Tag: elections

The only opposition that will matter to today’s lock down fascism will be opposition expressed in the ballot box

2:07 pm

In the past week or so there have been numerous stories in the press suggesting that Americans have finally lost patience with the unreasonable Wuhan flu lock downs that have been arbitrarily imposed in the past two months by elected officials, sometimes indefinitely, for no justifiably rational reasons.

In Michigan there were armed protests, and then barbers began publicly defying the lock down orders of their fascist governor.

In New Jersey a health club defied the order of that state’s fascist governor and reopened to cheers from its customers.

In Baltimore a pastor stood at the pulpit and ripped apart the shut down order by that city’s health department.

In Minnesota the Catholic church announced it was reopening for church services, in direct defiance of the orders of that state’s governor.

I could cite many other examples, across the country, in both conservative and liberal states.

Are these push backs necessary? Certainly. These fascist governors and mayors, most of whom have been Democrats, have imposed unreasonable and blatantly illegal arbitrary restrictions on the freedoms of Americans, which must be resisted at all costs.

Are these push backs real? Forgive me if I must sadly remain skeptical. For fifty years I have watched as politicians, mostly from the Democratic Party but with more than ample support from large numbers of Republican Party hacks, have slowly but steadily worked to erode the freedoms of Americans.
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Voters throw out all Democrats in city council in Virgina

7:28 pm

A sign of things to come, at last? The voters in Staunton, Virginia, yesterday tossed from office three Democrat incumbent city council members, making that city council now all Republican.

All three had been on the council for years, since 08, 10, and 12, so these were not new faces. They had been well established, and are now gone,

This in a city that voted twice for Barack Obama, once for Hillary Clinton, and also for black-face-loving, gun-control loving Democratic Governor Ralph Northram. Moreover, the defeated Democrats actually got twice as many votes as during the last election, but were still soundly defeated by a much larger opposition.

In addition, another nearby city, Waynesboro, Republicans gained two seats on the city council, giving the Republicans a council majority.

I wonder what events recently might have raised the ire of the voters? Can anyone make a guess?

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In-person voting in Wisconsin produced no new Wuhan flu cases

1:26 pm

Surprise! Surprise! Despite many predictions of disaster by our lordly “experts,” the data now shows no increase in Wuhan flu cases at all in Wisconsin following its decision to allow in-person voting during its primary earlier this month.

There is of course uncertainty in this conclusion, but even the “experts” agree with this conclusion.

But then, we shouldn’t be surprised. The normal gathering of people in a sane normal society does not result in wholesale deaths from these kinds of viruses. If anything, it serves to strengthen the population’s immunity to them.

We are unfortunately living in a time of mass hysteria, where such common sense facts are ignored, and panic and fear rule the day.

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Primary turnout numbers for Trump

9:56 am

While most of the press has been focused entirely on the results to the Democratic Party’s presidential primary elections, few have noticed that President Trump has actually been getting a very large turn-out of voters in those same primary states, sometimes exceeding the entire Democrat total, even though his opponents stand no chance of gaining the nomination and there is really no reason to come out to vote for him.

The article at the link posts the numbers in every state that has so far held a primary election. In three of those eleven elections Trump topped all Democrats combined. In three other states his numbers exceeded 90% of the Democratic total, and in a fourth it was within 80%.

Of the four remaining states, three are so solidly Democratic (California, Massachusetts, and Vermont) that no one expects Trump to win them. Yet, Trump’s numbers in California were still 60% of the Democratic totals.

What does this tell us? It suggests that Trump’s support remains very passionate, and very large. It also suggests that in the November election Trump can expect a strong turn-out. Whether that turn-out can give him the majority in the total vote remains unknown, as he would still need to draw a lot of votes from the populous coastal Democratic strongholds in New York and California.

The totals here also strongly suggest that Trump will not lose any of the states he won in 2016, and might gain a few, meaning he is on track to win the election easily. That the Democratic candidate is likely going to be either communist Bernie Sanders or senile Joe Biden further reinforces that conclusion.

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Landslide primary win for Netanyahu

9:22 pm

In a primary election today for the leadership of the conservative Israeli Likud Party, in advance of another general election on March 2nd, Benjamin Netanyahu won a landslide victory over his party challenger.

The primary election saw 49% of all Likud party members show up to vote in spite of the stormy weather, a slight increase over the last time a primary election was held by the Likud. Of the nearly 60 thousand people that cast a ballot, 72.5% did so for the incumbent Netanyahu and 27.5% for his challenger Gideon Sa’ar.

