Patterico's Pontifications

4/30/2021

Weekend Open Thread – Junior Varsity Writing Edition

Filed under: General — JVW @ 4:04 pm



[guest post by JVW]

You understand that this is going to be nowhere near as interesting or comprehensive as what the vacationing Dana produces each weekend right? With that noted, here we go:

ITEM UNO: Student Stands Up to Hectoring Professor
The internet was abuzz last night with the circulation of a video showing a Cypress Community College student named Braden Ellis defending the police and pushing back on the ahistorical idea that policing in general is an outgrowth of the Fugitive Slave Laws:

Note the absolute unwillingness of the professor to allow the student to make his point without interruption, her obnoxious attempt to distort his argument, and finally her abrupt ending of the session rather than engaging in honest debate with Mr. Ellis. It’s a sad state of affairs when the student argues with more logic and composure than the professor can muster. Another second-rate mind and third-rate temperament sadly misplaced in education. No doubt she will soon claim that she is receiving death threats in order to reposition herself as the victim in this argument.

ITEM DEUX: Did the CDC’s Decision to Halt the J&J Vaccine Spur Vax-Skepticism?
Just when it seemed that our nation’s efforts to vaccinate everyone in time for the summer was humming along, reports come now that the the numbers of people seeking their first shot is slowing considerably. Whether this is the case of all of the willing participants having had the opportunity already receive their first dose, leaving only the vax-skeptics left, or whether the reluctance of some to get the shot is the result of the CDC’s overwrought decision to halt distribution of the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine based upon reports of adverse reactions that turned out to largely be temporary and non-threatening and a death rate of less than one in one million, it seems there is a good chance that media sensationalism combined with our society’s penchant for hysteria is in some way contributing to the slow down.

ITEM TRE: The New York Post Beclowns Itself with Fake News
Last week the New York Post breathlessly reported that immigrant children being processed and sheltered at the Long Beach Convention Center were being given a copy (with the assumption that it was taxpayer-purchased) of the insipid children’s book that Vice President Kamala Harris “wrote” two years ago when she was merely an obnoxious and insufferable Senator. It turns out that this was pretty much incorrect: only one child was known to have been given a copy of the book and that copy had been donated by a private citizen. The reporter for the original story subsequently resigned and alleged that she had been pushed by her editors into sensationalizing the rather mundane events. The Post then updated their original story with an editor’s note acknowledging the corrections, which seems to pretty much be standard for media malpractice these days. If we are going to rightly criticize those outlets who write gross anti-conservative screeds which are later debunked, we need to take a metaphorical thwack at our fellow travelers to distort the truth to make progressives look bad.

ITEM VIER: Three Prominent Politicians Declare America Is Not a Racist Country; Guess Which One Is Criticized
As a follow-up to Patterico’s earlier post about GOP Senator Tim Scott’s declaration that “America is not a racist country” in his rebuttal to President Biden’s State of the Union Address, it’s worth noting that two other political leaders have agreed with him:

You know who else sort of agrees with Sen. Scott and V.P. Harris? The President:

In an interview with NBC’s “Today” show, a clip of which aired Thursday evening on NBC Nightly News, Biden was asked to respond to Scott’s remarks and say whether he felt was America was racist.

“No, I don’t think the American people are racist, but I think after 400 years, African-Americans have been left in a position where they are so far behind the eight-ball in terms of education, health, in terms of opportunity,” Biden said.

So President Biden very shrewdly (and this is probably the last time I will ever use that two adverbs in relation to that man) turned the question from “Is America a racist country?” to “Are the American people inherently racist?” in order to be able to grant absolution to the sort of people whose support for (or at least quiet acquiescence to) a massive and incomprehensible agenda his Administration and party will need. But the absolution provided by our top two executives is not really all that important in the long run: the rabid social justice crybully left managed to get in their full 24-hours of spittle-flecked rage at the black man who dared to contradict the established narrative, and that’s what truly matters.

ITEM ÖT: Former Obama Advisor Warns Dems That the Real Job Doesn’t Begin Until After the Legislation Passes
Former Obama Administration economic advisor Steven Rattner warned Democrats that passing legislation doesn’t particularly guarantee that people’s lives will be better, which is an amazing thing to have to tell anyone, but here we find ourselves. National Review Online has the details:

“Sure, I worry about inflation,” Rattner said in an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “Sure, I worry about the deficit and the debt. But I also worry about the execution job here. This is a massive execution job. The last plan, the jobs plan alone, had 76 separate initiatives in it. All have to be created and executed. . . . The potential for mistakes, failure of execution here is high.

