Sleepless in Midland

I question the timing of this NYT piece on Bernie Sanders' usefulness to the Soviet Union

Why now? The timing of this article about Sanders is curious. Titled, As Bernie Sanders Pushed for Closer Ties, Soviet Union Spotted Opportunity.

I've been wondering for a while now whether Bernie Sanders had a KGB code name like the British friend to the Soviets, Michael Foote -- KGB code named Agent Boot.

Sanders probably didn't reveal any secrets, but like Agent Boot, he could pass along information that would help the Soviets -- information that was in the public domain or that might not have been made public but which the Soviets might find useful.

As mayor of Burlington, Vt., Sanders sought and got "sister city" status with Yaroslavl, Russia. From the article:

“One of the most useful channels, in practice, for actively carrying out information-propaganda efforts has proved to be sister-city contact,” a Soviet Foreign Ministry document provided to Yaroslavl officials said.

It certainly doesn't makes Sanders look like a flag waving American -- it makes him look more like a Soviet useful idiot.

But why is the New York Times telling its readers this now? Joe Biden had a big day on Super Tuesday, and Sanders was left licking his wounds. To publish this piece about Sanders now hints that the New York Times is casting its lot to Joe Biden.

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3:22 PM 3/6/2020

21st century campaigning -- Bloomberg is paying people to text prospective voters

It takes a lot of money to do what Michael Bloomberg is doing. Thehill.com tells us this: Bloomberg campaign paying workers $2,500 per month to promote Bloomberg through texts, social media.

There would be 500 “deputy digital organizers” in California working between 20 and 30 hours a week for $2,500 a month. They would work phone banks and this:

The staffers will be aided by Outvote, an app that allows users to send pre-written texts, post to social media platforms and then send data back to the campaign.

So people will be receiving uninvited texts as well as phone calls? That's not cool. But it will be very interesting to see just how successful this effort and expense is for getting votes.

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6:41 AM 2/20/2020

Arthur C. Brooks at recent National Prayer Breakfast

He was featured in a blog post last year titled "Arthur C. Brooks challenges us to love our enemies" (which I now can't find.) He's a compelling teacher, and his lessons are worth learning.

Most recently, he spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast. From the transcript

I am here today to talk about what I believe is the biggest crisis facing our nation — and many other nations — today. This is the crisis of contempt — the polarization that is tearing our society apart. But if I do my job in the next few minutes, I promise I won’t depress you. On the contrary, I will show you why I believe that within this crisis resides the best opportunity we have ever had, as people of faith, to lift our nations up and bring them together. ...

So what's the problem:

The problem is what psychologists call contempt. In the words of the 19th-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, contempt is “the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another.” In politics today, we treat each other as worthless, which is why our fights are so bitter and cooperation feels nearly impossible. ...

How do we overcome this?

To achieve these things, I’m going to suggest three homework assignments.

First: [Mr. Brooks asks us to pray.]

Second: Make a commitment to another person to reject contempt. Of course you will disagree with others — that’s part of democracy. It is right and good, and part of the competition of ideas. But commit to doing it without contempt and ask someone to hold you accountable to love your enemies.

Third: Go out looking for contempt, so you have the opportunity to answer it with love. I know that sounds crazy, to go looking for something so bad. But for leaders, contempt isn’t like the flu. It’s an opportunity to share your values and change our world, which is what leadership is all about, isn’t it?

The nation is being ripped apart with partisan beliefs. It's nice to get a reminder that we should love our neighbors.

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4:15 PM 2/18/2020

A dirty little secret -- low Democrat turnout at Iowa caucuses in spite of all the media buildup

Politico summed it up nicely in The biggest problem for Democrats wasn’t the vote count.

Politico's subhead: "In Iowa, the party was counting on Barack Obama-levels of enthusiasm. They got Hillary Clinton-level turnout instead." Ouch!

Oh, and the irony is that even with a lower than expected turnout they still couldn't get an accurate vote count.

Maybe this whole episode will inspire a nationwide Super Tuesday primary. That would serve the country better than the piecemeal process currently in place. Many Democrats are ready to ditch the electoral college, but somehow this particular logic regarding party primaries hasn't yet caught on.

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10:27 AM 2/5/2020

Democrats want to raise our taxes

Our government spends too much money, and the only glimmer of hope is that a growing economy can eventually reduce the debt. But if any of the leading Democrats win the presidency in November, we'll have to say goodbye to that economic boom we've been experiencing.

