California Remains a Blue State Hellscape

Votes continued to be tallied days after the election, including several key congressional districts.

Sanctuary state signs pop up in California (wnd.com)

"It is fortunate that I was not emotionally invested in the outcome of the election in California.

"Perhaps the race that most interested me was the Los Angeles mayor’s race. Ahead of the election, I reported that Republican businessman Rick Caruso and Democratic Congresswoman Karen Bass, are in a dead heat in the race.

"Initially, Caruso was ahead in the votes. But as the votes are still being counted, days after the election has ended, Bass is miraculously leading slightly.

Democratic Congresswoman Karen Bass took the lead in a close race against billionaire real-estate developer Rick Caruso to become the next mayor of Los Angeles, according to partial results still trickling out from local election officials.

Bass had 50.4% support compared to 49.6% for Caruso as of Friday afternoon, with an estimated 62% of the votes tallied, according data from the county registrar’s office and the Associated Press. Caruso had led in early counting.

Even though the election was Nov. 8, a winner may not be declared for several more days, or longer, as officials tally the mail-in ballots.. . .

Cornell University “Apologizes” To Ann Coulter After Students Shouting “Your Words Are Violence” Shut Down Speech

Legal Insurrection

. . ."Cornell has a long history of conservative speakers being heckled, disrupted and harassed: Rick Santorum, pro-Israel events, and Michael Johns come to mind. But it’s not just conservatives – a group of liberal students wrote a scathing letter in the student newspaper decrying the leftist activist intimidation on campus:

“We write as a group of liberals frustrated with the current campus hostility towards free speech and open dialogue. We believe that a repressive campus culture only isolates and radicalizes, but does not eliminate, those with dissenting views. The goal is to win hearts and minds — not to cancel them. While we find the left’s policy goals laudable, we question the tactics used by our fellow students to achieve those goals. It is important to approach others with goodwill and charity, yet oftentimes we struggle to extend these virtues to our peers and friends.”   Add Ann Coulter to the list.

"I knew she was speaking on November 9, because I’m the faculty advisor to the Cornell Chapter of the Network of Enlightened Women (NeW), the group which invited her and sponsored the event. The speech was in one of the larger lecture halls at the law school, but was not a law school or law student event. I was not in Ithaca, so I couldn’t attend.

"In the run-up to the event, progressive students organized the obligatory petition to disinvite her, and engaged in self-parody in the Cornell Sun student newspaper:. . .

On Republican congressional leadership

Bear in mind that Sen. McConnell kept Judge Merrick Garland off the Supreme Court.TD

Horowitz: It’s past time to replace McConnell and McCarthy as leaders

The most influential form of activism at this point would be for conservatives to call their respective representatives-elect and demand that they support a new leader and publicly declare their opposition to McCarthy. Likewise, all GOP senators should be encouraged to vote for someone other than McConnell for Senate majority leader. Although that vote is private and only among the GOP members, there is no reason why senators should not be forced to go on the record to declare their support or opposition to McConnell.

 Elise Stefanik for House Speaker  "Perhaps Rep. Kevin McCarthy might serve the GOP (and the country) by mediating any difficulties in the relationship between The Donald (Trump) and The Ronald (DeSantis). He is, alas, not the member of Congress to stand up against the demagogic, demonizing campaign that the Democrats will wage against the GOP speaker from January 3, 2023 to January 3, 2025.

"My first choice, reflexively, was Louie Gohmert, until I learned that he wanted to be attorney general of Texas, lost his bid, and is leaving Congress.  Confessing the error of my political ways, Rep. Elise Stefanik, of upstate New York — the third-ranking Republican in the House, now becomes the obvious choice to succeed the execrable Nancy Pelosi.

"Rep. Stefanik, a MAGA Republican, will stand up to the manipulating, conniving, devious, demeaning, and deceptive Democrats who work, without let-up, to make the life of the Speaker miserable. Just consider what the Democrats did to Newt Gingrich, credited with masterminding the great GOP House victory of November 8, 1994 —  remember when elections took place on a single day? After 40 years in the minority, in 1994, the Republicans gained 54 seats to become the House majority with 230 GOPers in the House.". . .

Republican Leadership Worse than Worthless   . . ."But one must wonder if these empty suits, being quite happy with their present position on the D.C. gravy train, even want to win.

"They need to go, replaced by strong people determined to win, but not before getting down on their hands and knees and apologizing to the American people and Republican voters for their staggering incompetence and entrenched determination to fail."

Rep. Andy Biggs expected to launch leadership challenge against Kevin McCarthy  . . ." Biggs has been critical of McCarthy’s leadership in the minority, voicing concerns that the California Republican won’t prioritize issues important to the far-right flank of the party. CNN reported the news of Biggs’s likely bid against McCarthy.

“ 'I think we need to have a real discussion about whether he should be the speaker or not,” Biggs told reporters on Thursday.

“ 'I think that his statement recently that we shouldn't impeach Secretary Mayorkas indicates that maybe we're not going to be as aggressive going forward as we should be. I think we need to have a very positive statement of what we're going to accomplish and do, and I haven't seen that yet,” he added. "That's — those are things that I think we should have a very frank discussion internally about, where we're going to be going forward."

The Republican Leadership Mess  . . ."In the House, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has done nothing to indicate he’s capable of steering the party in a more normal direction — from his voting against certification of electoral votes, to his years of coddling Trump. He is likely to be outmaneuvered by Nancy Pelosi whether Republicans are narrowly in the majority or narrowly in the minority. Mitch McConnell has delivered a lot more for Republicans over the years than McCarthy. Were it not for him, not as many conservative judges would have been confirmed and Democrats would have accomplished more when in power. He also did the right thing when it counted, on January 6. See, too, our editorial on why he is not to blame for Republican losses this year. That said, leading the Senate Republicans is not a lifetime position. McConnell is 80 years old and at some point in the near future, the party is going to have to figure out a succession plan. Whoever wins the leadership roles, they aren’t going to have much of any power in the next two years. Republicans will be in the minority in the Senate, and in the House, even if they end up eking it out, their margin will be so small that the GOP leader will practically have to be asking Marjorie Taylor Greene for permission to take a bathroom break. So really, this leadership fight is setting things up for Republicans’ next chance to retake full control of Washington in 2024.". . .

MSNBC Warns of DeSantis Implementing GOP, Fox's 'Autocratic System' Goal

Newsbusters   "Is there something about being a historian on cable news that makes you say absurd things? History Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghiat joined the Saturday edition of Velshi on MSNBC to warn that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, or whoever “Fox News and Murdoc and the GOP elites” support intend to install an autocracy that will make it easier to wage coups. Meanwhile, the election results were said to reflect “reality” because a bunch of candidates won believe the country is for more than just Christian white men.

"Host Ali Velshi had asked about “election deniers” like Arizona’s Kari Lake, but Ben-Ghiat wanted to talk about someone else, “But we can't forget about that and also, the anointment of Ron DeSantis is very worrying to me because he is a smoother and more disciplined extremist and so we can never forget that the ultimate goal whoever, you know, Fox News and Murdoch and the GOP elites protect—protect and proclaim, the goal is to make it easier to have an autocratic system prevail.”. . .

MSNBC's Ali Velshi shows us the reporting we can expect from that channel:

When you've lost Scott Adams...

Hot Air  " Earlier this morning, David looked at the startling way in which Winsome Sears cut her ties with Donald Trump after rising to prominence as a staunch soldier in the

Trump army. That clearly caught some people by surprise, though not everyone. Sears wasn’t alone, however. Another fervent Trump supporter has appeared to similarly throw in the towel. Famed cartoonist Scott Adams, best known for his iconic Dilbert series, made a very brief but apparently definitive declaration on Twitter yesterday. He was responding to news that Trump was attacking Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin for reasons that weren’t entirely clear.  This was apparently a bridge too far for Adams, who simply typed out three words. “Yeah, I’m out.” (Raw Story)

Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams has stuck by Donald Trump through countless scandals throughout the years, from getting caught on camera boasting about sexually assaulting women to getting impeached for trying to shake down the Ukrainian government for dirt on political rivals, and for getting impeached again for inciting a deadly riot at the United States Capitol building.

Now, however, Adams on Friday said he’s finally had enough, and it came after Trump unloaded on Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin for an unspecified reason.

“Yeah, I’m out,” Adams wrote in response to Trump’s attack on Youngkin.

Here’s the tweet heard ’round the world.

Yeah, I'm out. https://t.co/4nFqNywxJ7

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) November 11, 2022

Jonathan Turley Ruins Biden's Snarky 'Lots of Luck' Wish to GOP About Hunter Probe With Perfect Analogy

 RedState  "Among the politically-related opinions that I most respect are those from liberal-leaning professionals who rise above their personal political views and tell it like it is, regardless of party. Legal scholar and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley is on that list. We’ll get to Professor Turley in a minute but first, Joe Biden.

"During Biden’s midterm elections post-mortem on Wednesday, he was asked about the possibility of Republicans conducting congressional investigations — if the GOP wins the majority in either chamber or both, that is — into the Biden Family Business, notably Hunter Biden‘s shady business dealings. Biden smugly shot back: “Good luck with that,” suggesting the American people want to move on. Here’s Joe:

Lots of luck in your senior year, as my coach used to say.

