George Mason Would Not Be Proud

I’m watching the George Mason University/University of Dayton basketball game on TV.

Sadly, the announcers just informed us that Mason’s students are wearing for the game “green” t-shirts which promote GMU basketball on the front and clean energy and zero emissions on the back. Mason’s colors are green and gold, so there’s a clever indoctrination angle for these free t-shirts.

This is a rather sad thing for George Mason. It’s one of the few state schools in the U.S. where some conservatives have been able to survive and even prosper. It’s economics department has been the home of many solid conservatives such as Jim Buchanan and Walter Williams. It’s law school has developed a strong and conservative reputation, thanks to the work of people like Henry Manne. There’s also a strong libertarian intellectual strain at the school.

I’m sure that the real George Mason would find such shenanigans silly and blatant thought control disturbing. Just another example of how the left makes itself omnipresent and insistent. A simple basketball game can be used for messaging. The left will never sleep until we are all under its control, all of the time. There will be no refuge.

Trump Can Win

I am of a different mind than many on Donald Trump’s viability in a general election. I actually think that should Trump attain the Republican nomination, the election would be his to lose.

The main reason I think that is because I think Hillary Clinton, assuming she is the Democratic nominee, is essentially at Peak Hillary with the voting public. That is, she’s a known quantity. You either love her or hate her. There is no middle ground. Those who are going to vote for her are locked in. If you haven’t been deterred by her corruption, incompetence, pathological lying, greed and bloodless ambition by now then nothing is likely to dissuade you. Similarly, she’s also well-known to independents, so anyone still skeptical of her at this point, is going to require a lot to pull the lever for her. And those who dislike her are not going to change their mind. I think that she has big problems getting more than 45% of the vote and likely much less — the diehard of the Democratic party. She doesn’t have much in the way of upside.

In comparison, Trump has a great deal of upside. Beyond the immigration issue, voters don’t know that much about him. His mission is to keep a Republican coalition, motivate Republican-leaning independents and not alienate others, at least to the point they vote for Hillary. That last point is very important and is what the election will hinge upon. If Trump behaves himself and doesn’t seem too scary to free-floating “Independent” women (ones that aren’t voting for Hillary out of sisterhood considerations), he should be in good shape.

He also may very well present some other Electoral College problems for Clinton. He could fracture some of the reliably Democrat northeast and put Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut and New York into play (forcing Clinton to expend resources in those states). He’ll almost certainly sweep the South and solidly Republican states of the Midwest and West. Does he help in blue collar parts of Ohio — enough to eliminate the huge Democrat advantage in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland area)? He might play well in Michigan too, disrupting another expected Democrat state. Be realistic, what Republican state would likely to defect to Hillary Clinton (or Bernie Sanders)? Admittedly some moderate and establishment Republicans might sit on their hands and not show up to vote but I think that by and large those will be in states where Republicans are strong to begin with and it won’t matter. Squishy Republicans in more moderate states (like Pennsylvania) might be outnumbered by Democrats defecting to Trump.

Here are some caveats.

Trump’s scorched Earth campaign style could seriously damage him with many Republicans — keeping some of the most reliable Republican foot soldiers and funders on the sidelines (Trump might self-fund but all those downticket candidates aren’t self-funding and they’ll be looking for support that might not be there if Trump has turned the campaign into a charnel house). Trump does not understand that a presidential election is about a lot more than the presidency. As bright as his smile is, if he doesn’t maintain the Republican army, he loses, no matter how many “other” voters and Democratic defectors he brings on.

He could blow it with a wacky vice presidential choice. I expect him to avoid any of his serious competitors — Cruz, Rubio, notably. He hasn’t shown the ability to tolerate anyone who might take any light away from him or stand on their own two feet. That might also eliminate Carly Fiorina and Chris Christie because the media might pay too much attention to them. He’s also done a lot of demonizing of his competitors, building ill will with their supporters. But politics does require some ability to let things slide off your back. Cruz and Rubio would seem to aid in more than intellectual firepower, they help deliver major states. However, Texas is already in the Republican category but Florida might benefit from a Rubio choice. Does Christie bring New Jersey over? Does Fiorina dent Hillary’s female support? If Hillary doesn’t win the female vote by 15+%, she almost certainly loses because the population of Hillary-voting Beta males isn’t that big.

I expect Trump to think outside the usual VP box. I doubt he’ll choose anyone with real gravity (takes away light from The Donald) so that probably takes out of play a number of current politicians. He could even look to the Democratic party in an attempt to coopt Hillary’s support and appear as a “national bipartisan candidate. I would not put it past him to offer the job to Bernie Sanders (though I doubt he’d take it). I’m thinking Trump will look for his version of Perot’s Adm. Stockdale (a truly good man but well past his prime, as he recognized). Trump could also go with someone who would be grateful to be back in the game — Rudy Giuliani or maybe grab a “Democrat” outer moon like Bob Kerrey.