This chart appeared in the Wall Street Journal the other day showing how each much Biden, Buttigieg, Sanders, and Warren will raise taxes. It's frightening.

Perhaps we can hope voters will react to it the same way voters did when Walter Mondale announced taxes would go up if he became president.

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1:17 PM 1/28/2020

Heritage poll tells how Trump can win in 2020

The Heritage Foundation conducted a poll last year to try to find out what voters were focusing on. The impeachment show is the current focus, but that will likely pass. And while it may be an issue in the November election, there are other issues out there. Tim Chapman provides a useful summary in The GOP’s Challenge in 2020? Don’t Make It About Trump. Here are some of the key survey points Mr. Chapman highlights:

- Illegal immigration.  Most of those who are concerned about it focus on abuses of our health care system, schools and welfare programs.

- Political correctness. Most Republicans and over half of the general voting public think Democrats are becoming culturally extreme, mainly because of Democrats’ leftward shift on social issues.

- The economy. Their poll results show that voters worry about their kids and grandkids not having the economic opportunities needed to be as well off as their parents and grandparents. While reduced regulations and lower taxes have helped, they only go so far. Republican sponsored apprenticeships, vocational training could help alleviate that worry.

- Economic fairness. On that issue, Democrats have some really bad plans. It shouldn't take much work pointing out how much harm they would do.

Links:
The GOP’s Challenge in 2020? Don’t Make It About Trump;
Project 2020: The Conservative Agenda for 2020 and Beyond;
Heritage Action Unveils A Winning Conservative Agenda for 2020;
Survey results.

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3:39 PM 1/25/2020

Poor Beto O'Rourke - Even Texas Monthly made fun of him

Last month this blog featured Beto O'Rourke in an item titled Rising star Beto flamed out -- it's almost enough to make a Texan feel sorry for him. Beto was out of his league when he ran against Ted Cruz to be a U.S. Senator. However, he had a lot of support from Democrats across the country. But after he lost the election Democrats dumped him like a bowl of cold porridge.

Now even Texas Monthly magazine, which has traditionally promoted Democrats over Republicans, has piled on by giving him half a bum steer award. 2020 Bum Steer of the Year: Beto O’Rourke:

After evoking so much love and admiration from his fellow Texans, O’Rourke seemed, inexplicably, to want to be anywhere but Texas—and he seemed, inexplicably, to be having a miserable time everywhere else too. His fans were left sticking pins in a map, tracking his movements. Where was O’Rourke headed? An artist colony in New Mexico? A fundamentalist Mormon compound? Would he soon be found meditating cliffside at the Esalen Institute, flowers in his hair?

The answer proved much worse than any of those things: He decided to run for president of the United States, a position for which he was particularly ill-suited and which no sane person could want. In 2019, Beto O’Rourke got lost in America and lost in his head, and it’s tough to see how he’ll ever find his way back.

The way Democrats turned on him it's almost enough to make a person feel sorry for him.

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2:35 PM 12/18/2019

Biden family not the first to accept money from shady foreigners

Most of us probably couldn't have cared less about Joe Biden's family before learning that his son got a lucrative no-work job from a shady Ukrainian business. Now that that seed of thought has been planted, we have to wonder how many other prominent politicians have family members on some suspicious foreigner's payroll.

Well, what do you know. Here's one now:

Robert Powell, the husband of Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, D-Fla., reportedly took $700,000 from a Ukrainian oligarch named Igor Kolomoisky. Mucarsel-Powell sits on the House Judiciary Committee, the committee that drafted two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump for his alleged abuse of power with regards to Ukraine.

Everyone is entitled to a fair hearing, and that applies to Ukrainian oligarchs, too. And attorneys are obligated to get their clients fair hearings and shouldn't be judged by their whatever their clients did.

Nonetheless, it certainly seems like a conflict of interest in this particular case. And it does nothing to allay the suspicion that there may be plenty of other politicians' family members getting big pay checks from foreigners hoping to benefit from a favor for a politician.

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5:47 AM 12/17/2019

Rising star Beto flamed out -- it's almost enough to make a Texan feel sorry for him

Way back in the heyday of Beto's run for Ted Cruz's Senate seat a woman very devoted to Beto went door to door in my neighborhood stumping for Beto. I looked at the brochure she presented, and he appeared pretty far to the left especially with such vague statements as "healthcare is a right." Anyway, he lost the election but gave it a good shot.

But he must not be far enough left for today's Democrat. They dumped him like a bowl of cold porridge. But as I've noted elsewhere in this blog, Democrats can do a fouette so fast it would make a ballerina's head spin. And while I don't mourn Beto's fate, it's almost enough to make a conservative feel sorry for him. Poor Beto.

