Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

The Biggest Messaging Problem for Democrats is Reality The 2nd is Saying What they Actually Believe Out Loud

Posted: December 7, 2021 by datechguy in Blame Trump, economy, elections, media, politics

Reality: I’m going to tear down your safe space, I shall smash it with glee.

Cartman: Who is that?

Reality: You can’t stop me from getting inside. I am cold and dark and my name…is reality!

South Park: Safe space , song: In my safe space 2015

I’m rather amused at the left’s insistence that the primary problem they are having is messaging.

That because there are two primary factors hurting their messaging.

The first is reality.

It doesn’t matter getting a standing O at the Kennedy Center if people are paying twice as much for Gas as there were a few month before and their grocery bills are though the roof even as the supply chain falls apart.

Nor does it help when people you have cheered as heroes just a year or two ago (Cuomo) end up either resigning or being fired for offences against decency.

Furthermore it’s hard to ignore rampant crime to the point where local TV stations are giving advice on how not to be carjacked.

All of these things are being actually experienced by actual voters, primarally in actual blue cities. The reality is so pronounced that it’s very hard to spin it away.

And I’ve not even mentioned Afghanistan or even Joe Biden’s inability to speak or move without constant supervision.

But that’s only one component of the problem. The 2nd is almost as deadly.

For a long time the primary MO of the left and their media allies was to avoid talking about their actual beliefs and goal.

Now we have members of the left openly calling for no bail for criminals.

We have people openly supporting socialism and communism

We have an AG calling parents attending school board meetings domestic terrorists

And most important we have Democrat governors and mayors openly pushing mandates at work at school and even at home that are not working while at the same time the primary non-trump villain in your drama (DeSantis in Florida) is doing the exact opposite with a wide degree of success.

While this stuff might play inside the Democrat media bubbles of academia and media outside of those safe spaces they just don’t advance the cause.

Now given the methods used to win the last national election it may well be that it doesn’t matter what the voters think but in midterm elections at a time of heightened scrutiny this is a danger.

The Democrats, the media and reality have come out as what they are, alas for them it’s unlikely that they can be fit back into their bottle.

Stacy Abrams channels Monty Python #unexpectedly

Posted: December 4, 2021 by datechguy in comedy, politics
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Many years ago Monty Python did a sketch concerning the Piranha Brothers which had the following exchange concerning weather nor not Dinsdale Piranha was nailing peoples heads to the floor:

This came immediately to mind when I heard about Stacy Abrams on Rachel Maddow:

The big difference in the Python sketch and Abrams is in the skit when the interviewer says: “But the police have film of Dinsdale actually nailing your head to the floor” Stig admits that the case. Actual film of Abrams doing this has not dissuaded her Lets go to the film:

I suspect that unlike Mr. O’Tracy she will not be backtracking on her new claim. After all her whole claim to fame is based on this assertion.

Unexpectedly of course

If you want to hear the full python sketch here it is via their Album: Another Monty Python Record

Cuomo Discarded, Smart but Bad, Baker bye bye, And you’re Little Roe too, and Harris isn’t going anywhere under the fedora

Posted: December 3, 2021 by datechguy in politics, under the fedora
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I think those on the right who are celebrating the fall of the House of Cuomo both in NY & at CNN as a victory for us. I disagree, it’s not so much a victory as it is the embodiment of a basic truth of the left which is this: If you have power to aid and abet their cause of the left you will be protected by them & their media, academic and entertainment allies, but once you no longer have that power your usefulness is at an end and said protection is gone.

Cuomo’s fall, while satisfying simply means that they are no longer useful to the cause and thus are no longer guaranteed the protection or deference that the left’s institutions once provided. In fact the only protection they have is whatever knowledge they have of others on the left who have done as bad as them or worse.

Last month I was at lunch with my brothers who are both much more conservative than me (I’m practically the liberal of the group) and the subject of both Fauci & Pelosi came up.

While they despise them both with a passion they also noted that they were both very smart in the sense that while their actions have been detrimental to the nation they successfully used said actions to gain personal power, wealth and security.

These actions might be unethical, dishonest and dishonorable even to the point of being evil but given the end result for themselves were certainly not stupid, except of course in a theological sense.

Speaking of falls Charlie Baker AND Karen Politio have decided to call it quits not seeking a 3rd term as governor and Lt. Gov of Massachusetts.

There have been ups and downs. On the down side the pair are horrible on social issues, particularly abortion and their opposition to President Trump is why the left likes him as much as they do in the state. On the plus side Baker is an able and competent administrator and I suspect with some cause the reason while Massachusetts in general and Fitchburg in particular did not go the way of Kenosha or Minneapolis when BLM came calling was due to his quiet actions.

A lot of conservatives will not be sorry their gone, at least not until a completely woke Democrat gets the job and does their best to turn the state into California.

