Category: Trump

Jim Acosta – Symptom of the Times

photog Current Events, Trump , , , ,

Watching Jim Acosta at a White House Press Briefing is akin to watching a determined three-year-old asking his mother why.  Initially it’s amusing but eventually it’s unbearable.  The mindlessness of it renders it a form of exquisite torture.  In the three-year-old it’s tolerated because you know it’s a stage in the development of language and social skills.  In an allegedly mature man with a White House Press Pass it’s a symptom of the terminal illness that has infected the American body politic, bloodless civil war.  Acosta is a proxy for the desire of millions of progressives to harass the President of the United States for winning the 2016 presidential election.  He gets to mouth ridiculous complaints about the supposedly unfair statements President Trump makes about the press.  And in his yammering repetition of what he thinks are damning indictments of the current administration we hear an echo of the half-witted chants of Antifa, BLM, Occupy Wall Street and every other neo-marxist street circus going all the way back to the drug addled imbecilic protesters of the 1960s.  Hey hey, ho ho, blah blah blah has got to go.   Hey hey, ho ho, blah blah blah has got to go.  Hey hey, ho ho, blah blah blah has got to go.   Hey hey, ho ho, blah blah blah has got to go…………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

As ZMan is fond of saying “we live in unserious times.”  But in all actuality the stakes are very serious.  A federal judge (and one appointed by President Trump no less) has granted a temporary injunction pending a decision on whether Jim Acosta’s lunacy at White House press conferences is protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.  The duly elected leader of the most powerful state to ever exist is thwarted in his important work of transmitting the proceedings of his administration to the Press by a bleating half-wit with an expensive hair-cut and a power tie.  I’m starting to think that the real victory of the Trump presidency will be when he begins reining in the madness that the Left inflicts on us daily.

There is a school of thought that President Trump supports the daily barrage of leftist insanity as a way to garner sympathy from the American public, that the presence of Acosta actually stokes the anger that guarantees his constituency’s ardor in supporting his causes.  If that is true then I must be outside of his target audience.  I would pay a month’s gross salary to be rid of the likes of Jim Acosta from the daily news feed.  If he were permanently banned from the White House and had to merely comment from the sidelines, I would be supremely pleased.  It would be a solid win.  It wouldn’t change the world but it would be a sign that these lunatics sometimes have to retreat.  So, President Trump, hear my plea.  Don’t just let Jim Acosta win.  Push this all the way to the Supreme Court if need be and strike a blow for baseline sanity.  Prove that this is still in some small way the same place that engendered Washington and Jefferson or for pity’s sake at least Teddy Roosevelt.

American Pride

photog Current Events, Trump , , , ,

One hundred and two years ago my grandfather was a sixteen-year-old Italian American kid living in New York City.  When the Americans entered World War I he wanted to join the army to fight America’s enemies but his parents forbade it and because he was under age he couldn’t join without their permission.  So, he took the alias of Charlie “Young,” claimed he was eighteen and joined without their knowing.  His sense of pride in being a New Yorker was such that this Italian American kid was thrown in the stockade for fighting with a southern recruit who called him a “Damn Yankee.”

I remember after September 11th, 2001 a reporter in New York City interviewed some students on the New York University campus who had just witnessed the World Trade Center collapsing into rubble killing thousands of New Yorkers.  He asked them whether they would be willing to enlist to revenge the attack.  And they said absolutely not.  Their future was too important to sacrifice for their country.  They did allow that there probably were less important people who could do it though.  Probably dirt people who didn’t go to NYU.

Times do change.

What does it mean about a high school if it bans the wearing of the American flag because it’s too divisive?  The only thing I can think of is that the school is outside the boundaries of the United States.  What that means to me is that whole areas of the political boundaries of the United States are occupied territory.  If you are in California you are no longer in the United States of America.  And that also goes for New England, the Pacific Northwest, the Great Lakes region, the Mid-Atlantic states and almost all of the large metropolitan areas.  A good rule of thumb is to use those voting maps of the United States and look at all the counties that vote Democrat, all of the blue areas.  Within these areas pride in America is at least an abomination and in some cases a crime.  And even outside of these enclaves, parts of your life have become occupied territory.  Most of the internet is now an anti-American domain.  Most of the large businesses have standardized on anti-American nomenclature to avoid being harassed in the Blue States.  Most of the churches have joined the enemy and even the Boy Scouts of America has succumbed.

