Trump’s approval rating hits 50+

The New Neo Posted on by

I actually don’t pay all that much attention to the ups and downs of approval ratings. People are fickle; they forget what happened last week and ask “what have you done for me lately?” And people are unfickle (yes, I know that’s not a word), and some will never desert their candidate no matter what (as Trump himself famously said).

Nevertheless I thought I’d point out that Trump’s approval numbers went up shortly after his SOTU speech. It doesn’t surprise me; the speech was excellent.

But the smallness of the bump doesn’t surprise me, either, because most people probably didn’t listen to it and most of those who did are probably already pretty set in their opinions of Trump.

Donald Trump’s job approval rating among likely U.S. voters hit 52 per cent on Monday in a daily tracking poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports, the polling organization he uses most frequently to promote himself.

That number is his highest since March 6, 2017, less than seven weeks after he took office. It has been even longer since Trump’s ‘strongly approve’ and ‘strongly disapprove’ numbers weren’t under water. They were even at 39 per cent on Monday.

Can you imagine what his numbers might be if the press wasn’t engaged in a 24/7 effort to destroy him?

Friday is the deadline—the “looming deadline”—for the budget negotiations and possible shutdown. I don’t see a solution on the horizon, and if there’s another shutdown I’m unsure how it will go. The public tends to blame shutdowns on the Republicans no matter whether the current president is a Republican or not.

I’m also not sure whether Trump will be successful in his efforts to come up with alternative funding for the wall. But I do know that the left must be feeling quite frustrated at the moment at his rising poll numbers. Of course, they take the long view—the really long view—so they’ll keep their spirits up.

[NOTE: This isn’t really all that related, but I wanted to mention that I’ve spoken recently to two leftists I know (one a close friend and the other a bare acquaintance) who love, love, love AOC.]

Sandmann’s lawyer announces Nathan Phillips to be sued, despite his shallow pockets

The New Neo Posted on by

Good:

One of the attorneys representing Covington High School student Nick Sandmann and his parents confirmed to LifeSiteNews that Native American activist Nathan Phillips, and some of the others who have received notices from the attorneys, “will be sued.”

Lin Wood, an Atlanta-based lawyer, told LifeSite yesterday that Phillips’ “lies and false accusations” against Sandmann and the other Covington students are “well documented.”

They’re well-documented, all right. And most people—even many of those who’ve followed the story plenty closely—don’t know how extremely vicious Phillips was towards the boys, as I pointed out in this post. He repeatedly committed the malicious and purposeful character assassination of a bunch of high school students, and would have gotten away with it if the longer videos hadn’t surfaced.

He deserves to be sued, even though he almost certainly doesn’t have the money to pay. It’s important to set a precedent about defamation and its consequences—although perhaps the precedent set will be that, if you defame someone and you’re not rich, you won’t suffer much and you’ll get more than your 15 minutes of fame. I have little doubt that many leftist groups will fall all over themselves to provide good attorneys for Phillips.

Gladys Knight will survive

The New Neo Posted on by

Gladys Knight’s been in the news lately for her great rendition of the national anthem at the Superbowl, and for showing what a tool Don Lemon is:

That sent me on a stroll down YouTube memory lane in search of some Gladys Knight oldies. Among them I found a 1982 cover by Knight that I’d never heard before. In it, she’s singing a song made famous by Gloria Gaynor during disco’s heyday (1978), “I Will Survive.”

Gaynor’s version, the original and her most famous hit, was upbeat and had a distinct disco flavor. And although it had no backup singers and a simpler production than most disco numbers—or maybe because of those things—it was extraordinarily popular. Here’s Gaynor (and some funky skater; don’t know what’s up with that). The video has almost 60 million views, which is pretty darn good for an oldie:

Knight’s version is different. Very very different—although like Gaynor, she wears a fabulous sparkly gown, a sleeveless one this time. Knight’s version is much slower (up until the last minute, when she picks up the pace and becomes celebratory), and there’s an emphasis on acting out the lyrics. Knight’s telling a story—masterfully—and not just singing a song. And you believe her story, which is of survival over pain, a story that becomes more powerful over its course. Yes, perhaps she’s overacting, but it’s utterly convincing to me. Just watch her eyes as she says, “Oh no, not I!” at 1:30-1:34:

Brilliant.

