Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
- Senate
- Campus
- NC Judge
- Colorado
- Fields
- Ilhan
- Astroturf
- Senate. 12 Republican US Senators voted against President Trump’s declaration of National Emergency on the Mexican border last week. The measure passed 59 – 41, eight votes short of the two-thirds votes necessary to override a presidential veto. The legislation was transmitted to his desk where he promptly issued his first veto. The House is scheduling its veto override attempt next week. Republican senators who voted against the declaration included Alaska’s own Lisa Murkowski, channeling her inner Orange Man Bad as described last week. The most heartening thing out of this event has been the reaction of the grass roots to the vote. And for most grandstanding Republican senators, it hasn’t been going well so far. For his part, President Trump reportedly did not pressure senators to vote to support him on this. Likely due to the political calculation that he would need them on other things in the next couple years. Particularly despicable were Mitt Romney (R, UT) and Marco Rubio’s (R, FL) votes against the declaration. Romney is going to be a problem, and in choosing this path, very likely a one and done kind of US Senator. The most heartening reaction to the vote was an announcement out of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office that he would be considering modifying the 1976 National Emergencies Act, which is where the argument should have started. And if congress claws back a bit of power ceded to the Executive over the last century, that would be a positive move. https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/434556-republican-senators-who-voted-against-trump-have-no-excuses
- Campus. The pocket fascists infesting college campuses had themselves quite a week. Portland State had a cowbell wielding AntiFa ponytail guy disrupt a gun rights talk for an entire hour while campus police stood by and watched. In this case, more cowbell was not a positive. The speaker was a black guy convicted for brandishing a firearm at a Black Lives Matter mob during a 2016 protest. There were other AntiFa guys who followed the bell ringer around the room. Portland State refused to restore order and later issued a statement that they only respond to property destruction or violence. Disruption of events by their favored protesters is not only allowed but celebrated as freedom of speech. Let college Republicans try this sort of stunt and you will see a bunch of them in jail. The timing of the protest is convenient as college trustees were to meet later in the week to discuss campus safety. The Federalist ran a piece midweek suggesting several approaches that conservatives on campus and off can use to fight the entrenched left both among the student body and in the administration and faculty that is opposing them. One thing to remember is that those of us on the right tend to fight this fight as individuals, normally without benefit of organization or organizers. This is described as the atomization of conservatives. To make any counter to the entrenched left effective, you have to not only identify conservatives – difficult to do among students simply keeping their heads down – and alumni. Before you do anything, you must have people on your side identified and supportive. Any promise or empty threat to the college administration is just that, and those of us on the right can only cry wolf so many times before people stop listening, particularly among conservatives who always have something else to do. In other words, don’t let everyone see your hand before you play it. Decide in advance what a win looks like. And don’t be a bit bashful about using tactics of the left (minus the violence) against them. One of the things the left particularly despises is Alinsky tactics used against them, which always makes me smile. https://thefederalist.com/2019/03/11/conservative-alumni-smart-heres-theyd-punish-campus-hooliganism/
- NC Judge. A democrat North Carolina state judge tossed two amendments to the State constitution adopted last November last week. His excuse was that due to gerrymandering, the legislature was an “illegally constituted General Assembly that does not represent the people of North Carolina.” He went on to say that the extent of gerrymandering means elected lawmakers have no business amending the state constitution. One amendment adopted by 55.5% of the electorate was voter ID. The other was a cap on state income taxes. Needless to say, the legislature on both sides of the political fence is none too happy with this ruling. This all falls out of legal challenges to 2011 redistricting, which a federal judge ruled unconstitutional based on the notion that “race was the predominant factor motivating the drawing of all challenged districts.” That court struck down 28 districts. SCOTUS upheld the ruling in 2017. The General Assembly got another chance to change the districts, which they did. Not good enough for the presiding federal judge. The Assembly put six constitutional amendments on the November 2018 ballot. Voter ID was one of them. Of course, none of the participants in this little passion play are mentioning the use of gerrymandering these days to ensure black majority districts that are an integral part of the house democrat majority. And now a state judge, also a democrat, decided to get in on the fun. https://splinternews.com/north-carolina-judge-tosses-voter-id-constitutional-ame-1832844703
