Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Young whites are fleeing the Republican Party under Trump: Down 11 points in 18-29 since 2014, 10 points in 30-44

2018 CNN exit poll

2014 CNN exit poll

Fake news: Rush Limbaugh just said Valadao in CA-21 is going to lose when he was already declared the winner


Myth of the white supremacy surge: Rather than a 4-point decline in the white vote for Republicans from 2016 to 2018 per the NYT, a better comparison is 2018 vs. 2014 showing a 6-point decline

It's better to compare midterm election with midterm than it is midterm with general.

Whatever Trump and the Republicans have been doing, it's not causing the white majority to vote for Republicans in greater numbers when Trump most needs them to do so to advance his agenda.

Arguably every racial group is running away from what Republicans stand for under Trump. 

Contrary to Richard Spencer who says Trump has made inroads with minority communities, Trump has alienated minorities from the Republican Party since 2014, the black vote by 1-point, the Latino vote by 7-points, and none more than the Asian vote, by a whopping 27-points, partly a function no doubt of Trump's (correct) anti-China rhetoric.

Trump's prospects for reelection in 2020 do not look good at all. Whatever "movement" he thinks he had was nonexistent, and instead of growing his support it's going the other way.

Election 2016 remains The Revulsion Election, and if Trump's not careful he'll be on the receiving end of the revulsion instead of Hillary come 2020.

CNN 2018 exit poll

CNN 2014 exit poll

Julie Kelly entertainingly calls David French's warnings about a "white supremacy surge" hysterical

Reminds me of when Ann Coulter called National Review a collection of girly-boys.

Also, nice to see some of the old Takimag commenters showing up in reply.

There Is No ‘Surge’ in White Supremacy:

So, despite the hysterical warnings from French and his collaborators in the media, there was only a small increase in hate crimes last year and those numbers dropped significantly in the first half of the year. This means there is no “surge” either in hate crimes or white supremacy. (The synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh last month singularly will change that forecast for the year. Trump also has been blamed for that massacre by French’s NR colleague, Jonah Goldberg, even though the shooter did not vote for Trump and criticized the president for being “surrounded by kikes.”)

Monday, November 19, 2018

Looks like Richard Spencer is taking the NYT as seriously as Ann Coulter

2018 support from whites fell to 54%. Trump has suppressed the white vote.

Where all da white wymyn at? Cuckin' der men, dats where.


Brenda Snipes, PhD and Supervisor of Elections in Broward County, Florida, resigns after long history of incompetence


In 2004, Snipes said 58,000 absentee ballots in heavily Democratic Broward County were lost – a detriment to the campaign of John Kerry's campaign. ...

In 2016, however, her office illegally destroyed 6,000 ballots after they were counted but a judge ordered them to be preserved.

In 2018, her office sent out a sample ballot that did not resemble the real ballot used on Election Day. The ballot arguably made it difficult to locate the U.S. Senate race on the ballot to cast a vote.

Lastly, Snipes' office submitted the results of a machine recount two minutes past the deadline and also lost over 2,000 ballots for the 2018 midterm.

Well, if anyone should know a thing or two about self-dealing and corruption, it's The New York Times


Two years on 67% of The Astrology Party says the Russkies tampered with 2016 vote totals to elect Trump, just 17% of The Stupid Party, and 41% of the nitwits in between

Well, it was question 26C. Maybe they were tired and confused by that time, or on to their third beer.

Rush Limbaugh trumpeted the Republican retirements myth to blame them for losing the House, Twitter fools run wild with it

There weren't 43 House retirements in 2018 "fearing a wave".

Just 23 House Republicans "fled" politics and retired. But of those just 8 seats flipped to the Democrats, or 35%. 65% were Republican holds.

