About Nevada

Nevada is largely desert of one sort or another, a place that must be crossed to reach the coast if headed west, or to reach the more fertile parts of the country if headed east.  So a wonderful place to make a home wouldn’t be your first thought.

Nevertheless it has managed to develop two sizable cities with suburbs - Las Vegas and Reno. What has it had to offer to draw people and capital here? Several things, beginning with no state income tax.

If any state can be labeled “libertarian” Nevada would have to top the list. For many decades the ethos in  Nevada has been, “whatever adults want to do alone or with other consenting adults is their business.” 

I grew up in CA knowing NV was a place of quickie divorces, bars that stayed open 24 hours a day if there was patronage, gambling halls, sex for sale, and high speed limits. I still remember the first time I saw a commercial building in NV labeled “The Shamrock Brothel,” a degree of openness I hadn’t believed existed.

People came from all over the country to do in NV what they chose without some government nosey parker telling them “no.” They still do, hence the current motto “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” It might be more accurate if altered to read “Money brought to Vegas, stays in Vegas.” 

Within five miles of my winter place there is a large factory growing, processing, and packaging marijuana. Yes, there are on-site sales though I’ve abstained. 

In recent years firms have taken advantage of the reasonable prices asked for sun-blasted desert land to build gigantic tilt-up warehouses from which hundreds of semi trucks haul merchandise of all sorts to retail establishments west of the Rockies. Nevada obligingly refrains from taxing merchandise in transit, which is a big incentive. There are a couple of these distribution centers just down the road a mile or less from the dope plant.

CA Expats in NV

 Politico Magazine has an article about Californian expats who could “flip” Nevada.

Since 2020 alone, over 150,000 Californians have moved to Nevada — California expats today make up over 20 percent of Nevada’s population. County to county migration flows from the last census show that of the top 16 counties supplying new residents to Reno’s Washoe County, 11 of them are in California.

The gap between registered Republicans and Democrats in the state (NV) has shrunk from 111,000 in 2020 to 71,000 in 2023, and the number of nonpartisan voters has exploded. In a state that was decided by less than 34,000 votes in 2020, a bloc of highly motivated, California-hating ex-Californians with an axe to grind could play a pivotal role in shaping the outcome this year.

As long-time readers may be aware, the DrsC moved their winter residence from CA to NV about 3 years ago. A bunch of my neighbors in a new 55+ development moved there from CA . Unlike the DrsC, many of them are year-round residents who will vote in NV and I’d guess a lot of those will vote for Trump. 

The article quotes a guy who’s saving $200K a year in CA state income tax as NV has no such tax. Our household isn’t saving that much but, by living in WY which also doesn’t tax income, we save enough every year for a nice trip to Europe or a nice cruise. 

Most of us who fled CA found its state governance repulsive. One would hope most of those are smart enough to avoid voting for a second helping of the nasty mess they chose to leave behind. 

P. R. Genius

The mainstream media don’t want Trump to win, and don’t want to provide him free media coverage, unless it is negative. I believe we can agree to take this assessment as a given.

Trump and his handlers are absolute wizards at dreaming up what one pundit called “cosplay stunts” that are so eye-catching the mainstream media virtually have to cover them. I have in mind both the McDonalds visit with him in an apron passing food out the drive-in window, and his more recent drive of a new, shiny garbage truck, wearing an orange vest. 

This is P.R. genius at work. And unlike Michael Dukakis in the tank or Tim Walz with the shotgun, Trump has the chutspah to pull it off and make it work for him. His time in TV taught him what works and what doesn’t. 

One of my favorite Donald Trump stories is of him decades ago sitting in the green room after a TV interview watching the replay with the sound off, studying what worked for him and what didn’t.  In some ways he’s been studying for this role most of his life.

Travel Blogging VI

In the previous post I used the terms “Polynesia” and “Melanesia,” because I love geography. It occurs to me you may not be into Pacific geographic terminology so I’ll take a stab at definitions. 

Not counting the big archipelagos (Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia) hugging the Asian landmass, the Pacific islands are roughly grouped into three categories: Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. Micronesia is the small islands north of the equator and west of Midway Island. These include the Marianas plus Guam, the Marshalls, Palau, and FSM.

Polynesia includes French Polynesia (Tahiti, etc.), the Cook Islands, Easter Island, Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand and the Hawaiian Islands. Melanesia includes New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, and New Caledonia.

In the opinion of the DrsC, Rarotonga in the Cook Islands may be the nicest of the bunch. Polynesian charm with a bit of New Zealand order. In French Polynesia, I prefer Moorea and Tahaa; Tahiti and Bora Bora are overdeveloped. On Tahaa buy the vanilla liqueur … as smooth as silk.

From the Kona Coast of the Big Island, happy Halloween.

Name Callers

Hello there fellow ‘garbage’ people, fellow ‘Nazis,’ fellow Trump supporters. A large group of the neurotic and psychotic (plus their enablers) have been calling us these names lately. 

In a reasonable society many of these name-callers would be inpatients in mental hospitals, under the stern-but-therapeutic care of Nurse Ratchet and her order-enforcing clones. We don’t live in a reasonable society.

