Category Archives: States
Some Things Never Change
The Rules are Rigged
The Donald is having trouble playing by the rules. Republican party rules say you need 1,237 delegates to win the nomination of the first ballot. Trump says the rules are rigged by the party elite.
As of now Trump leads with 743 to 545 for Cruz. Kasich is hanging in with 143. You can get an updated count here.
Each state makes its own rules for awarding delegates and smarty pants Cruz knows the rules. After all, if you can’t figure out how to win in Colorado how will you beat Isis?
Tapped Out In Flint
Flint Michigan has third world tap water.
In a cost cutting move the City stopped buying water from Detroit and began building a pipeline to Lake Huron. Detroit cut Flint off before the pipeline was complete. The city began drawing water from the Flint River. People complained that the water was foul and smelly. The water department insisted it was safe.
The Flint water was so corrosive the auto industry stopped using it. The corrosion damaged pipes and caused lead levels to rise to five times acceptable levels.
Now it’s a huge infrastructure problem with no fix in sight. The entire population depends on bottled water passed out at fire stations.
The EPA didn’t acknowledge the water crisis in Flint until President Obama announced emergency federal help last week.
EPA also dragged its feet on its release of 3 million gallons of water from the Gold King Mine into the Animas River in Colorado last summer.
Kasich Fantasy
Ohio governor John Kasich is trying to position himself as the grownup in the Republican free-for-all. He has solid credentials. He’s a two term governor of a swing state with a 2 billion budget surplus. He was chairman of the House Budget Committee when the federal budget was last balanced in 1997.
It’s an impressive resume, and he’s impressed by it.
Kasich Fantasy
Kasich does not take The Donald or The Doctor (Ben Carson) seriously. They annoy him.
In Wednesday’s debate he called the various Trump and Carson immigration and tithing tax plans a fantasy. Given the hostility of the CNBC moderators you’d think someone might have picked up on the theme. Instead they asked about fantasy football.
Speaking of fantasy, this morning’s Real Clear Politics poll average has Trump at 27, Carson at 22.2, and Kasich at 2.2.
No Sanctuary for Kate Steinle
Illegal immigrant Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez has served 181 months in prison over 15 years. He’s been convicted of seven flelonies and deported five times. After serving each of his various terms was returned to Mexico and then sneaked back over the border for more of the same.
The Lopez-Sanchez round trip crime tour came to an end April 15. Rather than ship him back to Mexico again, a local sheriff released him onto the streets of San Fransisco. At that point Lopez-Sanchez would have been untouchable, San Fransisco being a Sanctuary City. But he claimed he found a gun and shot 32 year old Kate Steinle while she walked with her father.
Here’s Michael Daly’s account in a Daily Beast story slugged The Murder Shaking San Francisco’s Liberal Soul.
A memorial for Kate Steinle was held on Thursday. Family and friends told stories of an adventurous, exuberant, and uncommonly kind young woman. They had a phrase for the sunny, uplifting impact she seemed to have on everybody, wherever her wide travels took her:
“The Kate effect.”