But here's something interesting. The left leaning Texas Tribune took a poll and wrote about it in Democrats don’t have a candidate who would beat Trump in Texas today, poll finds. And here's the interesting part: In their one-on-one matchup against Trump, at 41% Beto did better in Texas than any of the other Democrat contenders. (See chart on right.)

Go figure.

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1:37 PM 11/4/2019

Lizzie Warren took an ax and gave the economy 40 whacks

Elizabeth Warren is *looking increasingly like the candidate who gets the Democrat presidential nomination. Should any Democrat get elected as president in 2020 that would be bad news for the economy, given that they are all running on the theory that the more free stuff they can promise the more likely they are to win.

Liz Warren may not be the worst, but she has made some truly awful remarks, for example, echoing Obama's "you didn't build that" excuse for taxing the rich. Except in her case, it's a proposed tax on assets. Real property owners are well acquainted with that concept. Applying a tax to assets other than real property will require a huge bureaucracy of appraisers that will tell people how much their personal property is worth. Hiding assets will become a new pastime for the bazillionaires Warren targets.

Mona Charen makes a cogent argument against the Warren plan:

The only way to achieve a Scandinavian-style welfare state is to do what the Scandinavians do — tax the heck out of the middle class.

Elizabeth Warren’s approach is 1960s Great Society stuff. She would build public housing, throw money at the opioid epidemic, break up big tech companies, break up agribusiness firms, introduce a new corporate profits tax, and on and on. Implicit in every plan is the notion that the government is competent to spend money and run things for everyone’s benefit. That worked so well the last time.

The economy will suffer, the good times will end, and everyone will suffer -- except the rich who Warren so much wants to punish.

P.S. The title of this piece is a play on the words of the Lizzie Borden poem.

*At the time of this writing, Election Betting Odds has Warren at the top of the heap at 40.2% and the next runner up, Biden, at 24.3%.

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2:18 PM 9/22/2019

The economy in Blue districts differs from Red districts

An interesting piece at WSJ.com tells us this: Democrats and Republicans Aren’t Just Divided. They Live in Different Worlds. That article is behind a paywall, but a summary can be found at Red and Blue Economies.

After comparing Democrat House Districts with Republican House Districts, the conclusion sums it up this way:

America’s political polarization is almost complete. Its two main political parties increasingly represent two different economies. And they barely overlap. Democrats can be found in educated cities and suburbs where professional jobs are plentiful. Republicans live in working-class and rural communities, home to agriculture and low-skill manufacturing. Another way to look at it: Democrats are dominant among high-producing districts, while Republicans now represent more of those with the least economic activity.

Meanwhile, thehill.com says it's not all bad news for Republicans. See Trump's economic advantage within the Democratic base. There we are told that Trump's advantage is that his policies have helped create new jobs and brought people back into the workforce. Excerpt:

If Trump’s enhanced economy is already likely to be an important consideration for the general electorate, imagine what its magnification could mean in groups on which Democrats rely so much. In America’s zero-sum two-party system, it would not take large swings in such key groups to yield big political impacts — and even with Democrats winning large 2016 margins within them, they still lost the presidency.

Finally, Democrats risk further compounding Trump’s economic advantage by nominating a candidate who either professes, or is perceived, to espouse a fundamental break from America’s historically free-market economic system. Not only would Democrats have to fight on comparisons of unfavorable economic performance, but a divergent philosophy as well.

I can picture Donald Trump telling Liz Warren, "It's the economy, stupid."

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2:49 PM 9/20/2019

Politicians should stop cussing, dag nab it!

There's no question that words previously considered taboo are much more commonly used these day, especially among politicians. (We're talking here about cuss words, not the most taboo word of them all -- you know what that one is.)

We hear Democrats complain about the coarseness of President Trump's language. But Trump's words pales in comparison the words of Democrats. Take a look at some samples in F-bombs away: Why lawmakers are cursing now more than ever. Heh heh, what a clever title: F-bombs away!

If you are tired of listening to them, you aren't alone: More than half voters say it's inappropriate for elected officials to use profanity.

Their mouths should be washed out with soap!

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2:19 PM 8/24/2019

United Way employees donated to Joaquin Castro

Representative Joaquin Castro put himself in the headlines recently by doxxing San Antonio Trump donors. And now he's getting the blow back with from some of those outed donors.