This situation is designed to destroy the social cohesion of the American identity.  Once that is achieved, all that is left is the identity politics that the left loves so much.  With everyone divided by ethnicity, race, sex, religion and ever more idiosyncratic characteristics it is easy for the grievance instigators to rig up further outrages outlined in the intersectional conflict playbook.  And I think they’ve succeeded.  They’ve raised up the millennials to basically ignore the idea of patriotism.  Regional variation of course, exists.  There are pockets of old-style American identity and patriotism even in the tattered fabric of this country.  But even they are under active attack by the Left.  They are ever vigilant against any signal from traditional society breaking into their progressive matrix.  When it does, they send the courts and the social justice warriors to attack and destroy.

I am so sick of living in occupied territory.

My idea for fighting back is two-fold.  First off, support Donald Trump.  He is naming judges to the federal and supreme courts who can defend traditional Americans from the Left.  If they strike down all the Constitutional protections for the leftist social programs it will allow the states to decide on their own policies.  Under that scenario many states will restore the rights of traditional people to live their lives the way they want.

Secondly, I want to move out of occupied territory.  With the Supreme Court holding the progressives at bay I could live in Idaho or Utah or the Carolinas or Missouri or Kansas or Arkansas or Texas or any one of twenty states that won’t make me feel like a stranger in a strange land.  Imagine not having to know your vote is wasted.  Imagine knowing that your neighbors don’t hate and despise you.  Imagine knowing that the local school isn’t teaching your children and grandchildren that their ancestors were evil people.  That is something I dream of.

If I were more of a statist, I guess I could dream of forcing the blue states to honor the memory of their own country.  But I don’t.  Let them go down their road.  Let me go down mine.

10NOV2018 – American Greatness Post of the Day – Don’t Give in to the Left’s Moral Blackmail

photog Current Events, On-Line Article Reviews, Reviews, Trump , , ,

Jeremy Carl should be commended.  As a Jewish American there is enormous pressure from his friends, relatives, acquaintances and colleagues in the Jewish community to fall in line with the progressive narrative and blame President Trump for any acts of violence committed by any maniac that can’t be undeniably proven to be funded directly by George Soros.

His American Greatness article addresses the elephant in the room, namely, that the face of Progressive Leftism is riddled with liberal Jews who play the anti-Semitic card as a means of pummeling Republicans into guilty silence.  And he identifies the objective of the strategy, to paralyze the victim and make him a sitting duck for the sucker punch that will surely follow.  So, blame Trump and the Republicans for a crazed anti-Semitic murderer and follow up with the gun control offensive.  The perfect one – two combination.  Mr. Carl spells out the fact that President Trump’s daughter and son-in-law are Jewish and that the ploy has lost its punch against him.  And he also addresses the extreme anti-white hatred that some Jewish Progressives have now openly displayed.

My favorite passage is, “Nor should we sit silently while Jewish leftists like the New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg attempt to exploit the atrocity in Pittsburgh by echoing the phrasing and vision of white supremacists by celebrating the demographic decline of white people in America like a cartoon Jewish villain from a Neo-Nazi propaganda piece.”

I think this gets right to the crux of the matter.  If your aim is to avoid anti-Semitism it would seem the best strategy would not be to exhibit anti-white bigotry.

It’s refreshing to see a Jewish conservative finally calling out his coreligionists on something that is a divisive and dishonest tactic that feeds an image of the Jewish community that they would be better off not encouraging.

How Does Trump Navigate the Justice Department Mess – An Uninformed Opinion

photog Current Events, OCF, Trump , , , , , , ,

I’ll start out by saying straight out I’m simply stating my opinion based on what the situation seems to be to me.  I have no inside info and I’m not sure anyone outside the White House knows all the facts on the ground.  That being said here goes.

First assumption I make is that Robert Mueller means to persecute President Trump’s associates until he can produce enough circumstantial evidence to indict the President.  My second assumption is that he already has a bunch of things that he can unleash at any time.  My third assumption is that firing Rosenstein and Mueller after the new House is convened would be worse than doing it now.

