Donald Trump

Don’t Get Mad: Get Even

Mark Noonan30 Comments

My fury has subsided. Let me tell you, yesterday evening was the maddest I have been in a long time. Perhaps ever. I don’t get mad, you see? I mean, seriously, over the course of my life if I really worked at it and decided to carry a grudge I have been able to stay angry for 3, 4 minutes at a stretch. I’m just like that. I can explode in momentary rage – but even that is very rare these days – but I can’t stay mad. There’s always a way around it. We can work it out. But last night I was in a towering rage for a long time. When the news of the Georgia indictment I read the particulars and was confronted immediately by some of the most miserable, cowardly, spiteful comments I’ve ever seen. They set me afire and I let people know just how I felt.

From the Left?

You kidding? Didn’t even bother with those idiots. I’m talking about comments from the Right. Do you want to know where we are? 100% of the Left is cheering the indictments. Meanwhile, at least 50% of the Right ranges from cheering to pseudo-intellectual posing about it. “The charges are serious and we must read the indictment”…the indictment lists Tweets as proof of a criminal conspiracy. Trump is charged with being Trump – the other defendants are charged with being Trump in the Second Degree. This is why we lose. We simply don’t understand where we are.

Think about it: why Georgia? Because the GOP governor hates Trump so much he sat on his hands while ballot dumps after poll closing handed the State to Biden. Because it is a State matter and so Trump can’t get a federal pardon. Because even if pressure is placed on Kemp to issue a pardon, he can’t – Georgia doesn’t allow Executive clemency. It is the perfect place for the Democrats to bring such charges. And it doesn’t matter how bogus it is – the jury pool where he’ll be tried is overwhelmingly Democrats and they’ll know their job is to convict no matter what. The last defense of human liberty is gone – because after half a century of de-educating the population, most people don’t even know what a jury is for. Sure it’ll be tossed on appeal, in some years. We simply don’t have the guts or the skill to do what the Democrats have done here. And even if we did, a GOP jury would still believe it must weigh the facts in rendering a judgement – we don’t have a jurisdiction where we can be certain of getting a guilty verdict.

So, where does that leave us? In a very tough spot.

A cogent case can be made for dumping Trump: that he’s just too large a burden for us to carry. I can see that point – but only if the eventual GOP nominee pledges to pardon Trump and open criminal investigations into every prosecutor – State and federal – who has investigated Trump. The charge? Civil rights violations. And to turn it about – hit them with RICO. It will not be hard to prove under that law (which should be repealed but that’s for another time) that all of these people conspired together to deny Donald Trump his civil rights; even the slightest, second-hand contacts would do the trick. You see, absent such a pledge, then all we’re doing is caving to the Democrats. What choice we make must always work out to a combat choice: a notification to the Democrats that we’re coming after them.

But whether or not we end up dumping Trump or sticking with him, we must get fully into combat mode. We must start threatening prosecution. Social and economic ruin. Expulsion from position. We have to start kicking the Left in the nuts. We must stop “being better than that”. Do we want to win, or not?

I want to win. I want them to pay. They have to pay: if they aren’t punished, then this country is doomed.

The United States of America: 1776 – 2043 (or so)

Mark Noonan22 Comments

Guys, I’m really down on our long term prospects right now.

It isn’t so much the indictment of Trump though that is bad. What is bad is the number of people on the Right who are all, “Trump did this to himself” and/or “we have to let the process play out.”

I did do some checking and while I’m no lawyer nor am I able to search all possible sources, I’m pretty confident at this point that there is no US law which requires a President to submit his declassifications to anyone. No forms to fill out. No person to check with. Doesn’t even have to mention it to anyone. As far as I can tell, the person in office can pretty much take our deepest secrets and pass them out to winos behind 7/11 and he wouldn’t be breaking any law. Now, anyone other than the President or those designated by the President would be in deep, deep trouble doing that. But the President to the best of my knowledge has plenary authority here. Anyone find a statute which specifically enjoins the President to follow certain procedures in declassification, I’m all ears.