[NOTE: The song became something of an anthem for women after being dumped or having other disappointments, but it was written by two men, Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris. It was Fekaris who wrote the bulk of the lyrics:

…Dino Fekaris revealed [the song] was about getting fired by Motown Records, where he was a staff writer.

He told Songfacts: “They let me go after almost seven years. I was an unemployed songwriter contemplating my fate. I turned the TV on, and there it was: a song I had written for a movie theme titled ‘Generation’ was playing right then (the song was performed by Rare Earth).

“I took that as an omen that things were going to work out for me. I remember jumping up and down on the bed saying, ‘I’m going to make it. I’m going to be a songwriter. I will survive!'”]

Sex on the decline around the world

The New Neo Posted on by

Sex is a strong drive in human beings for a reason: the life of the species depends on it. But in this age of what might seem like no-holds-barred sex, sex has lost its luster for an enormous number of people.

The phenomenon is extremely widespread, and particularly common in Asia:

The Atlantic recently described a “sex recession” in the United States and most western countries, with fewer people dating and even those in relationships getting intimate less often than in the past, while fewer enjoy regular bonds of any kind. Even ogling seems out of fashion, as the decline of Hooters suggests. The family may have been stressed by the “sexual revolution,” but the “sex recession” could ultimately erode the very existence of familialism in our time.

The most extreme cases of libidinous decline are in Asia. In 2005, a third of Japanese single people ages 18 to 34 were virgins; by 2015 this expanded to 43 percent. A quarter of men over 50 never marry. This “sex recession” even impacts places like Hong Kong’s famous Wan Chai “red light” district, now being reinvented as an upscale hipster area as the sex trade plummets. China’s current generation of men are so socially disconnected that the Communist Party, and some private firms, now teach them how to date; similar attempts have been made, with apparently little effect, in Singapore.

The article goes on to explore many possible reasons; this seems to be one of those multiply-determined events. The ubiquity of online porn, the widespread availability of sex toys and robots, the imbalance between numbers of men and women in some countries (China, for example), the rise of social (virtual) media and concurrent fall in face-to-face social skills among young people, the higher cost-benefit ratio of raising children—they’re all part of the picture and discussed in the article.

But I want to add a few more:

(1) Feminism and leftism in general have played down the importance of family and procreation.

(2) There is a worldwide decline in testosterone, as well. Since testosterone (for both men and women) is the hormone fueling the sex drive, this must have some sort of dampening effect.

(3) Increasing obesity can reduce the sex drive as well—and I’m not talking about esthetics here, I’m talking about biological reasons.

(4) Men have become increasingly fearful of the increased risk of ruinous accusations from females as a result of sexual interactions that had appeared to the man to be consensual.

(5) When something like sex is forbidden or at least restricted, it can become more attractive: forbidden fruit. When all is allowed sexually, sex can seem to lose its value and appeal.

On that last point, I would like to recommend the closing chapter in Milan Kundera’s masterful The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. The story is entitled “The Border.” Here’s an excerpt that appears towards the end, set on a nude beach (“Jan” is a man, by the way; Kundera is a Czech author), describing what Jan is imagining and thinking as he lies on the sand, nude. The excerpt can’t convey more than a glimpse of what the story itself conveys, but here it is anyway:

Jan remem­bered Daphnis. He is lying down, spellbound by Chloe’s nakedness, aroused but with no knowledge of what that arousal is summoning him to, so that the arousal is endless and unappeasable, limited and interminable. A great yearning gripped Jan’s heart, a desire to go back again. Back to that boy. Back to man’s begin­nings, to his own beginnings, to love’s beginnings. He desired desire. He desired the pounding of the heart. He desired to be lying beside Chloe unaware of fleshly love. Unaware of sexual climax. To transform himself into pure arousal, the mysterious, the incomprehensible and miraculous arousal of a man before a woman’s body. And he said out loud: “Daphnis!”

Jan’s friend and companion on the beach, a woman named Edwige, responds that “we need to go back to a time before Christianity crippled mankind. Is that what you mean?” This is a total misunderstanding of what Jan actually means, but he lets it slide. The story concludes:

…Edwige said [to a group of people on the beach]: “Jan was just saying that it’s Daphnis Island. I think he’s right.”

