My Trump Running Mate List, Choice One: Ron DeSantis

Posted: May 14, 2024 by datechguy in election 2024, elections, politics
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It’s been a while since I’ve done a post that were pure wild speculation but as I’ve been thinking about who Trump will choose as his running mate I thought I’d put one together.

This list will consist of three “A” list choices along with one dark horse. I will cover one each day.

In choosing a running mate there is one constitutional consideration and one non-constitutional consideration that have to be made in doing so.

  1. Can’t be from the same state I’m going to be slightly loose with this because “can’t be from the same state” can mean either:
    • Not born in the same state OR
    • Not living in the same state at the time of the election
  2. Must be hated by the left almost if not more than him because if he was to take a “deep state” running mate or a person like Nikki Haley he might as well, as I’ve noted before hang a target on his back with the words “assassinate me” in bright luminescent paint.

For the purpose of this pieces I’m going to assume the former as the choice and all of my choices are going to confirm with the 2nd choice.

Choice 1: Ron DeSantis Governor of Florida

If there was ever a person who would be the natural choice for a Trump Ticket this time around it’s the governor of Florida:

Ron DeSantis is the governor of the single most successful state in the country. He has successfully resisted every single one of the Biden administration’s attempts to curtail said success.

  • He is part of the highly successful move to export illegal aliens to blue cities and states
  • He has cracked down on the “death to jews” protestors when they have violated law
  • He has (and this is huge) cracked down on cheating by the left in elections to the point where his state which was once a swing state is now as solidly red as they come.
  • He has crippled the DEI industry and taken on woke corporations like Disney and won.

There are also two considerations that would appeal specifically to Trump.

  1. He is likely the only person more feared by the left then Trump himself, in fact Trump recognized this and leveraged this fear to get himself back on social media platforms for the purpose of attacking him during and even before the primaries.
  2. Unlike Nikki Haley DeSantis recognized the situation on the ground early and pulled out of the primary race after Iowa and endorsed Trump recognizing that the voters had decided on Trump and accepting their choice.

He also has one other quality that Trump likes in people. Trump is a doer, he all about getting things done. DeSantis is the same, from handling natural disasters to getting people from Florida out of Israel who were stranded there at the start of the war he has ignored the naysayers and focused on what he could do rather than what others said couldn’t be done.

And while I think this election is all about Trump so a running mate doesn’t add a lot to a ticket a vet who has won the Bronze Star certainly doesn’t hurt.

Bottom line he has all of the positive characteristics of Trump from being a doer to being unafraid of the left with absolutely none of the baggage, furthermore he is not only hated and feared by the left as much if not more than Trump which is the best insurance against assassination but because he is so hated by the left Trump by picking him would be able to stick another finger in the eye of said left by having him as a successor.

I suspect President Trump would find that rather sweet.

The only real question is can he pass constitutional muster? (born vs living in). It goes without saying that if he’s chosen the left will go to court on that basis. If there is any doubt or if Trump wants to avoid one more court battle he can always move to choice #2 who we will cover tomorrow

Let’s Stop Pretending there is Any Doubt as to the NYC Trump Trial Verdict

Posted: May 13, 2024 by datechguy in the courts
Tags: ,

There have been a lot of critiques of the sham Trump trial in NYC showing that there is no sign of any “there” there but in the latest critique Jonathan Turley boils it down to a single point:

The assumption was that no rational prosecutor would base a major criminal case almost entirely on the testimony of Michael Cohen, who was recently denounced by a judge as a serial perjurer peddling “perverse” theories in court.

The calculus of Alvin Bragg is now obvious. He is counting on the jury convicting Trump regardless of the evidence.

“Now obvious”? Do you seriously mean to suggest that this wasn’t obvious from day one?

Frankly the next line of this piece is even more amusing:


Which is also why Bragg likely fears that the judge, not the jury, will decide the case.

No he doesn’t. If there has been one thing clear from the start of this entire process is that judge Merchan is there to make sure that Trump is convicted. His previous rulings all point in that direction, in fact the only reason he hasn’t put Trump in jail for contempt is fear that it will even further expose his court as the farce it is to the few in the country who haven’t figured it out.

The goal here is to give the left grounds to remove Trump from ballots or to give congress grounds to bar him from running because frankly it’s looking like Trump is going to win this thing far beyond the margin of believable fraud. That is Merchan’s entire purpose, to make this possible, particularly since the other cases are falling apart on a federal level. This is the preverbal “hail Mary” pass although given the corrupt nature of the move it’s more of a “hail satan”.

