Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

58 Democrats in House vote to impeach Trump for bigotry, racism, and generally being deplorable.  Nancy Pelosi says no, they should wait until they have evidence of an impeachable offense.

When Nancy Pelosi is your party’s voice of reason . . . .

Joe Doakes

Pretty sure it’s more red meat for the left’s gullible hordes – but Joe’s right.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I’d be worried if the State Department had a string of success stories, which the cuts threaten to end.  Does it?

These are the guys who stood around while our consulate in Benghazi burned, who sent pallets of cash to Iran, who got special privileges for Cuba.  These are the guys who stood around while the North Koreans developed nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles.

A Trump critic quoted in the article:  “These people either do not believe the U.S. should be a world leader, or they’re utterly incompetent,” she said. “Either way, having so many vacancies in essential places is a disaster waiting to happen.”

Considering what they accomplished while they were in office, how much worse can it get?

Joe Doakes

Funny how Democrats want to be a world leader, after the eight years of national self-abnegation we just went through.

Katha Pollitt is sort of a gender affirmative action project; Big Leftymedia has Jonathan Chait, so the need a female version (pardon the redundancy).

She never disappoints, which is another way of saying if you have any hope that our coastal elite can be salvaged, she disappoints intensely.

In this case, Pollitt “writes” about the rage that’s been buiding in her since…well, that day last November:

Unlike my friend’s, my life has changed a lot in the year since Trump was elected. Not materially, except for the fact that my stepson and daughter-in-law moved to Canada partly because, as non-citizens, they worried for their futures here in the US.

Er, right.  That’s why they moved.  Not to be rid of their ninny mother in law. Nosirreebob.

I mean psychologically. I sometimes feel like I’m a different person now. I’m fidgety and irritable and have trouble concentrating.

I have little doubt that the affliction is real; she hands out straight lines like after-dinner mints; either she’s so addled by her rage, or so secure in never being challenged by her audience:

My work seems trivial: Given what we are facing, what difference does one more Nation column make? I might as well be an ancient Egyptian scribe logging production figures for cat mummies.

Katha:  your work is trivial.  Even when your guy was in power, you were a joyless scold who served only to fluff your social class’s sense of self-importance.

Today, you are the same thing, plus depression born of unrequited entitlement.  Mazel tov.

In the old days, the days before Trump, it bothered me that so many people loved things I thought were stupid. Now I just think, Go ahead, enjoy yourself. Maybe your Batman DVDs will comfort you when we’re wandering around in the ashen hellscape of whatever apocalypse Trump will bring down upon us.

Katha:  Sylvia Plath called.  She told you to buck up and quit being such a downer.

But the main difference is that I hate people now. Well, not all people, of course. Just people who voted for Trump.

Of course you hate people “now”, Katha.

People who do their own “research” on the Internet and discover there that President Obama is a Muslim and Michelle Obama is a man. People who use the n-word and can’t even spell it right, because—have you noticed?—Trump supporters can’t spell. Well-off people who only care about lowering their taxes. People who said they couldn’t vote for Hillary because of her emails. Excuse me, sir or madam, can you explain to me what an email server even is?

The real question, Katha, is can you?

No.  You can’t.

If you want to see example 25,695 on why Trump/Pence are going to win re-election in 2020, look no further.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

This article is an example of the Right trying to manufacture a victory.  The courts shut down the travel ban, repeatedly, until it expired.  If Trump attempts to resurrect it, we can bet they’ll shut it down again.  A victory would have been a ruling that he was right and the lower courts were wrong.

On the other hand, this is an accurate summation of the Left’s tactics: “In essence, elements of the “nonpolitical” branch are trying to reverse the result of the 2016 vote by denying the duly elected president the powers of his office.”  And they’re continuing to do so as Liberal judges issue nation-wide rulings that clearly stomp on Presidential prerogatives for the flimsiest of reasons. This ruling doesn’t change that but it does highlight the hypocrisy.  That never hurts.

Joe Doakes

Assuming anyone’s listening.