Large campaign donors can be found at Opensecrets.org, and Mr. Castro is in there, too. And a glance at his section reveals something unexpected. One of the donors listed there is United Way for a donation of $2,900.

I've never been a fan of United Way as it seemed like an unnecessary middleman in the charity process. It doesn't make sense to let someone else decide where one's charitable donations should go. We all probably have our favorite charities, and unless we have money to burn, most of us focus on those.

But political donations? Participation in political campaigns by 501(c)(3) organizations is prohibited by the IRS. The disclaimer at the bottom of OpenSecrets page says this:

The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organizations' PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

OK, so not the organization outright, it's the employees of United Way who are fans of Mr. Castro. Fair enough. But that doesn't earn any points for United Way.

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6:37 AM 8/10/2019

It's funny how people living in democracies are dissatisfied with how democracy is working

A Pew poll obtained some remarkable results when they asked residents in multiple democracies whether they were satisfied or dissatisfied with how democracy works. See the results at The countries where people are most dissatisfied with how democracy is working. The image on the right is a snap shot of the chart on display there.

The Pew analysis suggests that whether a particular economy is good or bad has a bearing on how the residents feel about democracy. But with the U.S. economy doing well at the moment, it's odd that 58% are in the dissatisfied column. But there's something else that factored in -- whether elected officials care what ordinary people think. In that one, 58% in the U.S. described their country as one in which elected officials do not care about the people.

Now it's starting to make sense. And that helps explain why Donald Trump remains so popular and congress not so much. But there's still the mystery of why so many Americans seem to want socialism, a system which requires so many untruths and false promises to get established but which will lead to great disappointment when it becomes obvious that the people in government will benefit to a much greater extent than the ordinary people.

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3:46 PM 6/7/2019

Nellie Ohr -- Hi Honey

Hopes are high out here in flyover country that the Department of Justice will experience some major reform. Surely there are plenty of people in that department who would like a return to the time when they were held in much higher esteem than now. But that's going to take work.

Judicial Watch has done a lot of the work that that needed doing to pull some of the nefarious activities out of the shadows and into the spotlight. Here's John Solomon's latest at thehill.com, Nellie Ohr's 'Hi Honey' emails to DOJ about Russia collusion should alarm us all:

Now, a series of “Hi Honey” emails from Nellie Ohr to her high-ranking federal prosecutor husband and his colleagues raise the prospect that Hillary Clinton-funded opposition research was being funneled into the Justice Department during the 2016 election through a back-door marital channel. It's a tale that raises questions of both conflict of interest and possible false testimony.

Ohr has admitted to Congress that, during the 2016 presidential election, she worked for Fusion GPS — the firm hired by Democratic nominee Clinton and the Democratic National Committee to perform political opposition research — on a project specifically trying to connect Donald Trump and his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, to Russian organized crime.

Now, 339 pages of emails from her private account to Department of Justice (DOJ) email accounts, have been released under a Freedom of Information Act request by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch. And they are raising concerns among Republicans in Congress, who filed a criminal referral with the Justice Department on Wednesday night.

Hat's off to Judicial Watch for doing the work that Americans want done.

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11:08 AM 5/2/2019

Christakis' Blueprint -- are we hard wired to be good?

Nicholas A. Christakis wrote a book titled "Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society," in which he makes the case for the goodness of human beings and their ability to work together to overcome differences. Reviews of the book heap praise on him and his theory. And they make him sound so optimistic that it's tempting to hope he's right. Here's an excerpt from the book found at the publisher's website:

As I write, the United States seems riven by polarities—right and left, urban and rural, religious and a-religious, insiders and outsiders, haves and have-nots. Analyses reveal that both political polarization and economic inequality are at century-long peaks.3 American citizens are engaged in vocal debates about their differences, about who can and should speak for whom, about the meaning and extent of personal identity, about the inexorable pull of tribal loyalties, and about whether the ideological commitment to the melting pot in the United States—and to a common identity as Americans—is feasible or even desirable.

Lines appear sharply drawn. It may therefore seem an odd time for me to advance the view that there is more that unites us than divides us and that society is basically good. Still, to me, these are timeless truths.

One of the most dispiriting questions I have encountered in my own laboratory research is whether the affinity people have for their own groups—whether those groups are defined by some attribute (nationality, ethnicity, or religion) or by a social connection (friends or teammates)—must necessarily be coupled with wariness or rejection of others. Can you love your own group without hating everyone else?