All of them were delighted by that stroke of inspiration, and a man with an extraordinary paunch developed the idea that Western civilization is going to perish and that humanity will finally be liberated from the enslaving burden of the Judeo-Christian tradition. These were phrases Jan had heard ten, twenty, thirty, a hundred, five hundred, a thousand times before, and those few meters of beach soon turned into a lecture hall. The man spoke, all the others listened with interest, and their bare genitals stared stupidly and sadly at the yellow sand.

That was published in 1978, over forty years ago.

Of all the Virginia officials in trouble, Justin Fairfax may be the one on the way out

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s hard to say what will happen politically in Virginia these days, there have been so many surprises lately. But it seems that of all the accused public officials in the state, it’s Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax who may be the one to go. Even the Democrats are asking him to resign, and yet when the news of Governor Northam’s youthful blackface escapades (or at least, a photo of someone’s escapade on his med school yearbook page) surfaced, it was widely held that Fairfax would be an excellent replacement.

But then a credible allegation (see this for my discussion of the word “credible”) of sexual assault surfaced against Fairfax. Now, “credible” doesn’t mean “true”—it merely means “possibly true.” But then a similar accusation against the lieutenant governor was made by another woman, and this one seems to have turned the tide against Fairfax:

The thing that makes the accusation of the second woman, Meredith Watson, especially strong is that she apparently wrote about it to a friend in an email dated 2016, long before the accusation by Fairfax’s other accuser Vanessa Tyson became public, and that they seem to be describing incidents that were similar. Here’s more about Watson’s email:

The statement also says Watson told her friends about the incident in a “series of emails and Facebook messages” that are in the firm’s possession. In one of those emails, obtained by The Daily Beast, Watson told a Duke alumni who invited her to a 2016 Fairfax fundraiser that Fairfax raped her…

“Justin raped me in college and I don’t want to hear anything about him,” Watson responded to the email on Oct. 25, 2016. “Please, please, please remove me from any future emails about him please.”

In Facebook messages also obtained by The Daily Beast, Watson sent someone a link to an article about Fairfax running for the state’s lieutenant governor spot in March 2017. “This is absolutely disgusting! This dude raped me,” she wrote.

Watson then went onto say that she wanted “to say something” because she thought he “shouldn’t be running for office but she didn’t know what to do. When the individual suggested she speak out, Watson expressed doubt.

“But let’s face it, rape accusations barely carry any weight” without a name attached, she wrote.

The firm, Smith Mullin, also claims they have corroborating statements from Watson’s former classmates.

I am not, and never have been, in the camp of “believe the woman.” And even now, it is possible that both of Fairfax’s accusers are lying, and that they had some sort of motive to lie to friends earlier. But an email with a date is evidence of a different order—it establishes the strong likelihood that Watson made the claim before she had ever heard Tyson’s claim—unless of course they knew each other and had been in communication in some way.

That latter sort of possibility is one of the reasons we ordinarily have trials to establish guilt or innocence. A story can seem airtight on the surface and yet fall apart on investigation. But in the court of public opinion—which is where this is being tried—the story of this particular accuser and the documentation behind it makes a much stronger case than the accusations against someone like Kavanaugh, for example, which were remarkably weak.

As I wrote back in 2014 in a more general discussion about evaluating such he-said/she-said accusations:

I don’t care how many women pile on with similar stories; it’s the quality and timing of their stories that matter. Yes, women (and men, and children) sometimes lie, and not all that infrequently either. They also often tell the truth. However, I would be more convinced it was the truth if the people telling these rape stories were coming forward before the other stories had been publicized.

Timing and documentation of that timing are of the utmost importance in evaluating such stories. And with the Fairfax accusations, we have something that many of the other cases lack: an early and documented second accuser unlikely to have been influenced by the first.

Does that mean that both accusers are telling the truth? No. They could both be lying, and it could be a coincidence that their stories seem similar. They could both be mistaken. Their memories could be flawed, or if not their memories then their perceptions at the time. They may not have communicated their reluctance for such sexual contact, even though they think they did.