Netanyahu’s win was expected, but the landslide proportions of it were not and thus the primary challenge itself had most assuredly worked to Netanyahu’s advantage. It reaffirmed his complete hold over the Likud party and gave him a reason to re-energize his base ahead of the March 2nd general election.

While the article touts the election victory as an indication that Likud’s position is strong in the coming election, I would not be so sure. This is the third general election in Israel in less than a year, all because the voters have refused to chose a clear leader. Though they have favored the conservative parties, those parties have not been able to form a government because one party refuses to join a coalition that includes the orthodox religious parties.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu faces a court fight, as he is under indictment and there is the possibility that the high court in Israel will rule that under those conditions he cannot form a government.

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Major victory for Boris Johnson, Tories, and Brexit

7:18 pm

A victory for democracy: In the elections today in the United Kingdom it appears at this moment that the conservative Tories under Boris Johnson, running under a platform to quickly enforce the public’s vote three years ago to leave the European Union, have won the biggest majority since the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher.

As is typical in the modern journalist field, these results are also much more favorable to the conservatives than all the polls, which had called for a much closer result. The result is also a major rejection of Great Britain’s leftist and increasingly anti-Semitic Labor Party under Jeremy Corbyn.

Most important, the victory for Johnson is also a vindication of his strong position that he and Great Britain’s politicians had a responsibility to respect the voters’ choice three years ago to exit the European Union, and the effort by politicians to nullify that vote was a direct attack on democracy. The voters have clearly shown their contempt for that nullification effort, and have said so forcefully at the polls.

My immediate thought, from an American perspective: If only the American voters were as willing to make such a forceful statement. Our Democratic Party has been acting as bad and as anti-democratic as the politicians in the UK these past three years. It is long past time for a major political house-cleaning in Washington.

So far, the American voters have shown no inclination to do this, however, and in fact in the 2018 election did the exact opposite, rewarding the corrupt Democratic Party with more power by giving them control of the House. The result has been this ludicrous impeachment effort by the Democrats that is blatantly an effort to nullify the 2016 presidential election. They have no grounds for impeachment and the removal of Donald Trump, other than the fact that they don’t like him and that he beat them in a fair election.

They should be punished in the same way. Will the American voters do it? So far I remain pessimistic. I also pray every day that my pessimism turns out to be wrong.

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The dark future predicted by this week’s elections

1:06 pm

Because the elections this past week on November 5 took place during an off year, they were mostly local, and thus have a limited value in predicting the public’s overall political attitude. The results however can still give us a hint about the future, and are thus worth looking at for that reason.

In general, the results were mostly mixed, with Democrats doing great in some suburbs and in Virginia, and Republicans doing great in the down slate races in Mississippi and Kentucky. The governorship elections were also mixed, with the Republicans winning in Mississippi and the Democrats winning in Kentucky.

Other results also suggest mixed results on a variety of propositions. The link above notes the defeat of a leftist proposition in Washington that would have repealed the state’s prohibition on using affirmative action quotas. On the other hand, in New York City voters approved ranked voting, an election system that Democrats have used in Maine and California to destroy Republican opposition.

Overall however I consider these results a disaster for the future of freedom, democracy, and our Constitutional system. The Democratic Party has made it very clear in the past three years that it no longer respects all three. More importantly, they have also made it clear that they are willing to use slander, libel, and any number of vicious McCarthyite tactics to squelch and destroy anyone who opposes them.

It is terrifying to me that the public seems undecided or ambivalent about these facts, and still willing to vote for Democrats, many of whom have openly supported these tactics and positions. In fact, it suggests a large percentage of the population, majorities in many places, actually applaud the Democratic Party’s fascist tactics and positions.

This week’s elections therefore once again reaffirm for me a very pessimistic future coming in the next few election cycles. Even if Trump should win in 2020, the voting pattern that we have seen in both 2018 (when the voters gave control of the House to the Democrats) and 2019 suggest that his win will be mixed, and that the power the Democrats presently hold in Congress will remain firm and unchallenged. This is what the voters have been telling us. They are not ready to clean house in the Democratic Party.

Dark times are coming. Be ready.

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Liberals in Canada retain control

8:36 pm

In tonight’s national election in Canada the leftist Liberal party under Justin Trudeau managed to maintain its control of the government, but without a clear majority, requiring it to form a coalition with one of the smaller parties.

Trudeau appeared to overcome a challenge in Monday’s national elections from the rival Conservatives four years after he channeled his father’s star power to become prime minister. CBC projects Trudeau’s Liberals won’t win the majority of seats in Parliament and will have to rely on another party to pass legislation.

The final numbers are not in, but it doesn’t look like much will change.

I always consider election results the real and true indicator of society’s trends. This result says that the left continues to maintain its hold on western civilization, despite the utter bankruptcy of its ideas and its increasingly totalitarian policies. Apparently a very large percentage of Canada’s population likes what the left is offering.

This also suggests that we will get a similar result in the 2020 U.S. election. We, just like in Canada, have a large population that likes what the Democrats are offering: Free stuff combined with a willingness to impose its will by force if necessary, including the silencing and literal destruction of its opponents.

Not good. Not good at all.

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Large numbers of minorities and Democrats attend Trump rallies

11:53 am

According to statistics issued by the Trump campaign manager, significant numbers of Democratic voters, minorities, and non-voters have been attending Trump rallies.

In Dallas: “The data revealed that nearly 54,000 voters signed up for the event, with almost one in eight (12 percent) who didn’t vote in the last four elections and more than one in five (21.4 percent) who identified as Democrats. Eleven percent of the registrants were Hispanic.”

In New Mexico: “Of the 45,000 who registered, 94 percent were from within the state and 78 percent were matched to voter files. More than one in five voted in one or none of the past four elections, and 40 percent were Hispanic, the data showed. Nearly one in three were Democrats.”

In Minnesota: “More than 42,000 voters were identified in the data, of whom 13 percent voted in none or one of the past four elections. Also, 30 percent were Democrats.”

If these numbers reflect reality even vaguely, they strongly suggest two things. First, that large numbers of Democrats are abandoning that party. Second, that Trump is bringing in voters who had habitually not voted in the past. Both trends, if true, suggest disaster for the Democratic Party in 2020.

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Democrats decimated in Louisiana election

9:31 am

Good news? In state elections in Louisiana this past weekend the Democratic Party experienced losses across the board, with Republicans also gaining a veto-proof majority in the state senate.

Among statewide office-holders, the incumbent GOP Lieutenant Governor (68 percent), Attorney General (66 percent), Treasurer (60 percent, and Agricultural Commissioner (58 percent) were all re-elected without the need for a run-off, under the state’s ‘jungle primary’-style system. It also appears that the solid Republican majorities in both state legislative chambers will remain intact — with the GOP expanding its Senate advantage into super-majority territory by picking up a pair of Democratic seats:

And the two elections that are going to a run-off, the governor and secretary of state, both appear likely to go Republican as well.

This is what needs to happen nationwide. The Democratic Party needs to be decimated everywhere, in order to allow a new crop of sane Democrats to retake that party from the far-left power-hungry and anti-American radicals that now control it.

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Israel election produces uncertainty again

7:05 pm

Yesterday’s election in Israel, called because the leading block led by Benjamin Natanyahu could not form a majority coalition after the last election in May, has apparently resulted in a similar result.

I am still researching what I think might be the causes behind this on-going situation in Israeli politics. The article at the link describes some of the negotiations between the various factions that might produce a new Natanyahu government, or not.

My sense is that this situation all begins with the special exemptions to military service that still remain for the orthodox, or haredi community. The reason Natanyahu could not form a coalition in May was that one of his expected partners, a generally conservative but secular party dubbed Yisrael Beytenu, wanted a commitment to remove those remaining exemptions, and Natanyahu couldn’t get the various religious parties to go along.

As result, it appears that the religious parties lost some support in yesterday’s election, making it even harder for Natanyahu to make a deal.

I have asked some of my relatives in Israel if my analysis here makes sense, and am waiting a response.

Either way, it appears that no one is going to have an easy time putting together a government in Israel.

Update: This story from Israel tonight provides some clarity about the position of Yisrael Beytenu, stated by its chairman, Avigdor Liberman. In it he outlines his party’s demands, which do not just involve the special military exemptions for the haredi but also the power the orthodox have held in Israel over other issues.

“We will not concede on the passing of the Draft Law, as it was originally written, we will not concede on repealing the Supermarket Law, we will not concede on public transportation on Shabbat, we will not concede on civil marriages, and the introduction of core studies into haredi education. These are the conditions, and until we hear things in that spirit – there’s nothing to talk about.”

