Trump interviews Rep. McCaul, who believes in a pathway to citizenship, for DHS

This looks more and more everyday like a marriage with conservatives which will remain unconsummated.

No pussy for you, Mr. Trump.

Story here.

Trump impressed by David Petraeus at meeting, you know, the preferred candidate of defeated liberal Senator Mark Kirk and co-founder of a new gun control advocacy group

Reported here in "David Petraeus, Mark Kelly launch gun control group":

The two announced on Friday that they were launching Veterans Coalition for Common Sense to encourage elected leaders to "do more to prevent gun tragedies." The group will feature veterans from every branch of the military who are urging lawmakers to toughen gun laws, the organization said in a news release.

What Trump moniker rhymes with David Betrayus? 

Trump appoints Kasich supporter Betsy DeVos to Education Secretary: She'll promote Common Core, not end it

This appointment is a liberal disaster masquerading as a conservative.

Don't expect this federal department to be closed under Donald Trump, who breaks a campaign promise to end common core with this appointment.

More here.

Peter Brimelow: Donald Trump and Steve Bannon are not alt-right people

Quoted here in The New York Times in an article which calls to mind, as usual, nothing so much as a bucket full of eels:

“Trump and Steve Bannon are not alt-right people,” Mr. Brimelow said, adding that they had opportunistically seized on two issues that the alt-right cares most about — stopping immigration and fighting political correctness — and used them to mobilize white voters. 

To The Times racism defines not just the alt-right but conservatism generally, such as believing in Obama's foreign provenance and therefore his illegitimacy to be president, or thinking Black Lives Matter is itself a racist movement, or advocating something more than birth within our borders is necessary to be a citizen, none of which could possibly be legitimate topics of debate because The Times believes they are settled matters and any other view means one must be a racist.

To question what is settled is unacceptable to The Times, and that is best dealt with by slathering on the racism charge.

Never argue the substance.

Why Trump now says he won't prosecute Hillary

He's hoping to make it to January 20th without Obama pardoning her so that it's still an option for him after he becomes president.

He's playing chicken with Obama.

Famous last words: "Mr. Trump will not be president"

Heh heh here last February.

Hey Obama! Fake news is you and all your pals in the media calling 61.6 million Trump voters racists, bigots, and fill-in-the-blank-phobes-and-haters

63 days

Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in OH, MI, PA and WI because 1.949 million Obama voters from 2008 didn't vote for her

OH: 623,000

MI: 607,000

PA: 424,000

WI: 295,000

The narrowness of the Trump victory in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania

Trump's narrowest wins:

Michigan: 13,000 votes

Wisconsin: 24,000 

Pennsylvania: 66,000

The next three:

Arizona: 95,000

Florida: 115,000

North Carolina: 177,000

For Donald Trump, 103,000 votes in the three narrowest states meant the difference between winning with 306 Electoral College votes and losing with 260 despite winning Ohio, North Carolina and Florida.

The win in Michigan looks entirely due to lower (Democrat) turnout in 2016. As of this hour turnout is down 220,000 from 2008. In Wisconsin turnout is identical. In Pennsylvania turnout is up only 20,000.

Compare Trump's win in Ohio, which was by 455,000 votes. Turnout there was down by a whopping 340,000 from 2008. Trump's net from that is 115,000 votes. Recall Romney lost Ohio by a similar sum: 167,000 votes.

Democrats in Rust Belt states look like they abandoned the field. Turnout was either down big or stagnant from 8 years ago despite population nationwide increasing 20 million.

It was revulsion for Hillary. 

Trump laid out 28 policy prescriptions in his Gettysburg address which repudiate Obama, but Obama still says Trump has few hard and fast proposals

Obama always has had trouble with math. And denial.

Here:

"I think he is coming to this office with fewer set hard and fast policy prescriptions than a lot of other presidents might be arriving with. Do I have concerns? Absolutely, of course I've got concerns. He and I differ on a whole bunch of issues," Obama added.

