[guest post by Dana]

Democrats from across the country reportedly pumped at least $23 million into Ossoff’s campaign, to no avail:

Republican Karen Handel defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff in a high-stakes special election for a Georgia House seat on Tuesday, denying Democrats their first major victory of the Donald Trump era.

Handel bested Ossoff by 5 percentage points in the most expensive House race in history.

California Bay Area Democrats hardest hit:

Georgia congressional candidate Jon Ossoff, who’s turned his special election race next week into a referendum on President Donald Trump, reported receiving almost as much money from the Bay Area than from the entire state of Georgia over the last two months. He also reported receiving almost nine times as many individual donations from California than from Georgia, according to federal campaign finance data released last week…In money raised, Ossoff has blown Handel out of the water — thanks in part to the Golden State. Between March 29 and May 31, Ossoff reported receiving 7,218 donations from California, dwarfing the 808 donations he received from Georgia. In the nine Bay Area counties alone, he received 3,063 donations in the same time period. (Those are only a fraction of his total donations, as he doesn’t have to report donations from people who give less than $200 in total.) Overall, he reported receiving $456,296.03 from California — and $220,532.10 from the Bay Area — versus just $228,474.44 from Georgia. That’s an even larger disparity than from his earlier donations report in April…But for out of state donors, the idea of sticking one to Trump with an Ossoff win is the big draw.

Here’s a fascinating breakdown of the money involved in the most expensive U.S. House race in history.
–Dana

[guest post by JVW]

California, as we famously know, is a one-party state. The last Republican to be elected to statewide office was Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is hardly anyone’s idea of a true blue conservative. The GOP briefly seized control of the State Assembly in the 1994 midterms when the Democrats were crushed nationwide, but treachery from within and without doomed them and the party has never recovered, slipping farther and farther behind the Democrats in nearly each subsequent election.

This has made nearly invincible the Democrats, a party that is largely driven by greedy unionized government workers and corrupt racial/ethnic grievance mongers with the support of gentry liberals, and has inculcated in them both an arrogance stemming from unchecked power and a belief that they can manipulate the system in any way imaginable in order to protect their interests. With lame-duck Governor Jerry Brown no longer interested in trying to impress a modicum of fiscal responsibility upon his colleagues, the California Legislature has embarked upon an orgy of taxing and spending, promising to bring progressive paradise to the shores of the Pacific. The latest manifestation of this never-satiated hunger for tax revenue was an increase in the gas tax and vehicle registration fees, which passed the legislature a few weeks ago and has proven to be unpopular among a Golden State public that desires big government’s beneficence but has no intention of paying for it themselves.

So California Republican activists, seeing an opening, have begun pushing for a recall election election for freshman state senator Josh Newman of Fullerton, a Democrat whose vote in favor of the new taxes helped pass the bill (Democrats have the bare supermajority of 2/3 of the chamber required by California law to pass tax increases). They have begun a campaign of circulating recall petitions, with the object of forcing a special recall election where the ability to turn-out angry voters might just tip the balance and force Newman out. In response, the Democrat leadership in the legislature has conspired to change the law in midstream and slow down the recall process in order to halt momentum and to make it far more likely that any recall election would take place during a general election when Democrats can better turn-out their voting base. Democrats seized upon some alleged misleading flyers distributed by recall supporters which incorrectly suggested that voting for the recall would undo the gas and vehicle tax increases, and feigned outrage at the perfidy in order to justify this extraordinary exercise of raw political muscle. But even some friendly academics are having trouble justifying this move:

[O]ne California elections expert said she found the legislation “dispiriting,” saying that it was written for Democrats’ political gain rather than to address the problem of misleading signature-gathering tactics. Newman’s narrow victory in November secured his party a supermajority in the Legislature.

“If this was truly about trying to get at the systemic problem of false signature gathering, I don’t think the bill would look this way,” said Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor. “It would be broader — it would apply to all the different ways we gather signatures.

“This,” she added, “seems to be targeted at lengthening the time to get a recall on the ballot, which in this case would help Sen. Newman.”

Ah, California: it was almost Eden until all the progressive snakes showed up peddling government apples.

– JVW

[guest post by Dana]

Although it’s still being investigated, an incident in Belgium is being described by the Belgian federal prosecutor as a foiled “terror attack”. The incident took place at one of the country’s busiest train stations. Thankfully, no one appears to been killed or injured, aside from the suspect:

Belgian troops patrolling a major train station in Brussels have “neutralised” a person following an explosion.

Police say they are unable to confirm media reports that the suspect was wearing an explosive belt and had wires coming out of their clothes.

The incident took place at Brussels Central – one of the country’s busiest stations – and Belgium’s federal prosecutor says it is being treated as terrorism.

A police spokesman said: “There was an explosion around a person. That person was neutralised by the soldiers that were on the scene.”

The federal prosecutor added they cannot confirm if the suspect who was shot is still alive – however, no civilians appear to have been injured or killed in the explosion.

And the AP is reporting this:

Nicolas Van Herreweghen, who works for Belgium’s national rail company, said the male suspect was very agitated, yelling about jihadists and then “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” before blowing up something on a baggage trolley.

He said the man appeared to be 30 to 35 years of age.

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana