Beacon Investigation of Mike Derrick

Whoops! Investigation probably would have been better in quotation marks. Before I forget, here's a hat tip to Maury Thompson at the Post Star. Thanks Maury. So, Morgan Chalfant at the Washington Free (because who would pay for it?) Beacon, reports that Derrick has property in Colorado and only moved to our area a year ago. Who knows what the truth of any of that is? I'm dearly hoping we're not going to go through the "who's the most legitimate resident of the district" thing again this year.

A Democratic congressional candidate in New York state (sic) has criticized his Republican opponent for not being a native of the district, despite having moved from another state to launch his own campaign.

Were you curious about the value of the Derricks' property in Colorado? Yeah, me neither. 

Derrick and his wife, Katherine, also own at least six properties in Colorado. The market values of the properties total more than $1.3 million.

Yes, Derrick was career Army which would likely be a bonus if he was a Republican. 

Derrick, a retired Army colonel who spent some of his early years living in Peru, N.Y., has seized on Stefanik’s roots in Albany as evidence that she has weak ties to the district that she represents in Congress.

The criticism of Stefanik which Chalfant never bothers to try to refute:

“Her family has a summer home in Willsboro, New York. She grew up in Albany, New York. Her working life, ten years, has been entirely in Washington. To say that she is of and from the North Country is false,” Derrick said in a recent interview with the local North County Public Radio.

Oh, and apparently Mike Derrick is a former Republican. My God believes in redemption. 

William Michael Derrick was registered to vote unaffiliated in El Paso County, Colo., in September 2006 and changed his voter registration to Republican in May 2012, according to the El Paso County Clerk & Recorder’s Office. He only updated his registration to Democrat in March 2015. One month later, he cancelled his registration in El Paso County. He voted in no elections in Colorado last year, meaning he never voted as a Democrat in the state.

I don't doubt that he may be a Blue Dog. OTOH, he did come out and say he supported the Iran nuclear deal when he didn't really have to. That beats Aaron Woolf's waffling on ACA. Matt Funiciello never came out with an opinion one way or another. Speaking of MF, one of the reasons I put this up was to keep it in mind. I wouldn't be at all shocked if he parroted a lot of this bullshit at some point during the campaign. I want to remember where it came from. 

I also want to leave a link to this story by Morgan Chalfant. 

Abby Wambach, a retired U.S. women’s soccer player and prominent Hillary Clinton supporter, was arrested over the weekend and charged with driving under the influence.

Wambach, who campaigned for Clinton just three months ago, was arrested around 2 a.m. Sunday by authorities in Portland, Oregon, and was charged with misdemeanor DUII (driving under the influence of intoxicants), booking information from the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office indicated. 

No word on whether her car had an "I'm Ready for Hillary" bumpersticker. If this woman can be considered a journalist writing for the Beacon, I'm pretty sure my stupid posts here make me one. Look at me, I'm a journalmalist!

Just want to add this link to Right Web that discusses the Beacon. 

Just a Trumptastic Bidnessman

Saw this article in the TU today by Kathleen Agena. Another not-Trump voter.

Trump is credited for helping kill the United States Football League by moving its spring games to the fall and putting it in competition with the National Football League, and although the USFL later won an anti-trust suit, it was awarded all of $3.76 and folded.

Trump Airlines was established after Mr. Trump acquired $380 million from twenty-two banks in order to acquire part of Eastern Airlines. Labeled Trump Shuttle Inc., the company was unable to earn a profit. Mr. Trump defaulted on the loans, and the airline officially shut down in 1992.

Taj Mahal Hotel and Casino led a consortium of contractors filing a suit against Trump for failing to pay them. While they eventually reached a settlement, the venture lead to the first of four bankruptcies he has filed. The others included Trump Hotels & Casinos Resorts, Trump Entertainment Resorts and personal bankruptcy for Mr. Trump himself.

Then there was GoTrump, a travel agency that failed in a year; Trump Mortgage, another failed venture; Trump Vodka, which stopped production when it didn't make a profit; Trump Magazine, failure; the Trump Network, failure; Trump University, perhaps the most well-known of his fiascoes; and billions of dollars in lawsuits he has filed and lost.

This is the man who is going to make America great again? I would not hire him to run a corner deli, let alone elect him to be president of the United States.

Correcting An Oversight

Can't believe I didn't have LGM on my blogroll. How have I stayed current with all internet traditions? Thanks LGMers for this. My God, Ray Stevens can still bring it.

Since I'm stealing stuff allover today, here's a link to Chris Cillizza courtesy of Balloon Juice.

In the House, the margin of Trump's losses in each state also matters a ton. In 2008, Obama won the popular vote over McCain by almost 10 million votes. If Trump lost by, say, 15 million votes (or even more), it would be hugely problematic for any congressional Republican in an even marginally competitive state or district.

Bye bye, Elise? We can only hope.

We Are All Donald Trump and Ted Cruz Now

Well, 63% of us anyway.

A Reuters/Ispos poll Wednesday showed that 63 percent of Americans felt “the use of torture against suspected terrorists” was “often or sometimes justified.” The levels of support are roughly equivalent to Nigeria, which is enduring a seven-year insurgency, and Kenya which has been hit with a number of large-scale attacks by Al Shabaab in recent years, Reuters noted.

But Jack Bauer does it.

"There’s no question now that national security and terrorism are growing in salience in this political cycle," says Ken Gude, a senior fellow with the national security team at the Center for American Progress. "It’s incumbent upon our political leaders to not engage in the kind of political rhetoric that drives a jittery population toward policies like torture ... that only play right into the hands of our enemies." 

Of course that's what the liberals say. 

The idea that useful information can be extracted by torture has been debunked throughout history – from French torturers in the Renaissance to Japanese torturers during World War II, Mr. Freeman notes. Post-9/11 America has found the same thing, most experts agree. 

Oh, then why do it?

While there is very little support for Mr. Trump's assertion that "torture works" as an interrogation technique, torture really has a different purpose, experts say: social control.

"Indeed, for the many governments around the world that still routinely practice torture, it is seen as much as a tool for intimidation as information-gathering," writes Colin Freeman in The Telegraph.

Maybe he is Hitler, or at least Saddam Hussein. 

The non-liberals against torture:

• Former Federal Bureau of Investigation interrogator Jack Cloonan, who was directly involved in the questioning of some of the United States' high-profile prisoners, told Foreign Policy it was a public misconception that harsh interrogation tactics like waterboarding were an effective way of extracting information. Instead, Mr. Cloonan said such techniques strengthened the resolve of the terrorist groups to exact revenge on the United States and were a great recruiting tool for young jihadis, elevating those tortured to "mythical status."
• Malcolm Nance, head of the Terrorism Asymmetrics Project and a veteran of Navy intelligence, said Trump's reiterated call after Brussels to bring back waterboarding was likely giving the Islamic State free propaganda material. "Donald Trump right now is validating the cartoonish view that they tell their operatives … that America is a racist nation, xenophobic, anti-Muslim, and that that's why you must carry out terrorist attacks against them," he told MSNBC.
• Michael Hayden, the last head of the Central Intelligence Agency under the Bush administration, who has previously defended interrogation tactics used during that era, publicly explained why it would be illegal for US armed forces to obey Trump’s call to use torture. General Hayden also said Trump is already acting as a recruiter for so called Islamic State in a television interview with Al Jazeera.
• A 2014 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report that investigated CIA claims that its use of torture in the post-9/11 era was important in preventing acts of terrorism largely debunked them. 

What's wrong with people in this country? 

"How to Reverse Citizens United"

Just want to put up a link to this piece on Citizens United by David Cole in The Atlantic.

And talk like Trump while you're doing so fast and so hard and so hugely that heads will spin.

Talk Like Trump

You know you want to.

Rock or Hard Place?

What would you prefer if, God forbid, you were a Republican?

While everyone is focusing on the collapse of Trump’s popularity, no one has really noticed that Cruz’s numbers are plummeting too. The same Washington Post pollthat gave Trump crazily high negatives also found that Cruz is deeply underwater. His favorable rating is just 35 percent, while his unfavorable rating is 51 percent. Back in January, his favorable/unfavorable was roughly even at 42/43. A new poll from Gallupconfirmed the Post poll’s findings: in December of last year, Cruz’s favorable/unfavorable split was about even, but it’s cratered to -16 since then. “Cruz’s image has suffered as much as Trump’s,” Gallup’s analysis notes.

To know him is to loathe him.

He struggles to conceal his smug know-it-all-ism, and his idea of charm is to quote the Federalist Papers. Rep. Peter King, Republican of New York, summed up Cruz neatly in a quote to the Washington Post: “Cruz isn’t a good guy, and he’d be impossible as president. People don’t trust him. And regardless of what your concern is with Trump, he’s pragmatic enough to get something done. I also don’t see malice in Trump like I see with Cruz.”

Oh my God, I put up a Peter King quote. Just for the schadenfreude, folks.

Look into Larry Sabato's crystal ball.