As I indicated earlier, those are the sorts of questions lawyers could explore in a court, with many protections for the defendant. But I don’t think this will ever come to that, and in the absence of a full exploration of the evidence, I’d say it appears more likely than not that Fairfax committed these acts, although he strongly denies them. That opinion of mine rests almost entirely on the timing and documentation of Watson’s (the second accuser’s) accusations.

Is a border deal in the offing?

The New Neo Posted on by

This is being reported:

Democrats appear willing to agree to funding for some new fencing in targeted areas as well as upgrades to existing barriers, they told the Washington Examiner.

The deal is likely to cover far fewer miles than Trump wants, however, and the barriers will be far less robust than the steel slat wall Trump favors.

Shelby would not disclose whether Trump would agree to less than the $5.7 billion he has requested for border barriers, or a wall, as he calls it. But he hinted Trump may be willing to make a deal on price.

Blah blah blah. I don’t buy any of these reports; I’ll believe a deal when I see one. I really don’t see Trump caving as much as this report says, particularly on the issue of wall vs. fence.

Why on earth do the Democrats care whether it’s a wall or fence? Simple: they don’t, really. But since a wall was such a signature part of Trump’s campaign and SOTU promises, they are determined to deny it to him.

The Green New Deal and the left’s grand plan [Part I]

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is such a huge topic that I’m splitting it into parts.]

There’s a lot of derision on the right about the Green New Deal. It goes something like this: it’s so stupid, and so against what the American people want, that it exposes the left to ridicule and will ultimately facilitate the re-election of Donald Trump.

Well, maybe. Maybe that will happen. But I have grave doubts, and I don’t think the GND is stupid. Yes, it may be stupid in the sense of violating our current knowledge about energy generation, or what is practical, as well as financial reality, and the like. But it’s not meant to make sense in that way; it’s meant to make political sense.

But how can that be, if most people can see through it? My answer is that I don’t think most people can see through it, and certainly not enough to make it a losing proposition for most Democratic candidates to hop on board.

But how can I say that? Isn’t it very very extreme, so extreme it will alienate people? For the answer, just do what I did: spend a few hours reading MSM sites and seeing reactions from Democrats. It’s an education in how the GND is being responded to, and why the Democratic candidates have all hopped aboard the extremist green social justice jobs for everyone train.

Last night I watched a clip of some liberal spokesperson or other being quizzed by a conservative as to what she agreed with in the details of the GND. “Its spirit” was all she could come up with, but for her it was enough. She seemed embarrassed when asked about particulars and couldn’t endorse any, but she pooh-poohed—almost ridiculed—the need for details.

I doubt there are many Democratic politicians able to defend many (if any) of the GND manifesto’s specific provisions. And yet many have endorsed it. Why is that? For example, Kamala Harris is all in; she is the proposal’s co-sponsor, and tweeted this after its release:

California senator Kamala Harris (D.) has signed on as a cosponsor of Green New Deal legislation unveiled on Thursday morning, writing in an email to supporters that climate change is an “existential threat to our country, our planet, and our future.”

Harris announced her support for the plan shortly after she launched her presidential run last month, but the details of the proposed federal government-led economic overhaul of the country were not released until Friday…

“Bold action takes bold leadership,” said the 2020 presidential contender, “and I’m grateful to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [D., N.Y.] and Senator Ed Markey [D., Mass.] for leading the charge on this critical resolution.”

Nancy Pelosi is no dummmy; she seemed on the one hand to look down on the GND, but on the other hand she apparently set the tone for the spokesperson I saw on the show (liking the spirit). Pelosi had stated this:

“Frankly, I haven’t seen it, but I do know it’s enthusiastic, and I welcome all the enthusiasm,” Pelosi told reporters, just hours before Green New Deal sponsors Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) held their own press conference…

It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive,” Pelosi told Politico. “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it right?”

See? She is playing both ends here, and AOC played her own part of the game quite well in response:

…I think it is a green dream. I don’t consider to be that a dismissive term,” she said. “Nancy Pelosi is a leader on climate, has always been a leader on climate, and I will not allow our caucus to be divided up by silly notions of whatever narrative. We are in this together.”

