-PJ
Posted on 07/15/2018 5:53:22 AM PDT by EyesOfTX
Today’s Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends)
Note to America: Dianne Feinstein is no longer far left enough for California Democrats. – Yes, let that one sink in for a minute before you continue on.
Senator Feinstein, who has held her senate seat since 1992 and was the very liberal mayor of San Francisco from 1978 through 1988, was basically given a vote of no confidence by the executive board of her own political party in her home state on Saturday, as party delegates voted overwhelmingly to support her Democrat challenger in the November election. For those unfamiliar with California’s odd voting system, candidates from all parties run in open primaries in June, and the top two vote-getters then face off in the general election.
In the June primary, the far-left Feinstein easily bested her far, far, far, far-left opponent, state assemblyman Kevin de Leon, winning 44 percent of the vote to his 12 percent. But de Leon won the endorsement vote from the executive board members by a whopping 65 to 7 margin, with 28 percent choosing not to endorse either candidate. Breathtaking.
I’ve been around a long time and I can’t remember any long-time U.S. senator receiving this kind of overwhelming rebuke from their own political party. The only good news for Feinstein is that she’ll no doubt get 90+ percent of the vote from Republican and independent voters who will find de Leon even more radical than she is. So she’ll most likely survive to hold her senate seat into her 90s (she’s 85 now), which is precious little comfort to normal people out here in flyover country.
Speaking of the November mid-term elections, I’ve had several inquiries about where I think things are headed, so now would be a good time for a mid-year update.
Those who followed me throughout the 2016 campaign will know that I believe the overall public mood is a far bigger and more important influence over the balance of power outcome of national elections than are the nitty gritty details that the inside-the-Beltway pundits tend to focus on. This is a more prominent influence during presidential election years than in mid-terms, but it is still a major factor.
That belief is why I began telling my clients and readers in October 2015 that I believed Donald Trump would win the presidency. The clear mood of the vast majority of the public in 2016 was for change – real, fundamental change in the direction of the country after our disastrous 8-year experiment with community organizer radicalism, which had corrupted every institution of our government. Among all of the primary candidates in both parties, Donald Trump, by October 2015, was the only truly viable candidate offering real change.
So, even while micro-analysts like Nate Silver were giving Hillary a 97 percent chance of winning and most of the polls showed her holding big leads in the months leading up to Election Day, I held to the belief that the overall mood in favor of real, radical change would end up prevailing and Trump would become the next POTUS. On the Sunday prior to Election Day, I predicted he’d win 311 electoral votes, overshooting his final total by five.
The overriding public mood this far in advance of Election Day, 2018 is more difficult to read. Which, frankly, is good news for the GOP, because the absence of a clear public mood mitigates in favor of the status quo.
Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Democrat Party and its fake news media guardians, the public is more divided than at any time since perhaps 1860. The President’s base of support has only grown more loyal and unshakable over the first 19 months of his presidency, and he now polls better among self-identifying Republicans than any of his predecessors. But the radical leftist Democrat base of support has only grown more radical over the same period of time, making it very difficult to determine if the majority inertia among the electorate is for change or for preservation of the status quo.
Again, the lack of any clear indication that this will be a real change election also mitigates in favor of the GOP, which holds majorities in both houses of congress, and which is only defending 9 senate seats as opposed to 25 the Democrats must defend.
So, here’s my current thinking on the ultimate outcome:
If the election were held today, the Rs would retain control of the House – barely – and gain a bigger majority in the Senate, with maybe 54 or 55 total seats. There would be no impeachment action on the horizon, and President Trump would be an overwhelming favorite to be re-elected in 2020.
But the election is four months away, and much can change between now and November. If November comes around and nothing has changed in the current status quo related to all the Obama-era bad actors, the election will go very badly for the Rs.
Right now, the GOP base is pumped up, but it’s only because of President Trump, not due to anything the Republican congress has accomplished. The tax cuts are great, but they are also old news at this point, and voters in November are going to be asking what have you done for me lately? Congress’s failure to act on Obamacare last year and the steadfast refusal by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell to really make a push for funding the border wall will be big issues this fall in the minds of GOP voters. Should the Senate somehow fail to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court by Election Day, that also will be a huge negative for the Republicans.
There is also great and growing dissatisfaction among the GOP base with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the lack of any real law enforcement action being taken against the myriad bad actors within his Department. If we get to November and no one has been indicted, Rod Rosenstein still has his job, Robert Mueller is still indicting Russian ham sandwiches at strategic moments, Peter Strzok still has his security clearances, Andrew McCabe and James Comey are still walking around free and unindicted men, and Hillary Clinton still appears to be immune from the laws of the land, then GOP voter enthusiasm will fall through the floor.
If, on the other hand, November comes around and a bunch of indictments have been served on a bunch of these terrible people and maybe Hillary Clinton and John and Tony Podesta to boot, then the GOP will pick up net seats in the elections and possibly finish the increasingly-radicalizing Democrat Party off for a generation.
