Month: October 2018

An odd form of hubris has overtaken Democrats in both their political and media branches. They are so certain that President Trump is ignorant and they are smart that they march right into traps of their own devising. Consider this face plant by Andrea Mitchell, dead certain that President Trump must be incorrect in has claim about Abraham Lincoln: that event the Gettysburg Address was criticized by Lincoln’s  contemporaries.:

Transcript via Grabien:

MITCHELL: “The book is ‘Presidents of War’ and it is extraordinary, it is compelling. You bring it to life. One quick question; one quick fact-check. The president has been saying that Abraham Lincoln was criticized for the Gettysburg Address at his rallies in defending his own ability to — for history to prove that he will surmount the criticism. Was he criticized?” [crosstalk]

BESCHLOSS: “Yes, he was criticized for to Gettysburg Address by newspapers that hated Lincoln and wanted to support his opponent the next year when he ran for reelection. Not too unusual, but there were huge numbers of newspapers who understood Lincoln and even at that moment knew that Gettysburg Address would be a great document in American history.”

MITCHELL: “So it wasn’t all fake news?”

BESCHLOSS: “It was not all fake news.”

MITCHELL: “Michael Beschloss, thank you. Monumental.”

BESCCHLOSS: “Thank you. Thank you for having me, Andrea.”

MITCHELL: “Congratulations.”

An odd form of hubris has overtaken Democrats in both their political and media branches. They are so certain that President Trump is ignorant and they are smart that they march right into traps of their own devising. Consider this face plant by Andrea Mitchell, dead certain that President Trump must be incorrect in has claim about Abraham Lincoln: that event the Gettysburg Address was criticized by Lincoln’s  contemporaries.:

Transcript via Grabien:

MITCHELL: “The book is ‘Presidents of War’ and it is extraordinary, it is compelling. You bring it to life. One quick question; one quick fact-check. The president has been saying that Abraham Lincoln was criticized for the Gettysburg Address at his rallies in defending his own ability to — for history to prove that he will surmount the criticism. Was he criticized?” [crosstalk]

BESCHLOSS: “Yes, he was criticized for to Gettysburg Address by newspapers that hated Lincoln and wanted to support his opponent the next year when he ran for reelection. Not too unusual, but there were huge numbers of newspapers who understood Lincoln and even at that moment knew that Gettysburg Address would be a great document in American history.”

MITCHELL: “So it wasn’t all fake news?”

BESCHLOSS: “It was not all fake news.”

MITCHELL: “Michael Beschloss, thank you. Monumental.”

BESCCHLOSS: “Thank you. Thank you for having me, Andrea.”

MITCHELL: “Congratulations.”

Evidence is accumulating that Democrats have seriously overplayed their hands in their treatment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and their calls for violence. This is the result of the dangerous combination of two factors:

1.    Trump Derangement Syndrome has blinded them to the possibility of a significant number of people disagreeing with them.   

2.    They lack any feedback mechanisms to warn them of the reactions they are provoking, because their allies  the mainstream media share their TDS. Moreover, they regard Fox News and the conservative blogosphere as heretics, and disregard any feedback from them as unworthy of attention.  

In fairness, this situation is quite similar to what prevailed prior to the 2016 election that resulted in massive failure of the polls to predict Trump’s victory.

Rasmussen, which did better than anyone else in the polling business in 2016, has captured a key result of the Dems’ disgraceful conduct:

Republicans are madder about the Kavanaugh controversy than Democrats are and more determined to vote in the upcoming elections because of it.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of all Likely U.S. Voters say they are more likely to vote in the upcoming midterm elections because of the controversy surrounding President Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee. Only nine percent (9%) say they are less likely to vote. Thirty-four percent (34%) say the controversy will have no impact on their vote. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Sixty-two percent (62%) of Republicans are more likely to vote because of the Kavanaugh controversy, compared to 54% of Democrats and 46% of voters not affiliated with either major political party. 

Sixty-two percent (62%) of all voters are angry about the U.S. Senate’s treatment of Kavanaugh, with 42% who are Very Angry. Fifty-six percent (56%) are angry about how the Senate treated Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault, including 35% who are Very Angry.

Sixty-four percent (64%) of Republicans are Very Angry about the Senate’s treatment of Kavanaugh, a view shared by 30% of Democrats and 34% of unaffiliated voters. By comparison, fewer Democrats (48%) are Very Angry about the Senate’s treatment of Ford; 28% of GOP voters and 30% of unaffiliateds agree.