But when you think about it, how can it be otherwise? Who other than the President would the President clear such a thing with? Fill out a form and send it to himself? You think some fourth level bureaucrat in the EOB is going to be able to say, “sorry Mr President, can’t declassify that – you didn’t fill out the forms correctly”? Of course the President’s authority here is absolute. Can’t work any other way.

I bring this up because it shows that there was no basis for the investigation to start, let alone for an indictment to come down. Given this, it is clearly entirely political in its intent; the Democrats are using the DoJ to stir up political issues which will affect the votes of the American people. If this seems like something ok to you…well, then you’re dumb as a box of rocks.

“But he’s not President any more!” is one objection and, on the face of it, not quite as stupid as the rest. But it is is easily disposed of: he was President when he obtained the documents and as such he could declassify at will without telling anyone. So, if he has them, they’re declassified.

But more than just the particulars of the case is what it foretells: if this works (and it looks like it will, thanks in large part to the Never-Trump Right) then it will be used again. What is to stop them? They had no reason to start this investigation. They had no reason to start the Trump-Russia investigation. They had no reason to start the campaign finance investigation in NYC. They don’t need a fact – they just need people willing to do it and an MSM willing to play along. Of course they will now proceed to serially indict anyone they view as a threat. They are going to take a GOP which is only now learning how to fight back and gut it. Anyone who is a fighter will find themselves under increasing judicial pressure…and all people who aren’t fighters will quickly learn to back down.

And I don’t see how we stop it. People who won’t stand up to abuse of power won’t actually start a physical fight over it. We simply lack enough people with guts. This is just the start of the process whereby the USA will be converted into a de-facto one-party State. And then, piece by piece, all liberty and property will be taken.

Hate to see it. Wish I were wrong. I pray I am wrong. But where’s the upside? Should take about 20 years to get us to the level of Canada where they froze the bank accounts of demonstrators. Maybe 30 years to China-like tyranny, but even Canadian or European level of tyranny is a huge fall for a nation conceived in liberty.

Just disgusted with the whole thing – and especially our supposed allies who are so incredibly stupid over it. I think this is because they are only instinctively on the Right. They never really thought it through. Could also be very mercenary…they just wanted low taxes. That is all they ever wanted and they don’t give a damn about social disintegration as long as their investments remain fat.

You Should be Terrified of What They Did to Trump

Mark Noonan21 Comments

Greg Gutfeld went on a bit of a tear about the latest revelations in the Trump-Russia hoax; click the link and give it a watch. His point is that the Democrats (in the largest sense – including the MSM and RINOs) built up Trump as the New Hitler and so justified any action against him. Because, after all, if you are really stopping a Hitler – a guy who proposes to kill every single person he hates and start a world war – then you really can justify just about any action to stop it; work up a phony Trump-Russia scandal or commit election fraud, you see?. This dovetails with the point I made about the latest revelations: the the same people who assure us that 2020 was legitimate were also all in on Trump-Russia even though they new from the get-go that it was a lie.

This does not prove that 2020 was stolen but because of this situation there is nobody on God’s green Earth who can credibly assert that 2020 wasn’t stolen. Everyone you can possibly rely on to tell you what happened in that strange election is tainted as a known liar or part of a system which repeatedly rewards known liars…and you’d be worse than a fool to rely on their assertions about anything. But even that isn’t really the issue we’re confronted with here. It is much larger than that.

Throughout political history there have always been shenanigans. From the lowliest mud hut village to the most impressive Imperial capitol, people have always tried to rig politics. Some of the most famed people in history are essentially famous for their ability to back the winner and then fix the race to make sure (Kaunitz of the Holy Roman Empire and Bismarck of Prussia probably stand at the top of this heap..but they are just part of a legion). What I’m saying here is that some of the things done to Trump are not new – hardly remarkable in and of themselves. But what is new – at least in the American experience – is a political party, the intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the media and a significant portion of the politician’s own party combining to destroy the politician. And not only combining to destroy the person but doing so with complete fabrications. This I don’t think has ever happened before – and it should terrify everyone.

