Sunday, April 10, 2016

If You're Going to Be Pissed at the Process, Then at Least Get Your Facts Straight.

With the state of America and the dangerous risks to the Republic in the balance, this years political primary season has taken on an air of a carnival sideshow. Many patriot citizens, upset with the present direction of the country, have for the first time involved themselves deeper in the political process then usual. This is a good thing. The drawback is so many have no knowledge whatsoever of how this "Sausage Making" takes place. Like All State Primaries Basically Work Different. Libraries are stocked with books on past political campaigns and their stories of inner workings of grassroots organization and maneuvering needed to win nomination and election.

The contentiousness of this years candidate's supporters and some PRO-websites have just muddied the waters of understanding. They're buying into conspiracy theories, repeating unverified rumors,  planted false stories in the media and propaganda via fake tweeter accounts, and accusations of vote rigging (which turns out were  incompetent ballot instructions issued by the Trump campaign themselves) and show basic lack of knowledge of the delegate selection process, the rules or a political ground game. And the media has the steering wheel and a heavy foot on the peddle.

I had planned my own post, but ran across this below from Kevin Jackson's website, which condenses down what I had to say very well. It is indeed written by a Cruz supporter, but the facts contained are correct (as of yesterday) and easily verifiable.  

Keven Jackson
There has been one article after the other in the press how delegates who are pledged to Donald Trump may actually be Ted Cruz supporters. That's because in many states the allocation of delegates is divorced from the actual voting. Say Trump wins 50% of the delegates in South Carolina. The voters do not actually pick the delegates, the South Carolina Republican party does. It picks delegates who promise to vote for Trump on the first ballot. So what many state parties are doing is picking delegates who will vote for Trump on the first ballot, but on the second ballot, when they are free, will vote for Ted Cruz.
This has been explained time and time again by many, so no real news here. Delegates are bound in the first round (this differs for some states).
To recap a bit, the Republican presidential voting process is separate from the delegate selection process in most states. In states like South Carolina and Colorado for instance, most delegates are selected through a series of county, congressional district and state conventions.  
We know that Cruz is likely to do well among delegates chosen through state and local conventions because we’ve seen that demonstrated quite a few times already. This is most obvious in the three states — Colorado, Wyoming and North Dakota — where there was no presidential preference vote. Cruz won nine of the 12 delegates chosen at county conventions in Wyoming (Trump won one), and Cruz has gotten six of six picked so far at congressional district conventions in Colorado (more Colorado congressional districts will choose their delegates this week). In North Dakota, delegates are technically unbound, but Cruz got a highly favorable slate of delegates approved at the state convention on Sunday; only one or two delegates of the 25 chosen appear favorably disposed to Trump.
The distinction here is the ground game, and knowing the rules, more so than it should be a condemnation of the GOP. 
There are those who say this is a coziness between the GOP, who they say abhors Trump, and Cruz, whom many would say they equally abhor. I disagree. If anything, it’s the GOP’s recognition that one team takes the process seriously, and the other does not.
Cruz has also gotten good results at state and local conventions in states that do hold a presidential preference vote. In fact, considering that relatively few states have completed their convention process, it’s remarkable how many examples you can find of Cruz cleaning Trump’s clock: for example, in Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and South Dakota.
The magic number is 75%–that’s how many delegates, in total, are selected by state GOP parties, and not the actual candidates or voters themselves. That means that up to 75% of Donald Trump delegates could, theoretically, be Ted Cruz supporters. Even if the real number is 10% or 20%, that’s a lot of delegates, and could be crucial to Cruz on a second or third ballot vote. And it goes without saying that theoretically “uncommitted” delegates are in practice strongly favored to support Cruz, for the same reasons.
The quandary for Trump supporter is this. If Trump is such a good businessman, able to negotiate the best deals and see the fine print, why is he so pathetic in understanding the game of the GOP, rules publicly available to all candidates? Cruz is stoic, stilted, mechanical and perhaps methodical to a fault. In this case, it’s working for him. He’s a detail guy, where Trump flies by the seat of his pants.
This is NOT an endorsement of Ted Cruz, as I have chosen not to endorse a candidate (I have problems with both). But unlike some others, I have stated I will support the Republican nominee no matter what, even if I have to hold my nose, and I will abide by my word.  

Saturday, April 9, 2016

Al Gore and Attorney Generals Launch Campaign Against Speech Criminals

Independent Sentinel - We have our first attack against “climate change” deniers by one of the 16 AGs who have formed a group specifically to go after the free speech of anyone who disagrees with their extreme views on climate change.

If you recall former Vice President and global warming guru Al Gore and 16 Attorneys General, calling themselves the “AGs United for Clean Power”, announced at a press conference last week that they will criminalize climate change denial by corporations.

This is meant to squelch dissent and free speech.

The first volley was lobbed by the US Attorney General for the Virgin Islands, one of the sixteen, and he is going after a powerful think tank, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). Are they our new thought police?


The CEI website describes their organization as a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing the principles of limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty. Our mission is to promote both freedom and fairness by making good policy good politics. We make the uncompromising case for economic freedom because we believe it is essential for entrepreneurship, innovation, and prosperity to flourish.

