Star Wars Casting Choices

Am I the only one who thought it was weird to have Andy Samberg Play Kylo Ren?

JebBush.com

Forwards to https://www.donaldjtrump.com/.  Good planning Team Bush.  You only have a few
hundred million to spend, can't get bogged down spending 4 bucks for every possible domain name...that is also your candidate's actual name.  I'm sure there's tons of consultant fees and salaries that need taking care of instead.  

Ted Cruz was a Popular Fellow

Republican presidential candidate and amateur Blobfish impersonator +Ted Cruz is now the leading candidate in Iowa, displacing former frontrunners Carson and Trump.  Things are really coming together for the GOP, and just in case you thought "OH NO, this extremist, crazy guy who even his fellow GOP congressmen hate is completely unelectable and even worst than trump", just listen to this testimonial from his college roommate, someone without a partisan axe to grind who really knew the guy.

Can Trump Win the GOP Nomination?

image via Kevin Drum at motherjones.com

Ezra Klein had a funny quote about who will win the Republican nomination:

A lot of pundits — and I include myself in this group — have a sort of Underpants Gnomes theory of Marco Rubio's chances. Step one is Rubio is the only acceptable nominee to Republican elites. Step two is ... something. And step three is Rubio wins the nomination.

And I think the corollary  conventional wisdom is Trump can't win because....he's Trump, basically.  Too brash, too outrageous, too polarizing, too many outright lies, and basically too much of a fucking dick.  I mean, this is a guy who attacked John McCain for getting caught and tortured in a POW camp and made fun of a guy with a severe physical disability and called Iowa voters stupid and called Mexicans a bunch of rapists and...... The list is virtually endless.

But however funny Klein's quote is and however dickish and absurd Trump is, neither make Trump the impossible candidate party and media elites want him to be.  About a third of the GOP base love him according to polling.  And it seems to me they won't stop loving him no matter what crazy shit he says.  And that's because, despite many non-conservative positions he's espoused, he's "Conservative" with a "R".  And that "R" stands for Racist, and sexist and just generally hateful towards people the extremist GOP base hate.  The Takers, the Muslims, the Librul Eleets!  Even the sellout RINOs who have let America fail and helped elect a Kenyan Islamist as president.  These people don't give a shit about whose tax plan does exactly what, or other wonky, nerd nonsense.  They know Trump is on their side and not scared to tell the truth no matter how much the left wing, mainstream media attack him.  No matter how the notoriously biased "factinistas" claim he's objectively wrong.  And most definitely no matter how much the traditional GOP politicians and pundits tell them Trump is unelectable.  After all, that's what they said in 2008 and 2012, but "moderate" McCain and Romney both lost to Obummer (#thanksobama).

So I'll start with the premise the Trump can easily hold on to his current RealClearPolitics Average of 28%.  I'll also posit that Carson is going to fade and eventually drop out.  For him this was a money making scam to sell books and expand his brand.  He's been up to this kind of grifting for decades.  But the shine is coming off his brand as people look into the stories of him stabbing a friend and trying to kill his mom with a hammer and it turns out they're almost certainly lies.  I won't go into how surreal it is that these stories are somehow seen as good thing by his supporters.  But if Carson drops I think it's reasonable to think at least half of his voters could go to Trump's camp, adding another 10%.  Cruz will also drop and probably close to all of his voters will turn to Trump, adding about 12%.  That leaves about 50% for a single Trump alternative.  But of that 50% I could easily see 10%  voting for Trump instead of Rubio.  So in this totally speculative scenario 60% of the party could end up supporting Trump for the nomination.  Now there's lots of complications and super delegates etc in the nomination rules which I'm not well versed on and would come into play, but this is basically what I see as a feasible, totally believable, scenario for Trump being the GOP nominee.  Anyone discounting the possibility is fooling themselves.


