Hiatus

Be back soon.

The markets weigh in

Twitchy: "Stephanie Ruhle Kicked Her Day Off Gloating BIGLY Over the Markets SOARING Under Dems. About That."

NY Post: "Wall Street sees biggest market cap drops ever after midterm bloodbath for GOP." 

A good analysis

Shorter version: Democrats told Americans they had solutions for their problems while Republicans questioned whether those problems really existed.

(Long tweet warning) In which I anger everyone. 1. The Democrats won because the Democrat candidates persuaded more people that the Democrat positions would answer the problems that those people have. I can hear the instant but that's not true, those answers are not answers, they are actions that will compound the problems! Agreed. And the Republican candidates failed to persuade people that was the case. I will type this until my fingers bleed: the locus of responsibility for a candidate being elected to office lies with the candidate, not with the voters. It is the candidate's job, indeed, the candidate's only job, to persuade people to vote for said candidate. Positive persuasion (vote for me because I can fix that) is far more appealing than negative persuasion (do not vote for that other person, they will make it worse). People want to support something, not prevent something. The reason why saying the only thing that a prevent defense prevents is winning is funny is because it has the ring of truth. The Democrats listened to what the public was saying it wanted and then replied that hey, the Republicans haven't done anything to make that better, in fact, the Republicans made it worse, and we can make it better! I repeat, that I (and likely most of those reading this) think that the policies the Democrats advocate will make those problem worse is irrelevant. What is relevant for getting elected is persuading people that the problems facing those people matter and that the candidate has a plan to fix it. The idiotic central premise of What's The Matter With Kansas, namely that voters don't actually know what's in their best interest, the political class does, does not become less idiotic when it is being spewed by those on the Right. People are screaming, as loudly as possible, that they are drowning. The response by far, far too many people on the Right is to sneer to paddle harder. Contempt is met with contempt, as it should be. The Republicans in Congress have failed, catastrophically so, to take any actions to implement the policies that those self same Republicans claim will improve matters. If those policies are so important and so good and so necessary, then why has legislation implementing those policies not been passed? The Democrats most decidedly are able to pass what the Democrats deem important. Why have the Republicans not done the same? You cannot beat something with nothing is a truism for a reason. I will also type until my fingers bleed the following: there has to be a pay off for a sacrifice or people will not make that sacrifice. That pay off does not need to be immediate, however, there has to be some visible progress toward that pay off for a person to keep making the sacrifice. Put the hours in to get the promotion, exercise and diet to lose the weight, take political positions which may make you a social pariah, possibly even a professional pariah must have at least tiny tangible steps towards pay off. What did support for a Republican trifecta get? Judges, yes. The tax bill, yes. And what else? What other actions by Congress took place to make the sacrifice worth it? Any action by the Executive can, will, and, arguably, should, be undone by the Executive who gets elected who opposes those actions. What actions die the Republican Congress take to codify the positions the Republicans claim are so important? Well. Pretty much none. It is reasonable for a person to look at that and say those policies must not be that important to solve problems. Demanding sacrifice while acting to prevent the payoff will result in the rational conclusion the sacrifice is not worth it. The Democrats persuaded more people that the Democrats would solve their problems. The Democrats persuaded more people that the Democrats agree that the problems are problems in the first place. The Democrats did not treat voters as recalcitrant children who don't actually know what is important. Funny how that resulted in the Democrats winning. It's a mystery, really. II. And if you weren't furious with me before, you will be now. The other side gets to win. That's how the entire representative democracy system works. Each side presents its case to the voters. The voters decide which case the voters find more persuasive. That's how it works. Only children scream that the other side winning means the election was illegitimate and the voters were stupid. The other side gets to win too. The other side gets to say, hey, our ideas will work better. Voters get to decide that the voters believe that. That is how it works. Refusing to accept the legitimacy of the other side winning is toxic to the very idea of representative democracy. Sometimes, my side loses and the other side wins. That is life. It is incumbent on me, and I do mean the personal me here, to consider that maybe my ideas aren't actually the best for most people and maybe my premises are wrong and maybe my ideas and premises are better but I need to recalibrate how I present them. That's what adults do. Screaming that the voters are stupid and the other side isn't legitimate is what children do. To sum up, the Democrats persuaded more people to believe they would do what they say and fix things and so be it. /fin

— alexandriabrown (@alexthechick) November 4, 2026

Not a good night

I can't stay up like I used to anymore but I've seen enough.  It looks like a wave election for the Democrats.  Oh well, can't win them all.

