Archive for the ‘elections’ Category

[Watching French Calvary deploy in front of them] Goodyear: What about it John Henry?

John Henry Thomas: Looks like we ourselves got mixed up in somebody’s else’s war.

Christian: Yeah Sure does.

Short Grub: What are we going to do now?

John Henry Thomas: Well that’s already been decided.

The Undefeated 1969

Because of the falling polls and the Wile-E-Coyote nature of impeachment there has been some speculation concerning if Democrats will in fact hold an impeachment vote and instead settle for censure.

Don’t count on it.

To be sure they will give it their best shot, in fact I suspect that the purpose of the scholarly witnesses that are going to be called before the judiciary committee’s primary job is not to justify impeachment but to provide the cover necessary for the Democrat votes against it.

Constitutionally Impeachment is a political process, not a judicial one and “high crimes and misdemeanors” are not defined so, it doesn’t matter if the best the Democrats can do is prove that Donald Trump had a nose bleed on the White House carpet, under the rules the Democrats have the right to impeach him for that if they they want.

Nancy Pelosi knows and understands this which is why she tried so hard to avoid open impeachment, particularly after the Mueller goose egg. But once the process had begun she understands that there is no turning back politically. The question is only the best way to do it.

If the Schiff hearings had moved public opinion it would be easy. She might have grabbed a republican vote or two and presented it , with the media’s help, this as a solemn decision to remove a corrupt leader.

But without limited public support, a booming economy, polls showing that minorities that are vital to the Democrat election plans moving toward Trump she is down to playing the best hand she has in the hopes that the GOP in general or the President in particular make a mistake.

Her best hand is to make the best possible case for “censure” and pol test it among Democrat activists. If somehow after the hearings this week poll results tell them they’ve convinced enough democrat fire-eaters that censure is a valid alternative to impeachment (very unlikely) she will go full bore on a cencure vote with every Democrat and perhaps even a stray republican will take place and the left will declare victory.

This would be the 2nd best case for the Democrats and the 2nd least likely which is to say it ain’t gonna happen because while it’s the party’s smartest move it requires woke activists in the party to see reason and reality.

Good luck there.

Of course there is always the remote possibility that the Democrats actually find something that IS impeachable enough to convince the public it’s worth doing or that the White House does something so egregious as to change the polling on impeachment. That’s the best case scenario for the left and the least likely for the reasons.

  1. If the Democrat/Left/Deep State HAD something of this nature, they would have produced it, or leaked it over the last three years
  2. All the evidence so far suggests that the only impeachable acts that have taken place were the previous administrations attempts to corrupt this election, too much deep state digging might uncover this fact.
  3. President Trump has demonstrated that however the left might paint him, he’s much too savvy to make that kind of mistake.

With God all things are of course possible and if this miracle falls into Nancy Pelosi’s lap she will happily accept it but she’s smart enough to not count on it.

Finally there is the chance that enough Democrats will rebel to force her to abandon impeachment although rather than risk a vote that fails. This isn’t going to happen either. It would be the most destructive result for the left and would practically invite primary opponents or at worst 3rd party challengers on an “Impeach Now!” platform. The Damage to the left from such a result would be worse than anything else.

So what WILL happen? Here is the sequence:

  1. Dems make their best case for censure backed up by their report and the scholars who give them cover for it.
  2. Swing state Dems argue strongly for censure saying that this is where the evidence has taken them.
  3. Pelosi after confirming that the fire-eaters will not settle for censure holds the impeachment vote and passes it with 219 Democrats, not a single one from a swing district. Said vote is delayed as long as feasible to discourage primaries from the left on Swing democrats voting “No”.
  4. Democrats do their best to beg borrow or steal enough votes to keep Election 2020 from becoming an electoral disaster and/or hope some event (say Ginsberg’s death) takes place that galvanizes Democrats to the point where they can pull it off.

This is how I see it happening, it’s basically their 2012 Obamacare strategy which was able to work because:

  1. Black votes couldn’t bear the thought of the 1st black president failing to be re-elected
  2. Race trumped faith among Black Christians
  3. The GOP managed to nominate the weakest candidate in their field one that not had pushed for a state version of Obamacare (that I’m still living under) but was unwilling or unable to fight back against anyone but his own base.

Alas for them this time they have a candidate that not only has a strong economy and has proactively reached out to minority Democrat voters but one that is willing to fight back relentlessly.