Look, I think the American public wants to move on and get things done for them. And, uh, I heard that it was reported … many times that Republicans were saying — the former president said — how many times you gonna impeach Biden?

I think the American people will look at all of that for what it is. It’s almost comedy.

Takes gall, huh?

"Uh-huh, Joe. You mean the same way TDS-riddled Nancy Pelosi House Democrats “moved on” from the hollow Russian “collusion” hoax? And impeachment? You are aware that the Democrats impeached Trump twice — both times, solely for political expediency — and the meaningless Jan. 6 Committee charade, right Joe? Wait— maybe you don’t remember any of that, but nonetheless.

"As luck would have it, Biden’s cocky response didn’t escape the attention of Jonathan Turley, who on Thursday dropped a column titled: Washington’s Pandora’s Box: The Opening of the Hunter Biden Laptop Could Expose the Cottage Industry of Influence Peddling.". . .

No worse choice for president

TO THE EDITOR:  "Biden is a person with a mental disorder, a sociopath. His behavior shows no regard for right and wrong and completely ignores the needs of American citizens.-

"When Biden speaks, the mainstream media say that’s just Joe's storytelling, but most know it’s plain out lying, deception, and manipulation.

"Just a “ very few” examples of Biden's obsessive lies:

*I earned 3 degrees and finished in the top half of my law school class.

*I was jailed in South Africa while on my way to visit Nelson Mandela.

“I used to drive an 18-wheeler.

*Gas prices in California have always been $7 per gallon.

*Powerful sanctions have stopped Russia.

*Our economy roared back faster than anyone predicted.

*My tax spending plans will lower the deficit.

*My house burned down with my wife in it.

*My son Beau, died in action while in Afghanistan.

"
And my personal favorite is "To all Americans, I will be honest with you, as I’ve always promised." -. . .

Media Propagandists Will Never Play Fair, No Matter How Quality The GOP Candidate Or Lousy The Democrat

 The Federalist

"Donald Trump is neither a kingmaker nor the palace’s HR director charged with hiring the next court jester. He didn’t make the Republican Party, and he didn’t destroy her fortunes. And Trump did not downgrade the red tsunami to a splash. The schizophrenic election results that included both Trump-endorsed winners and losers show that. 

"Like all else in politics, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. But no matter where that line falls, conservatives need to accept the reality that the Democrat Party, Fetterman loyals, faux Republicans, and the corrupt corporate media don’t care: They aren’t going to like us, they won’t represent us fairly, and they aren’t going to vote Republican. 

"A Democrat Party that props up an elderly man with obvious signs of mental decay to run as the party’s presidential candidate cares only about power. And voters casting their ballots for the same man, or the even more cognitively challenged Democrat candidate who just won the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat, see only one thing: the “D” next to the candidate’s name. 

"The establishment press likewise plays for team Democrat, and conservatives won’t change that even if they nominate the most milquetoast moderate candidate willing to don a scarlet R. Enter stage right, 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The press portrayed the inoffensive Romney as an animal abuser and denigrator of the women brimming over from his business binders. 

"The media will never play fair, as CNN’s Candy Crowley established when she moderated the Obama-Romney presidential debate. So in the pocket for the Democrat Party was the press that Crowley took no pause before conducting a live and incorrect fact-check of Romney when the GOP contender exposed then-Democrat President Barack Obama’s delay in branding the deadly Sept. 11 assault on the U.S. Consulate in Libya as an act of “terror” — something Obama falsely claimed he had done during his White House Rose Garden press conference held the following day.". . .

Bidenworld. . .A Hobbesian world in which human lives are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

 

A clear and present danger; carolinacoastonline.com

Biden fast-tracks us to a solitary, poor, nasty, and brutish world

Once Democrats drain America’s dependence on fossil fuels, we will revert to a Hobbesian world in which, for most, life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Fossil fuel is responsible for everything in our world: food, clothing, shelter, medical care, transportation, heat in the winter, air conditioning in the summer, and the end of human chattel labor by substituting machines for slaves. Add in the deliberate breakdown of our transport sector in the form of air and rail strikes, and we Americans are in deep doo-doo.. . .

CNN Adds Don Lemon’s New Show to its Long List of Failures

It seems like CNN’s only chance at accomplishing anything as a network is to just start boasting about their sheer number of failures, which may be approaching a Guinness world record. Even if CNN executives woke up tomorrow and decided to actually start reporting honest news, the respect they’ve lost from Americans is irreparable. Tim Young is the media and culture critic for American Greatness.

