Merry Christmas Everyone!

Merry Christmas, everyone.  I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a great new year.  Enjoy your time with your family and friends!

Andrew

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Some Election Follow Up

There has been quite a bit of election news under the radar, so I thought I would get you all up to date.

1. Republicans seem finally to be getting how much of a disaster Trump caused the GOP. I think he's done. But we'll see... cockroaches and all. Biden trying to elevate Marjorie Green is pretty good evidence that Trump is old news and he needs a new lunatic to shadowbox, so is the dismissive tenor of the news articles about him lately. It's also a good sign that several governors are starting to get good press. The latest to be recognized nationally are the Governor of Virginia and the retired Governor of Maryland.

2. Sinema left the Democratic Party, as you may have heard. I'm not sure if you heard why. The reason she left is that she realized she could not win the Democratic primary next cycle because their party no longer tolerates anything but raving lunatics. She had something like 17% support in the party. She's betting that she can win over Arizonans by being a moderate liberal and beating the clowns to left of her and the next joker on the right. It's a hard road to go, but it's honestly her only option at this point. Do I think it might work? Eh. It has a chance. The Dems and the Repubs will play into her hands and nominate lunatics, and she can leverage her fame to make the whole thing plausible... but in the modern era, people tend to vote out of utter terror that the other side will win. That doesn't bode well for her wedging off people from both parties. Ultimately, I think she sinks.

3. There are people speculating Joe Manchin will jump next, but there's no reason for him to do that. West Virginians are not as party-bound as people in other states. They vote for whoever brings the most bucks back to the state, and Manchin is good at that. Plus, he's generally liked in the state and I think people will vote for him no matter what party he is in, i.e. he doesn't need to fear the state's rightward drift. At the same time, the Dems in West Virginia aren't California Dems, they are coal mine worker Dems who purr when you whisper union words. He fits that demographic perfectly.

4. There was this fascinating 'ha ha' article from MSNBC claiming that the GOP's supposed surge with Hispanics didn't happen as planned. The thing is, all the evidence they cite suggests a continued rightward drift of Hispanics. They noted that (1) Hispanics voted in "roughly" the same percentages as last time -- meaning we kept the increased numbers we got last time, (2) Florida had to be excluded to make the article work because Hispanics in Florida did jump right in vast numbers, and (3) wherever the Dems outspent the GOP by 5 to 1, Hispanic numbers did not increase, but anything less than that did show a GOP drift - which is hardly a ringing endorsement of MSNBC's point. They did note that in Pennsylvania, Puerto Ricans still voted in large numbers for the Dems.

So... the GOP kept the significant gains they made last time, made small improvements across the country except with Puerto Ricans, and dominated Florida. That sounds kind of like GOP improvement, especially as the GOP made big gains throughout South Texas. Not to mention, realignments don't happen all at once. It took 30-40 years for the Democratic South to become the Republican South. We've seen a huge jump for 8-10 years already. And don't forget, the overall numbers are so close nationally that even a couple percentage points makes a huge difference. I think this bodes well.

5. Most fascinating of all, young people (those under 29) shifted right significantly. During Biden v. Trump, the gap was +25 Biden in that age group. This time it was +12 Dems. That means the gap got cut in half. What makes this even more interesting is that these people are the most woke too. I wonder if we're looking at some sort of anti-woke backlash? One thing is for sure, Biden's student loan bribe didn't work.

All told this is good news. So long as the House GOP doesn't, uh, defecate the bed, then things are looking good for the next election cycle and possibly the future overall. They need to not fight, pass an agenda (knowing the Dems will kill it) and not get sucked into being pissy. We shall see.

Thoughts?

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Thoughts On The Shooting

Many thoughts on the "Gay club shooter." Here goes:

First, I am sickened by all the killings these days. But unlike the Democrats, I don't only care about the ones I think I can exploit. I am sickened by the shootings. I am sickened by the knifings. I am sickened by the subway pushers, the drive-by killers of children, the thugs who shoot McDonald's workers, the "friends" who beat another friend to death in hotel rooms. There is something sick in the human race right now and trying to exploit it to scare certain demographics is disgusting.

Secondly, it's disgusting how the leftist media bends and distorts people's histories to try to make violence seem like a conservative thing. They ignore violence by people in favored groups, redefine left as right, ignore obvious leftist backgrounds in criminals, and race to accuse conservatives no matter how obviously false the accusation all in the service of exploitation. They are propagandists like the Nazis and the communists, nothing less.

Selective liberal outrage is an endorsement.

Third, the problem with this little f*cker is not conservatism. The problem is trash. This kid and his family are trash. His father is a drug-addicted porn star. His mother is a petty criminal. His grandparents had custody. He is a heroin addict with run-ins with the law and delusions of potency. That's who most of these losers are these days. These people do not come from well-adjusted homes. They come from welfare, broken homes. They come from drugs and failed schools and value-less upbringings. They come from schools that cannot correct, a legal system which will not punish, and CPS which looks the other way almost every time. These are the institutions liberals have neutered over the past 70 years in the name of inclusion. Add to this poisonous cocktail that leftist Hollywood sells deadly violence as heroic, as the answer to problems, and the leftist media fetishize these people as celebrities. That's why this crap is happening and why it will never end. The left has created a class of these creatures. The attempt to blame guns is an attempt to evade responsibility for some very uncomfortable truths.

Fourth, this crap keeps happening in Colorado Springs, but these people are all out of staters. For some reason, Colorado has become the destination of choice for white trash fleeing warrants from the midwest and Californians. Californians are bad people, pure and simple. Something has gone wrong in that state and it is producing wannabes and ego-mad narcissists who think they're road warriors. This kid is one of those. My city is full of clones just like him.

Fifth, it is now being reported that the kid is "non-binary." Wow, really? Who could have known? Well... here's the thing. If this dumbass wanted to shoot up a gay bar to make a point, he wouldn't have picked some tiny, obscure bar in a back-alley strip mall across town from where he lived (I used to bowl near there). There are plenty of much bigger, more prominent places to attack. Why did no one ask that question before they assumed a motive? Why did no one ask: why this place? It honestly always seemed to me the kid is probably a latent homosexual (or an open one) who probably had a bad experience there. Now it's coming out that he was bullied for being gay and he claims to be nonbinary. That does not make him an anti-gay Republican. It makes him an unstable homosexual. If the media had used its brains rather than its ideology to report on this, they might have gotten that from the beginning. But they didn't and Biden and Pelosi and other Nazicrats exploited this creature of their making to smear half the population. It's time for this to stop. All of it.

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Post Election Thoughts

So I'm kind of depressed about the election. I actually think the GOP will get the Senate in the run-off (I think we win Nevada), but the whole election was a disaster. What's worse, too many people are learning the wrong lessons. That said, some aren't. Either way, here are some good things and bad things.

1. The election was a disaster. Let's be honest. In this environment and being a midterm, we should have crushed the Democrats. Inflation at 40 year worst. Recession. Job losses starting. Real wages in the toilet (worst in over 40 years). Housing market falling. Threat of nuclear war. Pandemics everywhere and the Democratic mishandling of the pandemics becoming obvious. And the Democrats were way off message, pushing stuff that turned people off. And yet... we lost. We lost tons of very winnable seats. That is a disaster.

2. So why did we lose? Hmm. Could it be that the candidates who lost largely had something in common? People like the Trump-backed election denier General in New Hampshire, the Trump-backed election denier news anchor in Arizona, the Trump-backed election denier Governor candidate in Pennsylvania, the Trump-backed veteran in Ohio who lied about serving in Afghanistan and who attended the January 6 jerk off festival, the Trump-backed hardcore MAGA candidates for Governor in Massachusetts and Maryland, the Trump-backed quack doctor in Pennsylvania, the Trump-backed election denying candidate for Governor in Wisconsin. Gosh, I feel like there must be some common thread, but I just can't quite put my finger on it.

Will history repeat in 2024? There are a lot of GOP people and news organizations pushing hard to dump Trump and switch to DeSantis, but the Trumpees I've talked to already think the problem was not enough Trump. Of course.

3. Colorado is lost. The numbers are shocking. We've gone from a slight Republican lead to a 200,000 statewide advantage for the Democrats. It's the millions of Californians who moved in. They are terrible people and they're highly destructive, and they vote Democrat. Colorado is as blue as California now.

As an aside, they voted to allow magic mushrooms because Californians do like their drugs. They also apparently like homelessness, petty crime and DUIs. Who knew that Portland was a good model for Colorado to follow?

4. I think Hispanics are actually shifting. Without that, Texas would be much bluer, Nevada would not be competitive, and Florida would not have been such a blowout. That is good.

5. DeSantis really proved his abilities yesterday. He built an incredible coalition. He makes me hopeful.

6. I think abortion played at the edges of this election, but wasn't what hurt the GOP. That was candidates and the big orange narcissist who would not shut up throughout the race. That said, please note that wherever it went before the people, the pro-abortion side won clearly. Even in Kentucky.

7. I suspect Walker will win the runoff. It never should have been that close though. That issue aside, the win by (anti-Trump) Kemp makes me happier about Georgia's future. It seemed to be slipping to blue, much like Virginia, as transplants flood Atlanta. But last night was a good sign that it could still be red.

8. Now the bad news. There is a lot of bad news coming in terms of jobs and inflation and housing. Now that the GOP will be taking the House (and maybe the Senate) they become the easy target for blame for that. They need to do their best to at least look proactive and like the responsible adults. I don't know if that's possible given the number of lunatics they still have to placate, but we'll see.

Thoughts?

