I was thinking about Winston Churchill a bit lately – it is said that towards the end of his life he said, “I have achieved much to achieve nothing, in the end”, or words to that effect. Those who know the story of Churchill might be a bit shocked about such a statement but it must be kept in mind that Churchill was the defender of the British Empire…and as he headed into the end of his life, the last shreds of the British Empire were being undone. What he believed in and worked for was no more – and never to return.

The bottom line is that by the time Churchill was called to save Britain – and freedom in general – in 1940, it was already too late to save the British Empire. If it was to be saved, it had to be saved in the First World War, and Churchill could well have done it. But he was First Lord of the Admiralty at the start of the war, and various events while he was First Lord forced him out of office before the war was a year old…and he just had to sort of sit there, on the side lines (even when brought back into the government to be Minister of Munitions), watching lesser men run the Empire up on the rocks so that, in Churchill’s words, “victory was bought so dear as to be indistinguishable from defeat”. The loss of life, the loss of wealth and the loss of prestige that Britain suffered in the First World War were irreparable. But why, really, did Churchill fail to rise to Prime Minister during the First World War? Because his blinding ambition in the years leading up to the war had made him enemies numerous and vindictive – and when they had their chance, they went after him…and kept him down and out essentially until it was nearly too late.

The lesson here is that ability when not married to humility is a terrible thing. Ability loses the capability of doing really great and enduring things if humility is lacking. Reagan had humility. So did Lincoln. Washington, too. We’ll see if Trump has it. If he does, then he may go on to great things…if he doesn’t, then even if he does some spectacular things, they are very likely to turn to ashes, in the long run.

Social Justice Warriors are going on a rampage over the fact that Simon & Schuster are paying big bucks for a Milo Yiannopoulos’ upcoming book, Dangerous. I don’t think our SJW’s are really getting the current situation, at all. First off, all they are really doing is making sure that Simon & Schuster (and Milo) massively cash in…the target audience of the book are going to go out and buy the thing in droves, just to stick it to the SJW’s. In fact, Milo could probably just put out 300 blank pages at the moment and it’d wind up on the best seller list. But more than that, our SJW’s are just doing everything they can to ensure that Trump goes for 8 years…and that it is, perhaps, a very long time before anyone on the liberal/progressive side of the aisle obtains real power. This is fine and dandy for us Conservatives, but for the SJW’s, they might want to re-think this. The vote for Trump was largely a reaction – against a stultifying, PC culture which, in Peggy Noonan’s exquisite phrasing, amounts to regular folks “being condescended to by their inferiors”. Sorry, SJW, but you ain’t all that big a deal. While Obama was in office, you had a government which would run to hold your hand when you had a tantrum…but that was never how the overall American people viewed it. We were (and remain) nauseated by this special pleading and demands for un-earned privilege.

Ed Morrisey has some excellent advice for Republicans. One of the reasons I’ve kept reading Morrisey is that, unlike a lot of other Conservative writers, he kept an even keel all through 2016. It is clear from Morrisey’s writings that he has vast reservations about Donald Trump – as any thinking person should have. But Morrisey never went “Never Trump” and, also, kept things in perspective – if Trump, then what? This allowed Morrisey to actually offer some wise commentary and some good advice. This is in stark contrast to many Conservative writers who not only drip with contempt for Trump, but also for anyone who would even consider voting for him. You know the type, I’m sure – people who completely abandoned the GOP, and then wrote an insulting article about GOP voters on their way out the door. And even now, after Trump has made some moves that any Conservative can love (as well as some which Conservatives can have large reservations about), they are still out there, proclaiming how glad they are they got out. How does it feel to be out? How does it feel, that is, to have essentially no say in what is going to happen? Pride is the real explanation for it – because the GOP didn’t do what they want, they washed their hands of it…we’re not good enough for them. Perhaps because I’ve developed a more realistic appraisal of myself over the past 10 years (being Catholic does that), I’m not about to get on any high horse. Sure, it’s a clown show – but I’m a clown, too; at least at times. We all are. None of us are perfect – and if we’re to wait around for the perfect party or the perfect candidate, we’re done for. Suck it up, sunshine – work with what you’ve got.

