Quick update

I’m home from Chattacon, and had a great time. However I picked up a nasty cold while I was there. I’ve got a ton of things to write about, but I’ll just have to catch up later. Right now I’ve got to finish editing Grunge so you guys can have your eARCs. If you’ve sent me an email or PM in the last two weeks, my apologies. I’ll get back to you when I can.

In the meantime, I’ve seen a bunch of people talking about the shooting in Oregon, so it is time to repost this article I wrote a couple of years ago after some other controversial shootings:

https://monsterhunternation.com/2014/11/25/the-legalities-of-shooting-people/

If you don’t understand the legalities of shooting people, read that essay. It will keep you from looking really dumb on the internet.

I also want to write something about Iowa. Called it. Hell, I called it six months ago. I really should have Karl Rove’s job. The only thing I underestimated was the size of the easily bamboozled, believe anything White Obama says crowd. The media has given Trump 3/4 of their coverage, and the people have given him 1/4 of the votes. This will get worse as second tier candidates run out of money and drop out and the Anybody But Trump vote coalesces around fewer candidates.

This just illustrates why you should never freak out too much based on polls. Really, more people should take Stats in college.

An Interview I did with JP Enterprises at SHOT
On my way to ChattaCon

79 thoughts on “Quick update”

  1. I’m not sure how Iowa is an indicator of anything. Cruz eked out a win in a caucus (i.e. not a popular vote) in a tiny state. When the popular votes start in several states, I’ll be interested to see how things shake out, but as of right now, we don’t know anything more than we did before: Trump, Cruz, and Rubio are the top three.

    WATYF

    1. Not quite true. We know that for all the hype Trump’s been getting, the polls have not been accurately representing the views of the voters. As for the Iowa caucuses not being a popular vote, they’re just as much a popular vote as any primary is. People had to go to their caucus locations to cast their votes (and in the Republican caucus, they were casting secret ballots, not standing in a particular section of the room). As to not knowing anything more than we did before, that’s pretty obviously not true either. We know that Cruz has a solid “ground game” and his support isn’t soft, since pretty much all the other candidates and the MSM have been trying to pull him down for the past 2-4 weeks, non-stop.

      1. In some ways, it looks like Cruz is taking a page from Obama’s book. He’s got a killer ground game, including, apparently, an elite number crunching team. It clearly paid dividends in Iowa. But New Hampshire and South Carolina are different critters. Let’s see how his GOTV machinery works in those states. If he significantly over performs, and Trump’s lack of a ground game leads him to significantly under perform, then we’ve got a horse race for the Republican primaries.

        I still can’t tell if Rubio is a long-term factor or not. He’s really counting on momentum carrying him to the top by the time the SC primaries come around. The next couple of weeks are going to be it, I think, for him. If he continues to move up the polls, and it shows in the next two primaries, then he is in it for the long haul. If he plateaus, though, then he’s probably done by March.

        That being said–I think he put the fear of God in Trump last night. Either Trump is going to start dumping serious money into a legit ground game, or he’s going to implode. He can’t rely on unending media coverage anymore. It’s feet-on-the-ground, GOTV machinery that he needs to put into motion.

        Good times. Good times. I’ve never been so interested in the primary process before. Hope it stays interesting.

        1. Well, I think the GOP elite has a blinding hatred of Cruz. In the last week or two before the Iowa caucus, they were talking as though Trump was acceptable to them, so long as Cruz was beaten. Now that Trump doesn’t look so invulnerable as before, they seem to be coalescing around Rubio as the establishment candidate with the best chance of stopping Cruz. We’ll see how that resonates with the voters, but this season being anointed by the GOP hierarchy, far from being helpful, seems to be more akin to the kiss of death.

          1. Don’t confuse hatred with fear. The GOP establishment fears Cruz. His willingness to upset the applecart has them tied in knots.

        2. @nukemhill “In some ways, it looks like Cruz is taking a page from Obama’s book”

          Cruz flat out stated he was copying Obama’s campaign strategy a few months ago.

    2. Right Trump gets 3/4s of the press attention, and under performs his polls by 10 points, getting 1/4 of the vote. But we know nothing new.

    3. The next question is what happens when the others drop out. That really should start happening pretty soon. Maybe Fiorina’s and Christie’s would go to Trump, but everyone else’s is likely to choose Cruz or Rubio.

      My opinion is that anyone who could support Trump already is. He very well might be 35% of the population’s first choice, but my guess is that he’s nobody’s second, third, or fourth choice.

      1. Depends on how New Hampshire goes. My guess is that Rubio will pick up the win (NH never picks the Iowa winner in the Rep race).
        If that happens, Trump is pretty much finished. Trump is more or less a “bandwagon’ candidate. If the race is between Cruz and Rubio, Trump loses out on the media buzz which has been keeping him going.

      2. Yes, Trump’s ceiling should become apparent soon.

        There are a lot of people who would be happy with either Cruz or Rubio, both good conservative candidates.

  2. I came up Sunday morning hoping to meet you but I couldn’t find you! Any plans to return to the Chattanooga area in the future?

      1. Also, if you happen to have time, you are welcome to come down to the Possum Holler Rod n’ Gun Club and shoot while you are in town!

  3. For years a lot of black voters have assumed all their politicians are liars, so they might as well vote for the most entertaining liar. With Sarah Palin and now Trump, we see a white vote on that line. Both Trump and Palin have some real chops, but I’d say that’s where their votes come from.

    1. People say that’s where the Puppies come from too. What is there about the words “push back” some people don’t understand? Call a man a dog often enough and don’t be surprised if he barks. Call me “cis white dude” often enough and that’s exactly what you’ll get. Goose meet gander. Is it possible for the Right to be infiltrated by white supremacists that were there all along and only now pretending to be hurt? Sure. But we know “feminism” and the Left have been infiltrated by an anti-white, anti-male ideology of female-worship. That’s precisely why all this identity politics is so toxic… for everyone.

      Let’s get back to our touchstones: equal protection, due process and free speech, a thing which is no longer cherished by a Left which today despises open debate. And why wouldn’t they? It’s hard to push lies about history which result in purposeful affirmative action segregated anthologies like Women Destroy SF while simultaneously crying about an accidentally all-male comics award in France.

      1. Agreed. We have to uphold the values of civilized society, our touchstones as you say. But we also need to not be afraid to call the barbarians who oppose us out when they try to assault us. Tolerance (not as the left would have it, tacit acceptance, but refusal to oppose) hasn’t been reciprocated by the barbarians, so why continue it? The best way to beat them is with ridicule and belittling, I think. And humor, which they have no real defense against, being totally devoid of humor or the ability to understand it.

        1. Social justice crusaders have a sense of humor alright. Why else would Apex feature Requires Hate, the most insanely psychotic man-hating racist in the history of SF in their current issue? Because they’re against Vox Day. Get it? I’m sure next issue they’ll feature a rat, or a monkey, or maybe the Grand Dragon of the KKK. They’re a barrel of laughs. They’re like the National Lampoon of SFF.

          “Buy this issue or we’ll shoot this dog and also make Santa R. Delany a Grandmaster of YA fiction.”

          Terrific humorists.

          1. No, we see what they do as humorous (because it’s objectively absurd), but they don’t. They’re not being humorous; they’re deadly serious. Which I agree just makes it funnier, but it’s not like they get the joke.

        2. Exactly, Doug. That’s the one eternal struggle: civilized values against barbarism. And it’s never too hard to figure out which side is which.

    2. Hey, I’m white, and I’m really hoping that the rest of the election will be Trump vs. Sanders. Because that would be awesome.

      I don’t expect either of them to fulfill any of their promises if they actually get elected, so it doesn’t really matter to me which one of them wins, I’m just in it for the free entertainment.

      I realize that this is totally unlikely, and that we’re most probably looking at Cruz vs. Clinton, but still, one can hope…

      1. The real problem with that attitude is that the Supreme Court is aging. Can you imagine what kind of jurist either Trump or Sanders would nominate? Say goodbye to property rights. Sanders, because he doesn’t really believe in them (maybe to the point of being hostile to the idea, after all, property rights gets in the way of redistribution). Trump because his open LOVE affair with eminent domain.

        Clinton would be just as bad. Hell, she would probably take your shit… then lie to your face and say she didn’t do it (something my kids grew out of about the time they stopped wearing diapers).

        That leaves us with Cruz, not sure what he would offer for the court. I suppose much of the Left would worry that his pick would be a direct attack on abortion “rights”, religious rights (for non-Christians anyway), and/or free speech (they always SAY that, but when does it ever happen?).