All of these cited issues involve the effort by the religious parties to exert more control. For example, the Supermarket Law, passed in 2018, gave the national government power to determine whether local businesses could be open on Shabbat (Saturday, the day of rest), instead of local bylaws. Similarly, issues of marriage and education all involved a conflict between the secular and orthodox communities.

Either way, Liberman will only join a coalition of all the secular parties, excluding both the Jewish religious parties and the Arab parties (dubbed the Joint List). To do this would require the two largest parties, the conservative Likud, led by Natanyahu, and the more liberal Blue and White, led by Benny Gantz to partner. Everything I have read suggests this will not be possible, as long as Natanyahu leads Likud.

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Hundreds arrested in Moscow demonstrating for open elections

9:18 am

Continuing protests in Moscow demanding the right of independent candidates to run for election have resulted in hundreds of arrests in the past week.

I am very much reminded of the protests that led to the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. The difference is that then the government did little to stop them, and then allowed their candidates to run for office, sweeping the communists from power.

Now, Putin’s government seems to be following China’s approach to such protests, which cracked down hard against its own protests in the early 1990s and was thus able to stay in power.

Meanwhile in Hong Kong China is faced with its own new protest movement, now in its ninth week. At this moment China has held off using its full military power to stop the protests, but that might change soon. If so, things will get very bloody.

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Leftist backed by socialist Ocasio-Cortez wins in Queens

10:00 pm

They’re coming for you next: A leftist candidate, Tiffany Cabán, backed by socialists Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont), has won an election for Queens District Attorney in New York.

Cabán, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s preferred pick for the office, garnered 39.5% of the vote compared to Democratic rival Melinda Katz’s 38.3% with 98% of precincts reporting.

…Cabán is a 31-year-old public defender who wants to decriminalize sex work, close Rikers Island and end cash bail. The young lawyer was joined on stage with city Comptroller Scott Stringer and state Sen. Jessica Ramos.

The election was close enough that they will do a recount, but I don’t think that will change the result, which clearly shows that New Yorkers have not been put off in the slightest by Ocasio-Cortez’s extreme leftist positions, as many conservative pundits have assumed. If anything, her upfront willingness to push her beliefs, no matter our senseless or impractical or ignorant, have garnered her side more support.

I am reminded again of this quote from Walter Miller’s great end-of-the-world science fiction novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz:

Listen, are we helpless? Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall? Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, Rome, the Empires of Charlemagne and the Turk. Ground to dust and plowed with salt. Spain, France, Britain, America–burned into the oblivion of the centuries. And again and again and again.

Are we doomed to it, Lord, chained to the pendulum of our own mad clockwork, helpless to halt its swing?

It doesn’t seem to matter that communism, socialism, fascism, Nazism, all top-down authoritarian systems no matter what their name or design, have consistently failed, and failed horribly, causing the deaths of millions and millions. Worse, these failures have not been in the distant past, but within the lifetimes of almost everyone living today. Several (Venezuela and North Korea) are occurring right this minute.

Yet, Americans want to try it for themselves. Sadly, they (and we) will reap the whirlwind, for it will fail again, as horribly as it has every other time.

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Opposition candidate wins redo election in Istanbul

3:07 pm

The opposition candidate to the party of President Erdogan in Turkey today handily won the redo election in Istanbul.

Turkish opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu won the redo of the Istanbul mayor’s race by a landslide on Sunday, in a stinging indictment of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s economic policies and his refusal to accept an earlier defeat.

Imamoglu, backed by opposition parties including CHP, won 54% of the vote, and the ruling AK Party’s candidate, former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim captured 45%, according to state media. The political upstart broadened his margin of victory to nearly 800,000 votes from 14,000 in the March 31 balloting, in a clear sign voters are concerned about the crumbling of Turkey’s democratic foundations and an economy reeling from a spike in consumer prices and unemployment. [emphasis mine]

What this victory suggests is that there still remains in Turkey a semblance of democracy, despite the effort of Erdogan to eliminate it. What will happen next will tell us whether that country will reinforce that democracy, or end it entirely.

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Nevada’s governor vetoes bill to void electoral college

1:21 pm

Good news: Nevada’s Democratic governor has suprisingly vetoed a bill to that would have given all of Nevada’s electoral college votes to whichever candidate won the national popular vote.

It appears he actually put the interests of his state and its citizens above Democratic partisan politics.