“And if it fails . . . I think it will set back the cause of progressivism for several more decades,” he added. “Getting it executed, I think, in some ways, is going to be the president’s biggest challenge. He’s got to deliver, not just passage, but actual real results for Americans, and programs that people perceive are working or else we go back to government being the enemy again.”

Mr. Rattner obviously remembers the general failure of the Obama stimulus plan, in which advocates resorted to creating the phony-baloney metric of “jobs saved” in order to manufacture some good news, and stooped to delivering banal unsourced anecdotes to lamely protest they had accomplished something other than protecting public sector jobs, before being forced to ultimately admit that “shovel-ready” projects don’t really exist.

So here goes the Biden Administration setting themselves up to make the same mistakes. Democrats never seem to learn from their experience with large government boondoggles from Obamacare to California’s High-Speed Rail Authority (have I written about that in the past?) that merely passing the legislation doesn’t solve the problem at all, it’s only the first step in a long a complicated process requiring hard work which is often in short supply as bureaucracies become more powerful and complex. But just as with the American Recovery Act or the Affordable Care Act, expect to see the Democrats get some measure of what they are demanding legislatively, immediately pop the champagne corks, and set out on a public relations campaign (aided and abetted by their media fans, naturally) insisting that the problems are now being solved. Seriously, who among us trusts Joe Biden or Kamala Harris to have the concentration and enthusiasm for seeing their proposed projects to an efficient and responsible completion?

ITEM ZES: Basecamp Asks Its Workers to Separate Their Personal Lives from Work; Feelings Are Hurt
The web software and project management company Basecamp earlier this week decided that people’s personal lives and work lives were far too intertwined, and in a rather remarkable blog post the company’s leadership announced some remarkable changes. Basecamp now prohibits political discussions over company work communication channels; has rolled back “paternalistic” employee benefits such as memberships to health clubs and organic farmers’ markets, instead opting to give their employees their share of what the company had previously paid to offer those amenities; and is abandoning the trendy work policy of “360 reviews” in which one’s peers and even subordinates participate in an employee’s work evaluation, returning to the traditional method of reviews being solely conducted by the employee’s managers.

The unmistakable message is that Basecamp is undoing the two-plus decade-long corporate trend of mixing of one’s work life with their personal life, and returning to the old-fashioned model where there is a clear delineation between the corporate worker and the private person. The steps Basecamp is taking are similar to the ones that crypto currency firm Coinbase announced for their own workforce this past fall. While the social justice left is unsurprisingly flipping out over these steps — one-third of the Basecamp workforce is allegedly going to take a buyout and leave — this move appears to have struck a chord with business observers who appear to be at least initially supportive of Basecamp’s new directive.

I’m sorry that I am not ending this round-up with a humorous or even moving news item like Dana usually does, but I’m not finding much in my Twitter feed or on the regular news sites that goes beyond the typical outrage game. Have good weekend everybody.

– JVW

Gaetz Wingman: You Bet He Paid for Sex with a Minor

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:28 am



The age of the 17-year-old was suspected before but now it has been confirmed, to some extent anyway:

A confession letter written by Joel Greenberg in the final months of the Trump presidency claims that he and close associate Rep. Matt Gaetz paid for sex with multiple women—as well as a girl who was 17 at the time.

“On more than one occasion, this individual was involved in sexual activities with several of the other girls, the congressman from Florida’s 1st Congressional District and myself,” Greenberg wrote in reference to the 17-year-old.

“From time to time, gas money or gifts, rent or partial tuition payments were made to several of these girls, including the individual who was not yet 18. I did see the acts occur firsthand and Venmo transactions, Cash App or other payments were made to these girls on behalf of the Congressman.”

Roger Stone is involved because of course he is.

The letter, which The Daily Beast recently obtained, was written after Greenberg—who was under federal indictment—asked Roger Stone to help him secure a pardon from then-President Donald Trump.