You have a week remaining in which you can cast a vote for a return to reasonableness, or you can endorse the anything-peculiar-goes status quo. If enough of us vote for the reasonable, maybe we can increase its presence in our society.

I write this alongside the Aloha Tower in Honolulu harbor. It is just after 9 a.m. local time, the sun is shining and the humid air feels silky. Tough duty, but someone has to do it, why not me? By the time we know the election result our ship will be somewhere in either Polynesia or Melanesia, probably the latter.

No Personal Stake

Charles Lipson writes for RealClearPolitics, today about the serious differences between our two major parties.

Cleavages are prominent in issues freighted with social and cultural meaning. That’s certainly true for disputes surrounding abortion and transgender rights. Both issues have practical consequences, but the disputes go further. They are fights over cultural symbols that matter to many people who have no direct, personal stake in reproductive rights or gender changes.

”No personal stake” but vitally important nevertheless, isn’t that a strange state of affairs? 

A ‘Dog’ That Didn’t Bark

Piers Morgan in the New York Post, writing about the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden which he attended.

A Secret Service agent told me that just 150 protesters turned up to express their dismay at Trump holding a rally in the very heart of New York City, when they’d been expecting thousands.

In 2016, vast armies of foaming-at-the-mouth liberals took to the same streets to howl their rage about him.

If they really believed he’s the new Hitler, they’d have probably found the strength to get off their lazy backsides and come and protest.

Their absence said it all.

Absolutely…. 

Travel Blogging V

The other DrC has a great photo taken looking aft from our balcony, we’re located forward on the starboard side. The line of life boats and tenders begins just aft of our room, as the photo shows. 

As is typical, the dining rooms are located low and aft so it is a long walk to supper or to lunch. We get exercise that way, it’s more walking than I normally do ashore. 

The fifth day at sea and we’ve finally gotten far enough south to get warm weather. At lunch by the pool today it was positively sultry, and the overhead that can roof over the pool deck has been retracted so fresh air is circulating. 

Tomorrow we dock in Honolulu, probably by the Aloha Tower if past cruises are any indicator. We will be there for a bit over 11 hours. Having been here many times, we have no touring agenda at this port but will probably do some minor shopping.

Later … We get another time change tonight, it appears that Hawaii is three hours separated from the West Coast, at least while the mainland is on daylight savings. Hawaii opted out of time changes as its location somewhat near the equator means winter and summer days are of nearly equal length. I conclude that means in winter there is only a 2 hour difference.

Process Note

I just noticed the apparent posting time on the previous post and it seems to be “zero dark thirty” or some such. Please ignore this, my actual posting time was two hours earlier. 

In cruising across the Pacific, every 2-3 days we set our clocks back an hour. We’ve done so twice so far and will do it multiple times before reaching Sydney. There is little point in me continually resetting the time zone on my device, so I won’t. 

We live on ship time but I’ll leave the IPad on Pacific Daylight Time and some strange ‘times’ will be affixed to various posts.

Maybe Bad Policy

I wonder if Democrats are going to regret leaving behind the Kamala Harris’ “joy” campaign and switching to beating up on Trump. The decline in Harris poll ratings largely coincided with that change in tone. 

The whole “Trump is too awful to elect” thing asks voters to ignore what they experienced living through a Trump presidency and conclude that in a second term he’d be an entirely different guy. Actually, he probably will be somewhat different in that he’ll be on his guard against efforts by the federal bureaucracy to stymie his initiatives.

If you were an adult during Trump’s first term he is a known “commodity” to you. About him you’ve formed an opinion which various announcements and claims by opponents are unlikely to change. 

Democrats probably fear Trump will try to do to them what they tried to do to him. When he is in their shoes why won’t he make the same lawfare efforts they’ve made? He has their example to follow and to cite. 

Travel Blogging IV

At sea, substantially nearer Hawaii: The rough water finally calmed to a degree. One is still aware of ship movement, which is not the case in a dead calm. However, showering today was less perilous than yesterday, and that’s a good thing.

The other DrC has been taking advantage of the spa, and I may do so as well. In the years that have elapsed during and since the Covid pandemic, seagoing Internet has improved a lot. It works better than it did and costs less as well. 

The above was written yesterday and today the water is even more calm. Showering today was actually easy, not much hanging on required. I did a bit of wandering today exploring the ship. There’s a lady with a recently broken ankle in a boot cast who has an electric cart she is zipping around in, I’m envious.

Reputations Destroyed

Democrats don’t much like the institutional framework of our nation, the design for which is embodied in the Constitution. The lawfare attacks on former President Trump suggest an indifference to our legal system allows them to abuse it.

Their intent, as Mollie Hemingway makes clear was destruction of a man - Donald Trump.

The whole goal was to make sure that Donald Trump would be imprisoned, bankrupted, so discouraged, so distracted by being off the campaign trail dealing with these various examples of lawfare from Democrat prosecutors at the federal and state and local level, that he wouldn't win.

It hasn’t worked as planned, has it? If the portents are being read correctly, Trump will win the election that happens in just over a week. 

Instead, what has happened is that the public opinion of federal law enforcement has cratered, The FBI is no longer idolized, the CIA is no longer seen as effective, and the DOJ is now viewed as a political tool. 

In short, an enormous amount of institutional damage has been done. Repairing the reputations of the agencies involved will be the work of decades, and may never happen. 

Democrats perhaps could justify (to themselves) the damage if the ploy had worked, but it didn’t work. Instead they shot our government in the foot and accomplished no goals. 

I wish I could believe the guilty parties would spend decades in prison, but it appears unlikely they’ll even be charged. 

A Quote to Remember

Ed Driscoll, posting at Instapundit, has a Van Jones quote that rings true.

If progressives have a politics that says all white people are racist, all men are toxic, and all billionaires are evil it’s kinda hard to keep them on your side. If you're chasing people out of the party, you can't be mad when they leave.

Van Jones is one of the relatively few Democrats who occasionally say something sane. 

No Day After

People have been writing about “the day after” in the Middle East, as for example this. The thrust of these essays is to try to imagine what peace might look like in the region. 

Peace presupposes a willingness to stop fighting. Can you imagine the Islamic forces opposing Israel being willing to stop fighting while Israel remains in place? I cannot.

Can you imagine Israel’s Jews being willing to pack up and do the diaspora all over again? Again, I cannot. Therefore, for me at least, there is no imaginable “day after.” 

Have there been lulls in the fighting since Israel was founded? Certainly, normally after Israel has militarily defeated the Arabs there is a period of apparent “peace” while the Arabs recoup their battered societies and forces. 

Does this constitute a “day after?” Not in my mind, it doesn’t. Show me a place anywhere in the world where Muslims have agreed to live in peace with their non-Muslim neighbors and then actually done so for any reasonable period. I follow international affairs and I know of no such place.

Weird Nutritional Science

Good news gets around. Legal Insurrection reports that a Harvard-trained nutritional and metabolic psychiatrist has found that the human brain needs meat in our diet to attain optimal health. Why are we not surprised?

While animal products like eggs, meat, cheese, and Greek yogurt are high in protein, it can also be found in vegan options like lentils and broccoli. But many of the other essential nutrients are much more difficult if not in some cases impossible to obtain from plants.

The nutrients in meat are often more bioavailable than those in plant-based foods, meaning they are more easily absorbed and utilized by the body.

The article also notes that persons on meat-free diets are more likely to have mental health issues. Whether diet affects mental health or those with poor mental health are more likely to give up eating meat is unclear. Hat tip to Ed Driscoll blogging at Instapundit for the link.

Political Update

Taking note of the appropriate counsel of avoiding excess optimism, the political news appears to be trending in a positive direction. Kamala Harris turns out to be a petite, attractive lady with a pleasant manner who people have trouble envisioning as President. She is no Margaret Thatcher, no Iron Lady.

Like him or hate him, Donald Trump has stature. We’ve seen him as President and, most of us, didn’t hate the experience. We’ve seen him under fire … literally, unfortunately … and know he has courage.

Absent some unanticipated cataclysm Trump will be elected President and perhaps a quarter of our population will experience extreme angst. Many will consider emigrating, few will actually do so. Psychiatrists will reap the benefits.

Travel Blogging III

Still farther southwest of Seattle, en route to Hawaii: You’ll remember I wrote about rough water off the western coast of the US? Well, this isn’t the usual coastal roughness. We have been rocking and rolling now for at least 30 hours, with no end in immediate sight.

Taking a shower with the sea pitching and heaving is … challenging … to say the least. When you have to keep one hand free to hold onto a grab bar, and can only soap up with the other, compromises become inevitable. Falling isn’t a good outcome.

The view out my window could be mistaken for the North Atlantic. I’d estimate the swells out there are 12-15 feet trough to crest, and the Westerdam is rolling side-to-side up to eighteen inches in spite of the stabilizers. Compounding the problem is that the captain, having sailed maybe 6 hours late, can’t adjust the course and lower the speed to make it easier, things he would normally do. So, on we plow, rocking and rolling as noted above.

Days like yesterday and today are why cruising isn’t for everyone. Yes, you are resident in a luxury ‘hotel’ with meals and entertainment included, but said ‘hotel’ is at the mercy of the elements and out on the briny deep those elements can be uncomfortably energetic. 

It is no accident most travel for business or simply to “get there” is by air. We who cruise are volunteers who put up with the odd motions and have a good time in spite of it.

Virtually all cruise lines staff the “hotel” side of the crew mostly with youngish people from less-developed nations. Holland America, true to its Dutch beginnings, utilized mostly Indonesians as that nation is a former Dutch colony. US cruise lines utilize many Filipinos as that’s a former US colony.

When we first started cruising in earnest we’d meet a fair number of Eastern Europeans as crew, waiting tables and tending bar. That has become less common as those nations joined the EU and found opportunities closer to home.

Later … I am on deck five and I just saw sea-spray fly past my window. That isn’t trivial. I’ve seen rougher water on 3-4 occasions but today’s experience is one of those to be remembered.

Travel Blogging II

At sea, southwest of Seattle: It is true that the first cruising day out of a West Coast port often brings rough weather. This trip is no exception. We have rain and some wind and whitecaps today. 

Farther out into the world’s greatest ocean things normally calm down. I’ll be letting you know how we fare.