Republicans lost CA-39, CA-49, FL-27, MI-11, NJ-2, NJ-11, PA-06 and WA-8. If you want to blame these losses on Republican retirements, you might as well credit Republican retirements for keeping the remaining 15 seats Republican: FL-15, FL-17, KS-2, MS-03, PA-13, SC-04, TN-02, TX-02, TX-03, TX-05, TX-06, TX-21, VA-05, VA-06 and WI-01 (Paul Ryan's seat). Which will it be?

The whole idea is stupid and vindictive, especially when considering that Republicans still allocated big bucks trying to retain control of retired seats even as Republican incumbents went down to defeat in six of the ten costliest races in the nation: CA-25, CA-48, CO-6, FL-26, MN-3 and NY-19.

Reuters ranked the retired Republican WA-8 loss the second most expensive House race in the country. Another analysis put the retired Republican losses in CA-39 and CA-49 fourth and third among the ten costliest House races in the country, with the GOP-retained seat in retired TX-02 the ninth most expensive House race.

The fact of the matter is Democrats outraised and outspent Republicans in this cycle in order to repudiate the 2016 Trump victory. Considering that it was by far the most expensive midterm ever, it's a wonder Democrats didn't do better than they did. 

Sunday, November 18, 2018

Republican Rick Scott defeats Democrat Senator Bill Nelson in Florida by 10,033 votes in manual recount


Overall, Republicans picked off Senate seats from Democrats in Election 2018 in Florida, Indiana, Missouri and North Dakota.

Democrats picked off Nevada and Arizona from Republicans who end up controlling the US Senate by only a net +2, or 52-47 at the moment.

A run-off in Mississippi in nine days will determine whether Republicans enjoy a 53-47 majority or a 52-48.

Andrew Gillum concedes in FL (again), and Stacey Abrams in GA joins Roy Moore in AL in not conceding at all

What matters in these affairs is election certification by the respective Secretaries of State, not whether the losing candidates concede or the winning candidates claim victory.

Still, it is considered un-American not to concede when you've lost, simply because that means you don't accept the rules Americans agree to live by in these matters. Without that glue, the whole thing is in danger of descending into chaos, conflict and perhaps civil war.

One such un-American person stoking these flames is Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio who said "if Stacey Abrams doesn't win in Georgia, they stole it, it's clear. It's clear. I say that publicly."

Obviously not clear to the final authority in this matter, Senator.

In rejecting the non-conceders, one might say the voters got it right in electing their opponents, including in Alabama, except that in Ohio Sherrod Brown just won six more years in the US Senate by 275,000 votes.

The mills of the gods grind slowly . . .. 



Gillum had conceded to DeSantis on election night, but retracted it after the margin between the two candidates narrowed.


Her speech Friday effectively puts a stop to the contest. The final result had been in doubt for 10 days after the election.

Abrams stressed as she spoke: "This is not a speech of concession."

Saturday, November 17, 2018

Trump's losses in the US House are more than double the average Republican president's first midterm losses

The average loss of seats in the US House for the first midterm after a Republican's initial election to presidential office has been 17 up to Trump, who is set to lose 36.

A loss of 36 is more like what a Democrat president would lose in the first midterm, which averages 31.

Trump, of course, used to be a Democrat.

Friday, November 16, 2018

One term president waves surrender flag on drug war, signs on to criminal justice reform, no one will be executed


President Donald Trump’s support has put Congress within reach of passing the most sweeping set of changes to the federal criminal justice system since the 1990s, when fear of crime drove the enactment of draconian sentencing practices that shipped hundreds of thousands of drug offenders to prison.

Dear Jeff Flake: PISS OFF!


We don't need any more immigrants: Population increases have outpaced labor force increases for a decade

Before the Great Recession the growth rate of the labor force easily exceeded the growth rate of population for decade after decade, but since then the situation has reversed dramatically.

Population has been increasing at a rate 75% higher than the labor force over the last decade. The increased population is not assimilating to work.

THERE IS NO LABOR SHORTAGE.

