Budget Committee

This would make a great standing committee for an incoming president to set up with little or no fanfare, to examine the federal budget and suggest elimination of parcels that really don't need to be there. Mr Trump has noted that the Department of Education qualifies as such a parcel and has suggested that if it were to go unfunded, no one would likely notice, beyond the people working there who would suddenly find their positions to be surplus.

This isn't a big item with the current asked budget being about $126B out of about $4T or about 3.6%. Still you save a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you're talking real money. If you were looking for a topic to bring up with your congress people, here's one. Write and ask them to support abolishing the Dept. of Ed. Follow up would be to reduce federal taxes by half the amount saved, and allocate the remainder to paying off the debt. There are lots of other places, most easily identified by the title "Department of.." in front of the descriptor that would be easily done away with reaping the attendant savings. There's an interactive chart here that breaks out a lot of this.

Endless Entertainment

I swear I'd have to invent anti gravity or some such to get more entertainment than I do from the old squirrel trap. See the comments as other people seem to like it too.

Never Say Die

The DNC Brownshirts were out last night in my daughters neighborhood with BB guns shooting out windows of houses that still had Trump signs up. Similarly minded groups went out marching and blocked I-25 briefly. Todays news is full of similar reports along with calls for lethal violence.

Trump needs to address these people with a soothing quote from BHO: "I won."

Maybe then they'll quiet down and go home like whipped Republicans after O'Bummers wins.

Trump Staff and Cabinet Suggestions

With only a little thought I'm sure we could come up with lots of good suggestions for Trumps staff and cabinet positions. Here's one:

Trump needs to make Milo Yiannopoulos press secretary and let him go off on stupid questions. It would be endlessly entertaining and they'd put up with it in order to gain access.

Then when Milo got bored he could be made Secretary of Education just to screw with the Universities.

#1.1 rjschwarz on 2016-11-10

And when Milo gets bored with the Sec Ed position, he can simply turn out the lights on his way out. The individual states are fully capable of addressing the educational needs of their citizens.

Found here along with a suggestion to put Ted Cruz on the supreme court.

The End Of The World

As some people would like to know it. Last night various columnists from the New York Times, including renowned economist* Paul Krugman were staring the end of Western civilization as they understood it, wailing, rending garments, and no doubt considering becoming refugees to whatever country would take them. Here's Krugman:

It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover?

Frankly, I find it hard to care much, even though this is my specialty. The disaster for America and the world has so many aspects that the economic ramifications are way down my list of things to fear.

Still, I guess people want an answer: If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.

Last night market futures in the DJ Industrials was down some 900-1000 points so maybe they were right to be nervous. Still, today:

Dow 30
18,589.69
256.95 (1.40%)

A modest uptick overall. Pretty good recovery for 18 hours, no?

*Krugman won a Nobel in economics. He also was an advisor to Enron and helped make it the company it is today. Extinct.

QOTD - The Election

Mike Wasylik ‏@MikeWas

BRITAIN: Brexit!

 AMERICA: Here, hold my beer.

The big winner last night in Colorado seems to have been Michael Bloomberg who won at least 2 state Senate seats and one ballot question. I hear he did well in other states as well.

We still seem to have a Republican majority in our Senate so absent Bloomberg it would have been a conservative landslide here.

A Historian's Take On The Election

Here's a post on Samizdata from a historian who points out that small omissions in speeches can leave other countries with an incorrect impression as to what exactly our country is prepared to do in some situation. Running down a detailed list of places where we announce we're prepared to intervene and leaving one small country out by oversight or design can lead to a rapidly escalating military conflict. WWI and 2 are cited.

So for the right sized contribution to the Clinton Foundation, President Clinton would have no problem with Russia taking over the "administration" of the Baltic states and Ukraine? Or perhaps if Iran were to repatriate 10% of the tribute Obama paid them to the Foundation, Iranian administration of Syria would be acceptable.

Fun With Headlines

Seen at Drudge:

ELECTION SHOCK: TRUMP OUTPERFORMS ROMNEY
+130,000 FLORIDA
+142,000 NORTH CAROLINA
JUMPS TO LEAD COLORADO

While it's nice to see the bit about leading in Colorado, one should perhaps ask President Romney just how much better Trump NEEDS to be doing in order to take those states. 

Weiner in Rehab. Hopes To Get Lucky

Anthony Weiner was spotted riding a horse while in a sexual rehab clinic. I think he's trying to see if there's any currency to the phrase "F.U. and the horse you rode in on."

Related tweet here. Click the link, it's pretty funny.

Automotive

Noticed the car was quieter than normal today if somewhat slower. Got home and noticed some stuff stuck into my tailpipes. Wondered if it was the neighbors fed up with the noise the car was making or maybe my yard signs and pulled the stuff out:

These little numbers are not hornets nests, but broken fragments of my cat converter which had worked their way down the exhaust and through the muffler. I suppose they would have eventually gotten blown out the tailpipes but these got caught in the baffles. This probably accounts for some of the rattling I hear when I go over bumps. The car is now significantly noisier.

The chunks I'm told are platinum.

The car is what GM calls the "base" model, which means it has the smallest engine and no options. I've discovered that it does come with at least most of a complete wiring harness so a couple trips to the junkyard and now I've got cruise control and push-button trunk opening. I tried for power door locks and got the right parts but the harness is not all that complete so I'm holding that project for later. Gives me something to do in my spare time.

Someone Needs A Dog

A regular program of exercise is a wonderful thing. A dog will get you out of bed at progressively earlier times and take you for progressively longer walks. Mine has me up to 3-5 miles/day and in dog years, she's as old as I am.

More Stickers

Just noticed that I seem to have not posted these. Better late than never I suppose:

There you go. Real Clear Politics is showing an Electoral College map with Hill barely squeaking out a win. Meantime Colorado is cruising to a dead heat rather than leaning blue.

New Bumper Sticker - By Popular Demand

OK Here's the update. As a reminder it was inspired by the Edwin Edwards v David Duke race in Louisiana that inspired the sticker reading

Vote for the Crook. It's important!

Print it out in landscape and tape it to your window. You can pull it off after the election or leave it up as an I Told You So piece. As of today, RCP is predicting a 273/265 Hillary outcome. If she loses a single state, she's out and I hear that Michigan is now a squeaker. Meantime here's how squeakers become no-sweat squeakers:

Early Voting

Everyone at Rancho DeBillll has now voted. I can't vouch for the ladies, but as precinct captain here's my front yard:

Yes, I did. Local vandalism has been limited to having my Trump sign uprooted and left lying in the yard, as was the one across the street. Both are back up and the evidently remorseful vandal has not been back.

Election Humor

There's always something funny about a situation, even ones that result in major catastrophe.
Take the Russian point of view in which the whole thing can be summed up with only the names of the participants:

Wiener Putin Clinton Bush

Or this one:

Although it might not seem so humorous to some. It reminds me of a Rocky and Bullwinkle scene in which an out-of-favor Badinov was calling home only to be informed by his supervisor that it couldn't be him since he was dead. A quick check revealed that his supervisor had been reading the next days paper and apologized for the error.