A longtime friend of this blog writes:

With all the talk of Trump being too impulsive to have his proverbial finger on nuclear weapons, Trump hasn’t really done anything rash. He says some annoying things, getting the goat of many people in this country. But, despite all the uproar, he has pretty much stuck to not doing anything to us.

However, the constant focus on his brash style of speaking has me most concerned about what the Democrats are going to produce next Presidential election to counter this. It has been speculated that Franken may run. He has already written a book, which usually signals interest. Last night, I had a nightmare that he announced. His pen will likely be a little more impulsive in doing to us.

Yeah, that thought’s crossed my mind.  I can just see the meeting at the DNC:  “So the people want loudmouthed, brash and incorrigible?  Let’s give ’em really loudmouthed, brash and incorrigible!”

If Franken doesn’t run, they might go with Dennis Rodman.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

 

All that hype about the wonderful Obama economy turns out to have been . . . hype.  It’s not wonderful at all.

The solution chosen by the Federal Reserve – raising interest rates to throw the brakes on rampant inflation – turns out to have been the wrong solution.

Was the wrong solution chosen because the economic numbers were wrong?  Because their analysis was wrong?  Or because the President who got elected was the wrong person and Lord knows, we can’t allow That Guy to have a robust economy?

Yes, I am that cynical.

Joe Doakes

No action on that bet.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Democrats ran to the microphone to claim Trump made a deal, he says he didn’t.
This sounds familiar but I can’t find a link.
Didn’t Minnesota democrats do that? Maybe to Pawlenty? Leave a meeting, run out to claim a deal, then when it’s denied, shame Republicans for failing to honor the deal they never made?
Joe Doakes

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Democrats claim they have an immigration deal with Trump.

They’ll gladly fund The Wall on Tuesday, for Amnesty today.

Joe Doakes

Dear President Trump:  remember how that worked for Reagan.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

President Trump got skunked in the Spring continuing resolution – no money for The Wall.  He was busy with the Supreme Court nominee so okay, let that one go.  But in this next deal, he absolutely must get some money for The Wall or he’s never going to get it.  If the Resisters beat him on his signature issue, his presidency will be lame duck all the way down.

Trump should start tweeting now, warning citizens to prepare for a shut-down if the money’s not in the resolution.  The people who elected him want that, first and foremost.  He’s got to deliver.

Doesn’t have to be much money. It could be a symbolic $1.00, just as long as Congress votes for it. Trump must make them cry “Uncle” because after that, we’ve established the principle and we’re only arguing over the amount.

Frankly, Democrats are not the problem. They continue to serve the interests of the dead people and illegals who elected them.  But the Never-Trump RINOs have no excuse so why not go after them?  Because we need them.  We need every one of their votes and as tempting as it might be to name names while kicking behinds, a different tactic is warranted on this side of the aisle.  On that side, we know Democrats will never break ranks so there’s no harm in savaging them.

Of course, Liberals will complain that funding The Wall is a budget-buster.  We can’t afford it.  There are higher priorities.  Get out in front of that argument early.  Start by proposing to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and shift that funding to The Wall.  Trump gave up his salary this year, but he could offer to redirect his salary as President toward The Wall next year.  Divert federal aid from sanctuary cities to The Wall.  Revenue neutral, no additional funding required, completely affordable if we would only make national security a higher priority than frivolities.

And blame Democrats for the shutdown, starting now.   Send a tweet every day. “Democrats make Grandma eat dog food; shut down!”

“Democrats end school lunch: shut down!” “Democrats squander dollars, pinch pennies: shut down!”

This is not a political problem or fiscal problem, it’s a marketing problem.  Trump has to rally the troops to swing the polls so finger-licking moderates can feel the change in the wind and cast a vote to fund The Wall. There will never be a better time.

Joe Doakes

Electoral fear is both sides’ best weapon.  Trump has the initiative.  Will he use it?

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Scott Adams wrote a timely column on mass hysteria.

 

Joe Doakes

I’d thought about pullquoting this myself.

But save us all some time.  Read it.  Then give it to some of the Democrats – or all of them – in your life.

