Thursday, November 15, 2018
Libertarian Senator Mike Lee talks grandly about "conservative" criminal justice reform when all he's after is throwing out federal mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses
Mike Lee thinks selling drugs (even while armed with a gun!) doesn't hurt anyone when the evidence is pouring in that marijuana is bad for the health of those who use it.
And he obviously hasn't lived with a user. If he had he'd know they make lousy family members and lousy Americans.
Did the young father of two let his children play with his gun, Senator?
Thanks for nothing, Utah!
For example, when I served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Salt Lake City, Weldon Angelos -- a young father of two with no criminal record -- was convicted of selling three dime bags of marijuana to a paid informant over a short period of time.
These were not violent crimes. No one was hurt. But because Angelos had been in possession of a gun at the time he sold the drugs (a gun which was neither brandished nor discharged in connection with the offense), the judge was forced by federal law to give him a 55-year prison sentence. The average federal sentence for assault is just two years. The average murderer only gets 15 years. While acknowledging the obvious excessiveness of the sentence, the judge explained that the applicable federal statutes gave him no authority to impose a less-severe prison term, noting that “only Congress can fix this problem.”
If only Donald Trump knew that he was president
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told then-President Barack Obama in the summer of 2014 that he could use "very broad power" to limit immigration as he saw fit, according to a letter obtained by Fox News.
In the July 29 letter, Feinstein cites Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act -- the same federal legislation cited by the Trump administration Thursday in unveiling a rule denying asylum claims to migrants who enter the country illegally.
"Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States," the legislation states, "he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate."
Feinstein's letter initially notes that the senator has discussed possible legislation with then-Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. Feinstein then writes: "there is also an argument that there is sufficient flexibility in current law for the government to respond to the current crisis and that further legislation is not needed." She adds that the authority vested in the presidency by Section 212 (f) means that "no legislation is necessary to give your administration the tools it needs to respond to this crisis, and that any needed temporary measures can be implemented through presidential action."
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
The peers must be incompetent: Peer-reviewed ocean warming paper in premier journal found to have big math boo-boo
From the story here:
However, the conclusion came under scrutiny after mathematician Nic Lewis, a critic of the scientific consensus around human-induced warming, posted a critique of the paper on the blog of Judith Curry, another well-known critic.
“The findings of the ... paper were peer reviewed and published in the world’s premier scientific journal and were given wide coverage in the English-speaking media,” Lewis wrote. “Despite this, a quick review of the first page of the paper was sufficient to raise doubts as to the accuracy of its results.”
Co-author Ralph Keeling, climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, took full blame and thanked Lewis for alerting him to the mistake. ...
“Our error margins are too big now to really weigh in on the precise amount of warming that’s going on in the ocean,” Keeling said. “We really muffed the error margins.”
A correction has been submitted to the journal Nature.
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Jon Gabriel explains Kyrsten Sinema's home turf was vote-rich Maricopa County, McSally the comparatively inferior candidate
McSally was too cautious, too negative, too aligned with John McCain for disappointed conservatives, too much of an outsider, and was not Doug Ducey. Sinema was likeable and ran a good campaign.
Here:
McSally and the outside groups supporting her were nearly all-negative, all-the-time. Focusing on the Republican’s remarkable achievements in the military and also in politics would have gone a long way to define a woman few in the state knew much about. Sure, there were a few ads like that, but not nearly enough to match Sinema’s seeming optimism.
McSally hails from Pima County, home to Tucson, while Sinema is from Maricopa County, home to Phoenix. More than half the state’s population lives in the latter, so they didn’t know much about the Tucson-based candidate. She needed to spend a lot more time defining herself since Sinema was already defined to a big chunk of Arizonans.
Laugh of the Day: Photographer plays "Simon Says" with Baraboo WI High School boys of the class of 2019
He says, "Sieg Heil!" and then captures their reaction.
The left is finding no humor in this whatsoever. The boys clearly know how to tweak the liberal tyranny, except for the weirdo in the upper right with gunshot wounds to both earlobes, who has predictably become a hero to the outraged for his passive resistance. The guy front and center left goes even further, flashing the secret sign of white nationalists everywhere.
Sieg away, I say, good old Badger State of mine.
