Redux; "The Kids Are Not Alright"

From 2013. the more things change the more they stay the same (or get worse)

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Once again the denizens of Hollywood are using their unique propaganda tool, the Academy Awards, in the aid of their warped social philosophy.

It is a fair assumption, one only has to peruse the cover of  a gossip magazine, that a higher proportion of neurotics, drug users, out and out societal misfits, and the just plain mad who compose a proportion of the entertainment industry in numbers well  above the national average will be gathered together on awards night.

On top of their collective neuroses, and surely actors by their very profession are subject to various manifestations of eccentricity, they have, through the massive reach of their medium, enormous power, wealth and great influence on the average person.

Thus what just a few years ago would have been considered a gross perversion, if not illegal and generally not even possible, same sex couples adopting, or creating via the loving mechanics of a turkey baster, babies.

High profile entertainment industry types, can, through their wealth and media power, undertake actions which if a normal person attempted it they would be castigated or even arrested for breaking societies taboos. Over the years we have seen these structures of society attacked and then broken and then made commonplace by actors.

"Shock horror" newspaper headlines follow, then the glossies started to make it "interesting' and shortly after it became "normal" irrespective of what example it set for society and the effect it would have on children of such relationships. Of course such unstable relationships composed of unstable people break up one after another with untold harm on the innocents who are caught up in such horrors.

That aspect of normal society undermined, the next attack, Gay and lesbian same sex relationships adopting children hove into view. Again, the unthinkable becomes, via the wealth,"prestige", and power of entertainment types, perfectly acceptable to society. Elton John and partner adopts, how is it possible for men of their age in the first place to adopt an infant? Cynthia Nixon's "fiancee' gives birth amongst recent examples.

There are no long term studies on how children who grow up in these unnatural parenting relationships adjust in society.What sort of difficulties to they encounter at school amongst their peers? Do the have trouble establishing an heterosexual relationship? 

What effect will this have on population trends amongst Western nations and if they decline what will be the economic effects and the social effects as more third world labor is needed to take up the slack?

Hollywood doesn't care-all the denizens care about is satisfying their ego's, carnal nature and their hedonism "Cocaine is God's way of telling you you have too much money" Robin Williams is quoted as saying, Lohan, Sheen-well the list of examples is endless. Now having children has become their latest status symbol. It started with the adopting out of Africa craze and now has spread to same sex couples.

There are no barriers to satisfying their needs for those in the entertainment industry. Same sex parenting a no no? The propaganda machine starts. The first foray was The Birdcage with lovable characters, then "The kids are all right" whose premise is " look we lesbian parent couples are not weird, we have all the "normal" family problems and squabbles just like everyone else so our parenting is "normal"-just like everyone else

If Dem's Lose Virginia Governor's Race It's Time To Close Up Shop

"Close Virginia governor polls set Democratic nerves on edge" advised Kevin Robillard at Politico and indeed the democratic party hierarchy has every reason to be deeply concerned. The implications for the future of the party if their candidate Ralph Northam loses to the GOP contender Ed Gilllespie are profound.

Every traditional omen is in play for the Dem's leading in to the election. Virginia has gone Democratic in three straight presidential elections, both its senators, Warner and Kaine (the recent VP candidate) and its current, term limited governor, Terry McAuliffe are Democrats.

For all intents and purposes Virginia is not even a "purple" state but solidly in the "blue" column on the national and statewide levels (although the state house and senate are GOP controlled).

According to the polls President Trump's national aggregate approval rating is 39% and he is similarly under water in the Old Dominion. 

In the overwhelming majority of cases mid/off term elections go against the party that won the previous presidential election, often massively so. 

However, with Donald Trump the jury is out on whether the traditional playbook has been completely torn up. While the Dem's have won a scattering of state house elections the four congressional election and one senate election were all held by the GOP.

The GOP's winning margin in each congressional election was well down on the presidential year election but still,a win under circumstances where traditionally a number of those seats may have been lost. Further the left spent upwards of $30 million in Georgia trying to get their candidate Ossoff elected and still failed.