        Whoever wins election may or may not be effective, but chances are, the repercussions from who they appoint to SCOTUS will reverberate for many many years.

        1. “That leaves us with Cruz, not sure what he would offer for the court”

          Really? The guy who clerked for two VRWC judges and was an incredibly effective advocate for constitutional conservatism as Texas SG?

          Do y’all not realize what it means to make it through two Ivy League schools as a conservative?

  4. This just illustrates why you should never freak out too much based on polls.

    If polls meant anything we wouldn’t need elections.

  5. “Really, more people should take Stats in college.”
    So much yes. Because no one on the internet understands margin of error.

    1. “Margin of error?” That’s the empty spaces on the sides of the error, right? Or is it a margin which appears where it shouldn’t be?

      1. Nah, it’s where you miss the deer by 2 feet to the right on the first shot and 2 feet to the left on the second and you jump for joy, screaming: “I got him!”

        1. That’s also a good example of the difference between accuracy and precision: sure, you completely missed the deer, but look how consistently the shots landed!

    2. I’ve opined before that in order to vote, you should be required to take and pass two semesters of the history of western civilization (as it used to be taught, that is, reasonably accurately), one semester of stats, and two semesters of economics. Because without them, as a voter you are at grave risk of being manipulated.

      Not that pols won’t try to manipulate you anyway, but the above afford some degree of “inoculation” as it were.

      Oh, and I’m an engineer, not a history or econ person. But I still consider the above education essential.

  6. Lots of talk about Cruz after the win. Not a American and this is 1 of the few places I visit with a republican bent. Online I mostly visit pop-culture sites who are either not political or clearly left wing. And the 5 min they might use on US politics in news over here (Denmark) not going to give a usefull picture.

    So from the sources I get most of my information Cruz is clearly the antichrist 🙂 I was thinking this could be a good place to get some actual information, other than he is evil. So I’m gonna post some of the statements about Cruz I noticed and see if anyone comments. Where I get this from its clearly noted as bad things. I guess what I’m looking for is if its actually his positions, if you agree and why.

    (edit) post got pretty long so don’t feel like you have to reply to everything. Or anything, feel free to ignore …

    – Cruz wants to make sure no woman is allowed an abortion ever again for any reason. As in 13 year old rape victim or women with illness that might make pregnancy lethal don’t matter, still no abortion.
    — Abolish the IRS. Set up a flat tax. Slash corporate tax rates to 15%.
    — ‘Rip to shreds’ the historic Iranian nuclear deal
    — Carpet-bomb regions where ISIS might be, to see if ‘sand can glow in the dark’
    — Get rid of the Affordable Care Act
    — Move the U.S. embassy in Israel capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israel’s ‘once and eternal capital’.
    — ‘Rescind every single illegal and unconstitutional executive action taken by [Obama]’(clearly noted here that the people saying it don’t think anything Obama done would count as illegal or unconstitutional.)
    — Introduce a blanket ban on refugees from any country in part controlled by a terrorist organisation. (Because why would anyone flee such a welcoming-sounding place?!)
    — Close the Energy Department. He has previously introduced a bill that aimed to get ‘rid of the president’s authority to restrict exports of coal, natural gas, petroleum and other products, as well as oil and gas from the outer continental shelf, and repeal limitations of oil exports.’
    — Close the Commerce Department and shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
    — Oppose net neutrality.
    — Give states the power to define what ‘marriage’ is for themselves. Cruz himself believes that that constitutes a union between a man and a woman.

    1. That is way too much stuff for me to answer in my blog comments. How about you go to Cruz’s campaign page and read his positions rather than try to have other people try to regurgitate them?

      1. Yeah, agreed, copy/pasting his website into these comments makes no sense.

        I think I have a slightly better question, though (well, hopefully): which campaign promises is Cruz likely to actually fulfill, once he is elected ? I don’t just mean, which promises will he even pay attention to at all; but also, which planks of his platform are realistically achievable ?

        Cruz is a politician, so my gut instinct is to say “he will do nothing at all besides giving fancy speeches”, but I’ve been told that I could be overly cynical at times, so…

        Same question applies to Clinton and the rest of them, obviously.

        1. The evidence seems to indicate that Ted Cruz is long term, methodical, deliberate, and organized. He either is sincerely loyal to a particular ideological position, or has calculated that appearing as such will suit his ends. Given how long he has presented as such, sincerity is more plausible than being that superb a forecaster.