It is not an overstatement to say that the entire future of our country hinges on the real nature of Jeff Sessions. Is he just another corrupt Washington, D.C. swamp rat? Or has he, along with Michael Horowitz, John Huber and others just been biding his time, executing a plan that will result in the beginning of real enforcement actions following the issuance of Horowitz’s report on the abuse of the FISA process several weeks from now?
Good questions. The time for finding out is growing short.
Just another day in Jeff Sessions is holding all the keys America.
That is all.
Follow me on Twitter at @GDBlackmon
So, no matter how real the Obama era crimes were (and they were very real), any indictments and prosecutions and jail sentences served on Democrats will be seen as political bullying by Republicans - it will mean nothing! The only verdict that counts in politics is the one given by the voters.
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Sir, I think you make some good points but your argument that Republicans and Democrats should be left alone and not prosecuted based upon some “perception” of “political bullying” that some might conjure up in their little minds, thereby kind of handing them (pols on both sides) a sort of “exemption” from BASIC LAW is....., pick your adjective. I’ll be polite and just say “crazy”.
I can live with that...
afterall, we have to live with a lot of things we don't like...like basketball players getting $150million dollar contracts and those taking care of the elderly barely making minimum wage...
HOWEVER, Trump has to realize that the left does not quit, does not retreat, does not regret their illegalities, and will definately be back to do it all again...like jaws...
finish them off...
Wimpy Magoo is in charge, nice.
My breath - I’m not holding it.
Yes.
Save the apology. It would be a long shot that you'd ever have to offer it. Sessions is only there to hold his dream title of "AG of the US".
Appitizer before the election and main course after the election....
It would appear that Jeff Sessions doesn’t hold anything other than a title.
Trump will release an EO soon that will unclassify and make public the documents RR is refusing to release.
When that happens it's SHTF bigly!
“I voted for President Trump for a number of reasons, the most important of which was his promise to clean up the Deep State.”
Of course - I know that locking up Democrats was priority #1 for many of us - I’m just saying we are in a very small minority. We are simply not going to get our wish on that score - and I hope people can come to realize it’s asking too much of Trump to expect him to be our avenging angel.
The electorate as a whole is not interested in political retribution.
By the way, it is possible to clean up the deep state without Trump throwing Obama officials in jail.
“a sort of “exemption” from BASIC LAW is....., pick your adjective. I’ll be polite and just say “crazy”.
You say its basic law, but its not - the party in power (Republicans) would be convicting the party out of power (Drmocrats) and the support for it and the dissent against it is 100% along party lines.
Don’t you see the problem?
I watched the hearings - it’s 100% along party lines! That’s not what a fair trial looks like. Even if the Democrats are guilty as hell (which they are) they can’t get a fair trial when all Democrats have already prejudged them innocent and all Republicans have prejudged them as guilty.
And I’m not talking about appearances.
I do not care what the dems do.
I care that the GOP does not even have a good candidate.
Dianne Feinstein stole $2 billion in taxpayer money and directed into her husbands business. Nearly $1 billion of it for the train to nowhere.
I suspect the other democrats are mad because she did not share the money with the party members.
There is something inherently wrong with that modification of the original "vote by the people."
The vote by the people becomes meaningless when only one party is represented. In the current sick political climate that is unacceptable.
When was this "law" created?
How many citizens in California are aware when this "little change" took place?
Was it a simple law or a Constitutional Amendment?
How did the California elected criminals manage to defraud the California citizen electorate to accept a clearly unConstitutional change?
When does the final nail in the 'representative democracy' coffin be pounded in and make California a monocameral legislature?
There is something inherently wrong with that modification of the original "vote by the people."
The vote by the people becomes meaningless when only one party is represented. In the current sick political climate that is unacceptable.
The original "balance of power" arrangement for the system of government deemed the best over the last 300 years was supposed to forever prevent a government decided by a single individual. When was this "law" created?
How many citizens in California are aware when this "little change" took place?
Was it a simple law or a Constitutional Amendment?
How did the California elected criminals manage to defraud the California citizen electorate to accept a clearly unConstitutional change?
When does the final nail in the 'representative democracy' coffin be pounded in and make California a monocameral legislature?
-PJ
I watched the hearings - it’s 100% along party lines! That’s not what a fair trial looks like. Even if the Democrats are guilty as hell (which they are) they can’t get a fair trial when all Democrats have already prejudged them innocent and all Republicans have prejudged them as guilty.
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LOL, you’ve probably not been in many jury trials. If you had, as I have, you would discover, as I did, that something miraculous often happens. 12 jurors (in my case 6) suddenly start taking their responsibilities really serious and in my case, in 3 jury trials, over about 3 years, on the same issue, I WON.
Now, I was a Republican, a gray headed white guy developer, with a high powered lawyer going on trial for what could have been a huge amount of fines on an environmental issue in a special environmental court.
