Bookworm Beat 11/14 — The Wolf Tales Edition

condescending-literary-pun-dog-memeI am standing in once again for Ms. Bookwormroom who is currently aboard a luxury yacht sailing to parts unknown.  She is, as we speak, likely rendering grief counselling to NeverTrumpers who are still pondering whether to open a vein.  That said, let’s take a look at the news:

ABC Still A Bit Puzzled

The voters in Jefferson County, Texas voted for Donald Trump in the Presidential election and Zena Stephens, a black female Democrat, for their local Sheriff.  Says ABC, in its national coverage of this story:

Voters in a southeast Texas county elected a black, Democratic woman as sheriff while choosing Republican Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, an unusual result in a year of partisan acrimony.

Some voters in Jefferson County ended up crossing party lines to cast their ballots for who they thought was the best candidate in each of the races — defying the practice of party line voting in an election that showed a deep red-blue political divide. . . .

The article goes on to point out that Jefferson County is 34% black, 20% Hispanic, and a long time Democratic stronghold.  It is also an area where the citizenry are predominantly blue collar workers in the oil industry.  ABC, to its credit, is coming to grips with the fact that blue collar workers voted for their economic interests in the Presidential election.  Yet ABC is expressing surprise that a county such as Jefferson did not vote straight line Republican?  Really?  ABC obviously has a caricature in its mind of the “Trump voter” and is still coming to grips with the reality that its caricature is wrong.

Astro-Turf Anti-Trump Protests

Buzzfeed is reporting that the violent anti-Trump protests we are seeing on the news are being organized by a core of anarchist, socialist and communist groups.  My question is how many are being funded by Democrat deep pockets, such as by Soros?  My next question is just how randy our new AG will feel be feeling, and whether he will go after these organizations under RICO?

Sanctuary Cities

Rahm Emanuel is the latest of several mayors to reaffirm that his city will remain a sanctuary city for illegal aliens, an “act of defiance in the face of Donald Trump’s past promise to cut off those cities from federal funding.”  As Victor Davis Hanson noted in May, this selective refusal to enforce America’s laws is an extremely dangerous precedent that has its roots in the old Confederacy.  It is also incredibly hypocritical of the prog left, as you can rest assured that they would be howling for an armed offensive on Kentucky were that state to nullify, say, the right to homosexual marriage.  Bottom line, let’s hope that Trump brings the hammer down on these cities and their progressive mayors from day one of his new administration.  Remove federal funding, and if that fails to work, start nationalizing police forces and jailing progressive mayors for obstruction of justice.

A Brit “Warms to Trump”

The progressive left’s temper tantrum at losing the 2016 elections is no doubt convincing many people who voted while holding their nose for Trump that their decision was correct.  Daniel Hannan talks about this in the Washington Examiner:

An odd thing has happened since last week. I’ve started warming to Donald Trump. Maybe it was his gracious acceptance speech or some of his appointments. Maybe it’s that I want the best for America. But mainly, if I’m honest, it’s the gibbering, drooling, pant-hooting rage of the other side. . . .

Anyone outside that little virtue-signaling clique is bound to be pushed the other way. Plenty of moderate British conservatives, who until last week detested Trump, will find that their sympathy has been pricked. Stare long enough into the vortex of Twitter and you start to hear the Battle Hymn of the Republic swelling in your mind.

The progressive left’s temper tantrum is showing the totalitarianism at their core.  Equally telling is the silence of the few Democrats left in power, including our Commander in Chief, to speak out against the violence and rioting.

I am convinced that the progressive left saw in Obama and then Hillary the chance to complete the 100 year long coup they have been attempting in this country.  They were on the knife’s edge of doing so were Hillary elected.  The judiciary has been gutting the Constitution for the past 100 years and Hillary could have made that permanent with three or four Supreme Court picks.  The mainstream media was completely in their pockets.  Cronyism and corruption has long been channelling a significant portion of our tax dollars into progressive money laundering operations.  The regulatory bureaucracy, a complete invention of progressives, had superseded Congress as the most important legislative body and was being used to cement fundamental anti-Democratic and extra Constitutional changes to our nation.  The government regulatory bodies and executive agencies had been weaponized against progressive challengers.

The election of Trump would likely be, at worst, a temporary set back to the progressive coup if all things were equal.  But I think at this point, the progressives are so overreaching as to put their coup into permanent jeopardy.  If they can make Trump likable, they have gathered themselves into a circular firing squad.

