Jon Sable:I get twenty five percent of anything I recover
Sherman: That’s kind of steep isn’t it?
Jon Sable:Depends on how you look at it. I figure 75% of something is better than 100% of nothing
Jon Sable Freelance Issue 8 1984
I was talking to a friend yesterday about the election. This is the guy I mentioned before who had previously been NeverTrump but decided that he HAD to vote for him to punish the left for what the Department of Justice had done to him. There had to be consequences for such horrible behavior.
While he teased me about Matt Gaetz (who he thought was unqualified) and Pam Bondi ( who we both agreed was incredibly qualified) we found ourselves worried about one thing.
Conservatives in general and MAGA people in particularly have been rightly celebrating and some of the meltdowns we’ve seen have been really amusing, but when it comes down to it we have to acknowledge something that a few folks don’t want to hear:
While Donald Trump won 100% of the presidency the reason why he did is because the left was chasing voters away who weren’t 100% pure and Donald Trump welcomed them into the fold.
A lot of those people who joined with us will be expecting to get a portion of the spoils of victory which means there are going to be some people appointed to positions that I wouldn’t choose and some decisions made that I wouldn’t make but we’re likely going to get 70% of what we want. and that’s OK.
Or to put it another way. Would you complain if your Baseball, Football, Basketball or Hockey franchise managed a .700 winning percentage? You’d be tickled pink.
Now maybe over time we will convince them of the advantages of conservatism in both culture and economics and it may in fact be that we will be pleasantly surprised at the effectiveness of some of their ideas toward the common good.
If we want to raise an objection here and there, that’s fine we should make the best case we can for what we believe, but in the end we’re not going to get a lot done if after winning a historic election we take the people who helped us to that victory and chase them back to where they were and remember in four years we won’t have Trump as a unifying force so we damn well better keep them as friends because we won’t want them as enemies in 2028.
Let’s leave the purity tests to the left, after all I already have a religion.
Sir Thomas More:But Richard, that’s a little bribe. At court they offer you all sorts of things, home, manors, manor houses, coats of arms. Why not be a teacher? You’d be a fine teacher; perhaps a great one.
Richard Rich:If I was, who would know it?
Sir Thomas More:You; your pupils; your friends; God. Not a bad public, that. Oh, and a quiet life.
A Man for all Seasons 1966
This weekend I binge watched Tulsa King (highly recommended) but because my wife didn’t start with me I had to backtrack so she could catch up so in between I popped onto Youtube and there was an election night reaction video of the Bulwark.
Now I had watched reaction videos of all the other networks but these people were supposedly the “true conservatives” who had left the party because of Trump and were now pushing things like abortion and embracing far leftist because that’s what true principled conservatives do if they don’t get the nominee of their choice.
Check out the reactions and the people there and you’d swear they were a parody. It’s as if they never met a normal working class person or left the presence of anyone outside of the beltway who was not of the donor class.
It was especially interesting to see these supposedly expert people scoffing at the idea that people were hurting from inflation and how horrible the electorate is. Oh and I can’t wait to see Jonathan Altar starting hiding illegal immigrants in his attic as he said he would do, we should check back in six months to see if it’s happening. For me the real moment was Mono Charen declaring how America was not special or extraordinary because we elected Donald Trump over a woman who could not win a primary to save her life and whose entry into the political world was made possible by servicing Willie Brown’s willie.
It was the classic SNL 2016 election skit only without Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock there to mock the cluelessness, but what it really was comparable to was watching a group of courtiers in say the 12th to 16th century who spend all their time around the King’s court hoping to curry favor. Go back and watch scenes from the classic movie A Man for all Seasons. You will recognize these folks as the ones rushing on and off the barge after Henry VIII or in the inquiry pressing Sir Thomas Moore to give an answer and you will especially recognize them as Richard Rich whose primary purpose was to gain a position, any position that was above the common people so that the world would recognize their position.
And if some had to give up conservatism that they once supposedly championed for years well that’s a small price to pay for being above the mere commoners.
Now in fairness the Bulwark is a business and their job is to earn, and since they can’t earn on the conservative side they’ll service the left to keep those envelopes coming. Now I can understand that, I don’t approve but I understand and perhaps in an honest moment they might see themselves that way, but I suspect not, that’s the real irony here.
Look at that video. Every single one of them think’s they are Sir Thomas Moore, standing up to the king risking all for the sake of righteousness. Not one of them perceives that they are in fact an Army of Richard Riches all hoping to get Wales for themselves.
Captain Kidd:Well Captain Barsiliano are you satisfied?
Captain Barsiliano: I still put no trust in him.
Spitfire Stevens:Well I do and enough to give him my ship as soon as it’s re-rigged
Captain Barsiliano: No man is taking a ship out of here unless he has a rope around his neck like any known pirate. All right if he wants to sail let him sail on the Scorpion as my navigator, I have need of one and at once. When he comes back with blood on his hands he can hoist his own black flag, but not before.
Against All Flags 1952
One of the things that you learn quickly if you spend any time with Robert Stacy McCain is that this person is smart, and not just folksy country smart but book smart. He is extremely well read and when he decides to go after Marxists and feminists it’s because he had read more Marx than many Marxists and more Feminism than most Feminists, in fact it was his insistence on quoting feminists in their own words that made him one of the first conservative journalists banned from twitter years ago.