“After thoughtful deliberation, I have decided to veto Assembly Bill 186,” [Governor Steve] Sisolak said in a statement. “Once effective, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact could diminish the role of smaller states like Nevada in national electoral contests and force Nevada’s electors to side with whoever wins the nationwide popular vote, rather than the candidate Nevadans choose.”

This is a major blow to the effort by Democrats to void the electoral college, which would almost guarantee their victory in every future presidential election, due to their domination in high population states like California and New York.

Some related good news: Maine’s House today defeated a similar bill that had been approved by its Senate two weeks ago.

While the Senate vote fell largely on along party lines, with all Republicans and two Democrats opposing it, the House saw a more bipartisan rejection of the measure, after at least 20 lawmakers made speeches from the floor.

In other words, once they were made aware of the harmful nature of the bill to Maine’s interests, more Democrats, like Nevada’s governor, chose their state’s interests over national Democratic partisan politics.

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Nevada approves bill that requires electoral votes to go to winner of popular vote

1:33 am

Nevada’s state senate has approved a bill that will require its electoral votes in a presidential election to go to winner of popular vote.

The governor needs to sign the bill, but that is expected.

Assembly Bill 186, which passed the Senate on a 12-8 vote, would bring Nevada into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement between participating states to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote.

If signed as expected by Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, Nevada would become the 16th jurisdiction to join the compact, along with 14 states and the District of Columbia. The compact would take effect after states totaling 270 electoral votes, and with Nevada, the total would reach 195.

It appears to me that this Democratic effort to nullify the electoral college is going to eventually take effect. Once that happens, there will never be another Republican president, as the heavily Democratic and high population states of New York and California are going to always put the popular vote in the hands of Democrats. Essentially, they will have rigged the elections to guarantee their victory, much as they have done in California by eliminating parties in the voting.

Posted on the train from Barmouth to London.

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Turkey’s ruling party voids elections it lost, demanding do-over

2:38 pm

Turkey’s ruling party has voided the March 31 elections where its opposition won narrow victories and has scheduled new elections for June 23.

Istanbul’s mayoral election was affected by “organised crime and serious corruption”, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says. Mr Erdogan was defending the decision to re-run the 31 March vote, which returned a slim win for the opposition.

Opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu, who has been stripped of his duties, described the move as “treacherous”. The European Parliament also said the decision would end the credibility of democratic elections in Turkey

I wonder if Erdogan’s ruling party is aligned with our own Democratic Party. They sure behave in a similar manner.

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The endorsement of election theft

3:15 pm

The coming dark age: Voter recounts in three close elections in Florida and Arizona, all won initially by Republicans, now suggest there is significant misconduct going on to favor the Democratic candidates in order to change the results.

Are the local Democrats in Arizona and Florida trying to steal these elections? Maybe. The evidence sure looks that way, based on past behavior. For one thing, in practically every close election requiring a recount in the past two decades the recount somehow always finds more votes for Democrats, sometimes in very suspicious circumstances. Moreover, practically every voter fraud case investigated in the past few years has also appeared to be fraud in favor of the Democrats. While I am sure I could do some digging and find a case or two that was done to favor the Republicans, that would be the exception that proves the rule.

The problem here is not that the Democrats are doing this, but that it has been obvious for the past decade that this party has become very corrupt and power-hungry, and needs a major house-cleaning. Unfortunately, in the election that just passed, the voters across America did not do this. Instead, if anything they gave the Democrats an endorsement, electing them to more seats in the House and not defeating them soundly in the Senate. They also gave them more power at the statewide level, including more governorships.

The result? Americans have essentially told the Democrats they can continue their bad behavior, and in fact are free to expand it as much as they want.

I expect the results of these elections in Florida and Arizona to become Democratic wins. Nor will this be the end. Americans decided it was all right to forgive political corruption, including the most disgusting smear campaign I have seen since the McCarthy era in the 1950s.

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Republican wins special election in black/Hispanic district in Texas

10:08 pm

Is this significant? A Republican today won a special election for a Texas state senate seat in a predominately black and Hispanic district that was won by Hillary Clinton by 12% and hasn’t been held by a Republican for more than a hundred years.

It is dangerous to extrapolate the results from a single state legislative district to the wider nation. Nonetheless, for a Republican to win such a seat in a district whose two biggest demographics are Hispanic and black suggests we might yet see a historic shift this coming election. If the Democrats can no longer depend on these voters, they will find it difficult to win any national elections.

