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Liberals Tag

Ballotpedia is one of our favorite reference websites. It is like Wikipedia for politics, but more in-depth and reliable. Ballotpedia just released a statistical analysis of federal judicial vacancies as Trump enters office, and likely to become available during his term. That takes on great importance given that Democrats in 2013 busted the filibuster ("went nuclear") for judicial nominees below the Supreme Court level, and even as to the Supreme Court it's likely Republicans might go nuclear. So to the extent federal judicial vacancies currently exist or become available in the next four years, Trump should be unstoppable in filling those seats (unless Republicans lose the Senate in 2018, which is unlikely). We pointed out the magnitude of this late last year, Dems’ Nuclear Option will allow Trump to fill over 100 court vacancies quickly.

The most famous The New Yorker magazine image ever clearly has to be a 1976 illustration by Saul Steinberg for the cover depicting the view from 9th Avenue (the West Side) of Manhattan. The landscape of the rest of the country is shown as mere random places on a blank landscape between the Hudson River and the Pacific ocean. Having grown up in the NYC suburbs, I can tell you it was an absolutely accurate visualization of how New Yorkers thought of the country. Jersey was over there, and there were some mountains most of the way across the country somewhere, D.C. was on the way to Florida, and on the other side of the ocean were three countries: China, Japan, and Russia.

The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats starts with words (highlighted) I think of very often:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
I recently highlighted those words, "the center cannot hold," to a friend when describing some of the insane rantings I've seen on Facebook against Trump and about the election result. Liberals have lost it.

MTV News just released an incredibly racist and sexist video directed at White males. The video reduces tens of millions of people to stereotypes based on race and sex. Substitute any other group for White males, and there is no doubt that MTV would be the first make the accusation of racism and sexism. Here is the tweet spreading the video to MTV New's almost million Twitter Followers:

The notion that American academia is a liberal bubble and echo chamber is nothing that Legal Insurrection hasn't documented and decried a thousand times. But it is refreshing to hear that complaint coming from the lips . . . of a leading liberal journalist. Today's Morning Joe devoted a segment to self-described liberal Nicholas Kristof's New York Times column, "The Dangers of Echo Chambers on Campus." Key lines: "We liberals . . . too often, we embrace diversity of all kinds except for ideological . . . We champion tolerance, except for conservatives and evangelical Christians. We want to be inclusive of people who don’t look like us — so long as they think like us." Also encouraging was the panel's consensus in praise of the column, including by Dems Mika Brzezinski and Harold Ford, Jr., and even from fellow Timesman Jeremy Peters.

My take on Maureen Dowd:
When MoDo is good, she’s really good.  When she’s bad, she’s really bad.
Not sure what to make of this column, Election Therapy From My Basket of Deplorables. It's not therapy delivered by MoDo, but rather, by her brother Kevin, who is one of MoDo's deplorables. But MoDo gave Kevin a big platform in which to taunt and troll people like MoDo. Here's an excerpt:

If you haven't already discovered Tucker Carlson's new Fox News show, weekdays at 7pm, do yourself a favor and check it out. This Insurrectionist says it's the most entertaining conservative hour on TV. Carlson opens most shows with a left-wing guest whom he politely, but fearlessly, takes on. Tonight's lib, environmentalist Erin Schrode, had, in response to Time naming Donald Trump its Person of the Year, compared Trump to Hitler. When toward the end of the segment, Schrode decried Trump's "name-calling and hate speech and toxic rhetoric," Carlson pounced. "You just compared this guy to Hitler and then with a straight face you're going to accuse him of engaging in hate speech?!! I'm sorry. I can barely hear. The irony alarm is so loud in the background." Can't remember the last time I saw a lefty so clearly confronted with her flaming hypocrisy!

You may remember my post from March 5, 2016, regarding the increasing mental health issues on the notoriously liberal Upper West Side of Manhattan caused by the rise of Donald Trump, MAKE PSYCHOTHERAPY GREAT AGAIN!:
As mentioned the other day with regard to a surge in “Move to Canada” Google Searches, there will be a collective freak out in certain places if Trump wins. The freak out has already started. The Washington Post reports Psychologists and massage therapists are reporting ‘Trump anxiety’ among clients:
If there is an unofficial capital of psychotherapy, it’s New York’s Upper West Side, where it’s easier to find a therapist than a parking space. Judith Schweiger Levy, a psychologist in the neighborhood, has noticed a recent uptick in Trump references among her patients, including a middle-aged businesswoman who blurted out this week that her sister is supporting the billionaire.