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Your Guide to Voting

What a complex time to be an "unbiased" journalist. You need to rush out all those last minute articles trying to lionize various Democrats. You need to hit print on those smears on GOP candidates you've been holding. Have to do rush jobs to cover-up and dismiss whatever piles of crap the Democrats have stuck their feet into at the last minute. Sure, you finished all those articles about how racism, rape and sexual harassment, and global changing are killing us all, but did you write enough? How about an article on voter suppression to stir up the peoples of color? Then you need to brace yourself. You've done all you could to be unbiased, but things could still go wrong.

In fact, you know they will. You've seen the internal polls your organization keeps hidden from the public. And you've been writing articles walking a fine line between scaring Democrats into voting without trying to make it seem hopeless, but for some reason they aren't turning out. Must be GOP suppression. What's more, those damn morons don't seem to be getting it. Women voting Republican? That's like roaches voting for raid. Don't they know the Republicans will end democracy, re-institute slavery and force every woman to get pregnant and have children to support their Nazi-like dreams as they happily turn the planet into an unlivable ocean one degree hotter than today? How can they not know that? They should. You've written about that every day for years now! In an unbiased way, of course -- seriously, we all know every white, male Republican wants to be a rapist slave holder. Fact. Why aren't people getting it? Don't they know Republicans are just fearmongers?

And WTF is it with this crime issue? Sure, murder and rape have doubled in every big liberal city while not rising in conservative cities, but that's a coincidence. Our progressive prosecutors letting all those people go has nothing to do with it. Anyone can see that. After all, some leftist friends of mine (but then I repeat myself) did a study and found crime is higher in red states. Red states with big blue cities, but red states. Besides, what's a few deaths and rapes anyways? It keeps the people needing government for their protections. Morons.

Anyways, time to get the game face on. Time to go on TV and write some more "we saw this coming" articles laying this at the feet of Biden and white women. Gotta remember to use the following guide to maintain our unbiased standing:

Terrible night = Democrats losing
A real miracle = Democrats losing by only a little

Bad candidate = Democrat who loses
Public simply doesn't want = Republican who loses
Expected = some Democrat we knew would lose but tried hard to sell
Failure = failure of the moron voters to understand

Republican violence = real or imagined crime against Democrats
Epidemic of violence = includes violence against both sides
Alleged = claims of violence against Republicans
intimidation = anything that might scare some Democrat

Legal challenges have begun = both sides filed suit
Republicans attempting to overturn = only Republicans filed
Democrats defending rights = only Democrats filed

celebrity = famous Republicans
billionaire = rich people who support Republicans
philanthropist = famous or rich people who support Democrats

Hate = always Republicans Fear = always Republicans Genuine = Democrat only

That should do it.

Post your election thoughts here...

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Just A Guess, But...

From what I'm seeing, the House is guaranteed. Despite it being heavily Gerrymandered (yes, Democrats are the masters of Gerrymandering despite whining about it... look at Illinois which is 13-5 Democrats or California 42-11 or New York 19-8), the Republicans will likely gain 20 seats in the House. The Senate has always looked tougher, but things are moving in the right direction. Here are my predictions for the competitive states based on the momentum and polls and behind the scenes spending and things I'm seeing:

Washington State (crazy it's even in question, but it scared the donks): Democrats keep
Colorado: Democrats keep
Arizona: Democrats keep

Georgia: Run-off. Too hard to tell. Walker should have been blown out.

New Hampshire: Republicans win
Nevada: Republicans win

Pennsylvania: Republicans keep
Ohio: Republicans keep
Wisconsin: Republicans keep
North Carolina: Republicans keep
Florida: Republicans keep (never really in question despite media claims)

So the Republicans win two seats with one more possible and swing the Senate their way 52-48 with a chance at 53-47. Should have been better if we had better candidates, but still an impressive defeat for Biden and the Crimeocrats. Based on my thoughts about a year ago, the Republicans are doing better in the Senate than expected, but the house is basically as predicted.

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A Public Service Message From The Unbiased Media

PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK Thank God for the PELOSI ATTACK! Vote for the Democrats to stop violence!*

Forget inflation, the recession, the army of lies and smears, the worship of abortion without limits, the tax hikes, the use of political power to shut down opposition and harass average people (Elon Musk is a Saudi Lover anyways -- investigate him at the stake!!!), the coming failure of our electricity system on the alter of false science, the laughable response to covid, the exploitation of natural disasters and threats to the United States, the burning of cities, the homeless epidemic, the rise in crime not at all caused by defunding the cops and progressive prosecutors (formerly known as cause and effect), the pouring of tax dollars into rich people's and company pockets (formerly known as Fascism), race baiting and race hate advocacy (formerly known as racism), massive corruption, a nepotistic media, election fraud and election denial (formerly known as "the Resistance" or the Gore Campaign), open borders, advocating child molestation for "minor attracted persons" pretending to be trans, pushing drug use for all "responsible" adults //wink wink nudge nudge, guilty until proven innocent for sex crimes, new sex crimes based on creepiness, canceling those with undesirable views (formerly known as McCarthyism or Nazism), letting crazies kill women on subways, cancelling women... sorry, "persons who menstrate", and silencing those with dissenting opinions.

Forget all that. Vote Democrat! Save us all!

PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK PELOSI ATTACK!

* Statement does not apply to actual criminal violence or violence by left-leaning political groups.

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Hypocrite Much?

The last couple weeks have been awash in liberal hypocrisy. Imagine that.

First, we have Hillary Clinton complaining that the midterms and 2024 elections will be rigged by the vast right wing conspiracy. And here I thought only Trump was the "election denier"? Well, the truth is the Democrats have long been the leaders of the flat earth election society. Gore sued to try to overturn Bush's election and the left has long maintained that Bush "stole" the election even after the leftwing Washington Post examined all the ballots and found Bush actually won by more than was reported. They continued to call him illegitimate until 9/11 and kept claiming he stole the election even after that.

Almost every time Democrats lose an election since 2000, they've lawyered up, accused local officials of cheating, and fought in court.

They have long called the Electoral College illegitimate and have been trying to subvert the vote in states they control to conform to California's votes. Remember how they claimed Trump must have stolen the election and squealed "Not my President!" And now Hillary is saying the same stupid crap Trump is.

Yet, Republicans are the deniers? Republicans are the ones smearing Democracy? I think not.

Then there's this: liberals are mocking Republicans because some of them want to cut off funding for Ukraine's defense. Bad Republicans. Only... a bunch of Democrats just sent a letter to Biden demanding that he insist Ukraine negotiate a peace with Putin (a war criminal who is losing his war). Both sets of idiots want to impose defeat on the good guys, so both are wrong, but don't pretend it's not both sides.

Think about covid too. The anti-vax, anti-mask, Covid-aint-real-'cause-5G shortbus was filled equally by the left and right. Blacks were particularly prone to it, as were crazy leftist women and rightwing "I gots ma riggghts" types. Yet, the narrative has been that this was a "conservative" thing. The verbal contortions it's taken to maintain that narrative have been staggering too.

January 6 was a threat to Democracy, but the riots in Minnesota, Portland and Seattle were "protests." Their murders were ignored. The damage they caused, ironically at black neighbors and businesses, was nothing. Liberals shooting at cops, throwing Molotov cocktails at cops was ignored. Why is leftwing violence acceptable?

Black "kids" shoot two football players in Baltimore after spraying bullets at a team. Mexican man shoots up hospital. Illegal stabs 10 people in Vegas. Mexican kidnaps and kills Indian family in California. Silence by Biden and the MSM. White kid shoots people on a trail. "ENOUGH" snaps Biden in carefully prepared, phonetically spelled comments. Why is one of these things not like the others, Joe? Did you not comment on the St. Louis school shooter because his race was not immediately identified what we know suggests he's black?

Why is it that every Karen is white, even the ones who aren't? Why are black attacks on Asians evidence of hate crime by whites? How can you ignore the murder of so many people of all colors to maintain a racist philosophy? What about the black girl shot working at Burger King? The black boy shot working at McDonalds? The Asian woman pushed before a train? How many people died in Chicago this last week? How many children? Why are you silent on this Joe? F*cker.

Kanye West says something antisemitic, and all the good leftists are condemning him. Heck, that's a virtue signalling freebie right there! Yet, their own allies from Occupy Wall Street to "the squad" to the Palestinian People's Front of Judea (for you Monty Python fans) are all deeply antisemitic and the left says nothing.

No story is too terrible to ignore either, unless it involves profound racism exposed among the leftist Hispanic membership of the LA City council. They haven't even all resigned. Good thing they didn't do blackface, that's unforgivable... oh wait, unless you're a liberal governor or liberal actor. Then it's a teachable moment for all y'all racists. "I apologize that you are such bad people, let me show you the light."

Did you really claim Biden cut the deficit by $1.5 trillion because they didn't vote for more Covid aid? When did Covid aid become a yearly budgetable event?

Another day, another lie, smear and deception.

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In Praise of Lindsay Graham... For Once

I will give credit where credit is due, even to people I don't like. Biden, for example, has done well in Ukraine. I will give him that. He's a turd of a human being and he butchers pretty much everything he touches, but in Ukraine he did well. Granted, it was the only thing he could do that made sense and didn't result in disaster, but that doesn't always stop him. So good for him.

Another person I would give credit to that I don't normally support is Lindsay Graham. Graham's mention of a national ban on abortion at 15 weeks seemed like terrible timing when he mentioned it. The GOP was going down in flames on the abortion issue and he seemed to only add gasoline to the fire... But in hindsight, what he did was actually kind of brilliant. Even though his plan was roundly denounced on all sides, it has given GOP candidates an abortion position they could mention that didn't make them sound nuts. You see it being mentioned everywhere to neuter the nut issue.

