Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

“Beyond Normal” “Running on the Economy” “peace and security” “congressional approval” “we become morons” Under the Fedora

Posted: December 20, 2019 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, elections, politics, primaries
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Because I have a busted shoulder and am currently on disability instead of doing my share to advance Christmas eCommerce, I am watching a Democrat debate.

It simply amazes me that people think these folks are serious and there was a lot of stupid on that stage but I want to point out just a few things that were said by various candidate in particular that were, well….interesting

Joe Biden: “We have to move beyond normal”

This was in response to how to win republicans back in a post Trump era. It has to be one of the silliest things I’ve ever heard. If I was Team Trump I would be making fun of that line for the rest of the campaign and in a debate with any democrat I’d ask how many genders they are.

Tom Steyer: “Trump is going to run on the Economy”

There was a question asked about how the Democrat field will deal with the economy. Every single democrat then went on and on about how bad the economy actually is for the majority of people. Yet Tom Steyer stated bluntly that Donald Trump is going to run on the economy.

If the economy is so bad, and the majority of voters know it, why on earth would Trump run on the economy?

To ask the question is to answer it.

Bernie Sanders: ” Israel has the right not only to exist, but to exist in peace and security”

Now in fairness of all of the statements that were said on the stage this is one of the sanest and most rational things said, but the revealing moment was the reaction to those words.

The night was full of loud applause to the words of candidate but of all the audience reactions of the night the most significant was the single solitary lonely clap that was heard in the audience when these words were said.

If you are a Jewish Democrat who supports Israel that should speak volumes

Joe Biden: “you had to have Congressional approval.”

Joe Biden was asked why Gitmo was not closed during the Obama years and he quickly pivoted toward Israel, but before he did he stated that to close gitmo “you had to have Congressional approval”

In 2008 a new congress was elected with Barack Obama and Joe Biden, that congress gave the Democrats majority in the house of 256-178. In the Senate they had the majority of 55-41 with two independents who caucused with the Democrats and that number at once point was 60-40.

That being the case how can Biden claim that congress was to blame for Gitmo not being closed?

Andrew Yang: “If you get too many men alone and leave us alone for a while, we kind of become morons”

It’s often commented that there is a gender gap between men and women in elections with men favoring the GOP and women favoring Democrats. If you want to know why just look at this response to the question concerning President Obama’s statement about how much better the world would be if women were running it.

The obvious statement that calling half the electoral population a bunch of morons is a bad idea when you want to win an election but it’s worth noting that Donald Trump did better than Hillary Clinton among Married couples.

Married couples would include a mother and a father and likely a son or two. I suspect that a lot of mothers don’t appreciate having some stranger tell her their fathers, or husbands or sons are a bunch of morons.

This type of thing might play with the Democrat Debate audience but it’s not going to play with the general public outside liberal universities.

In fairness only one of the Democrat nominees will be running for President ( I say it will be Biden on the 2nd ballot) and the great saving grace for the Democrats is that most of the voters they need to win in 2020 were not watching. But if I was the Trump Presidential campaign I would be tagging this entire field with all of these statements and dare them to run away from it.

Morning After Impeachment Thoughts Under the Fedora

Posted: December 19, 2019 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, elections, politics, primaries
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Rhett Butler: With enough courage, you can do without a reputation.

Gone With the Wind 1939

Based on the reactions of some of the facebook friends of my son last night, a not inconsiderable number of people on the left and abroad are going to wake up this morning and be completely surprised that Donald Trump remains the current president of the United States of America with all the power and prerogatives of the office that he holds still intact.

While I deplore the commentary this is on our educational system a mere twenty years after Bill Clinton’s impeachment as a very vocal Trump supporter in an extremely blue state where even the establishment GOP is not on the side of the angels I confess that am going to enjoy quite a bit of schadenfreude when the reality of that fallacy hits these fools and frankly that feeling will be multiplied as the President not only ignores impeachment but weaponizes it against his foes to defeat them.

I must admit I did not anticipate how much fun this is going to be.

Vincent LaGuardia Gambini: Hey Stan, you’re in Ala-F***in-Bama. You come from New York. You killed a good old boy. There is no way this is not going to trial.