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A review of yesterday’s primaries

10:50 am

Link here. The results, like last week, are inconclusive as to indicating what might happen in November. The only clear pattern is the continuing increase in the American political divide. Pro-Trump candidates seemed to win more Republican primaries, but radical leftist candidates seemed to win more Democratic primaries.

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Yesterday’s election

11:03 am

The elections that took place yesterday indicated both good and bad things for the future of the United States. First, every socialist candidate who was endorsed and campaigned-for by socialist and Democratic candidate for Congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was defeated. It appears that Americans are not yet convinced that socialism, a nice word for communism and its centrally-controlled society, is the way to go.

At the same time, her candidates did get a lot of votes in every one of their primary races. From this we can surmise that Democratic Party voters are increasingly enthusiastic about the idea of a full government take over of all aspects of our society, including the end of private property and capitalism, as advocated by Ocasio-Cortez. In the past such candidates would not have been able to garner more than a handful of votes. That has changed, and in a bad direction.

Similarly, it appears that the conservative Republicans supported by Trump were almost all winners. Yet, most won by the skin of their teeth. Worse, supporters of the Democratic Party almost immediately questioned the legitimacy of these wins, with some claiming that it could only have happened because of Russian interference.

Expect more of this in the future. It really appears that most Democrats truly believe that all decent people agree with them, and that only racists and bigots or Russian plants vote against Democratic candidates. If they win back power in any election they are going to move to oppress their opponents. They’re coming for you next.

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Democrats generally reject scientist candidates

9:38 am

In yesterday’s primary elections, scientists running as Democrats generally did poorly.

Science-minded candidates seeking seats in the next U.S. Congress took a drubbing from their Democratic opponents in yesterday’s raft of primary elections across the country.

Voters went to the polls Tuesday in eight states to choose nominees for the November elections. And none of the candidates who touted their scientific credentials—a list that includes volcanologist Jess Phoenix, technologist Brian Forde, pediatrician Mai Khanh Tran, and geophysicist Grant Kier—won their contested contests. In one California district, neuroscientist Hans Keirstead is trailing in a race that is still too close to call.

This article in the journal Science is fun to read in that it blatantly reveals that journal’s partisan Democratic Party leanings: the goal is to beat Republicans, and the hope was that scientists would do it. For the scientists however, it turns out that Democratic Party voters really don’t like science and the skeptical demands it requires.

Kind of reminds me of the secular liberal Jews who blindly vote Democratic, even as that party works to betray them.

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Italy in uproar: President rejects election results

9:20 am

This is how you get Trump: Having rejected under their parliamentary system the nation’s recent election results that produced a government coalition strongly controlled by anti-European Union candidates, Italy’s president is now facing calls for his impeachment.

This was the first time in the history of the Italian republic that a president had thrown out the proposal for a government from elected parties, and even critics of the populist victors have acknowledged that the Italian people will take the move as a slap to Italian voters and the entire democratic process.

The bone of contention, Mattarella said in his rejection speech, was the candidate for the post of finance minister, Paolo Savona. “I have agreed with and accepted all the proposals for the Ministers, except that of the finance minister,” he said Sunday. “The designation of the finance minister always sends an immediate message, of confidence or of alarm, for economic and financial operators,” he added.

Paolo Savona, whom even his critics admit is eminently qualified for the post, has expressed concerns over the growth in power and reach of the European Union (EU) as well as the common EU currency, the euro, which he has referred to as a “German cage.”

Essentially he is saying that Italy’s elections are irrelevant, that no matter who the voters choose the government must be subservient to the European Union.

Expect new elections to produce an even more powerful populist government, even more hostile to the European Union.

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Tuesday’s election results

10:47 am

The election results from Tuesday, where Democrats won most of the significant races, has produced a lot of commentary, from both conservatives and liberals, about its significance.

To me, however, these results merely confirmed the increasingly regional nature of today’s partisan politics. This story, about a victory by a Democrat state senator candidate that puts the Democrats in complete control of Washington’s legislature, illustrates this best.

Dhingra’s victory in Washington state over Republican Jinyoung Englund means the West Coast is now the solid center of the resistance, with Democrats controlling legislatures and governorships from Seattle down to San Diego.