Why Elon Musk’s company has not reinstated him and his 80K+ followers as he has many others is still a large pet peeve for me and a matter of some mystery but I digress…
Well Stacy McCain has looked at the numbers from the last president election and notes a real oddity:
On Wednesday, November 6, the day after Election Day, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter was full of Democrats wondering about the “missing” votes — Kamala Harris’s vote totals were remarkably lower than the 81 million that Joe Biden supposedly got in 2020. This provoked all kinds of paranoid conspiracy theory comments among liberals, none of whom seemed to consider the obvious alternative: Maybe Joe really didn’t get 81 million votes. Maybe “ballot harvesting” and other Democrat shenanigans in 2020 really did amount to a stolen election. But only right-wing extremists could think such a thing.
It is not merely that Harris got some 7 million fewer votes than Biden, but rather than the total number of votes cast was lower by about 5 million. Who were those disappearing voters? Why would so many people not even bother to vote this year? Good luck coming up with an explanation for this that doesn’t include the possibiliity [sic] that what Democrats did in 2020 was to manufacture millions of fake votes for Joe Biden
Democrats being Democrats are floating other theories;
One final point about non-voters. We don’t know how many non-voters might have voted for Harris if they had voted, but Levitz suggests there’s no reason to think those voters who chose not to vote are an especially progressive group.
In truth, Americans who want the Democratic Party to be more uniformly progressive are, by and large, the most reliably Democratic voters in the country.
Emphasis Mine
Now let’s go back to Stacy McCain’s argument:
Hmmm. Read the whole thing and you will find no attempt to explain why turnout was so much worse in these “heavily Democratic cities,” because this might lead to questions about why these “heavily Democratic cities” had such phenomenally high turnout in 2020. What happened in 2020 that did not happen in 2024?
And let me remind you all that it was turnout in five heavily Democrat machine controlled counties in five different states that made the difference in 2020 and the real reason why Biden finally had to go:
And you will recall the big question that Kamala’s incompetent campaign raised: Steal or No Steal?
In short we are in a position where while the apparatus is in place in key states to steal and election you have a strong likely hood that it would fail because of
Increased vigilance
A larger margin to overcome
A candidate even less credible then LOL 81 million Joe
All of this puts us back to the same formula I postulated 8 years ago:
If (Number of votes you can get away stealing) > (Number of votes you might lose by)
Then
Go For it!
Else
Release your vote totals as is
Endif
You will not I have bolded the key phrase get away because we are at a point where it is not only likely that a steal might fail do to the volume of the vote, but the dissatisfaction of the electorate has, in my opinion, reached a point where officials held their noses and went along with the steal last time because they disliked Trump might decide against playing ball.
Furthermore if the steal DOES fail you will not only get a Trump administration with a Trump AG and a bunch of new Trump lawyers at Justice but you will get a Trump administration that has had an election stolen from them hell bent on getting those who did tried to do it to them again.
Stacy noted some of these reasons why the steal didn’t take place and added a key one of his own:
Why didn’t the same thing happen in 2024? Well, first of all, Republicans raised hell about election integrity and Democrats, realizing that they couldn’t get away with running the same game again, refrained from the most egregious practices that had tainted 2020. Also, however, Zuckerberg stopped pouring out money (or certainly did not spend as much as he did in 2020) for the Democrat ballot-harvesting gangs.
If you’re wondering why Zuckerberg lost his enthusiasm for helping Democrats steal elections, perhaps the date of October 7, 2023, might be viewed as the decisive factor. Why should a Jew spend his money to help elect Democrats, if Democrats are going to support murderous Jew-hating terrorists like Hamas and Hezbollah?
In short the steal wasn’t plausible and wasn’t funded, thieves like to be paid and Kamala spent her billon of celebs, Stacy saw all of this from numbers. I suggest you point to his piece (and maybe to this one) when some smug leftist asks why the GOP didn’t scream “fraud” this time around.
Nearly two weeks after Kamala Harris wipeout at the hands of Donald Trump, there’s a leadership vacuum in the Democratic Party.
That’s good news, but let’s not get cocky. The Dems faced the same situation in 1988 after the Michael Dukakis debacle. Four years later, the Republican incumbent, was denied reelection at the hands of Bill Clinton–with an assist from Ross Perot.
As with Hillary Clinton after 2016, the Democrats are through with Harris and her worthless running mate, Tim Walz. Barack Obama is getting blamed, rightfully so, for the disastrous Joe Biden presidency and Harris’ expensive but failed attempt to succeed him.
Two pretenders to the Democrats’ throne of lies are a pair governors, Jared Polis of Colorado and JB Pritzker of Illinois. Sadly, Pritzker is my governor, and I’m going to return, again, to exposing Pritzker’s failures, because the legacy media–even in decline it’s still a force–isn’t doing its job.
As for Polis, I haven’t heard that he has presidential ambitions. Pritzker does.
Pritzker is not popular in rural Illinois.