Now, the polling could change drastically as we go forward as Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com argues, saying in part:

Quite often, however, the Trump’s-really-got-a-chance! case is rooted almost entirely in polls. If nothing Trump has said so far has harmed his standing with Republicans, the argument goes, why should we expect him to fade later on?
One problem with this is that it’s not enough for Trump to merely avoid fading. Right now, he has 25 to 30 percent of the vote in polls among the roughly 25 percent of Americans who identify as Republican. (That’s something like 6 to 8 percent of the electorate overall, or about the same share of people who think the Apollo moon landings were faked.) As the rest of the field consolidates around him, Trump will need to gain additional support to win the nomination. That might not be easy, since some Trump actions that appeal to a faction of the Republican electorate may alienate the rest of it. Trump’s favorability ratings are middling among Republicans (and awful among the broader electorate).....But there’s another, more fundamental problem. That 25 or 30 percent of the vote isn’t really Donald Trump’s for the keeping. In fact, it doesn’t belong to any candidate. If past nomination races are any guide, the vast majority of eventual Republican voters haven’t made up their minds yet.

But it's odd to see a statistics guy discount a case "rooted almost entirely in the polls".  Surely, polling is a decent, if limited, basis for an argument.  Particularly when Trump's polling has remained consistent for so long.

I still don't believe Trump in the most likely nominee, mainly for the same logically flawed reasons Klein and others put forward.  It just seems crazy.  But large parts of the GOP base are apparently crazy, so who the hell knows what's possible these days.

Google Autocomplete, You're Full of Suprises

WTF Trump? You just dialed it up to 11!

If you haven't watched Trump's speech today, watch that shit.  It's AMAZING.  he basically said "i won't call rubio a lightweight.  cause that's derogatory.  so i won't call him a lightweight.  will not call him a lightweight.  lightweight,lightweight,lightweight.  he's definitely not that."  to start.  which is the equivalent of "he definitely isn't a rapist.  Rubio is NOT A RAPIST, who said rubio is a serial rapist?  not me, that's for sure".  And i foolishly thought that was gonna be the pinnacle of his nuttiness.  But, lo and behold, he follows that up with comparing Carson to a child molester.  Then says, and this is a literal quote "How stupid are the people of Iowa, how stupid are the people of the country to believe this".   I don't disagree, but not the best campaign slogan, Donald.  "YOU'RE ALL IDIOTS!  VOTE TRUMP!"

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/11/13/donald_trump_s_carson_tirade_latest_sign_of_gop_chaos.html

Damn Liberal Media Bias!

The Final Gasp for #Benghazi?

In the latest round of the seemingly never ending series of "investigative" hearings on #BENGHAZI, so far Clinton seems very calm, collected and confident and i thought the part of her opening statement i heard was good. She's not attacking, but she's responding to all the questions pretty well and avoiding damage. For their part, the republicans seem to be trying to avoid obvious BS, partisan attacks and pretend they're doing a legit investigation. But that leaves them with nothing that actually hits Clinton substantively. It's mostly a lot of "didn't you know Libya was dangerous? here's a memo you got saying Libya was dangerous". No shit, guys. we all knew Libya was dangerous. lots of places our diplomats and military go are dangerous.  They do hard, dangerous but critical jobs.  And yes, tragically, sometimes they die doing those jobs.  But there was no cover-up, no stand down order, no lies and no actual scandal.  Every investigation, including the the ones run by republicans have agreed on this.  And of course GOP Majority Leader McCarthy basically admitted this whole thing was nothing more than a political witch hunt meant to hurt Clinton's poll numbers, not an actual investigation nito what happened.  So it sounds to me like this is about the last gasp of #BENGHAZI!!! scandal as far as the general public is concerned. The crazies will still rant about it, but as a serious campaign issue I think it's about dead.

Do Not Consider Phlebas

First, thanks to Dave for his first guest post.  Great Stuff.

Second, this is a bit off topic but I just read (part of) a really terrible, but massively popular and acclaimed, book.  Consider Phlebas by Iain Banks.  This is the first book in his Culture series, which is also massively popular an acclaimed.  Now, maybe I'm missing the point, and the whole thing is a literary metaphor that just goes over my head.  But I don't think so.  That said...