A series of private messages starting in late 2020—also recently obtained by The Daily Beast—shows a number of exchanges between Greenberg and Stone conducted over the encrypted messaging app Signal, with communications set to disappear. However, Greenberg appears to have taken screenshots of a number of their conversations.

Always take screenshots when incriminating yourself! It’s a lesson Trump’s “destroying phone now” fans have learned well.

This is slightly different and more believable than a mere proffer after one has been indicted. But only slightly. We still await more evidence.

4/29/2021

Constitutional Vanguard: More Police Shootings of “Unarmed Black Men” in 2019 from the Washington Post Database

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:20 pm



The next missive to paid subscribers has gone out, continuing my deep dive into the shootings of “unarmed black men” (and one woman) by police in 2019. By the time subscribers get to the end of the series in a week or two, they will have a really good handle on a snapshot of all the police shootings of unarmed black people from a single year.

Officer Norman repeatedly screams “get back!” and warns Scott that she is about to tase him. He just keeps coming. Finally, he knocks her to the ground and Norman fires two shots.

“He hit me in the head twice,” Norman said into her radio before handcuffing Scott. “I had no choice.”

The post is here. Subscribe here.

Radical Leftists Go Mad with Rage at Tim Scott’s Declaration that “America Is Not a Racist Country”

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:29 am



Tim Scott gave the GOP response to Uncle Joe’s snoozefest of a speech last night. Senator Scott had a message for the nation: “America is not a racist country.”

Ohhhh, the fringe left didn’t like that one bit! Here is a typical reaction from the radical left:

Get it? It’s funny (they apparently believe) because it’s racist towards the type of black person the fringe left feels totally free to treat like a non-person. If radical leftists hate one thing more than any other, it’s a black man who thinks for himself, instead of thinking what they have told him to think.

Before you knew it, “Uncle Tim” was trending on Twitter, which finally put a stop to the trending topic this morning.

A Twitter spokesperson that the platform decided to block a trend calling black Republican Tim Scott, who gave the GOP [response], “Uncle Tim.”

“This is in line with our policies on Trends, specifically: ‘We want Trends to promote healthy conversations on Twitter. This means that at times, we may not allow or may temporarily prevent content from appearing in Trends until more context is available. This includes Trends that violate The Twitter Rules,’” a Twitter spokesperson told National Review in an email.

Hearing Twitter say “this radical leftist viewpoint is too nasty even for us” is kinda like hearing OJ say a cop was right to shoot Ma’khia Bryant, because what else are you supposed to do with a maniac wielding a knife? (Which, in the obvious simulation in which we “live,” actually happened.) When Twitter says you’ve gone too far with the radical leftist nastiness, then man, you’ve gone too far.

Our old friend Tommy Christopher was quick to oblige with a “conservatives pounce” take:

“Uncle Tim” became a top trending topic when critics used the derogatory term to slam Senator Tim Scott’s rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s address before Congress, and conservatives expressed outrage.

On Wednesday night, the South Carolina senator delivered the GOP response to President Biden’s speech, and drew heavy criticism from opponents over some of the claims he made.

And on Twitter, a play on the “Uncle Tom” slur began to trend around Scott’s declaration that “America is not a racist country,” which was coupled with the revelation that he regularly endures racial slurs from people he described as “progressives.”

Among verified users, the term was mainly deployed by Black critics of Scott’s speech, and by conservatives who accused such critics of being the “real racists.”

Conservatives pounce™ on racism!

All in all, another glorious episode in our society. No, Rodney, apparently we cannot all just get along.

4/28/2021

Feds Execute Search Warrants on Rudy Giuliani (UPDATE: And Victoria Toensing)

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 12:43 pm



The New York Times reports:

Federal investigators in Manhattan executed search warrants early Wednesday at the home and office of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who became President Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer, stepping up a criminal investigation into Mr. Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine, three people with knowledge of the investigation said.

The investigators seized Mr. Giuliani’s electronic devices and searched his Madison Avenue apartment and his Park Avenue office at about 6 a.m., two of the people said.

. . . .

The federal authorities have largely focused on whether Mr. Giuliani illegally lobbied the Trump administration in 2019 on behalf of Ukrainian officials and oligarchs, who at the time were helping Mr. Giuliani search for damaging information on Mr. Trump’s political rivals, including Mr. Biden, who was then a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Investigators waited until Wednesday as part of the federal government’s longstanding practice of carrying out significant actions relating to people in former president Trump’s orbit on a Wednesday, thus screwing up Josh Barro and Ken White, who record their podcast on Wednesday mornings.

