Open Thread

Turns out, we now have a Secretary of Defense who is concerned about our war fighting capability:

Defense Secretary James Mattis said the new Pentagon policy that will remove service members who have not been deployable for a year or more is about fairly sharing the burden within the forces.

The deploy-or-leave policy includes exceptions for pregnancy and wounded warriors. Robert Wilkie, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee last week that “on any given day, about 13 to 14 percent of the force is medically unable to deploy.”

The United States has a population of around 317 million. Our active duty armed forces are just under 1.3 million. This works out to 0.54% of our population being in the military. If we nearly doubled our active forces (which we probably should, given the challenges we face), then we’d be getting to 1% in the military…this ratio of military to population means we should very easily be able to select only the very best physical and mental recruits for our armed forces. There should be no one in there other than those injured in the line of duty who isn’t in peak condition. We have the population to allow us a force of superb soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines…and that is precisely what we should have.

Democrats may be Resisting themselves into a permanent minority:

Finally there’s Mr. Trump. Even with his recent bump in the polls, he remains divisive. But he’s not the only divisive politician who will figure in this election. The most recent Politico/Morning Consult poll suggests that Nancy Pelosi has pulled off a largely unheralded achievement: In the Age of Trump, she is arguably the most unpopular politician in America.

What does that mean for impeachment? Well, in 69 House districts surveyed by the Congressional Leadership Fund (a super PAC devoted to maintaining the GOP majority), Mrs. Pelosi is underwater in every one. She is also toxic among independents.

Take California’s 10th District, held by Republican Jeff Denham. Hillary Clinton carried this district in 2016, and Mr. Trump’s approval rating is at minus four. But again, Democrats are split among eight primary contenders. And the CLF survey showed that voters in Mr. Denham’s district prefer Paul Ryan as speaker to Mrs. Pelosi by 13 points.

I’ve been saying all along that I have grave doubts that dislike of Trump would translate into a desire to have Pelosi return to the Speaker’s chair. It could happen – but only if Pelosi and the Democrats came up with an agenda that speaks to the American people. Hating Trump and wanting impeachment wasn’t going to do it…choosing illegals over Americans and demanding gun control will be millstones around the Democrats’ necks come November. I don’t know how November will come out – but in my view, it is more likely that Republicans will make gains than Democrats will take back the House.

John Kasich is, in my view, laying the groundwork for a run for President as a Democrat:

If all the sudden you couldn’t buy an AR-15, what would you lose? Would you feel your second amendment rights would be eroded? These are the things that have to be looked at and action has to happen.

Next up will be a more “nuanced” position on abortion. Thing is, he’d actually be the strongest candidate Democrats could find to run against Trump…blue collar background; successful governor; from Ohio which could make that State back into a real battleground. He’d pull all the remaining NeverTrump over to the Democrats while at the same time having huge appeal in the suburbs of the Blue cities. But, the Democrat base will reject him – the whole old, white guy thing just won’t work. If he did get the Democrat nomination, the far left would run a Third Party candidate against him.

The Israeli solution to school shootings:

When terrorists attacked a school in Maalot in 1974, Israel did not declare every school a gun-free zone. It passed a law mandating armed security in schools, provided weapons training to teachers and today runs frequent active shooter drills. There have been only two school shootings since then, and both have ended with teachers killing the terrorists.

It is an approach that the Americans should take to end the constant slaughter of innocents.

San Francisco, the Progressive paradise:

As the Investigative Unit photographed nearly a dozen hypodermic needles scattered across one block, a group of preschool students happened to walk by on their way to an afternoon field trip to citiy hall.

“We see poop, we see pee, we see needles, and we see trash,” said teacher Adelita Orellana. “Sometimes they ask what is it, and that’s a conversation that’s a little difficult to have with a 2-year old, but we just let them know that those things are full of germs, that they are dangerous, and they should never be touched.”

In light of the dangerous conditions, part of Orellana’s responsibilities now include teaching young children how to avoid the contamination.