This book is not good. I was fooled by the reviews because I really like grand intergalactic sci-fi with a broad, complex backdrop. Consider Phlebas tries to be that, but without any new or interesting ideas. Its like someone shook up box full of bad 50's pulp sci-fi and whatever came out was the book. There are the space mercenaries, the super secret genetically modified spy with special powers and secret poison glands, the ultra tech society (which really seems very unimaginatively bland) and of course the interstellar war between implacable enemies. And instead of creating a feeling of grand awe, the vast galaxy of new creatures and cultures is just like a kinda weird big earth. Everyone know everyone, there's a huge crazy card game called "Damage" which is watched across the galaxy by trillions (and yet the main character,Horza, happens to recognize half the people playing in the game he happens upon (which is of course the 'biggest in the galaxy'). Its kinda like how Zaphod Beeblebrox and Ford Prefect knew everyone in the Universe, except this isn't supposed to be funny (or maybe it is and failed?). Another indication of how small Banks makes this galaxy seem, Horza gets thrown out of a space ship in the middle of a battle, uses his handy in suit warp drive, and yet is conveniently found moments later by a pirate space ship wandering by. Ugh. Aweful.  This is such an "It was raining on Mongo that morning" moment in the book, to quote Jerry Pournelle (who co-wrote, among many great books, The Mote In God's Eye). Please go read some vernor vinge instead if you'd like a galactic space adventure that is truly awe inspiring. Maybe the rest get better, but i doubt it.

Oh, and for now reason apparent to the plot so far (i just quit the book about half way through) Horza is captured by some fat religious cult leader who eats people while forcing his followers to starve eating garbage. Then we get a stupid description of the fat guy eating a prisoner, then eating horza's finger, then falling on his lead disciple and crushing him to death. The Horza escapes and that whole chapter basically meant nothing. And the book opened with Horzon being ritually executed by drowning in the feces and urine of his captors who are attending a party, and its, i guess, some race of all old people called "The Gerontologists" or something retarded like that. UGH!

Guest Blogger: Denali: Your Regular Reminder that by "State's Rights," Conservatives Always Just Meant Slavery

So, this is a little late to the party on the clown-show that is the Republicans, mainly the Ohio delegation, flipping out over alleged dictator Barak Obama renaming Mt. McKinley so that it is officially called Denali in the federal register.  However, I still wanted to chime in once I saw actual calls for congress to act to block the 'name change.'*  Particularly galling is chubby, bible-thumping, former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee saying that Congress should act.

Along with multiple other religious zealots in the field of Republican presidential candidates, he has long held the position that the several states should hold sway on most matters that occur within their borders, particularly when it comes to matters that allegedly involve religious liberty.  Generally, this is coupled with a misunderstanding of the First Amendment and the separation of church and state. (Often that misunderstanding comes with a willful disregard of historical facts regarding the Founding Fathers' position on faith and government.) 

Eventually, I will make a detailed post regarding this ridiculous revisionist history.  However, to stay somewhat on topic with Denali/McKinley, I am somewhat shocked that not a single journalist reporting the "have congress intervene in Obama's overreach story has noted that these idiots are asking the federal government to intervene on a matter where the State of Alaska, where the mountain in question resides, spoke long ago: the F'ing mountain is named Denali, said the State of Alaska in 1975!!!! (Update to include this article, making it clear that even the conservative residents of Alaska refer to it as Denali.)

Now, many media outlets have noted the ongoing Alaskan preference for the name Denali, as well as their numerous attempts to change it.  What galls me is the lack of acknowledgment that the very people pushing back on "imperial Obama" are complete hypocrites...  the land is in Alaska! Even beyond the obvious fact that it should be named to reflect what the actual natives called it, how about sliding up to Huckabee or one of these other idiots and noting that they generally would like powers to rest in the hands of the states and not the federal government? ...and by that logic, the people of Alaska really would have the say here, and not Congress, as hamstrung by the Ohio delegation?

All of this was a long walk down a path to make the point that "State's Rights" activists are full of $hit.  The very concept was merely invented to protect the rights of certain states to continue to engage in slavery. Thus the Civil War. So every time a politician trots out the State's Rights doctrine, remember that they are probably using it in some self-serving way to deny another person rights.  Because if they really believed in State's Rights, then the little shit like the naming of a mountain in Alaska would be pretty F'ing easy...  they'd say "Oh, that's an issue for Alaska to decide."

*technically, as this is my first blog-post for the Rambling Drunk I should have had a few more glasses of...  something...  before I wrote this.