Channeling Catholic convert Newt Gingrich, Charles C. W. Cooke, who thinks Trump is a lunatic and Joe Biden an asshole, spends a whole column telling us how Harris is an idiot

In Cooke's telling, the three constitute a "trilogy", which is about as implausible as it is witless.

The dismissive spleen is the point of all this, because no one listens to National Review anymore. "We are the arbiters, dammit", and Kamala Harris Is An Idiot.

On the contrary, Harris is a left wing, doctrinaire ideologue, who knows her creed but clearly isn't a theoretician. On the rare occasions when she has been confronted about its content, or with deviations from that creed, she has simply reasserted it in its defense, or stressed her good intentions, eschewing reason, like any good dyed in the wool Christian would quote from the catechism, not write a new one, and stress that you too can be saved. Join us joyful followers!

It is the primary reason that her campaign representatives are tasked with saying that her well known leftist positions are old hat, from 2019, burbling something about that was then, this is the new Kamala. Maintaining silence from her is the point, and all the true believers know she hasn't changed one whit. She knows it and they know it.

Her leftism must be shielded from public view.

Lying is the modus operandi of leftism. The media, who are all on her side to one degree or another, are thus tasked with not asking any uncomfortable questions, and are practiced in the art of lying by omission. They don't probe their candidate too deeply, while it's open season on the other side.

So no, Kamala isn't simply an idiot, any more than Joe Biden is simply an asshole, or Donald Trump simply a lunatic. This "idiot" still has a very good chance of winning, which says more about the country than it does about her.

These Cooke eruptions meanwhile are Papal Bans from the Church of National Review, which is one thing which hasn't changed much since the days when William F. Buckley Jr. founded the magazine, except in their effectiveness. NR is nothing if not an excommunication machine.

Against this NeverTrump catechist, Mr. Cooke, however, because that is who he is, one commenter actually broke through and nailed some theses on his Wittenberg door for a change.

One loves to see it.

 

 

Your good morning chuckle

 

I've wanted Trump to just go away since about January 2019, Newt Gingrich since about 2012

Because it's all "just words", as Barack Obama once said.

 

Tonight Is the Most Important Moment in the GOP Primary

Newt Gingrich, NY Sun

 

If someone hits a home run with language, ideas, and/or attitude, a substantial number of disheartened and despairing anti-Trump donors may notice — and decide to write really big checks.

 

Shocking right? A politician asserting the primacy of politics.

 

Well, "the most important moment" doesn't exist. There is a long series of important moments, when the voters have their actual say in the polling booths of the individual primaries and the elections, at which point the politicians had better deliver on the words, or else.

Most of them don't, but we fall for them every time, and they know it.

But this is most certainly true:

Given all the press coverage early in Mr. DeSantis’ candidacy — and the substantial amount of money he raised — his slide has been the biggest Republican story this year.     

 

Yes, it is the biggest story because Ron DeSantis has consistently delivered on his words in Florida . . .

and the voters nationally don't give a flying fig. 

 

Newt should know better.

 

He followed up his words as a congressman during the 1980s with a Speakership in the 1990s consisting of a temporarily successful if mixed bag of policies. Which is why he, along with Mitt Romney, subsequently never made the big time. You can't run against ObamaCare by promising RomneyCare or HeritageFoundationCare instead. Donald Trump in his hubris never learned the lesson either, squandering away his political capital on overturning it in 2017.

The majority of Republicans now remain content with the feckless entertainer who mouths "just words". They have no appetite for the humdrum of an executive who actually delivers and executes real, lasting reform.

 

This remains a not serious country, ridiculously adolescent to the end. 

US homes were at least 84% overvalued in 2021

 Rounding out the Unholy Trinity of Big Ticket Asset Inflation, Housing joins Stocks and Bonds in similar overvaluation territory in 2021 at about 84%.