Democrats’ five-point lead on the weekly Rasmussen Reports Generic Congressional Ballot has vanished. The two parties are now tied with less than a month until Election Day. We’ll be watching to see if this is the beginning of a post-Kavanaugh trend.

 Conrad Black identifies a separate but related reason why polling models may be misleading us:

 …almost the entire lower 30% of income-earners now have prospects of employment, rising purchasing power in their pay envelopes, and a greater sense of belonging in the political system since the era of President Clinton, if not President Reagan, or for the more venerable, President Roosevelt.

Now, no one is left behind, and there remains circumstantial evidence that most of the polling organizations still haven’t adjusted their echelon of the voting public to reflect the army of this president’s supporters among those who had rarely voted since the Reagan years because they didn’t identify with any presidential candidate.

The entire “one third of a nation . . . at the bottom of the economic pyramid” identified by Franklin D. Roosevelt, parched in austerity and deprivation, is being irrigated with livable wages and real employment. Both the material and psychological consequences will be seen at the voting places next month.

Finally, people are getting used to President Trump. He is the president after all, and no sane person now imagines that he can be successfully impeached or can even claim that he is incompetent, no matter how unorthodox his methods, grating some of his foibles, and uncongenial many find some of his policy positions.

If the Democrats once again wake up the day after votes are tabulated and find themselves shocked, it will push many of them even furhter over the edge of the cliff into insanity.

Evidence is accumulating that Democrats have seriously overplayed their hands in their treatment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and their calls for violence. This is the result of the dangerous combination of two factors:

1.    Trump Derangement Syndrome has blinded them to the possibility of a significant number of people disagreeing with them.   

2.    They lack any feedback mechanisms to warn them of the reactions they are provoking, because their allies  the mainstream media share their TDS. Moreover, they regard Fox News and the conservative blogosphere as heretics, and disregard any feedback from them as unworthy of attention.  

In fairness, this situation is quite similar to what prevailed prior to the 2016 election that resulted in massive failure of the polls to predict Trump’s victory.

Rasmussen, which did better than anyone else in the polling business in 2016, has captured a key result of the Dems’ disgraceful conduct:

Republicans are madder about the Kavanaugh controversy than Democrats are and more determined to vote in the upcoming elections because of it.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of all Likely U.S. Voters say they are more likely to vote in the upcoming midterm elections because of the controversy surrounding President Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee. Only nine percent (9%) say they are less likely to vote. Thirty-four percent (34%) say the controversy will have no impact on their vote. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Sixty-two percent (62%) of Republicans are more likely to vote because of the Kavanaugh controversy, compared to 54% of Democrats and 46% of voters not affiliated with either major political party. 

Sixty-two percent (62%) of all voters are angry about the U.S. Senate’s treatment of Kavanaugh, with 42% who are Very Angry. Fifty-six percent (56%) are angry about how the Senate treated Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault, including 35% who are Very Angry.

Sixty-four percent (64%) of Republicans are Very Angry about the Senate’s treatment of Kavanaugh, a view shared by 30% of Democrats and 34% of unaffiliated voters. By comparison, fewer Democrats (48%) are Very Angry about the Senate’s treatment of Ford; 28% of GOP voters and 30% of unaffiliateds agree.

Democrats’ five-point lead on the weekly Rasmussen Reports Generic Congressional Ballot has vanished. The two parties are now tied with less than a month until Election Day. We’ll be watching to see if this is the beginning of a post-Kavanaugh trend.

 Conrad Black identifies a separate but related reason why polling models may be misleading us:

 …almost the entire lower 30% of income-earners now have prospects of employment, rising purchasing power in their pay envelopes, and a greater sense of belonging in the political system since the era of President Clinton, if not President Reagan, or for the more venerable, President Roosevelt.

Now, no one is left behind, and there remains circumstantial evidence that most of the polling organizations still haven’t adjusted their echelon of the voting public to reflect the army of this president’s supporters among those who had rarely voted since the Reagan years because they didn’t identify with any presidential candidate.

The entire “one third of a nation . . . at the bottom of the economic pyramid” identified by Franklin D. Roosevelt, parched in austerity and deprivation, is being irrigated with livable wages and real employment. Both the material and psychological consequences will be seen at the voting places next month.

Finally, people are getting used to President Trump. He is the president after all, and no sane person now imagines that he can be successfully impeached or can even claim that he is incompetent, no matter how unorthodox his methods, grating some of his foibles, and uncongenial many find some of his policy positions.

If the Democrats once again wake up the day after votes are tabulated and find themselves shocked, it will push many of them even furhter over the edge of the cliff into insanity.