When something is simultaneously an Onion article and all too real.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

New York Times headline: Republicans are worried White House disarray undermines Trump.  But read the article and you find Republicans are placing the blame squarely on Congress where it belongs, except John Kasich who hates Trump and a lobbyist for immigration amnesty who hates Trump’s immigration stance.  The rest of us still aren’t tired of all the winning, we wish the rest of the GOP would get their act together and start winning some, too.

Fake headline.

Joe Doakes

The conservative activists who – correctly – ask us to reject Triump on the basis of principle would do well to present a GOP alternative that practices ’em too.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Trump claims John Podesta barred the FBI from looking at the DNC computer.

You remember that computer – not the one in Hillary’s bathroom that she wiped with a cloth, this is the DNC server that supposedly got “hacked” by the Russians to steal the Democrats’ emails, which the Russians then released to the public through their shill, Wikileaks, in an effort to make Hillary look bad so voters wouldn’t like her, all the while colluding with the Trump campaign to steal the election from Hillary.   Trump claims the FBI never saw it.

Naturally, the Liberal media is covering for the Democrats.  Politifact rated Trump’s claim a LIE:  John Podesta did NOT bar the FBI from looking at the DNC computer.  Somebody else did that.

Missing the point, people!  The essence of the claim remains true: the feds never saw the computer.

The only evidence the Russians had anything to do with the massive leak of embarrassing emails comes from the private IT firm hired by the Democrats.  The leak could just as easily have come from a disgruntled DNC employee, perhaps an IT specialist who downloaded the emails and offered them to Wikileaks right before he was murdered in a ‘robbery gone bad’ in which nothing was stolen, that the D.C. cops refuse to investigate.

Since when does the FBI out-source criminal investigations or national security breaches?  But the Democrats assured James Comey the Russians did it, and that’s good enough for old Jimbo. And the rest of the nation blindly follows the false trail down the rabbit hole.

Joe Doakes

If Democrats defended this nation like they defend their narrative, ISIS would be hiding under a rock in the Hejdaz.

…what struck me the most about President Trump’s speech in Warsaw.    The fact that it was an excellent speech – presidential, inspirational – but that showed he’s got an interest in Making Western Civilization Great Again…

…or the fact that Big Left found a way to poo-poo the value of Western Civilization:

In his speech in Poland on Thursday, Donald Trump referred 10 times to “the West” and five times to “our civilization.” His white nationalist supporters will understand exactly what he means. It’s important that other Americans do, too.

… The West is a racial and religious term. To be considered Western, a country must be largely Christian (preferably Protestant or Catholic) and largely white.

And here we go.

Yep. The society that first recognized the value of the individual, that figured rights were endowed to us by our creator and not government, that decided every government rules by consent of the governed, happened to be caucasoid and Christian; elements of western history and Christian faith make both amendable to those ideas.

What do critics like Peter Beinart want?  To make Western civilization more like all those non-western, non-Christian civilizations?

Have the left learned nothing?

I posted this link last week – Glenn Reynolds in USAToday on how David Brooks and establishment-y pundits like him led to Donald Trump.

This passage caught my attention; the Tea Party preceded  Trump by a good 6-7 years.  We were civil, orderly, and we left the world a much better place than we found it, even in little ways, as shown in this story from a San Francisco counterprotest:

In San Francisco, too, tea party protesters met pro-Obama activists and picked up their trash. “John,” author of The City Square blog wrote: “As Obama supporters moved along in the line to get into the fundraiser, they left behind an impressive amount of trash … Tea Partiers shouted ‘pick up your garbage’ and ‘this is San Francisco, what about recycling?’ There was no response. They chanted ‘Obama leaves a mess.’ Still no response. Eventually, a tea partier (wearing the black cowboy hat) crosses over and starts to pick up the trash on his own. Other tea partiers join him. Another manages to find a trash bag. Soon the trash is being collected.”

It’s true. I was there.  It was an amazing outpouring of motivation, passion, and equanimity.

But it was spontaneous and from the right, so it had to be destroyed.  And between the media and the establishment GOP, it was.

Yet the tea party movement was smeared as racist, denounced as fascist, harassed with impunity by the IRS and generally treated with contempt by the political establishment — and by pundits like Brooks, who declared “I’m not a fan of this movement.” After handing the GOP big legislative victories in 2010 and 2014, it was largely betrayed by the Republicans in Congress, who broke their promises to shrink government and block Obama’s initiatives.