While traveling back home from a conference in Atlanta, I had a chance to read the new book Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate by Gary Byrne. Byrne's book is a gripping read, as he conveys his personal history to join the Secret Service, his time at the White House, and his decision to join the Federal Air Marshals Service. However, it is not an easy read, as it is difficult to learn of how the Clintons and other elite politicos disdainfully treated patriotic Americans such a Byrne, who want only to serve their country.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has blamed due process as the reason why the government cannot pass more gun control. From The Washington Examiner:
"The problem we have, and really the firewall we have right now, is due process. It's all due process," he said Thursday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "We can all say we want the same thing," he continued, "but how do we get there?"
I wonder if he gets that THIS is why our awesome Founding Fathers put in the Fifth Amendment.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest labeled the investigation into then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails as "criminal." From Fox News:
“That's why the president, when discussing this issue in each stage, has reiterated his commitment to this principle that any criminal investigation should be conducted independent of any sort of political interference,” Earnest said.
Fox News had asked Earnest if President Barack Obama's endorsement for Clinton for president "might apply pressure to investigators assigned" to her case.

As I noted in my post on the AP announcing that Hillary Clinton has clinched the nomination ahead of the California election, the November 2016 battle is ultimately between the elite media and average Americans. As predicted by many, the American press has started pressuring Bernie Sanders to stop his campaign entirely. This gem from the San Diego Union Tribune is just one example of many attempts to cajole Sanders voters into supporting Clinton.
This is why we urge Bernie Sanders to drop his now-futile challenge to Clinton for the Democratic nomination after the final primary next Tuesday in Washington D.C. At this stage, after a historic speech as a major party’s first presumptive female presidential nominee, Clinton shouldn’t have to spend her time and resources defending herself from Sanders and his allies.
But the California media has not mentioned that Clinton has not experienced smooth sailing they portray in their coverage.

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes's worth went from $4.5 billion to zero in a year after officials found her company failed at blood testing. Holmes founded the company in 2003 "with plans of revolutionizing the diagnostic test market." President Barack Obama named her as an ambassador for global entrepreneurship while the Clinton family propped her up at their Clinton Global initiative meeting last year. But Forbes has found that her stake in the company equals absolutely nothing. The company has faced "allegations that its tests are inaccurate" and investigations from government agencies. Plus their annual revenues equal less than $100 million.

Katie Couric has changed her mind and finally decided to take responsibility for an edit in her "Under the Gun" documentary that made a pro-gun rights group look idiotic. She released this statement last night:
As Executive Producer of “Under the Gun,” a documentary film that explores the epidemic of gun violence, I take responsibility for a decision that misrepresented an exchange I had with members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL). My question to the VCDL regarding the ability of convicted felons and those on the terror watch list to legally obtain a gun, was followed by an extended pause, making the participants appear to be speechless. When I screened an early version of the film with the director, Stephanie Soechtig, I questioned her and the editor about the pause and was told that a "beat" was added for, as she described it, “dramatic effect," to give the audience a moment to consider the question. When VCDL members recently pointed out that they had in fact immediately answered this question, I went back and reviewed it and agree that those eight seconds do not accurately represent their response.

A former State Department watchdog told Fox News that previous secretaries of state did not use a personal email address for official business. Leading Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton claims over and over she did nothing wrong because her predecessors used personal email addresses. Howard Krongard, who served as inspector general of the State Department from April 2005 to January 2008, strongly disagrees:
“Certainly to my knowledge at least, Secretary [Condoleezza] Rice did not have a personal server. I certainly never either sent an email to one or received an email from one,” said Krongard, who served during Rice’s tenure. Further, he said, “I would have been stunned had I been asked to send an email to her at a personal server, private address. I would have declined to do so on security grounds and if she had sent one to me, I probably would have started an investigation.”

Supporters of Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders hopes the FBI swoops in and takes out front runner Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server. An inspector general report found that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton broke State Department rules when she opted to use a private email server for work. The FBI has an open investigation against Clinton, which has puzzled some supporters of Sanders like Julie Crowell:
Like many of Mr. Sanders’s supporters, Ms. Crowell, 37, said she hoped that Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state would eventually yield an indictment, and she described it as the kind of transgression that would disqualify another politician seeking high office. “She should be removed,” said Ms. Crowell, of Tustin, Calif., who attended a Sanders rally here on Tuesday and said she planned to vote for a third-party candidate if Mr. Sanders failed to overtake Mrs. Clinton and capture the Democratic nomination. “I don’t know why she’s not already being told, ‘You can’t run because you’re being investigated.’ I don’t know how that’s not a thing.”