All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
It’s always nice to reflect on the surprises of world events and the death of the Great Khan saving Europe was one of the great bits of serendipity to come our way. Read the article. It’s fun and interesting even if you are aware of the facts. He writes well.
http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=13915
The Conservative Treehouse has a pretty thorough treatment of what President Trump’s order to investigate political motivations in the DOJ’s Trump campaign spying effort means. I have to say I thought Trump and Mueller were playing chicken with each other. Maybe we’ve moved past that. Maybe this now has to be resolved by someone going to prison. Or several somebodies. Unless Mueller has a smoking gun (which seems very unlikely) it looks like McCabe, Comey and company are about to be charged with criminal charges. The thing that occurs to me is that at some point somebody is going to sing to save his own neck. None of these guys wants to go to prison. My guess is McCabe but I am only looking in from the dark outside. Maybe it’ll be Comey or Bruce Ohr or Peter Strzok. But whoever sings first will get the best deal. We live in interesting times. Let’s hope they don’t get much more interesting than they already are.
Dramatis Personae: President Trump – (PT); Vice President Pence – (VPP); EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt – (SP); Rachel Maddow – (RM);
Scene 1- 8am White House West Wing; Oval Office, President Trump sitting at his desk.
PT – Mike. … Mike. … PENCE!!!!
VPP – Right here Mr. President.
PT – Quick, get Pruitt over here right away.
VPP – You know Mr. President the switchboard can do that for you.
PT – Too busy today Mike? Sorry I put you out. Please accept my apologies. I’ll tell the Chief of Staff not to wake you before Wednesday. Is that satisfactory, Your Highness?
VPP – Understood, I’ll tell Scott to get here ASAP.
PT – Another profile in courage by Mike Pence.
(Mike Pence walks out the door shaking his head. Ten minutes later Scott Pruitt walks in)
SP – Mike said you needed me Mr. President.
PT – Scott, look at this fake news on MSNBC.
(President Trump puts the cable show up on a conference monitor. Rachel Maddow is reporting triumphantly on a Court ruling that prevents an Administration action.
RM – And the 4th Circuit Court’s decision effectively prevents the EPA from firing the Obama holdovers for at least 5 years. The court further specified that the workers must be employed in environmental project work only.
SP – I’m afraid it’s true. I’ve got forty Obama appointees each making two hundred grand apiece and the only way to get rid of them is have them quit. And there’s no way on earth they’ll do that now. Environmental projects aren’t exactly difficult.
PT – Pruitt, you low energy loser, I’ve been defending you against the press and Democrats for weeks.
If you don’t come up with a solution to this I’ll feed you to the lions.
SP – Yes Mr. President. Hmmm, lions.
Scene 2- 8pm MSNBC Studio of the Rachel Maddow Show. Maddow is sitting at her desk, and on the screen is President Trump.
RM – We’re coming to you live with this exclusive interview with President Donald Trump as he reacts to the stunning defeat of his assault on the EPA. Mr. Trump, does the judicial reversal of your illegal firings spell the end of your charmed reign of terror? Will this represent the beginning of the end for your Administration and the chance for Hillary Clinton to be restored to her rightful place as Madame President?
PT – Rachel, that studio you’re in must be too cold because under that boy’s haircut you’ve developed brain freeze. Crooked Hillary is detoxing in a sanitarium while Bill frolics with the maid. And, of course, my administration will completely comply with any legitimate judicial decision, no matter how asinine it may be.
RM – Well, despite your homophobic jibe it must distress you greatly that these Obama appointees will be doing everything in their power to save the environment from your friends, the rapacious wolves of Wall Street.
PT – Well Rachel, you’re very much mistaken. I thought long and hard about what fitting assignment I could find for these unselfish champions of the environment. Luckily, Administrator Pruitt found just the project. It seems that there has been of late an invasive species causing terrible environmental damage down in Florida. It’s a tragic situation. And even though this species is doing untold environmental harm all true lovers of Mother Earth would want these invaders treated humanely. So, in keeping with that humanity, I’ve assigned these forty environmental champions with the difficult but incredibly rewarding task of capturing by hand the tens of thousands of Burmese Pythons now infesting the Everglades National Park. It will be dangerous and hopefully torturously uncomfortable, but we will make sure that these heroes of Gaia spend the rest of my administration up to their armpits in pythons and swamp mud. Of course, if they don’t feel up to the challenge, they can of course resign. But we don’t imagine they could consider that.
RM – I know I’m an atheist but is it possible you actually are Satan.
PT – Sucks to be you toots. Trump out.
RM – Well folks, he’s done it again. This is not a nightmare. This really is life in Trump’s America. Good night?
Walsh reviews the pedigree of the bureaucracy’s hold on Washington going back to the Progressives proclaiming the need for wise men to tell us rubes what’s best. Pretty good read. Like his example at the end of the Trump alternative. Put our embassy in Jerusalem and tell the Israelis we won’t punish them for defending their own people from rioters and terrorists.
Going along with the Tim Allen news here’s a film producer who’s trying to provide Hollywood unfriendly fare for Middle America. Here are some quotes from the article.
“Dragged Across Concrete,” starring Mel Gibson as a cop accused of beating a suspect.