Yes, political divisions in the U.S. now could tear apart the fabric that once held us together. And one party's devotion to identity politics certainly doesn't help. But there's hope. Maybe there will come a time when we will all pull for each other rather than just our own tribe. Here's Christakis again:

Genes do amazing things inside our bodies, but even more amazing to me is what they do outside of them. Genes affect not only the structure and function of our bodies; not only the structure and function of our minds and, hence, our behaviors; but also the structure and function of our societies. This is what we recognize when we look at people around the world. This is the source of our common humanity.

Natural selection has shaped our lives as social animals, guiding the evolution of what I call a “social suite” of features priming our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, learning, and even our ability to recognize the uniqueness of other individuals. Despite all the trappings and artifacts of modern invention—our tools, agriculture, cities, nations—we carry within us innate proclivities that reflect our natural social state, a state that is, as it turns out, primarily good, practically and even morally. Humans can no more make a society that is inconsistent with these positive urges than ants can suddenly make beehives.

I believe that we come to this sort of goodness just as naturally as we come to our bloodier inclinations. We cannot help it. We feel great when we help others. Our good deeds are not just the products of Enlightenment values. They have a deeper and prehistoric origin.

Well, he could be too optimistic. But it's reassuring to think he's right.

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3:36 PM 4/26/2019

History books should be full of failed socialist experiments

Bernie Sanders, et al., have branded themselves as socialist. And they want to brand the rest of us too, whether we like it or not.

It's not hard to find examples of socialists systems currently in place around the world that are failures. But if we can't learn from them, then we can look to our own history. Plymouth Colony, founded in 1620, could have been the first socialist test by European settlers. The socialist system set up by William Bradford lasted about 2 1/2 years, but the people became lazy and unproductive. Then reality set in, and "the leaders of the colony decided to abandon their socialist mandate and create a system which honored private property." Source: Occupy Plymouth Colony: How A Failed Commune Led To Thanksgiving.

Another failed socialist experiment was conducted by Robert Owen two centuries later in New Harmony, Indiana. After a couple of years, it too was a failure. See Britannica.com, New Harmony:

About 1,000 settlers responded to Owen’s public appeal, but most were misfits who ate his rations, argued over government, and were unable to perform the menial tasks vital to such a community. Farms and workshops lay idle while virtual anarchy reigned.

People in the U.S. today are deeply divided politically, and a reconciliation doesn't look likely any time soon. By one estimate, 45.3 percent of households in the U.S. don't pay taxes. It's easy to assume that those people would favor socialism since they wouldn't have to pay for it. Might that exacerbate the divisiveness we're experiencing? And might people on either side of the tax equation become the modern day "misfits" who spoiled Robert Owen's socialist dream?

The failures of Cuba and Venezuela are right here in front of us. But it's too bad our schools are not educating students about all the socialist failures that happened right here in the U.S.A.

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3:08 PM 4/22/2019

Promoting environment or crony capitalism? Electric Vehicle subsidy predicted to continue

Electric vehicles are the hot new thing for those who want to be the first to own the latest innovations. And admittedly, there are intriguing.

The downside is the range. Tesla claims that a Model 3 has a range of 310 miles on a single charge. Charging is available at Supercharging stations where they claim the driver gets 180 miles for 15 minutes of charging time. That's a bit better than the 240 volt home charging connection which they say will charge at a rate of 44 miles per hour of charging time. So instead of paying by the gallon for gasoline, the driver pays for the kilowatts.

Anyway, what brings this to mind was a recent visit by Vice President Mike Pence for a fund raising rally here in Midland, Texas. A friend attended and said there were roughly five Teslas among the vehicles the attendees used to get there. Surprised the heck out of me. But I don't live in that world.

All that said, buyers of electric vehicles can still get a tax credit for their purchase. Here's what Veronique de Rugy said about that in Bipartisan Support for Electric Vehicle Handouts Betrays Taxpayers:

Under current law, a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 is available to consumers of the first 200,000 vehicles sold by each manufacturer, after which the credit is phased out. Both Tesla and General Motors have exceeded the cap, a fact that has driven a lobbying frenzy to extend the benefit. This wouldn't be the first time the credit was expanded, as the original incarnation of the credit applied only to the first 250,000 electric vehicles sold across all manufacturers.

This new legislation will allow for the purchase of an additional 400,000 vehicles to be eligible for a $7,000 credit, but it might as well be permanent. If Congress passes the bill and it's signed into law, Washington will be sending a clear signal to manufacturers that the gravy train may never end. All the EV makers must then do is flood Washington with lobbying and campaign donations once the next deadline approaches and the cycle could no doubt continue.