The article makes it clear that Pelosi wants some climate change legislation. My guess is that it’s just as I wrote yesterday—hers will seem mild compared to AOC’s. They are indeed in this together.

Since virtually all the Democratic candidates are on board with the GND, this should be used in 2020 by Republicans in the campaign against them. That’s obvious. So why are so many Democratic candidates doing it (and read this article for a refresher on how awful the GND is)?

They know their base will love it—especially young people, but more about that later. And Democrats are counting on the notion that most of the rest of the public will not be paying much attention to the details of the GND, or at least will like the “enthusiasm.”

I was very curious how on earth the MSM would spin this to make it sound plausible. I had little doubt that they would, however, because their goal has been to support the Democrats. I decided to read this New Yorker piece as an example, and I learned exactly what I wanted to know.

If you had read it without reading the Green New Deal text, you’d think the GND to be a rather moderate, ho-hum, slight extension of things that had gone before (ABC took a similar approach). You would have no idea of its lunacy, its extreme radicalism and sweep, and its utter impossibility of implementation without beggaring the country. And of course, most people will almost certainly not read the text of the Green New Deal; they will rely on the MSM to tell them what it really is, and the MSM will keep the focus soft and fuzzy and friendly.

From that article:

It is an even clearer sign than growing Democratic support for single-payer health care that the era of Clintonian triangulation is over—that the question leading Democrats are asking is not whether the Party should move left but how far left it should go.

The resolution is also in keeping with the Democratic Party’s longstanding strategy on climate—the Party has long assumed, probably correctly, that major climate action is unlikely unless addressing the crisis is woven securely into the Party’s economic agenda. A job guarantee, as radical as it seems, is an extension of the same logic that led the Obama Administration to tout the creation of green jobs.

The job guarantee is not some thing that was arbitrarily tacked on; it is integral and a way to sweeten the attraction to the average voter. Another big clue is here:

Of course, no bill they propose will be taken up unless Democrats win the White House in 2020, unseating a President who has claimed repeatedly that climate change is a hoax.

Got it? This GND initiative is a counter to Trump, that troglodyte non-believer in AGW. The GND is not meant to be serious legislation for now, but to burnish the Democrats’ reputation as caring about climate change and the Republicans’ reputation for not caring. And the Democrats are counting on just about no one—except the right, and the far left—to read what’s actually in the GND.

Meanwhile, think about this: the Democratic Party wins these days by appealing to blocs of voters who will vote nearly monolithically for Democrats. Just as one example, black voters. “Young people” are also a bloc that puts Democrats over the top in many races. And many many of today’s young people are terrified of AGW. They have been taught in school from early grades on that it is a dire problem staring us in the face, and that—as AOC has helpfully pointed out prior to releasing the GND—the planet is at risk in the next decade and something drastic must be done or the world is in dire peril. If a person believes that, and believes that science supports it, that person will almost certainly vote for people advocating extreme measures—particularly if that person is unaware of the science and math and history that make those measures very very dangerous as well as unlikely to succeed. The idea is that desperate measures require desperate defenses, and the Democrats are at least willing to take measures that the GOP will not.

Do not estimate the powerful appeal of this to many many people. The Democrats have no intention of passing anything like these proposals for now. The plan for now is to use it all for a cudgel in 2020 and gain more power, and then they can do just about anything they want.

It may not work, but it’s not stupid—not if your goal is power and control.

What the Green New Deal wants to eliminate: the nuclear power plant, and then the cow fart

The New Neo Posted on by

Or is it the other way around?

From OAC’s Green New Deal [emphasis mine]:

…[W]e are calling for a full transition off fossil fuels and zero greenhouse gases…we spell this out through a plan that calls for eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from every sector of the economy. Simply banning fossil fuels immediately won’t build the new economy to replace it – this is the plan to build that new economy and spells out how to do it technically. We do this through a huge mobilization to create the renewable energy economy as fast as possible. We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast, but we think we can ramp up renewable manufacturing and power production, retrofit every building in America, build the smart grid, overhaul transportation and agriculture, plant lots of trees and restore our ecosystem to get to net-zero… It’s unclear if we will be able to decommission every nuclear plant within 10 years, but the plan is to transition off of nuclear and all fossil fuels as soon as possible.