American Greatness.  "Yet another CNN venture has failed to grab the attention of American viewers: Don Lemon’s new show “CNN This Morning,” which turns out to be just as sleepy and lame as it sounds. They would have been better off calling the show something more creative like “Cup o’ Propaganda,” or “Is Anybody Even Watching This?”.  At least those titles would have been honest about the quality of the content the viewers were about to receive.

"The Left’s grip on media control is slipping, and there is really no better example than CNN, which has about the same level of credibility as gas station sushi. The only people who still take CNN seriously are the people who double mask alone in their cars or say they welcome all immigrants and then deport them from their island 48 hours after they arrive. You know, the real intellectual and moral superiors of society.

"I cannot remember a time when CNN, Don Lemon, or any of their other DNC talking points-pushing hosts were in the news for anything positive. At this point, whenever I see Don Lemon’s name is trending, I just assume he’s finally been fired from the network for either bad ratings or a claim of misconduct outside of their studios. And I have to believe we’re getting closer and closer to that day, because the launch of the new show, which also features two people you’ve probably never heard of—Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins—only reached a total of 387,000 viewers. To put that number in perspective, Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” averaged 1.5 million on the same days. 

"The last time the letters CNN came up in an enjoyable clip, Arizona gubernatorial candidate and scourge of the fake news industry, Kari Lake, shut down CNN’s Kyung Lah when she requested an interview. “I’ll do an interview . . . as long as it airs on CNN+” Lake snarkily

remarked to the reporter. “Does that still exist? I didn’t think so, because the people don’t like what you guys are peddling, which is propaganda.”

"Lake was absolutely correct. CNN has lost the respect of everyday Americans, and lost the eyes of the people who tuned in to them for years because “the walls were closing in” on Donald Trump. CNN executives’ inability to correct the problem they’ve created for themselves is most likely beyond the point of no return, and is exemplified every time they launch a total flop of a segment or show, or hire a new left-wing lunatic host.". . .

What about MSNBC and its ship of fools; Ali Velshi, Joe Scarborough, Joyless Joy Reid, Nicolle Wallace and other forgettable faux tv personalities?  "A majority of Americans distrust the media and view the press as a threat. And as usual, the media seems utterly clueless that they have created the darkness in which democracy dies." Rod Thomson

Cheney, Kinsinger share their greatest memory

 

Monday Cartoon: Cheney and Kinzinger Meet for Last Good Cry – RedState

Bombshell: About Those FBI Informants Concerning Jan. 6...

Even the NY Times snuck in the obvious question here: If the FBI had all these contacts and they’re claiming it was some prior plot, why wasn’t it stopped beforehand, if it was a “seditious conspiracy” and not a spontaneous riot?

When the FBI got a tip from Rasheed, why didn’t they follow up on it? It would seem with something that specific you would want to follow up on it, especially if he was saying there were questions of violence. So why didn’t they?

If McWhirter was a confidential human source, why didn’t the government put him on the stand? Why didn’t they want the jury to hear that they had a confidential human source embedded in the matter? Why is it the defense that wants to call him?

A lot of questions going on here. With all the things that may be on the plate of a new GOP majority, maybe Ted Cruz wants to re-up that grilling and get to the bottom of this.

5 Reasons Why Republicans Failed in the Elections

 The American Spectator

Lessons from the red wave that wasn’t.

. . ."Why did expectations beat Republicans so decisively on Tuesday?

5. Dems Vote on 30 Election Days, Republicans Vote on 1

"The math of encouraging our side to vote on one day while the other side uses over a month in some cases to ensure that its people cast ballots predictably gifts the other side an advantage. Democrats bested Republicans in early and mail-in ballots by 44 percent to 30 percent in New Hampshire, 69 percent to 21 percent in Pennsylvania, and 49 percent to 29 in Michigan. In Florida, where Ron DeSantis went out of his way to encourage early voting and Republicans administered an educational beatdown to Democrats, the GOP won the early and mail-in vote by 43 percent to 37 percent. Principle does not require conservatives who lament turning Election Day into Election Month from instructing supporters to not mark ballots on all but the last day of voting; stupidity does.

4. Hyper-politicized Is the New Normal

"The people who politicize late-night comedy, sports, awards shows, and story hour at the local library, who boycott this cereal for where it advertises and that fast-food chain for the causes one of its owners once supported, naturally all vote. So long as this total-politics mindset — which its beneficiary, Joe Biden, ironically addressed Wednesday in saying that Americans “don’t want every day going forward to be a constant political battle” — prevails, kiss off the idea that in-power Democrats will take the foot off the gas during midterm elections. ". . .

3. Dobbs Animated the Abortion Demographic. . .

2. The Faustian Bargain on S0-Called ‘Election Denial’. . .

1. Democrats Made It About Trump, and Trump Cooperated. . .