The current credit is expected to cost $7.5 billion in federal revenue from last year through 2022, according to the Congressional Research Service and the Joint Committee on Taxation. The costs of the newly expanded credit are not yet available but would be considerably higher.

And here's an interesting tidbit from de Rugy's article:

Almost 80% of those utilizing the EV tax credit have incomes over $100,000, making it not just a corporate handout but also a transfer from all workers to wealthier Americans. And despite its advocates' claims, the EV tax credit fails to reduce the alleged threat of climate change.

One has to suspect that each of those five Tesla owners at the rally likely had a gas guzzling backup vehicle or two back home.

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2:15 PM 4/20/2019

Arthur C. Brooks challenges us to love our enemies

There was a recent interview on C-Span's Washington Journal with Arthur C. Brooks who talked about his book, "Love Your Enemies." (Watch that interview here.)

He made some interesting observations about how people get too heated in their interactions about politics. And the solution, to love our enemies, is a tough prescription. But it's one worth considering.

The interview lasted about an hour, and rather than trying to summarize, we'll touch on some of the highlights. First off, his website contains a one paragraph description of the book, as follows:

Love Your Enemies
A NEW BOOK
America has developed a “culture of contempt.” We increasingly view people who disagree with us not as merely incorrect or misguided, but as worthless. This is warping political discourse, tearing us apart as people, and even wrecking our health. But we can fight back. Drawing on ancient wisdom, cutting-edge behavioral science, and examples from history’s greatest leaders, Arthur Brooks shows how we can bridge national divides and make progress as a society, all while becoming happier and more effective people. Love Your Enemies is a guide to building a better country-but more than that, it is a roadmap to the happiness that comes when we choose to love one another, despite our differences.

Authors these days boil everything down to five main rules. And here are Mr. Brooks' rules:

1. Stand up to the man (i.e., stand up to our own side on behalf of people on the other side);
2. Escape the bubble (get out, get to know people with whom you disagree);
3. Say no to contempt (don't hold people with whom you disagree in contempt);
4. Disagree better, not less (acknowledge that people with whom you disagree are not evil); and
5. Disconnect (turn off the TV for a couple of weeks).

Taking an hour out of one's day to watch an interview is probably a lot to ask of people in this day and age of instant internet dopamine supply. But it was worth my time to watch it. Maybe it will be worth yours, too. (Oh, and wait to exercise rule #5 until after watching this.)

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2:57 PM 3/24/2019

Texas politics could be going the way of Arizona

Texas Democrats have been plotting the blue wave for years, and they came close this past election in the race for Texas Senator. Handsome, likable mouthpiece of lefty politics, Beto O'Rourke, almost knocked Ted Cruz out of a senate seat. But Cruz won by less than 3% of the votes. And while that's a win, the margin is probably enough to pump more fuel and enthusiasm into the Texas Democrat wave making machine.

The lesson from Arizona is instructive. Monica Showalter asks and answers the question: How could Arizona elect someone like Kyrsten Sinema? Among other reasons, she says this:

And there's also the broad trend: Colorado, the most populous mountain state, has done a lot of going blue as outsiders moved in and urbanization happened. It's quite likely that demographically, Arizona may be following the same pattern.

Texas is experiencing that phenomenon, too. The newcomers may be voting for the same types of politicians running the states they left behind without realizing that those politicians were probably the cause of the conditions that they were so eager to leave.

Whatever the cause, one of these days there's going to be a serious move in the Texas legislature to establish a state income tax. That will be a tell. Texas voters will have pushed the state to the blue line.

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1:52 PM 11/13/2018

A most disappointed loser in local election

Article in the morning paper set out the vote counts in some of the elections that took place 11/6/2018, and one result stuck out. In a three person race for trustee in one of the school districts in Midland, Texas, none of them got 50% of the vote, so the top two vote will have a runoff.

According to reported results, the front runner got 2,438 votes. The next one down received 1,942 votes. The number three vote getter received 1,941 -- that's one vote difference between number two and number three.

One measly vote away from the runoff. He has to be one of the most disappointed candidate in the whole country today.

Trustee, District 5, Midland ISD
	TOTAL VOTES	percent	EARLY VOTING	ELECTION DAY
Heidi Kirk	2,438	38.57	1,839	599
John Trischitti III	1,941	30.71	1,628	313
Thomas Wolfmueller	1,942	30.72	1,563	379
Total	6,321		5,030	1,291

Dang. Missed it by that much.