The Democratic victories on Tuesday all took place in areas where they strongly dominate (the coasts and urban centers), thus merely solidifying their control over those localized regions. I expect that future elections will show Republicans solidifying their control over their own regions (which is the rest of the country). In other words, people are beginning to choose sides, and we are heading to a regional and political divide that can only be solved in one of two ways: The U.S. splits, or a civil war (in the literal sense) breaks out.

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Significant evidence found of double voting

11:34 am

voter fraud study

Testimony at one public meeting of Trump’s election fraud commission revealed significant evidence of several thousand individuals who have voted twice in elections.

Ken Block of Simpatico Software Systems gave a stunning report on the comparison that his company did of voter registration and voter history data from 21 states. He discussed how difficult and expensive it was to get voter data from many states—data that is supposed to be freely available to the public. According to Block, “the variability in access, quality, cost, and data provided impedes the ability to examine voter activity between states.”

Yet using an extremely conservative matching formula that included name, birthdate, and Social Security number, Block found approximately 8,500 voters who voted in two different states in the November 2016 election, including 200 couples who voted illegally together. He estimated that “there would be 40,000 duplicate votes if data from every state were available.”

Of those duplicate voters, 2,200 cast a ballot in Florida—four times George W. Bush’s margin of victory in 2000. His analysis “indicates a high likelihood [of] voter fraud” and that there is “likely much more to be found.”

The image on the right is one of the powerpoint slides used by Block during his presentation. which can be found here.

The public meeting included additional testimony from many other investigators, all of whom showed that if voter fraud is not widespread, the situation is such that it could easily become so. One recommendation that would prevent double voting as shown above would be to allow the states to more easily access each other’s databases in order to compare them.

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Democrats make no gains in special elections

9:40 am

Despite their screaming and protesting since the election of Donald Trump, the Democratic Party’s effort to win elections continues to falter.

The Democrat resistance may be generating a lot of noise in Washington, D.C., but so far in 2017, it has shown little impact on elections in the states. Even with hefty financial investments and high profile Democrats lending star power to state-level candidates, Republicans won control of every district they previously held across multiple states that Democrats have won in the last three or more presidential elections, including as recently as yesterday in Connecticut.

Read the whole thing. Essentially, the protests and wild mindless opposition to Trump by Democrats nationwide has failed to persuade anyone who voted for Trump or the Republicans to switch their votes. In fact, the failed Democratic election effort, which included significant campaign spending in some very small local elections, suggests that the voters have been turned off by their almost hateful opposition. Not only did vulnerable Republicans win their special elections, they appear to have generally done so comfortably.

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Democratic party leaders endorse obstruction as political tool

6:03 pm

In a Politico article today about the political state of the Democratic Party, it appears both party leaders and the base are increasingly leaning to a “a take-no-prisoners posture” aimed at a continued and total opposition to all Trump policies.

Leading Democratic strategists warn that the first signs will appear in midterm elections, in which the primary electorate will demand more than just marching outside the White House or grabbing a bullhorn at an arrivals lounge. They’ll be expecting something close to 100 percent rejection of Trump’s agenda — making the coming years complicated for members of Congress, who have to vote on it, rather than the governors and mayors who get to assume a more offensive posture.

Essentially, it appears that the Democratic Party is coalescing around a strategy similar to that used in Wisconsin against conservative Republican Governor Scott Walker, a strategy based on no compromise and no negotiation and included legislative boycotts, demonstrations, protests and occupations inside the statehouse.

In Wisconsin that political strategy was a total and utter failure. Not only did the Democrats fail to stop any of Walker’s policy initiatives, their actions apparently helped shift that state into Trump’s hands in the November Presidential election. I suspect it will result in the same utter failure in the 2018 midterm elections, which do not favor the Democrats anyway.

It is especially amusing to note the political experts the Politico quotes for its analysis. Mark Longabaugh was a senior strategist for Sanders, who lost. Jason Kander ran for a Senate seat in Missouri in 2016. He lost. Anne Caprara ran a PAC that strongly campaigned for Hillary Clinton, who lost. She also held important strategy positions in the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from 2010 to 2014, a time period when the Democrats lost control of the Senate. Margie Omero has been a very visible pollster on television who consistently predicted that Hillary Clinton was almost certain to win the election. As we all know, Clinton lost.

And there’s Bob Shrum, who is given the most quotes, and says in support of the obstructionist strategy,

“This is a grass-roots reaction at a level of intensity that I haven’t seen in the Democratic Party since Vietnam,” said Shrum. “It even exceeds the reaction to Iraq, which was more a slow simmer than this kind of explosive reaction.”

