JustOneMinute

Great Moments In Slacktivism

The Times describes the protests sweeping the nation following Trump's victory. Let's get the flavor:

Protesters Take Anti-Trump Message to His Doorstep, and Plan Next Steps

Thousands of demonstrators filled public squares, parks and streets in the country’s three largest cities on Saturday to protest President-elect Donald J. Trump, part of a wave of dissent that has swelled since the presidential contest last week.

They were transgender people, the children of immigrants, and parents toting infants on their back. They were families, students, and men and women of all ages and races. Many carried cardboard signs — “Show the world what the popular vote looks like,” read one, “Putin Won,” said another. As throngs marched through city streets, the participants joined in a cry of “Not my president!”

Despite my inevitable To Be Fair moment, do savor this; let me include a 'coffee cup down" warning:

Many protest leaders had supported Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the Democratic primary race and either did not vote or chose a third-party candidate in the general election...

Say what!?! I'm crying. tears of laughter, but still... OK, take a breath and...

To Be Fair, voting for Clinton in New York, California, Illinois or Chicago, site to some protests, could get you flagged for piling on and, given the subtleties of the Electoral College, not change the outcome.

However, per this article:

Demonstrations have taken place in Oakland, Calif.;Baltimore; Kansas City, Mo.; Milwaukee; Miami; and Portland, Ore.

Trump won Wisconsin (10 EV) by 47.9% to 46.9% so protestors there may have missed an opportunity.

Missouri went for Trump by 57%-38%  so the Kansas City crowd was probably never going to win their state.

There have also been protests in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania (20 EV) went for Trump by 48.8% to 47.6%.

Politico had Hillary at 228 Electoral votes to 290 for The Donald with Michigan and New Hampshire undecided. Flipping PA and WI would raise Hillary to 258, with 260 for Trump. We would probably then be experiencing the joys of a Michigan recount.

All of that happened in an alternative universe. In this one, whatever happened to Move On?

COLLECTING VICTIM CARDS: My two cent sociology on the crybully Trump protestors - on the left, people gain status points by their victimhood. "I'm a woman"; "I'm a black woman"; "I'm a gay black woman"; "I'm a gay black transgender woman"; "I'm a gay black transgender woman with a Muslim boyfriend (?)"; and so on.

The louder one screams at an anti-Trump rally the more one demonstrates their victimhood, their need for compassion and their entitlement to deference.

 

Away We Go

The media is still processing their grief so it is hard to take them seriously but I do like this lead from Jackie (Formerly) Calmes:

What Is Lost by Burying the Trans-Pacific Partnership?

WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders confirmed this week what seemed inevitable with the triumph of Donald J. Trump: The far-reaching trade agreement with 11 other Pacific Rim nations that President Obama hoped to leave as a major legacy, but which Mr. Trump called “a terrible deal,” is dead.

Wait, what's Trump got to do with it? Although she had worked on negotiating the deal and backed it at one time, Ms. Clinton had swung against it this election season. Surely it would have been just as dead had she been elected?

I know, right? That was then, and who knows with Hillary and her Chamber of Commerce Democratic supporters.

FWIW, the Times alluded to her malleability on this issue (and others) in their Sept 24 endorsement:

She helped promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an important trade counterweight to China and a key component of the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia. Her election-year reversal on that pact has confused some of her supporters, but her underlying commitment to bolstering trade along with workers’ rights is not in doubt.

QUESTIONS NO ONE IS ASKING: From Scott Shackford of Reason:

Will the Democrats Learn Anything at All from Defeat?

Other than whiteys are haters, which they already knew? No. But I love this:

What makes Clinton the "establishment" is not that she shared the same positions as "beltway insiders," but that she shared the same lack of them. They weren't positions so much as positioning. She didn't stand for anything at all.

