Snark Alert

The demographics of the Democrat Party:
75% - Life's hapless losers, and
25% - Those who feel sorry for them.

The demographics of the Republican Party:
50% - Life's winners, and
50% - Those who aspire to become winners.

Quote of the Day

Michael Walsh, as quoted by Ed Driscoll at PJ Media:

Think of the Democratic Party as what it really is: a criminal organization masquerading as a political party. 

It's funny, even if not entirely true.

Bloodbath in Orlando

All over the news: last night's mass shooting in an Orlando gay bar, as many as 50 dead, that many more wounded. The shooter was an American-born Muslim of Afghan parentage. The event occurs during Ramadan, when jihadi acts are common. John Hinderaker of Power Line reports:

So far, no radical Islamic associations have come to light, but Mateen’s father says he became very angry several months ago when he saw two gay men kissing.

I can't imagine why he would be angry. American troops report such behavior is absolutely routine in Afghanistan, much of it involving adult males and preteen "dancing boys."

Expect this event, and others like it between now and November, to help the Trump cause. He is thought to believe Muslim immigrants a bad idea, a view widely shared by the electorate.

Saturday Snickers

Steven Hayward collects political cartoons, photos with snarky captions, and the like for a weekly column at Power Line entitled The Week in Pictures. Here are descriptions of my favorites from the week's haul.

A photo of Golda Meir from her days as Prime Minister of Israel, captioned:

A female leader of a democratic nation?
That's so 1969.

A bathrobe-clad Hillary confronts a boxers-wearing Bill holding a cell phone, clock in the background shows 3 a.m. Bill speaks:

"Would you believe it's Jake from State Farm?"

Sitting in the Oval Office, Hillary yells into a red phone.

 "You heard me! I want you to bomb Paula Jones!!" 

Picture a Millennial wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt, sitting on a kiddie ride-a-unicorn machine labeled "Free rides" and "Bernie 2016." He yells:

"What do you mean the ride is over?!"

Picture two photos, with this caption: "Pick a Future for America."
The first shows a smiling, tanned blonde wearing a U.S. flag-themed sun dress. It's labeled:

You Vote for Trump 

The second shows a smiling guy with a scruffy beard, long hair, lipstick, and women's clothes, posed in front of a sign labeled "All Gender Restroom." It's labeled:

You Vote for Hillary

Donald Trump Photoshopped over a photo of a job fair. The caption:

Breaking News. Donald Trump plans to call his future campaign rallies "Job Fairs" in order to keep the liberal protestors away.

Prince Valiant-style drawing of King Arthur and the round table,

Sir Galahad speaks: Cool round table! Who built it?
Merlin answers: Sir Cumference. 

A poster with these words:

Everyday thousands of
INNOCENT PLANTS
are killed by vegetarians.
Help end the violence.
EAT BACON.

Finally, a photo of Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, looking especially impish, captioned:

Tell me again how a man having
genital reassignment surgery,
breast implants, lifelong hormone
therapy, and a name change
makes him a woman, but
you don't believe in
genetically modified
food because it's not
natural?

It must be confusing
to be a liberal.

Unfit to Lead

The New York Times reports Clinton and Trump have each said the other is "unfit to lead the country." I believe there is some evidence both are correct in these assertions.

Certainly, the incumbent (Obama) has proven himself unfit to lead the nation, and perhaps a majority would allege his predecessor (Bush) was also unfit, albeit in different ways. None of this is an argument for a third party candidate, they appear if anything substantially less fit to lead.

I believe it gives us reason to believe our political process is, as currently structured, inadvertently designed to serve up unfit candidates. Problem diagnosis - easy enough. Problem cure - unknown.

There is every reason to believe Democrats will continue to serve up as presidential nominees a series of self-identified victim group members in order to motivate their sad base coalition of life's losers, and those who feel sorry for them. As de facto affirmative action candidates they will be expected to do little, that little badly, and are likely to live down to those expectations.

Meanwhile Republicans could be counted on to keep teeing up nominees who represented the views of its donor class of fat cats instead of the voter base. Until along came a narcissistic dude who could afford to self-fund a campaign actually appealing to grass roots views. He demonstrated just how far out of the mainstream most previous GOP nominees had been, winning the nomination handily. Unfortunately, egotism is unlikely to be a prime prerequisite for presidential greatness.

This nation was founded by giants: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Hamilton, Franklin and others less well-known. Does our society even produce people of that caliber today? And if so, where are they hiding, what are they doing? Not, it would seem, politics.