This isn’t a movie from the 30’s or 40’s where the corrupt judge or congressman decides to redeem himself at the end, this is part of a long trek of the American left toward the soviet system that they have craved for decades.

Furthermore If Merchan suddenly decided to act, like you know an actual judge he instantly becomes an “unperson” to the left a convenient scapegoat for Trump’s re-election. Whatever social life he has is gone, whatever favors that his family might have received is gone and it’s not like the right is going to suddenly embrace him for taking his oath as a judge seriously.

The only reason why this trial is taking place is because the verdict was decided long before it began. If the prosecutor’s entire case was Mr. Bragg singing “I’m a little teapot” Merchan would pass it to the jury and the jury would convict.

Anyone thinking otherwise is deluding themselves.

Trump-ified A Man in Full on Netflix comes up empty

Posted: May 12, 2024 by John Ruberry in culture, entertainment, media, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

If you only have a minute and you want to know, in a nutshell, what the Netflix adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s novel from 1998, A Man in Full, is all about, here it is: The lead character, Atlanta businessman Charlie Croker, is Donald Trump–orange hair and all. Then throw in elements of the George Floyd and Rodney King stories and add an even more shocking ending than the one in Boogie Nights.

Earlier this month, Netflix started streaming the six-episode series, which stars Jeff Daniels and Diane Lane. 

Wolfe, who is my favorite writer, after a two-decade career in journalism, made a smooth transition into fiction with his first novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities. It encapsulates the boom years of 1980s–along with the mayhem of pre-Rudy Giuliani New York City. Three years later, the film version was released. It is godawful, starting with the miscasting of Tom Hanks in the lead role as “the Master of the Universe,” Sylvester McCoy. After I suffered through the movie, I said to myself, Vanities is a mini-series not a two-hour movie.

I had hopes, misguided ones it turns out, that A Man in Full would be better, because it is a mini-series. Adding to my anticipation was Netflix streaming last year the insightful documentary, Radical Wolfe.

As A Man in Full begins, Charlie Croker (Daniels) is celebrating his 60th birthday at a party with Shania Twain entertaining his friends, family, and business associates. Two of those guests are executives from PlannersBanc, his principal lender, Raymond Peepgrass (Tom Pelphrey) and Harry Zale (Bill Camp). While it appears that Croker is an Atlanta version of a Master of the Universe, he’s broke–Charlie owes PlannersBanc $600 million. He’s overextended with other lenders too. Peepgrass and Zale want to carve up Croker’s empire, starting with his quail hunting plantation and his corporate jet. A rescue is offered by the mayor of Atlanta, Wes Jordan (William Jackson Harper), who is campaigning for reelection, and Croker’s attorney, Roger White (Aml Ameen). But to save his neck, Croker will have to betray his former Georgia Tech football teammate, Norman Bagovitch (John Lacy), who is running against Jordan.

Bagovitch–wait for it–decries the status of the white male in his campaign. Jordan is Black.

David E. Kelley wrote the script, and he should be ashamed. No serious candidate for public office would campaign on such bigoted idiocy. And in Atlanta?!? Why does Kelley insult his audience?  

Oh yeah, he wants to demonize Trump. Orange Croker Bad. Oops, I mean Orange Man Bad.

Joyce Newman (Lucy Liu) is an alleged victim of a sexual assault from Bagovitch. In the book, well, let’s just say there is fear of a race riot because of the racial angle of that alleged rape.

Wolfe, brilliantly in my opinion, centered much of his plot on racial contrast and conflict, but also on Croker being an anachronism. The series is set in 2024, but events in the book take place a quarter of a century earlier. Croker, nicknamed the 60 Minute Man because he starred on offense and defense for Georgia Tech, played a lead role for a national championship Yellowjackets team, at a time when major college sports teams in the South were not integrated. Croker came of age just as the civil rights protests were picking up steam, and when Jim Crow laws were still in force in Georgia and other southern states. The world changed, but Croker, not so much. Sure, of course Croker in the novel knew blacks had equal rights, but they still belonged– and I’m not endorsing his sentiment–“in their place.”

Kelley, and the directors, eliminates that angle by turning Croker into Trump. He even does away with Charlie’s redemption in Wolfe’s novel.

There’s even a climate change dig included in the series. I mean, why not?

As Croker, Daniels, who is usually very good, is an embarrassment, beginning with his overwrought Foghorn Leghorn southern accent and his Trump-sized abdominal paunch. On the other hand, Diane Lane, as Charlie’s first wife, shines. I had the pleasure of seeing her at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth a decade ago.