President Donald Trump’s homeland defense agency has taken the first steps to defend the nation against an electromagnetic pulse attack which could instantly destroy tens of millions of vital electronic devices from coast to coast.

Pentagon officials have quietly worried for decades about an enemy using a high-altitude nuclear explosion to create a nationwide EMP attack. But little or nothing has been done because of the huge cost of protecting civilian electronics and the nation’s electrical, transport and energy infrastructures.

The plan from the Department of Homeland Security showcases the EMP problem, and offers initial planning steps — but it does not urge major spending or an award of tax-breaks to help companies, utilities, and local governments protect their networks from EMP.

“An intentional electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack or a naturally occurring geomagnetic disturbance … could damage significant portions of the Nation’s critical infrastructure, including the electrical grid, communications equipment, water and wastewater systems, and transportation modes,” says the DHS plan, titled “Strategy for Protecting and Preparing the Homeland Against Threats of Electromagnetic Pulse and Geomagnetic Disturbances.”

“We need to do a whole lot more on that,” Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson told DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen at an Oct. 10 hearing.

But Nielsen has little authority to write regulations which would require anti-EMP protections be added over vulnerable networks and little money to fund any protections. So the DHS plan sketches out three goals:

Improve risk awareness of electromagnetic threats and hazards … Enhance capabilities to protect critical infrastructure from the impact of an electromagnetic incident … Promote effective electromagnetic-incident response and recovery efforts.

But other agencies have the authority to demand EMP protections be added to seaports and hospitals, telephone networks, traffic lights, railroad junctions, electrical generators and transformers, gasoline pipelines, Wall Street and Silicon Valley, for example.

The DHS plan suggested officials may soon be directed to write those regulations by a Presidential order:

A draft executive order on coordinating national resilience to electromagnetic pulse incidents is currently being developed under the auspices of the National Security Council staff in coordination with Federal departments and agencies. Upon issuance, the executive order will obviously inform—and potentially alter—the Department’s approach to the EMP-GMD threat that is articulated in this DHS Strategy.

The EMP threat was recognized in 1962 when a high-altitude nuclear test — dubbed “Starfish Prime” — knocked out streetlights and telephone service in Hawaii, 900 miles distant.

The DHS document said:

Extreme electromagnetic incidents caused by an intentional electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack or a naturally occurring geomagnetic disturbance (GMD, also referred to as “space weather”) could damage significant portions of the Nation’s critical infrastructure, including the electrical grid, communications equipment, water and wastewater systems, and transportation modes. The impacts are likely to cascade, initially compromising one or more critical infrastructure sectors, spilling over into additional sectors, and expanding beyond the initial geographic regions.

EMPs are associated with intentional attacks using high-altitude nuclear detonations, specialized conventional munitions, or non-nuclear directed energy devices. Effects vary in scale from highly local to regional to continental, depending upon the specific characteristics of the weapon and the attack profile. High-altitude electromagnetic pulse attacks (HEMP) using nuclear weapons are of most concern because they may permanently damage or disable large sections of the national electric grid and other critical infrastructure control systems.

The DHS report did not say when White House would issue an executive order.

 

It’s a given that politicians are two faced. They can be counted on to say one thing while thinking another.

But that truism is usually unprovable – unless James O’Keefe and his trusty hidden camera are at work to expose the lie.

O’Keefe’s Project Vertias has struck again, this time, recording staffers working for Tennessee Democratic Senate candidate Philip Bredesen saying that despite the candidate’s public statement that if he had been in the senate, he would have voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, he privately admitted he would have opposed him.

Maria Amalla and Will Stewart, staffers in Bredesen’s campaign, both say on hidden camera that if he were in the Senate, Bredesen would not actually have voted to confirm then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh. They explained that the statement Bredesen issued in support of Kavanaugh was a political ploy to gain the support of moderate voters in Tennessee.

JOURNALIST: “Like he wouldn’t really vote yes [for Kavanaugh,] would he?

AMALLA: “No, it’s a political move… He thinks that like we’re down like half a point right now. It’s like really close and we’re losing by a point or two. So he thinks that if like by saying this he’s appealing to more moderate republicans and he’ll get more of them to vote for us.”

---

JOURNALIST: “I was so confused because I just can’t believe he would actually vote [for Kavanaugh.]

STEWART: “He wouldn’t. But he’s saying he would… Which I don’t know if it makes it worse or better. No, it makes it better… “

When asked to clarify that Bredesen is only saying he’d vote for Kavanaugh to “get the Republican vote,” Amalla, a field organizer for Bredesen’s campaign, affirmed, “Yes.” Amalla reiterated, “[Bredesen] thought that like by coming out in support [of Justice Kavanaugh] that it would get more republicans on his side. He wasn’t doing as well in the rural parts.”