Step back a moment and think about it: nothing Trump has ever been accused of has been proved. Even the ridiculous civil case over rape still amounts to no more than “he said/she said” without the slightest scrap of evidence that the event could have happened. But they still got a jury to nod along with at least part of the allegations. How? Because for the past 8 years, the accused has been the target of an intense series of allegations making him out to be worse than Hitler. The people in the area the trial was held do not avail themselves of unapproved media. They live in a world where the New York Times is considered the gold standard of truth. And that New York Times – and all the media, including the tiny parts not far-Left in outlook – had all been repeating the allegations for all those years over and over and over again. So, when the guy (as it were) shows up in Court, the jury knew what it had to do…it was “known” that the Orange Man is Bad and so they acted accordingly. This is actually staggering; it is the end of any concept of law in our society if it is allowed to stand.

When I said earlier that nothing against Trump has been proved, I mean nothing. For instance, we don’t even know if Trump ever had sex with Stormy Daniels; and if that happened it wasn’t against the law and in today’s post-Christian world it hardly even counts as a scandal…but we can’t even say with certainty that it happened. And yet even to this day the accusation counts against Trump and various aspects of it continue to wend their way through courts and public opinion. For goodness sake, the lawyer who led the way in bringing the allegation forward is in jail for fraud. Maybe Trump did have the affair. Billionaires are known for that sort of thing. It is certainly plausible: but neither you nor anyone you know can say for certain it did. The only people who know for certain on it are Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels…Trump denies it categorically while Daniels says it happened. And, guys, don’t forget that Stormy is on the hook for about $350,000.00 in legal fees she owes to Trump…not the sort of thing a credible accuser gets hit with.

And yet I bet that if we did a poll then we’d find north of 90% of people certain that Trump and Daniels had an affair. This is not just what a smear can do: it is what can happen when just about everyone conspires against you. Just a bit of detective work on the part of the MSM and we’d know pretty certainly if Trump and Daniels were at that Tahoe resort at the same time in 2006 and if there was a time frame in which the two could have got together. I mean, there would be hotel and room service receipts, witness statements from hotel staff…Trump being pretty well known there would be lots of people who would be keeping an eye on him and following his movements, including paparazzi (this happened when The Apprentice was hot on TV, after all). But all I can ever find about it is Daniels’ claim that it happened. Seems a little thin…and the dog that doesn’t bark here is the MSM not getting us all the lurid background details which would be available if the affair happened. So, like I said: not proved. But absolutely believed.

And so is everything else to one degree or another. And here’s the kicker: the Daniels accusation is the most credible of all the accusations. And she owes Trump hundreds of thousands of dollars for making it! Everything else Trump is accused of has even less evidence that it happened and the main accusation against him (that he’s an agent of Russia) has just been proved completely false. But, once again, people believe.

The terrifying thing here is that if they can do this to Trump – a media-savvy billionaire who can hire first rate legal talent – they can do it to anyone. Suppose Joe Blow in your town offends the Ruling Class…and then there shows up a story in the local news claiming that Joe did This Horrible Thing and that sparks an investigation and you’re sitting there watching this or that dark hint of terrible deeds by Joe leaking out and your mind starts to go, “maybe there’s something to it?”. But the truth is that Joe did nothing wrong other than offend the Ruling Class and is now being destroyed. And he’s being destroyed as an example, just like Trump is. They are letting us know that anyone who doesn’t toe the line will be destroyed. And if you’re thinking that the calm and pleasant Ron DeSantis is immune…well, they’re already calling him worse than Trump (who is, of course, worse than Hitler) and they’re lining up allegations that DeSantis had inappropriate relations with female students when he was a teacher and that he supervised torture at Gitmo. I rate these accusations as entirely non-credible. If any of them had been true, the Democrats would have broadcast them far and wide during the 2022 campaign. But we just learned that an accusation doesn’t have to be true to be effective…it just has to be backed up by all or at least most of the Powers That Be. Rely on it that Biden’s Justice Department will open an investigation into allegations of criminal activity by DeSantis if he’s the GOP nominee. It won’t matter if they’re true – they’ll simply make up whatever they think is best and you’ll see everyone – including the RINOs – swing in behind the investigation.