The jurors were as Liberal as liberal gets residing in the hardest core liberal inner city in America. The average guy or gal on the street HATES developers notwithstanding they all live in buildings created by developers.
They voted for the nasty old developer 3 times in 3 completely different juries in one day trials on an environmental issue.
There was absolutely no question that they set aside their liberalism to vote for the old white guy developer out of an innate sense of what’s wrong and what’s right.
So, your point that Democrats would think someone like say Rosenstein, Comey, Lynch, Holder or McCabe was innocent and Republicans would think he/she was guilty is probably true...…………...on the street.
But, in a courtroom, where magic is in the air, it is possible and often happens that prejudices are set aside. I KNOW first hand.
With respect, “No one is above the law” trumps your argument. To do otherwise is to surrender “what’s right” to “what’s wrong”.
That may be true with people off the street; politicians are hardly people. 90% are 100% owner by special interests.
“With respect, “No one is above the law” trumps your argument. To do otherwise is to surrender “what’s right” to “what’s wrong.””
Your faith in the integrity of jurors is encouraging - I don’t have any experiential basis for questioning it.
In fact, I’ve often pointed to a similar behavioral phenomena exhibited by voters, known as “the wisdom of the masses”, in which they seem to render a collective judgment “wiser” than the sum of their individual moralities.
Also, I completely agree with the concept of equal justice - that no one should be above the law.
However, my argument conflicts with neither of your well taken points: I am saying that there exist “crimes” so political that we must question whether they are crimes in the normal sense.
A crime is a violation of a law. A law is a man-made behavioral boundary which is subject to change when enough lawmakers [politicians] deem a change is warranted.
Politicians and political activists dedicate their lives to changing the laws - and once changed, bolstering them to make them resistant to change. As the law changes, criminal behavior can become noncriminal, and non criminal can be one criminal, over night. Not all laws, or lawmakers, are “good”. The dynamic of changing laws and thereby changing what is a crime, is a necessary part of a healthy republic - it may be called “justice” in its ideal form, but it’s called “politics” in its practical form.
One of the ways activists push for change in laws is known as “civil disobedience”. It’s one of the grey areas where, when prosecuting a crime, the political nature of the “crime” must cause us to question whether it is a crime in the first place.
I think Trump should fight for equal justice even in political crimes - but rather than put Democrats in jail, perhaps he could acheive that equality by pardoning Republicans who have been caught up in Democrat witch hunts.
To repeat, I do agree a jury can rises above politics and do the right thing, and I do believe in equal justice under the law.
But that’s not what’s at issue here. What’s at issue here is that political criminality is in the eye of the beholder.
Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of emails in order to cover up pay-for-play schemes in which she sold access to state department to the highest bidder, her complicity in Benghazi cover up in which Obama and Clinton abused his entire executive branch to sweep foriegn policy disaster under the rug until he was safely reelected... etc., etc., etc., these are truly egregious crimes in the eyes of you, me and every single other American who voted against Obama or Clinton.
But the Americans who supported Obama and Clinton simply do not accept those narratives. They do not see those crimes. They literally watch a different news channel, where different narratives are depicted, different stories are told. Their stories have different actors, different crimes, different criminals. They think our truths are false narratives.
They really believe Hillary is innocent and Trump is guilty and those questions are never going to be put before a jury to decide forensically. When the accused and the accusers are politicians (lawmakers) it’s always going to be a question of whether it SHOULD be a crime.
There is a similar situation where the equal justice doctrine is stood on its head - namely, diplomatic immunity. I’ve always wondered why a foriegn diplomat can be “untouchable”. Perhaps diplomats need that immunity to induce them to enter our jurisdiction - if we want them here, that’s the price we pay, offering them immunity.
Maybe it’s the same with politicians - if we want good people to enter public service - and run for public office - knowing they are entering a snake pit of lawmakers who have the power to turn their political enemies into criminals simply by changing a law - maybe we have to offer them immunity.
Otherwise, why would anyone in their right mind ever run for public office?
But the Americans who supported Obama and Clinton simply do not accept those narratives. They do not see those crimes. They literally watch a different news channel, where different narratives are depicted, different stories are told. Their stories have different actors, different crimes, different criminals. They think our truths are false narratives.***************************************************
For simplicity/brevity, let’s dissect your first sentence in the above chain of sentences, to wit: First, you call Democrats “Americans”. A minority are but the majority are not either through self proclamation or they are here illegally or they hate the country. Because of this, many do not see illegal immigration as illegal, some do not see the border as legal, some do not see pedofilia as illegal and some see murder as ok too and some see armed robbery as “just fine” if you need the money. Under your theory, because these people are Democrats they are entitled to exemption from the BASIC LAWS all the rest of us have to obey.
You said you agree that “no one is above the law”. You can’t have it both ways. The democrats must be prosecuted for their law breaking during the Obama administration. Anything less is a prescription for more of the same and eventual anarchy years down the road.
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