The tolerant Left

Not the Bee: "Angry old liberal slaps TPUSA volunteer for disagreeing with his tolerant worldview."

I thought people were supposed to gain wisdom with age.

Also accurate

NY Post: "Democrats’ fury at Haley Stevens means the party’s antisemitic transformation is almost complete."

The funniest take I saw was from Byron York who wrote: "But did Haley Stevens expect that, by switching her support from a Democrat to a Republican, she would receive the media's Liz Cheney Country Over Party award? If so, she was badly mistaken." 

I tend to think this is accurate

Washington Post: "A terrible night awaits the GOP, and even that might be an understatement."

I think the House is gone.  At this point I'm setting the bar so low that I only want El-Sayed to lose.  That guy has no business being anywhere near Washington. 

When the NYT commits an act of journalism

Townhall: "NYTimes Readers Aren't Happy With the Peltola Piece" - "The New York Times has gone so long without committing an act of journalism against someone with a D next to their name that they were forced to publish an explainer article detailing the thought process behind their exposé on Mary Peltola’s fake Dan Sullivan scheme." 

"I think it's funny"

The brave defenders of democracy think the Alaskan confusion is a big joke.  Jonathan Turley: "“That’s Part of the Process”: Democratic Leaders Embrace Voter Confusion Tactics as Harmless or Humorous."

Western Massachusetts update

People in Northampton are fighting over a plan to redesign Main Street: "Main Street is ‘a place where people come together.’ In Northampton, it’s tearing the town apart."

This article is unintentionally funny for two reasons.  First, there are multiple references to Trump.  What does Trump have to do with a town project to redesign downtown?  Couldn't tell ya!  Something about Northampton citizens being mean to each other, therefore Trump.  And that's the second funny thing: all these hippy-dippy tolerance-bumper-sticker types are at each other's throats over parking spaces.

Let me tell you a story about Northampton.  Years ago, the wife and I went to Northampton nearly every other weekend.  There was an art house theater that showed foreign films and great restaurants all over the place.  In the center of town was a quirky T-shirt and novelty shop called "Faces" (never mentioned in the Boston Globe article) that drew in large crowds.  The Iron Horse Music Group (venues Iron Horse, Pearl Street, Calvin Theater) regularly bought in major acts.  After dinner, we would treat ourselves at a great Italian bakery called La Fiorentina right down the street from the Northampton Brewery or maybe have a cappuccino at the Haymarket Cafe.  

All of that is gone.

The theater is gone.  A lot of major restaurants like Spoleto closed down or moved.  The Northampton Brewery once served full dinners and now they're a burger and nachos joint.  La Fiorentina Bakery shut down.  Haymarket Cafe is gone.  Faces shut down.  Thorne's Marketplace across the street is a shadow of its former glory.  The Iron Horse Music Group shut down and the town sued the owner to either sell his venues or lose his liquor license.  He sold the Iron Horse but all the other venues are vacant and unused.

Northampton isn't dying because of bad traffic patterns.  It's dying because the Left does what the Left does: raise taxes on "greedy" businesses, allow vagrants to overrun the sidewalks, and inject politics into every experience.  A downtown redesign isn't going to bring back the consumers so they can eat mozzarella sticks and sidestep beggars.  Damn you, Trump!

It's because people hate the mainstream media

Townhall: "The Washington Post Just Gave Republicans Another Reason to Question the Midterm Polls."

It's because Republicans simply do not participate in polls.  Know why?  Because Republicans hate the mainstream media, which is correctly perceived to be totally in the tank for Democrats.  I've been banging this drum of media bias and credibility for so long but nothing ever changes.  When Trump won in 2016, it led to a series of "Gorillas in the Mist" articles where urban journalists traveled to flyover country but that quickly faded.  Now you have news rooms actively rebelling in investigating anything that might reflect poorly on their favored candidates. 