Based on these assumptions, which are completely my own calculations of where things stand, I think President Trump will fire Robert Mueller in the next couple of days.  He’ll probably fire Rosenstein too.  But that is even less certain than the rest of this hypothesizing.

The fallout from such a course of action is much more certain.  The New York Times, Washington Post and the rest of the rags and CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and NBC will explode with leaked stories accusing President Trump and all his associates inside and outside of the administration with every atrocity since the Sack of Rome.  Following this the Democratic House will begin investigations and shortly after that start the Impeachment Circus.  Will they impeach him?  Sure.  The only question in my mind is whether any of the idiot Republicans in the Senate decide to turn on the President.  Luckily, I think the great majority of them are smarter than that.  So, we probably lose a whole year going through this charade.

But by my reckoning that is actually the best way to handle this whole thing.  Delaying any of these steps only makes it worse.  Hopefully President Trump has gone through this too and recognizes the folly of letting this get drawn out.  The sooner he begins this Kabuki Theater act, the more space he puts between this farce and the 2020 election.  Waiting will sink his last two years and invites Mueller to tear even more people apart.  And he might as well pardon all the folks Mueller has indicted and prosecuted.  And as soon as he fires Mueller he should set up Rudy Giuliani to prosecute all the Dems and Deep Staters who have been running this treasonous witch hunt for the last three years.  And that should include Obama and his evil cronies and the Clintons.

So that’s my outsider, not clued in, totally uninformed opinion.   Fire these sons of bitches and let the chips fly where they will.  The American state is divided into two approximately equal groups.  One half likes you and won’t care at all about the crap that will fly in all directions.  The other half already hates you and it won’t make them hate you any more than they do.  So, go for it!  It will be an enormous shot in the arm for the dirt people and it will drive the moonbats right through escape velocity and headed for interstellar space.  Just my two cents.

07NOV2018 – The Morning  After the Mid-Terms

photog Current Events, Trump

So, where are we?  Well, we’ve got a comfortable margin in the Senate finally.  Once Montana and Arizona count the Indian county votes we should end up with 55 – 45.  The House has a thin Democrat majority but that’s still enough for Pelosi and company (or whoever they make Speaker) to annoy the President with investigations and completely stymie any legislation.  Basically what we had under Paul Ryan, so no big deal.

I guess the biggest change is that Trump doesn’t have to wait any longer if he wants to fire Sessions and the rest of the Justice Department.  And that’s a big question.  Does he want to do it?  I hope he does.  That would be exciting.  I think if he is going to do it it’ll be during the Lame Duck session.  That’s a narrow window.  We’ll know soon.

The safer margin in the Senate will also allow easier approval of not only judges but also Cabinet heads.  Once Sessions, Rosenstein and Mueller are gone he can get his own guys in easily enough and maybe even put in a good special prosecutor to go after the Deep State, Obama cronies and Clinton shenanigans that have been such an outrage for the last few years.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad night.  But let’s hope we can do a lot better in the coming months.  First things first, fire Sessions, clean out the rat’s nest and start going after employers who ignore illegal status and start deporting large numbers of illegals.

 

3:30 pm Update – Jeff Sessions resigns!  Well, well.  Onward and upward.

2018 Mid-Term Election Night Live Blogging Open Post

photog Current Events, OCF, Trump , ,

I’ll be updating the election results throughout the night.

 

I’ll start off the action by posting my predictions.  Anybody who wants can out theirs in the comments.

Senate R54 / D46

House Republicans with a majority of 2 seats.

What’s your guess?

7 am update:

The ever hedging Nate Silver has increased the Dems odds:

SILVER: 88% DEMS TAKE HOUSE…  20% SENATE…

But still says anything can happen.  Now there’s confidence in your numbers.

“Welcome Back, My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends.”  Emerson, Lake and Palmer

Well here we go again.  I’ve been doing the Election Night Vigil religiously every two years since 2000.  And only the 2006 and 2008 were so painful that I wish I had skipped them.  But I have a good feeling about tonight.  Have a great day.