As many in the comments section here have pointed out, if they were really serious about this they would be pushing nuclear energy, because alternative sources could not supply the requisite amount of power. But the way the document reads, it seems there will be an attempt to get rid of many farting cows sooner rather than later, and the rest will be eliminated later on. The time frame is a bit unclear—as is just about everything about this extraordinary document—but war on farting cows has surely been declared.

Does AOC plan to give every cow in the US simethicone (I’m just asking, on behalf of a flatulent bovine friend)? Or is she planning to kill all the cows en masse, have a few last BBQ feasts, and call it a day on beef? Those who are lactose-intolerant, like me, might not care all that much about the end of milk, but she might lose the votes of cheeseheads in Wisconsin.

What’s more, AOC and her Green Deal partners don’t seem to even know all that much about cow farts, or at least they’re not fully up-to-date on them. It’s actually not cow farts that are the real methane-rich offenders, it’s cow burps. And no, I’m not being facetious; I wrote about the topic in this post. And here’s more on the subject.

The entire Green New Deal document is worth reading, by the way, for its almost-unhinged quality of unbridled enthusiasm, wild optimism, and complete lack of consideration of any physical and financial realities.

To give you a taste of the document’s flavor, here are some of the more wild-eyed quotes. It may give readers a warm fuzzy glow to contemplate such a dream, and then a feeling of deep dread about what it would entail and what the chances are of achieving it. Whether it’s a cynical ploy for power, or whether the authors actual believe it can and should be accomplished, it demonstrates rather perfectly what C. S. Lewis wrote:

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Here are a few selected Green Deal quotes about what they intend and expect to accomplish:

Promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of frontline and vulnerable communities

Totally overhaul transportation by massively expanding electric vehicle manufacturing, build charging stations everywhere, build out high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary, createaffordable public transit available to all, with goal to replace every combustion-engine vehicle

Restore all our damaged and threatened ecosystems

Provide high-quality health care, housing, economic security, and cleanair, clean water, healthy food, and nature to all

Now, what could possibly go wrong?

A lot of people are ridiculing the manifesto. And it’s true that it reads like something from The Onion. I’ve poked some fun at it here, too, but I take its essence very seriously, and I think it’s an error not to do so. There are people—many people, in this country and elsewhere, a great many of them young adults—who believe these things are both possible and desirable, and can be achieved if only we have enough will and dedication, and fearless leaders to show the way.

The Green Deal manifesto may sound ridiculous to the majority of people at the moment. And, as I said earlier, the group responsible for it may have overplayed its hand for now. But—as commenter “physics guy” wrote earlier:

[AOC] is bringing to the national stage the “sustainability” movement which has been percolating on campuses for about 6-8 years.This movement seeks to advance all the progressive/socialist/Marxist agenda using as a core, the climate change scenario. It then expands “sustainability” to include not only environmental, but social ‘sustainability”. It claims that social justice cannot be accomplished without first fixing the environmental aspect. A key component is to eliminate all fossil fuel use and replace with solar and wind. Of course that would plunge the world into chaos, but these people don’t seem to care or understand that.

If it wasn’t AOC, it would have been some other person around her age that has been indoctrinated with this “sustainability” nonsense on campuses. As the left totally controls higher education, to see what they have planned in a few years just spend some time on college campuses. That’s where they are testing out all their ideas and strategies.

The Green New Deal is a test. It may be premature—in fact, it is premature, and its proponents are well aware of that. But it’s a way of appealing to the leftist base and getting the public used to the most extreme ideas of the movement. The less extreme ideas won’t seem so radical after that.

[ADDENDUM: I was just watching an interview with Mark Steyn (on Tucker Carlson) where he said, “I always take a flatulent cow on an airplane with me as an emotional support animal.”]

Democrats have big big plans for you

The New Neo Posted on by

The Democrats’ new election and campaign finance bill may have escaped your attention and gotten lost in the shuffle. But it deserves scrutiny:

Today [Feburary 6, that is], House Democrats are holding hearings on a monstrous, 571-page election- and campaign-finance-reform bill called the “For the People Act of 2019.” I can think of other, more accurate, names — like the “First Amendment Demolition Act,” or perhaps the “Federalism Repeal Act,” or maybe, most accurate of all, the “Constitutional Lawyers Enrichment Act,” because the passage of the law would trigger a full decade (at least) of litigation on numerous constitutional fronts.