          The position he advocates is one of opposition to both Obama’s ends and means. With opposition to means perhaps being stronger. Deeds have uncontrollable elements, but any one who can master themself and lead others can control what methods they use.

          Thus we can predict that either Cruz would follow the campaign promises regarding executive operating procedure, or that he has absurd foresight and might as well be Sousuke Aizen.

          1. Right, but what, specifically, will Ted Cruz actually be able to change ? Being committed is not enough; one must also be able to actually achieve what one is committed to achieving, given the resources available.

            On the other hand, Cruz — just like every other politician — has lots of paragraphs on his site to the extent of “I will uphold the Constitution”. I’m sure that he will, but without knowing the specifics, these words don’t mean much, since every politician interprets them in his own way.

            Additionally, defeating Obama is actually pretty easy at this point; all you have to do is wait a year, and he will be out of office. Once again, it’s specific policies that I’m interested in.

            I’m not just singling out Cruz, FWIW; Sanders has about the same mix of campaign promises on his website. Some are merely nice-sounding platitudes; some are concrete proposals that IMO would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to actually implement; and very few are things that a President might reasonably be expected to achieve. But I’m more familiar with Democratic rather than Republican policies at this point, which is why I asked for the conservative perspective.

          2. I am a Ted Cruz supporter.

            My contention, and I think his, is that Obama has committed novelties in terms of executive orders, off the books management direction, and various other thing that are at this point allegations.

            If Cruz behaves as Obama, this becomes precedent. I heard second hand interpretations that Trump and Hillary have essentially promised to behave this way.

            If, on the other hand, Cruz makes certain everything he does has a paper trail, even if it could make him look bad, I would count that as a promise kept.

            I would expect a process that improves three areas. 1) Is there a real need to act, or only an emotional need? 2) Is solving it this way a duty and legitimate power of the office? 3) It is clearly documented so that I can be hanged for it if I am wrong.

            So if you said a mean thing about Cruz: 1) The PotUS does not need to squash the likes of you or me 2) Squashing people like us is neither an obligation or right 3) If he did fail the first two promises, I would give him partial credit if he went through official channels, and had enough in writing to jail himself and everyone who followed his illegal orders.

            It seems pretty clear and explicit to me, and I cannot be clearer without sharing my impressions of Obama with you.

          3. @BobtheRegisterredFool:
            Right, that makes sense. To paraphrase my understanding of what you said (apologies if this is inaccurate), your believe that Cruz will govern without employing any of the coercive methods that you attribute to Obama. But that’s only half of the equation; what about his goals ?

            As far as I can tell (by reading Cruz’s website), his overall domestic policy centers around promoting Christianity, and instilling Christian values (as he interprets them to be) into law. The problem is, I can’t really tell which specific policies he is going to implement. It’s one thing to say something like, “I will restore traditional Christian values”; and it’s a wholly different thing to say, for example, “I will ban abortion and gay marriage on the federal level”. The first statement sounds good, but is completely vague; the second statement is more concrete, but may not be achievable (at least, not by a President, Congress could theoretically do it).

            By contrast, I just browsed Hillary’s website, and she has a ton of concrete, specific proposals. I even agree with some of them; but, this being Hillary, I have zero confidence in her commitment to any of these proposals, so IMO it’s kind of pointless to even read them.

            Sanders, on the other hand, also has some concrete proposals, and I believe he absolutely intends to implement them. Unfortunately, most of them are so outlandish that I can’t imagine them ever getting off the ground.

          4. Under goals write ‘1. Opposition to Obama’s methods’ and ‘2. Opposition to Obama’s goals’.

            Conservatives unhappy about the current methods include those with issues specific to Obama, those who objected to Bush doing similar things, those who count Nixon, and so on, perhaps including historical citations of a negative trend in executive power use over two hundred years. Obama was at least careless enough on this that his first Secretary of State avoided the public record by running an off the books email server.

            Cruz’s market for one is people who are worried that Obama will have successful imitators in this regard. Cruz is selling the idea that if he sticks to certain methods, the American people will be able to tell from the results, thus discrediting Obama, and making them less likely to elect Obama imitators.

            As for two, I could not say what specific priorities he would have and whether he would be able to implement them.