The Target Audience

Writing at Slate, Reihan Salam argues the The Wall Street Journal is confused in endorsing Trump, and in suggesting Ryan quell his concerns. Trump opposes most of what they've stood for.

Salam ignores the origin of the WSJ's open border stance in the dual needs for cheap labor and unlimited consumers that Journal corporate readers have. Neither of these needs are common among the GOP grassroots.

As we've noted, recent polling shows GOP voters mostly want selective legal immigration and, ideally, zero illegal immigration. And they'd like government disincentives in place for sending their jobs overseas. WSJ likes neither of these, nor do their "C suite" readers - the executives who are the Journal's target audience and advertisers.

Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure lies, there your heart will be also. A Biblical verse that describes the source of WSJ's policy preferences. And it also, Harry Potter fans will note, appears on the headstone of Albus Dumbledore's mother Kendra and sister Ariana in the churchyard cemetery in Godric's Hollow.

13 Days To Brexit

The Brexit vote happens in 13 days, on the 23rd. The Independent (U.K.) reports current polling. Hat tip to Drudge Report for the link.

The campaign to take Britain out of the EU has opened up a remarkable 10-point lead over the Remain camp, according to an exclusive poll for The Independent.

The survey of 2,000 people by ORB found that 55 per cent believe the UK should leave the EU (up four points since our last poll in April), while 45 per cent want it to remain (down four points). These figures are weighted to take account of people’s likelihood to vote. It is by far the biggest lead the Leave camp has enjoyed since ORB began polling the EU issue for The Independent a year ago.

Even when the findings are not weighted for turnout, Leave is on 53 per cent (up three points since April) and Remain on 47 per cent (down three).

In terms of the sweep of world history, Brexit is probably the most important election to be held anywhere this year. We'll know the outcome in a couple of weeks. It should be a leading indicator of the eventual fate of the European Union experiment.

Quote of the Day

Rod Dreher, writing in The American Conservative, about violence at political events. Hat tip to Ed Driscoll, guest blogging at Instapundit, for the link.

What’s going to happen to these Social Justice Warriors when they find that the general public is not as spineless as college administrators?

Prediction: the SJWs will be distraught.

A Magnet for Flakes

George Orwell, author of the later 1984, wrote in his earlier book The Road to Wigan Pier, the following bemused observation, quoted by Ed Driscoll at PJ Media:

One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.

Orwell wrote that in the mid-1930s. It could have been written today.

Market Knowledge

Writing in The New York Review of Books, authors Ronald B. Rapport, Alan I. Abramowitz, and Walter J. Stone, examine how Trump got the GOP nomination. They write:

Trump’s comments about Mexican immigrants and Muslims have been at the center of his campaign. And his pronouncements on these topics have greatly concerned many Republican leaders and elected officials who feared they would harm the party’s image and damage its electoral prospects. But how did his positions and comments play with Republican primary voters?

The clear answer is that they reflected the views of likely Republican voters extremely well. (snip) On all three issues overwhelming majorities of likely Republican voters supported his positions: almost three quarters (73 percent) favored banning Muslims from entering the US, 90 percent favored identifying and deporting illegal immigrants as quickly as possible, and 85 percent favored building a wall on the Mexican border.

Large majorities of likely Republican voters who did not support Trump for the nomination did support Trump’s positions on his three central issues. Almost two thirds favored his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the US and four fifths favored building the wall and identifying and deporting illegal immigrants. In fact 60 percent of non-Trump supporters took his position on all three of his distinctive issues.

Translation: Trump knew his customers' preferences better than did any of his GOP competitors.

It's a Feature, Not a Bug

Glenn Reynolds, writing for USA Today, riffs on the idea "life as we know it" is actually a computer simulation running on an unimaginably complex server. He imagines it exists for the entertainment of who or whatever set up that server and started the simulation. This view leads to some unexpected conclusions:

People getting along and treating each other well are boring. And if we’re boring, the most likely result would be that whoever is running the simulation would shut it down, leading to the end of the world as we know it.

So if we’re in a simulation set up for the entertainment of some sort of superintelligent aliens, we want to be like a long-running telenovela — action-packed with conflict, betrayal, disguises, sudden reverses of fortune and so on.

And if that’s the case, then humanity is doing pretty well, and all the nastiness and disorderliness and conflict that generally upset me about human life aren’t actually bugs — they’re features! By keeping things entertaining, they’re actually keeping humanity going.

