What is a Xanatos Gambit?

Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit

The reactions to Trump’s White House speech offering a compromise to get the Wall funded and stop the partial government shutdown were in many ways predictable. Ann Coulter was apoplectic, the mainstream media called President Trump more names, and Democrat leadership Schumer and Pelosi rejected his proposal out-of-hand. Some conservative commentators were of the opinion that Trump knew full well his proposal would be rejected by the Democrats, putting them in the intransigence column in order to pacify their hard-to-the-left base, while not seriously advancing any real concessions to Dreamers. Maybe.

But one of the more interesting takes was at Chicago Boyz and linked via American Thinker:

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, a ‘Xanatos Gambit’ is a plan for which all foreseeable outcomes benefit the creator — including ones that superficially appear to be failure.  

And here’s the theoretical application to the Wall stand-off:

President Trump’s “Big  Macs served at the White House” and grounding Speaker Pelosi’s Congressional Junkets on military transports during a government shut down over funding “The Wall” are both very much in that “Xanatos Gambit” frame work.  President Trump is staying on the offensive so House Democrats and the media cannot “get off a shot” over the Government shut down. 

More at all the links.

# # #

Eclipse tonight – no visibility in NE Ohio

blood moon photo by Doug Murray 

APnews has the thumbnail report on this evening’s lunar eclipse:

The celestial curtain will be rising soon on a lunar extravaganza.

Sunday night, the Earth will slide directly between the moon and the sun, creating a total lunar eclipse. There won’t be another until 2021.

It will also be the year’s first supermoon, when a full moon appears a little bigger and brighter thanks to its slightly closer position.

The entire eclipse will exceed three hours. Totality — when the moon’s completely bathed in Earth’s shadow — will last an hour. Expect the eclipsed, or blood moon, to turn red from sunlight scattering off Earth’s atmosphere.

Everyone everywhere can catch the supermoon, weather permitting. But the entire eclipse will be visible only in North and South America, and across the Atlantic to western and northern Europe.

Another report from ALNews [Alabama News] is here, and it shows the cloud cover map. Cleveland is in the middle of a winter storm with total cloud cover. So if you want to watch the supermoon and the eclipse, here’s the link to the eclipse livestream on YouTube (start checking the link around 10:30pm).

# # #

Election ‘reform’ encourages voter fraud

image credit: zazzle.com

A couple of days ago, I posted “How To Steal An Election,” highlighting analyses by J. Christian Adams at PJ Media. Today at Fox News, John Fund is sounding the alarm as well:

Pelosi's election ‘reform’ encourages voter fraud to benefit Dems

When Democrats reclaimed majority control of the House of Representatives under Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California this month, they had many choices on what to make their top legislative priority.

It says a lot that the new majority made a bill to upend federal election law House Resolution 1. The measure would give Democrats a partisan advantage over Republicans in everything from campaign finance to regulating online political ads.

Democrats would even go after the right of states to set “the time, manner and place” of elections that is guaranteed to them by the Constitution. States would be required to automatically register everyone in government databases as a voter unless individuals explicitly opted out.

In 2012, the Pew Research Center found that more than 3 million people were registered to vote in more than one state. In addition, 1.8 million dead people were on the voter registration rolls.

Requiring automatic voter registration would inject even more errors and potential for fraud into our already dubious voter rolls.

Under the Democratic bill, states would be required to offer voter registration online. They would also be required to offer at least 15 days of early voting and unlimited absentee balloting.

All of these so-called “reforms” trample on the rights of local election officials and raise the risk of fraud. And there is no crying need for such federal big-footing.

. . .

Please read the rest here. The group “MassFiscal” attempted to identify election and voter irregularities in Massachusetts and encountered considerable resistance. The report concludes that

other Democrats may not be concerned about evidence of possible voter fraud, but MassFiscal is hoping the local U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI may be. The group has sent its findings to the federal officials and is hoping someone in government will listen.

# # #

Thomas Sowell 1 -- AOC 0

This one is making the rounds...

# # #

How To Steal An Election

image credit: iowalabornews.com

The Electoral College is one of our guardians of states’ rights. J. Christian Adams reported on another priority of the Democrat-majority House of Representatives:

If you thought the midterm elections had problems, wait until you learn about Nancy Pelosi’s plan to terminate state control over American elections.