From Gettysburg:

1. Propose a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress.
2. Institute a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health).
3. Require for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated.
4. Institute a five year-ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service.
5. Create a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.
6. Institute a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.
7. Announce intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205.
8. Announce withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
9. Direct Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator.
10. Direct the Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately.
11. Lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars’ worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal.
12. Lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone Pipeline, to move forward.
13. Cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure.
14. Cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama.
15. Begin the process of selecting a replacement for Justice Scalia from one of the 20 judges on my list, who will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.
16. Cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities.
17. Begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back.
18. Suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting.
19. Work with Congress on a Middle Class Tax Relief And Simplification Act. An economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive tax reduction and simplification, in combination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle class. A middle-class family with 2 children will get a 35% tax cut. The current number of brackets will be reduced from 7 to 3, and tax forms will likewise be greatly simplified. The business rate will be lowered from 35 to 15 percent, and the trillions of dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10 percent rate.
20. Work with Congress on a End The Offshoring Act. Establishes tariffs to discourage companies from laying off their workers in order to relocate in other countries and ship their products back to the U.S. tax-free.
21. Work with Congress on a American Energy & Infrastructure Act. Leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral.
22. Work with Congress on a School Choice And Education Opportunity Act. Redirects education dollars to gives parents the right to send their kid to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice. Ends common core, brings education supervision to local communities. It expands vocational and technical education, and make 2 and 4-year college more affordable.
23. Work with Congress on a Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act. Fully repeals Obamacare and replaces it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, and lets states manage Medicaid funds. Reforms will also include cutting the red tape at the FDA: there are over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval, and we especially want to speed the approval of life-saving medications.
24. Work with Congress on a Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act. Allows Americans to deduct childcare and elder care from their taxes, incentivizes employers to provide on-site childcare services, and creates tax-free Dependent Care Savings Accounts for both young and elderly dependents, with matching contributions for low-income families.
25. Work with Congress on an End Illegal Immigration Act. Fully-funds the construction of a wall on our southern border with the full understanding that the country Mexico will be reimbursing the United States for the full cost of such wall; establishes a 2-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a previous deportation, and a 5-year mandatory minimum for illegally re-entering for those with felony convictions, multiple misdemeanor convictions or two or more prior deportations; also reforms visa rules to enhance penalties for overstaying and to ensure open jobs are offered to American workers first.
26. Work with Congress on a Restoring Community Safety Act.Reduces surging crime, drugs and violence by creating a Task Force On Violent Crime and increasing funding for programs that train and assist local police; increases resources for federal law enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors to dismantle criminal gangs and put violent offenders behind bars.
27. Work with Congress on a Restoring National Security Act. Rebuilds our military by eliminating the defense sequester and expanding military investment; provides Veterans with the ability to receive public VA treatment or attend the private doctor of their choice; protects our vital infrastructure from cyber-attack; establishes new screening procedures for immigration to ensure those who are admitted to our country support our people and our values.
28. Work with Congress on a Clean up Corruption in Washington Act. Enacts new ethics reforms to Drain the Swamp and reduce the corrupting influence of special interests on our politics.

#NeverTrump Liberal GOP Sen. Mark Kirk defeated in IL

See ya!

Trump victory in WI in 2016 is explainable by decline in turnout relative to 2012

Trump beat Hillary in Wisconsin in 2016 by just 24,081 votes.

With turnout from 2012 down by 91,000, one could explain Trump's victory by saying Wisconsin Democrats stayed home in enough numbers in 2016 to help elect Trump. And since of the last three presidential elections turnout in Wisconsin was highest in 2012 at 3.068 million when the state helped return the incumbent Democrat to office, the argument possesses considerable plausibility.

Compared with 2008, however, this explanation fails since 2016 turnout undershot 2008 by just 6,000, not enough to account for Trump's victory over Hillary.

Both Iowa and Wisconsin were slow to the trend of turnout peaking in 2008 when the popular Democrat Obama won in an election with still unequaled turnout of 131.5 million nationwide.

Trump victory in IA was genuine and not attributable to turnout changes

Trump beat Hillary by 146,182 votes in Iowa in 2016.

The 2016 turnout was only 25,000 lower than in 2012, but 20,000 higher than in 2008.

In the last three presidential elections the turnout high in Iowa was in 2012 at 1.582 million.