 

1pm Update

It’s still a long time until results come in so I have some fun links to while a way the time

6 pm Update

Well I voted the straight Republican slate!  But this is New England so not a single one of my picks will be elected.  But I’m home and I have all the resources of the internet and the MSM at my disposal, meaning there’s nothing to say yet.  Stay tuned.

 

7pm Update

Drudge Headline

EXIT POLLS SHOW DEM WAVE BUILDING  –  FEW SENATE RACES CLOSE

But ……Robby Mook, the former campaign manager for Hillary Clinton‘s 2016 presidential bid, cautioned ahead of Tuesday’s midterms to treat exit polls “like online dating profiles.”
“Things may not be as they appear. And they may break your heart,” Mook wrote on Twitter.
First Election Board of the night

U.S. SENATE Democrats 25*  Republicans  42
U.S. HOUSE  Democrats  2(-1)  Republicans  6(+1)
GOVERNORS  Democrats 7  Republicans 7
8 pm Update
Drudge

HOUSE  D85 / R 93

FLORIDA GOV
GILLUM 49.6% DESANTIS 49.2%

9pm Update

Looks like we have our first Senate pick-up for the GOP

Indiana  D – Donnelly 42.0   R – Braun 53.9 Brenton 4.1   (50%)  GOP Pickup

 

10:20 pm Update

Looks like we picked up North Dakota and held Texas (Cruz) in a close one in the Senate.  The Dems have 11 pick-ups in the House.  They need 10 more but the Networks (NBC and Fox) have called it for the Dems already.  I’ll hang in there to see how this goes.

 

07NOV2018 7am Final Update

 

Well, the Dems took the House but by just a little more than the minimum necessary.  Disappointing but not earth shattering.  We picked up our 3 seats in the Senate.  The world goes on.  Thanks to everyone who participated.  It was a fun evening even if there were no meltdowns.

photog

A Terrible Confession

photog Current Events, OCF, photog's Corner, Trump , , ,

I’ve been setting up things so I can watch the Mid-Terms Tuesday night.  I’ll post updates on the blog and I’ll be following all the news outlets, both written and video feeds.  I’ve told the folks at work that I’ll probably be coming in late and certain to be catatonic at best.  I’ve gone on record as saying that the Republicans will gain 3-5 seats in the Senate and hold the House by one or two seats.  Now, truth be told, I am in no way certain about the Republicans holding the House.  And having to stay up until 4 am to see California put the Democrats over the top would be a bitter pill to swallow and something I would rather avoid.  But I feel I must watch this election.  I think there is a reasonable chance I’ll be able to watch a repeat of the 2016 Progressive Pundit Meltdown (PPM).  Watching the PPM was one of the most intoxicating visual spectacles of my life.  And I say this even though I’ve watched the live feeds from the moon landing, the fall of the Berlin Wall, both Gulf Wars and several previous Democratic election routs.  The 2016 PPM was exquisite.  Seeing the talking heads at ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, Huffington Post and the Young Turks slowly come to grips with the loss of Hillary Clinton was endlessly entertaining.  And sure, the aftermath of the loss also sparked a whole wave of videos featuring progressive celebrities, minor celebrities and nobodies howling at the moon in full-throated despair.  And those were absolutely hilarious.  But it was watching in real time as the Clinton Win-o-meter slowly descended from eighty five percent down to zero and seeing that descent mirrored in the voices and facial expressions of these “objective journalists” that was so addictive.  I want another hit.

I know I shouldn’t chance it.  I should feign stoic indifference and say that the details of the election cycles are a matter of complete indifference to me and instead point to the arc of history working inexorably to fulfill the destiny of the great revolution (all hail the shining dawn of something or other).  But it’s too tempting.  I’m a PPM junkie and I want my fix.  And risking a viewing of a republican wipe-out is equivalent to a junkie risking his life on bad smack.  I’m hooked.

So that’s my terrible secret.  I’m going in with only a 50/50 prospect of seeing the evil glory of Chris Cuomo looking like an extremely stupid coyote falling off a cliff.  Of hearing Rachel Maddow sputter out her bitter disappointment at America not being “with her.”  Of seeing and hearing the carnie barkers on the Young Turks lash out at anyone and everyone to vent their mindless rage.  It’s not smart or safe.  But schadenfreude is just too damn seductive.