But a deeper dive suggests that actually, in the end, she does stand for something, and that's government intervention in every single problem that exists, anywhere. It may not seem like policy played a role in this election, but I suspect in the end that's like saying that water plays no role in fish behavior. It was always in the background.

 

Remaining Calm And Carrying On

Anyone amused by epic progressive meltdowns can turn to Paul Krugman, who does not disappoint:

Thoughts for the Horrified

So what do we do now? By “we” I mean all those left, center and even right who saw Donald Trump as the worst man ever to run for president and assumed that a strong majority of our fellow citizens would agree.

Well, let's play a math game - I happen to agree that Trump was the least qualified man to be nominated in my lifetime, but Hillary was unarguably and indisputably the worst woman ever - EVER! - to be nominated by a major party. Also the best, of course, which comes from being the first, but Petrified Paul is not going to spend a nano-second on the possibility that maybe Hillary was not exactly a perfectly appealing candidate either. But that might be a possibility!

From Reason, based on Pew research polling:

Most Voters Expect Trump to be a Terrible President, But Thought Clinton Would Have Been Worse

I'm not afraid of their hyperbole; voters certainly had Clinton and Trump in the same basket of deplorables. From Pew:

Clinton also was viewed quite negatively; in fact, nearly two-thirds of voters (65%) said she was unlikely to run and open and transparent administration (55% said this about Trump). Clinton also was viewed as less likely than Trump to improve the way government works. However, more voters thought Clinton (48%) than Trump (42%) would improve U.S. standing around the world.

Pew had five relevant questions on the competence/character point. Clinton was viewed less favorably on transparency, improving government, and avoiding familial self-enrichment, while Trump lagged on improving the world standing of the US and, (by 42-38) setting a high moral standard for the Presidency.

Well, back to the meltdown (my emphasis):

And once we’re talking about intellectual honesty, everyone needs to face up to the unpleasant reality that a Trump administration will do immense damage to America and the world.

Say what?!? Many of us certainly faced up to the reality that both Trump and Clinton had the potential to do great damage to US domestic institutions and the world order. But where are the editors on this "unpleasant reality that a Trump administration will do immense damage"? Just what does that word "reality" mean to the reality-based community? Do they have a time portal now?

They don't - Paul presses on:

Of course I could be wrong; maybe the man in office will be completely different from the man we’ve seen so far. But it’s unlikely.

So "the reality" is that Trump will probably do grave damage unless he doesn't. Well, sure, and thanks for sharing.

The political damage will extend far into the future, too. The odds are that some terrible people will become Supreme Court justices.

"Terrible" presumably means "people I disagree with politically", not terrible as in sexually assaulting women, enabling of same, or using a government institutions and a charitable foundation for personal enrichment. Just by way of example.

States will feel empowered to engage in even more voter suppression than they did this year. At worst, we could see a slightly covert form of Jim Crow become the norm all across America.

Yeah, covert Jim Crow is coming to Los Angeles and New York City because those Blue Bastions can't be trusted. If only we had a federal system with power devolved to the states and cities.

And you have to wonder about civil liberties, too. The White House will soon be occupied by a man with obvious authoritarian instincts, and Congress controlled by a party that has shown no inclination to stand up against him. How bad will it get? Nobody knows.

"A party that has shown no inclination to stand up against him"? Oh, please - the National Review, the Never-Trumpers, the last two Presidential nominees, the Speaker of the House, and so on - no inclination at all?

So where does this leave us? What, as concerned and horrified citizens, should we do?

One natural response would be quietism, turning one’s back on politics.

He is announcing a long hiatus from his NY Times column and there IS a Merciful God!

Psych!

But that is, in the end, no way for citizens of a democracy — which we still are, one hopes — to live. I’m not saying that we should all volunteer to die on the barricades; I don’t think it’s going to come to that, although I wish I was sure.

I am sure we are all going to die, but on the barricades? Well, at one time Paulie worried about rotting in Gitmo, so maybe a quick, clean heroic death on the barricades at the Starbucks outside of Princeton doesn't look so bad. And let's not fault a guy for having an active inner fantasy life.