Given all factors,Trump's purported bad approval, a Democratic safe state, former President Obama and Tim Kaine campaigning for Northam, the media advising that "Trump's base is deserting him in droves" and the history of elections.

If Northam loses the Dem's will be in a world of hurt, the only excuse, one which would most certainly be trotted out is the old chestnut "all elections are local" where a preemptive strike is on the boards already "Are Democrats trying to lose Virginia's governor's race?"

Unfortunately for the GOP if it is victorious, the muddied waters of a nation wide DNC in chaos, the concept of a totally inept Virginia Democratic campaign has merits for the Dem apologists;

"Northam refused to take a tough stance on MS-13 in order to not upset the extreme activists in his party, but in doing so, he started to lose suburban families who have seen MS-13 murder people in their neighborhoods. Loudoun, Fairfax, and Prince William counties have seen numerous brutal gang murders in recent years, including one in my own neighborhood in Ashburn. The Washington Post's fact-check on the issue admitted there are more MS-13 gang members in Fairfax County than there are police officers"

And while the Northam campaign literally blacked out his black running mate for Lt.Governor's image from campaign literature they then managed to insult the Hispanic community;

 "And while Northam is dealing with charges of "subtle racism," the Democratic Party of Virginia authorized a hit piece on Latina Republican House of Delegates candidate Lolita Mancheno-Smoak, putting a picture of her face by a picture of a ravenous dog and a Jason Halloween mask."

Polling is muddled as we have come to expect ranging from Quinnipiac with Northam +14 and Hampton with Gilliespie +8 (with 26% "undecided in the latter case) and the latest poll from Republican associate "The Polling Co." has Gillespie +2. Thus it may boil down to the usual battle of turnout between the DC Democratic counties and the Republican rural areas.

As with the case of Ossoff in Georgia and the Dem's $30 million dollar losing effort the fact of President Trump's supposed poor approval rating may have no bearing on the determination of conservatives to ensure the Republican movement as Trump rightly defined it is stronger than a fractured factioned, message-less Democratic Party.

The only danger for the conservative movement from a Gillespie win is that it may finally waken the media and the DNC to the truth that endless attacks on Trump and "Trumpism" is a dead end and the time has come to attend to the need for objective reporting in the case of the former and putting their house in order in the case of the latter

Trump's Obvious Election Win Was Hiding In Plain Sight; Will It Be So In 2020?

 The key factor, hiding in plain sight, that pointed to a victory in the election for Donald Trump was obvious but a misled, often deluded and hate filled media's blinkers made it invisible.

 The media and pundits like the Princeton Consortium's Sam Wang, FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver and worst of all the HuffPost Pollster Natalie Jackson who predicted a Clinton win varying from 80% to 98% were misled by flawed polling in key battleground states.

 With hindsight it is clear the polling models did not account for voters, especially in the Midwest, who had not voted for either McCain or Romney coming out strongly for Trump in rural areas. 

 That, allied to a drop in support for Clinton by non-whites/Hispanics, was more than enough to give Trump a substantial electoral College margin.

 The polls were well within in the margin of error as regards the popular vote, which is of course irrelevant, but the fact of her  "victory" was tempered by her running up huge margins in the Democrats coastal redoubts plus Illinois. This more or less correct polling would have led the prognosticators further off the correct path of poll analysis.

 Apart from a few, mostly partisan Republican bloggers who saw a Trump victory (including, publicly, yours truly I have to say) the most prominent person who was correct was an academic who based his analysis on a set of historic parameters.

Alan Lichtman, History professor at American University developed;

"A system for predicting the popular-vote result of American presidential elections, based upon the theory of pragmatic voting. America’s electorate, according to this theory, chooses a president, not according to events of the campaign, but according to how well the party in control of the White House has governed the country.

 If the voters are content with the party in power, it gains four more years in the White House; if not, the challenging party prevails. Thus, the choice of a president does not turn on debates, advertising, speeches, endorsements, rallies, platforms, promises, or campaign tactics. Rather, presidential elections are primarily referenda on the performance of the party holding the White House."