Not to my knowledge

NY Post: "Ilhan Omar was so confused by marriage to ‘brother’ she crossed out her own name twice on official application."

Who among us doesn't remember their own name once in a while?

Appointed by Trump

This was a swing and a miss by the President: "'Your White Mediocrity': Federal Judge Ordered to Seek Psychiatric Assessment After Racist Rants." 

Extra - Twitchy: "A Judge Is Facing Discipline for Her Conduct at a Hearing, and the Transcript Is WILD."  What a kook.

Headline of the day

Fox News: "'Biscuit' the dog is latest dead felon to get their voting rights back from Spanberger, confused owner says."  

That's right: not only is this "voter" a dog but it's also dead.  Which, come to think of it, dead voters are a large constituent for the Democrats. 

They want to fail

Great essay by Lionel Shriver in the New Criterion: "What do progressives really want?"

The point is this: these people are not serious. They’re playacting. They gesture toward a future they have no desire to inhabit. The fringes of this movement openly wish to tear down the very civilization on which they personally rely and on which their own lives are entirely built. Yes, this brings us to the democratic socialists, some of whose advocates are wealthy and aglitter with designer froufrou. Let’s pretend to consider their platform in earnest for a moment. No jails, no police. Housing as a human right. National defense reduced to veritably zero. State usurpation of major industries. Citizenship for all illegal immigrants, presumably including the many visitors who’ve yet to arrive. Cozying up to North Korea.

It goes without saying that the socialists want everything free: free housing, free healthcare, free childcare, free pre-K; at the least, below-cost groceries. All this freeness will be paid for by “the rich.” Alas, there seems to be no plan for what happens when the money spigot runs dry because you’ve just confiscated all the assets of the people who made your society tick over. Repeated back-of-the-envelope demonstrations that “the rich” don’t have the wherewithal to pay for everything even if you suck up their last sou never faze these people. No, if only the “oligarchs” stopped picking everyone’s pockets, we’d all live on easy street. “Medicare for all” is also appealingly catchy. Yet Medicare reimbursement rates for hospitals average 10 percent below the break-even point; without overpayment by private insurers, the entire U.S. health system would collapse. Progressives aren’t big on math. Conservatives care about what works; leftists care about what should work.

Shriver theorizes that the Left wants failure because it extends their endless struggle and perpetuates their bottomless need to feel good about themselves:

For armchair revolutionaries, being eternally thwarted is a blessing, because they get to keep their resentment, their fury, their purity unsullied by contact with reality, and their sense of purpose that’s never ruined by getting what they claim to want.

Finally, as Shriver notes, Americans are pouring into Red states from the Blue states, showing what happens when the progressives actually take power...and fail. 

Everybody knew

Hot Air: "Ilhan Omar's 'Conspiracy Theory' Just Became a New York Times Investigation of Sham Marriage."

It sure was nice of the New York Times to release this story less than a week from election day.  This way the Times can claim they published a damaging report of a Democrat to show lack of bias while at the same time making sure there are absolutely no repercussions that might threaten a favored Congressional seat. 

It was also sure nice of the Obama Justice Department to throw up their hands and give up on the case.  "Nobody is above the law" - remember that old chestnut? 

I'm going to clown college!

Legal Insurrection: "Massachusetts Lesbian Bar in Viral Story About Masking is Closing Permanently."

If you know, you know.

Sounds about right

Breitbart: "Study: Apple News pushed 84 negative headlines about GOP priorities before midterms, zero positive."

Everything you wanted to know about Somali naming conventions

Consider the source

Twitchy: "60 Minutes' Source on Man Deported to Ghana Is Self-Proclaimed 'Prison and Border Abolitionist'."

I'm old enough to remember the Andy Rooney era of "60 Minutes" when the show was must-watch TV and the stories were rigorously sourced and presented.  Now CBS News has fallen into the same credibility death spiral plaguing all of mainstream media.