            Cruz is a lawyer with strong verbal abilities. I have no idea if he has even taken calculus. So the numeracy issues would likely depend on his staff, his bullshit detector, and his leadership abilities.

            I haven’t checked his energy policy, and do not know what priority he would put on it. I think energy policy trumps social policy for impact on the poor.

            As for the rest of Obama’s goals, those run into the limits of my forecasting. Military, foreign policy and intelligence are all hard to call. I do doubt that Cruz can repair the effect of the OPM hack in four years.

            I’ve idea about one point that will have to wait for later. You can find similar material at today’s ATH.

          5. What is Cruz selling with the Christianity pitch? What do his supporters expect? Will he deliver?

            Firstly, it has been suspected for decades that senior US Federal employees retiring onto the Saudi payroll is a result of that government systemically buying influence.

            Bush’s foreign policy agenda was mostly set by 9/11. Republicans now strongly suspect that Democratic and anti-war critiques of Bush’s policies were contrived, and actually driven by hurt feelings over 2000.

            Obama’s pitch was that he was smarter, friendlier, and and in general better than Bush, and that foreign relations with Muslim populations would be wonderful. He won on reaction to Bush.

            Obama did not at first make his foreign policy diverge substantially from Bush’s. (I suspect from inability, or fear of losing the 2012 election.) Even Republicans who thought Bush’s policy was insanely incompetent tend to figure that Obama largely caused the current humanitarian mess by acting on his own policy ideas.

            On the domestic end, Obama has created the impression that he thinks the place for Christians in America is the same as that for non-Muslims in a Muslim theocracy or an Islamic state. (One wonders if he had that attitude beaten into him as a boy.)

            That Obama’s pitch of ‘friendship with Muslims’ has resulted in foreign hardship for Muslims, and the appearance of domestic Dhimmitude creates certain expectations of the match of pitch to results.

            Trump and Cruz are using different pitches to contrast Obama’s, and to suggest that their results will be different.

            Trump is going with a more bombastic blood and guts pitch, that Cruz could not pull off. Trump can directly speak against Islam.

            Cruz instead quietly asserts the primacy of Christ, indirectly refusing to submit tamely to Islam. Trump couldn’t do this.

            I cannot speak to whether Cruz could change public sentiment about appearances by being in office.

            I don’t expect that he is sure to make the mid-east less of festering metastasizing disaster.

    2. Ted Cruz for Foreigners 101:

      Abstract: Ted Cruz is David Drake, Tom Kratman, and John C. Wright. If you stay out of his business, he will let you go to hell. If you make yourself his business, he will kill you. If your children are left behind, he will see that they are raised Christian.

      Conclusions: Ted Cruz is heavily interested in the inner workings of the United States, matters only of real interest to Americans.

      Q: I am a wealthy foreigner, and I want to know if it will be as easy to buy consideration as it was in prior administrations.
      A: No.

      Q: I want to know how the feasibility of choreographing ‘humanitarian disasters’ will compare to before.
      A: The media will still be suckers, but Cruz will not have the reasons Obama does to pretend to be deceived.

      Q: I am a foreigner worried that Ted Cruz will invade my country, kill me, rape my wife, and settle his soldiers on my land.
      A: There are two houses in the world. These are the House of Submission to the Constitution of the United States of America, and the House of War. There will never be any true lasting peace between Ted Cruz and the House of War. If your government has no opinion regarding what should and should not be legal in the United States of America, you may not be living in the House of War. Unless you are in the House of War, there are at least some millions ahead of you in the line to the chopping block.

      Q: OMG, there’s going to be a nuclear war!
      A: The international community awarded Obama the Nobel peace prize for abandoning the traditional American theories of counter-proliferation. If one does not want to insult the international community, one must suppose they knew what they wanted.

      Q: I am a foreigner who wishes to trespass upon the United States of America and help overthrow it by violence .
      A: If you come, don’t go crying because you aren’t hard enough.

      Q: Seriously, what is his foreign policy going to be like? Bush’s? The last guy who didn’t rely on subordinates who were compromised by Saudi’s or Soviets?
      A; Hard to say. Some of it is going to be driven by things we can’t see now.

      Q: Seriously. I’m a foreigner, but not a despot or a political nut. Is there anything I need to be losing sleep over?
      A; Probably nothing that Cruz wouldn’t lose sleep over.

      Q: But what about…?
      A: That probably falls under the category of ‘American internal affairs’, no more your business than how hard you beat your wife is of any American.