It's also flipped the narrative. Instead of GOP candidates needing to answer why they wanted victims of rape to be forced to carry pregnancies to term, suddenly, GOP candidates were demanding to know what restrictions the Democrats would agree to if not the 15 weeks. Lo and behold, Democrats fell for it. People like Stacy Abrahms boldly claimed they wanted no restrictions - ZERO - and promptly fell far outside the mainstream. I actually think you can link her peaking in the polls and subsequent slide with that moment. She's been crashing ever since.

Other GOP candidates are demanding the same answer and Democrats are either shooting themselves in the genitals with their purity and answering it, or going into evasive maneuvers and running from the issue. Suddenly, both the intensity of the issue and the importance of the issue began to fail. It's now viewed as a motivating factor for something like 14% of voters only, and I would bet they had already made their minds up long before the Supreme Court's abortion surprise. Even party higher ups like Obama and Sanders are urging them to stop talking about abortion... in public at least.

I think Graham did the GOP a huge favor on this.

Thoughts?

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Truth to Power

This headline speaks for itself:

Tulsi Gabbard QUITS the Democrats: Ex-congresswoman says party is controlled by 'elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness' who 'stoke anti-white racism and protect criminals'

That kind of sums them up pretty perfectly, doesn't it? Does she not know that we're not supposed to voice those truths? The only thing I would change is that they are only warmongers when they are in charge, otherwise they pretend to be peaceniks. Should we do the countdown before the first #metoo complaint comes about her? Or some claim of ancient racism? Perhaps knowing someone who knew someone who once laughed at a blackface portrayal? No doubt we'll see a relative who hates her. Heck, she might even secretly be a homosexual (//gasp) or paid for an abortion (//for shame!). Good luck, Gabbi...

As an aside, did anyone see that some government official called a black boy a monkey? Terrible racism in this country. That's what the yahoo headline said. You had to read a few paragraphs in to see that it was three Hispanics on the LA city council, and they were actually making fun of a gay white male council member who adopted a black child. I suspect they are leftist democrats, but Yahoo seemed to go out of its way never to mention that. They also ignored that another Hispanic, the leader of the biggest Union in California, was there and dismissed their woke DA because "he's with the blacks." But that couldn't mean anything, right? I mean who isn't... except Kanye. Damn Republican racists.

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Tough on Crime

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has adviced us that "No matter who you are, nobody is above the law." Hooah! Nobody is above the law! Nobody! Unless you're homeless. Or you're Hunter Biden... or Hillary Clinton... or you're a democrat generally. Or you're a celebrity. Or you're part of a flash mob of young black victims of racism. Or you like knocking people out, knocking them off subway platforms, or shooting them on the job. Or you're here illegally. But other than that, nobody. And you can take that to what's left of the bank.

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Very Troubling Week

This has been a very troubling week. Three things stand out.

First, Putin is telling a completely backward view of history. He claims Ukraine invaded Russia, that western militaries are using the Ukrainian army as slaves (and he's suggesting our militaries are actually in the field), and that we are threatening Russia with nuclear war. All backwards. So is Putin deranged or is this what all (liberals and) dictators do: accuse the other guy of their own crimes? I'm leaning toward him not being deranged, but being scared. He's scared he's going to get killed if he loses and he must know he cannot win this war. Making it even worse, Turkey and China have both told him he needs to stop the war, yet he's not listening because if he stops the war, he dies.

The problem is that he's making threats to nuke Western cities (he specifically called out Britain, but he means us all). If he's scared, then he could do anything. Indeed, a lot of dictators and related monsters prefer to see everyone die if they need to die. That makes these very troubling threats.

The thing is, he doesn't even need to go full nuclear to destroy the world. A nuke or two in orbit could wipe out electrical grids and satellites, things we all depend on for things like food. It could take months for food to show up in grocery stories again. That would be a supply chain crisis to make early covid shortages look like the land of plenty. And if he hit a city? It's very hard to predict what the effect could be, but we are too dependent on the entire world working without a hitch for things not to fall apart badly. This is very, very troubling.

Secondly, forget Trump, but focus on DeSantis. DeSantis shipped some immigrants to liberal town, the same as the Democratic mayor of El Paso has been doing and the same as is pretty much routinely done. Did you think all those clumps of immigrants happened randomly? Hardly. There are 66,000 Hmung in Minneapolis because that is where they were sent by the government. So political stunt or not, this is typical behavior. Nevertheless, the Democrats are screaming to have him charged with a crime. What crime? They don't even know, and that is what makes this even more disturbing -- they want someone to find a crime to charge him with.

This is a huge step further down the Nazi road for these people: trying to criminalize being their opponent. At times, people have crossed various lines and the other side tried to make a case out of it, but this is different. This is a group of deranged, hateful leftist literally trying to use the power of government to imprison people with whom they disagree. And it's been building to this. This is just the next step in the woke creatures trying to cancel people who say the wrong thing or live in ways of with which they disagree. These are the criminal impulses of totalitarian regimes... third world dictators. This is a troubling trend.

Third, after a brief pause in inflation, it's taking off again with a vengeance. Do you recall how I told you gas prices would fall to around $3.20 from $4 in what is called a retrenchment and then would start up again? We hit around $3.35 here and then it turned around. Virtually overnight, we jumped back to $3.75. Then today, we went to $3.79. I look for $4 next week. Making this worse, on gas at least, part of the reason gas fell was a federal gas tax holiday, which ends in October. So it will rise significantly in October again. Gas also will now be shifted to heating homes.

Food prices are skyrocketing again too. All the excuses aligned this week: (1) bad harvest due to "climate change", (2) anything carbonated (beer, soda) is about to shoot up because the nation's largest source of carbon dioxide has somehow been contaminated by a dormant volcano, (3) transportation costs will rise because of gas prices rising and the supposed settlement with the rail workers, and (4) "labor shortages" (read: wage hikes to cover inflation). Someone estimated the other day that food prices are up about $500 a month per family ($6000 a year). Ours are up more than that, I can tell you. Look to double that before Christmas.

All very troubling.

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Quick Aside on Labor Union Deal

Biden is touting the union deal with the railway workers as some sort of accomplishment. Wall Street articles are freaking out that this could encourage more labor unrest. Drudge is freaking out that unions are polling at their highest level of support since the 1960s. The end of capitalism is nigh!!! Well...

Let's do some math. They are getting a 24% raise over five years plus some back wages to cover this year. Sounds like a lot, right? Except, that's only a 4.5% raise each year of the deal. Does that really sound like a lot? Would you think you broke the bank with a 4.5% raise in this environment? With inflation supposedly at 8% (real rate probably around 35%) that means the real raise after five years is only 5% in total (1% a year). That's kind of sh*tty honestly.

I'm not a union guy but I'm not a corporate hack either. There are some terrible things going on in corporate America that we should probably talk about in a future article. Indeed, much of this supposed labor shortage is actually companies just not hiring anyone, hoping to trick current workers into making up the slack. With inflation, real salaries are plunging. And let's be clear, a solid dose of inflation may kill you, but it does wonders for corporate and government balance sheets.

My point, for now, is don't believe that this union deal is anything earth-shattering, as it's being sold. If anything, it shows a union that sold out its members with the help of a Democratic government that wanted to look good without hurting their big business masters. Why I'm the only one mentioning this is kind of interesting, isn't it? Don't buy the hype. And maybe, don't trust those ringing alarm bells or smiling oddly satisfied smiles.

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A Couple of Interesting News Items

Some interesting news items as I work on more articles.

(1) The Putin Empire is falling apart. Ukraine has apparently destroyed a decade's worth of Soviet military hardware (literally, one decade's worth of modernization has been destroyed). The Russians are falling apart so fast and so completely and are abandoning such vast amounts of gear to the Ukrainians that the Ukrainians are joking about Russia operating a "lend lease program" to Ukraine.

Add to this: Azerbaijan has invaded Armenia, again. They have ancestral hatred going way back and have fought prior wars. Putin kept them at peace with the threat the Russians would smoooosh them if they didn't stop fighting. Now the kids are at it again. Further, Kyrgyzstan has attacked Tajikistan. Again, Putin held them together with fear of Russia. The fact these two wars are breaking out suggests everyone thinks Putin is finished.

It's looking bad for him personally too. More and more politicians in Russia are demanding he admit failure in the Ukraine. That was unthinkable a few weeks ago as Putin's iron grip was unchallenged. Not to mention, those who might challenge him had a way of falling out of windows. But apparently, there aren't enough windows left in Russia to stop everyone who wants to challenge him.

(2) The Dems are FREAKING OUT over 50 immigrants shipped to rich, white liberal Martha's Vineyard. Brilliant move. This has utterly exposed their hypocrisy and it's making them say things that are just nuts -- moving immigrants to different states is "human trafficking"? Wtf? Do they not know what human trafficking is? Moving to Martha's Vineyard is as bad as the Holocaust? How sh*tty is that place? They can't find somewhere to house 50 people? Funny, Colorado Springs houses thousands of drug addicted bums in low-rent hotels. New York does too. Have they no gymnasiums where they can put cots? How about a tent? Are the rich that incompetent or just that racist and elitist? This is an ugly look for the left. And the more they pile on so irrationally, the more damage it does.

Now someone in Congress needs to propose a law distributing illegal immigrants around the country (to liberal states mainly) in the name of sharing the burden and resources available to help these people. Come on Republicans. Do it. Watch the Democrats dance and squirm and explain how they should be exempt from having to have those dirty brown people near them.