Increasing the population of the non-working has been the number one drag on the economy, causing GDP to fall and debt to rise, negatively impacting every standard measure.


Trump's alt-right supporters don't get it that he's already finished: The time to accomplish something MAJOR was wasted in year one on Obamacare, in year two on taxes and defense spending


Liberal math: In ME-2 the Democrat came in second but wins the seat anyway

This is how the National Popular Vote will work in the case of president if states adopt the kind of legerdemain citizens of Maine adopted in 2016.

I say legerdemain advisedly, because it is not reasoning but simple trickery. In the case of the National Popular Vote, you will think X won your state but because Y got more votes nationally your state agrees to switch its electoral college votes to Y. In Maine because of an equally arbitrary decision to deprive the top vote getter from winning (the winner must get 50% even though Bill Clinton never did), the winner ends up losing because of "ranking". The last place finisher's votes, person D's, get reallocated to A, B, and C using math reflecting the voters' rankings of all the candidates until someone reaches 50%.

The voters collectively decide how your vote will go, not you, based on their ranking of the candidates, not yours.

In other words, if you happened to vote for D, and probably also for C in this case, your vote was changed to B, not the original winner A.

They say every vote must count, and call it democracy.

I seem to recall the Germans voted for Hitler, too. They gave up their freedom willingly, you see, so it must have been OK.


Poliquin narrowly got the most votes on Election Day – with 46.1 percent to Golden's 45.9 – but because he didn't get more than 50 percent of the vote, Maine's new law kicked in. Independent candidates Tiffany Bond and William Hoar combined received about another 8 percent of the vote. 

In the new system, approved by Maine voters in 2016, a person votes for their favorite candidate and ranks the other candidates by their order of preference. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the last-place candidate gets knocked out and the ballots cast for them are reallocated based on an algorithm that factors the voters' preferences. That process continues until one candidate has a majority. 

Thursday, November 15, 2018

Good God you people are stupid: Trump's been hiring the wrong people from day 1 and you're only just now noticing?


At 4:40pm today with 100% of the vote reported, CA-39 was won by the Republican, at 8:53pm by the Democrat, in between which 8,185 extra votes suddenly materialize to push the Democrat over the top

screen shot 4.40.38pm 11/15/18

screen shot 8.53.09pm 11/15/18
It's not the votes that count, but who counts the votes.

DeSantis elected Florida governor a 2nd time in machine recount, US Senator and agriculture commissioner races forced into hand recount


DeSantis' lead held Thursday as the counties reported their tallies, keeping him above the quarter-point threshold and making him Florida's governor-elect barring a legal challenge from Andrew Gillum. But, as expected, the margins in the U.S. Senate and agriculture commissioner races remained under the threshold, requiring hand recounts of overvotes and undervotes.

Florida, laughstock of the world


“We have been the laughing stock of the world, election after election, and we chose not to fix this,” U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said in court, where he is at the center of the legal battle over the election recount.

One term president: Trump's m/o is to dupe, trick and snooker, whether it's Saudi Arabia over oil or Americans over immigration


"They're pretty much snookered by Trump," Ross said. "I mean, Trump led them to believe that the Iranian exports would be zero. It turned out they're going to be 1.2 to 1.5 million barrels a day, way higher than people thought."

13 million young adults 18-29 use marijuana but the FDA's Scott Gottlieb is shocked, shocked I tell you, by 3.6 million young vapers

This administration, like the rest of this country, is completely effed up.


Tampa (AFP) - US regulators Thursday ordered sharp restrictions on sales of e-cigarettes, as national data showed a 78 percent single-year surge in vaping among young people, with two-thirds using fruit and candy-flavored products. ...

"These data shock my conscience," said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, referring to the latest data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey. ...

A total of 3.6 million US youths reported vaping at least once in the past month, the data showed.

"These increases must stop. And the bottom line is this: I will not allow a generation of children to become addicted to nicotine through e-cigarettes," said Gottlieb.