This is what the left wants to bring to the whole country. They simply don’t care about the lives of the people…all they care about is their social agenda of tearing down Western Civilization. If we have to live in a world where filth-borne disease becomes once again a regular occurrence, that is a price they are willing you should pay.

Post Superbowl Open Thread

I did watch the Superbowl – it was quite good. Still a bit too much SJW in the commercials, but the game, itself, was great as a game. I’d like to think the NFL has learned its lesson…but it probably hasn’t. The ratings for the Superbowl were at an 8 year low…and if the NFL wants to turn that around, they’d better drop the SJW drivel.

Of course, Philly then went on to behave rather badly. That is something I just don’t get – rioting after a game. But it seems a thing in the deep, blue cities. I’ll leave it to you to speculate why.

Always remember that the Trump/Russia thing started with the paranoid conspiracy theory that Putin had altered votes in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan to throw the election to Trump. This did not happen. We know it didn’t happen because you can’t do that – it isn’t physically possible…and, of course, Stein’s recounts confirmed that the vote was valid. But that didn’t stop the Democrats from running with it. They just can’t get over the fact that Hillary lost – and so, here we are, 14 months later, still wallowing in their psychological stew. But do keep in mind where it came from – it is like starting a math equation with 1+1=3: no matter what you do after that, it will be wrong. Those who are trying to claim that this or that aspect of the Trump/Russia investigation is valid are being quite silly about the whole thing…the underlying basis of it is false; all that follows from that underlying basis is also false. It can’t be otherwise…no amount of addition to a lie will ever make a lie true. This is why I’m quite confident that Trump will never be tripped up over Trump/Russia…there’s nothing to trip him up over. Its also why I think that Trump should just shut it down: yeah, it would cause shrieks, but that will be rapidly drowned out by rising wages and increased employment.

Steele apparently had a second dossier about Trump…and it was peddled back and forth between State and Team Hillary. This is the real scandal: that Obama’s Administration placed itself at Hillary’s disposal for the 2016 campaign. That is what we need to investigate.

A Colt’s linebacker was killed by a drunk driver…this tragedy apparently caused by an illegal immigrant. There’s a reason to enforce the laws, folks.

The MSM is getting filled with heart-wrenching stories of poor, sweet Dreamers being deported by that cruel, racist Trump…and Don Surber digs into one and finds, surprise!, that the MSM isn’t really giving the whole story. Of course they aren’t. Bottom line, folks, is that getting deported from the United States isn’t easy. You’ve really got to work at it, especially if you’ve been here any length of time. The subject of the linked story did work at it – getting convicted on drug offenses. Obama let him skate, Trump is enforcing the law.

We have been working on a thing called a “railgun” for a while…and haven’t done a very good job at it. Now, China is picking up the idea. This is bad news – we daren’t let China get ahead of us on this. This is revolutionary stuff – it could be as decisive a change to naval warfare as was the introduction of the aircraft carrier. The railgun will fire a projectile at about Mach 7 and will have a range of about 100 miles…though I’ve read that this could be extended to 200 miles. There is no explosive…it is just a piece of metal fired so fast that it completely destroys whatever it hits (think about it: we’re basically reviving the cannon ball…and this might revive the Battleship: we were about to build the USS Montana BB-67 when we dropped the Battleship concept, so I say we go with that when we start again). Nothing in anyone’s inventory at present can withstand it (though, I’ve also read of some new metals being developed which might provide protection against it…in the battle between offense and defense, there’s never a final answer). The main thing is that if such a weapon is practical (and it looks like it is, though more R&D is necessary), then we want them…and we want them before anyone else has them. Imagine a ship carrying, say, four such weapons parked 20 miles off an enemy coast…anything up to 80 miles inland from it is doomed. Time for Trump to get busy on this – and I think he is: you might recall he wants an end to the Defense budget sequestration and it has been, partially, lack of money which has held us back here.