So when you shut down peoples’ peaceful, reasonable assembly for redress of grievances, what do you expect is going to happen?

So now we have Trump instead, who tells people to punch counterprotesters instead of picking up their trash.

When politeness and orderliness are met with contempt and betrayal, do not be surprised if the response is something less polite, and less orderly. Brooks closes his Trump column with Psalm 73, but a more appropriate verse is Hosea 8:7 “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” Trump’s ascendance is a symptom of a colossal failure among America’s political leaders, of which Brooks’ mean-spirited insularity is only a tiny part. God help us all.

The whole thing is worth a read.

…but I figured I’d throw this out there for your reading pleasure, since it’s something that occurred to me pretty much every time I heard David Brooks on NPR over the past year.

While I cringe at some of what comes out on Donald Trump’s Twitter feed, I’ve often wondered if it isn’t cringe-y like a fox, if only because so much of the Mainstream Media runs chasing after rhetorical squirrels every time he sounds off.

I’m not the only one:

President Donald Trump frequently comes under criticism for tweeting, even from his own advisers.  But tweeting is probably the smartest thing he has done as president. He is able to speak directly to the American

The whole thing is worth a read.

Johnny Deep wants to know when the last time a President was shot by an actor.

My question; does Depp know when the last time an actor was chased into a barn and died in a hail of gunfire?

But I”ll take it easy on Mr. Depp.  He’s been too busy assassinating his own career for the last few years.

…of a smug, entitled, East-Coast fop “analyzing” the blue-collar white people who put Donald Trump in office – the line “Shut up, you worthless sister-boinking Budweiser-drinking white trash” Avery explained” croxsed my mind – but in the end, I figured this piece in (where else) Slate by (who else?) Isaac Chotiner parodied itself far beyond my feeble talents.

Shot:

If there is one thing everyone should be able to agree on about the past seven months, it is that the white working class can no longer be described as “forgotten.” Beaten-down? Racist? Mistreated? Angry? Victimized? Sure. We have read and heard the white working class described in all of those ways. But the election of Donald Trump has ensured that we are discussing this group ad nauseam.

Chaser:

I spoke recently by phone with [author Joan Williams], who is also a distinguished professor of law at University of California Hastings College of the Law. During the course of our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, we discussed Trump’s view of his own voters, the role of racism in class resentments, and whether there is any way to avoid being “condescending” to Trump’s supporters.

 

My Theory:  Donald Trump’s arrogant blowhardiness is almost entirely intended to send the Big Left – the Dems and the Media (PTR) – chasing after squirrels, obsessing over diplomatic niceties, and wasting their own time while he and his uneasy GOP alliance get things done.

Evidence toward that theory submitted for your approval.

It’s what Trump didn’t do.

According to that noted conservative tool…

…Alan Dershowitz?

But speaking of obstruction…

Did Trump do anything wrong?  We don’t know – that’s what trials (and the whole “innocent until proven guilty”) thing is all about.

But the firestorm of agitation that Big Left and the Media are whipping up, in the absence of any hard evidence, has nothing to do with right, wrong or justice, says Kurt Schlichter:

The blizzard of lies and distraction blowing through Washington is not just any routine stuffstorm, but a calculated attempt to bring down a president – our president, not the establishment’s president. And more than that, it’s an attempt to ensure that we never again have the ability to disrupt the bipartisan D.C. cabal’s permanent supremacy by inserting a chief executive who refuses to kiss their collective Reid.

This is a coup against us. It’s a coordinated campaign by liberals and their allies in the bureaucracy and media to once and for all ensure their perpetual rule over us. We need to fight it, here and now, so we don’t have to fight it down at the bottom of this slippery slope.

There are times I wonder if this nation shouldn’t just call it quits and split into 2-5 other nations, and let the coasts rot in their own splendid filth.

Democrats:  Read Dershowitz.  Then shush and get a grip.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I had a day off last week and caught a bit of Rush Limbaugh’s interview with Vice President Pence.

