Archive for February 2016
Super Tuesday predictions
(1) Trump will win every state except Texas.
(2) Trump will perform better than expected based on what people think the state polls say (except perhaps in Texas where Cruz surely has a ground game advantage given that it’s his home state). Perhaps a lot better. Remember that Trump outperformed the polls in New Hampshire (a primary state) and Nevada (a caucus state).
The reasons why Trump didn’t especially outperform polls in South Carolina is that he had a bad week going into South Carolina.
Trump has had a very good week going into Super Tuesday. He won a big win in Nevada. He did fine in the debate; he was the way Trump normally is but there were no shocking attacks on Republican orthodoxy and no booing of him like in the debate before South Carolina. Trump received a huge endorsement from Christ Christie and a significant endorsement from Jeff Sessions (Cruz supporters know who he is, as do all of the voters in Alabama). These endorsements boost Trump’s social proof.
Trump has momentum. The most recent polls released today show a huge surge for Trump. 49% in a national poll, 51% in Massachusets, 42% in Alabama, these are the best numbers that Trump has polled ever and they are coming in right before the big day.
(3) The mainstream media (MSM) spin will be that Trump had a huge victory and is unstoppable. Some people may think it’s surprising that the MSM will spin things in Trump’s favor, because everyone knows they hate Trump.
The media’s spin is based on expectations, and not only will Trump beat the expectations of polls of the last two weeks, but Trump will totally demolish what were the long-term expectations of the MSM. For months and months, the MSM did not believe that polls showing Trump in the lead would translate into real votes in real elections. They always believed that Trump would magically disappear and a “serious” candidate would show up on Super Tuesday to supplant Trump, if it didn’t happen before then.
Cruz’s win in Texas will be discounted as Cruz only being able to win his home state. Which is the correct analysis.
Hugh Hewitt “cuckservative”
I hate that I am starting to use that term, but it seems to so well encapsulate this sort of behavior. From an article at The Hill:
Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt expressed disbelief on Monday with Donald Trump’s handling of support from white nationalist David Duke.
“It’s inexplicable,” he told host Carol Costello on “CNN Newsroom.” “I don’t know what Donald was thinking yesterday.”
Hewitt argued that Trump must have familiarity with Duke given the former Ku Klux Klansman’s notoriety.
“I can’t imagine anybody who wants to be president not knowing who David Duke is,” he said. “[Trump] had denounced David Duke two days ago.”
Hugh Hewitt is shamelessly trying to score points with liberals by showing how anti-racist he is, even though Trump never said anything good about David Duke and disavowed him twice during the last few days. Hewitt happily throws Trump—the only chance to put a stop to open borders and amnesty—under the bus in order to score points with liberals.* By buying into the liberal narrative, he empowers it and gives the liberals even more ammunition to take down anyone they disagree with by calling them “racist.”
Trump said, “Just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke, OK?” In fact, everyone in the chattering class is also clueless about David Duke. All you are supposed to know about him is a very simple narrative that goes as follows:
David Duke once had some sort of leadership position in the KKK.
The KKK is racist and therefore really really evil.
David Duke is a high-level racist and therefore really really evil, even more so than regular racists.
This is not to say that I agree with David Duke and his ilk. They are vile Jew haters who are doing more harm to the interests of white (both Jewish and gentile whites) non-elite Americans than helping them. But at least I understand something about their beliefs and goals, unlike Hugh Hewitt or the guy from CNN who sandbagged Trump with that question.
Clearly what Trump meant by his remark is not “I don’t know who he is” but rather “I know very little about David Duke or what he believes because I don’t associate with him, I never met him, I certainly don’t read any of the stuff that he writes, and I have no idea why he would endorse me, or even that he did endorse me.” The MSM is trying unsuccessfully spin this into “Trump is a racist” because he didn’t grovel properly. And even if he did grovel, it would have been taken as proof of Trump’s guilty mind, proving that he’s a racist.
*Actually, Hewitt was always one of those sell-out “conservatives” who favored being soft on immigration.
* * *
Commenter “Tarl” writes: “I didn’t even know David Duke was still alive. When was he last in the news – 1992?”
Actually, Duke writes columns in which he blames the Jewish Conspiracy for everything, and he has a pretty big following among the Stormfront people.
* * *
“gothamette” writes:
This may be another case of Trump’s luck. Most people realize that he’s not responsible for whatever whacko endorses him, and it takes away attention from Trump U – a genuine problem.
Wow, this is a good point! The MSM is so obsessed with the racism angle they are missing hitting Trump where he’s legitimately weakest.
Outrageous Facebook censorship against right wing
Facebook Inc.Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg vowed to rid his site of hate speech against migrants and lauded Germany’s leadership in the refugee crisis as part of an effort to win over those critical of the social media site’s handling of the matter.
“We’ve recognized how sensitive this is, especially with the migrant crisis here,” Zuckerberg said to thunderous applause at a town hall event in Berlin on Friday carried live on German cable news channels. “We hear the message loud and clear and we’re committed to doing better, there’s not a place for this kind of content on Facebook.”
Zuckerberg said about 200 people in Germany will police the site to remove racist posts, his clearest public remarks on the issue since Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government complained that the social network wasn’t doing enough to crack down on racists outbursts. …
Reading between the lines, there’s going to be a massive censorship force — 200 people — to silence anyone who dares to disagree with Merkel’s open borders policy or voice the opinion that, perhaps, allowing millions of Muslims into Germany is bad for non-Muslim Germans.
New post-Nevada national poll has Trump at 49%!
Trump 49%
Rubio 16%
Cruz 15%
Carson 10%
Kasich 6%
I’ve been saying for a long time that the social proof of Trump winning early primaries and caucuses would increase his support, and that Trump’s “ceiling” of support would be well over 50%.
We see my predictions coming true in this most recent CNN/ORC poll.
This poll also points out that Trump is actually weakest in the South where he has to deal with the Super Tuesday primary. If Trump wins every state except for Texas (likely based on polls), Trump is unstoppable in less evangelical states where Trump is even stronger. The bellwether for how well Trump will do after Super Tuesday is how well he does in Massachusetts.
The David Duke/KKK accusations against Trump
This is just another sandbagging question by the liberal MSM to try to make Trump look like a “racist” because someone supports him. No matter how Trump answers the question, the MSM smugly thinks they made Trump look like a “racist.”
Hillary also has millions of supporters, and I’m sure there are some miscreants, villains and bad characters among that group, but Hillary never gets asked questions like that because the MSM is on her side.
Trump did his usual thing, which is to NOT start acting like a “cuckservative” when the MSM does stuff like that to him. As soon as he starts putting MSM questions into a hierarchy into which some of them are deserving of a cuckservative response, he has lost to them.
No one voting for Trump cares about this incident. This is just the liberal MSM talking to themselves about how “racist” Trump is, which is what they have been doing already for the last eight months. This is not going to hurt Trump on Super Tuesday. That Trump stands up to the political correctness that the MSM uses to control all of the other Republicans is why the voters like Trump.
Trump hurt himself before South Carolina by going against Republican orthodoxy at the debate beforehand. Trump had a fine debate in Texas this week, and Trump is probably going to say, after he sweeps Super Tuesday, that he’s not doing any more Republican debates because he has won and the only reason the GOP wants to hold more debates is because they are out to get him, and if any other candidate had as strong of a lead as he did after Super Tuesday there would be no more debates, and Trump would be right about that.
* * *
Did Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, really disavow Trump, or is it just a rhetorical advice to allow him to continue to praise Trump while maintaining plausible deniability?
“We all want a saint-like president with brilliant and rational policies, but a saint would never make it through the primaries.”
I personally just want a president with Mitt Romney’s demeanor but with Trump’s policies on immigration. Romney was able to make it through the primaries, but he was not able to make it past the blue-collar white vote in Rust Belt states. I believe that Trump can win the Rust Belt, even Pennsylvania which has been voting Democratic in presidential elections since 1992.
Anomalisa
What a depressing movie.
After watching it, I looked online to see if it won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film while I was watching, but it did not. Can’t say I’m surprised that they gave it to Inside Out instead.
Rated R for full puppet frontal nudity and puppet cunnilingus.
Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama endorses Trump today
Very big for Trump! Cruz wanted his endorsement badly. Could help move some votes from Cruz to Trump on Super Tuesday. Especially considering that Cruz always praises Jeff Sessions whenever he has the opportunity; the guy Cruz himself has sanctified as the Senatorial authority on immigration restriction supports Donald Trump.
How to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art
“Yakov” writes in a comment:
Tell us about your trip to the museum. I’m dying to go, but haven’t been in years – too much work. Working this Sunday and as far as I can see in the future. Terrible. My life is very beastly, sometimes. So blog about the museum, will you?
They try to make it appear like you have to pay $25 to get in, but actually the museum is legally required, based on a very old deal with New York City, to allow people to visit for free. I always give a single dollar, because I would feel extra cheap giving a penny, or explaining that I want to enter for free. I suspect that one dollar is the most common donation of people who don’t pay the full price. This is not a deal that the current management of the museum is happy about and they would not make it today if they were doing things over again.
The best entrance is the handicapped entrance to the left of the big stairs leading up to the main entrance. This side entrance is a lot less crowded.
The coat check is free and you are not supposed to tip. So take advantage of the coat check!
At the cafeteria in the basement, the food is about 75% more expensive than food at a regular self-service type of lunch place in Manhattan, but pretty convenient, and plenty of seats on a weekday. They give out free water just outside of the cash registers, so don’t waste your money on buying an overpriced soft drink; water is healthier and a lot less expensive. You are supposed to bus your own tray after you finish eating; you should do that in order to not be an obnoxious slob.
The museum has the expected large collection of paintings from famous artists, but there is a lot of other stuff such as statues from ancient Rome and Greece, a big collection of Egyptian artifacts, arms and armor, furniture, costumes (I suspect that gay men like that exhibit), musical instruments, knickknacks etc.
Through May 15th, there is a hugely significant exhibit of Vigée Le Brun paintings. Make sure you see it before all of the paintings are sent back to European museums and private collectors.
I wish they had twentieth-century and contemporary landscape paintings, but unfortunately they don’t have any of that because it’s considered “kitsch” and not worthy of being in a museum. They just have the normal crap that’s considered museum-worthy modern and contemporary art. I suggest you avoid that part of the museum unless you’ve seen everything else. I don’t even know why they are wasting exhibit space on that stuff, the city already has two other museums for that stuff, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum.
There’s too much to see in just one day. Also, most of their medieval art collection is at The Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park. You should go there too sometime. Same admission rules.
How goes Minnesota for Trump?
Minnesota has a caucus on Super Tuesday. There hasn’t been a Republican Minnesota poll since January, which showed that Rubio was ahead of Trump.
Well a lot has happened since January and you can’t go by what people thought in January. Since then, Trump won New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. Many candidates previously in the race dropped out. Given that Trump does especially well in blue states, and proved in Nevada that he can win big in a caucus state, I predict that Minnesota caucus-goers vote for Trump despite that poll in January.
Rubio pushed amnesty in a big way
Devastating (for Rubio) article in yesterday’s NY Times about how Rubio’s role in the “Gang of Eight” was to sell the amnesty bill (cleverly called “comprehensive immigration reform”) to conservative media like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.
What a turncoat. Thank you, New York Times, for printing this.
Lion of the Blogosphere 