Thinking about Russia – they are the great, schismatic Power of the West. Not quite with us, not quite against us. We think of the sheer size of the nation and are amazed – but Russians look at is as an endless, vulnerable frontier through which enemies can march at any time. Russians, you see, aren’t like us. I know this will shock some. I read somewhere – in my rather large amount of reading Russian history (it is a fascinating nation) – that the Russians have a whole etiquette about lying, which outsiders are never able to fully understand. Some times they lie for serious reasons, some times just for the fun of it. During the Congress of Berlin called to iron out the post Russo-Turkish War situation, the gathered Powers had agreed upon a map of how the Balkans would look – the Russian delegate tried to slip in a different map showing revised borders. Why? Did he not think he’d get caught? Did he think that if he hadn’t got caught that everyone would then just accept borders different from agreed upon? Who – other than a Russian – can know? Russia is not our friend, but, also, not necessarily our enemy. It is best to try and put yourself into Russian shoes and see how they might see it – and then figure out if you’ve got to go to war with them, or work a deal. I think a lot of people are inclining towards hysterics regarding Russia (this isn’t remotely the first time Western statesmen and regular folks have done this, by the way) – and I think a lot of it right now is based upon, “if Trump doesn’t hate Putin, then I must hate Putin”. Give it a rest, folks – first off, we’ve got bigger fish to fry and, after 8 years of Obama, I doubt the readiness of our military for a confrontation with a major power…and while we might not be aware of our real capabilities, I bet the Russians are fully aware.

That horrible event posted on Facebook – bottom line it is what I’ve been saying about all these terrible, senseless events: it’s the morality. Or lack thereof. You and I would never dream of doing such a thing to a fellow human being – but we don’t just “have” that. We were taught that decent people don’t do things like that…and, further, that being a decent is better than being lousy. It might seem that good behavior is intuitive to you, but only because you don’t remember learning it. People who do what was done to that poor man either never learned it, or forgot it. In order to make sure such things never happen – or happen very rarely – our only course of action is a moral revival. Until we start being decent and insisting on decency, we’re just spinning our wheels.

As regards that horrible attack posted to Facebook: first off, let’s not be like our Progressive friends and immediately leap to the worst possibly conclusion on this. Secondly, don’t engage in overheated rhetoric about it. From what we can tell so far, it is a horror and what we don’t need is everyone adding more fuel to the fire. I’m serious about this – we’re an ace away from someone starting to shoot. In a few weeks, we’ll have a new attorney general and my hope is that this – as well as so many other things – will be investigated.

That said – the whitewashing of this event by the same MSM which made “hands up, don’t shoot” a national phrase is disgusting.

Robert Stacy McCain has a lot to say about why we get terrible things like this:

In her recent book The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe, Heather Mac Donald described how false narratives promoted by the Black Lives Matter movement were “amplified by the media, college presidents, and the left-wing political class.” Despite clear evidence that the group’s protests were jeopardizing public safety and inciting crimes against police, President Obama, Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement. In their book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama, authors Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan describe how the president’s public rhetoric has shown “a tendency to use race as a wedge to divide Americans,” politically exploiting the death of Trayvon Martin and the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson.

Read the whole thing. Start a fire, pour gas on it – don’t be surprised if things go up in flames.

So, Hillary is reportedly thinking of running for Mayor of New York City. The new AG simply must indict her – for her own sake. This is an unhealthy obsession with being in politics…

This subject came up in discussion recently here – Statins may have a lot of problems.

Obama’s version of draining the swamp seems to involve letting terrorists out of Gitmo.

US House votes overwhelmingly for a resolution condemning the UN resolution on Israel. That’s nice – but get back to me when we vote overwhelmingly to defund the UN. Heck, it doesn’t even have to be overwhelming – 218 in the House and 51 in the Senate will be fine – as long as we eventually cut our ties to that corrupt, useless, anti-American, anti-Israel organization.