#NeverTrump Sen. Kelly "Free Condoms" Ayotte defeated in NH by 743 votes

Poster girl for the muddled message.

Revulsion Election update: Trump got lucky, underperformed Romney by 1.4 million votes, McCain by 450,000 votes

Hillary underperformed Obama 2012 by 6.2 million, Obama 2008 by . . . 9.8 million.

Democrats elected Trump by not voting for Hillary.

Rush Limbaugh is repeating stupid from National Review, that Trump could have beaten Obama in 2012

This will become the new factoid to replace the "94 million not working but eating" myth and the "4 million stayed home in 2012" myth and the 99ers myth.

Heavy sigh.

Revulsion for Hillary: Some Trump victories wholly dependent on turnout undershooting 2008 levels in four high population states

TX: turnout up 0.8 million, Trump beat Hillary by 0.814 million

FL: turnout up 1.0 million, Trump beat Hillary by 0.12 million

PA: turnout down by 100 thousand, Trump beat Hillary by 68 thousand

OH: turnout down by 400 thousand, Trump beat Hillary by 454 thousand

GA: turnout up 0.1 million, Trump beat Hillary by 0.231 million

NC: turnout up 0.4 million, Trump beat Hillary by 0.177 million

MI: turnout down by 200 thousand, Trump beat Hillary by 12 thousand

AZ: turnout down by 300 thousand, Trump beat Hillary by 84 thousand

That useless rag USA Today says turnout was up 4.7%, missing the revulsion election

"Voter turnout up 4.7% around the country", says that useless rag USA Away. 

The data in the upper Midwest says otherwise.

In Michigan, turnout was 4.7 million, a little lower than in 2012 when 4.8 million showed up. In 2008 5 million did.

In Wisconsin, turnout was 2.9 million vs. 3.1 million in 2012 and 3 million in 2008.

In Pennsylvania 6 million turned out yesterday, the same as in 2008, up slightly from 2012's 5.8 million.

In Ohio there's been a steady decline since 2008 when 5.7 million turned out. In 2012 it fell to 5.6 million and just 5.3 million in Election 2016.

When the final numbers come in, I'll bet we'll see this phenomenon of suppressed turnout in other places as well. And generally speaking, suppressed turnout favors Republicans because Republicans are often more energized, more scrupulous and more dutiful, as was the case yesterday.

What we had here was a revulsion election. People stayed home because they couldn't vote for either candidate. And because the voters found Hillary more intolerable than The Donald, Mr. Trump is our new president. The smoke generated by the ugliness of the battle on the field obscured the fact of troops staying behind in camp.

In the end America chose the rake over the robber, which was the right choice.

But don't confuse it with a sea change.

Polling on the morning of Election 2016 in the toss-ups vs. the outcome

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Florida: Trump wins by 1.4, vs. 0.2 predicted

Maine CD2: Trump wins by 9.8 with 90% counted vs. 0.5 predicted

New Hampshire: Clinton wins by 0.6 vs. 0.3 with 97% counted (!)

Nevada: Clinton wins by 2.4 vs. Trump predicted by 0.8

North Carolina: Trump wins by 3.8 vs. 1.0 predicted

Pennsylvania: Trump wins by 1.1 vs. Clinton predicted by 1.9

Colorado: Clinton wins by 2.2 with 88% counted vs. 2.9 predicted

Iowa: Trump wins by 9.4 with 99% counted vs. 3.0 predicted

Michigan: Trump winning by 0.3 vs. Clinton predicted by 3.4

Ohio: Trump wins by 8.6 vs. 3.5 predicted

Arizona: Trump wins by 4.0 with 98% counted vs. 4.0 predicted (!)

Maine: Clinton wins by 3.0 with 91% counted vs. 4.5 predicted

Georgia: Trump wins by 5.7 vs. 4.8 predicted

Virginia: Clinton wins by 4.7 with 99% counted vs. 5.0 predicted

New Mexico: Clinton wins by 8.3 vs. 5.0 predicted

Wisconsin: Trump wins by 1.0 vs. Clinton predicted by 6.5 (arguably the biggest upset of the evening)

Trump tells the nation Hillary called him to concede