Meanwhile Gallup reported in August that 24% of the 54 million Americans aged 18-29 regularly or occasionally use marijuana, over three and half times as many as vape, but the FDA's Gottlieb isn't in the headlines over that.

How to lose in 2020: Trump reportedly trying to please Turkey by pushing Fethullah Gulen out of the US

Trump doesn't give a damn about the criminality of Turkey's Erdogan. Trump should be pushing Turkey out of NATO, not Gulen out of the US. Instead it's all about a peace deal with the Joos. I smell Javanka. I smell a one term president.


The requests on Gulen in mid-October mark at least the second time the Trump administration has re-examined Turkey's extradition request since taking office. In the weeks after Trump's inauguration, the White House asked the Justice Department to review Gulen's case, NBC has reported.

Some officials have described the first request as a routine part of a new administration reviewing its relationship with a key ally. The request, however, took place under Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, whose ties to Turkey came under scrutiny in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling. Flynn, who resigned in February 2017, entered into a plea agreement with Mueller last December and has been cooperating with the investigation.

Making it easier to vote makes it easier to commit fraud


Time to nuke Mexico: Think of it as increasing your defensible perimeter against wildfires


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

Crackpot Maxine Waters set to become chair of House Financial Services Committee, bank stocks fall

Maxine Waters says easing banking regulations 'will come to an end' when she takes committee chair

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

Adding insult to injury, McSally's AZ-2 seat in the US House flips to the Democrats, Sinema's AZ-9 seat holds Democrat


In Tennessee EVERYBODY thinks he can be Elvis, or governor


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.


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.

A pair of celestial observations portends calamity in Broward County FL recount



Ann Coulter explains the rise of feminism and the decline of the west: War insures the survival of the wrong DNA


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.


Republicans retained 80% of "pure" House retired seats but this fool believes whatever Rush Limbaugh says


The world upside down: FDA to ban menthol in cigarettes as 10 states legalize recreational marijuana


FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb plans to announce this week that the agency will move forward with a ban on menthol cigarettes in conjunction with a crackdown on e-cigarettes to curb "epidemic" levels of teen use, senior FDA officials told CNBC last week.

Remember how Ann Coulter's tweet about Democrats' voting day being Wednesday got her in trouble?


One false move on the bullet train in China and your credit score goes down

Video here.

Dear passengers,

People who travel without a ticket or behave disorderly, or smoke in public areas will be punished according to regulations and the behavior will be recorded in individual credit information system. To avoid a negative record of personal credit please follow the relevant regulations and help with the orders on the train and at the station.

The only person I've heard honestly assess Election 2018 has been Bill Cunningham

Last night on his 10pm broadcast Bill Cunningham accurately expressed how Republicans ought to feel about Election 2018, but don't: with astonishment that Republicans so severely underperformed in normally deep red places like Texas, Arizona, Georgia and Florida.

Do that again in 2020 and Donald Trump will not win reelection.

Build The Wall, or it's Adios America.

Sunday, November 11, 2018

Did any national Republican leader warn their voters Eric Holder was targeting governorships to control redistricting?

Not Trump, not Mitch McConnell, not Paul Ryan. We heard zip, zero, nada.

The stupid party strikes again.

The Detroit News reports here:

Voters Not Politicians, the group that spearheaded the [ballot] proposal in Michigan, may have started out as a grassroots campaign, but millions in outside money poured into the state — much of it coming from far-left advocacy groups and Democratic donors. Between July and October, Voters Not Politicians raised more than $13.8 million.

Eric Holder, former attorney general under President Barack Obama, led a national effort this year in Republican-controlled states to back similar measures that would strip redistricting from lawmakers — or at least ensure Democrats took control of legislatures and governorships ahead of the 2020 census. Michigan was one of 12 target states.

Armistice Day 1918-2018

Πόλεμος πάντων μὲν πατήρ ἐστι πάντων δὲ βασιλεύς