Ace on the subject of experts – and a lot of other things, do read the whole thing.

Suppose you want an architect to draw up plans for a house. You want a dining room because you never had one as a kid, and always associated it — from old magazine pictures, from old movies, whatever — with a stable and happy home.

Suppose your architect comes back with no dining room — just one big great room combining living room, kitchen, and dining area.

“Where’s the dining room I asked for?” you want to know.

“No one has dining rooms any more,” the expert tells you. “It’s all Open Concept now, one room sweeping into the other, bringing together the family in one big room at all times.”

“That may well be, but I want a dining room.”

“Walls are passe,” the experts smugly tells you. “They interrupt the sight-lines.”

“I don’t care about sight-lines. And honestly, I love my kids, but I’m not so crazy about them so much I want to be locked in a giant room with them 24/7. I want walls and I want a dining room,” you say again.

“No one eats in a dining room and anyway dining rooms are too formal.”

“I’d like to be formal on occasion.”

“Well,” the architect tells you, “I’ve decided that dining rooms are in bad taste and I’m the expert and you can’t have one. You’re getting Open Concept whether you like it or not, Trump Voter.”

At this point, you begin beating the architect about the face and neck and eject him forcibly from your home.

That Russian hacking is beginning to look like Fake News.

Don Surber’s sequel to Trump the Press has been sent to the editor. I think we’re all going to want to read this one.

Former Obama aide figures that Trump is akin to cross burning…keep it up, Progs…not only will you get Trump for 8 years, but Pence for 8 years after that.

The Democrats plan to convince at least their own base that the election was stolen from Hillary is proving a great success – 52% of Democrats believe that Russia altered the vote in favor of Trump. Remember, the election wasn’t hacked – Podesta’s e mails were hacked (and not one person has disputed the information in those e mails). But the MSM – which I believe must have been instructed on these lines – morphed “hacked DNC e mails” into “the election was hacked”. And a lot of Democrats believe this. The bad news is that this will make a good portion of the Democrats relentless in their opposition to Trump…the good news is that the Democrats who don’t believe this nonsense are, in my view, already getting primed to vote Trump in 2020. As long as Trump doesn’t have a monumental screw up on his watch, I don’t see much risk of him losing…and if he gets some genuine success to his credit, 2020 may be a replay of 1984.

The experts did, indeed, get it wrong in 2016. A reminder from Lord Salisbury:

No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of common sense.

The experts will be wrong, again – and again and again. The reason is, in my view, is that there are no real experts outside the hard sciences and mechanic arts. You can be an expert plumber – you can’t be an expert politician. When dealing with human activities, you just can’t be sure – things just don’t work the way you think they should. A wise person just tries to do what is right and is always ready for the entirely unexpected.

Start second-guessing every police action and the natural result will be the police being ever more cautious before acting. Remember, police officers are people – they’ve got bills to pay and a life to live. Being an officer is a job (a noble job, just still a job) and if there’s a dicey situation which is unclear but could cost you your job, you might shy away from it…or just not patrol often in neighborhoods which have a high propensity for tricky, protest-generating situations. The result of all the over-heated rhetoric about the police is a spike in violent crime as police back off. I’ve been an advocate for criminal justice reform for a while; I dislike the over-militarization of the police; I think most big city police forces are badly organized for the job of crime prevention, which is 99.9% of what the police are actually for…but I also know we need our police and that almost all of them are splendid people. One thing Trump must do over this term is restore respect for the police – and we, the people, have to make sure that our police are given their proper due, and that our justice system is reformed.

Charles Moore gets it:

…The cultural signals from the powerful are almost unthinkingly hostile to majority populations. This month, to take a minor example, a report into ‘diversity’ in the theatre commissioned by Andrew Lloyd Webber reported (reusing a phrase from Greg Dyke years ago) that it is ‘hideously white’. Why should the dominant racial characteristic of all western societies be considered ‘hideous’? If you said that anything was ‘hideously black’ you would (rightly) be shunned by polite society. Such asymmetry inspires revolt…

You keep telling people that their nation is nothing but a racist, sexist, homophobic tyranny and call people who’s grandfathers repose in veterans cemeteries that they are “deplorable” and you’ll eventually just piss people right off. That is what is happening – not just in the United States, but around the world. We’re seeing the rout of the global Ruling Class. They are quite finished – though they still don’t quite know it, and never will.