Bottom line, the Democrats have dealt themselves a bad hand but will play it out the best they can and hope they get lucky. That’s the smartest political move they have left and whatever else you might say about Nancy Pelosi, you can count on her to play the best hand she has, with the media’s help of course.

Update: After Wednesday’s clown car weaponizing the 1st Lady Pelosi has apparently decided to fast track this to minimize the chance of her team providing any more ad material for the GOP in the hearings.

She wants this over and done.

by baldilocks

I estimate that everything we’ve seen since the assassination of President Kennedy has been Government-by-The-People Theater. No doubt, this charade goes much further back than that point in time, however, let’s call that event a conflagration – a reminder to all observers of who really runs things. Yes, I’m aware of the implication that I’m making: that the JFK assassination was a conspiracy by unseen actors, but don’t get it twisted; I’ve seen all the other conspiracy theories about it and I don’t subscribe to any of them. And it’s not my point anyway.

This is: I contend that every president from Lyndon B. Johnson to Barack H. Obama has walked in step with and/or been controlled by the bureaucracy, the secret cabals, the military-industrial complex (thank you, President Eisenhower), and the various other gangs that undergird this country. Yes, even Ronald Reagan.

And yet, somehow, we managed to elect one that refuses to walk in that path.

The gangs that began conspiring against him even before he won the nomination knew that he was the most dangerous choice for president — dangerous to them. He had made his money outside of government, had been in the public eye for decades and had a checkered private life that he didn’t try to hide. And, most frightening of all, he had claimed to be one of them: a Democrat. He entertained them, partied with them, listened to them.  He had probably seen and heard all manner of foul things that his “friends” prefer to remain private. And he had done so while drinking no alcohol and doing no drugs.

They had given him awards and begged him for jobs and for money.

Then, “out of the blue” he runs for president. In reality, he signaled what he was going to do back in the 1980s and did so again in 2012.

So, the gangs had to have something prepared just for him. However, it appears that he was ready for this, and for the next attack, and the next one and the one after that.

One of his missions is to expose the various means which the gangs have of enriching themselves on monies gotten from the pockets of the tax-payers. Ukraine seems to be both a means of thievery and a huge storage space for the loot.

This is why the government gangs will do anything to get him out of office. But before that happens, his reputation must be blasted to smithereens.

He knows this, which is why he will not be silent about it. As they use to say about a totally unrelated topic, silence equals death.

But he also keeps talking because it distracts the gangs from his more meaningful action against the gangs. While they continue to attempt to ruin his legacy before driving him out — or worse — he is on offense as well.

Everything will come to a head in one year or less.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

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Yesterday Jon Bell Edwards managed to do something a lot of people didn’t expect, he won re-election to the Governorship of Louisiana even after president Trump came down to support his opponent.

A lot of people on the left and in the media are publicly spinning this as a rejection of the president but there is one simple reason why Edwards was able to win, and it had nothing to do with Donald Trump, impeachment or anything else. Edwards won re-election because he is a creature even more rare than an honest journalist…a pro-life democrat who doesn’t equivocate when it comes to supporting life:

Edwards signed into law one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the country, earning praise from groups like the Susan B. Anthony List, which applauded him for “leading the way in the bipartisan effort to bring our nation’s laws into line with basic human decency.”Edwards said, “The pro-life ethos has to mean more than just the abortion issue. It’s got to go beyond that. The job isn’t over when the baby’s born if you’ve got poor people who need access to health care.”
Source: America Magazine on 2019 Louisiana gubernatorial race , Dec 14, 2018

Unblemished anti-abortion voting record
John Bel Edwards says, “We need the exact opposite of what we’ve gotten from Bobby Jindal; he has sacrificed the state’s well-being to further his own self-ambition.” But in some ways, Edwards is more like Jindal than many might think. Like the governor, he is an anti-abortion, pro-gun rights Catholic; his voting record is unblemished on both issues.

It’s worth noting that the left hasn’t been shy about attacking him for it either:

A rarity in his party, Edwards’ anti-abortion stance provokes angry outcries on social media from Democratic voters and disappointment within the party’s broader ranks across the country.
“When Republicans are taking away women’s rights at every step, it’s on the Democrats to show that we are the party that will protect women. When we fail to do that, we make it absolutely hopeless for women around the country,” said Rebecca Katz, a progressive Democratic consultant.

