump has seized a controlling stake in the Republican Party.

Back when few people took Donald Trump seriously as a potential presidential candidate, the New York businessman asked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his wife, Callista, to meet in Iowa. Over breakfast at the Des Moines Marriott Hotel in January 2015, Mr. Trump spent 45 minutes grilling Mr. Gingrich on his experience running for president.

“It was clear to me at the end of the talk that he was seriously considering it,” Mr. Gingrich said.

Yet two months later, in March 2015, three-quarters of Republican primary voters in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll said they couldn’t imagine supporting Mr. Trump for president. He was so marginal that during a candidate cattle call by the National Rifle Association the following month more people stayed to listen to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal than to Mr. Trump.

Most Republican leaders remained oblivious while Mr. Trump plotted the political equivalent of a corporate takeover. With his resounding victory Tuesday in Indiana, he has seized a controlling stake in the Republican Party with the backing of shareholders unhappy with previous management.

Mr. Trump, having driven out the last of his rivals, is now the party’s presumptive nominee—a jaw-dropping outcome that says as much about the GOP, caught in turmoil and transition, as it does about Mr. Trump.

Ever since their bitter 2012 presidential loss, Republican leaders and the party’s grass roots have been at odds, with rank-and-file voters angry at the failure of elites to deliver, and at odds over the issue of immigration. Mr. Trump found opportunity in the rupture.

Party leaders and the other GOP candidates almost unanimously underestimated Mr. Trump’s staying power. His rivals believed his provocative campaign would fail, a presumption that allowed him to run for months in a splintered field of competitors. Most were reluctant to attack, convinced they would scoop up his supporters when Mr. Trump’s campaign finally imploded.

Republicans proved vulnerable to his unconventional campaign style. As a skilled entertainment professional, he made himself ubiquitous. His audience seemed ready to forgive any outrageous comment or slip-up.

Mr. Trump dominated the campaign conversation with a communications-heavy strategy that relied on mass rallies, TV interviews and debates. That meant no polling, no analytics, little paid media, no consultants.

“This election isn’t about the Republican Party, it’s about me,” Mr. Trump said in an interview this week. “I’m very proud I proved an outsider can win by massive victories from the people, not from party elites or state delegates.”

Having dealt the GOP establishment its biggest defeat in decades, Mr. Trump said his mission wasn’t to change the party. He also doesn’t appear interested in whether the GOP can muster the kind of institutional support its presidential nominee normally receives...

Keep reading.

Deal of the Day: Singer 4423 Heavy Duty Sewing Machine

At Amazon, SINGER 4423 Heavy Duty Extra-High Sewing Speed Sewing Machine with Metal Frame and Stainless Steel Bedplate.

More, Up to 70% Off Easy Spirit Women's Shoes.

And for Mother's Day, IGI-Certified 18k White Gold Diamond Studs (1 cttw, H-I Color, SI1-SI2 Clarity).

Also, by Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity.

Still more, from Pat Buchanan, The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization.

Plus, from Ann Coulter, ¡Adios, America! The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole. (And, Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America.)

From Victor Davis Hanson, Mexifornia: A State of Becoming, and The Decline and Fall of California: From Decadence to Destruction (Kindle Edition).

BONUS: Mark Krikorian, The New Case Against Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal.

Okay, Started Reading, The Closing of the Liberal Mind [BUMPED]

I love Amazon.

I ordered Kim Holmes' new book on Thursday night when I got paid, with free shipping, and the package was delivered on Sunday!

Man, that was fast. And so cool too. I've been plowing through the pages!

I haven't been this excited about a new book for a year or two, and I can't recommend this one enough. It's explains very carefully the precise nature of the ideological threat we're facing, taking the argument right to the top of the Democrat Party hierarchy. Conservatives have a lot of work to do if they hope to reclaim some of the ideological space, and to save American politics from even much more dire straights in the years ahead.

Check it out, The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left.

Alexis Ren Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Casting Call 2017 (VIDEO)

Boy, they're getting an early start for next year!

Canada's Fort McMurray Engulfed in Flames (VIDEO)

Following-up, "Uncontrolled Wildfire Burns Near Fort McMurray, in Canada's Oil Sands Region, Force Residents to Flee (VIDEO)."

And at Rebel Media, "Rebuild Fort McMurray."

Uncontrolled Wildfire Burns Near Fort McMurray, in Canada's Oil Sands Region, Force Residents to Flee (VIDEO)

Via Telegraph UK:

Vox Day: 'Why I Support Donald Trump'

One of the better arguments for Trump I've read in recent weeks.