    3. I decided I also wanted to give a serious answer in a serious tone.

      The only aspect of abortion really likely to be in play is whether the Federal government continues to fund that organ trafficking organization. In the US, Bill Clinton is known to be a serial rapist, and ‘feminists’ heavily support him. Hillary was his chief blamer and discrediter of victims. She came to the job with prior experience, having protected a man who had raped a 14 year old.

      The ‘historic nuclear deal’ is probably a tissue of lies. Reality will tear it to shreds no matter what Cruz or anyone else does.

      Obama has discredited himself on the refugee issue. The executive seems unwilling or unable to vet the travelers to make sure they are not terrorists. The more Obama insists that everything is fine, and that he is going to do it anyway, the more he poisons the issue.

      The part of the Energy Department that the left cares about is ‘renewable’ ‘alternative energy’. The activists supporting this often do not have the thermodynamics background to the level of an engineer. The Obama administration’s policy has been to shovel money to cronies. Cruz isn’t going to support that. The DoE does have some activities with a solid engineering foundation. I haven’t checked Cruz’s energy platform, but I imagine he wouldn’t go after the sound areas.

      Republicans understand net neutrality as an excuse for internet censorship.

      1. The ‘historic nuclear deal’ is probably a tissue of lies. Reality will tear it to shreds no matter what Cruz or anyone else does.

        Why do I suspect “Silchas_Ruin” never realized that Neville Chamberlain’s deal with Germany was pretty historic too.

    4. Re: the “if you were raped, you should be able to have an abortion” argument –

      If a man commits any crime other than rape, is it just to punish his child for that crime?

      If a man commits rape, is it just to punish his child for that crime?

  7. Regarding the Oregon thing- we on the Right need to be just as suspicious, cautious, careful, and hesitant to believe our own press sources as we are of the Mainstream Media. Even more so. “Fake But Accurate” isn’t suddenly okay because it’s about Obama or Hillary.

  8. I have a lot of sympathy for those guys in Oregon and the cause they are trying to defend; it doesn’t help that the guy who was shot is almost a cousin-in-law. I’ve seen the video a couple times; while I can see how people strain to see unreasonable force, I think it’s a justified shooting, as much as I’d like to think that LeVoy had the best of intentions and meant no harm.

    Having said that, I reserve the right to be suspicious, and I’d like to see the autopsy report and hear any available audio.

    While there have been exaggerations and lies bandied about, I’ve been taken by surprise by how reasonable the leaders of them group have generally been…

    1. I agree, sort of.
      This was a straight Suicide By Cop. He knew what would happen if he dropped his hands, and he did it anyway. If any of the “LaVoy was murdered” types saw a video of anyone else (Michael Brown, for instance) doing the exact same thing, they would have no problem with it. But because they identify politically with the offender, they refuse to believe what their eyes tell them.
      And any one of them would have done exactly what the officers did in the same situation.

    2. Thing is, from what has been seen so far, I at least cannot tell whether he dropped his hands before he was shot – or he dropped his hands BECAUSE he was shot.

      The answer to that (if we ever get actual evidence either way) leads to two diametrically opposed conclusions.

      The other thing, though, is that if we never do get that evidence – I figure the conclusion to be drawn is premeditated murder.

      1. So what you’re saying is that the officer, knowing he was being videotaped, chose to shoot a surrendering, hands-up man in the hope that the way he fell would make it look like he was reaching for a weapon?
        Ever hear of Occam’s Razor?

  9. Larry, thanks again for the great time at Chattacon.

    I’m fighting off a cold myself. Maybe I have the ILOH virus! In any case, this always helps me fight it off, or failing that, drastically shorten the period of suffering: http://tiny.cc/7vit8x

    (The tea is good, too, but you have to drink a gallon of it to get the same effect…)

    I find it interesting that the Chinese go to the trouble of importing American ginseng root to process and export.

    1. Well…. they’re kind of busy paving over their own country (according to the Top Gear guys) so maybe the supply just isn’t there?

  10. So hey- the obnoxious guy that everyone hates, who supported Democrats and had no prior political experience, showed up in Iowa and not only beat all the Establishment choices but came within four points of beating the Great Conservative Hope… all without a ground game.
    Kinda makes you wonder if the GOP has been doing this whole “politics” thing wrong for all these years, huh?