(3) The Trump candidates are getting their butts handed to them. No surprise. The Senate is gone. The House is still likely though. Meanwhile, Trump is embracing QAnon. If you're still a fan, it might be time to rethink how stupid you're going to feel when he sinks to the bottom... if he has a bottom. You are now backing a man who is backing conspiracy theories about lizard people.

(4) Watching the outpouring for the Queen has been amazing. I am not a royalist and I salute no one, but I am always impressed by people who manage to touch millions of people. These people are tiny few in number. They come in many fields. It's not the position they hold, the politics they espouse or the skills they have. It is something human about them that makes us feel like the world is smaller when they are gone. Indeed, there are Popes, Princes and Presidents who died unloved or indifferently liked, but these people are special. Ronald Reagan comes to mind. People lined his funeral route from coast to coast to see the man who had touched them. Walt Disney represents childhood goodness to the world. Nelson Mandela gave us dignity. Bowie, Prince and Elvis made us sing. Bob Ross made us smile. And now the Queen passes as grandmother to us all. A dignified lady with a spunky side. I always wonder with celebrities, when you die, will anyone really care? Maybe you should ask why not?

As for the creatures exploiting the Queen's death to get famous or push racist grudges, the endless lines of people who mourn her death are the judgment of the world on your crap. Will anyone care when you die? Doubt it.

(5) The oil experts are saying downward price pressure is stopping, so the price of gas will start going up again -- especially in October and December. It's at $3.45 here, a tad above my prediction of $3.20. Retracement, folks. That's all it was. Sorry Joe. As an aside, FedEx is predicting a worldwide recession based on falling shipping volume. Yeah, that's coming.

(6) The headlines read: Biden support up strongly at 45%. Strongly? He was at 44%. Was that last percentage point such a doozy? Calling that "strongly" is an example of propaganda. And for the record, since most liberals won't know this, 45% is less than 50%. Seriously. But a calculator.

Thoughts?

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A Key Opportunity Missed

One of the frustrating things about being a Republican is that they have no ability to read the room. They're like the Aspergers Party. It's crazy. From obsessing over things no one in America cares about, to missing things everyone cares about, to not having a clue how to communicate because they only talk to each other and in language the public doesn't use, backing the GOP is super frustrating. Right now, there is a killer political issue going on and the GOP is entirely missing it because they are so insular. This issue involves a jogger and it could destroy the Democrats if only the GOP had a clue.

The issue involves a woman named Eliza Fletcher. She went jogging in Memphis at 4:30 am a few weeks back and was kidnapped and killed by a monster named Cleotha Henderson. Henderson has already served 20 years for a prior kidnap and apparently is a suspect in a 2021 kidnapping and murder. He is an animal who needs to be put down. The end.

Why am I talking about this? Because this is a HUGE issue. There are tens and tens of thousands of women talking about this. They are talking about it on running boards, on Facebook, on Tik Tok and everywhere they meet to talk. They are following this issue very closely and they are furious. They are furious that this woman was killed. They are furious that they feel like they could be next. They are furious that the streets of America are not safe for women to be alone. Most of all, they are furious that no one seems to care.

This issue is death for the Democrats. The Democrats are super vulnerable right now over the issue of crime. They have made the nation's big cities into cesspools of violence and rape all in the name of progressive views of equality. They have gotten thousand of people (usually minorities or women) killed. They've ruined neighborhoods by letting drug addicted homeless flood them. They've turned predators free to keep preying (usually on women) under the guise that it's racist to lock them up. They turn them loose from prison under the fantasy they've been reformed. And they've been trying to strip away cops at the very point the world is getting worse. People are genuinely freaked out to a degree I have not seen since the 1970s, and women doubly-so.

This issue has the ability to destroy anyone not seen as tough enough on crime. It is far more visceral than inflation and far more scary for people. You can survive inflation, you can't survive being murdered by some drug addicted homeless creature. This is such a huge issue that progressive prosecutors are being recalled in progressive cities by progressives. How bad is that? Portland has become Escape from New York sans Snake Pliskin. One of the squad almost lost in Communist Minnesota in a Democratic primary because she's pro-thug. And Eliza Fletcher's tragedy is the lightening rod for this issue.

Here's the catch... the GOP hasn't notice.

Why not? I can give you a lot of different answers to this, but I think it doesn't matter. When two separate people in the party have said: "If rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it.” (Michigan GOP Rep Robert Regan) and "Rape is like bad weather. If it's inevitable, why not just sit back and enjoy it?" (former GOP candidate for Governor of Texas, Clayton Williams), you kind of get a sense why the GOP doesn't pay attention to women. When the grump response to Fletcher's death in the comments at conservative leaning places is "what was she doing running at 4:30 in the morning anyways", again you realize why the GOP doesn't do well with women. And when grumpers rush online to proudly tell you that Hollyweird and Farcebook need to be shutdown, you can kind of see how these fools might miss a huge national movement in the making. Living under a rock is not nobility, it is ignorance.

Reagan built the biggest conservative consensus America has ever seen by promising Americans American values: lower taxes, lower government interference, more freedom, safer streets, standing up to our enemies. That was Reaganism. Today's GOP has become a party of cranks, election deniers, defenders of criminals, people obsessed with controlling others, people who praise freaks like Putin and just want to see the world burn... people who jerk themselves off with extreme rhetoric but wouldn't know conservatism if Ronald Reagan came back and bit them in the ass.

This is why the Democrats survive despite making the country unsafe for its citizens... because the GOP looks worse by comparison. Consider this when you vote in the primaries. Maybe it's time to stop flirting with freaks and start voting for normal Americans?

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Interesting Poll

There's a new poll out. I am not a fan of polls, but this one is interesting. Here are the results. I'll discuss what interests me below.

The media is spinning this using the top number which is not on the chart. The top number says that (1) Biden beats Trump in a rematch (duh) and (2) the public now favors the Democrats over the Republicans 48% to 45%. The media sees that as significant, but it's actually meaningless. Not only is it all within the margin of error, but as I noted, the end of the summer is Biden's highwater mark. Also, these races are all local or must be looked at state by state to be meaningful. A 3% national lead is easily achieved in California, which hides all the other states. So this poll simply cannot give an informed answer as to these two questions.

That said, there is interesting information. Observe:

1. Trump's support is very limited, as expected. About 18% of the public are fan-girling Trump, about 37% hate him. The rest don't see this election as being about him. Even among Republicans, only 36% fan-girl Trump, the rest do not. Supporting this is the warning in plain sight in the Alaska election. Palin lost because a majority of GOP voters preferred a Democrat to her as a second choice. Usually, people threaten not to vote for the competitor in the general election, but rarely follow through. This was an instance where the voters followed through en mass. That's a huge warning. Add in the MAGA candidates blowing easy-win elections and it's pretty clear the public is done with this sh*t. The good news it that the low number who think this is about Trump suggest that the damage he does will be endurable for the party, i.e. there will be no broad wipeout. They will cost us the Senate though with bad candidates.

As an aside, if Trump really had nuclear secrets, as is being reported, then not only is he going to jail, but there is no possible excuse for his conduct. There is NO valid reason to take those. As that sinks in, look for the knives to come out. Even Drudge speculated Trump might have taken them sell them, which would be treason. Gee, surprise.

2. Aside from the top number, this polling is terrible for the Democrats! The number who see the election as about supporting Biden's agenda is only 33%. That's terrible support and suggests he's been a failure. This has been obvious actually from them calling his rise to 44% "momentum." No one likes what he's doing. The man is a failure. He's also primed for an epic loss.

3. 54% say economic policy needs to change. With the economy being the big factor in this election, that means a landslide against Biden. Only 22% believe in Biden's economic plan. That spells doom. This is why the Democrats want this election be about anything but the economy, but it's largely not working (Trump exluded). These numbers actually should result in a landslide under normal circumstances.

4. The voting rights and bipartisanship questions are nebulous at best and, I think, show the media continues to mistake bumperstickers for actual concerns. Seriously, who doesn't want to see bipartisanship? But of course, it all depends on how you define bipartisanship, doesn't it? Personally, I'd love to see Democrats finally reaching across the aisle and voting for the things I believe. Is that what they mean by bipartisanship? Bipartisanship... a meaningless buzzword.

As for the voting rights question, that captures all the disenfranchisement crap on the left and Trump's blather about stolen elections as well the generally held belief that we believe people should vote. In other words, left, right and pretty much everyone should accept it but for different reasons. That makes the question meaningless.

5. The really good news is that abortion seems to be something only the fringes care about, with 43% basically saying they don't care. That will help the GOP in this election. All bets are off in the future with the GOP representing the 18% fringe, but for now, 65% of the GOP and 43% of the public overall don't see abortion mattering this time. Those are the people who will decide this election. On the plus side, the number caring about Trump appears even smaller, so to a large degree, the GOP seems to have dodged a bullet in these numbers. The one bullet they could not dodge was in candidate selection where some winnable states are now lost because of MAGA candidates.

All told, my projection holds. The GOP captures the House but loses the Senate because of bad candidate choice.

Thoughts?

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Biden Fallout

Let me make an article out of this rather than a comment.

So Biden gave his attack speech using Presidential symbols to smear anyone who disagrees with him (like Hitler) and using Marines as props. So much for bringing us together... as if Biden ever tried to unite anyone. In fact, I'd say he's best been described as viciously partisan and hateful. Sick f*ck. Anyways, I'm seeing some articles on the center right that say Biden's speech has been received as an unmitigated disaster and they are trying to back off.

Possibly true.

I haven't seen anyone on the left gasp in shock, but then they don't. They tend to forgive whatever their side does and only find outrage when it helps them politically. That said, there are signs this is true. For example, (1) Biden was in full backpedal today, trying to say he never meant anyone was a threat to Democracy, "come on, man. I never said what I said." That suggests he knows he blew it. Also, (2) there are ZERO articles at the big leftist cites celebrating his speech. That's usually the best indication of disaster: avoidance = attempt to make you forget. Indeed, anything less than an unmitigated disaster and they will try to spin it. They aren't even trying though. That means, they want you to not know about it, or to forget about it. That suggests they know this was a disaster.

Well, now there's another interesting piece. Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is putting out claims that since poor Mr. Biden gave his speech, they've monitored declarations of civil war online. They want to turn Biden into the victim -- look for a flood of these articles to hide Biden's culpability: "look how dangerous these hornets are we poked!" The thing is:

First, DHS should not be supporting a campaign smear -- any more than Marines should appear in the frame. That Biden did this is ethically disgusting, borders on illegal and deserves to end in infamy. Politicizing defense agencies is dictator sh*t. For that, Biden belongs in the company of guys like McCarthy and a slew of propaganda ministers. So is politicizing law enforcement. For that, he creeps into the world of guys like Mao and Stalin. When you make the police into secret police, you can't call yourself a democrat anymore.

Secondly, what a load of crap. You can find anything you want online. This is the game actresses play, where they shadowbox with obscure trolls to make themselves seem like victims. "I was called fat! Boo hoo hoo forget the stupid thing I did and see my movie." But of course they were called fat. Other guys wanted to have sex with their feet, some claimed they were lizards, a group of women called them sluts, and some guy in Iowa wanted them to work from home. You can find anything online you want... anything. That doesn't mean anyone supports that view except the mental case leaving the post. Claiming you found something online is the same as making it up. Shame on DHS for elevating trolls to a national security threat.

Third, duh. These people (left and right) have been saying this stupid crap about civil wars for years. So is DHS only discovering this now? Or do they only care now? Neither answer is a good one.

I suspect this did not play well for Biden at all, and I think his team knows it. They know this makes him out as bad as Trump, if not worse, and will revive the right from their abortion-Trump-induced funk. This was a terrible idea and we are looking at the smoke and mirror retreat now.

Thoughts?

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Student Loan Hail Mary

So Biden decided to forgive $10,000 in student loans for most people, and up to $20,000 for some others. This forgiveness cuts off at income levels of $125,000. All told, it will cover about 45 million people to one degree or another. The media is trying to sell it as something amazing, but it's not. In fact, it really shows the combination of cowardice and stupidity which afflicts Team Biden. Here are my thoughts.

1. First, let's be clear, this is an attempt to bribe young people to vote. That is all this is. It is not an attempt to improve the "system" in any way.

2. Let's also be clear, it won't work. Why?

(a) This does not apply to college students. You need to be paying it back already, so it entirely misses the "young people" they are trying to attract. Stupid.

(b) Check out this quote from the Miami Herald, a Democratic operative, meant to tell you how the "Biden-Harris" (Harris??) forgiveness will bring Heaven on earth:

"With billions of dollars of student debt cleared from the books, millions woke up today to a different financial world. One where they have a higher net worth, more purchasing power and better access to financial products, like mortgages."

That's the sales pitch. The thing is, that's utter crap. Most people have far more loans than $10,000. The average for people with loans is $57,000 and when you owe $60k, having $10k forgiven doesn't mean squat. It doesn't change your financial position in the least. You still owe years of payments. Your payment may go down, but we're talking $20 a month or so. Big whoop. In fact, forgiving $10k feels more like an insult to these people after being told there would be some genuine forgiveness. As for having better access to mortgages and more purchasing power, student loans never really stopped you from getting a mortgage before, so that's nonsense. And the rise in mortgage rates easily offset whatever benefit this gives. So, nice try. As for net worth, net worth is an illusory concept no one thinks about except near-retirees. Don't believe me? What are you worth? And purchasing power, as we said, is like a $20 a month raise. Short answer: this is a big yawn. Just like all the other bills they passed which the Democrats couldn't understand why they didn't win people over either. Way too little... way too late.

3. Now let's talk the politics.

(a) If Biden really thinks this will help, why announce it in the summer when no one is paying attention? Announce it before the election when people care.

(b) By ending the moratorium in January, he's ruining Christmas.

(c) The left is irate because this is regressive: it's working men and women paying off the debt of lawyers and doctors and elitists. That is kind of sh*tty if you think about it... but then, all socialism is.

(d) I think it probably isn't inflationary like some are saying because it won't actually work to give people more money to spend.

(e) People who paid off their loans are pissed because they aren't getting this.

(f) People who didn't go to college are pissed because they get to pay for it.

(g) How is it that once again, big rich institutions seem to get off scot-free? Big Banks, Dodd Franks. Big Health, Obamacare. Big Pharma. Big Auto. Big Tech. Big Billionaire. Now Big College, they all seem to do extraordinarily well when the Democrats claim they are helping the people. In this case, we're talking about colleges who have grown huge and fat and rich on pushing these loans on students with no choice, and yet they don't even get a slap on the wrist out of this? Why didn't Biden pay for this with a tax on college endowments? They have trillions. They could pay for it. They caused it. That makes sense. It makes no sense a McDonald's worker should pay for this so Harvard doesn't have to. Terrible policy, terrible optics.

This is one of those moments that shows that Biden's a fool. If he was going to do this, he needed to go big: forgive it all, not just a piece of it. Failing that, makes this meaningless. And if he was going to do this, he needed to take the money from the people who wrongly took it in the first place: colleges. Fix the system. Doing that would have been popular even with people who never had loans or paid them off. Instead, he put the cost on the least deserving people. He has no balls and no brains, so he tried to split the difference between bold action and doing nothing and he got virtually nothing but a lot of anger for his trouble, and he protected his Big friends once again.

This is utter crap. Oh, I will take his money, but this only makes me like him even less.

As an aside, Biden's approval is "up" to 44%. Keep four things in mind when you see the next flood of articles claiming momentum. First, if you were told a President's approval was 44%, would you see anything good in that number? It only appears "good" because it's been down to 42%. Secondly, 44% and 42% are in each other's statistical margin of error, which means it hasn't actually moved. Third, it's summer. As I told you last time, things drift up in the summer because people lose their intensity while they are sitting at the beach. The real number that matters is when people come back -- just like the stock market, which always rallies in low volume trading over the summer and then tells you reality in September. Fourth, if Biden's "string of victories" (as the media is calling it) or "momentum" can only produce a 2% increase well below the natural level of support for a candidate of either party then his victories are Pyrrhic at best. A real victory usually comes with some benefit.

Student loan forgiveness won't help this.

Thoughts?

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What About Liberal Hate?

I don't condone Trump, but let me point something out: the left is far more guilty of the things they claim he's doing now.

Consider this quote from Politico:

"But perhaps the raid’s most sobering result is the increased yet unavoidable risk it ultimately poses of widespread civil breakdown. Watching agents search Mar-a-Lago could turn a large enough portion of Trump’s far-right base decisively against federal authority that its defiance could shift from episodic to systemic, eventually leading to regular armed resistance to federal law enforcement on the order of Ruby Ridge and potentially even Waco."

This is such hypocritical crap.

For months, the left condoned and endorsed whatever violence black people wanted to commit all in the name of racial justice. In fact, they continue to go out of their way to tell those same black people that they are oppressed, they are victims of white hatred and oppression, and any actions they choose to take are entirely justified.

What is more likely to cause violence? Trump being a douchebag calling out to a handful of drunken white trash to be angry at the FBI or thousands and thousands of politicians and black "leaders" nationwide telling black people their lives are hopeless and they should lash out. Yet, not a single liberal condemned the violence that ensued. There were no articles at Yahoo or Politico telling blacks to stop burning down cities, warning each other they were encouraging violence, or worrying about civil breakdown. They wanted it.  In fact, they attacked the police for trying to stop it.

Or how about Portland and Seattle and other cities where Antifa went about turning city blocks into war zones, burning down Federal buildings and police stations, and killing people who happened into their wave of unrest. Again, not a single worry about civil unrest was mentioned. To the contrary, when liberals offered a criticism, it was aimed at "right wing agitators" who came to protest the violence.

So don't give me any crocodile tears now about civil unrest.

And let me add this: as much as leftists like to pretend the "paranoia" on the right is somehow unfathomable, it's pretty damn obvious where it comes from: you. Trump takes some documents with him and liberals scream that this is the end of the world. They send in the FBI. They write articles saying 'who cares what documents they were, we've got him!' At the same time, Hunter Biden genuinely endangers national security with documents he never should have had and could only have gotten from his dad and the same left dismisses it and covers it up. They ignore Hillary's illegal emails or her campaign hacking into the White House computers. Trump "endangers" democracy by questioning the election... yet Gore doing far worse against Bush was just him pointing out something suspicious. Do you remember when Trump got elected, how the left create a "resistance" to Trump and encouraged people (including state governments and federal workers) to sabotage him?  That was totally cool.  Yet, questioning the election was a crime?  Oh hey, Trump tried to convince electors to vote for him no matter how their state did.  Terrible... only, the left did this under Bush Jr. and Trump already.  That was totally cool.

And then there's the obsession. Show me a review of a movie or book by a known conservative that isn't a smear. Liberals write childish, terrible crap and these same reviewers praise it like it was sent from Heaven. Leftist first ladies are fashion icons, conservative first ladies are dragon ladies or dirty immigrants. They loved Trump's daughter until Trump ran. Then they tried to destroy her company with bad reviews and cancelled deals. Restaurants where political conservatives eat get death threats and so many false reservations they are completely disrupted, even if the conservative has no connection to the restaurant except choosing to eat there. Yet, somehow, this shouldn't be seen as hateful and biased... dare I say, Naziesque?

Make no mistake, America is polarized, but the blame lies with the leftist collective that seeks to destroy those with whom it disagrees, that seeks to control through fear an intimidation lies and cancel culture, which defines its own conduct no matter how heinous as justified and finds pretend threats in any action by its opponents.

Now Biden's going to host a summit on hate? Well, Joe, you've been pushing hate since you ran for election and your allies are all about hate. Are you going to start with that or are you going to pretend your hate is cool and anyone who opposed you is the "real" hater? 

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A Couple Quick News Items

Good evening, America. This... is the evening news. I am not Walter Cronkite. But I will comment quickly on a couple things.

• First, as I kind of suspected, Trump is pulling defeat from the jaws of victory. As DOJ struggled to explain why it acted against him other than pure liberal lap-dog-ism, and liberals exposed themselves by writing articles that basically said "Who cares if what Trump did is wrong or not, we have him on a technicality! Let's burn him at the stake," Trump just couldn't shut his idiot mouth and he started spewing idiocy and contradiction and shifting his defenses. That makes him sound like a liar. He also couldn't help but dabble in insurrection speech, which makes him dangerous. Idiot.

• Liz Cheney is up for re-election today. I am hoping she loses. As much as I despise Trump and think he's a terrible creature, nothing he did justified voting to impeach him. That was a partisan smear and she fell for it.  Cheney's decision to support the Democrats in that gave them aid and comfort in their obsessive anti-democratic hate and is unforgivable. I hope she gets blown out.

• Henry Kissinger thinks we're on the verge of war with Russia and China. He's completely wrong. I'll write about China in a couple days, but the truth is Russia and China now realize neither is a match for us. Neither wants to risk a war with us, which was not the case a year ago. Interesting story there... Either way, this exposed Kissinger's one-dimensional thinking which cost us the Vietnam War.  Genius, my *ss.

• The teacher's union in Minnesota has reached an agreement whereby white teachers will be fired first and rehired last despite their seniority. I should be outraged, but seeing as how teachers are the last big block of leftist behavior, I like that they will now be forced to pay for their views. It's like when a vicious dog owner gets mauled by his own creation: well deserved. So might I suggest reverse slavery or "involuntary" transsexual conversion for Minnesota teachers? And while we're at it, how many half-black, half-Asian handicapped left-handed Jews are employed by the Minnesota school systems? Not enough, my friends, not enough. It's time we had the courage to admit this.

• The Democrats' "environmental" bill included a $7,500 tax credit for buying an electric car, with the idea being to make it cheaper to buy one of those. Right after it passed, GM raised the price of its electric cars by $7,500. Surprise. Not only does this utterly wipe out the purpose of the bill, it shows what for a corrupt joke GM and the environmental lobby are. With friends like these, the environmental movement really doesn't need enemies.

• Amnesty International is in trouble. They've issued a report accusing the Ukrainians of war crimes for defending themselves, and thereby endangering the lives of their civilians. Almost every leftist peace group calls this utter crap, and yet Amnesty International is getting pissy defending itself. Credibility meet toilet.

• Biden will extend the student loan freeze until after November this month. The left is making a big deal of it, but he wants to use this as election fodder, so he will extend it beyond November as a form of "vote for me or you will need to start paying your loans!" Then he'll forgive $10,000 sometime around the next election. The problem is (1) he's pissing people off by leaving them hanging, so he won't get the grateful response he expects, (2) he's pissing people off and prolonging the piss-off-period for those who already paid off their loans, and (3) $10,000 is worthless. Think about it. If I promised to forgive 10% of your mortgage, would you really truly care or would it not affect your life at all? Biden's a fool to think this will help. This is like handing a burger to those guys on the street corner with the "will work for food" signs... just try it and see if they're grateful.

Thoughts on China coming soon and some stuff on how liberalism is failing pretty seriously.

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More Thoughts On The Raid

Now that we know a good deal more, much by inference, I have more thoughts on the FBI raid.

(1) This warrant is crap. It does not identify what justified the search. It is far too generic. I would not have granted it. It's possible the required affidavit says more, but why release a pointless warrant without it? That suggests DOJ wanted to fool the public, not enlighten the public.

(2) The fact they led with the copy of Roger Stone's clemency suggests a political motive. As I noted in my comment, you don't lead off with irrelevancies in a warrant, you lead off with the punch. This suggests they were angry or politically motivated. In fact, the utter lack of description of content regarding the secret documents suggest they don't even know what's in them... which is not a basis to go barrelling in.

(3) If the documents were a national security threat, why didn't they come get them already? That's terrible negligence by the government to leave genuinely dangerous documents out there. On the other hand, if they aren't genuinely dangerous, why get them this way, especially when the issue was being negotiated already and the documents have been stored the way the government requested? This reeks of thugism.

(4) Someone leaked the idea that these documents involved nuclear information. The Washington Post ran with it. That now seems utterly false, and the Post NEEDS to expose who told them that. It is unacceptable that someone in government would make that claim falsely. (And if it is true, I ask again why they waited to seize them?). This leak had the potential to destabilize a lot of countries and alliances and possibly lead to war, yet someone in the Biden administration happily made this apparently false leak just to get Trump. That's unacceptable. And the Post will be part of the cover-up if they don't dig into this and expose it.

(5) Trump's defense that he declassified these documents in BS, but it won't matter. Whether or not he gets charged, this will catapult him back to the top of the opposition. Getting elected is another matter, but if the intent was to kill him off, this tossed him an amazing lifeline. In fact, this will prove to a lot of people that the Government monolith is in conspiracy against him for being an outsider. I can't say that's wrong either.

(6) The next Republican President needs to go after Hunter and Joe Biden after this. Hunter had top secret documents he wasn't authorized to have (and could only have gotten from Joe) on a laptop overseas. That's far, far, far worse than anything Trump did. Father and son need to be in jail.

(7) I get the feeling there is a particularly dirty trick in all of this. We have been told some of the documents Trump took involved information about the President of France. The suggestion is this was information generated by espionage agencies and needed to be kept secret. Yet, the warrant does not identify this information as classified, suggesting it is something personal like a gift or letter or something that should go to the archives, but isn't sensitive. Once again, whoever leaked this information potentially wounded our relationship with France all to get Trump. That is unacceptable and needs to be answered.

(8) When I listen to DOJ's pronouncements, they are very much splitting legal hairs to such a degree that I can only conclude their conduct is designed to deceive. Unacceptable.

(9) There is no way Biden wasn't told. If his Attorney General knew, then Biden knew.

(10) This reeks of bubble thinking to me. You get a bunch of smug Washington insiders in a room and they start to spew their hate at Trump and their love of their turf and they work themselves in a lather over the idea that Trump broke some insider rule they see as sacrilege.  The problem is, the public sees those rules as petty. I doubt very much at this point there will be anything in these documents the public will accept as sufficiently sensitive to justify this.

(11) There is no benefit of the doubt here. At this point, DOJ will need to provide detailed proof before I will believe anything in these documents is truly is sensitive. General descriptions are unacceptable.

(12) This was a huge mistake. A huge number of people no longer trust the government and doing this intensifies that and adds to those ranks. If DOJ wanted to be seen as credible this was the last thing they should have done. This is the sort of thing which undermines faith in government to such a degree that government starts to break down.

Thoughts?

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Historical Ignorance

Biden apparently met with two "expert" historians who warned him that the US was "facing a crisis similar to the tensions before the Civil War and the fascist movement." Let me share my thoughts on that steaming pile of bullship.

First, let's assume it is true. How do you respond if you are told the country is tearing itself apart and civil war is likely?

(a) You try to calm things down with a pleasant speech telling people we are finding a new center ground.

(b) You call in the opposition to find common ground and you pledge to work together to unite. You might even work on some bills that help both sides calm their people.

(c) You falsely and recklessly accuse whites of murdering Muslims, you appoint a black Supreme Court justice because she's black and radical, you swear to fight for the chemical castration of kids as young as possible to make sure gays have allies, you force through a series of laws with zero bipartisan support, you use rhetoric to destabilize the independent Supreme Court that keeps you in check, and you send the FBI to harass the leader of the opposition.

If you're Biden, you seem to think (c) is your best bet to calm things down. Said differently, Biden has chosen to stoke hatred at the very time he's being told we are in a dangerous period where hate is so out of control it may lead to the country fracturing. That's a Hitlerian choice. And if we had a competent news establishment, they would ask him why he's acting that way... but alas.

Secondly, as someone versed in both logic and history, I can tell you that the comparisons are unmistakable wrong. The Civil War happened at a time when two things came together: (1) a moral outrage (slavery) that divided the country by region and (2) a demographic power switch which meant the divide was no longer an unwinnable battle of two equals; the South had peaked and would soon become powerless vis-a-vis the North if it didn't act. That meant it needed to strike or lose on demographics. Add in that the moral outrage was enough to incite violence on both sides AND that it left like-minded people all gathered in separate parts of the country, making it easy to split off, and you had a war of desperation between two firmly established empires. There is no such moral issue today and no divide. Maybe masks, but that issue has defused with pro-mask people losing, and even then, it was never a regional thing with people grouped in a way to lead to war. It also wasn't enough to bring normal people to violence... just the nuts. The analogy stinks. Not even Trump's army of morons can make this analogy work. They are tiny in number. January 6 tells us they number under a thousand... and they turn to total p*ssies when facing a judge.  Hardly the stuff of Civil Warriors.

As for fascism, let's not forget that we are talking about Germany, not the US -- our fascists turned fast once the war began. Germany had just had its government destroyed, it's might neutered and was working under crushing foreign debt and humiliating occupation. Nothing like that exists today. The economy was in super-hyperinflation, unlike today. The fascists and communists (funny how leftist historians forget them) were running battles in the street with the Army and a nationalized police force supporting the fascists. They won 43.9% of the vote on their way to taking power and they did so under a very different system than ours -- they would have been shut out here. Again, where is the analogy? Oh, it sounds great to liberal ears to think that the modern right is the same as Southern slave owners and Nazis, but the reality is those are the intellectual ancestors of the left, not the right, and nothing in either scenario is analogous to today. If anything, cancel culture is as analogous as we get to the Nazis in this culture and cancel culture is a "progressive" thing.

So the analogies are crap.

That said, there is an analogy to the past today: the 1960s. The 1960s were a time when leftist agitators became terrorist cells and started blowing things up to promote their causes. They staged protests against America's institutions, aided and abetted by the ACLU, and they invaded and ultimately destroyed the Democratic Party. The Trumpees are the modern version of that, but too stupid to be as effective as the Weather Underground or Red Brigades, who actually were not at all effective either. But then... so is Antifa, on the left. Moreover, modern Progressives are re-enacting the Great Leap Forward in China, where you denounced those you didn't like for lack of purity and their lives were destroyed without trial. This is cancel culture and SWATing and the censorship being imposed by leftist corporations, especially tech corporations. If you want an analogy, that's it. But Biden can't admit that because liberals don't like to be blamed for their rotten behavior.  Only the other guy's evil matters.

So Biden's experts are wrong.

The thing is, I'm not surprised a liberal "expert" would be ignorant of their field... or intentionally dishonest. Think of the number of reports from liberal environmental scientists which turned out to be utterly false or used flat out made up data, or the way liberals need to silence debate to make their point. How about those who ridiculously accept the idea that 8.5% inflation equals 0%  or that we aren't in recession or can't imagine what's wrong with a man in a dress in a girl's locker room. There was a college professor the other day who said he studied inflation and found it was all tied to the war in Ukraine, not progressive labor demands of $15 an hour or Biden's policies. The thing is, inflation began the day Biden took over (right when a lot of those $15 an hour rules kicked in) and took off during his reign. The Ukraine war didn't start until February 24 of 2022. By that point, inflation had already risen from 1% under Trump to 7% by the end of 2021. So THE MOST the Ukrainian invasion could have added was the extra 1.5%. Yet, this "expert" somehow missed that... because he's a propagandist, not an expert. Just like those claiming the rise in crime in progressive cities isn't really a rise in crime if you squint right at the data.  In fact, that seems to be the problem with modern liberalism, it's propaganda based, not fact based.

Thoughts

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Trump v. FBI

Here are my current thoughts on the FBI thing.

(1) Obviously, Trump is a piece of sh*t.

(2) Obviously, the left is OBSESSED with Trump to a shocking degree, even for them.

(3) Politically, this raid by the FBI is a cluster of epic proportions. Why? This makes the FBI look terrible. This reeks of a politicized hit. It is the sort of thing the FBI needs to be above to have any credibility. Add the fact that (1) it was exposed that their last investigation of Trump (Russian election interference) was conducted by two lovers who were anti-Trump and wanted to bring him down and the FBI did little to stop them. (2) The former FBI director harassed Trump and then went on an anti-Trump talk show and book writing bender after being removed from office. (3) It's funny how they never seem to be able to find any crimes committed by Democrats even when it is beyond clear those Democrats committed crimes. Hillary's emails are just one example. So was Hillary's campaign hacking into White House computers -- far far worse than this. Yet, the FBI turned a blind eye. And look at Hunter Biden. It is clear/certain that he was taking bribes from foreign powers for favors done by his father who was getting part of the bribes. It is clear he was doing drugs with hookers as he carried around a laptop with top secret documents he could only have gotten from his father... and then lost the laptop. Yet, again, the FBI does nothing. In fact, it tried to cover it up. It is clear the FBI will pursue those who are politically out of favor but will protect those who are not. They have no credibility anymore.

(4) The left is falling all over themselves to explain how this wasn't biased, but they are lying. Look at the following quotes from an article rushed out by "legal experts" and my comments below that. My comments come from reality as an attorney who has dealt with these things:

"Former FBI agents, including one who’s already investigated Trump, and ex-federal prosecutors told Yahoo News that obtaining a search warrant is a lengthy, difficult process, designed to be immune to political pressures."

Not true. You can get one in minutes and it takes almost nothing. I've seen them gotten over the phone with the agent talking about vague conclusions based on years of experience.

"The bureaucratic, box-ticking process by which the FBI obtains a warrant under ordinary circumstances is complicated enough, they maintain, without factoring in the enormity of sniffing around an ex-president’s digs."

Ha.

"'To obtain a search warrant, you need two things,' according to Barbara L. McQuade, the former U.S attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. 'You have to have conducted a sufficient investigation beforehand to demonstrate probable cause that a specific crime has been committed, and you need to show convincingly that evidence of that crime will be found at the location. These are not blind fishing expeditions.'"

True, but false. Probable cause is all an officer needs to get one and it can be manufactured with any statement by a witness including the agents themselves swearing that in their experience this search will likely yield results. Once the National Archives said Trump turned over documents but not all of them, that gave the FBI enough to find probable cause anywhere they want to search. All the words this woman uses are meant to distract. A specific crime means you can point to the code book to name the crime, e.g. Speeding. "Convincingly" is double speak, it just means your probable cause makes sense to the judge. A "sufficient investigation beforehand" means nothing at all, just that you looked and saw or heard something to give you probable cause. "I saw him unload boxes on television" is "sufficient investigation." Probable cause here is no different than what it takes a cop to pull you over and search your car. He crossed the white line. He was driving erratically. I smelled a substance I believed was drugs. He was driving in the part of town where drugs are sold (I've seen that one work). Probable cause simply means rational reason to believe there is evidence of a crime here. Only the dumbest of cops can't find probable cause, especially when you can judge shop to find a friendly one like the FBI does.

"Political affiliation, as a matter of Department of Justice policy, cannot have any influence on that process."

And yet, it does routinely. This is also contradicted by the very next statement in the article:

"Given the sensitivity of this case, McQuade said, Wray will have almost certainly been briefed in detail and had to have approved the move to obtain a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago. Even then, there was never any guarantee it would be granted."

So, you can't worry about political affiliation, but this would need to go through the head of the FBI's office because it involves someone important, i.e. political sensitivity. So, uh, it does matter?

"The warrant was issued by a federal magistrate judge in Florida. 'Even if you don’t believe politics isn’t involved in criminal investigations,' McQuade said, 'magistrate judges tend to be especially neutral and detached, because they’re selected by U.S. district court judges – entire benches – and so you end up with people who are really quite moderate.'"

Good grief. I have yet to deal with a magistrate who isn't political or biased in some direction. That idea that these people are moderate is laughable. Has this woman never been to court? Or is she lying?

I have been involved in the process from the law enforcement side. I have friends on each side. I've dealt with dozens of judges and magistrates. I've worked with FBI people. None of the claims of difficulty and lack of bias above are true. This is pretending that the existence of procedure prevents substantive bias. It does not. And the left will tell you this when it involves black guys going to jail or wiretaps against Muslims. Yet somehow, now that we are talking Trump, these same failed procedures are sacrosanct?

(5) The real disaster here is that this will save Trump. Trump was done. Outside of CPAC, not a lot of conservatives or Republicans wanted him back. This makes him a victim of the system and people will rally around him... at least until the election.

(6) Talk of this sparking a civil war is nonsense. That's theater for commentators and people trying to garner ratings.

Ug.

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Told You So...

One of the things I've run into in life, which I find most annoying, is how over the top people get when they are wrong. That's what the media is doing with Biden right now.

To set this up by example, I used to visit a number of sports blogs until I realized they were just awash in toxic people. I was there to talk about sports, others were there because they had a lot of anger and intense inferiority complexes. These people, not coincidentally, tended to be morons. What's relevant to my point today is something that would happen whenever I made some comment that required a bit of insight. For example, reading the tea leaves, it would become clear that the team intended to trade a particular player, but they hadn't said that yet. Instead, they said the opposite. I would mention the trade was coming and these morons would descend and scream what for a moron I was. "The cooch sed he got big plans for him, they ain't traden him you dumbsh*t!" Presumably, that made them feel good. //shrugs

Now to be clear, this isn't personal, in case you're wondering. My skin is much too think to care what people like that say and I wasn't the only one attacked by these morons. In fact, it has to be to be a lawyer, because bad lawyers do the same thing -- you should see them gloat as they fall right into your trap. They will positively gloat as they put the figurative gun to their head and pull the trigger over and over with a huge smile on their face thinking they've got you, and your job is to let them think they're right... until it's time to spring the trap.

Back to my point, once these morons thought they were right about something and I was wrong, they were relentless for the next couple months gloating about how smart they was and how dumb I be. And you couldn't prove you were right because what you predicted hadn't happened yet, so you couldn't stop them. In fact, even as it became more and more clear I was right, they still didn't stop. If anything, they got nastier. And the more the rumors started to hit that a trade really was coming, the bigger the gloating got... right up to the point the trade happened. Then they switched gears and complained that the coach was an idiot and lied and blah blah blah. Whatever.

The same is happening now.