Gloom near his finish:

Maybe America isn’t special, it’s just another republic that had its day, but is in the process of devolving into a corrupt nation ruled by strongmen.

Right, Don't Cry For Me Argentina - there would not be a whiff of nepotism, corruption or state-sponsored pay-to-play if we had elected Hillary.

The road back to what America should be is going to be longer and harder than any of us expected, and we might not make it. (I know what he's thinking...) But we have to try.

Live free or die hard!

Well, shed no tears for Paul. He can go back to making many millions with a bi-annual "Why Trump Sucks Harder Than Bush" book, so he'll be fine as long as he keeps the attention of his audience. The calm, reflective prose noted above makes a start.

Russian Disinformation?

Even if Russia was behind the Wikileaks dump on Hillary, I always figured it was to embarrass her and the US process, not to aid Trump specifically.

So were the Russians in contact with the Trump campaign, as a Russian diplomat claims?

If this is an ongoing disinformation campaign intended to tie the US in knots, its working. And since the Russians have switched sided and are now hand-in-glove with the American Left, this is an alliance with legs.

And is it true? At this point, what difference does it make?

TROLL LEVEL: SCARY:

OK, the Russians have game here. I do love this:

There were no further details given [by the Russian side] on the claimed contacts, including names in the Trump campaign or other specifics.

Asked for clarification about the meetings, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova countered: “Are you paranoid?”

“It seems to me that you’re not far from having your own 1937,” she wrote in an electronic message, in a reference to the height of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s purges. “They’ll be putting people in prison as Russian spies.”

Scaring people who want to be scared will be a layup drill for them.

You Want Hot Takes?

We have hot takes, cold takes, new and old takes... but I think it will be hard to top Paul Krugman's prediction of a global Trump recessovery. Or something:

It will be an economic disaster unless it isn't. Thanks for playing, Paul!

 

Party On

I don't think I will any thought more profound than "Where's the coffee?", but have at it.

GLANCING AT THE TICKER: At noon Smith & Wesson is down 14% with the loss of their sales team of Obama and Clinton.

Live Updated Forecasts

I am finding this NY Times Election Night feature to be VERY cool. They update their state by state forecasts as returns come in, then update the probabilities of each candidate winning specific states and the overall election. Same features for House and Senate races and overall control.

Right now the non-arrival of the Hillary Juggernaut has led to her odds of victory dropping from the high 80's to, hmm, not to go crazy, but 49%. And yes, they have Hillary winning the national popular vote by 2.7%.

I think we have reached freak-out time at various Dem election night parties. For myself, I was watching Fox News for the defeatism, denial and despair. Now I have to switch to MSNBC to get that "live from my window ledge" coverage.

LEST YOU ASK: Updated election betting market odds here (Hillary 54%).

CNBC tracks financial futures markets here. The S&P 500 is getting crushed, down 67; Dow down 454.

WAITING FOR PEAK PANIC: The Times needle now points to 58% for Trump, with Hillary still winning the popular vote.

OFFICIALLY TOO CLOSE TO CALL, BUT... I don't have any sense of the track record of the NY Times modelers, but... they are giving Trump a better than 95% chance of winning in FL and OH.

Clinton exceeds 95% in VA. Let's see how these pan out.

HOUSE AND SENATE: Still with the Times at 10:34PM, the Republicans have the House and Senate in virtual lockdown at 95%+. That does include the high likelihood of Pence as the VP tie-breaker.

Watching The Detectives!

Election Eve is upon us and I am as excited as a kid at Christmas. Would you believe, a kid before an Easter Egg hunt? How about, a kid who just learned that his dentist appointment isn't for another hour?