 

Lichtman uses a series of 13 “keys,” which are true/false statements that he says can help predict whether the incumbent party will remain in the White House. 

For each of these statements, a “true” statement favors the incumbent party, but enough “false” statements portend their defeat in a presidential election. This model, he told the Washington Post in September, predicted that Trump would win"

The "keys, which include;Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president" are set out in detail.

 However, Prof.Lichtman, the media the psephologists and their pundit acolytes could all have 
spared the time and effort and misleading, for the most part, coverage by consulting one election predictor that has been correct since 1984 (now nine elections in a row.)

The Standard & Poors (S&P) financial index, when down prior to the election, saw the incumbent party lose and when up the incumbent party won-simple as that. The S&P was down 3.8% from the start of August 2016 and the incumbent party, i.e. Hillary's duly lost.

Certainly Prof.Lichtman's "keys" included two major economic parameters  but neither were as specific as the S&P guideline:

"Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign. Long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms."

 What we can make from this, as long as this predictive model holds until it too fails of course as politics is always in a state of  flux in the long term, is that Bill Clinton's dictum "it's the economy stupid" is still correct and campaigns, get out the vote scrambles, scandals etc are all subservient to that principle. 

Currently the economy current is seeing substantial GDP growth, currently running at an annual rate of 3% with second quarter growth the highest in two years, unemployment down, average wages rising at the strongest pace since 2009, and the share market, as of this writing, at record highs,

 If this continues and history is still a guide all the "Trump Russia" and other "scandals" alarms and diversions MSM punditry and especially poor polling, will meet the same fate in the 2018 mid-terms and Trump's reelection in 2020 as they did in the 2016 election.

From The Media; Commentary For Conservatives 9/13/17 Part#1

It's Official: Democrats Are The Extremists Today LINK

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America Divided: It Starts With the Democratic Party

 LINK

Trumpist populism, though not without its blind spots, has a more incisive diagnosis of the defining political conflict of our age and of the central threats confronting the country than any of the other competing worldviews.

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Trump and Iran nuclear deal: Smart chess play could motivate the mullahs  LINK

It costs the president nothing, does not wreck the agreement, does not reimpose sanctions, and can be reversed if Tehran proves it is complying.

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Harvey Weinstein and Hollywood’s secular, liberal indulgences 

LINK

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Trump Made the Right Move on UNESCO

The agency is a den of anti-Semites.

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The general schools doltish press corps

LINK

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 Trump strikes a blow for health-care freedom

Free at last! That’s the message for millions who don’t get health coverage at work and, until now, faced two dismal options: going without insurance or paying Obama­Care’s soaring premiums. On Thursday, President Trump announced changes that will allow consumers to choose coverage options costing half of what ObamaCare’s cheapest bronze plans cost.

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Is Trump the Heir to Reagan?

 LINK

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 Hollywood Should Never Lecture America Again

LINK

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How the NFL Lost to Trump 

LINK 

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Palin's America Stands Aghast At Dem/Hollywood America

The righteous indignation at the monstrous Harvey Weinstein, his enablers, those who knew but kept silent and the Democratic Party hypocrites who took his money and posed with him has rippled across the conservative media and middle America.

The outstanding commentator, with first hand experience of Hollywood Roger L.Simon has to my mind best and succinctly summed up the situation:

Hollywood’s politics have always been a self-serving charade, a liberal masquerade for a rapacious and lubricious lifestyle.  But now, thanks to the Weinstein scandal, we see it more clearly than ever. And it couldn't be more repellent. (I had always thought Bill Clinton would have made the greatest studio executive of all time. Now I'm convinced of it.)...

They have abandoned the culture -- and our children -- to the creepiest people imaginable.  What is going on in Hollywood is far from being just about Harvey. It’s approaching a pandemic"

The moral rot in American society started with President Clinton, the exposure of what the liberal establishment really thought of the non-coastal elite was, inadvertently exposed, and made plain with then candidate Obama's "bitter clingers" and Michelle Obama's "I have never been proud of my country" remarks.