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1:42 PM 11/7/2018

Irony alert -- One of Beto's arrests was for climbing over a wall

Here's something no one seems to have noticed. Beto O'Rourke was arrested years ago for, get this, climbing over a wall. That's quite an irony given that Beto is sure to oppose Trump's proposed border wall.

The excerpt below from a politifact item about the O'Rourke's arrest record tells us about that wall incident, although to be fair to him, the article calls it a "fence." Beto O'Rourke arrested in 1990s for burglary and DWI:

"Some 20 years ago, I was charged with driving under the influence and, during my college years, I jumped a fence at the University of Texas at El Paso which resulted in a burglary charge," O'Rourke said. "I was not convicted of either.

"Both incidents were due to poor judgement and I have no excuse for my behavior then. However, since then, I have used my opportunities to serve my community and my state. I'm grateful for the second chance and believe that we all deserve second chances."

"We all deserve second chances." Would that include Brett Kavanaugh had he actually been guilty of the claim against him?

By the end of Tuesday we'll know whether O'Rourke could climb the wall of worry that Ted Cruz voters have about another Schumer minion in the Senate. In any event, Beto is the new poster child for an ambitious Democrat groomed by the party for higher office. We haven't heard the last from him.

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2:13 PM 11/5/2018

Roll Call writer finds comparison with Beto's campaign -- Jon Ossoff in Georgia

Gordon Deal's radio program featured an interview with Patricia Murphy about the Beto O'Rourke campaign where she found an apt comparison, the Jon Ossoff campaign in Georgia.

Democrats think Beto looks like Kennedy and talks like Obama, so donors smothered him with money. The same thing happened to Jon Ossoff in his campaign in a special election in Georgia. "We saw this same movie very recently, and it might have the same kind of ending," Murphy said. More from Murphy:

You’d think that posting a gigantic fundraising number like the $38 million that O’Rourke reported for the third quarter last week would be nothing but good news for a candidate. But as Ossoff’s team learned the hard way, money in a campaign can begin to have diminishing returns. As the Georgia Democrat racked up more and more cash last year, he began to attract an equal barrage of Republican money in attack ads against him. The same is holding true in Texas, where GOP outside groups are significantly outspending Democrats.

There's also that pesky issue of numbers. It might be worthwhile to remember that 1 million votes were cast for Democrats in the primary this year, 1.5 million votes were cast in the Republican primary. The numbers are not in Democrats favor. Furthermore, it will interesting to see what the Trump rally for Cruz will do to the polls.

Links:
The podcast of Gordon Deal's interview with Patricia Murphy: Is Beto O'Rourke the Next Jon Ossoff?
Soundcloud link to podcast.
Patricia Murphy's article: Is Beto O’Rourke the Next Jon Ossoff?.

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2:31 PM 10/17/2018

Beto famously declines Obama help -- actually it would be Schumer who would be calling the shots if Beto gets Senate seat

Beto says no: Beto O'Rourke on possible endorsement from Obama: I don't think we're interested.

O'Rourke is trying hard to burnish the centrist label he adopted for his Senate run against Ted Cruz. But conservatives in Texas are probably skeptical. And polls are reflecting it: Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz leads Democrat challenger Beto O’Rourke 50 to 44 in a CBS YouGov poll conducted October 2-5.

It's all too easy to imagine a scene in which a Senator O'Rourke would make a passionate Susan Collins type speech in which he explains how he decided go against the wishes of his fellow Texans and instead go along with Chuck Schumer.

No thank you.

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1:34 PM 10/8/2018/span>

Voter registration up in Texas -- but so is population

Headlines practically screamed about the huge number of voters registrated in Texas. E.g., Texas sets new voter registration record, with 15.6 million registered ahead of election. But note this, from the article:

Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos told the Houston Chronicle that the state's voter rolls have grown by 1.6 million since the last midterm election in 2014.

Well, the state of Texas has grown a bit since 2014. The data found at DSHS.texas.gov tell us the difference between 2014 and 2018 was an increase of over 2.2 million people.

So there were more new migrants than new voter registrations. But, of course, we don't know whether those new registrants will actually vote. But it will be something to keep us thinking about the November elections. Many Texans worry that the new arrivals will vote for candidates who make big promises and legislate for big government and high taxes, i.e., the things that brought their previous home states down.

That up and coming young fellow named Beto O'Rourke fits the bill for big promises. And he has lit a fire under Democrats. He's running for U.S. Senate against incumbent Ted Cruz and has raised significant sums of money.

Beto may be too much of a socialist for most Texans -- but that particular ideology, though usually disastrous for the countries that get suckered into the false promises, is gaining favor across the U.S. We can probably thank our education system for that.