In Feb 2012 when housing bottomed after The Great Financial Crisis, a previous inflation-adjusted Case-Shiller home price index chart no longer updated for present years showed that prices had fallen into the top range of US house prices which had prevailed throughout the post-war from the 1950s to the late 1990s. Mind you, the top range of those inflation-adjusted prices.

Thanks to Democrats and Republicans, including Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, the American Dream, the nest of the American future, was turned into a mere commodity in the late 1990s, to be churned in the markets for profit.

Long-suppressed long term interest rates have conspired with commoditization to produce valuations which have exploded, making houses unaffordable as nests, which is why your kid is still living in your basement.

The chart below shows the nominal price figures, on an average annual basis through 2021. The blow-off tops in 2022 are even worse (the index topped 308 in June), and are not shown because the year ain't over, and prices are falling.

At an average index level of 260 in 2021, prices were inflated from 141 in 2012 by about 84%, not far below the overvaluation of stocks and bonds at 90% and higher.

 

 

 

 

I turn on Clay and Buck out of the blue and get them normalizing gay by interviewing black Republican Rob Smith

It's become a feature of so-called conservatism now, no longer a bug.

Hooah Newt Gingrich to Mitt Romney: The Senate doesn't care who you used to be

Gingrich to Romney: The Senate Doesn't Care Who You Used To Be:

It is kind of sad. As a freshman, he could have come in, he could have written as the former governor of Massachusetts, his views on Elizabeth Warren running for office. He could have written about the shutdown and offered an idea, such as combining help for the DREAMers with building the wall and securing the border. He could have written about things he knows a great deal about. 

Gingrich Pot calls Mooch Kettle black

Robert Shiller blames housing bubbles on get rich quick flipper narratives, still completely misses the tax angle

Here, in The New York Times:

There is still no consensus on why the last housing boom and bust happened. That is troubling, because that violent housing cycle helped to produce the Great Recession and financial crisis of 2007 to 2009. We need to understand it all if we are going to be able to avoid ordeals like that in the future.

Ordinary Americans were suddenly able to make a lot of money by flipping their homes because of the tax law changes of 1997. Capital that was previously locked-up in housing by the rules of the New Deal until 1997 was suddenly unleashed to slosh around in the economy when lawmakers gave homeowners the right to avoid most capital gains on the sale of their homes as long as they lived in them only two years. Until 1997, if you didn't buy a more expensive home after you sold yours, you were exposed to a tax hit, unless you took the option of a once in a lifetime exclusion on the gain. The old arrangement had insured, along with the 30-year mortgage, that housing capital built up over a long period of time, creating forced savings for the middle class which could be safely liquidated in retirement without adversely affecting the housing market.

The Republican and Democrat geniuses who ran our government in 1997 changed all that, and within ten years the dang thing blew up. Yeah, I'm talking about you, Bill Clinton, and you, Newt Gingrich.

Too bad Robert Shiller still doesn't get it.

It would probably be unwise to turn back the tax clock now that the damage has been done, but the reinflation of the housing bubble after the crisis wasn't inevitable. The Fed's unprecedented zero interest rate policy has been responsible for that.

When the next housing crash comes, we'll probably not understand it either.

Meanwhile, the median sales price of homes in the aggregate has never been higher, or more unaffordable, and remains the primary driver of wealth inequality in America. 

Obama "you didn't build that" takes credit for $2 per gallon gasoline when he said $2.50 per gallon goal of Newt Gingrich in 2012 was a pipe dream

What a schmuck.

Here:

The progress we made with respect to carbon emissions has been greater than any country on earth. And gas is $2 a gallon. 

Bob Dole recommends Newt Gingrich for VP

From the remarks here, after the eight minute mark:

"My view is that Donald Trump needs someone who understands Congress, who can help him work with Congress, who understands foreign policy, domestic policy, economic policy," Dole said Saturday. "You know someone like Newt Gingrich. You know none of us are perfect, but Newt Gingrich is a good fit for Trump, because he can help him in all of those areas and Trump has to listen."

Newt Gingrich endorsed Donald Trump last night

It obviously didn't push Paul Ryan over the line today, but it did push Hannity.