To be sure, maybe RDS can weather the storm. Maybe, that is, such an obviously personally pleasant person with a great family can get the public mind on his side. But you can’t be sure – and even if RDS can survive it, the problem remains that it can be attempted by the Democrats because they know that the DOJ, the CIA, the FBI and the MSM will fall in line to back up whatever RDS is accused of.

We really must dismantle this system brick by brick. Sure, the FBI and CIA need to be abolished, but it goes far beyond that. We have to find a way to punish the MSM, as well. To make them pay through the nose so they’ll learn the lesson: don’t be part of a political op. This is not something amenable to small reforms and it cant be allowed to continue; we need sledgehammer-like destruction of the institutions which created or fostered the anti-Trump effort. Because it isn’t about Trump: it is about you and me and our ability to remain free. It is either destroy them, or they’ll destroy us.

The Turning Point

Mark Noonan69 Comments

I didn’t write about the raid yesterday because I was so furious I probably would have written something intemperate. I am much more calm now. But no less determined.

The “warrant” was signed off by an Obama-donating attorney who helped some of Epstein’s people skate – and tells you all you need to know: he just did what he was told. Apparently, he’s some sort of federal magistrate who normally handles routine federal matters…not signing off on warrants for an unprecedented raid on a former President.

The story is that they say that Trump violated some provision of the records laws. This is bull and you know it: we have learned from experience that Trump keeps his legal affairs in order. If he does have any documents from his Administration, then he has them perfectly legally. What they were really doing was a fishing expedition…trying to find in some of Trump’s most personal and private information something – anything – they can hang an insurrection charge on relating to January 6th. This tells you that in all their investigations so far, they’ve found nothing like that. If they had, they would have already indicted Trump for it and brought him in front of a DC jury which would know their job was to convict, facts be damned. But they have to have something – because if they tried to indict over nothing, Trump’s lawyers would get the indictment tossed at the federal appellate level. A secondary effort here would be to simply intimidate Trump’s people…to scare them into cooperating (ie, lying) in exchange for immunity. I doubt they’ll get that: the people around Trump at this late a date are the loyal of the loyal.

The whole thing is simply infuriating – Hunter Biden is on record violating a host of federal laws and he’s walking free, making money and laughing it up with the Big Guy. The Big Guy, himself, is hip deep in Hunter’s corruption. The Clinton’s were never raided even though we know – for absolute fact – that they illegally mishandled official documents. Epstein is dead and Maxwell is convicted but not a single client of theirs has been indicted (which tells you that the bulk of their clients were on the Left – the Democrats would sacrifice a large number of their own if they could get a dozen or so GOPers in jail over Epstein). We live in a two-tiered justice system…those who are favored by the Ruling Class skate, while ours are raked over on trumped up charges.

Over and over again in the past 24 hours I’ve seen people come to Trump’s defense – with large numbers of people getting determined – as I am – to see him back into the White House in 2024. And we’re taking names on the GOP side – Senator Scott made a typical RINO statement on an MSM show, got roasted for it and came out hours later with a strong condemnation of the raid. The litmus test for being involved in GOP politics going forward is condemnation of the raid…and if (when) we take back Congress, it’ll be how much pain we put Democrats through over it. We are all in a mind to punish – to make them, for once, feel the heat they’ve joyfully directed at us for decades.

In the primary elections on Tuesday, there seems to have been quite a surge in GOP voting and, more particularly, GOP voting for Trump-endorsed candidates. People are furious and ready to take action.

I hope this is the turning point – the final pebble that starts the avalanche. It isn’t time to just talk, it is time for action. I still prefer the abolition of the FBI, but if we can’t get that, then we certainly need a massive housecleaning. There are no good apples – if there were, they would have immediately resigned when news of the raid got out. From top to bottom, the bureaucracy is run by and for the DNC…that has to end, even if we literally have to fire every last one of them and start all over.

Because Revolution is our only way out of this – fortunately, we still retain the means the Founders gave us to make Revolution at the ballot box. I do believe they went a step too far here. In their desperation to remove Trump from the political field (they know he’ll beat them in 2024), all they’ve done is shown their fear and united their opponents.