Many Democrat candidates for president and national leaders hit him for the heartbeat bill, NARAL hit him particularly hard:

“Women are the base of the Democratic Party, leading the charge for equality by fighting for reproductive freedom,” NARAL Pro-Choice America Political Director Nicole Brener-Schmitz said in a statement. “Governor Edwards, and any other elected official attempting to use political overreach to roll back our rights, is mistaken to think our fundamental freedoms are up for debate….He won’t get a pass just because he is a Democrat.”

But in the end Edwards didn’t flinch from his position and as a result Democrats kept the governor’s mansion in a race where they lost the secretary of state candidate lost by almost 20 points.

Now the reality is that both candidates in the race were very pro-life and there are plenty of other reasons why a Republican victory in Louisiana would have been a better thing for the state, but I also think that if Edwards’ victory gives Democrats both in the south and elsewhere the courage to stand up for life when the national party and the left demand they abandon it if they want statewide or national office it is a fine thing.

the Democrats / left / media can spin this anyway they want, but today was a victory for life and I suspect the knowledge that they owe that victory to Edwards’ stance against them galls them almost as much as a GOP victory would have.

Closing thought: Abortion is a sine non qua for me. If I have the choice between a pro-life democrat like Edwards and a pro-abortion republican like Brown or Baker or even one who was with me on any other issue, the pro-life Democrat would get my vote every single time.

Nothing trumps life at the ballot box for me, NOTHING.

There has been a lot of fuss about the election in Virginia which gave the Democrats all three houses in the state and to be sure, they are significant but for my money the bigger story if the city council election in Seattle.

Virginia is propped up by national politics and by Democrats winning despite scandals involving both the Democrat Governor (Blackface business) and Lt. Gov (Sexual Assault). We are already seeing memes of Virginia becoming California west.

But this is still early and if the Democrats majority is not huge. All it will take is a little overreach and there is every possibility that voters, even anti-Trump one will look at these results in four years and decide the left is a bridge too far.

Seattle is VERY different.

We have already seen story after story of Seattle surrendering it’s streets to the mob, of it’s business’ closing or fleeing because of the environment for them and people not being safe in their own city.

Well they had a city counsel election recently, an election where quite a few folks had been crying “enough” and guess what happened?

Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant has nearly completed a stunning turnaround in her quest for a third term Friday evening, recovering from a deficit of more than 8 percentage points and taking a 1,515-vote lead over her opponent, Egan Orion — putting her up by 3.6 percentage points. 
At that margin, Sawant will almost certainly retain her seat.
After a disappointing result in the initial ballot drop on election night, Seattle’s most famous socialist has cleaned up in the votes tallied in subsequent days, winning around 60% of ballots that were either postmarked or left in drop boxes on election day.
Washington’s vote-by-mail system means some last-minute ballots take several days to count. With the late trend strongly favoring Sawant — part of a pattern in Seattle of late-counted ballots tilting left — and relatively few ballots remaining, her reelection is a near lock.
With Sawant’s apparent comeback win, an election that was cast by many as a referendum on the leftward lean of Seattle politics has almost completely backfired on the business groups and mainstream Democrats who spent millions in their effort to rein in the city’s progressives.

Now I have some shall we say doubts about the mail in systems and their integrity but even given that consider the following.

The decline of Seattle has not been a secret. It’s been a national story and actually reached the point where not just business but even local media had taken sides against the left:

The left loves to make Amazon the face of any opposition but it wasn’t just Amazon and the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce pushing for a more moderate City Council. As I pointed out this week, the Seattle Times editorial board was campaigning to oust the far left members as well, including Sawant.

Yet despite all of this Seattle has decided to stay the course.

This tells me that liberalism is such a religion for the People of Seattle that not even the realities of life under liberalism and it’s costs can counter their loyalty to it. They have achieved a San Francisco level of wokeness and will likely have to go far beyond that level of danger and insanity to get out of it. I instantly thought of Bill James description of Hal Chase after managed to get MLB to take his side on allegations of him throwing games.

“He was free, then. It had all be brought out into the open, and he had gotten by with it. This seems to have had a liberating effect on Chase’s activities”

What this means for Seattle in general and Kshama Sawant in particular is that they can rightly claim a licence by the voters most affected by their policies to go farther left. Seattle has gotten the government they deserve and the left is going to give it to them good and hard. If that doesn’t scare the hell out of every normal still living in the city it ought to.