Win one for Nino

Charles Krauthammer

Let’s understand something about the fight to fill the Supreme Court seat ofAntonin (“Nino”) Scalia. This is about nothing but raw power. Any appeal you hear to high principle is phony — brazenly, embarrassingly so.

"In Year Seven of the George W. Bush administration, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) publicly opposed filling any Supreme Court vacancy until Bush left office. (“Except in extraordinary circumstances.” None such arose. Surprise!) Today he piously denounces Republicans for doing exactly the same for a vacancy created in Year Eight of Barack Obama."

. . . 

"As I said, this is all about raw power. When the Democrats had it, they used it. The Republicans are today wholly justified in saying they will not allow this outgoing president to overturn the balance of the Supreme Court. The matter should be decided by the coming election. Does anyone doubt that Democrats would be saying exactly that if the circumstances were reversed?

"Which makes this Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (Ky.) moment. He and his cohorts have taken a lot of abuse from “anti-establishment” candidates and media for not using their congressional majorities to repeal Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood, block executive orders, etc." . . .

Jeb! couldn't fix it. Inside Jeb Bush's $150 Million Failure

"His closest aides failed to predict Trump and never changed course, guiding a flawed candidate into a corner he couldn’t escape."

Politico "His closest aides failed to predict Trump and never changed course, guiding a flawed candidate into a corner he couldn’t escape,” by Politico’s Eli Stokols, on the Jeb beat from the beginning, with Glenn Thrush and Alex Isenstadt: “Interviews with more than two dozen Bush insiders, donors and staff illuminate the plight of an earnest and smart candidate who was tragicomically mismatched to the electorate of his own party and an unforgiving, mean media environment that broadcast his flaws. The entire premise of Bush’s candidacy ... was an epic misread of a GOP base hostile to any establishment candidate, especially one with his baggage-weighted last name. ..."

” ... @MarcACaputo: “Jeb Bush exits the race for president the way he (usually) campaigned -- in a totally classy way” ... 

From Hot Air:  . . . "The conservative base was already fed up before Trump came along and Jeb Bush was never the prescription to scratch that itch. We were waiting for somebody to come along with a blowtorch and Jeb Bush was offering a candle."
More to come on this...

Trump-mentum  . . . "Newt Gingrich, past winner of the South Carolina primary, weighed in with open eyes, unclouded by the DC establishment fog, recommending that the GOP, “Start taking Donald Trump seriously.”

"What’s the chance that a GOP frontrunner can lose the first four primaries and stay in the race, much less win the nomination? It’s never happened. Then again, a Donald Trump phenomenon has never happened either, so maybe there is slim hope for Rubio. Yet he finished third in Iowa, fourth in New Hampshire, second (barely) in South Carolina, and trails by over 20 points in Nevada."

Weasel Of The Week!! – 02/18/16

Noisy Room  "Yes, once again, it’s time to present this week’s statuette of shame, The Golden Weasel!!

"Every Tuesday, the Council nominates some of the slimiest, most despicable characters in public life for some deed of evil, cowardice or corruption they’ve performed. Then we vote to single out one particular Weasel for special mention, to whom we award the statuette of shame, our special, 100% plastic Golden Weasel. This week’s nominees were particularly slimy and despicable, but the votes are in and we have our winner… the envelope please…"

BuzzFeed Editor Rachel Zarrow!!

"My nomination for Weasel of the Week goes to BuzzFeed editor Rachel Zarrell this time around. She posted a couple of tweets rejoicing at the news of the death of Justice Antonin Scalia and then tried to cover it up. She then quickly deleted them. She also retweeted a GQ writer who wrote, “Boy is my Twitter feed not sad.” Her initial tweet consisted of a party popper emoji. Then she followed up with a tweet mocking the statement put out by Sen. Ted Cruz on the news of Scalia’s death."

Following the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, she also let her personal thoughts be known, tweeting a profanity-laced message for county clerks who didn’t wish to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The woman is an unmitigated liberal troll and an opportunistic weasel. BuzzFeed has a written policy against pulling these kind of stunts. She should be fired for this. But she’ll keep on hatin’ and for that she should get the Golden Weasel.

Clinton Reaches Out to An Iranian Front Group for Campaign Donations

independentsentinel.com.

"When you see who Hillary takes money from, you have to wonder what she will do in return. She is already a known threat to our national security.