I have given the challenge of getting through this evening a bit of thought, as I am sure many of you have. I imagine some, especially in California, will be hitting the soon-to-be-legal recreational weed. To each their own but for me, no way - back in the day a few puffs made time pass much more slowly, which is totally the opposite of the effect I am looking for. If it were tomorrow like, ten minutes ago that would be fine with me.

Steven Green et al will be drunkblogging at PJMedia, which seems like a smart middle-of-the-fairway choice. And I have some specific suggestions for the drinking crowd.

First, be thinking about using plastic cups or the light stemware from which one might daintily sip wine. Take care to avoid beer steins or manly whisky glasses. The notion here is that you want something light in your hand when you throw it at the television, which has to be a high-probability event tonight.

But for the manly scotchdrinkers , I say go with a twelve year old, and here is why - twelve years ago we had Bush-Kerry 2004 and who among us does not remember that night with a smile?

The early exit polls, leaked before any state polls had actually closed, were disastrous for Bush, and the Fox News reporters were broadcasting from convenient window ledges. I had to tear myself away from their long faces to head over to a party at the home of an ardent (and very amusing) Democrat who had a full house with champagne on ice.

Come eight o'clock polls closed in some states and we were all exhorted to shush so we could hear the quick calls for Kerry. Hmm, a mystery - states that were a landslide in the early exits were now too close to call. But party on!

Come nine o'clock, more polls closed, more states were available for projecting, and we were all shushed again to watch the Kerry wave, sure to break at any minute.

And again, nothing but "too close to call" in a bunch of 5 PM landslide states. Trouble in My Blue Heaven!

At about 9:30, some senior muckety-muck from Team Kerry came out to talk with the network anchor, and delivered five minutes of happy talk about hard work here and strong effort there and how it all looked good except for the places that looked great.

However! When he was done I turned to my frowning host and said, look, I don't claim to be the shrewdest judge of the human condition but if everything is so great for Kerry how come that guy looked like just before he sat down he was handed a note telling him his dog had been hit by a car and killed? I mean, is there some new fashion in happy faces that I missed?

And my host, who is a shrewd observer of the human condition, had a cogent explanation - "shut up".

Which I did. And over the next few hours the Bush supporters were raised out of the valley and the Kerry-ites were cast into darkness and it was beautiful. Although champagne did not flow freely at the end of the evening.

Well. Twelve year old scotch. And I don't imagine for a moment anything like that will happen tonight.

Hold Your Nose And Vote!

Casting a Presidential vote this year won't kill you (physically, anyway) if you take precautions.

Good attendance at this polling place.

After voting you get more than an "I Voted!" button:

And from Massachusetts we have a photo of - oh, man, you see this coming from a hundred miles away - John Kerry as a proud voter:

It's time to hero up and get this done!

Election Day!

Get thee to a polling place! Preferably yours, but wherever.

We made it through Monday with no more race-changing developments. Hillarity! once again eluded the short arm of the law and I've already got my new "Let's Make America Skate Again" cap to celebrate.

Her Inevitablity does seem to give a bit of a stagger as she gets off the airplane in this Drudge-linked video, but is it health-related? She is probably just more comfortable on her broomstick.

Speaking of which - I am so looking forward to this election being over. Sometime tonight the polls will close, the networks will declare a winner, and Hillary will hop on her broomstick and skywrite "Surrender Trump" against a beautiful moonlit sky. Something to tell the grandkids.

Ba dum. I'll be here all week. If "here" includes Canada.

Cleared For Landing

FBI head James Comey tells Congress he found nothing to change his course on Hillary and her Secret Server. Betting markets and the Biggest Casino of all deliver a Hillary bounce.

Not me just say that although I understand the inevitability of it, I loathe this Times framing:

Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, said in a post on Twitter that the campaign had always believed she would be cleared of any wrongdoing.

“We were always confident nothing would cause the July decision to be revisited,” Mr. Fallon said. “Now Director Comey has confirmed it.”

