All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
Salena Zito always has a good read. This one is a feel good account of breaking down in small town America. Nothing profound but it might brighten your morning or remind you of a similar moment.
https://amgreatness.com/2019/06/11/finding-america-at-a-back-roads-gas-station/
After you’ve read enough sexbot articles on Drudge maybe switch to something interesting
In the last few years Drudge has become an unpleasant and messy site to visit. They are decidedly anti-Trump and loaded up with leftist clap-trap.
I found WhatFinger News a while ago and I find it a welcome relief. As an aggregator they keep the leftist stuff to a minimum and even label it so you can skip it if you don’t have a high tolerance for crap.
https://www.whatfinger.com/
Their motto is “The Relentless Pursuit of Creating The Greatest Aggregate Link News Site On Earth.”
And if that’s not enough, they have even shown the good taste to link to several of my humble blog posts!
After you’ve read enough sexbot articles on Drudge maybe switch to something interesting
The Mexican government on Wednesday arrested 350 Central Americans, including two prominent “migrant rights” activists, who were part of a large group headed toward the United States. Mexico is also planning to deploy an additional 6,000 national guard troops to its border with Guatemala.
The day after those activists were arrested, the Mexican Finance Ministry froze the bank accounts of 26 individuals for their alleged involvement in facilitating migrant caravans to the United States from Central America.
https://amgreatness.com/2019/06/09/trumps-america-no-country-for-illegal-aliens/
Sounds like the real deal and not just lip service. President Trump’s threat of tariffs is brilliant indeed. When he said Mexico would build the wall this is how he meant it. Leverage.
Of course, you always have to add, check back in a couple of weeks and see if it sticks but it’s definitely a winning strategy to use financial leverage to tame your enemies.
What makes President Trump so effective? It’s actually two things together.
Let me elaborate
1)
Donald Trump has looked behind the curtain and he knows the wizard is a fraud. He has spent his life dealing at first hand with the frauds and thieves who run the government in places like New York City and he knows that they’re corrupt and he knows they’re vulnerable. The Democrats have used their identity politics so successfully for so long because the Republicans will accommodate almost any compromise so long as their personal privileges are maintained. Both sides have abandoned the middle classes in exchange for Wall Street money and an identity politics charade in which each side plays its assigned part. The Left stokes the resentment of minorities and women and the Establishment Right mouths its platitudes about the Constitution and promises its constituency that half a loaf is better than nothing and someday the new Americans will see the light and forsake the Democrats.
Donald Trump could see from a mile off that JEB! and the rest of the Kabuki Theater crew were setting up to hand Hillary a rather easy win and he decided to pull the curtain aside and let the people see the truth about the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz, that he was a fraud. He showed us that everything they said was a lie and the only missing ingredient needed for winning was wanting to win.
And even when the Deep State has thrown literally everything including the kitchen sink at President Trump and his supporters, he is inexorably pushing them back in every direction he has applied force.
2)
Now this is not a risk-free enterprise. People like the Clintons have made the politics of personal destruction a veritable art form. When you add in the operatives that Obama and Hillary staffed the Justice Department with you are talking about a recipe for high powered railroading of anyone standing in their way. Just look at the victims of the Mueller investigation, some of them were men whose only crime was agreeing to talk to the FBI without a lawyer present.
But President Trump has demonstrated that he knows how to navigate the swamp and now it looks like he has come out on the other side of this cesspool and is positioned to give them a taste of their own medicine.
Being capable of successfully confronting the coordinated offensive of the Media, the Democrat Congress and the Deep State is almost unprecedented. Nixon was forced to resign. The Bushes were chewed up until by the end of their tenures there was nothing left of either. And they were career politicians. Trump can do it because he’s not afraid of them. In fact, he enjoys punching back. His ability to get his message out and draw blood from his adversaries is his trademark. Low Energy Jeb and Crooked Hillary and Nervous Nancy. He always draws blood and he keeps on jabbing until he’s made his point.
And that’s the secret of President Trump’s success. Not only does he know his enemies’ weaknesses but he’s not afraid to go after them and make them afraid of him. And this is only the beginning. Once the Comeys and Brennans start to cut deals to get leniency we will see some bigger fish get fried. I’m of the opinion that by 2024 he’ll have retired or imprisoned most of the current big names in Democrat politics. Who knows, could Hillary be on that list?
So that’s what I think is the formula responsible for the political jiu-jitsu he does so well. He knows their tricks and he’s not afraid to mix it up with them. The other Republicans lack part or all of this combination. The knowledge and the courage. Let’s be thankful he came along. Let’s hope he trains his successor. We can’t afford any more Bushes.
No one can replace Donald Trump. He is unique. Of the seven billion plus humans inhabiting planet Earth there couldn’t be another even close to his experiences, personality and skills. His quirks and his abilities are completely idiosyncratic. But he will also someday be term limited from serving as President of the United States. So, it is necessary to consider who could succeed Donald J. Trump as president.
Mike Pence would be the conventional choice. The Vice President of a successful President should have a leg up. But Al Gore and Richard Nixon could disagree. Assuming President Trump continues to preside over a healthy economy chances are Mike Pence would have at least an even chance at winning. But is Mike Pence the man for the job?
In terms of personality and background it would be hard to imagine a starker contrast than Trump and Pence.
| Name | Donald Trump | Mike Pence |
| Birthplace | New York City, NY | Columbus, IN |
| family business | real estate tycoon | gas station owner |
| net worth | north of 1 billion dollars | $700,000 (mostly future pension benefits) |
| liquid net worth | in the tens of millions | $15,000 |
| religious convictions | doubtful and conflicted | devout |
| total number of wives | 3 | 1 |
| total lifetime number of porn star sex liaisons | impossible to know but upper limit in triple figures | zero |
| Ability to withstand cross-examination by George Stephanopoulos | infinite | zero |
If you read Mike’s bio, he checks all the boxes for a social conservative. He’s pro-life, religious, family values, defense of marriage. He signed a bill as governor of Indiana to protect religious business owners from anti-discrimination law suits by homosexuals. But he immediately signed an amended version that gutted it when the Media, some big businesses and progressive advocacy groups coordinated their public attacks and threatened to boycott Indiana. And this latter incident is the troubling sticking point. Does Pence have the guts to stick to his guns and defy the progressive coalition?
Now, there are some mitigating circumstances that are in his favor. Being the Governor of Indiana during the Obama presidency doesn’t have the privileges that being President of the United States has. You can imagine the pressure being brought to bear by business leaders as negative publicity swirled around Indiana during the blitzkrieg that the Media created. And I’m sure the US Attorney General’s office was probably on the phone threatening him too. But however, you slice it, the optics were hardly Trumpian.
It is fair to ask if Mike Pence may have learned something in the last three years of working with Donald Trump that improves his case. I would have to say yes. It seems highly unlikely that working in close proximity to President Trump hasn’t provided very valuable object lessons in how to triage the almost unending series of crises, both actual and media-fabricated that have confronted the White House since January of 2017. By the end of President Trump’s second term, I would imagine even Mike Pence will have added a certain understated swagger to his manner when dealing with the media and other pests. Undoubtedly, he’ll never be able to launch a vindictive tweet at Chuck Schumer or bark out a fake news sound bite the way The Donald can but I don’t doubt he’ll manage to make his points without collapsing into spineless acquiescence to the likes of Stephanopoulos.
Now this doesn’t answer the other important question. Is Mike Pence the best choice for Trump’s successor? Frankly, I doubt that. I think the best man for the job will be another independent businessman or possibly an extraordinary military leader (of course my favorite choice is always me but we’ll leave that for another day). But for this essay let’s restrict ourselves to whether Mike Pence could carry on the good work being done by President Trump. I will give Pence grudging approval and say that based on his strengths, weaknesses and opportunities to grow as Trump’s right-hand man he probably could do it.
