Monday, December 14, 2015

Christopher Buckley can go eff himself (practice makes perfect)


If it does come down next November to Trump vs Clinton we will — all of us — be presented with a choice even the great Hobson could not have imagined. And those of us who would sooner leap into an active, bubbling volcano than vote for Mr Trump will have to try to convince ourselves that really, she’s not that bad. Is she?

DHS missed San Bernardino terrorist's social media posts threatening attacks because it was official policy not to look

The fault lies with Obama and Jeh Johnson, total incompetents, or worse.

Of course our crack media at ABC here don't tell us when the policy not to look was implemented, but you can infer from the story that the Obama Administration made it official policy not to look in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations in the summer of 2013 in order to make the regime look respectful of privacy rights.

Too bad it's the privacy of foreigners Obama cares about instead of ours.

The guards of a tyrant are foreigners.

Ted Cruz, used car salesman, heavy user of data analytics, becomes what you want, and you want, and you and you and you

From the story here:

To build its data-gathering operation widely, the Cruz campaign hired Cambridge Analytica, a Massachusetts company reportedly owned in part by hedge fund executive Robert Mercer, who has given $11 million to a super PAC supporting Cruz. Cambridge, the U.S. affiliate of London-based behavioral research company SCL Group, has been paid more than $750,000 by the Cruz campaign, according to Federal Election Commission records.

To develop its psychographic models, Cambridge surveyed more than 150,000 households across the country and scored individuals using five basic traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. A top Cambridge official didn’t respond to a request for comment, but Cruz campaign officials said the company developed its correlations in part by using data from Facebook that included subscribers’ likes. That data helped make the Cambridge data particularly powerful, campaign officials said. ...

Cambridge, which has staffers embedded in the Cruz for President headquarters in Houston, makes behavioral psychologists available for consultation as ads and scripts are drafted. ...

The campaign’s big data operation is not deployed in just voter and supporter outreach. It also is used daily to help make key decisions — where Cruz should travel, what he should say. It has even informed the selection of precinct captains.

Hey Limbaugh, call your office: Trump squashes Cruz and everybody else in new Monmouth poll with 41%, ahead in first by 27 points


FBI Director James Comey is incompetent: doesn't know internet firearm purchases must transfer through an FFL in person

Infamous for suggesting Poles committed murders of and atrocities against Jews
And apparently Senator Lindsey Graham is just as ignorant.

From the story here:

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) began his question-and-answer period with Comey with a seemingly simple question: “If I buy a gun on the internet, is it delivered to my home?”

Comey, perhaps surprised by the question, seemed to stumble. Graham clarified, asking “if I try to buy a gun on the internet, where do I pick it up?”

Looking perplexed, the FBI Director replied “I assume it’s shipped to you, but I don’t know for sure, actually.” ... 

“Okay, well, let’s find out the answer to that,” replied Graham.

Comey recently demonstrated similar thick-headedness to Senator Diane Feinstein, who questioned the FBI's decision not to secure the San Bernardino crime scene, here:

Comey said it was the judgment of FBI investigators and the forensic expert that they were done with the scene and there was nothing else to be gained from it, “which is why it was boarded up and then inventory was left.”

Too bad we'll be living with this guy until 2023, if we live that long, that is.




Chris Plante repeating stupid

The 94 million not in the work force should be working, he says in an aside.

Tell that to your retired aunt and uncle, and your teenager in high school.

Vanity Fair trots out follicularly-challenged author of 1997 hit piece on Trump to append an attack on Trump's hair, in 16 slides

There's no there there as far as Mark Bowden, here, is concerned, who has his own reasons to be jealous:

"He has no coherent political philosophy, so comparisons with Fascist leaders miss the mark. He just reacts. "

Sunday, December 13, 2015

P. J. O'Rourke explains why trouble making the mortgage, plundering a retirement account and buying stuff he can't afford all qualify Marco Rubio to be president


"Rubio owns houses that he has trouble paying for. We, the American people, own two houses (of Congress) and the White House that we have trouble paying for.

"Rubio emptied his retirement account to meet current expenses. This is exactly the way Social Security works.

"Rubio bought a boat he couldn’t afford. The U.S. Navy does so all the time.

"When it comes to dealing with the federal budget, Rubio has the kind of experience that counts."

Bipolar diseased WaPo publishes sympathetic "hit piece" on Marco Rubio

In which you're meant to wonder how one family can produce a viable candidate for the presidency but also a cocaine dealer.


The heroine through it all is Marco's sister, and frankly it's none of our damn business.

Trump firmly in first but lead narrows in NBC/WSJ poll as Cruz climbs and Carson fades, Jeb Bush rises to 7% in best performance in a month


They can't even SPELL fascist at The McLaughlin Group let alone explain it

Ordinary Americans aren't being slaughtered by an influx of Christian refugees illegally storming the country despite the best efforts of border enforcement.

To the left, just saying "No" is demagoguery and calling the cops is fascism.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

World leaders agree to totally toothless climate accord

Story here.

Coal for Christmas everybody!

Blue state Republicans contribute a majority of convention delegates but only 37% of the primary vote

Which is why Republican presidential nominees tend to be more moderate than rank and file Republicans.