    1. Hey, Justin “Shiny Pony” Trudeau got elected Prime Minister of Canada based on good hair and name recognition.

      Not kidding. His most responsible job prior to being crowned the Next Big Hope for the Liberals was high school drama teacher. Part time, no less. Couldn’t get a full-time gig.

      And as much of a New York liberal as Trump is, I very much doubt he could be as clueless as a former part-time drama teacher with really good hair.

      1. So true Phantom. We need leadership, what we got is a sock puppet(with nice hair). The boy can’t think on his own, only says what the back room Liberal elite tell him to say.

      2. We have Prime Minister Nice Hair, and if the US elects Trump, you’ll have President Fake Hair.

      3. On top of it, Trudeau is Obama-lite in every single respect.

        The only way you guys down south could possibly have it worse is with Hilldawg or Uncle Bernie.

    2. You mean the candidate who has gotten way more media coverage than all the other candidates put together did okay? Wow. This is my shocked face.

      1. Coverage does not equal votes, or OJ Simpson would be President of the World with Kim Kardashian as his veep. Well, for a little while at least.
        And coming in only four points behind the leader when you’re a total political amateur who didn’t think he even needed a ground game is a little better than “Okay”.

        1. No, your analogy sucks. Change Kardashian to Trudeau and you’ll get the point. Actually in the early primaries coverage does equal votes. That’s commonly accepted. Can’t differentiate yourself from the herd if you don’t get your message out there. That’s why they do all that campaigning.

          Trump was the leader. He was the leader in just about every poll. He should have won by 10. He came in 4 points behind a guy who had a fraction of his coverage. That was a loss, no matter how you want to spin it.

          And if you think a billionaire mogul, reality show star, who has been involved with top level politics and media for three decades is a political “amateur”, you’re a sucker.

  11. It was really nice meeting you at Chattacon. Thank you for signing books and the playing card for me. When my players draw it while we are playing MHI they will get a special advantage.

  12. Hey Larry – did you see the Coen brothers’ interview with an SJW writer in the Daily Beast? Sounds like they’re fans of your blog:

    [Ethan Coen] continued: “You don’t sit down and write a story and say, ‘I’m going to write a story that involves four black people, three Jews, and a dog,’—right? That’s not how stories get written. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand anything about how stories get written and you don’t realize that the question you’re asking is idiotic.

  13. In response to the cold/con crud that you seemed to have pulled in, I will suggest the following to prevent/cure it. And it does work for both.

    I use elderberry extract and South African Geranium (Umckaloabo) whenever I start to feel a cold come on. 4 days later, cold is gone and never comes to fruition. I take it at the rate of 1 geranium and 2 elderberry capsules morning and night. Sometimes, if I start it too late, I will double the dosage over the same amount of time. Nice part about this stuff is that you can slam more if you want and not have to worry about OD’s.

    Would recommend that you start 2/3 days before going to the con, maintain it through the traveling schedule and end it 3/4 days after all the travel is finished. If you do catch anything, it will be very mild.

    Downside with the geranium is that if you have an autoimmune disease like lupus or MS, it will seriously aggravate it.

    This is the search I used, use your own if you want.

    https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0LEV0OAtrRWBCEA74Cl87UF;_ylc=X1MDOTU4MTA0NjkEX3IDMgRmcgMEZ3ByaWQDMGNyNTRpOUZSc0s1SWhxV1EyaXVJQQRuX3JzbHQDMARuX3N1Z2cDMTAEb3JpZ2luA3NlYXJjaC55YWhvby5jb20EcG9zAzAEcHFzdHIDBHBxc3RybAMEcXN0cmwDMjIEcXVlcnkDc291dGggYWZyaWNhbiBnZXJhbml1bQR0X3N0bXADMTQ1NDY5MzI2OA–?p=south+african+geranium&fr=sfp&fr2=sb-top-search&iscqry=

    Love your books.

  14. Cold remedy: whiskey of choice, lemon juice, sugar, hat.
    Place hat at end of bed.
    Mix lemon juice and sugar in whiskey, to taste.
    Sip slowly until two hats are seen.
    Cold will be cured.

  15. So glad you see through Trump, Larry. Way too many people are falling for this shameless unprincipled halfwit crony-socialist con man’s endless stream of nonsense. Fortunately the electorate seems to be waking up and realizing the GOP doesn’t need to play the celebrident game.

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