One last safeguard for Pence is that if President Trump doesn’t honestly think Pence is the right man to succeed him, he has two chances to correct the problem. He can choose a different running mate for 2020 and in 2024 if he suddenly objects to Pence, he can recommend someone else for the job.
So, let’s say I give Mike Pence a wavering one thumb up. Here’s hoping he comes into his own in the second term.
President Trump is scheduled to spend four days (June Third through Sixth) in Britain to commemorate the seventy fifth anniversary of D-Day. Queen Elizabeth will throw a state banquet at which all the parliamentary leaders will attend. But the real meeting that everyone is interested in is not supposed to happen. Prime Minister May has uninvited conservative gadfly Nigel Farage to Buckingham Palace and so the only way that the meeting will happen is through Trump’s and Farage’s own organizations setting it up. How ironic is that? The two leaders who demonstrably represent the will of the common people of their respective nations have to constantly battle against the elitists in their own parties to achieve any part of the agenda the people have mandated they accomplish.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the refusal of the Tory leadership to honor the Brexit vote. The people of the United Kingdom voted unequivocally to leave the European Union. But here we are three years later and nothing has been accomplished. The Tories under Theresa May’s inept leadership have botched the Brexit effort and at this point the Remainers in their ranks are poised to prevent Brexit, even though it will doom the Tories’ majority in Parliament, leaving the Left to run the country.
But jumping into the fray is Nigel Farage. He was the moving spirit behind the original Brexit movement but after its passage he dropped out of the public eye. But three years of dithering by the Tories was too much for him. Only six weeks before the British EU parliamentary elections he formed a new party called (of course) the Brexit Party and won more seats than the Tories and Labor combined. Using this victory as a second Brexit vote he is now warning the Tories that if they don’t accomplish Brexit by Halloween, he’ll be waiting for them in the next general election and sweep them and the Labor party out of power.
Theresa May has declared her resignation and there should be a new Tory prime minister by the middle of July. If it’s Boris Johnson or another Brexiteer it’s possible that Brexit can be accomplished. Perhaps Farage’s threat will be enough to convince the Remainers that their intransigence will energize the country’s majority to sweep them out of Parliament and give the government over to the Brexit Party. It’s hard to say.
Either way we see Nigel Farage as an outsider from the business world jumping into the political arena to wrest control of the levers of power away from a supposedly conservative elite that has decided to thwart the will of its constituents in order to cozy up to the very globalist establishment bureaucracy from which Britons voted to escape. Well, if that’s not essentially Donald Trump with a British accent I don’t know what is.
I think it would be useful to have a meeting between Trump, Farage and Boris Johnson. Farage and Johnson, if they coordinate their activities can make the Brexit a reality. Trump can be the facilitator to help convince the British people that the Hard Brexit horror story that the elites have told them is only a fiction. By highlighting the booming American economy, he can prove to them that managed decline doesn’t have to be the fate of the middle class.
Of course, it’s risky for politicians to be seen getting too cozy with foreign leaders (unless they’re Leftists of course) even if it’s the President of the United States. But in this particular case I think meeting with Farage will be very good for both Trump and Farage. Seeing Farage’s stock increase will tend to focus Johnson’s mind on how important it is to get Brexit done. And indeed, accomplishing Brexit is virtually the only way the Tories have of staying in power.
But personally, what I’d love to hear is what these two men will say to each other when the video cameras and microphones aren’t on. Both of them have demonstrated that they understand how to reach the middle-class people directly. And because of that both have been attacked mercilessly by their opponents in the Media and the governing elites of both parties. I have to imagine they would enjoy just comparing notes and telling war stories. It would be like two magicians comparing experiences and trading secrets. Maybe Trump and Farage can reach out to other populist leaders within the anglosphere and beyond (e.g., Italy) and coordinate strategy against the globalists. They could form a sort of anti-globalist UN. They could call it the DN, the Disunited Nations.