My Cousin Vinny 1992

There were quite a few people on the right who till the very end were convinced that this would not happen because Pelosi would not be this suicidal politically. Yesterday’s vote was a reminder of what I wrote a bit ago that this vote wasn’t about protecting newly elected Democrats in swing districts from primary challenges, it was about protecting longtime house members in “safe” districts from primary challenges. Pelosi wasn’t protecting her majority, she was projecting her leadership team from the violent left that is now their base.

Bill McKay: What do we do now?

The Candidate 1972

There is a real sense that the Democrats are pretty much making it up as they go along and nothing illustrates this better than the elevation of the “Impeach but don’t sent it to the Senate” plan what went from wild speculation a week ago to a threat by Pelsoi’s after impeachment last night.

As I’ve already written this gives the lie to the urgency of impeachment but stresses the point made above that the urgency was for the violent Democrat base to see Democrats had in fact vote for impeachment. I’m sure that focus groups are now being formed and such groups may find that now that they’ve had their vote those same angry activists might INSIST that Pelosi not send impeachment to the Senate to avoid on the record acquittal. All of this is uncharted territory for the left and it’s going to be a great source of income for political consultants for the next six months.

No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength.

Helmuth von Moltke

Several other side effects of this decision to delay sending impeachment to the senate instantly come to mind:

  • If a vacancy appears in the SCOTUS and the Senate is about to vote on a Trump nominee don’t be surprised if Nancy & Company choose that moment to send impeachment over to the senate in order to delay consideration of any such nominee.
  • Any delay of more than a few days gives an awful lot of cover to the GOP in terms of voting for a motion to dismiss on the grounds that if the House impeachment was a serious exercise it would have delayed sending the case over.
  • Every day that the House delays sending Impeachment to the senate is a day that impeachment remains an issue in a house race and increases the likelihood that in a congressional debate incumbent democrats will be attacked or questioned over it.
  • It’s completely possible that the House might NEVER send impeachment to the senate and thus it will die at the end of the congress unless by some miracle Donald Trump loses re-election. At that point such a vote in the senate would be of interest only to see if there are 20 Senate Republicans who want a President Pence for two to three weeks.

Isoroku Yamamoto: I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping Giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.

Tora Tora Tora 1970

At Legal Insurrection William Jacobson noted the contrast between the so called somber house vote and the Trump Rally in the swing state of Michigan:

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Trump seems energized, and as do his supporters I encounter. I think Democrats will rue the day they forced this impeachment through the House.

I watched that rally, he in energized, the crowd is energized and the entire GOP base simply can’t wait to vote in November. This is Pearl Harbor for the Democrats without sinking a single battleship.

Batman: No Joker. You’re playing the wrong game. The old game. Tonight you’re taking no hostages. Tonight I’m taking no prisoners.

Batman the Dark Knight Returns #3 1986

Finally and ironically, the biggest losers of impeachment will be the House of Representatives and the media. Both have played this up as something serious and devastating and the end result seems to be as potent as a eunuch in a harem. While not the final nail in the coffin of the media this is going to weaken it to the point where ironically the only people it will be able to intimidate are those on their own side. Furthermore the threat of a political impeachment in the future is not going to be taken seriously by anyone with 40+ guaranteed votes in the Senate.

Nothing increases my respect for the founding fathers wisdom more then the fact that they anticipated all of this centuries before it happened and planned accordingly.

Some might say that the bad news here is that an actually corrupt President will recognize this and act accordingly but I submit and suggest that nightmare scenario already took place during the Clinton years.

Tribe and the Left Give the Impeachment Game Away

Posted: December 18, 2019 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, politics

Sheldon Cooper: WHEATON!

The Big Bang Theory The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary  2009

Yesterday the left was all a-twitter about the idea of voting for impeachment today but not sending their case to the jury (the senate) until Mitch McConnell agrees to call the witnesses demanded by majority leader Chuck Schumer. No less a luminary than Lawrence Tribe suggested this course of action.