At Heat Street, "Vox Day of #Gamergate: Why I Support Donald Trump":

I am often asked why I, a Christian libertarian and intellectual, would publicly support Donald Trump, a man of no fixed ideology, no apparent religious beliefs, multiple marriages, visible ties to the Clintons, and whose taste and sophistication tends to resemble that of a nouveau riche rhinoceros. It is a reasonable question. After all, how can anyone support a candidate whose public statements are, to put it mildly, inconsistent—when they are not completely self-contradictory.

The answer is as simple as it is conclusive and convincing. Donald Trump is the only candidate in either major party whose personal interests are aligned with those of the American public rather than with the interests of the anti-nationalist elite who see America as nothing more than lines on a map and Americans as nothing more than 300 million economic units in the global economy.

The reason I trust Donald Trump, despite all his rhetorical meanderings, is that he is a traitor to his class. Unlike Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz, both ordinary people who sold their souls in order to be granted a seat at the table of the Great Game, Donald Trump was born a member of the elite and he has always been welcome in the inner circles of both political parties. When I met him in 1988, it was at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans, where he was the personal guest of George Bush in his private suite there. Like the Bushes, like the Clintons, Trump is truly neither Republican nor Democrat. He is a lifetime member of America’s bi-factional ruling party.

So Donald Trump was already a man of great wealth, influence, connections and power. He did not need to run for president in order to make a name for himself or to launch a public speaking career at $200,000 a pop. Nor does it make sense to claim that he is running for president in order to assuage his formidable ego. Quite to the contrary, he has been under furious attack and criticism from the media as well as from the wealthy elites his rivals are most desperate to please, and it is only his tremendous ego that permits him to survive it. He is enduring this relentless, bipartisan assault because the ruling party knows he has chosen the American people over them.

Ask yourself this: why did Donald Trump run for president in the first place? I believe that the real reason is that he, like you, is deeply concerned about the current state of the United States of America, and he, like you, fears for its future...

Still more.

Donald Trump in Control After Ted Cruz Exits GOP Presidential Race (VIDEO)

Boy, what a night.

My earlier comments on today's developments here, "Charles Krauthammer: The 'Stop Trump' Movement Died in Indiana (VIDEO)."

And here's the Wall Street Journal, "Donald Trump Gains Clear Path to Nomination":

CARMEL, Ind.—Donald Trump rolled to a decisive victory in Indiana’s Republican presidential primary Tuesday and his chief rival, Ted Cruz, dropped out of the race after earlier calling the front-runner a “pathological liar.”

Mr. Trump was on pace to win all of the state’s 57 delegates to the Republican National Convention, leaving him in a position to clinch the party’s nomination when the final primary contests are held June 7. Mr. Cruz finished in second place and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who made a deal with Mr. Cruz to not campaign in the state, was third.

Mr. Cruz told supporters Tuesday night that he was suspending his campaign. “Together we left it all on the field in Indiana. We gave it everything we got but the voters chose another path,” he said.

Earlier in the day, he launched a fusillade of attacks, calling the front-runner “utterly amoral,” a “narcissist,” a “serial philanderer” and a “pathological liar.”

Mr. Trump responded on Twitter: “Lyin’ Ted Cruz really went wacko today. Made all sorts of crazy charges. Can’t function under pressure—not very presidential. Sad!”

The extreme remarks reflected the stakes as the candidates turn to the final laps in a nominating contest that has defied convention, splintered the party, and left nearly two-thirds of all general election voters with a negative view of the likely standard-bearer before an expected showdown with Mrs. Clinton in November.

Nationwide, Mr. Trump is viewed unfavorably by 65% of voters, according to last month’s Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. That is higher than Mrs. Clinton, who is seen unfavorably by 56% of voters.

A sweep of the state’s delegates would leave Mr. Trump just 225 delegates short of the 1,237 required to clinch the party’s nomination. With nine states to go, including Nebraska and West Virginia next week and California on June 7, Mr. Trump would require less than half of the remaining bound delegates to become the nominee.

Katie Packer, who leads an anti-Trump super PAC that spent $1.3 million against Mr. Trump in Indiana, said in a memo that her group will continue to fight against the front-runner. “There is more than a month before the California primary—more time for Trump to continue to disqualify himself in the eyes of voters,” she wrote.

And John Weaver, the chief strategist for Mr. Kasich’s campaign, said the Ohio governor will soldier on. “Gov. Kasich will remain in the race unless a candidate reaches 1,237 bound delegates before the convention,” he said.

For Mr. Cruz, Tuesday’s contest had been his strongest opportunity to change the momentum of the GOP campaign. His team for weeks had pointed to the Midwestern state, comparing it to Wisconsin, where the Texas senator won a convincing victory over Mr. Trump last month.

But Mr. Cruz never gained traction in the state. A series of decisions designed to boost his prospects, including naming Carly Fiorina as his running mate, were seen by many voters more as acts of desperation than smart maneuvers...

Still more.