Certainly President Nixon was ethically bankrupt over Watergate and President G.W. Bush was wrong on Iraq but neither man was an elitist nor personally morally corrupt.

In the 2016 election the voters, outside the Democrat's coastal redoubts, clearly signaled they had had enough and wanted wholesale change, especially from the Beltway crowd that Hillary and her cohorts represented. 

What has come to light in respect of just how morally bankrupt, corrupt, cynical and disgusting that cohort is has, forever, removed whatever amount of scales there were to drop from the public's eyes.

Sarah Palin saw all this in 2008 and for her honesty, unbending Christian values and worst of all being pro-life was vilified, satirized and hated on with a vehemence never seen before in American political life. 

 Those at the very forefront of this endless attack were the same Hollywood denizens and their media supporters who have now been exposed as morally bankrupt or utter cowards in reaping the benefits from  their obsequiousness and speaking up when it was safe years later.

The Democratic Party, despite their  (some not all) returning Weinstein's tainted money is completely tied their Hollywood supporters in the public's mind. 

It is unimaginable that the very people who turned against that party in 2016 would be attracted back to it after it has been exposed as simply a vehicle for immoral leftism.

In the end Palin and Palin's America won, not through Palin herself being elected of course but via "Palinism in the presidency i.e. her chosen candidate, with the wherewithal to finance the campaign, won on her values. 

The roots of Donald Trump's historic presidential victory go back eight years to the 2008 presidential contest and the V.P. candidacy of Sarah Palin.  Palin, or more properly Palinism, had many of the same characteristics as the Trump ascendancy: a robust patriotic populism driven by intense love of country and rejection of big-government internationalism embodied by Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Certainly President Trump is not "Palin" in respect of his life story but he has become the vehicle for traditional values and is, as much as the GOP will let him, keeping his policy promises and, most certainly keeping his promises as regards the Supreme Court and lower level judiciary appointments.

For all their wealth and power and attached Hollywood glamor the Democratic party is at its lowest ebb office wise in 100 years. The bringing into the full light of day its disdain for the common man and the corrupt bargain with the decedents of Hollywood must be a disgusting sight to all Americans who hold the traditional view of American society dear.

Weinstein Affair Shows "Bernie Bros." Were Right And Were Robbed, As Were The Voters, Of Genuine Choice.

No I'm not a Sanders supporter although I clearly recognize there were points of confluence between the Sanders agenda and what Trump supporters responded to.

Numerous commentators viewed various aspects of both campaigns in which they saw a commonality, to take just one of many, here are some (minus the snark) from The Atlantic's Molly Ball's list;

• Both oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.
• Both support maintaining or expanding current levels of Social Security benefits.
• Both support some upper-income tax hikes.
• Both lament the pernicious role of money in politics .
• Both opposed the Iraq war (Stan herself notes that Trump “would have left Saddam Hussein in power”) and believe the money spent on it could have been put to better use domestically.
• Both have been known to worry that increased immigration could depress working-class wages.

One could find fault with the list and add more from other sources but in my opinion there is enough, even from Ball's list, to show policy and values which Sanders and Trump supporters would appreciate-I certainly do.

But beyond policy the undeniable meeting of minds for both groups was the deeply held understanding that the status quo, as represented by the Obama administration, the Clinton's and the Beltway elite (including especially the RNC) needed to be swept away. The polls of voters on election night showed that "change" was among the highest factors in how they cast their ballots.

Again. I am not a Sanders supporter but I recognize and honor their honest and deeply held commitment to a values system that puts the economic advancement of lower income groups as a high priority. In other words Sanders supporters are driven by a moral, social justice imperative. 

That in my view their economic prescriptions would end up as having the opposite effect from their desired end, and their often vituperative, strident and ad hominem attacks on opponents is not the point. Rather the point is that, as opposed to Hillary, they stood for something and held to their beliefs with a passion.