Story here.

Some endorsements for president are all about the money: Scott Walker to support Ted Cruz?

Scott Walker's spendthrift ways campaigning for president infamously put him more than $1 million in debt, according to The Wall Street Journal, here:

Mr. Walker’s FEC report shows he spent $6.4 million between the mid-July launch and the end of September. But those figures don’t include $200,000 in Mr. Walker’s reported outstanding bills or debts the campaign pushed past Oct. 1 – a number that raises the Walker debt to more than $1 million more than his cash on hand, according to the people familiar with Mr. Walker’s campaign finances. ...

When Tim Pawlenty ended his presidential campaign in August 2011, his campaign was $435,000 in the red. Mr. Pawlenty endorsed rival Mitt Romney, whose family and top campaign supporters and aides helped the former Minnesota governor retire his campaign debts by the next April.

Candidates who lose races can owe debt for years. Newt Gingrich still owes $4.6 million from his 2012 campaign. Al Sharpton owes $925,713 from his 2004 White House run.

Hillary Clinton infamously took until the end of 2012 to pay off $12 million she owed from her failed 2008 run for president. The $13.2 million she borrowed from herself she had to eat.

Donald Trump has already eclipsed the total votes received by either Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul in 2012

Trump already has 3.36 million votes in the first 15 contests.

Gov. Chris Christie's endorsement of Donald Trump pisses off fake conservative Jennifer Rubin, impresses Newt Gingrich

From the story here:

The decision drew a sharply worded critique from Washington Post conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin, who quickly penned a rebuke of “Christie’s despicable endorsement.”

Other GOP figures described the endorsement as a big move coming ahead of Super Tuesday next week, when Trump seems poised to increase his delegate lead.

“This is a huge step for Trump and will impact Super Tuesday [big] time,” 2012 presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said on Twitter. 

“This Chris Christie endorsement of Trump is real signal to GOP establishment that they had better begin thinking about Trump as the future.”

Santorum drops out of GOP presidential primary, endorses RUBIO

CNN has the story here.

That tells you what kind of president Santorum would have made: A president who, like Rubio, would have settled for the Gang of Eight amnesty bill because it was all he could get at the time.

Rush Limbaugh can protest all he wants about Rubio giving up his Senate seat as a sign he's not committed to time-serving the establishment. The truth is as president Rubio would disappoint on illegal immigration to the point of destroying the Republican Party and the country as we have known it.

Establishment support for Rubio will now accelerate. The conservative vote will be split between Cruz and Trump.

Rubio will win the nomination like Romney did, through attrition on the right as neither Trump nor Cruz wins enough delegates to secure the nomination just as Santorum and Gingrich and Paul did not.

In this election, Ted Cruz, the illegal immigration flip-flopper, will be Donald Trump's spoiler.

In the immortal words of Mickey Kaus, Cruz is just in it for Cruz.

National Review commits utter treason, joins the left to stop Trump, cooperating with POLITICO to do it

From the story here:

'“This is the time to mobilize,” said National Review editor Rich Lowry, who is also a weekly opinion columnist at POLITICO. “The establishment is AWOL, or even worse, so it’s up to people who really believe in these ideas and principles, for whom they’re not just talking points or positions of convenience, to set out the marker.” ... Lowry was slated to go on Megyn Kelly’s Fox News program Thursday night to promote the anti-Trump package. National Review plans to begin posting the essays and editorial, which were provided in advance to POLITICO, on Friday. While National Review ran an anti-Newt Gingrich cover and editorial in 2012, Lowry said, “I don’t think we’ve ever done something like this,” summoning a cross-section of conservative leaders to try to dislodge a GOP frontrunner.'

National Review has famously attacked its own in the past, from the John Birch Society to Joseph Sobran, Pat Buchanan and John Derbyshire, among others over the years. But this takes the cake. Trump doesn't even pretend to be an intellectual with ideas, but the fanatics are going to excommunicate him anyway.