Rush hammered the Vice President from the word go and, I thought, justly so. His tone was respectful but his questioning was direct and gave no ground. It was completely clear Rush thought Republicans got rolled.

Pence did his best to spin the bill as a victory. He said: “Look, the President has made it clear, his number one priority is national defense and national security.”

Yeah? I don’t recall that being the slogan from the campaign. I don’t recall enthusiastic crowd screaming for more military spending. I remember it more like this:

“What are we gonna do?”

“Build the Wall.”

“Who’s gonna pay for it?”

“Mexico!!”

I think Trump ought to tell Congress he’s going to veto the bill and shut down the government unless he gets money to build the wall. It can be any amount, even as little as $1, just so long as he gets to say that he’s keeping his promise. Hell, his salary is $400,000 and he’s agreed to forego it to be a dollar-a-year man; use some of that money to fund the wall. We don’t care where the money comes from, only where it goes to, and that’s got to be funding to build the wall or there’s no deal.

If Congress won’t put $1 into the bill to show its symbolic commitment to enforcing the national borders, then the country isn’t worth saving and we might as well shut the whole thing down now and be done with it.

Joe Doakes

It’s getting harder to disagree.

…got into an argument over this past weekend’s festivities in Berkeley, where Real American pro-free-speech activists banded together to deter, and occasionally, where necessary, necessary meet, “anti-fascist” fascist violence at a pro-Trump rally.

Devil (on Mitch’s left shoulder):  Oh, God, I am so freaking happy to see that the good guys – any good guys, people who try to express their views peacefully, fought back against the Blackshirts and other neo-fascist thugs.    Those little upper-middle-class fops are bullies, every one of them.  They sucker-punch, they gang up on lone people, they use weapons like sticks and pepper spray against the unarmed and unsuspecting, they throw smoke bombs at old ladies and punch out teenage girls – but I’m gonna guess every one of them crapped their pants when they saw Real Americans lined up to stare their snowflake asses down.

Angel (on Mitch’s right shoulder):  Yeah, it’s tempting to cheer.   But remember – if 200 Republicans, conservatives, Tea Partiers or Trumpkins go to the hospital, it’ll warrant not a single headline – but the moment Joshua Micah Gildersleeve from Oberlin gets his face scuffed up, it’ll headlines across the entire mainstream media, and the left will make “right wing thuggery” a chanting point forevermore.

Because you know it as well as I do, Mitch’s-inner-devil; the only damage the media and the people who set our society’s opinions care about is damage to the kids who look like their kids.

Devil (on Mitch’s left shoulder):  So we should sit still and be placid, passive victims and punching bags for those worthless bullies?

Angel (on Mitch’s right shoulder):  That’s not what I’m saying.  But let’s be realistic; if a couple black guys punched out a Klansman in self-defense in 1920, it was a tree falling in the forest that was used by the bullies to justify even more violence.  Hell – they’re trying to provoke violence, so they and their patsies and enablers in the MSM can tell the gullible general public “Look at what these big bag righties did to our best and brightest!”

Devil (on Mitch’s left shoulder):  Bu you know as well as I do they don’t even need any kind of resistance to their “resistance” to “Justify” any of that.   And..

(Devil notices Angel removing halo, donning a Gadsden Flag t-shirt, and picking up what looks like a stuffed sweat sock).

Er, Angel?  What is that?

Angel (on Mitch’s right shoulder):  It’s a sweat sock with a big russet potato in it.

Devil (on Mitch’s left shoulder):  Er…what the…why?

Angel (on Mitch’s right shoulder):  Hits like a truck full of bricks, doesn’t leave a mark.

Devil (on Mitch’s left shoulder):  Um…again, why?

Angel (on Mitch’s right shoulder):  (pulls stocking cap low over head).  I’m heading down planetside.  I’m gonna find the next snowflake anti-Free-Speech rally.  If they try to bully anyone else into silence, I’m gonna go all Old Testament Angel on them.

Devil (on Mitch’s left shoulder):  But…you’re the angel of Mitch’s better nature…

Angel (on Mitch’s right shoulder):  I’m an angel.  I’m not an idiot.

(And SCENE).