No matter what Trump will likely make his VP choice one of the most scrutinized ever.

There’s a question as to how much influence the mainstream media could have in the upcoming election. So far the kid glove slaps they’ve made at Trump have not amounted to anything. But make no mistake, if he’s the nominee, starting 10 seconds after the nomination the greatest assault upon one human being in history will begin from the major newspapers, TV news operations, liberal advocacy groups, et al. It will be unlike anything ever seen before as the media and other Democratic operations try to slime and negatively define Trump in an effort to push Hillary Clinton into the White House.  What was done to Sarah Palin will look like a peck on the cheek in retrospect.

One Trump weakness that has yet to fully manifest itself is, what does Trump believe in? What will a Trump presidency do? Beyond something about immigration, even his most fervent supporters are at a loss to say exactly what President Donald will do. As he begins to fill in the blanks, will he turn off supporters and dampen ardor? Is he the big government guy he looks to have been in the past? What about a $19 trillion deficit? What about a big government that seems to be at war with the citizenry? Does he really think Kelo was a good decision? He’s lived all of his life and done all of his business in big cities, does he have any clue to what western state Republicans are talking about when they complain about government control of land and resources? What about EPA overreach? What does he think of “Quantitative Easing”? Big Business subsidies such as ethanol and green energy pork barrel or cookie-pushing entities like the IMF? What about the Dept. of Education and its effective nationalizing of the student loan business? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Obamacare? States and local rights or increasing Washington interference into every single aspect of our daily lives? Will he undo all those Executive Orders that King Barry I has lived by? There’s so much more yet Trump has been cagey on most of this by waging a campaign of invective — a negative campaign rather than a positive campaign.

Or can he run an Obamesque campaign and be a tabula rasa wherein supporters read into him what they want to hear?

The biggest threat to the Trump campaign’s success is Trump’s own mouth. How long before his egomania and big mouth finally wear out its welcome? Campaigns that burn so brightly burn out quicker. Trump has made few friends. At this point in the campaign that’s not yet a red flag, but soon he’s going to have to start reeling the rhetoric in — before he turns almost everyone into an enemy.

Politics is ultimately a team sport, something Trump does not seem to have learned. He will need dozens of friendly surrogates in the general election campaign since he can’t be at all places at all times. Who’s going to man the get-out-the-vote operations if you’ve pissed off much of the Republican establishment? Laugh all you want GOP establishment-hating Trumpsters, but if you want Trump, the Insult the Comic Dog, to be president, you’ll need state and county party operations to do the heavy lifting. Look what happened in Iowa with a Trump operation that many simply expected to work.

Obama played it brilliantly in 2008 by playing the team game and only becoming the self-centered lone-wolf we have in the White House now after he was inaugurated.

Trump’s mouth might also get him in trouble with “independent” voters. People often don’t mind if you insult the other guy but when you turn your mouth on something they hold dear… Independent women are notoriously fickle and often take an emotional approach to candidates. Looking/acting mean or angry can turn them off. And the approach will wear on all voters over the months. Trump Fatigue could set in before the election.

It could, amazingly enough, even allow Hillary Clinton to gain sympathy. We know how good the Clintons are at confusing the public and neutering opposition long enough to escape.

In Sac-Town Year of the Monkey Is Politically Incorrect

You just can’t parody the left any longer. People who want to be “offended” are lacking things to be offended about they will look everywhere to find offense…

Example: Sacramento Kings player DeMarcus Cousins. His team was going to giveaway t-shirts celebrating the Chinese New Year; this new year being the Year of the Monkey. Celebrating Chinese New Year has been a long-time tradition in the Bay Area.

But things are different these days. DeMarcus was offended by the t-shirt. A couple of other “African-Americans” decided that they were offended by the shirts, too. So if a certain select group of people are offended by anything, well, everyone has to drop what they are doing and reorient themselves to accommodate those gentle souls… Here’s more on this infuriating story.

So apparently Year of the Monkey and the Chinese calendar have to delay themselves while “Black History Month” plays out. Those Chinese guys thinking up the calendar thousands of years ago should have planned better!

Can’t these people just look the other way? Live and let live? Rise above the irritants that others would find petty (or nonexistent)? Sadly, for the politically correct, the answer is no. To them, everything is political; a battle to be won and enemies everywhere to be defeated.

One last point. People who view everything through a racial prism are racists. Cousins may not see himself as a racist but he is one.