We know now that the DNC under Wasserman-Schultz did everything possible to protect the establishment's anointed.

 Sanders supporters could I am sure provide a massive list of all the ways Sanders campaign was thwarted, but the DNC scheduling as few debates as possible and, deliberately, at the worst possible times for mass viewing, is just one of the blatant examples of interference with the democratic process.

In the end the most reprehensible actions by the establishment was to ensure Hillary was the nominee at all costs. That she turned out to be a flawed candidate, with grossly heavy baggage, a terrible campaigner who threw away the 'blue wall' by not even showing up in Wisconsin and too late in Michigan and Pennsylvania, would have dismayed Sanders supporters.

But it is now, in the light of Hillary's post election blame game (including a snit about Bernie) and
her connection to the monstrous Harvey Weinstein that the full extent of what the RNC did to the Sanders supporters is fully exposed.

It is clear to all objective viewers that the RNC/GOP establishment tried to foist a candidate with masses of policy but no policy "heart" nothing beyond wonkiness, to touch the desires of ordinary folks, and whose lack of moral values made her take five days to condemn her friend and financial backer Weinstein (without advising she would return his donations).

In retrospect a genuine choice, genuine for America's needs not the Clinton's or the RNC's, would have been a battle of ideas for change between Trump and Sanders. That this was denied by reprehensible means is a tragedy and an insult to Sanders supporters and their genuinely held values.
What a Bill and Hillary Clinton administration, with all their Hollywood hangers on, dubious finances and media enablers would have done to America is beyond imagining. 

What happens next for the Democratic Party is vital as if the establishment once again puts their status quo choice as the nominee the prospect of Sanders, or his successor, staying with the Dem's is moot. One thing is certain is that the Democratic Party would not deserve to have such members and surely the limits of their patience would be sorely tested.

Democrat's May Be Forced To Run A "Culture Wars" Midterms Against Their Will

It is a historical political truism that nearly always the sitting president's party gets defeated in the Congressional midterms.

 Sometimes they get hammered as per the Dem's under President Obama which saw the second biggest losses in modern times, a massive 69 total senate and house seats, on relatively rare occasions the losses are down to a net one as under JFK in 1962. Only in extraordinary circumstances has there been an actual gain in both the senate and house, with FDR at the height of the depression and G.W. Bush post 9/11.

That being said the 2018 midterms are more challenging than usual for an opposition party ;

"To start, Democrats must confront what looks like a punishing Senate map in 2018. The party that controls the White House tends to lose congressional seats in midterm elections, but it seems unlikely that Democrats will regain control of the Senate two years from now, much less the House of Representatives. 

Republicans significantly outnumber Democrats in the House, and only need to protect eight Senate seats in 2018 while Democrats must defend twenty-five seats.

Adding to the challenge, Democrats have senators up for reelection in states Donald Trump won by double digit margins such as North Dakota, West Virginia, Montana, Indiana and Missouri.

 Those aren’t the only perilous races: Democratic incumbents also need to defend Senate seats in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Florida, states that voted for Obama in two presidential elections before switching to vote for Trump. “There’s no question the map will be extremely difficult for Democrats"

But, as the 1938 loss of 77 and the 69 loss in 2010 shows when the political tide goes out after an earthquake the governing party is left squelching in mudflats until the tide eventually turns as it always does.

It is fair to say that a fair number of midterm defeats have not be anywhere near cataclysmic, and if President Trump is unpopular in November 2018 and, perhaps more importantly the McConnell/Ryan team have put no runs on the board the Dem's have a decent chance of having a "throw the bums out" substantial gains result in at least one chamber if not both. 

This is regardless of whether or not Trump is popular as, as is always the case with the midterms, it is a matter of getting the base out. Conservatives, the GOP's midterm mainstays, may decide to stay at home in the knowledge that Trump personally would not be at risk.

There is one overriding circumstance which could so motivate the base that they turn out in substantial numbers whether or not the GOP has done their job as the base would wish and/or Trump is perceived as having failed the base, and that is if the Dem's are forced to run a "culture wars" campaign.