We sailed late, apparently slow deliveries of necessities held us up as we pax were all on board. The captain has been no end of apologetic, but assures we will dock on time in Hawaii. A late departure simply means we’ll have to average a slightly greater speed to regain our schedule. 

Meanwhile we pax are regaining our sea legs, trying to walk straight lines on a deck that is rocking somewhat. Turnout for lunch was excellent, suggesting no great amount of mal de mer. 

As very experienced cruisers, the DrsC each take an OTC meclizine hydrochloride tablet every evening of the cruise, including the night before boarding. We’ve had no side effects and next-to-no sea sickness. On the very rough water cruise to Antarctica we learned you can up the dose to one every four hours if needed, we didn’t.

This is a well-traveled bunch of pax, hardly anybody’s first rodeo. At 23 days ours is a longish cruise and newbies tend to do the one-week specials - Caribbean, Mexican Riviera, or Alaska. That’s smart, why commit to a long cruise if you aren’t sure you’ll love it?

Intolerance of Heretics?

Power Line’s Steve Hayward has a chart which shows how various generational cohorts (Z, Millennial, X, Boomer) agree with this statement:

I would end a friendship because my friend expressed a political view that I find inappropriate.

As I’m traveling I can’t show you the chart, but I’ll describe the findings. For all cohorts the liberals are more likely than moderates or conservatives to agree, and those differences are not trivial. Differences between moderates and conservatives are minor and appear non-significant. The number who would end a friendship is larger for the younger cohorts.

Steve’s guess about why liberals are outliers in this data set.

Why are leftists more likely to allow politics to drive their friendship decisions? A lot of reasons come to mind, but one of them is the extent to which politics has become the substitute religion for a large number of leftists. And when their god (or gods or goddess) has abandoned them—when the immanent replaces the transcendent—leftists become embittered.

Godwin’s Law

In 1990 Michael Godwin famously propounded what has become known as Godwin’s Law.

Whoever is the first to mention Hitler in an argument, loses the argument.

The Harris/Walz campaign has claimed Donald Trump is another Hitler, which suggests they are losing this election. The comparison they draw is laughable, and obviously not persuasive.

There have been other, subsequent ‘Hitlers’ like Pol Pot and Chairman Mao, and the contemporary Stalin, all of whom engaged in genocide. Today’s Putin is in the running to be added to the list, but isn’t there yet. In his most fanciful ramblings Donald Trump has never come close, nor will he.

My private suspicion, which I will share with you, is that Democrats calling Trump a Hitler is them projecting onto him what they would secretly like to do. Because they want to do it, they believe he must also share that wish.

I fully believe Trump wishes he could run the U.S. government the way he runs Trump Enterprises, as a normal private sector CEO. CEO ≠ Hitler, does equal “commanding officer.” I also understand Trump knows this isn’t possible, and probably not even desirable from society’s viewpoint. 

Travel Blogging I

The trip has begun! We got up at 4 a.m., were on the road by 6:30, and our plane left Las Vegas by 10:30. We arrived in Seattle around 1 p.m., got our luggage, and caught a shuttle to our hotel where we linked up with the couple we’re traveling with. We will travel together to the ship tomorrow.

Both of the DrsC have, of necessity, worn hearing aids for several years. An upside is listening to audiobooks checked out from the library and stored on our phones. 

I am currently listening to a rendition of Frank Herbert’s 1965 SF epic Dune. The audiobooks contain every word of the actual book, read by one or more voice actors. 

Aficionados know Dune is massive, it will take some 22 hours to hear it all. Then I will follow with the other 6 or so books in the original series. 

It is the perfect thing to do on a plane or ship as no WiFi connection is needed. Our otherwise unexceptional 2+ hour flight went by quickly as I listened to Paul Atreides go from Duke’s son to Duke when his father is killed by the evil Baron Harkonnen.

Death of a Celebrity

A famous grizzly bear - one could almost write “the only famous grizzly bear” - has died. That storied ursine lady called “399” was hit and killed by an automobile a couple of nights ago in western Wyoming. She was 28, old for a bear having cubs. She became famous for having four cubs in one birth, and raising them all to maturity in or near Grand Teton National Park.

She was known for grazing areas near but not right on roads. In this way the tourists who stop to stare and take photos tended to scare off the big male bears which are willing to kill her cubs. And it helped her to be famous as well.

It is easy to blame the driver but we live in bear country and if you do night driving you know critters can wander out in front of a car doing a lawful speed, and be unavoidable. Recently we just missed hitting an elk nearly the size of a horse who loomed out of the night. They are dark colored, don’t have reflectors on them and haven’t evolved a natural fear of autos.

A Master of Free Media

Image courtesy of Politico's Wuerker Cartoons.

Process Note

Tomorrow the wandering DrsC go traveling once again. We head for Seattle to catch a cruise ship repositioning from the Alaska run to “down under.” We will get to Sydney around mid November and fly home in time for Thanksgiving, jet-lagged something awful.

What this means to readers of COTTonLINE is that for the next three weeks there won’t be the weekly doses of snarky memes. In their place I will offer a variety of observations under the heading “Travel Blogging.” If history is any guide (it often is), these will include observations about cruise ship life, ports of call, plus the vastness and emptiness of our biggest ocean. 