Will Hillary Clinton Be Indicted?

That is not to be confused with “Should Hillary Clinton be indicted? To which the answer is a resounding, Yes!

At this moment, I think it’s at or less than a 4 in 10 chance she’ll be indicted. That is, less than 50-50.

It has to be understood that the governing principle here is pure politics. As long as she remains the presumptive Democratic nominee AND as long as she remains politically afloat she is untouchable.

While that remains in effect, no matter what the FBI does or says or pushes for nothing will move forward from the Dept. of Justice. Even if the FBI pushed for an indictment, DOJ would just move into a version of the old North Carolina basketball version of the Four Corners stall tactic. Attorney General Loretta Lynch or some PR flunkee would talk about how they are seriously examining the issue and don’t want to jump to conclusions, especially considering that this would affect a presidential election. “We don’t want to play politics!” they’d say. (The late Cap Weinberger and Tom DeLay would find that laughable.) Then they’d run out the clock. (No one would ask the obvious question, ‘So, are you going to indict if she’s elected?’ ‘If elected, will she be able to pardon herself?’)

However, if the good ship S.S. Hillary begins to list seriously, either in the primaries or in the general election, things could change. If she’s underwater and dragging the down-ticket candidates down with her, there could be a sudden indictment to push her off the stage (and Sloe Joe Biden substituted). But using the “Lautenberg Option” would require her to be in a huge amount of trouble (poll numbers in the low 30s, likability in the 20s, minority voters depressed and, most importantly, fundraising drying up).

Remember, these craven people brazened out the Paula Jones/Monica Lewinsky thing (along with several other impeachable offenses) — Nothing to see here! Time to move on! — so they have no compunction about acting in a purely self-interested manner — political civility be damned!

I’ll toss out one possible subterfuge, a quickie plea deal. Hillary could always take a fast plea deal to shut all of this down immediately. With a friendly DOJ, she’d get a slap on the wrist, pay a little fine and not even admit to guilt and the investigation would go no further. She’d explain that it is all in the best interest of the country to move on, she’s real sorry that anyone was offended and she won’t hold it against the Republican-run FBI. Obama or Lynch would crow, “See, our justice system works!” The Democrats and the MSM would sing with a glee how noble she is and the campaign would turn a whomping negative into a positive.

I think this would be better exercised sooner rather than later but knowing the short-term mentality of the low-information voter, Hillary could probably wait awhile.

And speaking of completely soporific pandering (along with sheer delusion), check out the New York Times’s endorsement of this unindicted criminal kingpin. Talk about living in Bizarro World….

Whiners of the World Unite!

Now “Sir” Ian McKellen is getting in on the Oscar “Woe is me” act. He’s complaining that gay actors have been left out of the Academy Awards.

I’ll give you a moment to lift your chin off the floor.

Gay actors have been winning Oscars for about as long as Oscars have been around…

So what’s his real complaint? That “openly” gay actors haven’t been winning them. I’m still not quite sure what he’s getting at. Being as the awards are about acting and not what you do in the… well, nevermind the details.

Pray tell, Ian, exactly what would be this “openly gay” acting that you feel should be rewarded? Is it different than what you usually do? Or are you acting gay now in, say, “X-Men: Days of Future Past”? It doesn’t seem to be a whole lot different than in earlier “X-Men” roles, other than you were a lot more understanding in “Future Past,” but that seemed due more to the plot and supposed age of Magneto. Maybe it was mellow gayness.

He seems to feel that he’s supposed to be rewarded for playing “straight” characters though who knows if Gandalph was straight. Who cares? Must everything be measured by its purported sexual appetite?

He carps that straight men such as Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman won Oscars playing gay characters. The truth is that those actors won for those roles because of liberal politics not their acting.

But that’s not the point he wants to hear. So is he insisting that only gays can play gays and straights play straights? If he followed that line of action, Sir Ian would have had a very short career.

Or, is he insisting that you are simply supposed to be rewarded for what you do off-screen?

I’m sure a lot of casting couch starlets would have some Oscars coming their way as well if that was the new criteria.

Hey, whiner, you want to know a group that doesn’t get a lot of acting Oscars — openly Christian actors. Remember when Jim Caviezel announced he was a hardcore Christian a few years ago? You’d have thought he’d announced he was a pedophile and was proud of it. He suddenly hit a dry spot in roles. Christians and conservatives know that they need to keep their pronouncements to themselves if they want to survive in Hollywood.

Actually, with the upside-down way things are now, the pedophile confession probably would have been applauded.