The NYT Promises To Act Like Journalists If You Will Continue Your Subscription

Has there been a newspaper more biased for the left over the past three decades, let alone the past three months, than the NYT?  Admittedly, the NYT had the occasional scoop that was unfortunate for the left, including news of Hildabeast’s private server.  But you could probably count those on one hand.  The NYT may not quite be Pravda of the old Soviet Union, but they are not far from it.  And in the wake of their deeply partisan coverage in the run up to the election, Pinch Sulzberger, Jr., the man who has led the NYT hard left, has written a letter to all subscribers.  This from Ann Althouse:

As we reflect on the momentous result, and the months of reporting and polling that preceded it, we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories that we bring to you. It is also to hold power to account, impartially and unflinchingly. You can rely on The New York Times to bring the same fairness, the same level of scrutiny, the same independence to our coverage of the new president and his team.

We cannot deliver the independent, original journalism for which we are known without the loyalty of our readers. We want to take this opportunity, on behalf of all Times journalists, to thank you for that loyalty.

Please, don’t go. I get that they’re saying that. But I don’t get the argument why we should stay. I see a promise to keep doing something they haven’t been doing. Or… a dishonest claim about what has been done and a promise to continue dishonestly. There’s no confession of bias, no admission of any need to do better.

Striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives… what? Does it depend on the meaning of “striving”?

The NYT’s problem is that they jettisoned even a patina of objectivity over the past six months.  They are a deeply partisan opinon journal, not a news organization.  Now they want to claim that they will be objective journalists going forward?  What a joke.  I so look forward to the day when the NYT goes onto the Penny Stock Exchange

The Future Of The Left

I am not about to write the left’s obituary, but their road going forward looks difficult in the near term.  It is no exaggeration to say that the Democrat Party will become, in January 2017, a “municipal” party.  All branches of the federal government as well as 33 state legislatures will be fully in control of Republicans.  One third of all Democrats in federal elective office will be from three states.  And in 2018, veto proof control of the Senate will be within reach for Republicans as fully 25 Democrat Senate seats will be up for reelection. Ten of those Democratic seats are in states won by Trump.  Republicans will have only eight Senate seats up in 2018.

The Democrats have driven the white working class out of their party.  There is no better example of the radicalism of the current Democrats than their treatment of Jim Webb during the primaries.  The Democrats have built their house on a balkanized foundation of individual cubby holes of victims groups, many of whom have competing interests.  It was a foundation that worked so long as those groups would bend a knee to whomever the left chose as their leader of the moment.  That proved fatal in 2016 when blacks and Hispanics did not feel the urgency to turn out to vote for a white woman.  If 2016 indeed signals a hardening of the cubby holes against other victims groups or against whites, even though nominally progressive champions, oh my.  That would be fatal to the progressive left.

Juan Williams, writing at The Hill, surveys the progressive left’s broken landscape and speculates as to who will rise to lead the Democrat Party.  Chuckie Schumer is disqualified by his Wall St. ties.  Crazy Nancy in California . . . . no, just no.  Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Donna Brazile have both been fatally harmed by the exposure of the unfair practices to get Hillary the primary nomination.   Ultimately, Juan Williams settles on:

Sen. Sherrod Brown; (Ohio); Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro; New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo; Clinton’s running mate Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.).

I don’t see any of them having even an outside chance of winning a national election but for Cory Booker, but even he might be too centrist for the current make up of the progressive left.  The prog base wants to feast on the blood of the enemies of the progressive movement, so I will be surprised if the leadership devolves to anyone who is not hard left.

Frack ‘Til They Drop

The Saud clan has spent the past 50 years buying protection from the Wahhabis by spending billions of its petroprofits to export toxic Wahhabi Islam throughout the world.  Wahhabi Islam is the font from which all Sunni Muslim terrorism flows.  But thanks to American frackers, the Saud’s ability to export Wahhabism are winding down.

When you live by the price of crude, it follows that you also die by it. That’s what the oil-soaked kingdom of Saudi Arabia is experiencing, and a new report from Wood Mackenzie shows that of all of the Middle East’s petrostates, it’s the Saudis that are suffering the most as a result of the collapse in crude prices over the past 29 months. . . .

According to this new report, the Saudis fiscal deficit is now equivalent to a whopping 20 percent of the country’s GDP, and goes on to show that if Riyadh wants to balance its budget this year, it would need oil prices to hit $92 per barrel.

Barring some major supply disruption, that’s not going to happen. Oil prices are currently trading at exactly half of the reported Saudi breakeven price, and even the most optimistic readings of the effects of a potential OPEC production cut later this month only predict prices rebounding to somewhere in the range of $65. And let’s not forget that if and when that happens, hungry American shale companies will be pouncing on the opportunity to ramp up their own output, necessarily denting the impact of OPEC’s cuts.

It couldn’t happen to a better country.

And Finally . . . The Memes

Legal Insurrection has the funniest and cleverest roll up of post election memes I have seen.  Do yourself a favor and pay them a visit.