Monday, November 12, 2018
115,622 more people in Maricopa County easily could have voted for Martha McSally, but didn't
McSally: 611,161
Ducey: 726,783
And don't forget Mitt Romney now has to be counted on to cooperate
I can just see it now.
Mitt Romney, Lisa Mercowskie and Susan Collins will form the trio of stooges broken by the death of John McCain to stand in the way of Mitch McConnell.
Well, at least Jeff Flake and Bob Corker are out of the equation.
Mark Levin tonight believes McSally lost in Arizona because conservative Republicans didn't vote for her
Entirely plausible given the bitter primary, and McSally's failure to mend fences after winning. The votes for Ducey were there in Maricopa, but not for McSally.
We pointed out previously that McSally was an unconvincing shapeshifter on immigration.
The difference between the supposedly "hard right" Mark Levin and Arizona Republicans is that Levin actively supported her candidacy despite McSally being a RINO.
Thanks for nothing, Arizona, as usual. Now we're stuck with the lunatic, Sinema, which my spell-checker keeps spelling Cinema.
She will be a spectacle, that's for sure.
One week after the election, Republican hopes for a decisive majority in the US Senate have evaporated tonight
Previously observed narrow leads for Republicans in Arizona and Montana have reversed.
Jon Tester held on to win in Montana by 15,317 votes, and tonight Arizona has been won by Democrat Kyrsten Sinema by 38,197 votes.
The Mississippi run-off at the end of the month is Republicans' last hope of achieving a majority of 53, assuming a recount in Florida doesn't deprive Rick Scott of his victory.
The Hive is already circulating a story tonight about the Republican in Mississippi being a racist, trying to win that race for the Democrats.
Assuming she and Rick Scott both end up losing would mean Republicans would finish with a majority of just 51, hardly the lead-pipe cinch environment to run the board on court appointments.
Jeb Bush joins Marco Rubio in calling for Brenda Snipes to be removed as Supervisor of Elections in Broward County, FL
"There is no question that Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes failed to comply with Florida law on multiple counts, undermining Floridians’ confidence in our electoral process," Bush tweeted.
"Supervisor Snipes should be removed from her office following the recounts." ...
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is among those arguing for Snipes's dismissal.
"She has shown she’s incapable of conducting a large and important election in a way that inspires public confidence and trust," he told Politico.
"She’s been found to have destroyed ballots, in violation of the law. Opened absentee ballots early, in violation of the law. Misprinted ballots that have gone out."
There were plenty of votes available for Republican Doug Ducey in Maricopa County, AZ, so there should have been for Martha McSally
Ducey for Governor in Maricopa County: 717,437.
McSally for Senate in Maricopa County: 603,070.
The Democrat Sinema, who won against McSally, was also outpolled by Doug Ducey in Maricopa County: 649,445.
They didn't like McSally and Sinema in Maricopa County as much as they liked Ducey. For some reason the voters in Maricopa County just liked Martha McSally the least. Clearly Republican voters for Ducey failed to vote for her like they could have.
The governor's race polled 2.156 million votes total in Arizona, and the Senate race 2.162 million votes.
In Maricopa County the governor's race polled 1.276 million votes and the Senate race 1.28 million.
People who think it odd that one race should attract more votes and another fewer votes don't know what they are talking about.
In Michigan, the statewide individual ballot proposals each outpolled any statewide individual office winner.
Sinema win in Arizona is due to Democrat inbound migration to Maricopa County, top US county for relocation 2012-2017
Sinema won Maricopa County by 46,375 votes, 649,445 votes to McSally's 603,070. Just 32,000 votes separate the winner from the loser overall in Arizona as of this hour.
A magnet for affordable housing in the wake of the 2008 catastrophe, the county has probably on balance attracted more voters inclined to vote for a Democrat.
Maricopa County saw more people move to the area than any other county in the U.S. during the past five years.
The county saw 221,000 immigrants between 2012 and 2017, according to a new report from RentCafe. That volume was by far the highest in the country, the report shows. Nearly 150,000 people separated Maricopa County from the 10th-highest site of immigration, Wake County in North Carolina.
Among the appealing attributes for migrants looking for a new city to live in was Maricopa County's relatively low cost of living, especially home prices. Out of the top 10 counties for net internal migration, Maricopa had the fourth-lowest average home price.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Los Angeles County saw 381,000 people leave during the same five-year span. Santa Clara County in Northern California was in the top 10 for people leaving as well.
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