While afloat on the briny, I will continue to reflect on matters political, scientific, and diplomatic. I anticipate continued access to my usual sources of information. 

Being elsewhere while the election happens is less than ideal but Holland America obviously didn’t consider that issue while scheduling this “repo” itinerary. If one is needed, a reminder that whoever wins November 5 much of life will go on unchanged.

The Effective Approach

An Instapundit quote where Glenn clearly has the current actions of Israel in mind.

One way of saving Western Civilization is to kill the people trying to destroy it. That approach was put virtually off limits for a while — through the efforts of those trying to destroy it, mostly — but it appears to be surprisingly effective.

Gotta love his irony here, expressing “surprise.” When people declare you anathema, and wish your death, the alternative of choice is always to turn them into compost, and keep doing so until the remnant surrender unconditionally and beg your forgiveness. Presidents Roosevelt and Truman understood this.

The View from PA

 “All politics is local” Speaker Tip O’Neill was fond of saying. It may be less true today than in Tip’s heyday but an article for RealClearPennsylvania (apparently a real thing) does a better-than-fair job of showing how it is still true in PA as far as Harris is concerned. 

Everybody is claiming PA will be the bellwether state in this presidential election. If they’re correct then Harris/Walz are hurting big time, according to this analysis. Who knew?

I Disagree

I normally agree with John Hinderaker of Power Line, today comes an instance where I don't agree. Hinderaker writes the following:

After all these years, Three Mile Island is going to be restarted. I assume this is because of the Biden administration’s campaign against fossil fuels, combined with the reality that, of the non-CO2 emitting technologies, only nuclear actually works.

Alleging that "only nuclear actually works" is simply incorrect. Hydroelectric works just as well, is equally reliable, and it too emits no C02. 

I spent the years 1987 - 2021 living downstream from several hydroelectric facilities on the south fork of the Feather River, utilizing power generated therefrom. I was never aware of any shortcomings in those installations or any outages attributable thereto.

Greens have made the installation of hydropower difficult because it interferes with natural stream flow. I am of the opinion greens should be entirely ignored; perhaps Donald Trump is the man to accomplish this feat.

Personality vs. Policy

A New Yorker article concerning why the billionaire class have largely swung behind Donald Trump, and put money behind those beliefs, has an interesting quote I recommend to those reluctant to support Trump. It was spoken to the author by an attendee at a donor lunch.

"A lot of the donors have just come to the conclusion that, when you add it all up, the risks with Trump are behavioral—personal behavior and what he says—versus the policies,” the attendee at the Fifth Avenue fund-raiser told me. It was a “rationalization” adopted by “even those who were initially very put off, very alienated, by his behavior at the end of his Presidency."

What turns people off about DJT is his sui generis impresario-like personal style. It’s a mix of business and show biz because his career has been a mix of business and show biz - some “Jack Welch” mixed with some “P. T. Barnum.” 

It drives Dims nuts because nobody has figured out how to run against it. Reagan had some of this quality too and it caused them some of the same problems.

Aside

With regard to the first image below, showing PM Netanyahu grinning. Among the hunting fraternity in my home state of Wyoming, the wall behind him is called "a head wall" for obvious reasons. Most WY heads are game animals, but the concept is identical - displaying hunting trophies.

When we built our present home 24 years ago, the project boss asked us if we wanted a wall in the living room reinforced with 3/4" plywood beneath the sheetrock. I asked why and was told for a head wall. 

After getting a definition, we declined with thanks. I don't suppose he was surprised, a couple of retired college profs aren't exactly the modal homeowners here or indeed most places.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Friday Snark 2.0

-

Image courtesy of Politico Wuerker Cartoons.

Friday Snark 1.0

Images courtesy of Politico's Nation's Cartoonists 

on the Week in Politics.

ICYMI

The best summary I’ve seen of the Kamala Harris interview on Fox News is this one at the U.S. edition of The Spectator World. Author Teresa Mull describes the interview I and millions of others watched. 

Mull gets the substance and feel of the interview just about perfect. The article is subtitled “Bret Baier politely took no prisoners” and that about sums it up. Harris did herself no favors with this appearance.

Homeland ... a Worthy Concept

Writing for Newsweek (yes, it still exists online), David P. Goldman aka ‘Spengler,’ defends Hungary’s Viktor Orban and plugs something he calls “Zionism for the nations of Europe.” It is a term he borrows from the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders. 

European “Zionism” holds that it is beyond okay to defend an ethnic homeland, where one’s culture is the dominant force. Doing so means controlling emigration to preserve that dominance. Globalists of the Soros/Kerry/Merkel variety totally disagree. 

Here at COTTonLINE we defend the predominant culture in the U.S. of A. No, it is not “white nationalism.” The U.S. is an idea, not an ethnicity, and is embedded in our Constitution. It is very much worth defending but not all of the world's various belief systems are compatible with it.

Millions of Lapses

Several times last night Kamala Harris claimed to Bret Baier that she would, as President, “enforce the federal law.” The federal law makes unlawful entry into the U.S. a federal crime. 

As border czar she did not enforce the law which enjoined the arrest and prosecution of its violators. Millions were turned loose as though what they’d done was a parking infraction.