Sit back and enjoy the turbulence of life (and of this election season). It may be the only reason you’re still here.

You'd probably guess Reynolds enjoys speculative fiction. So do I.

Trump's Judge ... Further Thoughts

Donald Trump famously said some uncomplimentary things about illegal Mexican immigrants, and promised to both build a wall to keep illegal immigrants out and deport those already here. As might be expected, many Mexicans whether resident in the U.S. legally or otherwise or in Mexico, didn't take kindly to these notions.

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, Trump found an organization to which he'd given his name and prestige - Trump U. - on trial in the courtroom of a judge of Mexican-American ethnicity. And Judge Curiel is not merely the son of immigrants, he is also to some degree an activist in support of immigrant rights.

Does any reasonable person believe the judge is unaware of, or indifferent to, Trump's pronouncements about illegal immigration? Would not a reasonable person believe the judge is likely to take a dim view of Trump and all he's about?

Given that, Judge Curiel appears to have a conflict of interest and should recuse himself but has not. Does Trump have a legitimate gripe? Yes. Does it make Curiel, as accused, "a hater?" Unproven, and likely unprovable.

Perhaps the larger question is whether people who choose to vote for Trump consider this matter an important issue, or not. My guess is they do not. His partisans are notoriously anti-PC, and charges of racism aimed at Trump reek of PC.

The Enemy of My Enemy ...

Jeremy Stahl, writing for Slate, notes that Bernie Sanders' supporters have become more opposed to a Clinton candidacy as the spring has worn on. Hat tip to RealClearPolitics for the link.

When I spoke to Sanders supporters at a Los Angeles event in March, the vast majority of them said they would be able to support Clinton in a hypothetical matchup with Donald Trump. At Tuesday’s event, the opposite was true.

This actually tracks with polling: Between March and May, the percentage of Sanders supporters who said they planned to vote for Trump in a Washington Post poll climbed from 9 percent to 20 percent. Similarly, the number of Sanders supporters who would commit to voting for Clinton in a YouGov poll shrank from 63 percent to 50 percent between April and May.

This has to be good news for Trump.

Anti-EU Sentiment Spreads

We wrote yesterday about sentiment towards Brexit in the U.K. Now comes a Washington Post article on the subject which suggests disillusionment with the EU has spread beyond the U.K.

According to the results of a Pew survey released Tuesday — of more than 10,000 participants in 10 major E.U. nations this year — Euroskepticism is on the rise across the continent, even outside of Britain. Only 51 percent of those polled expressed a positive view of the Brussels-based institution, while 42 percent expressed the desire to have certain powers restored to their local governments.

In both France and Spain, for instance, Pew reports that favorability has dropped by double-digits between 2015 and 2016.

The poll data indicate that “overwhelming majorities” in each of the 10 countries surveyed disapprove of the way the E.U. has handled the migrant crisis, which saw more than 1 million people pour into continental Europe in 2015 alone.

In six of the ten countries polled, more people expressed a preference for devolution of E.U. power than they did for a stronger Brussels bureaucracy. That is ultimately the issue at stake in Brexit to begin with.

Immigration problems - they fuel the Trump movement, the Brexit movement, and are weakening support for the EU among member nation citizens. Maybe we have more in common with Europe than we thought.

Live Blogging the June 7 Primaries

12:30 a.m Mountain Time

RealClearPolitics has called everything except CA for Clinton/Sanders. Trump won a clean sweep of all states voting. Nowhere was his percentage of the total less than 67% with most in the 70s and an 80% in NJ. Sanders won Montana and N. Dakota, Clinton won New Jersey, New Mexico, and S. Dakota. With 40% of California votes tallied, Clinton leads Sanders roughly 60% to 40%.

I'm disappointed in my native state - CA - which appears to be going for Clinton. I thought it would live up to its reputation for weirdness and choose Sanders.

8:35 p.m Mountain Time

RealClearPolitics has called New Jersey for Trump and Clinton. Plus Sanders has won the N. Dakota caucuses. New Mexico, Montana and S. Dakota have also been called for Trump. The Dem race not yet called in those states. Sanders and Clinton are close to each other in Montana, S. Dakota, and New Mexico, but she leads in all 3.

An Automotive Analogy

I've been doing further thinking about a presidential race with unpopular candidates. Here's the analogy that came to me, see what you think.

You work for a company which will provide you with a company car you'll use for the next four years. You'd like something sexy, or maybe a rugged 4x4.

