But, yeah, ridiculous once upon a time NeverTrump gasbags like Charlie Kirk think they are going to remove John Thune.
Donald Trump once laughably thought the same thing about Kelly Armstrong.
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Not only was John Thune more popular in North Dakota than Donald Trump in 2016, newly elected governor Kelly Armstrong is more popular than Trump in 2024
Saturday, November 16, 2024
Extremely amusing: Famously defeated NeverTrump Senator Kelly Ayotte from 2016 is the new Republican governor of New Hampshire, getting more votes than both Harris and Trump
Ayotte 435,990
Harris 418,351
Trump 395,397
And politics is nothing if it's not irrational:
At this hour there are just three US House races which remain uncalled, with the current election at 219 GOP v 213 Democrat
GOP control of the US House at 218 would be secure, if it weren't for Trump poaching from this field to populate his government.
Not. Very. Bright.
It also tells you that the poached aren't very bright either: Stefanik, Waltz, Gaetz, and Rubio from the US Senate also.
Special elections are required for the House district vacancies. The governor of Florida can appoint Rubio's replacement, but that is only temporary.
Democrats said electing Trump would be a return to chaos.
They were correct about that.
Mark Levin thinks Senate Republicans should be just like Democrats and confirm all Trump's lunatic nominees same as the Democrats confirmed Biden's instead of running their mouths all the time but doing nothing
Here.
Levin argues the Senators owe their elections to Trump's coattails, and therefore their unqualified support.
Of fifteen Republicans elected to the US Senate in 2024, that might be true of eleven.
But in four cases it's not: Wicker in Mississippi, Curtis in Utah, Barrasso in Wyoming, and Ricketts in Nebraska were all more popular than Donald Trump, each garnering more votes than Trump did in their states.
Levin often talks about "constitutionalism" on his show, you know, like the separation of powers, where the Congress isn't simply the president's rubber stamp machine.
You might say Levin runs his mouth about it.
Some US Senators actually doing their jobs and voting not to confirm the worst of Trump's appointments is a good thing.
RFK Jr would make a great member of the US House Democrat Caucus, but not Secretary of Health and Human Services
With any luck the US Senate will not confirm RFK Jr.
Friday, November 15, 2024
The stock market cheerleaders/Fed rate cut cheerleaders at CNBC, but I repeat myself, lied by omission about wholesale price increases yesterday, but CNN told the truth
CNBC: Wholesale prices rose 0.2% in October, in line with expectations
Wholesale prices nudged higher in October, though largely in line with expectations and mostly consistent with the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates again in December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday.
The producer price index, which measures what producers get for their products, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.2% for the month, up one-tenth of a percentage point from September though matching the Dow Jones consensus forecast. On a 12-month basis, headline wholesale inflation was at 2.4%.
Excluding food and energy, core PPI rose 0.3%, also one-tenth more than September and also matching expectations. The 12-month rate was at 3.1%.
"Largely in line" and "mostly consistent" lol. Both 12-month measures were higher than the consensus expected, which was 2.3% for headline and 3% for core. The year over year measures are the most important anyway, especially core.
Why lie about it?
CNN: Wholesale inflation heated up again last month, reversing recent progress
US wholesale inflation picked up more than expected in October, indicating that some price pressures persist at the producer level.
The Producer Price Index, a measurement of average price changes seen by producers and manufacturers, rose 0.2% on a monthly basis and 2.4% for the 12 months ended in October, marking an acceleration from September, when prices ticked up 0.1% for the month and grew 1.9% annually, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Thursday. ...
FactSet consensus forecasts called for a 0.2% monthly gain and for the annual rate to heat up to 2.3%.
Excluding food and energy prices, which tend to be volatile, core PPI rose 0.3% on a monthly basis, marking an acceleration from 0.2% in September. Annually, core PPI heated up from 2.9% to 3.1%, the largest increase since June. Economists projected a 0.2% monthly gain and a 3% annual rate.
Obviously not all prediction models were the same. FactSet projected a 0.2% monthly gain for core vs. 0.3% for core shown above by FXStreet.