If she did not enforce a law for which she’d been given primary responsibility, why should her claim to follow the law be believed? She very clearly did no such thing, not once but millions of times.

You could fairly claim she is one of history’s greatest scofflaws.

The Baier Interview

I forced myself to watch the Bret Baier Fox News interview with Kamala Harris. It was no picnic, two people talking over each other each trying to make themself heard. 

Harris maintained that Biden/Harris were unable to do anything for 3.5 years because Donald Trump - out of office and out of power - simply existed. While I recognize Trump has many followers, they and he together did not keep Biden et al. from doing their job, the blame rests with the White House and its current occupants.

Harris maintains a reelected Trump will do all manner of awful, unlawful things. She and Biden have been such failures they'd deserve it if Trump did unload on them, but he won't. 

Fortunately tonight's news included that the latest poll shows Trump pulling into the lead by a couple of points. Maybe he will just win and they'll go away and sulk.

Harris didn't totally blow the interview, but she also didn't convince anyone not already committed to her that she's up to being president. I wasn't impressed.

A Birth Dearth

Power Line's Steve Hayward posts a chart from Statista which portrays the birth rate in each of the world's countries. Given the scale, some are sort of difficult to suss out. 

The birth rate necessary to keep national population constant is 2.1 per woman. Much of the world - shown in pink or red - is below that level.

The four areas with the lowest birth rates (shown in red) appear to be South Korea, Hong Kong, Palau and Puerto Rico, but I am guessing on all but South Korea. 

Walz and Harris ... Rumors of Misbehavior

Andrea Widburg who writes regularly for American Thinker notes there are rumors about Tim Walz and underage boys. Do you suppose what happens in China stays in China?

Is there anything to these allegations? I have no idea. Widburg claims no personal knowledge either.  Walz does give off weird vibes, but a lot of Dims do the same.

Perhaps if some young men come forward and go public we'll know more.

----------

Kamala Harris, when running for Attorney General in California in 2009, worked with a ghost writer to publish a book entitled Smart on Crime.  In it she plagiarized an entire Wikipedia article without giving citation credit or using quotation ("") marks. The book contains several other lapses of giving credit where due. 

Unlike the sexual issues involving Walz noted above, where only the participants know for sure, this misdeed can be checked out.

How ironic that Harris could be guilty of the same infraction which took Joe Biden out of the presidential nomination race in 1988. Maybe most people don't much care about plagiarism, those of us who write do care. We consider it theft of intellectual property. Watch the legacy media ignore this story.

Hat tip to Lucianne.com for all of the links in this post.

Word Play

A wordplay quote attributed to Dilbert creator Scott Adams. Say it aloud and listen to yourself.

The more diverse government is, diverse it gets.

And it was bad enough already.

Family History

The other DrC has a neat story at her blog, about my mother as a little girl growing up in pre-World War I small town Oklahoma. She chronicles a trip to Dallas my mom took with granddad. It's a story she never told me, but did tell my wife. I think you'll enjoy it.

That same determined lady, as a young adult in the late 1920s, bought a Ford coupe, in which she and a girlfriend drove roundtrip from OK to VA and back to visit the other gal's relatives. It was summertime, school wasn't in session, and they camped on schoolyards so they could use the temporarily idled outhouses. 

I believe both were clericals for a federal agency and were on vacation. I guess many roads were unpaved. It was a gutsy thing for two unaccompanied young women to do.

Saturday Snark, a Day Late

 

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

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A Tentative Prediction

When Kamala Harris ran for the Dim nomination in 2020 she was such a flop that she dropped out before the first primary vote was cast. Still Joe Biden picked her to be VP, because he’d promised to name a BIPOC woman, which she is.

Before Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance the conventional wisdom was that Kamala Harris was a failed Vice President. She was seen as a DEI hire who performed even more poorly than such hires normally do. 

It turns out the conventional wisdom about her was correct. Even with the party behind her and abetted by their lapdog media, four years later she has done a poor job of being the nominee. It begins to look like she won’t win.

Friday Snark, 2 Days Late

Images courtesy of Politico's Nation's Cartoonists on

the Week in Politics.

Religion … Bigger Than BBQ in TX

RealClearPolitics provides a link to a New York Times Magazine article about how Christian fundamentalism dominates politics in Texas. It’s behind the NYT paywall but you can see a disapproving summary of the article here.

Our personal experience with TX occurred early in retirement when we ‘moved’ there for a year, for fun. We were offered teaching contracts for a year in the area northeast of Dallas at an A&M branch campus. 

We were both amazed at the robust role of religion in the lives of many of our students. Texans are friendly people, not standoffish, but we concluded we’d make few close friends of the sort you’d hang out with after work because their friendship networks were largely based in their churches. 

At the time Texans took a very relaxed view of “the separation of church and state.” Separation was largely ignored in our experience. It wouldn’t surprise me if it were still largely true.

At an on-campus welcoming dinner party for new A&M faculty we saw our host, the university president, offer a long, detailed and specific Christian blessing before we ate. Since we’d all introduced ourselves I knew there were several likely Jews among the new hires. I wondered if they were feeling like strangers in a strange land? The other DrC saw morning prayers offered at rural public elementary schools she visited as part of her job.