Biden is finished. He's the worst president ever. People view him as a joke. The left wants him gone before he destroys them. People see the economy as the worst in their lives. And nothing the Democrats just did changes any of it. Their bills are far too little, far too late, and aimed at the wrong people. Not a thing they've done will resonate positively with anyone outside of a few big companies and some leftist technocrats. Good for Big Pharma, bad for big Public. Good for GM, irrelevant for drivers.

Yet, the media is in gloat mode. Every morning, I am greeted now with increasingly euphoric articles and headlines. It began with cautious talk of momentum. It moved on to them being on a roll. It shifted to "have they turned the tide" and "why wouldn't they win in November with these 'accomplishments'?!" Today some gloater claimed "Biden is on a streak any president would envy." Really? Dual disaster pandemics, worst economy ever, possible war with China, a Supreme Court unraveling 60 years of his policies, hyperinflation, rumored housing collapse, an out of control crime problem, out of control homelessness, a surge of illegal migrants, race hate as high as the 1960s, a stripped down budget that eliminated all the key things Democrats wanted from healthcare to drug costs to taxes, an environmental bill the enviro-left derisively calls a "love affair with the car" (and which no electric car marker actually qualifies for) or a gun bill the left whines "doesn't ban a single gun" and which really only pays to add cops to schools. That's an enviable streak? God good, what are your standards? Yet, the articles get more and more euphoric. The cheerleader left has even turned Biden in a comic book superhero.

These are the annoying moments. The cause has occurred but the effect has not yet arrived. In the meantime, those who don't understand cause and effect celebrate the cause and rub it in everyone's face. They will sing a different tune (most likely betrayal and conspiracy) once effect arrives, but for now they are obnoxious f*cks and there's not a thing you can say to make them see the effect coming down the tracks. Hang in there folks. Reality always arrives.

Thoughts?

As an aside, I once named five wide receivers I figured would be available for trade if Tampa wanted them. My comment was mocked by the moron-atti because "everyone knows" those guys were too good for their teams to trade them. Wat ar you stupid?! All five were traded within two months of my comment. Surprise. I didn't even bother saying "I told you so"... what would have been the point?

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No-mentum

The media is engaged in wishful liberal thinking again. They are writing articles about the Democrats having "momentum" and Biden recovering and maybe even pulling things out. Good luck. We got these articles too as Biden was cratering. Yay, the Democrats turned the corner... they "reset" things... Smoosh. Wishful thinking. Same thing now.

The first thing the media is trumpeting is the "passage" of various Democratic bills. Wrong.   First, none have actually passed yet, so let's wait and see if they actually do. Secondly, why would any of this help the Democrats when nothing else they passed did? Remember the infrastructure bill? No one else does. People don't even know it passed and don't give any credit for it doing so. Remember gun control? Did nothing, and Biden kept falling even after that. Black chick on the Supreme Court? Yawn. What was her name again? Nothing they have done has resonated because none of it helps people or alleviates their concerns. It's games for elites. So now they pass some change to the tax code which will affect only a few thousand companies (assuming they don't plan around it) and we're supposed to care? Fat chance.

The show votes don't help either. In fact, when the Dems tried and failed to protect abortion, they didn't get cheers, they got jeers = "why didn't you do this before?" Uh.

Secondly, the economy. Biden's claim we're not in recession was endlessly mocked and undercut all those who tried to back it. Now they are trumpeting a job growth number as miraculous. July produced 528,000 jobs! OMG! See! No recession! People will drop to their knees and worship Biden now. Only, (1) summer job numbers are always high because of a vast number of seasonal jobs, so those aren't real jobs... they vanish before the election, (2) they are missing the fact a huge number of people are getting second jobs to cover Bidenflation, (3) February saw 700,000 new jobs and yet Biden was getting blasted for a bad economy; why would now be different? Bidenflation is worse. And (4) for as much as Biden claims this is some sort of economic miracle, we aren't even back to pre-Pandemic numbers. NPR proudly claimed that with July we have recovered exactly the amount of jobs we lost during the recession. Huh. First, doesn't that contradict the idea that we are in a strong growth period if all we've achieved is getting back to normal... net zero from 2019? Secondly, don't forget there are three million more people here now, so even getting to zero is not really getting to zero. We're still around 1.5 million short for that. Third, NPR is lying. At the end of 2019, there were 158 million jobs in the US. After Biden's July miracle, there are 151 million. That's 7 million below zero. People know this too. They see their job situation and they don't feel like the future is boundless.

Third, inflation is getting worse. We just saw another spurt this month. Eggs are $1.27 a dozen right? Nope. They were $2.70 in June and were $4.27 a dozen this week. Lots of other things are jumping too. I get these dark chocolate bars for health reasons (they taste terrible). They are $1.50 a piece on sale.... or, were. This week they went on sale for $3.00. On sale. Thanks Joe. Coke, McDonalds, Unilever and others all announced price hikes at the end of July. Basically, everything you buy just took a jump up. People feel that pain and, as long as they do, no claim about more jobs being around will matter.

But gas is down, right? Sure to about an 80% increase from where it was before Joe got his policies started. So "down" is still nearly double of normal. And the only reason it's down is (1) we are in a recession and demand is down, (2) tax chicanery and release of the strategic reserve oil, and (3) nothing moves in straight lines. This last is the most important. Things go up or down for a while and then turn around and do a 20% retreat before taking off again. It's the human cycle. The stock market calls it a false recovery or a "dead cat bounce." It's a retrenchment before the next surge is all. 20% is about 80 cents, so look for it to start up again after hitting around $3.20... right before the election.

Fourth, Biden killed an Arab. Yay. Except, that would be an Arab no one could name, few remembered, who had been declared dead before, and who was killed in Kabul (assuming it's him) where he wasn't supposed to be according to Biden. So Biden's Kabul disaster is worse than believed. And how does this help people who can't afford eggs anyways? Oh, and right after Biden did this, Pelosi went to Taiwan and set off a Chinese Tantrum that is dominating foreign policy news and made everyone forget whatshisname.

Biden will get a small bump in the polls because it's summer and people care less and won't be as vocal and because he hit bottom already and he is due his dead cat bounce. But none of it's real. None.

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Abortion Vote

For those who somehow missed it, Kansas voted to keep abortion legal last night by a 59%-41% margin, or 2-1. Drudge is calling this a "Red State Shocker" as are others, but it shouldn't shock anyone. Some thoughts.

First, this is not a shock. If you want to believe the public is split on abortion, you can look at polls comparing the pro-life and pro-choice label. Then you will find it's basically 50/50. A nation torn apart, right? Only... when you look beneath the label, you'll find that most pro-lifers want abortion to be legal and most pro-choicers want it to be regulated and everybody is sick of talking about it. The end result is somewhere around 80% of the public, regardless of label, want legal, safe and rare... and off the news cycle.

Kansas voters are probably the most fringe-right in the nation and Kansas has a long history of anti-abortion efforts (including violence). If any state was going to represent the best-case-scenario for pro-lifers, it was Kansas. Yet, they lost 2-1. This will probably prove to be the high water mark too for the public's support to ban abortion. In places like Colorado, I would expect around 31%. In California, lower than that. Soooo that raises some questions:

1. What does this mean? It means, as I predicted, abortion will become the law of the land in state after state. It will probably happen quicker than I expected because of the overwhelming percentages. That kind of margin can stiffen a lot of backbones. It will also be more convincing because it will come from voters in most states before the Feds finish it off to get states that won't let their voters decide.

2. This will not end the political pro-life movement. That won't stop. But it will end public tolerance for the debate. What is their next strategy? Probably court-imposed policy: like the left did with abortion, get the courts to impose a ban.

3. Will it change the minds of GOP legislators? That's the most interesting question. It has to give them pause. The problem is the primaries are still largely dominated by the Religious Right. But the public will be increasingly hostile to people who raise this issue. So how do you placate both groups? Or do you even try? Will there instead be a shift away to a neutral position? On the gay issue, most GOP candidates simply stopped talking about it or even embraced it once they knew that 60% of their own voters favored it. Will the same thing happen with abortion? I suspect the answer is most will try to never to talk about it. But we'll see. The guy to watch here is Desantis. He's savvy and he's on the front line on this. He needs to solve this issue before he can become the GOP front runner. Trip up, and his voters run back to Trump. I would bet he shifts to talking about needing to change the hearts and minds of voters but also shifting this to voters to decide.

4. The Democrats think this will give them momentum in the midterms. I don't see that. It will only give momentum where there is a referendum, and that can't really be done before November (four states will have such referendums - California, Montana, Kentucky, and Vermont). So abortion remains a nonissue this cycle. After that, all bets are off. That said, I think the referendum in Montana may hurt the GOP. I doubt Kentucky will hurt because I suspect the GOP there will switch sides. There is no GOP in California. And the one in Vermont is pro-choice.

Ultimately, I'm not sure what the Supremes thought was going to happen when they issued this decision, but I doubt this was it. This is called an unintended consequence. What worries me is not abortion itself, what worries me are the other unintended consequences of their decision. When you mess with 50 years of settled law, you upend a lot of things. And when the politicians start taking advantage of that, you get some really ugly results. I worry very much if the court thinks that we have no right to privacy. I worry because there are masses of tech companies and insurance companies and law enforcement groups all waiting to break down those barriers in ways that will shock and surprise. I worry that laws like the one created in Texas's zeal to stop abortion will now be used to reach out of states like California and impose their insanity on the rest of us. I worry that the world is full of book burners and Karens and Nazis and others looking to control everyone else, and this decision opens doors and windows in our society to them... I worry that no one really knows what the limits are on government anymore. The Supremes could have done this very differently without unsettling so much, but they weren't bright enough... or clear-headed enough to find a better way. Now we need to worry. And this vote in Kansas shows it was all for naught anyways.

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