Oh, about the headline, the governor of Chicago. In 2022, the Chicago Gold Coast billionaire and Hyatt Hotels heir won his second term over Republican Darren Bailey. Outside of three counties with big universities, and St. Clair County–where you’ll find East St. Louis–Pritzker lost every downstate county. Of Illinois’ 102 counties, Pritzker won only 12. The governor’s base is Chicago and its suburbs. Despite amassing huge vote totals there, he only was able to win 54 percent of the total, which will probably, when all of the counting is done, what Harris will end up with in Illinois. Bailey prevailed in some counties with over 80 percent of the vote. In 2016, when running against a failed Republican incumbent, he only did slightly better downstate.
Hillary Clinton and Harris ran poorly in rural areas. That’s a big reason why they lost.
After six years in office, Pritzker remains unpopular outside of the Chicago area. Successful leaders build broad coalitions.
Transgenderism.
While some of his fellow Democrats are easing away from their party’s extreme stance on transgenderism, Prtizker is not.
Last week on X Pritzker posted, “This Transgender Awareness Week, I want you to know that I see you and have your back as governor. Illinois has enshrined protections for gender-affirming care to meet this moment — and because of that, you will have a home here always.”
This Transgender Awareness Week, I want you to know that I see you and have your back as governor.
Illinois has enshrined protections for gender-affirming care to meet this moment — and because of that, you will have a home here always.
Illinois law allows biological boys, that is males, to play in girls’ school sports.
Pritzker is weak on crime.
Early on Election Day morning, when most of the media was understandably focusing on the presidential race, during a routine traffic stop Chicago Police Officer Enrique Martinez was allegedly murdered by a thug with a machine gun who belonged in jail but was free on electronic monitoring.
Last year, the SAFE-T Act, which Pritzker signed into law, went into effect. Illinois is now the only state that bans cash bail. Despite spin from the establishment media and academia, the result is disastrous for law-abiding Illinoisans. A daily look at CWB Chicago, Second City Cop, and Lake & McHenry Scanner will explain why. Illinois is a criminal’s catch-and-release haven.
Chicago cops and their families hate Pritzker, and prosecutors hate the SAFE-T Act.
The governor of Chicago is not popular with the Chicago Police officers and their families. Martinez’ funeral is Monday, and the slain cop’s family made it clear that they didn’t want Pritzker, or Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, to attend his funeral service. Earlier this year, Chicago cop Luis Huesca was murdered while off-duty in a carjacking, his family made the same request. Pritzker quickly acquiesced, Johnson–and that’s another story for another time–eventually followed the governor’s lead.
On a personal note, my problems with Venezuelan migrants are just annoyances–dealing with panhandlers and people selling bottles of water and candy on street corners. Friend of mine living in Chicago say burglaries are up where they live. The evidence is anecdotal–but the migrant presence in their neighborhoods has a lot of fingers pointing at them.
On a more sinister level, the Tren de Aragua Venezuelan street gang has a presence in Chicago. Because of the SAFE-T Act, most of those migrant gangbangers are set free after they’re arrested.
Meanwhile, Pritzker is Illinois’ self-appointed champion of the Venezuelans and other illegal migrants.
Gerrymandering and depopulation.
As I mentioned earlier, the almost-final tally of the presidential race in Illinois is 54 percent for Harris and 44 for Trump.
What about Illinois’ congressional races?
When I was born, Illinois had 24 congressional districts–because of anemic or no population growth, depending on the decade–now we have only 17.
Since 2014, Illinois has annually lost population.
Pictured above is Illinois’ 15th congressional district. What’s that empty space in the middle? That’s the 13th congressional district, the penis of the Prairie State. The 15th district is represented by Republican Mary Miller, while Democrat Nikki Budzinski is the congresswoman for the 13th. The 15th is heavily Republican, the 13th leans Democratic, and its phallus shape was drawn to include Democratic strongholds such as East St. Louis, Springfield, Decatur, and Champaign. If Illinois had fair maps, the two districts would be split into two similarly shaped rectangular areas and its voters would likely elect two Republicans.
The rest of Illinois is similarly carved up in a biased and partisan manner.
Stay with me on this one.
So, Harris won Illinois with 54 percent. As for Illinois’ congressional delegation, there are 14 Republicans and just three Republicans. Which gives Republicans just 18 percent of the Land of Lincoln’s seats in the US House. Yessir, just 18 percent.
Illinois’ congressional maps are a disgrace to democracy.
What would Abraham Lincoln think?
Pritzker’s Dems enjoy supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly. Why? Well because of gerrymandering, of course. Many General Assembly races had victors who ran unopposed. If there is no chance for victory, why run? Why even vote? Citizens, be damned.
During his first gubernatorial run, Pritzker repeatedly promised to veto any legislative remaps that were partisan.
He lied.
Pritzker is a bully of a politician whose power is enhanced by gerrymandering. He won’t build a coalition because he doesn’t have to.
He might be successful as the de facto leader of the Democratic Party.
But as president?
You’ve been warned about the governor of Chicago.
John Ruberry regularly blogs from another oddly shaped Illinois congressional district, the 9th, at Marathon Pundit.
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