So let’s hope that Trump’s trip to Britain provides some positive energy for both the American and British Right. And let’s hope that the new Tory prime minister works with Farage to convince the Remainers to support Brexit (or else).
Trump and Farage point to the peril that threatens our world. The elites have gamed democracy. And the only thing that stands in the way of some kind of repressive, decadent, roman empire-like world is a small group of independent businessmen who are defying their own class and providing the middle class with a voice and a champion. It can’t be reassuring to know that everything we believe in is hanging on the thread of a handful of men. But let’s pray that our luck holds out long enough to battle back from the edge of the cliff. And let’s make sure Trump appoints a worthy successor. After all, unlike Britain where a prime minister can stay in power for decades, an American president only gets eight years at most.
You’ve got to hand it to the President. He gets right down to brass tacks.
https://www.apnews.com/afec271c5f9c4fdb82f57b48cb593add
Ratcheting it up incrementally from five percent all the way to twenty five is a nice way to persuade the Mexicans that time is of the essence. Bravo.
‘Now, Théoden son of Thengel, will you hearken to me?’ said Gandalf. … ‘I bid you come out before your doors and look abroad. Too long have you sat in shadows and trusted to twisted tales and crooked promptings.
‘It is not so dark here’ said Théoden. … ‘Dark have been my dreams of late,’ he said, ‘but I feel as one new-awakened.’ … ‘What is to be done?’
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings; The King of the Golden Hall
Lots of friends and relatives on our side of the fence (meaning the non-leftists) criticize me for being too optimistic. They acknowledge that Donald Trump has altered the landscape in a revolutionary way. They admit that progress has been made. But they stress that things are still almost hopeless. They stress the lopsided progressive advantage among millennials and immigrants. They remind me just how razor thin were the margins in the 2016 elections and the election fraud that is sure to be unleashed in 2020. And on and on and on. And all these things are true.
But there is one change that is not a matter of degrees but rather a binary change from unknown to known. And that is the knowledge of why we always lost.
I’ve been a fan of the Lord of the Rings for about half a century. Because of this I often find myself using analogies from that book to explain and illuminate logical points I want to make. Admittedly, from a strictly logical perspective, it’s an unjustifiable practice. And when viewed by those unfamiliar with Tolkien’s work it’s a counterproductive practice. But you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
Thinking about our situation currently I am drawn to the scene in the Lord of the Rings where Gandalf enters Meduseld and is confronted by Théoden, the King of Rohan and Grima Wormtongue. Grima is the king’s chief counsellor and an agent of Saruman the Evil Wizard. Grima has poisoned Théoden’s mind against his own family and provides counsel to the king that flatters him but always leads to the worsening of Rohan’s position. The king is bowed down by despair. His only son has recently been killed in battle and the enemies of his people are attacking his country at will from all sides. His own kinsman is disobeying his orders and his chief counsellor, Grima advises him to accept the diminution of his power and the necessity of capitulating to his foes in order to survive.
Through the counsel of this traitor Théoden has mistaken his friends for foes and enemies for allies. And in such a state he is constantly dismayed to see all his efforts fail. Trusting Grima implicitly, he doesn’t realize that all his plans are known to his enemies and all the actions he is told to follow always make his enemies stronger and him weaker.
Then Gandalf comes along and reveals the truth to Théoden. And once he understands Grima’s status his own situation and the experiences of the past make sense. Now, that is not to say that Théoden isn’t indeed in an almost hopeless position. He is. But at least now it all makes sense and he can choose how he wants to make a stand without his enemy knowing his plans in advance. Once the confusion of the false assumption about Grima is eliminated Théoden can see clearly where he is and which way he should head. Without the misinformation being fed to him he has a better chance of correctly choosing a path forward. And to complete the metaphor Gandalf leads Théoden out of the dark hall of Meduseld into the bright light of day.