The best line I have seen so far:

Meanwhile Rudy is doing what Rudy does best: planning to run his mouth.

Screen Shot 2021-04-28 at 12.18.04 PM

I flogged this in 2019, over and over, and I’m going to flog it again today: does it seem weird to anyone else that, at the same time Rudy’s pals Parnas and Fruman were pursuing a liquefied gas venture in Ukraine, everybody wanted to jump start an investigation relating to Burisma — a natural gas company? To quote myself, again:

Lost in the stories about the indictment is a significant fact: Parnas and Fruman were pursuing a liquefied gas venture in Ukraine, and thus could have benefited financially from an investigation of Burisma, Ukraine’s largest natural gas company. In this connection, I think it’s worth quoting at length from a post I wrote on October 2, nine days ago:

It’s good to see that Trump superfans are totally concerned about people with ties to the U.S. government using those ties to further their personal interests, or the interests of people they represent. That’s how I know Trump superfans will totally be Very Concerned about this:

The hunt by President Trump’s attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani for material in Ukraine damaging to Democrats has put a spotlight on business ties he has had in the former Soviet republic for at least a decade, work that has introduced him to high-level Ukrainian financial and political circles.

Giuliani has said he has been working for free solely to benefit his client, Trump, as he has sought information from Ukrainian officials — an effort that has spurred a House impeachment inquiry into whether the president abused his power.

However, House investigators are now seeking records about Giuliani’s past clientele in Ukraine, including Pavel Fuks, a wealthy developer who financed consulting work Giuliani did in 2017 for the city of Kharkiv. That same year, according to court filings, Fuks said he was banned from entering the United States for five years. The documents do not specify why.

House committees have also requested documents and depositions from two of Giuliani’s current clients, Florida-based businessmen who have been pursuing opportunities in Ukraine for a new liquefied natural gas venture.

The men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, have been assisting Giuliani’s push to get Ukrainian officials to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his son and Giuliani’s claim that Democrats conspired with Ukrainians in the 2016 campaign.

A new liquefied natural gas venture. Hmmmmmmm. Does that sound familiar, Trump superfans?

Oooh! I know. Burisma is a natural gas company. In fact, the largest one in Ukraine.

And Rudy represents their competitors. Competitors who would stand to gain a lot if Burisma were criminally investigated in Ukraine.

Hmmmmmm.

By the way: why didn’t this happen earlier? That would be because Billy Barr’s DoJ kept blocking career prosecutors’ attempts to obtain a search warrant:

The United States attorney’s office in Manhattan and the F.B.I. had sought for months to secure search warrants for Mr. Giuliani’s phones and electronic devices.

Under Mr. Trump, senior political appointees in the Justice Department repeatedly sought to block such a warrant, The New York Times reported, slowing the investigation as it was gaining momentum last year. After Merrick B. Garland was confirmed as Mr. Biden’s attorney general, the Justice Department lifted its objection to the search.

Why, other than Giuliani being Trump’s lawyer, would the Trump toadies be concerned by a warrant on Giuliani? Let’s dig even deeper, shall we? Victoria Toensing was also targeted by the feds today:

F.B.I. agents on Wednesday morning also executed a search warrant at the Washington-area home of Victoria Toensing, a lawyer close to Mr. Giuliani who had dealings with several Ukrainians involved in seeking negative information on the Bidens, according to people with knowledge of that warrant, which sought her phone.

Ms. Toensing, a former federal prosecutor and senior Justice Department official, has also represented Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch under indictment in the United States whose help Mr. Giuliani sought.

The name “Dmitry Firtash” also should sound familiar to regular readers. I commend to you this post I wrote on November 25, 2019, which (to my knowledge uniquely and originally, at the time) made the connection between Firtash’s indictment for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and a Very Mysterious Meeting Giuliani had held with DoJ officials — before those officials were aware that Giuliani was being criminally investigated — with the purpose of said meeting being “to discuss a case related to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.” I can’t summarize the entirety of my argument from my 2019 post, but here was my conclusion:

You tell me, but to me it sounds a lot like Giuliani promised this Firtash guy help with his case — and delivered, using his connections with Trump to leverage a meeting with the guy running the Criminal Division (a guy, Brian Benczkowski, who has ties to a prominent Russian bank, by the way, who helped Barr make an instantaneous determination that the Ukranian mess was not criminal action on Trump’s part) — apparently in trade for help with getting dirt on Biden.