The Endurance of Lies

Mark Noonan14 Comments

Over this past few weeks it was fully confirmed that Hillary Clinton and her team made up Trump-Russia out of whole cloth, passed it on to the MSM and Justice and both those institutions ran with it – for years – even though a cursory examination right at the start showed the whole concept was false. For us on our side, we knew it fairly instinctively that it was false – partially based on our mistrust of the MSM but mostly because it simply didn’t make sense that Russia would want Trump as President. They knew Hillary Clinton very well: they knew, that is, that a second Clinton Administration would sell out American interests as readily as the first Clinton Administration (not to mention as readily as the Obama Administration). Russia and indeed all global powers wanted Clinton to win in 2016. Nobody knew for sure what Trump was going to be like, but they knew – every person on Earth with an interest knew – that a Hillary Clinton Presidency meant continued hobbling of American economic and military power and American assistance in undermining the American position in the world. If Russia, or any foreign actor, was to interfere in the 2016 election, it would be to benefit Hillary.

And now that it is all exposed what do we see? That people still believe the anti-Trump Narrative. I see it all day long on social media. Of course, it helps that so far the New York Times has not run a story about Clinton’s role in starting Trump-Russia. Nobody is more ignorant of the world than someone who is an avid consumer of the MSM! But while belief based on ignorance is still bad, belief based on refusal to admit error is much worse, because that is what causes our side the most trouble.

I’ve been watching the Never Trump and the Dislike Trump people and while they do now know Trump-Russia was false, they still go with the overarching anti-Trump Narrative. In other words, faced with the proven fact that the primary objection to Trump is false, they still fall back on the feeling that Trump was and is just bad and so must be opposed. And their conviction that Trump is bad is based entirely upon information provided to them by the very same sources which made up and ran with the Trump-Russia story. The believed or at least lent credibility to Trump-Russia and this made them oppose Trump and now that they know it was all false, they still want to maintain their anti-Trump stance. The Lie is dead, long live the Lie!

I used to think that lies couldn’t endure the truth. Turns out I was wrong: if it is a lie that people want to believe, it is going to be quite durable. And for many people, the anti-Trump lies are comforting. And I think this is because they simply do not want to confront what Trump exposed: the utter rot in all American institutions. For these people, life remains good (though inflation is now putting some pressure on that). They tend to work in professions that don’t require a lot of effort and they are well paid. They live in nice areas. As long as they don’t rock the boat too much, they can stay on the gravy train for life and, with a little luck, make a great deal of money. But even if they don’t rise to the heights of money and fame, they still live well. Writing a couple articles a month is a lot less bothersome than clocking in 40 hours a week, right? Trump showed them that while life was good for them, things were bad for the United States. That millions of people were losing their hope for the future…and that the enemies of the United States were on a rampage. And the fault for everything going wrong was in the American institutions which had become both stupid and corrupt in equal measures. How can you defend that? Well, you really can’t – but you can at least attack Trump as a backhanded way of defending the Establishment. An anti-Trump diatribe kept you on the gravy train…pointing out that Trump has been maligned by MSM and government liars gets you kicked off right quick.

So, expect them to continue. And take your fun while you can – these people sift data now to “prove” that Trump is no longer popular with the base and that we’re finally going to get Romney II in 2024 to restore the Balance or some such drivel. Basing their whole worldview on a pack of lies, they simply don’t see what is coming – and their tears will be even more delicious than the liberal tears. But I do wonder – once Trump or Trump II (DeSantis) becomes President and starts to dismantle the Empire of Lies, will they then come around to admitting they were wrong?

Trump Impeachment, Continued

Mark Noonan41 Comments

There are wonders if Pelosi really had 218 votes for impeachment – my guess is that she does; but that would probably entail about a dozen House Democrats walking the plank; ie, almost ensuring their defeat for re-election next year.