"Hillary Clinton is being outspent by Bernie Sanders 3 to 1 and keeps going back to the same donors who have for the most part given the maximum donations, but don’t worry, she’s found some new donors.

"A pro-Iran lobby group that is working against US interests and is actively trying to kill new antiterrorism laws will be at a fundraising event with her this weekend.

"This Sunday, Clinton will attend a fundraiser hosted by Twitter executive Omid Kordestani and his wife Gisel Hiscock along with National Iranian American Council (NIAC)  board member Lily Sarafan and Noosheen Hashemi, who serves on the pro-Iran advocacy group Ploughshares, a major funder of the pro-Iran agenda.

"NIAC advocates against the pro-Israel community and on Iran’s behalf, they pushed against sanctions, have close ties to Barack Obama, pressured the US to abandon sanctions, and they spread propaganda the same way Press TV does. In 2013, they put out the lie that President Rouhani was a moderate and US papers lapped it up.

"Ploughshares partners with NIAC and with the White House to pressure the Jewish community and others to back the Iran nuclear deal.

"Iranian state-run media have referred to the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) since at least 2006 as “Iran’s lobby” in the U.S." . . .

Open thread: South Carolina and Nevada finally speak up

Jazz Shaw
"Immediate Update: It’s official, or as close to it as possible. Out in Nevada Hillary Clinton has squeaked out a victory in the Nevada caucus. A roughly five point margin is nothing to sneeze at, but Bernie definitely ate into the massive lead she held only last month. Going by the exit polls, Hillary had the elderly vote by a country mile while Sanders captured the younger vote by a similar margin. Clinton got the black vote by a landslide, but Bernie was taking a small margin in the Hispanic vote, 53-45. In terms of delegates, Hillary *should* take either a 12-11 or 13-10 split of the committed delegates, but that’s never a sure thing. Nevada’s caucus isn’t a direct representation process. What they did today was select the delegates to the county conventions, who will then go on to the state convention where they will eventually cut a deck of cards or something and determine how many delegates to assign to her for national convention. (Not affecting all of her Superdelegates, of course.)

. . . "But now it’s about over. One Democrat and as many as three Republicans will be happy when they go to bed tonight. Some in the latter category may be going home and declaring that it just wasn’t their year. On the Democrats’ side, Bernie and Hillary will both pack up their teams and head to South Carolina." . . .

I'll post this cartoon after which Sanders will drop out, then Hillary will beat Trump in the general, unless he becomes her running mate. One thing in my favor: pessimists are usually pleasantly surprised. 
Hey, I'm 76 years old, so others will live with the results, not me. The Tunnel Dweller.

Hillary Clinton did not say that she would shut down the NRA and ban handguns if she were elected President.

Snopes

CLAIM: Hillary Clinton said that she would shut down the NRA and ban handguns if she were elected President.

  FALSE

"ORIGINS: On 25 October 2015, a Tumblr page dedicated to fake Hillary Clinton quotes posted a meme of the Democratic presidential candidate that included a quote supposedly uttered by her during an interview with the Des Moines Register on 8 August 2015:

"The "Shocking Hillary Clinton Quotes ..." Tumblr page claims that all of their quotes are 100% sourced and even provides links to make it appear as if the quotes have been verified:

This Tumblr page is just another fake quote generator created in the same vein as Facebook group "Stop The World, The Teabaggers Want Off." 
"Claim:   Sarah Palin told Sean Hannity Alaska has "all sorts of Eskimos and other foreigners.' " 

Hat tip to Karen Joy Roth

The Return of Socialism

Just a few years ago, the idea that Bernie Sanders, former member of the Socialist Party of America, would be contending seriously for the Democratic nomination for president would have been ludicrous. When did it become acceptable for Americans to back an avowed socialist? What changed in America, and why did it change?

Ben Domenech

Sanders holds massive events populated by kids who think what he is preaching is very cool. 

"It is the failure of Barack Obama’s domestic-policy program generally that we have to thank for socialism’s rise in 2016. Republicans since John McCain in 2008 have been describing President Obama’s domestic program as socialist, and it appears that in so doing, they have made the term seem more palatable and less extreme merely by repetition. The takeaway for today’s younger voters seems to be: If everything Obama is trying to do is socialism, and Republicans are just blocking it time and again, then perhaps we need to go full socialist to actually get things done. By applying an unpopular label to a relatively popular agenda, Republicans may have unintentionally aided the work of a thousand left-wing professors in a thousand state colleges." . . .

Cartoons added by the Tunnel Dweller.

Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think

TOP DOCUMENTARY FILMS  "Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think explores the expertly gathered opinions of Muslims around the globe as revealed in the world’s first major opinion poll, conducted by Gallup, the preeminent polling organization.

"Gallup researchers began by asking the questions on every American’s mind. Why is there so much anti-Americanism in the Muslim world? Who are the extremists and how do Muslims feel about them? What do Muslims like and dislike about the West? What do Muslim women really want?

"Crucial policy decisions hang on these questions. They continue to generate passionate disagreements in the public square. Yet for all the heat and controversy, the actual views of the world’s Muslims have been conspicuously missing from this debate.

"Now, we have the missing answers and statistics, gathered, parsed, and analyzed not by pundits but by professional researchers.

"As part of this groundbreaking six-year project, Gallup conducted tens of thousands of interviews with residents in 35 predominantly Muslim nations, as well as smaller populations in Europe and the USA. The broad extent of the polling has delivered findings for the world's 1.4 billion Muslims with a plus or minus accuracy of 3%.

"Focused on the issues of Gender Justice, Terrorism, and Democracy – Inside Islam presents this remarkable data deftly, showing how it challenges the popular notion that Muslims and the West are on a collision course. Like the research, the film highlights a shared relationship that is based on facts – not fear." . . .

When the hat was a necessary fashion statement

"Every time we see an outdoor photo from the 1920s and early 30s, we think: Look at all the hats! This 1930 photo taken by Margaret Bourke-White in the Garment District of New York City captures what we're talking about! So why all the hats...and where did they all go? Well - back then, people walked almost everywhere, so the hat protected people from the sun and wind; however, as automobiles became the norm in the mid 1930's, the hats became an unnecessary, awkward hassle to carry. And by the 40s, they almost disappeared entirely."

Old photo archive

Crowd at a baseball game,1930s. Getty Images


Even the newsboys had hats.

'Smoking kills more people than Obama' poster appears in Moscow

The Guardian

"Russia’s only Liberal MP says poster, which has no attribution, is ‘disgusting and embarrassing’ "

. . . "Dmitry Gudkov, the sole liberal opposition MP in Russia’s parliament, on Tuesdayposted a photograph of the large poster, which was in a metal-and-glass frame at a bus shelter on Moscow’s third ring road.

"Gudkov wrote that it was “disgusting and embarrassing that this is appearing on the streets of the Russian capital.” His Facebook post had received more than 1,300 likes, hundreds of positive and negative comments and extensive Russian media coverage.“Smoking kills more people than Obama, although he kills lots and lots of people,” the poster read, showing an illustration of the president smoking the last dregs of a cigarette. “Don’t smoke, don’t be like Obama.' ” . . .

“Soon they’ll be scaring kids with Obama rather than Baba Yaga,” the witch from Russian folk tales, Gudkov later told the Guardian.

The advert has no attribution, no author has come forward to claim it and Moscow city hall has not commented."

Thanks to Ronbo at The Freedom Fighters Journal.

Scarborough’s Claim That Hillary And Trump “Raked Over The Coals” By The Media Is Nonsense

RedState

"Do you notice a pattern here, Joe?

"Caleb Howe makes a great point in how the coverage between Carson and Hillary differs:

Any story about Ben Carson is presented from the media as a sort of “ah HAH!! Got him!” moment, while the reluctant coverage of everything Hillary is reported by every network but Fox News with an eye roll and an exasperated sigh, as if to say “ugh, the stupid Republicans are trying another stupid attack against virtuous Hillary.”

""He’s right. Once the media really starts digging into Donald Trump’s background as they have Carson and once the media starts treating possible criminal behavior by Hillary Clinton seriously instead of a chore that bothers them, claiming they have been “raked over the coals” has zero validity." . . .

Bush Staffers Looking For Work

RedState  "Even as the Jeb Bush campaign announced Jeb’s post-South Carolina schedule in an all too obvious attempt to tamp down reports that Jeb would finally throw in the towel, Politico reveals that Bush campaign staff are a shopping their resumes with Florida political consultants anticipating that their candidate won’t push on after South Carolina:

“I can unequivocally tell you that people are looking for work, because they say they’ve been led to believe that they won’t have a job because the campaign won’t be around any longer or their jobs won’t because the campaign won’t have any money,” said one Republican who helps run one of the Florida campaigns.

Then someone at the site who must dislike Jeb with a passion chose this photo to go with the article.