From the story here:

"Blue-state Republicans have already propelled moderates in the 2016 money chase. According to Federal Election Commission filings, donors in the 18 states (plus Washington, D.C.) that have voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1992 have accounted for 45 percent of Rubio’s total itemized contributions, 45 percent of Bush’s, 53 percent of Fiorina’s and 85 percent of Chris Christie’s. By contrast, they’ve provided just 20 percent of Cruz’s contributions and 36 percent of Carson’s. For comparison, blue-state Republicans cast just 37 percent of all votes in the 2012 GOP primaries. But their real mojo lurks in the delegate chase. ... there are 1,247 delegates at stake in Obama-won states, compared with just 1,166 in Romney states."


Mitt Romney's 47% makes a comeback: 47% offended by Trump's Muslim ban plan

Reported here in "Trump holds commanding lead in first national poll since Muslim ban proposal":

"The poll also found that 72 percent of Democrats and 47 percent of overall voters were offended by Trump’s ban."

Not all 47 percents are created equal, however.

For example, Mitt Romney received 47.15% of the popular vote and 47.7% of the US prison population is composed of violent criminals, among other things 47 percent.

Obama Friday signed stop-gap funding expiring December 16, but why hasn't this been an issue in the Republican debates?

The giant spending bill betrayal which gave us Paul Ryan as Speaker has been stoppable all during the presidential debating season, but we have heard narry a word about it.

If Republicans in the Congress wanted to, they could already have returned to "regular order" and debated every dollar of outlays, one by one, but NO. These cowards push on with one giant bill under Paul Ryan's "leadership", an omnibus spending package, which will take spending off the political calendar and put it into the nebulous never-never land of the indeterminate future, safely out of reach of "politics", fleecing the taxpayers as usual.

Meanwhile the candidates for president say nothing about spending in any way critical of the current Congress. They apply no pressure. They throw down no gauntlet to House and Senate leadership. But Donald Trump must endure a rare rebuke from a comedy lookalike.

A bunch of losers. Hollow men. And cowards.

And conservatism lies decomposing.


Crack-smoking Jeb Bush supporters in the US House float Paul Ryan for president at a brokered convention

Well, at least you know they think Jeb! is already dead.

But then you also know what kind of Republican they think Paul Ryan is.

Gabba.Gabba.Nay! Not.one.of.us.

The Hill reports here:

'A small chorus of voices even floated new Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as a possible nominee if no-one captures the majority of the 2,470 delegates by the time the convention kicks off. ... “I have broad disagreement with Donald Trump. If he is our nominee, I think he loses, I think Republicans lose the Senate, he puts the House at risk and sends the party into the wilderness for the next decade,” said Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.), a Jeb Bush backer who this week called for Trump to quit the race. “If there is a mechanism to make sure somebody other than Donald Trump wins the nomination, I think that is a good thing for Republicans.” Fellow Florida Republican and Bush supporter, Rep. Carlos Curbelo, agreed: “I wouldn’t support Donald Trump for president if he were our nominee. I would support any reasonable idea to find a better nominee.” ... “I’m thinking about running to be a delegate because I think we may well be in a brokered convention,” [Rep. Luke] Messer [IN-6], another Bush supporter, said in an interview. “In that scenario, who knows? You may have Paul Ryan end up being president.” ... “I really think the Speaker is setting himself up to be considered for the nominee in the case there is a brokered convention,” said [an unnamed] GOP lawmaker, who already has endorsed in the primary.'

These assholes made a big deal of Trump taking the pledge when it's they who should be taking it. The Republican Party. Full of liberal projection syndrome.

Police in Colorado Springs won't investigate ACLUer who called for Trump supporters to be killed, citing freedom of speech

Reported here by CBS Denver:

'The post states, “The thing is, we have to really reach out to those who might consider voting for Trump and say, ‘This is Goebbels. This is the final solution. If you are voting for him I will have to shoot you before Election Day.’ They’re not going to listen to reason, so when justice is gone, there’s always force…” ... Wirbel did not respond to a request for comment. He is from Colorado Springs and police there say his post is covered by free speech and they do not intend to investigate.'

Evidently as long as you don't threaten a specific individual it's permitted to advocate killing the followers of Obama, or Clinton or Madonna or the Pope and so on.

Whatever happened to incitement laws? to law and order?

Colorado Springs has bigger problems than Planned Parenthood shootings.

Larry Kudlow does a 180, calls for sealing the borders

From "War Breeds Unfairness. Seal the Borders" here:

"But I say seal the borders. People hoping to relocate to the U.S. from Syria, Iraq, and anywhere in the Middle East, and people coming here from France, England, Sweden, and wherever will be upset, at least for a while. There may be some unfairness to this. But I don't care. Wars breed unfairness, just as they breed collateral damage."

Spoken like someone who really is running for US Senate in Connecticut.

Update:

The article also appears here and here as "I've Changed. This Is War. Seal the Borders. Stop the Visas".

God, I've changed, honest I have. Please give me another chance.

Friday, December 11, 2015

Drudge reports Quentin Letts "removed" from BBC radio when only one of his broadcasts was

Like Rush Limbaugh, Drudge often reads only the (often intentionally misleading) headline and extrapolates from there.

Letts wasn't "removed", one of his broadcasts was. Tabloid journalism all around, not journalism.

Peggy Noonan admits the GOP elites are for illegal immigration and bear the blame for the split in the party


"The biggest reason [for the GOP fissure] has been the distance—the chasm—between the party elite at the top, who are more or less for illegal immigration, and the bulk of the party on the ground, who are opposed. In this case there is a chasm between elites concerned that they personally will look bigoted if they take action and voters concerned about who comes into America in the age of ISIS. It is a split, a distance; it is primarily the fault of the top, not the bottom; and Mr. Trump, who through his popularity could choose to be a bridge across the distance is instead functioning as a deepener of it."