The last time they did this overtly, or more to the point were perceived to have done so, was in G.W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. 

The Bush/Rove team so characterized John Kerry as an effete, elite, unpatriotic east coast liberal and potential bringer of same-sex marriage (the call in opposition was "I'm for Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve") that the base was motivated, especially crucially in Ohio to turn out. It is astounding to see Kerry actually being touted as the Dem's 2020 presidential candidate given that history.

Given the post 2016 election realization by the Democratic Party that their neglect of a message to the Midwest/rust blue collar voters, and the perceived elitism and disdain by the liberal establishment of "flyover country's" mores, it would seem obvious that the last thing the Dem's would wish to do would be to have to campaign in 2018 on cultural matters instead of an anti-Trump + positive policies messaging.

However circumstances may force their hand no mater how unwillingly.

The spectacle of, mostly Black, sportsmen "taking the knee" and refusing to go to the White House for ceremonial purposes hits the Trump base in its most sore spot, and in one of its major and hallowed congregating places the football stadium where a perceived disdain for the flag and national anthem is especially bad optics.

While the media and of course the leftist Twitterverse has been outraged at President Trump's attacks on the players and team owners involved the Democratic voices have been strangely muted.

 Apart from a few Black congressmen the Democrat's leadership has been basically silent. For them to attack Trump means they would at the same time be defending those perceived as being anti-flag and anthem and pro-BLM.

To take to the hustings with such a defense, especially in the senate seats where they are most vulnerable would be to court disaster. Any GOP candidate worth their salt would surely campaign for the flag and anthem and the visuals in campaign adverts would write themselves. But, can the Democrat's avoid supporting the Black athletes protests?

If they stay muted the message to Black voters would be clear. The party Black voters stayed at home from voting for in large numbers in 2016 would be seen as further deserting their needs when the social crunch came.

 That this could be disastrous in the midterms would be bad enough, but the implications for the Dem's in Michigan,Florida and Ohio in 2020, especially if the Trump administration has delivered on jobs, could be catastrophic in its long term implication for the Electoral College.

The 'demographics are destiny" concept, which failed so badly in 2016, and from which their appears to be no easy escape for a divided Democratic Party, may yet be a further salt to be rubbed in the open wounds of a misguided political strategy.

Trump's Challenging Week; Puerto Rico/Los Vegas/MSM;The Voters Verdict is A+

The challenges, sometimes desperate one e.g. North Korea, hurricanes, and terrible tragedies like Las Vegas keep coming at President Trump whose "on the job training" is such that few presidents bar Lincoln and Truman, have had to face.

Not only has he been hit with these major events but at the same time he has been attacked by a rabid media, a new study shows that 95% of reporting on him and his administration has been negative.

Seemingly the entire entertainment complex from 100% of the late night "comedians' and TV shows such as the relaunch of 'Will and Grace' have targeted Trump endlessly and mercilessly.

But through it all, including a Congressional body that will not stand together to pass his agenda the base has remained steadfast.

The opinion polls, now utterly discredited, continue to show Trump's approval rating in the mid to upper 30 percent range. 

Those polling firms which show the respondent figure show a grossly distorted Dem to GOP ratio so their conclusions are worthless and distorted. The daily tracking polls, which on average fared nearly perfectly in the 2016 election have been more balanced.

The week commencing October 2nd,the day of the Las Vegas tragedy and President Trump's visit to Puerto Rico (which was, again, the subject of ridiculous media distortion and histrionics by the Mayor of San Juan) showed the public's view of Trump in light of these events and the view was a psotive one.

Firstly Gallup (which won't release its respondent rate and has had the lowest Trump approval over time compared others) showed Trump approaching 40%, one of his highest levels of the year from a low of 36% on 9/27 and ascending for the week

 At Rasmussen the rise is more striking up 4 points from Monday to Friday. Thus despite the MSM's worst efforts the public saw, considered, and approved