Please read the whole thing. The gist of it is to bring elections under federal control rather than state, but there’s much more. The Orwellian title is a nice touch, too.

But the Democrats, particularly their growing-ever-more-large-and-extreme leftist wing (seemingly headed by freshman AOC), have many more plans for all of us some day. That day is not today—the Green New Deal probably would not even pass in the House right now, and of course the Republican-controlled Senate would not approve. But that Republican majority only rests on a few senators and could easily change in 2020. And as an example of the far left wishlist, here’s part of the Green New Deal:

This morning, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez released an overview of her “Green New Deal” which threatens “a massive transformation of our society.”

Below are the details of the proposal…

“Upgrade or replace every building in US for state-of-the-art energy efficiency.”…

The Green New Deal is “a 10-year plan to mobilize every aspect of American society at a scale not seen since World War 2 to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.”

Plans to ban nuclear energy within 10 years if possible.

“It’s unclear if we will be able to decommission every nuclear plant within 10 years, but the plan is to transition off of nuclear and all fossil fuels as soon as possible.”…

“Build out highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary”…

“Ensure that all GND jobs are union jobs that pay prevailing wages and hire local.”…

Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t provide any insight into how the trillions of dollars in spending will be paid for other than claiming, “The Federal Reserve can extend credit to power these projects and investments and new public banks can be created to extend credit”.

Bus as Ocasio-Cortez says, “the question isn’t how will we pay for it, but what will we do with our new shared prosperity”.

More at the link.

It’s almost humorous, isn’t it? Like a child’s fantasy. But OAC and her colleagues on the far left are no children, and they are very serious about what they want. As I wrote yesterday, they take the long view. One of the many things going on here is that what sounds far-fetched and ridiculous today can become mainstream tomorrow, as this group knows. They put out extreme ideas that they know have no chance of passing, in order to accustom the public to these ideas and desensitize people, particularly young people who might be most attracted to them and least likely to think about the expense. It’s a political version of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” But this is in deadly earnest.

If you think you already know about all the weird things in Virginia politics lately—well, think again

The New Neo Posted on by

Just to recap—Democrats Northam and Fairfax and Herring—the governor and the first and second in line to replace him—are all in a heap of trouble. But next in line is a Republican who is House Speaker, Kirk Cox.

But here’s the additional fact (some of you may already know this, but I certainly didn’t) via Chris Cillizza:

…[The Democratic Party of Virginia] has been ascendant in recent years — having held the governorship for all but four years since 2001 and now controlling both of the state’s US Senate seats and seven of the state’s 11 congressional districts…

Cox is speaker solely because Republican David Yancey won a state House seat in early 2018 when his name was picked out of a bowl. Yes, this really happened! (The race was tied. If Yancey had lost the random drawing, the state House would have been split 50-50.)

You can read about it here. 2018 was a very very good year for the state Democrats in Virginia:

Prior to the Nov. 7 election, Republicans had a 66-34 majority in the House, but Democrats flipped 15 GOP-held seats while winning statewide races for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.

Here’s the story of how it came to a drawing for the tiebreaker:

[Republican] Yancey held a 10-vote lead over [his Democratic opponent] Simonds in unofficial results tallied on election night, but the Dec. 19 recount showed Simonds squeaking out a one-vote win. Republicans appeared to concede the seat but went into a final court hearing Dec. 20 armed with a surprise letter from a Yancey-aligned recount official suggesting a ballot that had been discarded should have been counted for Yancey. On the ballot in question, the voter filled in bubbles for both Simonds and Yancey but drew a line through Simonds’ bubble.

Simonds’ lawyers argued the ballot was an impermissible overvote and should be tossed out because the voter’s intentions weren’t clear. The judges sided with Yancey, saying the ballot met the criteria for an exception that allows voters to scratch out erroneous votes to clarify their choice.

And that, folks, could be the thing that ultimately gives Virginia a Republican governor. I very much doubt it, though, because I don’t think all three of the Democrats will resign. But what a long strange trip it’s been in Virginia, and not over yet.