This whole thing is a set up, of course. Seems that someone in the Deep State altered the whistleblower rules about a month back to allow hearsay to be reported – used to be you had to have some direct knowledge of the event. If I were Trump, I’d order that no rule changes are valid unless he, personally, signs off on them. That aside, this is a crafted plan…but, to do what? I mean, of course the Democrats would love it if Trump’s support collapses and the GOP committed suicide by voting to remove him. But, so far there has been no drop in Trump’s support (even Nate Silver is saying that Trump is as popular as Obama at this point in his Presidency – and this, keep in mind, with relentlessly negative coverage rather than the daily MSM tongue bath that Obama got). The GOP is raking in money off the impeachment issue (last I checked, $15 million in the 72 hours after Pelosi’s announcement). Mitt is being Mitt, of course, and a few other wets in the GOP are making their high-minded statements, but there doesn’t appear to be any real crack in the ranks…so, what does this accomplish? Not sure.

And that’s before we get to some really cold, hard facts. From what I’ve read, I guess that a very large portion of Democrat voters – perhaps a majority – believe that if the House impeaches, Trump is removed. They are unaware of the whole Senate trial aspect of it. But that is what has to keep Democrat leaders up at night – a trial in the Senate means a trial conducted under whatever rules McConnell decides upon (and the Senate could just vote to dismiss the charges without a trial, guys). Anything that Trump and McConnell would like to be revealed would be – sure, the Chief Justice presides and, in theory (no one really knows), could make rulings from the bench on what is admissible…but the Senate can override the Justice by simple majority vote. In short, an actual trial would be a nightmare for the Democrats and while operating under McConnell’s rules, they’ll have the task of talking 23 Republican Senators into removing Trump – and that’s if all the Democrats stay on board (Manchin would be a likely “no”, absent rock-solid evidence, I think). It’s an insurmountable obstacle – and only real criminal activity and Trump dropping to an average of 30% in the polls would make it possible.

It could be, of course, that they are just toying with this – willing to move if things go their way, but mostly just placating their base while hoping that something turns up to separate Trump from his supporters (that is what all of this has been about since Day One, by the way: the Democrats know that to win in 2020, they have to convince three or four million of Trump’s 2016 voters to abandon him…doesn’t matter how much they run up the score in CA and NY, if they can’t get back PA and MI, they’re toast…and they know it).

As for our side: don’t know about you guys, but I coldly furious about the whole thing. It is, now, only incidentally about Trump: this is a very large portion of people – including many in leadership – who are saying that I’m not allowed to participate in my own governance: that I’m not allowed to vote for someone disapproved of by the Ruling Class. I’ve come across some rather ardently anti-Trump people over the past three days who are now determined to vote Trump just on that principle: that we get to decide and what we decide is what will happen until we decide differently.

Mueller is a Coward

Mark Noonan25 Comments

I watched Mueller’s statement today and I was nauseated. Here we have a guy who has spent his life in the top echelon of American law enforcement, and he’s a coward. A completely gutless man. A liar, too. He is simply, in my view, running scared – and on his way out the door, twitching down a chair in front of his pursuers.

The crucial thing he said was that he won’t testify under oath – and that if compelled to do so, is just going to keep referring to his bogus report, which is filled with innuendo (as was his statement) against Trump, but without any proof – or even a logical chain of reasoning to back it up. Mueller was set to destroy Trump, and found there was no means to do so. Now, he’s just trying to get out of it – and by fueling the fires of Democrat impeachment talk, he probably figures that if there’s an impeachment, at least then people won’t pay attention to what Barr is doing, and that any indictment by Barr of Mueller or his people will appear politically tainted.

Now, why doesn’t Mueller want to testify? Because he’d have to lie. As Roger Simon points out, one of the key questions any GOPer would like to ask Mueller is “when did you know there wasn’t collusion?”. The answer to that is, probably, “within days of starting”. Had Mueller made that point early, then the whole thing would have fizzled…but, he didn’t. Why, not? Well, that would bring us to the second important question we’d like to ask: “why did you bring charges entirely un-related to the 2016 campaign?”. The answer to that is, almost certainly, “because we hoped by so doing to scare Trump people into lying about Trump”. Mueller simply can’t answer those questions truthfully – and while he would try like heck to dodge any such questions, it would eventually come out that his whole motivation from start to finish was political: to annul the results of the 2016 election.