There is word that the Democrats will go all in on abortion for the midterms as the potential for SCOTUS reversing Roe seems good after oral arguments.

While I think it’s not wise to 2nd guess the court, particularly any court run by old yellowstain Justice Roberts it’s a most logical move on their part.

Of course all of this was inevitable because the future belong to those who show up and spending generation killing off your potential voters is not a long term plan for success.

Finally for the past month there has been a lot of speculation on dumping Kamala Harris.

I’m not buying any of it. Harris is in an elected not an appointed position and unless you have actual impeachable offenses and the willingness of the house and senate to remove her she’s not going anywhere. All this talk is just talk.

And seriously why would she resign? What is the actual gain for her? It’s not like everyone doesn’t already know how she got to where she is and frankly I don’t that there is anything hidden in her past that is more corrupt than what the Biden’s are openly doing.

Lots of Illinoisans are crossing the Wisconsin state line–permanently

Posted: November 21, 2021 by John Ruberry in business, crime, economy, News/opinion, politics
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By John Ruberry

“He crossed state lines with an AR-15” is a typical bellyache from leftist pontificators about Kyle Rittenhouse traveling from his home in Antioch, Illinois to help protect a business in Kenosha, Wisconsin during the riots (oops civil unrest) there last summer. 

The northern city limits of Antioch end at the Wisconsin state line. So for many people, including for Kyle Rittenhouse, travelling to Wisconsin is a daily trip. He worked in Pleasant Prairie, which is sandwiched between the Illinois state line and Kenosha. And Rittenhouse’s father and other relatives of his live in Kenosha.

Rittenhouse of course was found not guilty–and it was the correct verdict–of charges surrounding the self-defense shootings of three rioters (oops mostly peaceful protesters) in Kenosha last summer.

Do you need to fill up your gas tank? Only naive fools top off their vehicles in Illinois when there is a Wisconsin choice a short drive away. For instance, last month Mrs. Marathon Pundit and I visited Illinois Beach State Park in Zion. On our way out of the park I told Mrs. Marathon Pundit, “Let’s head up Sheridan Road and fill up our car.” And so we did. At the BP station there–which is just 50 yards north of the Illinois border, we paid 40 cents less per gallon than we would have south of the Cheese Curtain. The BP station is a large one–there were about ten vehicles filling up. And each one had Illinois license plates.

What about permanent moves to America’s Dairyland?

Just north of that border you see many manufacturing facilities and warehouses, most of them are newly built. Many of them are businesses that formerly called Illinois home. U-Line has a massive warehouse in Pleasant Prairie, they moved there, bringing 1,000 jobs, from Waukegan, Illinois in 2008. That facility has many neighbors that are equally massive. But on the Illinois side you see farms and some small scale businesses.

Why are they leaving?

Writing for the Badger Institute in 2019, Mark J. Perry said, “On 14 different measures of labor market dynamism, economic growth, various tax burdens, business climate and fiscal health, Wisconsin comes out ahead of neighboring Illinois on all but one of those measures — state individual income tax rate.” Perry added, “On net, Wisconsin has gained 116,000 Illinois residents between 2006 and 2017, an average of nearly 40 residents every day from 2014-’17.” 

Illinois has other substantial problems. Its public pension system is the second-worst funded of the 50 states–at just 39 percent–while Wisconsin’s public worker pensions are the best-funded at over 100 percent. Only an amendment to the Illinois constitution to eliminate the pension guarantee clause, a default, or hyper-inflation can solve the pension crisis. Illinois regularly contends for the title of most-corrupt state. Since I was born four Illinois governors have served time in federal prison. No governors of Wisconsin from that period have suffered the same disgrace.

Violent crime and robbery is a growing crisis in Chicago and its inner suburbs. Chicago will probably exceed 800 murders this year–numbers that the city hasn’t seen since the crack-fueled street gang wars of the mid-1990s. According to Hey Jackass there have already been over 1,400 carjackings in Chicago–nearly double than the yearly total of 2009. Flash mob robberies are occurring not just in Chicago but also the suburbs, such as this outrage where a gang of thieves on Wednesday filched over $100,000 in merchandise from a Luis Vuitton store in DuPage County. Two days later in Chicago’s downsized Magnificent Mile a flash mob of shoplifters struck Neiman Marcus–filling up three cars of merchandise. Wow, up until recently finding even an illegal parking spot was nearly impossible on the Mag Mile. Of course no one has been charged in these flash mob thefts. 

So crossing the Illinois state line into Wisconsin isn’t just a common occurrence. It’s the safe and smart move for people and businesses. 

Who knows? Mrs. Marathon Pundit and I might make that migration north too. Without a rifle. We only own a handgun.

John Ruberry regularly blogs just forty miles south of the Wisconsin border at Marathon Pundit.

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