Kurt Schlichter strikes again – some New Years advice for our Progressive friends:

Be the Sorest of Sore Losers: Or should I say, sore winners, since Hillary obviously crushed Trump in the popular vote election we didn’t have. Keep being angry! Talk nonstop about how Trump is illegitimate – we’ve already totally forgotten that whole thing about how not promising to recognize the validity of the election results is un-American. And oppose everything Trump does – everything! After all, people don’t want change. The last eight years have been terrific for everyone who matters – just ask Obama!

Vegas: always on the cutting edge:

Those tiny bubbles in the wine — you know, the ones that make you happy, make you feel fine — are only a golden token away if you’re in the 23rd-floor Sky Lobby at Mandarin Oriental on the Strip. Those 21 and older can trade $20 for a token at the front desk and use it in the only Moet & Chandon Champagne vending machine in the United States.

Steve Martin put up a nice Tweet to mark the death of Carrie Fisher – the Progressives hated it and bullied him in to deleting it. This is why you got Trump.

DC schools are snubbing Kellyanne Conway’s kids. This is also why you got Trump.

Obama sanctions Russia – in my view to distract from the growing story about how Obama and his Administration deliberately engineered the anti-Israel UN vote. Alternately, they are just playing up the “hacked the election” story as part of the Democrats clever plan to attack Trump. This, by the way, is also why you got Trump.

There’s a woman who is terrified of raising her child in Trump’s America. You know, Progressives, it’s almost like you actually wanted Trump.

I felt a great disturbance in the Force. As if millions of nerds had suddenly cried out in sorrow. RIP: Carrie Fisher.

Seems that Progressive men are going to have to take a lot of cold showers for the next 4 to 8 years.

Trump’s election seems to have improved consumer confidence. People do seem pretty upbeat…and I can’t recall the last time I got so many “Merry Christmasses” from people. I think it’s really just a relief – I feel it. I won’t have to be lectured to by people who don’t know what they’re talking about. I won’t have to worry about what regulatory “Pen and Phone” nightmare is being cooked up…it’s just a better time, now.

World War Two still goes on a bit – a German town got evacuated while experts disposed of a blockbuster bomb dropped during the war. As an aside, even World War One goes on a bit…there are still areas in France which are no-go for humans…still too much unexploded ordnance and decaying chemical weapons in the area.

Analytic models did Clinton in. It was reliance upon them which did the trick. Trump re-wrote the political book. Every campaign will now have to actually get out there into the sticks and see what people are saying and doing. Word is that Biden saw it coming – and I believe the story. Say what you will about Biden, but he knows his people…and he was seeing his people going wild for Trump months before the election. All that scorn poured on yard signs, small-donors and rally attendance…well, such things were actually more important than in-depth analysis of how counties had voted over the past 6 election cycles, or what have you.

There were a lot of brawls at the malls on the 26th. Like others, I’m wondering: just happenstance, or is someone testing out a plan?

Known Wolf: Morocco warned Germany about the Berlin killer. Twice. We’ve reached a stage in the West where the Authorities simply refuse to act upon clear intelligence – because to act would offend Progressive sensibilities. It really comes down to it being easier, in their view, for the Ruling Class to deal with a couple score dead people than deal with outraged social justice warriors and Islamist apologists.

Scott Adams talks about Trump’s “talent stack”. I’ve read Dilbert for years and as a cubicle-denizen, I’ve enjoyed it a lot. Never thought much about Adams, himself. Over this past year, I’ve discovered that there’s a lot of things I think him wrong about – but he clearly picked up on Trump’s appeal early on and in spite of relentlessly attacks, never retreated.