Pelosi is now going to come under massive pressure to approve of impeachment hearings. So, Mueller might well have accomplished his primary task today: get himself and his troops off the hook. But I think that an impeachment will end up being a disaster for the Democrats and will go a long way towards re-electing Trump next year. There is nothing there: Trump didn’t break the law, and so couldn’t have obstructed an investigation into the law which wasn’t broken. Democrats control the House and can get their bill to say whatever it wants, and Democrats can get up on the House floor and say whatever they want…but, in the end, they’ll have to go before the Senate and prove their allegations and they simply can’t do it. At least the GOP in 1998 could prove their case against President Clinton…Democrats can’t do that against Trump. And while there may be one or two GOPers inclined to vote to convict simply because they hate Trump, they’ll shy away from it absent proof…while there are a couple three Democrats who will take their political life in their hands if they vote to convict. A majority Senate vote to acquit will be Trump’s exoneration. No doubt about it: the people will believe he’s innocent, and will really wonder why we were put through all this for nothing.

A Cave or a Tactical Retreat?

Mark Noonan50 Comments

Did Trump cave? Time will tell. But, let’s look it over:

We were at an entire impasse. The Trumpist base was delighted with the shutdown and fully prepared to wait forever for the government to reopen. The Democrats were also delighted with the shutdown and fully prepared to wait until Trump agreed to a permanent spending bill with no wall. Neither side felt any desire to move – and, in fact, both sides faced the wrath of their own base if they did move. What was the end game on this?

Sure, Trump could have just continued with the shutdown and used emergency powers to build the wall. But, he said very clearly that he still may do that. Meanwhile, there are other things to do, none of them getting done if the shutdown goes on and on. Someone needed to take the Base Hit and move. Trump decided to move. He has said that he’ll give it a few weeks to see what the Democrats do, and then either return to a shutdown or just build the wall. Our real trouble here is that we don’t know what Trump fully has in mind, and as I’ve noted before, in the really crucial policy moves, there are no leaks from Team Trump.

There are things moving in the world, and while we all do feel delighted with the shutdown, there are things that we want done which are hampered by the shutdown. Then there is the thing of foreign and defense policy which can’t sit in suspension forever. The fast-moving situation in Venezuela once again informs us that we have to be nimble. Trump has a grave responsibility as President and I don’t think it would have been wise to just keep going and going and going. He showed that he’s ok with it – longest shutdown in US history, after all – but, in the end, when you’ve reached an impasse, you have to do something different if you want to break it.

I’m in the position of trusting Trump’s instincts on this. If it was a mistake, then that will just have to be endured. But if Trump has something up his sleeve (perhaps inside knowledge of coming events which will make the shutdown moot?), then we all might wind up very pleased after all is said and done.

We’ll just have to wait.

Trump the Good

Mark Noonan39 Comments

After the latest WE GOT HIM, NOW!!! in the MSM about Trump failed, it started to occur to me that the problem our Liberals and Never Trump have is that they are working from the assumption that Trump is just like them. Meaning, that Trump is as much a garbage person as they are, or at least as much garbage as those they prefer to have in power.

Think about it: all of these people who really go after Trump, can you name anything constructive they’ve ever done in their lives? They are pundits and activists and consultants and think tank denizens…but have they, in any real sense, ever had a real job? Lived the real life?

Now, to be sure, Trump is rich, and he was born rich. I think and wonder what I might have been like at 30 with an essentially unlimited supply of money. Unlimited supply of money and also famous. All that money and fame and beautiful women always circling around. I don’t know what I would have been like – but the temptation to at least take advantage of certain things offered would have been mighty hard to resist. And, it seems, that at times Trump didn’t resist the temptation. But, that he sinned merely means he’s human. And there’s a huge difference between a good man who sins (the Bible says that even the righteous man falls seven times a day, after all), and a bad person who positively enjoys sinning.

The reason we’ve got things like the Mafia is because some people simply like to do bad. They consider it fun. They also consider it far more worthwhile to get via screwing over someone else than it is to get by work. It is just part of the run of humanity. Most people resign themselves – in joy or sorrow – to merely doing what needs to be done and assuming that the proper reward will come of that. But some, and it isn’t a small number, are forever seeking the angle – the con which will get them what they want without all that tedious necessity of earning it. Some of the people like that – the more “successful” ones – are rich. But not all of them are; and not all people who are rich are like that. Some rich people are actually quite decent. And I think Trump is one of them.

