Patterico's Pontifications

2/5/2016

Friday Night Music

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:52 pm



This is what I am listening to right now.

How Hillary Clinton Popularized the Name “Hillary” for Babies . . . Or Not

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:18 pm



This story is too good to check.

Screen Shot 2016-02-05 at 10.15.10 PM

The chart above plots the popularity of the baby name “Hillary” between 1970 and 2014. What you’ll notice right away is that the frequency of the name falls of a cliff starting in 1993, the year Hillary Clinton became first lady.

One moment while I wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes.

Like I say, it’s so good it seems like it can’t really be true. But it actually seems to check out. It’s in the Washington Post and it purports to be based on data from the Social Security Administration.

Here is the conclusion I draw from this: people really, really don’t like Hillary Clinton.

The Election in Iowa Was Suspicious . . . The Democrat One, That Is

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:55 pm



Des Moines Register:

Iowa Democratic Party officials are reviewing results from the Iowa caucuses and making updates where discrepancies have been found.

Party Chairwoman Andy McGuire the day after Monday’s caucuses said no review would be conducted, and that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s narrow victory over Bernie Sanders was final.

But as errors are being discovered, the final tally is being changed, party officials confirmed to the Des Moines Register on Friday.

Party Chairwoman Andy McGuire didn’t want to conduct a review, you say? Well, I’m sure there’s nothing sinister about that.

Wait . . .

Prediction: Rubio Will Be the Nominee

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 6:00 pm



My natural pessimism is coming out in this post. Basically, if we were a nation that cared about limited government and Constitutional principles, Ted Cruz would run away with it. But we’re a nation that knows Snooki is on Jersey Shore but not the year that we gained our independence. And so we’re probably going to have to settle for someone like Rubio.

It’s early to be certain, of course, and I hope I’m wrong (unless the alternative is Trump, in which case I hope I’m right). But Bobby Jindal just endorsed Rubio, Romney will certainly endorse Rubio, and every nasty Establishment senator who has trashed Ted Cruz is going to endorse Rubio. Santorum endorsed Rubio (even though he clearly can’t justify why), and once Jeb and Christie are out, they’ll endorse Rubio. Basically, the whole establishment is going to line up behind Rubio. He’s gotten as much of a bump in the polls by coming in third in Iowa as Ted Cruz got from coming in first. And he’s bound to outperform Cruz in New Hampshire.

He’s the pretty boy with the vapid rehearsed lines. He’s the guy who won the student government positions. He doesn’t have a long pointy nose or other unattractive features like Cruz.

He’s not very smart, of course. He’s far, far too bellicose. He has supported every moronic Obama intervention under the sun. He is in the pocket of Big Sugar, which is a minor issue in the grand scheme of things but speaks to his character. I doubt he’ll repeal ObamaCare — and if he does, he’ll replace with something that retains 95% of its bad anti-market features.

And we all know that in his first four years — should he beat Hillary or Bernie or whatever other 115-year-old the Democrats put up — he is going to pass legislation to legalize millions of illegals and cement the permanent Democrat majority in our lifetime.

We know this.

But at least our President won’t have a large nose! Large ears, perhaps, but not a large nose!!

There are silver linings. He has an even chance of putting good Justices on the Supreme Court — and the next President could easily replace three of them. The Democrat fossil will have a zero chance of doing the same, and an even chance is a lot better. He has a pretty conservative voting record in the Senate, as a general rule.

And he’s not Donald Trump. In a normal election cycle, constitutional conservatives like myself would be appalled at a Rubio. But we have seen a possible future in which an Emperor Donald Trump runs amok, and Rubio will seem like a welcome exit ramp from that Highway to Nightmaresville.

Other than that, meh. Government will continue to grow. The debt will continue to grow. People like me will get angrier and angrier.

I’ll continue to support Ted Cruz and to hope beyond hope that the American people will overcome their usual ignorance and choose someone who can start to fix this mess.

I’m just not going to hold my breath.

Trump: I Won’t Rule Out Ted Cruz as VP

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:25 am



Ted Cruz committing fraud and at least a “misdemeanor” in Iowa to steal the election? “I don’t care about that anymore.”

Also, Trump supposedly won’t rule out Cruz as a potential VP pick:

In a striking reversal of rhetoric, Donald Trump would not rule out Ted Cruz as his hypothetical vice-presidential pick.

“Well, I don’t know. Look, I have nothing against him. It was sort of a sad thing that happened, but I’ve always liked him,” Trump told Hugh Hewitt on his radio show Thursday, after weeks of trashing his primary rival as nasty, hypocritical and disliked.

Trump added that he has “always gotten along well” with Cruz, but that “I’m so much now focused on New Hampshire.”

Advisers have obviously pulled Trump aside and told him that he’s killing the polls in New Hampshire, but that he might blow that if he keeps up the whiny baby act. Trump figures the voters will forget that he said Cruz is a nasty guy who nobody likes who stole the election in Iowa and anyway is a Canadian who shouldn’t be running for president or vice president until a court says it’s OK.

In other words, he thinks voters are totally ignorant about everything except the stuff they like on TV.

He may be right.


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