"Not enough evidence to charge" does not, in my mind, equal "cleared of any wrongdoing". And by the time he had finished his public press conference and follow-up Congressional hearing, Comey had made clear that Hillary had been reckless with national security secrets and dishonest with the public. Which is not news to the Times:

Hillary Clinton may not be indicted on criminal charges over her handling of classified email, but the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, all but indicted her judgment and competence on Tuesday — two vital pillars of her presidential candidacy — and in the kind of terms that would be politically devastating in a normal election year.

Or, after his Congressional appearance:

At a contentious hearing of the House oversight committee, Mr. Comey acknowledged under questioning that a number of key assertions that Mrs. Clinton made for months in defending her email system were contradicted by the F.B.I.’s investigation.

Mr. Comey said that Mrs. Clinton had failed to return “thousands” of work-related emails to the State Department, despite her public insistence to the contrary, and that her lawyers may have destroyed classified material that the F.B.I. was unable to recover. He also described her handling of classified material as secretary of state as “negligent” — a legal term he avoided using when he announced on Tuesday that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a case against her.

But "cleared of any wrongdoing" it is.

The Times is eager for some real reporting on a topic we all find interesting - what drove the timing of Comey's initial and final announcement?

Mr. Comey’s move is also sure to prompt questions from Democrats. Most important among them: Why did Mr. Comey raise the specter of wrongdoing before agents had even read the emails, especially since it took only days to determine that they were not significant?

...

The F.B.I. director’s vague, brief announcement on Oct. 28 left Mrs. Clinton with few details to rebut and little time to do it. Many current and former F.B.I. agents and Justice Department officials said Mr. Comey had needlessly plunged the F.B.I. into the politics of a presidential election, with no clear way out.

And yet, almost as if in answer to their own question, the Times continues:

Because of Mr. Comey’s Oct. 28 letter, Attorney General Loretta Lynch made completing a review of the emails a top priority. Late last month, Mr. Comey ordered agents to work around the clock to sift through the messages.

Hmm, a top priority with plenty of resources? Yet, if we believe this WSJ and CNN reporting, the Justice Department had gone sideways for since early October on the subtleties of obtaining a proper warrant and staffing a timely investigative effort. Hence the John Podhoretz view (which I share) - Comey may have been sending up a flare to illuminate the inactivity of DoJ slow-walkers who were hoping to unravel this latest steaming pile of Hillarity! sometime in mid-November, or December, or never. In this view, Comey wasn't interfering with an election, he was interfering with a partisan Administration cover-up, which the media could see if not for their partisan blinders.

So why are Democrats asking follow-up questions?  Are they really so confident that the deliberately slow investigative pace won't be seen as politically motivated?

Who knows? I have long since quit trying to out-think these bright lights. But To Be Fair, there is an alternative hypothesis. Suppose some FBI faction thought Clinton was getting off easy on the email thing and discovered the Abedin emails in early October. A "Get Clinton" cabal might have (Are you ready for some football?!?) decided to run the clock down as far as possible then kick a late field goal for the win.

So they stall the Abedin follow-up to a point where Comey might still be willing to go public (the last week before the election might not have been saleable), spring the surprise on Comey, who springs the surprise on Congress, and set off last week's pandemonium. And only the heroic intervention of right-minded DoJ officials managed to get Comey the warrants and people he needed to resolve this blatant dirty trick in a timely fashion, thereby Saving The Republic.

Well. Needless to say, I don't buy it, but that doesn't mean there aren't Democrats who might believe this or something like it. As to the truth, well, if if makes Obama and Hillary look good the MSM will have this story soon enough from their helpful Obama appointees. OTOH, if the truth reeks of cover-up one might think the FBI has people willing to spill to Fox News or the WSJ.

And a Bonus Thought: Mark Felt, of "Deep Throat" and Watergate fame, was apparently leaking to the Washington Post as an infighting tactic designed to get him the top job at the FBI. Even with Hillary's likely ascension there will be political shifts and rifts with the impending transition, so maybe Hillary loyalists will stick the knife to prospective Team Obama holdovers to make sure the Obamaites move out instead of up.

