Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
Seth re-games the election. The conclusion:
A 269 to 269 tie would have come about in those circumstances because of the 2 electoral vote bonus awarded to each state. Trump carried 30 states (each bringing a bump of 2 electoral votes), but Clinton only carried 20 states and the District of Columbia. It appears that Republicans go into presidential elections with about a 10 state or 20 electoral vote bonus.
Worth reading in full.
The fact that Obama has set up an opposition movement in the District of Columbia is a worrisome bit of news.
Obama’s goal, according to a close family friend, is to oust Trump from the presidency either by forcing his resignation or through his impeachment.
And Obama is being aided in his political crusade by his longtime consigliere, Valerie Jarrett, who has moved into the 8,200-square-foot, $5.3-million Kaloroma mansion with the former president and Michelle Obama, long time best friends.
Jarrett played a vital – if at times low-key – role in the Obama presidency. She lived in the White House, dined with the Obamas, and help shape his domestic and foreign policies.
She was also born in Iran and speaks Farsi. I wonder at her role in the Iran deal.
Now, we find more bad news.
Obama used the US intelligence apparatus to spy on Trump’s presidential campaign.
From June 16, 2015 we have been hearing about how the Republican Party is tearing itself apart. The battle for the Republican nomination pitted every dynastic interest against Donald Trump. And Trump won. The General election was characterized by Republican Party and elected officials declaring themselves as #NeverTrump, and functionally supporting the Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton. And now that Trump is President despite them, it is a fact the Republicans in Congress are slow-walking all of Trump’s nominees alongside the Democrats. It is the Republican Senate Majority Leader who is predicting that Obamacare will only be tinkered with around the edges, and the Republican Speaker of the House who is saying that there will be no tax reform, and that controlling the border may not happen.
Why do we hear this? It is because the MSM is a subset of the Democrat Leadership and operates temporarily in alliance with the GOPe leadership since the election. It is the media that tries to set the bounds of what we hear. And, in accordance with the dicta of government propagandists worldwide, the most important part of controlling public attitudes is what they do NOT allow us to hear.
Are the Republicans tearing themselves apart? Absolutely. Is that the only story out there? Not a chance. There are other events in progress that in conjunction with what we already know will greatly influence the final political outcome.
A friend sent a link to a leaked, recorded conversation between Trump and Wilbur Ross, his nominee for Commerce Secretary. There is nothing particularly troubling in the conversation. Trump is talking like Trump. He is the same person in public and in private, which is nice.
I responded:
Sounds good to me. A tariff is a consumption tax collected at the port of entry. The American founders expected to fund the operations of the national government with revenue from a tariff, and it worked. He is also right that the Japanese and other countries use safety regulations as non-tariff import barriers. There is nothing bad on here at all.
I honestly thought that once the election was done and Donald Trump duly sworn into the highest office in the land that those whose favored candidate lost would calm the heck down. You know, sort of the way that those of us whose chosen candidate lost in 2012… you know, disappointed but sporting about it. We went home, sniffled a little as we communed via the internet with equally disappointed friends, assumed the fetal position and turned the electric blanket onto “high” and got over it in a week or so. That’s the way the constitutionally-mandated cookie crumbles. The day after the election, I assumed that Hillary and Bernie voters would have had the maturity to do the same; morn a little, snivel a little, write editorials in the national media-of-record rationalizing their unfortunate reversals, perhaps throwing a little blame against whomever, and then pull themselves together and put as good a face on it as they could muster, promising to do better in 2020.
Nope; the march of the disappointed pussy-hatters the very next day, riots and protests in deep blue cities, the absolute frothing at the mouth Trump-hate at the Oscars and on the national news broadcasts, the impassioned print editorials, the ranting, raving, stompy-footing, the mass-defriending and insanely hateful rants on Facebook: Trump is a Nazi-fascist-anti-Semitic-racist-who-pulls-tags-off-mattresses and trips old ladies hobbling along on canes, and so is everyone who voted for him. Yes, over the last few years, we have kind of gotten the idea that the Ruling Class; the bi-coastal comfortable and well-connected (including the intelligentsia, the national media and bureaucracy) were contemptuous of the ordinary working and middle class residents of Flyoverlandia. Now we know for a certainty that those who form the coalition of the Ruling Class and many who aspire to be a member of that Class in good standing despise us. They despise us with a passion and fury that renders them incoherent, and unashamed of displaying that hatred.