And getting dirt on Biden, we all know, was very important to one Donald J. Trump. Why, I seem to recall his being impeached over it, in fact.

It’s probably also worth noting that in December 2019, about three weeks after I wrote that post, it was reported that Firtash’s lawyer had made a $1 million payment to Parnas.

“Always trust content from Patterico,” I tell you folks all the time. In coming days and weeks, I guess we’ll get to see just how prescient I was about all of this.

UPDATE: Never mind?

UPDATE x2: Nope, I think there may be a connection there after all.

Another Day, Another Huge Spending Proposal

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:29 am



The Washington Post has the details.

The White House on Wednesday unveiled a $1.8 trillion spending and tax plan aimed at dramatically expanding access to education and safety-net programs for families, the latest effort by President Biden to try to turn some of his campaign promises into new policy.

A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money. You have your $1.9 trillion for stimulus, your $2.3 trillion for infrastructure, and now your $1.8 trillion for goodies for the family (details in a moment). By my math, that’s a cool $6 trillion.

The national debt today is over $28 trillion.

So, what are we supposed to spend this money on?

Biden’s plan proposes a suite of domestic policies that would collectively represent a marked change in how Americans interact with the federal government.

The White House says its proposal would provide every American with two years of tuition-free community college; prekindergarten for all 3- and 4-year-olds; and paid family and medical leave for American workers. Among its sweeping agenda items, the plan also calls for devoting hundreds of billions of dollars to fighting child poverty and ensuring affordable child care nationwide.

To pay for these initiatives, White House officials are also proposing $1.5 trillion in tax hikes aimed primarily at increasing the amount paid by wealthy Americans and investors. The White House aims to raise money through a sizable increase in enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service, as well as approximately doubling the capital gains tax rate for those earning more than $1 million per year — a measure that would apply to a small fraction of Americans but is likely to face resistance on Capitol Hill.

Ivanka was a big fan of the paid family leave, so we at least have some continuity there.

The article adds: “The president also proposes subsidizing tuition for students from families earning less than $125,000 enrolled at historically Black institutions, tribal colleges and other minority-serving institutions for two years.” Regular readers know my fondness for allocating government benefits on the basis of race, so this is just lovely.

Biden’s giving a big speech tonight. I do not watch tripe like that, so you guys will have to let me know how it went.

4/27/2021

James Carville: “Wokeness Is a Problem”

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:29 am



I don’t normally suggest that you read Vox, but this interview with James Carville is worth your time. A taste:

CARVILLE: You ever get the sense that people in faculty lounges in fancy colleges use a different language than ordinary people? They come up with a word like “Latinx” that no one else uses. Or they use a phrase like “communities of color.” I don’t know anyone who speaks like that. I don’t know anyone who lives in a “community of color.” I know lots of white and Black and brown people and they all live in … neighborhoods.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with these phrases. But this is not how people talk. This is not how voters talk. And doing it anyway is a signal that you’re talking one language and the people you want to vote for you are speaking another language. This stuff is harmless in one sense, but in another sense it’s not.

. . . .

INTERVIEWER: Sounds like you got a problem with “wokeness,” James.

CARVILLE: Wokeness is a problem and everyone knows it. It’s hard to talk to anybody today — and I talk to lots of people in the Democratic Party — who doesn’t say this. But they don’t want to say it out loud.

INTERVIEWER: Why not?

CARVILLE: Because they’ll get clobbered or canceled.

Frankly, the word “wokeness” these days reminds me of the phrase “Believe All Women” — it’s primarily or exclusively used by opponents of the concept.