Bob Shrum is also known as the man who has backed nine presidential Democratic candidates during the past three decades, all of whom lost. His record is so bad that it is known in Washington as the Shrum curse. The streak continued hilariously in the November election, when he announced just after Labor Day that the election was over and that Hillary Clinton was now certain to win. His curse immediately kicked in, as that was the exact moment her polls started to drop. And as with all of Shrum’s other political picks, she lost in the election.

As I noted last week, Einstein’s definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. This is more evidence that the Democrats are following this mental path.

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Democrats look in all the wrong places to explain their losses

9:35 am

The Democratic Party is attempting to analyze the recent election to try to find out what has been causing their significant losses in order to prevent further election defeats and bring about a recovery.

Not surprisingly, they are blaming everything and everybody but their own policies.

Party insiders are reluctant to blame the popular Obama but cite plenty of reasons for the decline. These include a muddled economic message; an overemphasis on emerging demographic groups such as minorities and millennial at the expense of white voters; a perception the party is elitist and aligned with Wall Street; a reluctance to embrace the progressive populism of Senator Bernie Sanders, the former presidential hopeful; and failure to field strong candidates in key states.

There is an emerging consensus, they add, that the party has been too focused on winning national races and has not invested enough in local campaigns, along with a grudging admission that Republicans have done a better job of competing on the ground. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted text above shows how completely divorced from reality this Democratic Party continues to be. Most of the country rejects socialism, and it was the Democratic Party’s increasing tilt towards socialism that is hurting it badly and caused it lose control of almost all the state legislatures nationwide.. Do they recognize this? Absolutely not. Instead they want to become more socialist.

Moreover, most of the other reasons they cite for their losses either blame outside forces (such as Republican efforts to require an ID to vote) or poor messaging. It is never anything they did, such as impose Obamacare and run the government badly.

Moreover, that the Democrats continue to increase their dominance in the big urban areas should not be used by them as a sign that their policies are right. The big urban areas are also generally places with the worst quality of life, the most crime, the worst poverty, and biggest government deficits. Even if the citizens in those places can’t see how badly they are being ruled by Democrats, the rest of the country does. Moreover, it will be impossible for the Democratic Party to recover significantly as long as it relies solely on the voters in these concentrated urban areas. To get the rest of the country to consider them worth voting for again they are going to have to face their own policy failures and change direction. Sadly, I see no evidence that they are going to do this.

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The American city-rural political divide

9:10 am

Though the article at the link focuses on how in this year’s election the Democratic Party has lost its traditional support from white blue collar Democrats, I think it illustrates quite forcefully the increasing political polarization between the cities and the rural parts of the country.

“There are 490 counties in Appalachia technically, which is defined by federal law. Hillary Clinton won 21 counties in that region,” he said. And that is it. She did not win a single county in Appalachia that is mostly white, non-college-educated and has a population of under 100,000 people.

Not one county.

Looking at the map, the 21 counties she won were either college campuses like Virginia Tech, Cornell, Penn State and Mississippi State or counties in major metropolitan areas like Atlanta, Birmingham, Ala., Winston-Salem, N.C., Youngstown, Ohio, and Pittsburgh. And she also won five counties in Mississippi that are nearly majority black. “I went back and looked at the home precinct in Tennessee where I grew up and Bill Clinton wins it, Al Gore gets forty percent, Obama gets 28 percent and she got 18 percent. In short, Donald Trump got 80 percent of that vote,” he said, astounded at the cultural shift among Appalachians.

What does all of this data tell you about America? Todd says it is simple, “There are absolutely no more blue-collar whites in the Democratic Party. They just don’t exist, even the ones who want there to be have recognized there is no room for them,” he said. These voters had stayed with the Democrats forever and now 80 percent of them in Appalachia have voted Republican. “That means they don’t know anyone who voted for her,” he said.

This polarization also explains why it is becoming more common for the choice of the electoral college to not match the popular vote. Democratic voters are increasingly packed into big cities that cover very small amounts of area. The electoral college as well as Congress were specifically designed to prevent such concentrations from dominating elections.

These results also show that the Democrats are not doing a very good job convincing anyone to vote for them outside of their reliable core constituencies. In fact, if anything the policies of the Democratic Party has been repelling everyone away from it, except in those big cities where a large percentage of the voters are their direct welfare clients, dependent on government aid.

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