Trump, from what I can see, doesn’t seek ill for anyone. He’ll punish anyone who crosses him (though he should, at times, turn the other cheek), but he doesn’t seek the destruction of others. He’s one of those people – my grandfather was another – who are entirely ok with other people doing well. My grandfather’s mot was “better to have 10% of something than 100% of nothing”. Meaning, if you can help others win while you’re winning, it is all to the good. Trump seems to be like that. But think about the people who essentially run things in America: it is a gigantic, vicious competition to see who gets on top and the way you get to the top is by crawling over the lives of those you destroyed. Matt and I experienced this when we were blogging and trying to break into writing for money: outside a few gems, no one would help us. They were fearful that if we got, they’d lose. They didn’t see it as something where if we all teamed up, all of us would do well. They didn’t want that – they all wanted themselves to be Number One…and in their minds, that meant keeping people like me out and down.

But, as I said, Trump doesn’t seem to be like that. The Democrats and Never Trump are going to keep on tripping over themselves because they keep looking for the evidence that Trump is just like they are, and he’s not. They’ve found out he’s not perfect – but that didn’t take much effort as it was in the news all along. But they will not, I suspect, ever find the kind of evidence to prove he’s like the Clintons, or Pelosi or any one of a hundred Establishment grifters. He’s not on the take. He hasn’t destroyed anyone. He hasn’t abused anyone. He’s just a normal man – meaning, he’s a good man (who sins).

Impeachment Talk

Mark Noonan50 Comments

New articles of impeachment have been filed in the House. I’m thinking that just about every two years someone files articles of impeachment against every President – but, most of the time, it is mere boilerplate. This time, it might have more to it. The Democrats will do everything they can to harm Trump, of course. They won’t hold back from impeachment based upon the facts of the case or simple decency: if they do it, then it is because they calculated it works best for them.

It won’t happen tomorrow. First, Mueller has to drop his report – which will have nothing, but will hint darkly at this and that horrible thing the President may have done. Then the House will hold well-televised hearings and MSNBC will have to talk shop it for a few news cycles. So, not before, say, April, at the earliest.

The Democrats have the votes to impeach – if Pelosi allows it to come to the floor, then the President will go on trial before the Senate. It is highly unlikely that Democrats will find 20 Republican Senators willing to commit political suicide by voting to remove the President. But, I don’t think that would be the Democrats real desire (they’d take it if they could get it, of course). All they’d really be hoping for is for 51 Senators to vote to convict. While that would not remove Trump from office, it would be devastating to him. The Democrat talking point would be “a majority wanted him removed from office”. Trouble is, I don’t think even Mitt Romney would go along with it. Susan Collins is up for re-election in 2020 and while she wins by attracting Democrats, she does need a united GOP to get over the top. Murkowski isn’t up until 2022, so she might be a possibility – but, once again, she’d risk a pretty ferocious backlash at home should she vote to convict Trump. Democrats would need to find four Republican Senators to get to that 51, and I just don’t see where they get the four.

And that, right there, might get Pelosi to spike any impeachment move. A Senate which voted by a majority to acquit Trump would work out to a vindication of the “witch hunt” accusation. It may boomerang very hard against Democrats – especially as they’ll have no legislative accomplishments to burnish their record heading into 2020. On the other hand, the Democrat base – which, according to polls, believes that Trump got elected because Russia switched votes in 2016 – would be quite furious if Trump isn’t impeached. The Democrats have dangled the red meat of Trump’s removal in front of their base for two years…will they be satisfied with anything less?

Personally, I think the Democrats made a strategic mistake when they followed along with the Team Hillary idea that Trump’s victory was illegitimate. They could have more effectively fought him on policy – what they’ve been fighting him on is his mere existence. His continued existence works out to defeat for the Democrats – and by not accepting him as legitimate, they’ve fairly well foreclosed any possibility of negotiating with him. They’ll have to go into 2020 without having gotten rid of Trump, and without having anything else to show for their efforts.