The truth may out. Maybe for the last time in the next four years.

A Guide For The Undecided

Paul Rahe has an excellent summary of my own view of the Trump/Clinton dilemma. His gist - Clinton is far more likely to fundamentally undermine certain pillars of our democracy. Obama, for example, began the weaponization of the IRS; Hillary will surely expand that so we have an FBI that only investigates Republicans. And she will get a Supreme Court justice likely to embrace Democratic notions favoring the restriction of "hate speech" regardless of the free speech concept we thought we grew up with.

Trump, on the other hand, will rattle the many alliances and understandings holding together a world order already under tremendous strain from the Obama Withdrawal.

So on balance, which of these two looming disasters is more survivable and, if we survive, more correctable? Mr. Rahe favors Trump but is willing to admit that thoughtful people may come to different conclusions.

Sunday Morning, Maybe

Don't forget to reset your clocks to Clinton Scandal Time.

AT THIS POINT WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE:

Clinton directed her maid to print out classified materials

As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton routinely asked her maid to print out sensitive government e-mails and documents — including ones containing classified information — from her house in Washington, DC, e-mails and FBI memos show. But the housekeeper lacked the security clearance to handle such material.

In fact, Marina Santos was called on so frequently to receive e-mails that she may hold the secrets to E-mailgate — if only the FBI and Congress would subpoena her and the equipment she used.

Clinton entrusted far more than the care of her DC residence, known as Whitehaven, to Santos. She expected the Filipino immigrant to handle state secrets, further opening the Democratic presidential nominee to criticism that she played fast and loose with national security.

And lest you are not yet vexed:

Santos also had access to a highly secure room called an SCIF (sensitive compartmented information facility) that diplomatic security agents set up at Whitehaven, according to FBI notes from an interview with Abedin.

From within the SCIF, Santos — who had no clearance — “collected documents from the secure facsimile machine for Clinton,” the FBI notes revealed.

Just how sensitive were the papers Santos presumably handled? The FBI noted Clinton periodically received the Presidential Daily Brief — a top-secret document prepared by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies — via the secure fax.

But this has all been investigated, except for a lot of it:

Yet it appears Clinton was never asked by the FBI in its yearlong investigation to turn over the iMac Santos used to receive the e-mails, or the printer she used to print out the documents, or the printouts themselves.

As The Post first reported, copies of Clinton’s 33,000 allegedly destroyed e-mails still exist in other locations and could be recovered if investigators were turned loose to seize them. Higher-ups at the Justice Department reportedly have blocked them from obtaining search warrants to obtain the evidence.

It also appears the FBI did not formally interview Santos as a key witness in its investigation.

First, maybe appearances deceive and the FBI did interview her and search her laptop. But why bother? Investigating her computer to see if hackers had gained access to it could only upset the apple-cart, and who wants that?

Back At 'Em

OK, I am staggering to the Election Finish Line with renewed fervor! After limping around since April with a sore this and a strained that, I finally had x-rays taken in September, which culminated in my Halloween Treat of a hip replacement surgery. What's the old saying? "Laugh and the world laughs with you; cry and you get Democratic votes"? (I might need to Google that). In any case, the first orthopedists I spoke with said they might be able to schedule me for surgery next January, to which one of my devoted daughters replied, 'Wow, and we're not even Canadian!".

But this is America, and we can do better! And after some recuperation and rehab I will be doing better again. The doctor did not actually promise to make Tom Maguire great again, but that is the plan.

And I am sure you're curious, so yes - I did ask each doctor if I would be able to play the piano after the operation. In what I take as a tribute to the high quality of our medical educational system, none of them actually fell for that old chestnut. Nor did I collect a prize for being the Millionth Patient to attempt that joke, but hey - if every little comic foray paid off I'd be writing for David Burge or something.