It’s All Your Fault

John Hawkins has a must read at Townhall, “Christians, Conservatives, Men, and White People Are Not Responsible For Your Problems.” All I can say is, ditto.

And for those wondering about Black Lies Matter, er… Black Lives Matter, and the usual guilt-mongering and wallowing in pervasive, omnipresent racism, here’s a devastating demolition courtesy of Heather “The Voice of Reason” Mac Donald.

I Love Stacey Dash

Concerning the liberal cause du jour, not an acceptable amount of “black/African-American” people nominated for the Oscars, Stacey Dash tells it like it is. “I think it’s ludicrous. We have to make up our minds. Either we want to have segregation or integration.”

Dash has been staking out a position of pure color-blindedness and I applaud her for that. She even went so far as to insist on the elimination of racially-oriented television network BET and the odious Black History Month.

Of course BET — Black Entertainment Television — responded but did they do it civilly?

Did they say something along the line of, “We disagree with her but she has her opinion and we have ours. We feel that BET makes programming that serves an underserved market. We’re more nimble than bigger producers and are able to focus on a niche market just like National Geographic, Lifetime and ESPN do. No program producer can be all things to all people. Bob Johnson’s millions show that we’re doing a good job at serving our viewers. We’re for more TV choices for everyone. We hope Ms. Dash agrees with us.”

I’m a fairly libertarian fellow and would have bought that. I’m not for censorship or taking away entertainment choices that people want and will pay for. BET’s “Criminals at Work” or “Real Husbands of Hollywood” or awards shows (lots of awards shows) aren’t everyone’s cup of tea but that’s what freedom and all those channels on your cable TV guide are for. You couldn’t pay me to watch a reality TV show but a lot of people love them.

But BET couldn’t do that. It’s a leftist-run operation (they hate Donald Trump too). They showed their cleverness by riffing on “Clueless,” playing on the name of the movie for which Dash made her name.

Somehow I doubt BET execs would insult “Clueless” star Alicia Silverstone in that way.

Isn’t making fun of a woman’s intelligence considered sexist?

But why worry about analogy purity when you’re dishing out the beatdown? Snark rules! Face! Dash!

And BET was not the only one. Pretty much every media outlet or attention urchin had to lob in their insults of Dash (demonstrating, once again, the ‘show trial’ mentality of the Media-Liberal Complex).

That’s what the left is all about these days — mindless conformity, insults, playground-level bullying, getting people to cry “uncle” or say that the bully is “great” (remember that chestnut from fourth grade?). I bet the geniuses at BET’s offices were calling Dash a “poopiehead’ as well.

But if we’re playing childish name-calling games, it can go both ways. Since BET focuses on programming aimed at people of a certain color, it must be racist. So BET=Racism.

It’s What the Scorpion Does

I wanted to take a quick break from final editing of my next Val book to direct your attention to this outstanding op-ed from the Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz (one of the best in the business) — Denying the Obvious About Islamist Terror.

She takes to task Philadelphia’s idiot mayor, Jim Kenney, a man so daft and slavishly political that he is beyond parody. Within hours after a Philadelphia police officer had been shot by a crazed Muslim declaring that he was shooting the officer in the name of Islam, Kenny proceeded to declare, a la Obama, that the shooting had nothing to do with Islam. He proclaimed that “In no way, shape or form does anybody in this room believe that Islam or the teaching of Islam” was a motivating factor in the shooting.

Notice how these sure declarations of “nothing to do with Islam” come from people who aren’t Muslims while the people committing the acts are Muslims. That’s some powerful arrogance there. Too bad these Muslim maniacs aren’t listening to Barack Obama or Jim Kenney or any other legion of Democrats.

Or European elites. You may have been following the wave of sexual assaults and robberies of young girls by men thought to be recent Muslim immigrants in several European countries, notably Germany. In those cases, at first they weren’t reported by the media (for fear of inflaming fear in the citizenry); then the police and political leadership (uniformly liberal/socialist or simply pathetic) denied it happened and then denied it was Muslims and then ensured everyone that the actors didn’t represent Islam. These people making the assurance were not Muslims.

So what is going on here? Why are our ruling elites more interested in protecting immigrants and refugees than protecting the citizens that elected them and they putatively serve?

If you’ve spent much time with liberals you’d know the answers. Liberals by and large view their fellow citizens as dangerous and one step from going on a Nazi-like rampage. The only thing that keeps that from happening are the soft words and protection of the liberals. Liberals also are romantically transfixed by the “other.” They hate America. They hate its history and accomplishments. They hate their fellow citizens. They hate their parent. They hate their own lives. Other people’s lives and countries are so much better and should be emulated, in the eyes of the liberal. To the liberal there is no possible way that someone from one of those “foreign”/exotic religions would ever do anything bad. In their minds the American is capable of horrific evil, the foreigner, not so much. It has to be a misunderstanding or somehow they were provoked, tricked or framed. The Tea Party or white people of some kind were probably behind it.