What we’d just experienced we would have never seen in CA. It was an eye-opener. Relatively serious Protestant Christianity is as widespread and influential in TX as you’d imagine Catholicism is in the Irish Republic. I’d bet few win TX elections without making their faith a part of their campaign pitch.

One requirement for an MBA course I taught was to create a career plan for the next several years. Nearly half of the responses included how they also planned to become more involved in their churches. They considered this an integral part of their career, obviously we were using different definitions of the term.

Update

Postings here will be somewhat scarce for the next 2-3 days. We will be driving for substantial portions of both Thursday and Friday, and tired when not on the road. Right this moment I'm taking a brief break from loading our truck with stuff headed for our winter quarters. 

We take our electronics, of course, and our meds, plus some clothes and our 3 office tubs. Living in two places for months at a time, we need our files with us. That's in addition to what we'd normally pack for a trip - toiletries, change of clothes, etc. 

Making the semiannual moves is a lot of work for two seniors, we'll keep doing it as long as we are able. We've been doing it for roughly 30 years, so we don't have to reinvent much. We have wheels under much more of what we take than was formerly the case.

One thing we added to our summer place this summer is a handicapped ramp. It's around back where it doesn't spoil appearance, but is no end of handy for wheeling stuff down to the truck instead of schlepping it down several stairs.

Kamala's Doug, a "Me, Too" Abuser

Writing for PJ Media, Victoria Taft itemizes the "Me, Too" complaints against Kamala Harris' husband Doug Emhoff. She has citations for each allegation. The record isn't pretty and the mainstream press is ignoring it (of course).

Fifteen years ago he impregnated his child's nanny, causing his first marriage to end. Twelve years ago at the Cannes film festival he slapped his then-girlfriend, and she hit him back (good for her).

And now, Emhoff is accused of being a creepy, lecherous, misogynist while at the Los Angeles law firm he managed. The Daily Mail reported Monday that from 2006 to 2017 Emhoff was brusque and mean to women at work and used women colleagues as arm candy at events.

Sounds like another Harvey Weinstein wannabe, doesn't he? Hollywood is a evil place most days, and Emhoff was a Hollywood lawyer. Kamala is his latest "arm candy."

Doth the Worm Turn?

There is a rumor going around politics mavens that Biden wants Harris to lose. The following is from a Steve Hayward Power Line column, he attributes it to an unnamed former colleague and longtime friend.

There’s only one thing worse than seeing your enemy win, and that’s to see the people your thought were your friends and political comrades-in-arms win after they betrayed you and stabbed you in the back.

Remember what Joe was caught saying into a hot mike with regard to Hunter’s legal issues? “Nobody f*c*s with a Biden.” I have no doubt he meant every word of it.

It certainly explains his recent surprise appearance at a KJP press briefing where he bragged about how closely Harris was involved in his policies. He really undercuts her promises to "turn the page" on the present Biden-led situation nobody much loves.

A Conspiracy Against Your Interests

In a small town in Pennsylvania named Charleroi, we see in miniature the forces enabling illegal immigration. Chris Rufo and Christina Buttons write for City Journal how the town's local packing plant likes cheap labor, as NGOs provide the leg work and volunteers to direct Haitians there and get them settled and employed. 

Meanwhile the Biden/Harris government facilitates the whole thing and to some degree funds the NGOs. It is importing a replacement population more to its liking. 

The old GOP supported this sort of undercutting of American wages, since the party was then run by a country club set which neither included nor represented factory workers. They liked their cheap pool boys, maids, gardeners and caddies. 

Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney are the most visible remnants of that old GOP. There are days when Mitch McConnell sympathizes too. 

The Trump-era GOP, demonized as MAGA by the Dims, agrees with most American citizens that the influx happening in Charleroi, and many other places is evil, needs to stop now, and be reversed to the extent possible. I agree and I hope you do and will vote accordingly.

This CJ article is very interesting and well-written; I recommend reading it and sharing it with friends. Hat tip to Power Line for the link.

Our Rejectionist Elites

Writing at Substack, Chris Bray says something that can't be repeated often enough. Plus, if you follow the link to his prior writing, he takes a richly deserved poke at Jackson Hole.* Bray writes:

Just a few days ago, I argued that whole layers of high-status American political and cultural figures are “no longer culturally American.” They don’t see the country, they don’t like the country, and they don’t have the most basic American instincts.

He's thinking of John Kerry and his Davos-loving buddies. It really applies to a much wider swath of upscale urban America and chi-chi ski resorts like Aspen, Vail, Sun Valley, and Jackson Hole. Doug and Kamala are certainly included. 

Tim Walz is a wannabe, but career enlisteds really aren't "our sort." Goofy Walz represents what the high-status folk think us proles to be, when they think of us at all. Hat tip to Instapundit for the link.

*For example, the Jackson paper reprints with approval New York Times opinion pieces, unbelievable cheek in otherwise bright red Wyoming. Jackson would prefer to be part of California ... minus its high taxes, of course. 