So, that’s the analogy. We handed the Republican Establishment victory after victory. We gave them what they said they needed in money, votes and loyalty and in return they sold us out time after time. They accomplished nothing and conserved nothing. Their slow-motion capitulation to every Leftist demand has finally left us virtually strangers in our own land.
But that day, at least for me, is over. Anyone who tells me that the only way to survive is through capitulation is working for the enemy. Anyone who supports leftist social policies is by definition a Leftist. Wall Street needs cheap labor so their Republican Establishment puppets tell us that even trying to enforce immigration laws will make us a minority party that will never win another election. Then Donald Trump wins on that very platform. We may be defeated in the future because of demographic change but allowing the fear of it to prevent us from pursuing our own interests is rank stupidity. Cowardice and stupidity are not the qualities needed when you are in a tight spot. Intelligence and courage are. And with the world as degraded as it has become it will not be a short or easy job to return life to a normal state. It will take years and it will involve hard work and even then, we may be beaten in the end. So be it. At least you go down to defeat swinging not just walking passively to the slaughter house.
So, my point is it is time to stop listening to the defeatists. Even the ones who truly are on our side. When some well-meaning Republican tells me that the only way to win the woman vote is to nominate Nikki Haley for vice president, I politely say that is a terrible idea. Haley is a RINO who will fold under any pressure from the left. She would be just as bad as a Bush. The idea that we should nominate someone just because she’s a woman is the same bad thinking that has gotten us in trouble time after time. Find someone who knows how to make the system work for us and back him.
Allow yourself to dream big and then try to do something positive yourself. Red-pill a friend or a family member or an acquaintance. Back a candidate that you think is good. Build a platform where people on our side can share ideas and encouragement.
For those who don’t know the Lord of the Rings I can give a different pop culture reference.
“Well I won’t back down
No I won’t back down
You can stand me up at the gates of Hell
But I won’t back down
…
Hey baby
There ain’t no easy way out (I won’t back down)
Hey I, will stand my ground
And I won’t back down”
I Won’t Back Down by Tom Petty
Please excuse the sparsity of posting this weekend. An illness in the family took precedence, of course. I hope to put something together for tomorrow that may be interesting. It shouldn’t be too difficult with all the fascinating chaos swirling around our maelstrom of revolt. The Brexit Party has upended the Establishment apple-cart in the British European Parliament election. Essentially it’s like a second Brexit vote and this has finally forced Theresa May to declare her resignation for sabotaging the Brexit and even bungling that. Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage are the men of the hour and with any luck they’ll force a hard Brexit and begin to eject the Remain Conservatives from their seats.
Trump and Barr are the focus on this side of the Atlantic and the prospect of DOJ Swamp Critters outbidding each other to be the Rat Who Stayed Out of Prison just warms my vengeful little heart. Can you imagine Comey, Clapper and Brennan each trying to spin a tale that makes the other two the criminals and himself just an innocent bystander. Be still my beating heart.
I’ll put up a review of the Blade Runner 2049 movie. And I have a few things to say about the Globalists.
And finally I’d like to give a ShatnerKhan update. Camera Girl has made destructive comments concerning the value of ShatnerKhan. I won’t say this has threatened the marriage but it has certainly lowered my opinion of her cultural literacy. But I haven’t allowed this assault to lessen my zest for all things Shatner. Even now I am drafting the audio-visual list. The Original Series, of course. The two Twilight Zone episodes, absolutely. Secrets of a Married Man, it’s canonical. I have to watch some of Boston Legal to see if it’s Shatneresque enough for me. But I don’t think I’ll go back to TJ Hooker. Even I have limits.
Hopefully it will be a good week.
Finally! Now Trump can get the truth out to the public. Think of the soundbites during the election.
Now hurry up and do it Barr.