Democrats in Congress have announced their top legislative priority, and it isn’t health care, immigration, or taxes. Instead, they want to centralize power over elections in Washington, D.C. H.R. 1 is number one on the legislative agenda because it is the number one priority of House Democrats, leftist groups, deep-pocketed dark money, and those who use election process rules to help win elections -- or at least to cause chaos.

The bill is a 571-page dreamscape of wild wishes and federal mandates on states. The Constitution decentralizes power over American elections and puts states in charge. H.R. 1 would undo that.

Decentralization promotes individual liberty. When power over elections is centralized, it is easier for that power to be abused. When power over elections is decentralized, no single malevolent actor can exert improper control over the process. That is precisely why Democrats are so eager for Washington, D.C., to have more power over our elections.

H.R. 1 has 218 cosponsors. It forces states to implement mandatory voter registration. If someone is on a government list -- such as receiving welfare benefits or rental subsidies -- then they would be automatically registered to vote.

Few states have enacted these systems because Americans still view civic participation as a voluntary choice. Moreover, aggregated government lists always contain duplicates and errors that states, even without mandatory voter registration, frequently fail to catch and fix.

H.R. 1 also mandates that states allow all felons to vote. . . .

H.R. 1 would also force states to have extended periods of early voting, and mandates that early voting sites be near bus or subway routes. . . .

H.R. 1 mandates same-day voter registration and would obliterate state registration procedures. 

The full report is at PJ Media here. I doubt this will ever pass, but it certainly exposes the Progressive Left’s agenda.

# # #

Those phone calls = “public pressure”

Good news. Breitbart reports:

Six Republican Senators have failed to develop a coalition for their plan that exchanges a fifth of border wall funding for an amnesty for illegal aliens and increased immigration.

The plan, described to Breitbart News, was a creation of Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Susan Collins (R-ME), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Rob Portman (R-OH), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and would have tied $5.7 billion in funding for President Trump’s proposed border wall to an amnesty for illegal aliens enrolled and eligible in President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Sen. Rob Portman is always a squish, but I had thought that Sen. Lindsay Graham was finally growing a spine. But you knew he was playing both ends against the middle on border security when he encouraged Pres. Trump the other day to declare an emergency and build The Wall. At least now he is backing off the DACA amnesty: “I see no path forward...”

More here.  

# # #

ACTION ALERT: DACA rearing its head again / and UPDATE

UPDATE from NumbersUSA:

Thursday afternoon, Vice President Mike Pence announced that Pres. Trump would not sign off on such a deal. Politico reported: 

Vice President Mike Pence and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney had been consulting with senators about the matter on Thursday. Pence and Mulvaney took the idea to the president, who shot it down, according to multiple people directly involved in the talks. 

Again, thanks to all of the NumbersUSA activists who took action to help quell this threat!

Any calls that you made have made a difference!

-----------

The latest from NumbersUSA:

Gang of 8 sponsor, Sen. Lindsey Graham, working on DACA amnesty deal –

Urge Senate Republicans to oppose!

Amnesty-supporter, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), met with several other Senate Republicans and Pres. Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, on Wednesday to draw up an 'Amnesty-for-Wall' deal that they will pitch to Senate Democrats today [i.e., yesterday].

Voters didn't elect Donald Trump to the White House back in 2016 to pass an amnesty. They elected him because he was strong on enforcement and understood mass immigration's harmful impacts on American workers and their quality of life.

We need your urgent phone calls to senate republicans urging them to oppose any deal that trades border funding for amnesty!

Here is the number for your GOP Senator(s):

Sen. Rob Portman -- (202) 224-3353

You can also call the White House and tell Pres. Trump not to support an amnesty-for-wall deal!

WH Comment Line -- (202) 456-1111

It’s always good to have a better alternative when you are the phone or leaving a message. Here’s CTP's Ralph King’s suggested alternative (from his social media):

Instead of contemplating a deal of backdoor amnesty for DACA DREAMERS in exchange for Wall Funding, President Trump & the so-called "conservatives" in Congress should be pushing for Mandatory E-Verify.....

“Of all of the proposals, however, E-Verify would be the most effective at curbing illegal entries and limiting non-immigrant overstays. And the president could likely make it mandatory through executive action,” added Arthur, now a legal expert with the Center for Immigration Studies.

The push for the simple employment verification system, currently a voluntary opt-in for non-government contractors, comes after Immigration and Customs Enforcement revealed stunning new statistics of workplace enforcement investigations.

# # #