My Answer

The prosecutor looking at then-President Trump's activities on and around Jan. 6 - Jack Smith - has filed additional materials in the prosecution he is heading. Meanwhile on the campaign trail Republicans keep getting asked if Biden won the election four years ago, mostly they hedge their answers. I've been thinking about how I'd answer that question.

I believe I'd answer that Joe Biden ended up with more ballots cast for him than were cast for Donald Trump. Biden was elected, inaugurated and is president. 

My concern about the 2020 election is that it appears likely that many of those Biden ballots were cast and/or counted under conditions that violated the laws of the state, should have been ruled invalid and thus not counted. Instead they were counted.

The excuse given was the Covid pandemic, then ongoing. Private funding by wealthy individuals also influenced the collection and counting of ballots, which should be unlawful.

The schedule and structure of our system means there is no feasible way to challenge irregularities after an election. Our system presume a disinterested non-partisan aloofness in those operating the process and, in 2020, altering it at the last minute. 

It is an aloofness that manifestly did not exist, and probably never exists. Governors and others took advantage of the pandemic to act unilaterally, using emergency powers in biased, self-interested ways. 

You may argue Covid was a "black swan" event, unlikely to recur. However, now the precedent is set, expect similar "emergency" claims in future, for example Hurricanes Milton and Helene.

Where Coal Is King

Power Line's "Mr. Charts" posts two tables that show the world is using more coal than ever and plans to use more. Whatever minor reductions the rest of the world makes cannot compensate for the enormous increases in China and India. 

Why don't the Greens go pester them, and not waste time with us?

Update

The leaves on the aspen trees have turned a pale, clear gold, the mountain maple hasn't done much of its deep red yet, and the deer which had tan coats all summer are getting their grayish brown coats of winter. 

We are well into autumn in the high country, but haven't had a hard freeze so far, and no snow either. We'll be leaving later this week and heading south to our winter quarters on the NV side of the NV/AZ border. If we've timed it right, our place down there will have seen its last 100 degree day before we arrive.

We are busily getting our place here ready for its winter hibernation. We sometimes think of our home as Brigadoon. It wakes up each spring, flourishes during the too brief summer, basks in autumn, and sleeps for the other half year. 

This year we will have been "in residence" for 5.5 months, most years it is closer to 5. This is a particularly beautiful time of year here, it is normally scenic but autumn, while short, is quite special.

We aren't young, and when we are no longer able to return here each spring it will be a sad time indeed.

Oikophobia Today

The terror attacks in Israel happened a year ago today. Are the perpetrators any better off today than they were then? By any reasonable calculation they are not. Many thousands are dead, their cities are rubble, and most of their leaders targeted and killed.

Are the Israelis better off today than a year ago? By some measures the answer is “yes.” They were mired in political squabble a year ago and today they have been unified, as only an active external enemy can do. 

Today we are likely to see demonstrations across Europe and North America in support of the Palestinians and in support of the ugliest forms of terrorism. These should be dealt with severely, but likely won’t be.

We are led by wusses and weaklings, abetted by Islamic immigrants who should never have been granted entry. The issue is oikophobia, and it can turn out to be our downfall. Weak people project their weakness onto the society and hate it for the very shortcomings they see in themselves but cannot face. 

Sunday Snark

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics' Cartoons of the Week.

Walz Speaks Mandarin

Politico has an article about what happened on the trips Walz led that took high school students to China.  The article, if accurate, suggests Tim Walz is somewhat fluent in Mandarin.

A web search turns up a BBC article which reveals that for a year in 1989 before his marriage, Walz lived and taught (English?) in China. This explains (a) how he learned some Chinese and (b) the choice to return there on the Walz honeymoon.

Chinese schools were desperate for teachers of English at the time. In 1986 the DrsC toured in China and were both offered jobs+housing on the spot. We declined the offer.

Should we suspect a Manchurian Candidate (1962)? Probably not, but likely a friend of China. We got a taste of the expat experience during a year on Guam; it can be very interesting. 

We still have warm feelings for Guam and have since gone back twice to visit. However Guam is not an adversary and potential enemy of the U.S., while China is exactly that. It is entirely realistic to question whether Walz is willing to act against Chinese interests.

Taking "Never Again" Seriously

Former Israeli ambassador to the United States and Deputy Minister Michael Oren has written at Substack about how the war happening there is viewed in Israel. Some quotes that I liked.

Our Western allies ... inhabit a universe utterly alien to ours. In their world, the mass murderers in Tehran can be induced to deescalate by means other than escalation. In their reality, wars against terrorists who hide behind and under their civilian population can be won without harming those civilians and jihadists can be mollified by creating a Palestinian state. American and European leaders live in a simple, rational region that bears not the slightest resemblance to the real Middle East.

Israel will strike back at Iran—promptly, painfully, and manifestly disproportionately. Israel will defend itself not to spark a total war but to preempt one. Israel will retaliate against Iran and its venal proxies because defending our people from those who seek to massacre us is much of what our state is all about. Israel, at the risk of aggravating our allies, will survive.

FAFO, Israel takes "Never Again" seriously. It is likely Oren knows what Israeli leadership is thinking and planning. As such, his views are of interest to those Americans who are committed to Israel's continued existence and well-being. Hat tip to Power Line for the link.

Saturday Snark

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