But again, the year over year is up MORE THAN EXPECTED for BOTH measures in most models. CNN mentions it, CNBC does not.
You can clearly observe that overall, headline wholesale prices year over year have been trending higher since June 2023. That bottom came out in July 2023, when the Fed last hiked the interest rate in the current cycle and then paused for good.
That was a big mistake.
The rise in wholesale prices since then is as good an indicator as any that higher inflation is deeply embedded in the economy and that the Fed stopped hiking too soon. Arguably core prices sent the same signal, but not starting until after December 2023.
Paying attention to core could explain the Fed's mistake, but for the fact that if the Fed were truly listening to this information, it wouldn't have then cut by 50 basis points in September 2024. I mean, c'mon man.
Jay Powell represents the interests of the bankers and Wall Street, for whom inflation is a good thing because it is the screen behind which the pipeline from prices to profits gets juiced.
He does not represent the people.
Who appointed that guy anyway?!
Meanwhile for the annals of dead American conservatism, meathead Mark Levin laughably eulogizes Ted Olson as the "late, great"
Mostly because of Olson's role in Bush v Gore in 2000.
Levin never mentions that Olson himself, a thorough-going amoral libertarian who worshiped freedom above all other things, thought his greatest legacy was overturning California's same-sex marriage ban, glowingly covered by WaPo:
Mr. Olson said he considered his greatest legal legacy to be his role in invalidating California’s Proposition 8, a measure banning same-sex marriage that had passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote after the state’s Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.
He had come to the case in a most unlikely way, through Rob Reiner, the film director and liberal activist who was among those intent on reversing the recently approved proposition.
Reiner had a decidedly low opinion of Mr. Olson, stemming from what he regarded as Bush’s ill-gotten 2000 election win. But Mr. Olson told Reiner that he found Prop 8 “wrong, morally and legally,” and Reiner was convinced that the lawyer could appeal to conservatives.
“It is a conservative value to respect the relationship that people seek to have with one another, a stable, committed relationship that provides a backbone for our community, for our economy,” Mr. Olson later told the Los Angeles Times. “I think conservatives should value that.”
Mr. Olson endured taunts from former supporters on the hard right, some of whom unleashed homophobic vitriol. Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh denounced him on the radio. Others declined invitations to dine at his home near the Potomac River.
Mr. Olson also said he wasn’t trusted by gay rights advocates who feared that Americans were not ready for same-sex marriage and that challenging the ban in court might backfire and set back the cause for years. Some marriage-equality supporters said they feared that Mr. Olson took the case intending to throw it, a notion he dismissed. “I don’t take cases to lose,” he declared.
In part to allay those suspicions, Mr. Olson asked David Boies — an impeccably credentialed trial lawyer and a registered Democrat who had argued Gore’s case in 2000 — to take the marriage case with him. To the Los Angeles Times, Mr. Olson explained that the case was not a partisan matter but rather one about “human rights and human decency and constitutional law.”
Mr. Olson delivered the opening statement on Jan. 11, 2010, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
“In California,” he said, “convicted murderers and child molesters enjoyed the freedom to marry,” he said. “What Prop 8 does is label gay and lesbian persons as different, inferior, unequal and disfavored. It says to gays and lesbians, ‘Your relationship is not the same.’ … It stigmatizes them. It classifies them as outcasts. It causes needless and unrelenting pain and isolation and humiliation.”
Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who heard the case without a jury, ultimately found Prop 8 violated the guarantee of equal protection under the law. Although the decision had an immediate effect only in California, it was a major rallying point nationally for gay rights proponents.
In 2013, the Supreme Court avoided ruling on the merits of same-sex marriage, although it affirmed Walker’s decision, finding that opponents of same-sex marriage lacked standing to defend Prop 8 in court.
Still, the win was credited with paving the way for the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which extended marriage equality nationally.
In the 2020 United States census, same-sex married couples accounted for 0.5% of all U.S. households and unmarried same-sex couples accounted for 0.4% of all U.S. households.
One nutball era ends, another begins
On Thursday, an attorney for the woman who alleges she had a sexual relationship with Gaetz when she was a minor said the Ethics panel should release the report.
“Mr. Gaetz’s likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events. We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report,” John Clune, a partner at Hutchinson Black and Cook, wrote on X.
“She was a high school student and there were witnesses,” the lawyer added.
Trump picks vaccine skeptic RFK Jr. for Health and Human Services secretary
Kennedy, in a post on X, thanked Trump and wrote, “I’m committed to advancing your vision to Make America Healthy Again.” ...
Andrea Ducas, vice president of health policy for the advocacy group Center for American Progress, in a statement called Trump’s choice of Kennedy “nothing short of disastrous for the country.”
“His track record and open skepticism of longstanding medical science could jeopardize the incredible public health gains we’ve accomplished as a nation – including the gains we’ve made in combatting infectious disease through childhood vaccination programs and in making our food supply safer through pasteurization,” Ducas said.
Sure, sure it is.
Thursday, November 14, 2024
House Speaker Mike Johnson rings the poaching alarm
"But I've told President Trump, enough already, give me some relief. I
have to maintain this majority. And he understands that, of course,
we've been talking about it almost hourly every day," he said, adding
that the Republicans "will have a majority." ...
According to the Washington Post, North Carolina Representative Virginia Foxx and Florida Representative Byron Donalds are potential candidates for secretary of Education. Foxx won her district by 19 points, and Donalds won his by 33 points.
Meanwhile, Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie has hinted that he is open to becoming the secretary of Agriculture.
More.
People with a brain know Trump's threat to close the Department of Education is idle
Can Trump actually close the DOE?
Technically, yes.
However, “It would take an act of Congress to take it out,” Don Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, told Vox. “It would take an act of Congress to radically restructure it. And so the question is whether or not there’d be appetite on the Hill for abolishing the department.”
More.
That's because an act of Congress created it in the first place.
Trump is not a dictator, and never will be, although he plays one on TV, which is the real problem.
It's all just words.
Trump is down to 50.1% in the popular vote
People say it doesn't matter.
It doesn't, except psychologically, especially to Democrats who want to eliminate the Electoral College.
Having an Electoral College landslide without winning a clear majority in the popular vote would only fuel their long-standing rhetoric that it is unfair.
Election results for the popular vote almost always trend narrower as now, and they indicate in this election the same thing the very narrow GOP House win indicates:
This was not a red wave.
The country remains very much divided. And Democrats are wrong to be so dispirited and divided.
Harris/Walz 48.1% (226) Trump/Vance 50.1% (312)
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Republicans have won 219 seats in the US House so far, and these three of six remaining undecided races are their best shot for 222
Except Matt Gaetz is in that 219 and he has just resigned tonight. So 218.
Stefanik is in that 218 and she is taking the UN Ambassador job. When matters. A lot.
Waltz is in that 218 and he is going to be National Security Adviser. When matters. A lot.
The GOP really needs all three seats below just to get back to 221 now, not 222 as before, just one seat better than the current majority. And CA-45 looks more and more iffy to me as the count continues.
Trump is crazy playing chicken with the House majority in this way, and even crazier appointing Gaetz to Attorney General.
Gaetz will not be confirmed.
Trump's disrespect for the House outcome is a terrible beginning to his second term.
Rep. Matt Gaetz resigns to avoid House ethics report on Friday
House Speaker Mike Johnson revealed at a news conference Wednesday evening that Gaetz had submitted his resignation from Congress. The resignation will not take effect until it is announced on the House floor. ...
Gaetz has been the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation into whether he engaged in sexual misconduct or illicit drug use. ...
Punchbowl News reported Wednesday that his resignation came just two days before the panel was set to vote on releasing a report on its probe. ...
Asked by a HuffPost reporter whether Gaetz has the character to be attorney general, Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, replied, “Are you s------- me?”
-- CNBC, here
This is some crazy shit.
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