- Colorado. Good news and bad news out of Colorado. And the bad news may end up terrifying the democrats who will quickly reverse what they just put into place. Good news first. The State of Colorado and Masterpiece Cake Shop decided to drop their ongoing litigation, giving Masterpiece a clear victory against the forces of political correctness and the social justice warriors infesting the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. This puts the ongoing anti-Christian jihad to bed, at least for a little while until the next enterprising LGTBQWXYZ lawyer decides to make a request they know the proprietor will not fill. Now for the bad news. Colorado just joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. This little project is an end run around the Electoral College, pledging the electoral votes of participating states to whomever receives the most popular votes in a national election. It was one of the democrat responses to the 2000 Bush – algore election. This effectively disenfranchises all voters in participating states, by allowing the blue states on the coasts to determine what the voters of the participating states actually vote for. As of today, 12 states plus the District of Columbia, signed on. These include in order of participating MD, NJ, IL, HI, WA, MA, DC, VT, CA, RI, NY, CT, CO. The Wiki goes on to prattle about legality of the whole enterprise. Their problem is that state compacts need to be approved by congress to be legal. This one hasn’t. And state governments do change from time to time, as states will stay a while and then drop out as the governments change. But I think the ultimate payback, ultimate wrench in the machine, will come when a Republican, perhaps Trump in 2020, wins a popular vote majority nationwide and forces 181 blue state electoral votes to be cast for him. You will see a mad scramble for blue states to drop out of this foolishness in a matter of days after the election. If all goes well, there will be a LOT of legislative special sessions held in Nov. 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
- Fields. When you elect democrat hack community organizers who bring little to the table other than grenade throwing, they will generally act like democrat hack community organizers (redundant phrase, sorry). Such is the case with Anchorage Rep. Zach Fields, in his first term in the Alaska Legislature. He is Millennial leftist bomb thrower who went after Governor Dunleavy’s Commissioner of Administration nominee Kelly Tshibaka before confirmation hearings last week. Not only did Fields ask about her private religious beliefs in pre-hearing conversations, he imposed a religious test for her during the confirmation hearing he chaired. Claimed to be concerned with how the nominee would deal with homosexuals in the employ of the State. During her opening statement, she outed him for asking about her private religious beliefs, noting how incredible he had asked her, how it was unconstitutional, and how her religious rights as a citizen working in government were upheld by the SCOTUS. She laid it on pretty thick. Fields was clearly shocked and unready for the statement. Of course, he shouldn’t have asked her if she could set aside her personal religious views in order to do the job in her new position, which is apparently a new talking point among democrats (Mazie Hirono, Kamala Harris and Barbara Feinstein among others) these days. Tshibaka has a pretty good resume and experience, none of which indicates she is the second coming of Cotton Mather or Ayatollah Khomeini or into gay-bashing in her spare time. Fields responded by claiming that she had slandered him in a note to the other 59 legislators, accusing her of engaging in a personal attack that was “highly inappropriate when addressing any legislator.” Slander and libel are things Fields knows about quite well, as these were tools of his trade for years working for democrat candidates running against Republicans in previous political campaigns. Fields refused to move the nomination out of committee. http://mustreadalaska.com/rep-fields-now-accuses-commissioner-of-slandering-him/
- Ilhan. The democrat majority in the House didn’t take long to return to its race-baiting roots, as newly elected House member Ilhan Omar tapped into her inner David Duke, triggering a House resolution against bigotry. She celebrated her victory a few days later with yet another set of anti-Israel, anti-Semitic comments. In all this, it is important to remember where Ohan comes from. She is Somali, a refuge from a failed state who was allowed into this country because she was married to an immigrant. That immigrant turns out to be her brother whom she divorced in 2017. For a refugee from a failed state, she is profoundly dismissive and ungrateful of being invited in. Instead, she taps into her inner Jew-hating Ayatollah, and goes for it daily, seemingly being unable or more likely unwilling to stop. And now, like her sisters in the new House majority, she is now in charge. Good luck with that. https://alphanewsmn.com/new-evidence-supports-claims-that-ilhan-omar-married-her-brother/
- Astroturf. Astroturfing is not just a democrat campaign tactic for political campaigns. It is an integral part of their environmental campaigns too. Latest example here in Alaska is the Sportsman’s Alliance for Alaska (SAA), a vocal opponent to the proposed Pebble Mine. It claims to be an alliance of sportsfishing enthusiasts and has been working against the mine for over a decade. The spokesman claims to be a Scott Hed, originally from the Midwest, college at St. Olaf in MN, loves to fish, and has been to Alaska at least twice. It turns out he is a single guy who was recruited to be the front for an anti-Pebble group while in the state for a fishing trip in 2006. He has been paid since then to fight the mine. The Alliance is a one-man operation posing as a large group of like-minded fishermen. Best of all, he lives in Nicaragua. SAA is part of the Alaska Conservation Foundation and passes along most money raised to the foundation. Expect more of this as the draft environmental impact statement makes its way thru the public review process. If the Alaska Conservation Foundation is knowingly working with this one-man astroturf vehicle, how many more are there out there? My guess would be that number is substantially larger than one. https://mustreadalaska.com/who-is-sportsmans-alliance-for-alaska-one-guy-in-nicaragua/
More later –
– AG