It's a very sad day for those of us old enough to remember how the editorial pages of National Review were like water to men wandering in the desert. The magazine now drinks the full measure of the wrath of God.

Mark Levin is behind the 8-ball on "natural born citizen"

Mark Levin tonight doesn't want to entertain if Ted Cruz is ineligible for the presidency because Ted's not a natural born citizen. To Levin the matter was never in question: "it is a settled constitutional and statutory matter." As far as Levin is concerned, Cruz is a natural born citizen.

Like hell.

Levin must consider that his position must mean that Article II is being superfluous when it makes a distinction between natural born citizen and citizen:

"No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

As John Marshall, I believe, said, none of the language of the constitution can be considered superfluous. Or as Newt Gingrich once observed, even the commas carry meaning.

The main phrase is "No Person except a natural born Citizen shall be eligible to the Office of President".

Subordinate to this is the clause "or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution". This clause was for the practical reason having to do with the start-up of the new nation. To wit: the founders knew that many of themselves would run for the presidency to guide the young American republic, and would need to, but that none of themselves were "natural born" citizens. They were citizens, as is Ted Cruz, but not "natural born". The language of Article II was specifically designed to permit them to serve as president, but not Ted Cruz or any other not naturally born citizen person for the simple reason that in the case of Ted Cruz he was not a citizen at the time of the constitution's adoption.

The founders adopted the distinction between citizen and natural born citizen because they wanted the future of the country to rest more securely in the hands of leadership which was not divided in its loyalties. The chief loyalty to be wary of at the time was that of Loyalists, those "Americans" who were not in agreement with the break with Great Britain. They were quite numerous, and constituted an ongoing impediment to the success of the revolution. The founders imagined it possible that one of these might secure the presidency, and undo what they with enormous sacrifice had achieved. Hence the language making this less likely, if not impossible. With time, the danger passed, and only individuals born to a pair of citizens could rise to the presidency.

Fast forward to today. The whole argument over citizenship now falsely puts the priority on place of birth when lineage was meant to be paramount. The discussion suffers from amnesia. John McCain was eligible for the presidency in 2008 not because he was born in a US territory but because both his parents were US citizens. That he says otherwise is immaterial. He knows as little about it as the rest. Unfortunately, Barack Obama did not meet the requirement of Article II, but because the priority was falsely placed on his place of origin, a terrible precedent has been set. Frankly, his entire presidency is illegitimate because one of his parents was not a citizen. And after almost seven years in office, he has amply proven that his loyalties lie elsewhere than with the constitution and the American republic as we've known it.

Neither does Ted Cruz meet the requirement of Article II. It is immaterial where he was born. What is material is that one of his parents wasn't a citizen at the time of his birth. He is ineligible to be president, though otherwise well qualified he may be.

Same for Marco Rubio, who was born to Cuban immigrants before they became citizens.

It is assumed that Donald Trump's mother, a Scottish immigrant, was a citizen by the time of Donald's birth in 1946, but maybe The Donald should look into it.

In 2012 Obama called gasoline at $2.50 a phony promise, three years later it's $1.77

The promise of $2.50 a gallon gasoline was made by presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in 2012, which just shows you how a truly smart politician who knew what was coming, unlike Obama by the way, hoped to get elected and get the credit for predicting and delivering something which would have happened anyway.

But does it need to be repeated that oil and gasoline price reductions happened INSPITE of Obama's war on so-called fossil fuels?

Yes, it does.

Obama's done everything he can to stop the country from discovering and using fossil fuels, but private industry and initiative have done an end run around the president, a sort of payback for the president's end runs around the constitution.

This ain't over by a longshot.

Newt Gingrich agrees Hillary Clinton should be in jail already

Here:

"She's a disaster because of arrogance and what Trump said was right... If you look at how they treated General Petraeus and you look at what she did with her emails, in any other circumstance she'd be going to jail, not the White House."

Gas for $2.50: What Obama called a phony promise in 2012 is now the reality, without him, without Gingrich, without government