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2:52 PM 10/5/2018

Quote of the week -- from Jon Meacham a shocker FDR said

On Sunday C-Span2 reran a video of Jon Meacham's talk on 9/1/2018 about his newest book titled "The Soul of America: The Battle For Our Better Angels." Video link.

Our quote of the week pertains to a speech Franklin D. Roosevelt gave in which he suggested he might take over with war time executive powers to combat the nation's economy economic crisis. According to Mr. Meacham's research, Eleanor was stunned because the audience reaction implied a desire for a dictator.

The quote starts at around the 37:17 point in the above linked video.

March 4, 1933, when he gave his inaugural address, the line that we all remember from the east front of the capitol is that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. The line that got the biggest applause and a kind of a bloodthirsty cheer, according to Eleanor Roosevelt, who wrote about it that night, was when FDR said the circumstances of the present crisis are such that I may require war time like executive powers. And they roared, and it chilled her, she said. Because she realized that they were ready as the Europeans had proven themselves ready for a strongman or dictator. It terrified her.

This is more bias confirmation for many conservatives and libertarians, as we believe that Democrats and the progressive movement could be easily duped by a would-be dictator into ditching the Constitution and abolishing Congress.

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1:50 PM 9/30/2018

538 prediction -- House to shift to Dems in November election

Donald Trump himself admitted that he didn't know whether his own popularity among voters would do much to help Republicans running for House and Senate seats. He has been campaigning hard, nonetheless, so we are about to see.

Traditionally, the administration's party loses ground in the mid terms. And if Nate Silver's predictions at fivethirtyeight.com are right, Republicans will lose control of the House but keep the Senate. See lots of graphics at Forecasting the race for the House.

Elected Republicans have had plenty of time to anticipate this and attempt to pass anything they deemed necessary. They did pass the tax cut. And one has to suspect that that is all they expected to do during the Trump administration however long it lasts. All that is left is for them to make a feeble show of attempting to slow impeachment proceedings.

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1:20 PM 9/14/2018

How influential is Tom Steyer, anyway?

Tom Steyer is on a campaign. It's not entirely clear whether the primary goal is for his own election as president or to get Trump out of office. But he undoubtedly wants both. And he's betting his own money on it.

Most Democrat office holders are too shy to come out solidly in favor of Trump's impeachment at the moment for fear it will create a stampede of frightened Republicans to the voting booths in November. But once the election is over, you can bet the movement will return with a vengeance.

In any event, it's amusing to watch those rich guys like Tom Steyer and Mark Cuban try to work through the thought process that if a guy like Trump could win, maybe they have a shot, too.

Meanwhile, a couple of msm sources:
Tom Steyer slams Washington establishment for not pursuing Trump impeachment; and
Steyer Campaigns for Trump’s Impeachment While Other Democrats Stay Away.

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2:21 PM 8/27/2018

Brennan's security clearance pulled -- it's about time

This was long overdue. Brennan was not just a critic. He was on the other side.

John Brennan orchestrated an operation against Trump while Brennan was with the government. Then once out, he continually rebuked the president. So why in the world was Brennan still holding the security clearance?

From Fox News: Trump revokes security clearance for former CIA director John Brennan:

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders read a statement on behalf of the president during the start of the press briefing, saying Brennan “has a history that calls his credibility into question.” The statement also said that Brennan had been "leveraging" the clearance to make "wild outbursts" and claims against the Trump administration.

It's a start. Under review: James Comey; Andrew McCabe; James Clapper; Susan Rice; Michael Hayden; Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

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2:46 PM 8/15/2018

Narrow Republican wins portend trouble ahead

There was a study conducted not long ago which produced results purporting to show that in the game of basketball a team that is one or two points behind at half time is more likely to ultimately win the game. Makes sense. If the teams or evenly matched the team with players more motivated have to be the favorite.

That theory is probably true in politics as well. The team that is slightly behind is more motivated. And in the current environment, Democrats are very motivated.

Among today's voters there are those who prioritize the economy and taxes. And there are those who are appalled by Trump's noisy personality and all the pettiness Trump produces. Although a zen diagram would show some overlap, in that last group is a sizable contingent more likely to vote Democrat or not vote in upcoming elections.

So while some conservative writers are trying to instill confidence, it might be helpful to remember that basketball study and realize with a narrow win, like Troy Balderson's in Ohio, there's a motivational component for the opposition that could follow a narrow loss.

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12:56 PM 8/11/2018