Wolfe’s novel is over 700 pages long, so it’s understandable that some storylines are condensed. 

For instance, Conrad Hensley in the book is the child of worthless white hippies who, in spite of them, still manages to develop a strong moral compass. He works for Croker Foods in the East Bay area of California Hensley’s life, like Charlie’s, collapses. He ends up on the wrong side of the law after he violently tries to retrieve his towed car. By the way, anyone who has had his car towed and is forced to pay usurious fees to retrieve it, will sympathize with Hensley. In the series Hensley (Jan Michael Hill) is Black, and well, I already mentioned Rodney King and George Floyd. 

The subplot with Peepgrass and Martha Croker remains, with the Boogie Nights twist added. If you crave more details on that, click on this Daily Mail link.

Oh, the Crokers’ son, Wally (Evan Roe), sure looks a lot like Barron Trump in the series. 

Astonishingly, Trump-hating Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis doesn’t appear here. Maybe she was on a cruise with Nathan Wade during filming.

I guess I needed to suffer for some forgotten sins, because I endured all six episodes of A Man in Full. Of the other Netflix series that I punished myself with, in full, only The Pentaverate and Vikings: Valhalla were worse.

On the flipside, the cinematography for A Man in Full is sharp–Atlanta never looked so good. The soundtrack, compiled by Craig DeLeon, is spectacular, it’s as splendid as the best work of T-Bone Burnett. Keep an eye on DeLeon.

Wolfe, who died in 2018, didn’t like The Bonfire of the Vanities film. I don’t think he’d care for the series based on A Man in Full either.

I hated it.

A Man in Full is currently streaming on Netflix. It is rated TV-MA for violence, foul language, sex, and nudity.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

The Eurovision Protestors Unfair to Israel’s Entry and Unfair to all the other entries.

Posted: May 12, 2024 by datechguy in culture, Israel, middle east
Tags: , ,

The Eurovision song contest is the latest front of the war on Israel.

It’s seem a tad odd that I’m writing about the Eurovision Song Contest at all. All I really know about it comes from the Monty Python World Forum skit and the Doctor Who Episode that parodies the contest as the Intergalactic song contest in Bang a Bang Boom and frankly I’m a tad confused that Israel, a country not in Europe has an entry in it but be that as it may.

The “death to Israel” crowd has been rather vocal in protesting the Israeli entry to the contest to the point where massive security is needed to protect her from a loud and unruly mob both of Islamists and those who wish to curry favor with Islamists (the ‘kill me last caucus’ as I call them) among leftists in general and even among governments and broadcasters who lean left.

This is horribly unfair for two reasons.

The first be obvious in that it puts a young woman at risk for the ‘crime’ of “singing while Jewish” in the same way that the anti-Semite mobs at US colleges put students in danger for the crime of “learning while Jewish” The height of idiocy came from a reporter in a press conference actually asked if by her presence he was putting other contestants in danger:

The irony of course is that this has caused a backlash to the point where she has not only easily moved toward the finals…

But it had made her the odds on favorite to win the public vote

And that leads to the 2nd bit of unfairness of all of this.

You see the Islamic mobs and their enablers have been spending the last decade making a lot of European places unsafe for Europeans and it has become VERBOTEN in the woke world to call them out for it. It’s been bad. How bad? Well the best example I know of actually comes from Canada which is going down the same path as these guys:

Because the pubic can vote on this a lot of Europeans who don’t dare speak out publicly are able to take revenge on the Islamic mob by voting for Israel in this contest because they can do so without fear of retaliation. It’s a great way to stick it to the woke establishment in the same way that declining to buy Bud Light was a way to stick it to Anheuser-Busch when they insulted their customer base.

And while that might be satisfying it does defeat the purpose of a song contest which should be about one thing:

The best performance of a song.

These protesters are not just being anti-Semite bastards and putting people at risk they are also screwing other contestants in this contest who worked hard to get there and may, thanks to these ignorant bastards, not be judged by their performances. In other words they will be robbed of their chance to win.

Now I didn’t watch Eurovision as I have no interest in it And it may be that the final result (Israel 6th overall and 2nd in the public vote) might be what it deserved but the question is: if there wasn’t a mob trying to intimidate the 20 year old Israeli singer. Would we have seen a different result?

We will never know.

BTW Ukraine won the public vote, I wonder how much of that was sympathy as well?

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