SIDE OBSERVATION: I don’t mean to derail the discussion here, but during the Kavanaugh hearings the left often used the phrase “Believe Women” which, for many, was functionally no different from telling people to believe all women. Anyone who tried to reconcile the concept that of course you have to apply normal skepticism and evaluate evidence found themselves tongue-tied when confronted with the question: “So what does ‘Believe Women’ mean then?” They would toss out some gobbledygook about women having a “chance” to be heard or something. This attitude was short-handed by opponents of the concept as “Believe All Women.” But then people got it into their head that the left itself had actually used that phrase — Believe All Women — all the time. I fell into that trap myself, until one day I set out to find old examples of the use of the phrase, to refute people who denied that the left used it — and I found they were right. END SIDE OBSERVATION.

The left may have used the term “wokeness” long ago, but today it seems to be almost exclusively used by people like me who think it’s dumb. Kind of like “cancel culture” or “fake news,” it’s a phrase that has become co-opted by the right and does not seem to be used unironically by lefties any more.

Except Carville — who invokes both “wokeness” and being “canceled” because he’s an old-school opponent of both concepts. He’s a lefty but he’s the type of lefty who still remembers what common sense is like.

Unfortunately, his conception of the Democrat party is being left behind. He credits Biden with being beyond all of that — and Biden is certainly less “woke” than many in the Democrat party — but Biden can do racial and wokeness pandering with the best of them. Glenn “Tim Scott’s grandpappy was a privileged rich black dude” Kessler issued his report card on Biden’s misstatements so far, and most of them involve mega-pandering regarding the supposedly horrific Georgia voting law that has inspired so much exaggeration and fake pearl-clutching among the left.

About one-seventh of Biden’s false or misleading claims on the list relate to the Georgia voting law, which Democrats charge is part of a GOP effort to seize on Trump’s bogus claims of election fraud to justify the disenfranchisement of minorities.

Biden’s claim that the measure shortened voting hours drew sharp criticism from Republicans, who accused Democrats of lying about the bill. In reality, Election Day hours were not changed and the opportunities to cast a ballot in early voting were expanded.

Biden aides never provided an explanation for why Biden made this statement — or why it was even repeated in an official statement issued by the White House.

So yeah, Carville gives Biden entirely too much credit. But Biden is still far from Mr. Hyperwoke Dude. Because he’s freaking old. As is Carville.

But that’s the wave of the future. Even as the Republican party fights hard for the title of “The Stupid Party” — with Tucker Carlson encouraging his viewers to call Child Protective Services if they see children wearing masks outside — the Democrat party is hanging in there. The party whose nominees shot up their hands during debates when asked questions that boiled down to “raise your hand if you would like to pander to the illegal immigrant constituency” now has a president whose Homeland Security Secretary insists we won’t even impose a fine on illegal immigrants who deft court orders to stay in the country.

The craziness continues. Making it interesting to read an interview with someone like Carville, who (to some extent) recognizes what he is seeing in his own party, and giving voice to the fact that it worries him.

4/26/2021

It’s Official: California and New York to Lose One House Seat Each, Florida to Gain One, Texas to Gain Two

Filed under: General — JVW @ 3:50 pm



[guest post by JVW]

Remember how we actually had a census last year? I know, it’s hard for me to recall that too given everything that was going on. But we’ve apparently counted everybody up and today the U.S. Census Bureau announced the winners and losers in the House Seat Sweepstakes. Here’s what we learned:

* The overall population of the fifty United States increased in the past decade by about 7.1%, reaching 331.1 million people last year compared to just a tick under 309.2 million people back in 2010. (Note, there are just under 690,000 U.S. citizens residing in the District of Columbia and almost 3.3 million in Puerto Rico.)

* Texas, with a population growth of almost four million people in the past decade pushing the population over the 29 million mark, will gain two House seats.

* Colorado (14.6% population growth), Florida (+14.1%), Montana (+9.2%), North Carolina (+9.3%), and Oregon (+10.2%) will each gain one representative.

* California (+6.0%), Illinois (.32% population loss), Michigan (+1.7%), New York (+4.1%), Ohio (+2.1%), Pennsylvania (+2.2%), and West Virginia (-3.5%) will each lose one representative.

* The total population growth of the states which gained a House member is 13.7% for the decade, and the total growth rate of the states which lost a House member is 3.4% for the decade.

This is a slightly better outcome for the losing states than some had predicted earlier this year when it was thought that New York might lose two seats and that Texas could pick up as many as three and Florida perhaps two. Breathing a sigh of relief are states that might otherwise have been docked a seat such as Rhode Island (+4.3%), and disappointed are states like Arizona (+12.0%) who stood a chance to gain one.

Looking at the past two Presidential elections, this new alignment would have delivered Donald Trump one more electoral vote in 2016:

Trump 2016: Texas +2, Florida +1, Montana +1, North Carolina +1 vs. Michigan -1, Ohio -1, Pennsylvania -1, West Virginia -1 for a net of +1
Clinton 2016: Colorado +1, Oregon +1 vs. California -1, Illinois -1, New York -1, for a net of -1

and in 2020 he would have received a net result of three more electoral votes:

Trump 2020: Texas +2, Florida +1, Montana +1, North Carolina +1 vs. Ohio -1 and West Virginia -1, for a net of +3
Biden 2020: Colorado +1, Oregon +1 vs. California -1, Illinois -1, Michigan -1, New York -1, Pennsylvania -1, for a net of -3

So obviously it would not have impacted either of the last two elections. In the razor-thin 2000 election, this new map would have added four electoral votes to George W. Bush’s tally, as the states mostly align with their 2020 results with the exception of Colorado which went for Gov. Bush.

Looking ahead to 2031, it’s kind of hard to get a bead on which states stand to gain or lose should population trends continue as they have the past ten years. The upper-Midwest industrial states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Illinois might find themselves once again facing subtraction. Arkansas and Mississippi in the Deep South along with Kansas in the heartland and Connecticut and Rhode Island in New England are in danger unless they can turn around their sluggish growth (Mississippi actually saw its population slip by 0.5% over the past decade). On the other side, states which barely missed out on adding a Representative this time around such as Arizona, Idaho, Georgia, and Washington are probably next in line to gain a seat (again, assuming continued growth), and both Texas and Florida could make further gains if they continue to rapidly grow.

– JVW

Today in Great Writing

Filed under: General — JVW @ 1:24 pm



[guest post by JVW]

Those of you who have suffered through my oftentimes ponderous prose have probably discovered that I have a great appreciation for a clever phrase, especially one with a perfectly-placed pun (and yes, I also have an awful addiction to alliteration). So today I want to give a shout-out to Santi Ruiz of the Washington Free Beacon who hits it out of the park in his review of Senator Amy Klobuchar’s leaden new tome, Antitrust: Taking on Monopoly Power from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age:

Of course, antitrust law is a warren of dull economic jargon, and even the flashiest author would be hard-pressed to jazz it up.

Merriam-Webster tells us that warren is a chiefly British word meaning “a place legally authorized for keeping small game (such as hare or pheasant),” or in other usage “a maze of passageways or small rooms.” I am jealous that I will never have the opportunity to use the word in such perfect context as Mr. Ruiz did, though I think there is a legitimate debate as to whether it would have been even more clever had he capitalized it. (Perhaps he did, and a meddlesome copyeditor changed it.) In any case, cheers to him.

– JVW

Democrat Lawmaker Resists DUI Arrest with the “Do You Know Who I Am?” Card

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:29 am



Ed Morrissey has the details at Hot Air. I know this is Jack Posobiec, whom I have blocked, but video footage is video footage.

Fox News has the story:

Michigan State Police released bodycam footage on Sunday of an incident involving Democratic state Rep. Jewell Jones, who was reportedly charged with driving under the influence, resisting arrest, and weapons possession following a collision last week on Interstate 96 in Fowlerville.

The video shows police tackle a combative Jones to the ground after he physically resisted arrest and threatened to call Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Jones can be heard reminding the officers that he had oversight of their budget as they attempt to put handcuffs on him.

“I don’t give a f— bro, when I call Gretchen [Whitmer] I’ll (sic) need y’all (sic) ID’s badge numbers everything,” Jones says in the footage.

“It’s not going to be good for you, I’m telling you. I run y’alls budget, bro,” he told a trooper.

When an officer asked Jones to present his driver’s license, the 26-year-old responded, “I can’t do that.”

Police initially arrested Jones, 26, on April 6, after his black Chevy Tahoe, bearing an “ELECTED” vanity plate, drifted erratically across multiple lanes before he pulled off onto the shoulder and rolled into a ditch, according to reports.

I suspect he’ll play the race/police brutality card. Only time will tell whether that will work.

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