This is particularly shocking because they are going after a think tank, not an oil or gas company. Think about that!
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) today denounced a subpoena from Attorney General Claude E. Walker of the U.S. Virgin Islands that attempts to unearth a decade of the organization’s materials and work on climate change policy. This is the latest effort in an intimidation campaign to criminalize speech and research on the climate debate, led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and former Vice President Al Gore.
The subpoena requests a decade’s worth of communications, emails, statements, drafts, and other documents regarding CEI’s work on climate change and energy policy, including private donor information. It demands that CEI produce these materials from 20 years ago, from 1997-2007, by April 30, 2016.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman told the gaggle of press that “The bottom line is simple: Climate change is real” and if companies are committing fraud by “lying” about the dangers of climate change, they will “pursue them to the fullest extent of the law.”
READ MORE
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Ladies and Gentlemen, please be patient.
Your Thought Criminal IDs will be  issued to you shortly.........

Middle Finger Symphony Theater

* No Tuxedos Required *

Friday, April 8, 2016

Meanwhile....Back At the Bernie Sanders Campaign HQ

Life Past the End of Your Nose......

Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ….get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed - Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Then there's Doug:

(h/t Happy Acres)

Hillary's Five Swipes

Anyone remember G.H.W. Bush's Grocery Market Scanner Moment. The left went full retard and called him "Out of Touch" with ordinary people. Not so much with Hillary, as she pretends to rub shoulders with the average NYer. Guess she doesn't ride the sub to Goldman Sachs very often........ 

And to boot, she appears to have violated the Law.

(Screen Grab - NYP)

There Is One Similarity Between Trump Supporters and Sanders Supporters …

Let’s be clear: the differences between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are profound. Their policies, their dignity and their visions. Sanders is a crazy old Commie. Trump a self-absorbed ass.  Which is why I find their respective supporters’ opinions so interesting on one matter: lots of Trump’s supporters, and lots of Sanders’ as well, seem completely convinced that if their candidate is not the nominee, it will be the result of some conspiratorial combination of party leadership and media perfidy. 

According to some of Sanders’ supporters, then, it is in no way shape or form possible that Hillary Clinton has spent 30 years building connections in the Democratic Party, doing and calling in favors, and so has worked her way to a winning position. Instead, the recent party-joining Sanders is the “real” Democrat.  It’s all media and party bias.  Nor does it matter that the media has REALLY over-attended the Trump campaign, not Clinton’s.  It’s all party and media bias.

Likewise, for Trumpsters, it’s their guy or the highway, but he’s neither a Republican nor a credible national leader.  The fact large numbers of Republican voters and leaders might have qualms about supporting his celebrity candidacy is absurd on its face to such persons.  It’s all conspiracy all the time.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Bernie Gets a Grip

Bernie Sanders is standing by his criticism that Hillary Clinton isn't "qualified" to be president as the Democratic presidential candidates engage in an increasingly heated battle ahead of the New York primary.
While much of the media attention is focused on the race for the Republican nomination and the civil war that seems likely to break out in the GOP depending on how the nomination fight plays out, there’s suddenly a lot of acrimony on the Democratic side of the aisle.  This reminds one of the acrimony that existed at the end of the 2008 campaign between Clinton and Obama supporters, most of which ended up disappearing after the party convention. At the same time, though, when it’s viewed in conjunction with similar polling that shows large numbers of Republicans who say they would never support Donald Trump even if he did win the nomination, it could be an indication that we’re in for an interesting General Election campaign to say the least.

Has Ted Cruz Mastered the Intricacies of the GOP Primary Process?

by Rob Janicki
"It would appear so, but don't be mislead into thinking it was just a lucky break for Cruz.  Cruz began his assault on the GOP presidential nomination a year before he announced his candidacy.  While most of the other 16 original GOP presidential aspirants were traditionally about fundraising to finance their presidential ambitions, 
Ted Cruz, the political alchemist, was also creating a relatively unheard of means of determining the most probable demographic groups to focus on.   Not only did Cruz use the almost unheard of power of computer analytics of demographic groups, he also installed the most extensive grassroots political team in the 50 plus primaries and caucuses in the United States and its territorial holdings.
So what has made Cruz's campaign continue to grow as Trump's campaign has stalled in Wisconsin and Kasich's campaign simply picks up the crumbs from the Big Boy's table?  In other words, what separates Cruz's campaign from all the others?  The answer, in a phrase, is found in demographic analytics, rather than merely reading the tea leaves of polling.
The Cruz campaign has strategically delved into the voter demographics of every congressional district in America and its territories.  They found that every demographic set and sub set could be counted on to produce a quantifiable primary outcome.  They also came to believe that this analytical method was far more accurate and consistent over time than relying upon polling results to develop strategic targeting over the length of the campaign.
The Cruz campaign has managed to accurately analyze each and every demographic category and subset/s, and there are many subsets, to determine where their campaign targeting would be best utilized.  The Cruz Crew knows everyone in America who has voted or failed to vote in a Republican election going back decades.  They know how those votes were cast and this critical data can be found in their demographic analytical programs.  They know more about every voter's propensity on every issue than can be imagined....."   
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