No surprise there. But Bredesen’s lying goes even further.

In multiple conversations, Bredesen staffers admitted that Bredesen does not want to fully communicate his connection to the national leadership of the Democratic party. Stewart and a colleague on the Bredesen campaign, Drew Marshall say:

MARSHALL: “We would scare all the people who would vote for Phil Bredesen, but not [Senate Democratic Leader] Chuck Schumer.”

STEWART: “Yeah, exactly, because there’s a lot of republicans who are going to vote for [Bredesen…]”

STEWART: “Yeah. And that’s how they’re messaging against us… that he’s gonna be a ‘toe the line’ democrat voter… Because there are people who loved him as Governor but won’t vote for a democrat for national office.”

Stewart reiterated the Bredesen Campaign’s commitment to appearing moderate for the election, “we’re trying to make it so it’s not about democrats.” Stewart makes clear Bredesen’s messaging is purely for political optics, saying:

STEWART: “Between you and me once Phil actually gets into the Senate, he’ll be a good Democrat.”

Of course, this is music to the ears of GOP candidate, Rep. Marsha Blackburn. Being a “good Democrat” means asking “how high” when Chuck Schumer tells him to jump. The video will make it ridiculously easy to link Schumer to Bredesen in a death embrace.

The most recent polls have Blackburn ahead. This video should just about seal the deal for Blackburn.

It’s a given that politicians are two faced. They can be counted on to say one thing while thinking another.

But that truism is usually unprovable – unless James O’Keefe and his trusty hidden camera are at work to expose the lie.

O’Keefe’s Project Vertias has struck again, this time, recording staffers working for Tennessee Democratic Senate candidate Philip Bredesen saying that despite the candidate’s public statement that if he had been in the senate, he would have voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, he privately admitted he would have opposed him.

Maria Amalla and Will Stewart, staffers in Bredesen’s campaign, both say on hidden camera that if he were in the Senate, Bredesen would not actually have voted to confirm then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh. They explained that the statement Bredesen issued in support of Kavanaugh was a political ploy to gain the support of moderate voters in Tennessee.

JOURNALIST: “Like he wouldn’t really vote yes [for Kavanaugh,] would he?

AMALLA: “No, it’s a political move… He thinks that like we’re down like half a point right now. It’s like really close and we’re losing by a point or two. So he thinks that if like by saying this he’s appealing to more moderate republicans and he’ll get more of them to vote for us.”

---

JOURNALIST: “I was so confused because I just can’t believe he would actually vote [for Kavanaugh.]

STEWART: “He wouldn’t. But he’s saying he would… Which I don’t know if it makes it worse or better. No, it makes it better… “

When asked to clarify that Bredesen is only saying he’d vote for Kavanaugh to “get the Republican vote,” Amalla, a field organizer for Bredesen’s campaign, affirmed, “Yes.” Amalla reiterated, “[Bredesen] thought that like by coming out in support [of Justice Kavanaugh] that it would get more republicans on his side. He wasn’t doing as well in the rural parts.”

No surprise there. But Bredesen’s lying goes even further.

In multiple conversations, Bredesen staffers admitted that Bredesen does not want to fully communicate his connection to the national leadership of the Democratic party. Stewart and a colleague on the Bredesen campaign, Drew Marshall say:

MARSHALL: “We would scare all the people who would vote for Phil Bredesen, but not [Senate Democratic Leader] Chuck Schumer.”

STEWART: “Yeah, exactly, because there’s a lot of republicans who are going to vote for [Bredesen…]”

STEWART: “Yeah. And that’s how they’re messaging against us… that he’s gonna be a ‘toe the line’ democrat voter… Because there are people who loved him as Governor but won’t vote for a democrat for national office.”

Stewart reiterated the Bredesen Campaign’s commitment to appearing moderate for the election, “we’re trying to make it so it’s not about democrats.” Stewart makes clear Bredesen’s messaging is purely for political optics, saying:

STEWART: “Between you and me once Phil actually gets into the Senate, he’ll be a good Democrat.”

Of course, this is music to the ears of GOP candidate, Rep. Marsha Blackburn. Being a “good Democrat” means asking “how high” when Chuck Schumer tells him to jump. The video will make it ridiculously easy to link Schumer to Bredesen in a death embrace.

The most recent polls have Blackburn ahead. This video should just about seal the deal for Blackburn.