Rabinowitz notes the liberal hectoring of the dangerous hoi polloi — it’s almost religious in its “lecturing” and instructional tone.

She also hammers home a point that illustrates the bubble that liberals inhabit: “To hear the mayor of Philadelphia was to grasp, more clearly than ever, the fury that has led to Donald Trump’s success in attracting voters — the fury of citizens who know official lies when they hear them, whether about border security, immigration, or the ever-expanding requirements of multiculturalist dogma.”

Liberals like to pretend that America is a nation ravaged with hate, which is why they are needed to rule over us. They can keep us under control, teach us and lead us to the promised Utopia of multiculti love. The reality is that this fantasy is dangerously delusional. Are large proportion of the population is getting angry as it becomes clear that our leaders will side with our enemies. Message to liberals, you won’t like us when we’re actually angry.

Wall Street Support for Hillary Clinton

There’s an ancient political adage that business supports Republicans. Of course anyone even remotely familiar with political campaign contributions knows this is amazingly untrue (and one of the most misreported items imaginable).

Friday’s Wall Street Journal had a piece in its Money and Investing section on Wall Street support for Hillary, “Buffett Goes to Bat for Clinton.” (Or go here if it’s gated.)

Yes, there is such a thing as Wall Street support for Democratic candidates. In fact, at the end of the day you’ll find the supposedly capitalist, free-market, businesses on Wall Street will pony up more money for the socialist party than the party that putatively supports the free market. If we had a functioning media (and savvier Republicans) this would be a widely known fact…

The story notes that Warren Buffett is a big supporter of Clinton and is working with other Wall Street tycoons to raise money for her. Now, if you have followed big money politics for a while you’ll recall that Buffett is usually described as a “registered Republican.” That’s just a bit of disinformation peddled by the Democrat-Media complex to mislead the voters. Buffett hasn’t been a “Republican” in decades.

When you talk about Wall Street support for liberals and socialists usually the first name that comes to mind is Goldman Sachs. It operates as a feeder school/halfway house/retirement home for Democrats and has for decades. It also keeps a few pet Republicans in “Break Glass In Case Of Emergency” cases.

However, the story also provides the names of other Wall Street sellouts. Ringleader is Blackstone Group President and COO Hamilton “Tony” James, who is apparently eager for a Hillary administration (he’s also a major supporter for Obama), as is one of his colleagues, Byron Wien.

Co-conspirators include: “Among those in attendance were Blair Effron, the co-founder of boutique advisory firm Centerview Partners; Byron Wien, a vice chairman at Blackstone; Dick Cashin, the founder of One Equity Partners; Cliff Robbins, CEO of Blue Harbour Group; Wesley Edens, the co-founder of Fortress Investment Group [a company supportive of Al Gore]; and Dermot Dunphy, a retired executive and former CEO of Sealed Air, according to people familiar with the matter. ”

Mark all of these gentleman and their companies on your boycott list. They do not mean this country well.

And Blackstone investors, shareholders and officers, please pay attention and discipline these destructive men.

So why would these businessmen be supportive of candidates and a party that does not mean them well?

It’s a complicated story and the motivations can vary — from pure greed to strategizing that you can use the government to increase your position and cripple your competitors to a desire to be “liked” to guilt of success. But make no mistake, these men are in it for the money and power, they couldn’t care less about the Constitution, free markets or other businesses beyond their parochial interests. Somehow they think that if they burn the house down they’ll still have some place to sleep and keep out of the weather.

Barack’s Quick Thinking

Presidential aide (running into the Oval Office) — Pres. Obama, there’s been a mass shooting in San Bernardino!

O — That’s the last straw. I demand that all guns be confiscated! It must have been at a Planned Parenthood clinic or an African-American church or a school!

Aide — No, at a Christmas party for county workers!

O — Well, we should ban so-called Christmas parties. They no doubt precipitated this tragedy. Separation of church and state! I used to teach Con. Law, you know. And we should ban the Tea Party because they’ve gone too far in attacking hard-working government workers!

Aide — Apparently it was some Muslims employed by the county who were doing the shooting.

O — (Long pause) No one no should jump to any conclusions here! Call Loretta Lynch and have her look into this when she gets back from her Muslim advocacy party. Oh, and tell her that this has nothing to do with Paris.

Ladies and gentleman, the funniest man in Washington, Barack Obama! He’s here though the next year. How ’bout a round of applause…