Your company says your choices are limited to a full size Chevy or Ford 4-door sedan. They will provide one or the other in white, your choice.

Since you drive a lot of miles on your job and will live with it for four years, you go test drive both, and check out their various features. Then you choose.

This election is a lot like that. The major parties are telling you your choice is Trump or Clinton. Your self-appointed job is to figure out which you'd rather spend the next four years with, and vote accordingly.

Peru: Too Close to Call

The race for president of Peru, being fought between finalists Keiko Fujimori and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, is too close to call with 97% of the votes tallied. Kuczynski leads with 50.1% to Fujimori's 49.9%.

Some number of rural votes likely favoring Fujimori remain to be tallied.
So reports The Los Angeles Times about an hour ago.

About Trump's Judge

There's been much shouting about Donald Trump's criticism of Federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel who is presiding over the Trump U. fraud case. It is clear Trump's concerns about a fair trial stemmed not from the judge's ethnicity - Curiel's parents were born in Mexico - but from something the judge chose to do. He chose to be active in a La Raza group doing legal work on behalf of Latin American immigrants.

Being active in the group is within the judge's rights, if not necessarily judicial best practice. It does mean, however, that he should recuse himself if his advocacy for immigrants publicly puts him philosophically in opposition to a defendant before his court who holds well-known positions the judge is on record as opposing.

Appearances matter. The key issue is not whether Judge Curiel would act in a biased way toward Trump, but whether it appears to reasonable outsiders that he might be expected to begin the case with a wish to discriminate. Seen from a substantial distance, that expectation appears reasonable.

The nation's most famous crusader against illegal immigration via Latin America finds an organization to which he lent his name and prestige on trial in the court of a judge on record as favoring immigration of all sorts, particularly from Latin America.

Trump likely did not make this distinction; he is no lawyer and not given to precise, legalistic statements. Not for him questions of the definition of "is." His lapse, if such occurred, was no worse than the judge acting to make himself suspect when dealing with cases which in any peripheral way involve immigration.

Brexit Leads (or Not)

The vote in Britain concerning whether or not to exit the European Union, an act generally called "Brexit," happens on June 23, just over two weeks from now. I've seen various predictions and polling results showing one side or the other will win narrowly.

The Telegraph reports narrow margins favoring leaving, and even more telling:

Voters are so open to the idea of Brexit now that when YouGov asked them how they would vote if Brexit would leave them £100 a year worse off, Leave was still two points ahead.

Since non-members Norway and Switzerland are doing well, it is hard to argue Brexit would be an economic catastrophe. The following has relevance to our presidential election:

Polling by Opinium suggests they are pushing the right issues, finding that voters ranked "immigration to the UK" as the issue that will most affect how they vote.

Leave's domination on the issue shows no signs of waning as the pollster found that 50 per cent of those surveyed thought leaving would give Britain "more control over immigration", while just 12 per cent said the same about remaining.

Clearly, the issue of immigration also has great salience in our November election, hence Trump. The underlying principle is that one normally has great latitude in deciding who to invite into one's home ... or nation.

D-Day Remembered, One Day Late

I didn't get around to writing about D-Day yesterday, on its 72nd anniversary, as I was away from home most of the day. A shopping trip in western Wyoming often involves driving 200 miles. Not complaining, just saying....

The other DrC and I visited Normandy a few years back and toured the invasion beaches and German fortifications. Omaha Beach is particularly striking, as is Pont du Hoc.

At Omaha it was abundantly clear to the Germans what route the Allies would have to take to bring vehicles up off the beach.  Mostly in that area the beach is backed by a cliff that is perhaps 30-40 ft. high, the one access road inland runs up a small valley that the Germans heavily fortified and mined.

Another thing that remains is the man-made harbor that sprang up on an otherwise bland coastline. Brits created gigantic concrete boxes that would float, towed them across the Channel, and sank them in shallow water to produce a protected area within which unloading could continue regardless of how rough the seas got in the Channel. They also sank rusty old hulks to complete the encirclement. The concrete boxes, called "mulberries," are still there 70+ years later.

While in Normandy, you'll probably go to the D-Day Museum which is excellent. Also see the Bayeau tapestry which is displayed nearby, it's historic and interesting even if it doesn't look much like what you think a tapestry should resemble. Think of it as a 200+ ft. long cartoon, done on fabric, depicting the sequential steps by which the Norman invasion of England occurred in 1066.