His October release, “Brawl in Cell Block 99,” passed the test. Mr. Vaughn portrayed an out-of-work mechanic who killed Mexican drug dealers to protect his wife from a forced abortion. It had a tiny theatrical release with little media coverage, but its DVDs were a hit at Walmart as soon as they hit the shelves.
Mr. Sonnier’s company, Cinestate , which made “Brawl,” is backed by an anonymous Texas oil heiress, he says, to produce “populist entertainment.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/from-texas-movies-for-americans-hollywood-left-behind-1526400385
I’ll have Netflix send me “Brawl in Cell Block 99.” It couldn’t be any worse than half the crap that wins an Oscar. Plus Vaughn is usually entertaining even in stuff that’s not great.
So, after the success of the Roseanne revival and realizing that the Tim Allen character was also a Trump supporter and that the show had an eight million strong audience Fox which produced the show for ABC has decided to revive it. https://decider.com/2018/05/14/fox-explains-last-man-standing-renewal/
I liked the show. But it was already in its sixth season and the plots were feeling kind of thin. Also most of the political shots at Obama had evaporated and the wife actually was a Hillary fan so that was pretty rough. But I think that since they’re bringing it back on the strength of the Roseanne phenomenon that maybe they’ll amp up the Trump love and compete for the conservative voters. That could work out very well. Tim Allen could really get some mileage playing both sides of the Trump card. Playful shots at the larger than life Trump persona and skillful savaging of the anti-American left would go a long way toward giving the right the kind of red meat they haven’t had from television since … never?
So, welcome back Mike Baxter, long may you vlog from your office at Outdoorsman. And even if it only lasts for a year or two it’s the first time ever that a show came back because it was conservative. What’s next flying pigs?
The link is to an article by the author giving the fifty cent summation of her book. Well, here’s more sleep deprivation for yours truly. This book rightly concentrates on the people who voted Trump in and looks at the constituency instead of the man who figured out it was there. Should be an interesting read if it is substantive. After all if all that is needed is a simple why then I can answer that. It’s because the Left was trying to bury us.
https://townhall.com/columnists/salenazito/2018/05/15/the-great-revolt-n2480737
My post here is an echo of an echo. Hanson is giving a description of Conrad Black’s biography of Trump, “Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other“. Victor Davis Hanson is very often a good read, no matter the subject, and this article is no different. It has inspired me to get this biography even though I recently read a different (and less friendly one) one. I liked Hanson’s review so I reviewed it! Seriously, there’s nothing groundbreaking in this article but if you are interested in the biography and like Hanson’s style it’s a nice read.
[post script – After further reflection this is actually an echo of an echo of an echo. I’m writing about Hanson writing about Black writing about Trump]
So yesterday I allowed my unbridled exuberance to get away from me (The Trumpocalypse Picks Up Steam) and today I’m feeling the let down as my feet touch the ground again. That’s okay. It’s better to try your wings once in a while, no harm done. But let’s then look at the negative side of the picture today:
Well, okay, those last two were just added for fun but you get the picture. There’s still plenty for President Trump to do in the second half of his first term. I shouldn’t be so happy. It’s unwarranted. And yet I am!
I’m sorry, I can’t feel down. Looking at all these problems only increases my belief that the Republicans despite their epic cowardice and stupidity will benefit from President Trump’s popularity and hold onto the House and Senate. This won’t be for their sake but it will be the American people’s desire to help Donald Trump. And I think the Mueller investigation will end without doing any real damage to the Trump Administration. And I think that Sessions will finally clean out the rat’s nest of cabalists in the Justice Department. And I now believe that President Trump will get to appoint at least one more Supreme Court Justice. And finally, I’ll go out on a limb and say that the Supreme Court will find in favor of the baker in that Gay Marriage Wedding Cake Trial travesty. And that last one is just a hunch. Common sense says that Kennedy will go out with one last assault on normal Americans. But somehow the change in the climate makes me think Kennedy will try and strike a balance if for no other reason than to moderate the anger that is growing on the right toward all these outrages against common decency.
So there it is. I’m slap happy from all the winning. Maybe I’m completely delusional. Time will tell. But the sun is shining, the birds are singing and all’s right with the world in this best of all possible worlds. Well except that Nancy Pelosi and Rosie O’Donnell still walk the earth. Well, that can wait for the second term I guess.
Chris Buskirk interviewed Michael Anton ( link ) about his tenure in the Trump Administration. There are a number of interesting things in the interview. But toward the end they talk a bit about Anton’s opinion of Donald Trump. As opposed to the usual disillusionment we typically hear from former administration members Anton is extremely positive about his former boss. Here are the more important ones I gleaned from the audio interview.
“He was just right about the issues that mattered right now and that’s why I supported him.”
“I knew him reasonably well … wasn’t having dinner with him … was a staff guy … but was around him a lot over the course of fifteen, sixteen months.”
“Liked him enormously, respected him enormously … there is a patriotic core to him that burns very hot.”
“He’s in it for the right reason, is doing it for the right reason … he didn’t have to do any of this.”
“He’s governing as President almost purely out of love for this country.”
Both Buskirk and Anton were educated at Claremont-McKenna College and were pupils of Harry Jaffa who was associated with the Claremont Institute. I have found the people associated with the Claremont Institute to be extremely aware of what is currently at stake in our political situation and perceptive about the actual value of the various players on the political landscape.