Now in fairness I think this move if it’s used is going to make very little difference in public opinion but assuming there are still a few people who have not made up their minds or members of the Democrat party old enough or sane enough to be subject to logic and reason, this threatened move gives away the game because it poses a very simple question.

If these witnesses are so important and their evidence so vital why not call them in the house and go through the process (already begun in the Supreme Court) to compel them to testify BEFORE members of the HOUSE vote on the articles of impeachment?

After all if these witness are so critical to the case against the President then surely the members of the house need this critical evidence before voting don’t they?

But no, it can not be, after all every day that impeachment is still on the plate of the house of representatives is a day where the risk of losing votes on impeachment increases, particularly when the dates for state primaries pass,and even worse every delay in the house increases that new exculpatory witnesses might come forward or that pressure to call GOP witness that have been demanded might increase or even indictments of those involved in the entire Russia Scandal hoax might take place.

And think of the public image, we have been told that impeachment is vital VITAL for the good of the country in fact it’s SO vital that we have to vote on it today…but not so vital that we need to send it to the senate right now.

The bottom line is this: Democrats went forward on impeachment because their radical/twitter base demands it, they understand it’s a loser and are looking for any trick to mitigate or spin it as a winner. This is them playing the Will Wheaton playing the “MeMaw” option in a game of Mystic Warriors of Ka’ah.

Alas for the left Mitch McConnell is not the sucker that Sheldon Cooper is and I suspect they will discover neither are the American people.

My Vox Problem

Posted: December 17, 2019 by julietteochieng in economy, local, News/opinion, politics, Uncomfortable Truths
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So much for freedom of the press in CA

by baldilocks

The urge is to laugh. But I’m not laughing.

Hundreds of freelance writers at Vox Media, primarily those covering sports for the SB Nation site, will lose their jobs in the coming months as the company prepares for a California law to go into effect that will force companies to reclassify contractors [freelancers] in the state as employees.

“This is a bittersweet note of thanks to our California independent contractors,” John Ness, executive director of SB Nation, wrote in a post on Monday. “In 2020, we will move California’s team blogs from our established system with hundreds of contractors to a new one run by a team of new SB Nation employees.”

The law in question is California Assembly Bill 5.

Back in September, Vox thought AB5 was a good thing.

Pushing AB 5 through the legislature is perhaps one of the most significant labor wins in decades, if only because the labor movement has had very few victories in the past 40 years. But it’s particularly significant because of California’s position as one of the world’s largest economies and its outsized influence in national politics. If any state can start to reverse the trend of shrinking labor unions, it’s California. (…)

However, hundreds of thousands of workers — possibly millions — will see an immediate impact on their working conditions after the switch.

Emphasis mine and that last statement is certainly correct.

On January 1, 2020, it will severely limit all of my gigs. In short, AB5 limits me to 35 pieces of freelance work per year for an individual recipient.

This includes my blogging here at DaTechGuy Blog.

Most of you know that I live in Los Angeles. Back in 2013, Peter invited to me to be one of his Da Magnificent Seven. Initially, each of us contributed one blog post per week, but, a few years back, we upped the number to two  a week which, of course, means that I post here 104 times per year.

You can figure out the impact. By the way, Peter — who lives in Massachusetts — is an awesome boss and a great guy.

I told you about California’s new law – and its purpose – weeks ago.

I’ve been saying to any who will listen that the goal of California’s Organized Left (OL) is to drive out the middle class. The OL’s dream population will consist of the rich and the servant class, with the latter being composed mostly of illegal aliens. (…)

Freelance writers – even itinerant “street artists” like me – are considered part of the middle class by the OL because we all have the potential of upward mobility and, most importantly, we cannot be controlled by an employer.

Problem laid out.

In my next DMS blog post — this Saturday — I will tell you what my options are.

HERE ARE THE OPTIONS:  Why I Stayed in California.

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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Update DTG: Thanks Juliette for your kind words and thanks Glenn for the Instalanche. Hi folks, the template might be the same but the host is different so I hope you’re loading faster and without issue. While you’re here don’t forget to check out Juliette’s other pieces and

Hope to see you again soon

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