So, if you’re looking for a guaranteed win on Tuesday and don’t want to risk a terrible letdown then you’re best off giving the whole thing a pass.  Watch some fun stuff and avoid the news until Wednesday morning and pretend indifference if the Dems manage to take the House.  I’ll totally understand.  But if you’re a risk taker who wants a chance to do the end-zone dance with fellow travelers while the studios are still awash in the salty goodness of progressive tears then stay up for the 2018 PPM death-watch with me on Tuesday night.  Who knows maybe some of those blue haired millennials who were on suicide watch in 2016 could make a come back this week and give me something really fun to watch over the Christmas holiday again this year.  Good times.

Tucker Carlson Interviews Michael Anton on the Birthright Citizenship Question

photog Current Events, On-Line Article Reviews, Reviews, Trump , , , ,

 

Publius Decius Mus (aka Michael Anton) seems to always be a go-to guy for every important argument.  And birthright citizenship is no exception.  Listen to Tucker Carlson question him on the history of the 14th Amendment and why it has been used to justify giving the children of illegal immigrants automatic citizenship.

Very useful information to have  when you want to answer some idiot like Paul Ryan.

Codevilla’s “Our Revolution’s Logic” Resonates on the Right, but is He Right?

photog Current Events, OCF, On-Line Article Reviews, Reviews, Trump , , , , ,

Codevilla’s lengthy article outlining the path forward he sees for the American republic is ricocheting around the right-wing blogosphere pretty heavily.  And that makes sense.  Here is a civic nationalist of unimpeachable credentials sadly confirming what the Dissident Right has been saying for several years.  Codevilla’s thesis is that we’ve gone over the cliff and there’s no going back to a united America.

Without a doubt, the naïve belief that a third of the population can publicly foment the disenfranchisement of 60% of the population without damaging the unity and even the existence of the nation has been exploded.  But does that mean that a coalition of people (of whatever ethnicity) who would prefer to live in a country corresponding to the pre-1965 way of life can’t be cobbled together?  Of that, I’m not convinced.  The Left has appealed to all the various grievances of women, minorities and sexual deviants against the traditional society as a way to build a coalition.  But what would happen if you take away the advantage for that coalition?  What if protected status was removed from these categories so that there was no longer any advantage to uniting under the banner of victimhood?  Suddenly moslems, feminists and trans-women don’t seem to have that much in common.  Just looking at the various minority groups, it doesn’t appear that East and South Asians have very much in common with Hispanics who don’t really get along very well with black folk.  Suddenly it makes a lot more sense for all of us to play by the rules that actually protect each group from the law of the jungle.  The real losers in this type of situation would be the really weird characters in the LGBTQ camp.  It’s pretty certain that there are much worse societies to be noticeably strange than in pre-1965 America.  Just ask the queer folk in Iran (if you could find any alive that is).  And considering the recent statistics on female college degrees and employment advancement I think women are the least entitled to demand special privileges.

I think what made the social and political situation in the last couple of decades seem like a lost cause to the Right was the fact that the only Republican leaders that we had on the scene weren’t really on our side.  Even in the short time that Donald Trump has been on the scene and even hog-tied as he has been by the machinations of the Deep State it’s obvious that our ideas are not unacceptable to the American electorate.  Imagine if a relatively united Republican establishment started to actually espouse the welfare of its constituency on a consistent basis.  I think we could easily sway many of the groups that currently vote in lock step with the Democrats.  What is needed is an assertive stance in demanding the end of unconstitutional practices that disadvantage and disrespect the majority of American citizens in the name of grievances that have no basis in reality.  The American legal system provides more than sufficient protection for all law-abiding individuals and the American business climate when nurtured by a responsible government provides opportunities to thrive for anyone who wants to work.

Anyway, that’s my take on the situation.  That’s why I haven’t despaired yet for the ability of America to revive.  I’m not saying any of this will happen.  I’m speculating that it could be done.  I also freely admit that it’s a long shot.  But if recent history has shown us anything it’s that long shots do actually happen.

I’m interested in your opinions.  Do you agree with Codevilla that all that’s left is dividing up the country or that there’s still a path forward for a United States.  Feel free to leave your comments below.