Open Thread

Marcy Miller, a Twitter friend of mine, keeps up on Arizona history:

By five a.m. on a cold November 2, 1889, Gila County Sheriff Glenn Reynolds and his deputy, William A. Holmes, had barely begun the second day of their long trek from Globe to the Yuma Territorial Prison with nine prisoners. Eight of the convicts were Apaches – one of them the infamous Apache Kid, another Pash-Tan-Tah – and the remaining prisoner a Mexican man named Jesus Avott. The prisoners rode in a stagecoach driven by its owner, Eugene Middleton. Next to Middleton sat Deputy Holmes, riding shotgun, while Sheriff Reynolds accompanied them on horseback…

Read the whole thing. Interesting slice of old west history.

So, they voted to Release The Memo – we’ll see if Trump approves it. I bet he will – but even if he doesn’t, I understand the House can still release it. At any rate, things are rapidly heating up on this front. From what I’ve read, it seems pretty clear to me that the Obama Administration cooked up a reason to spy on the Trump Campaign in order to aid Hillary’s quest for the White House and when Trump wound up winning, they switched it over to a story about Trump colluding with Russia to win the election. We’re all used to Democrats getting away with stuff like this – but this is really big. Like, Watergate was nothing compared to it big. We’ll see how it comes out.

Google has a new camera that will neatly keep track of your every move. I really don’t understand why anyone buys these things. Look, I like being connected, too…but we’re already in enough databases: why give people permission to essentially spy on you 24/7? Want to know what really set me off on how bad things are getting? Some months back the Mrs and I were walking through a store and I mentioned that we needed to buy more treats for the dog…almost instantly, an ad for dog treats at that store popped up in my Facebook timeline. The fricking thing was listening to me and matched what I said to where I was! I don’t like that, at all. I’ve taken to occasionally entirely shutting off my phone so that there is at least some blocks of time no one knows where I am. But, you just watch: eventually not having your phone on and with you will be seen as evidence against you. 1984 turned out to be an instruction manual.

A possibly intoxicated Gam Gam was last seen reading passages from a pack of lies at the Grammy’s. For some odd reason, this resulted in very low TV ratings for the Grammy Awards. Go figure.

MSMer, in the spirit of 1984, throws the actual news coverage of the 2016 into the Memory Hole and announces that the MSM was too tough on Hillary.

Allahpundit, who really has been allowing his disdain for Trump to get the better of him, wants Trump to jettison the televised State of the Union. I don’t see any reason for this – other than a fierce desire on the part of some to deny Trump a widely-watched, national platform. Heck with that – just having him up there giving the speech will bug our Progressive friends…and that is always a worthy object.

Donald Surber points out that some people coming to ardently support the Wall are illegal immigrants…specifically those who would benefit from the codification of DACA. When you think about it, it makes sense: Democrats might want the DACA people stuck in legal limbo in order to wring whatever political advantage they can out of it…but the actual, flesh and blood human beings involved probably just want to get themselves to legal status so they don’t have to worry about it any more. This is a very illustrative thing: Democrats don’t actually give a darn about anyone. It is perfectly ok, in their minds, if people suffer if they think that suffering can get them power and wealth. The thing for the GOP to do is to figure out a way to explain this – not just to DACA types, but all the various social groups the Democrats keep poor and hopeless. We want them to rise and live their lives in independent dignity…Democrats just want them poor and hopeless because that way they may be suckered into voting Democrat.

Open Thread

Apple is bringing back $250 billion in foreign cash – thanks to Trump’s tax reform. This is just tip of the iceberg, folks.

Turns out, allowing collective bargaining for police and teachers isn’t such a good idea.

Senator Cory Booker went on a rant against DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. The left is loudly applauding this…but had a Republican man used the exact same words to a Democrat woman, Cory Booker would have been first in front of a camera to denounce GOP sexism…

Ace nails down what Trump is doing on the culture warfare front:

Trump’s manner of engaging with The Blob of left-wing virtue-signalling and status-conferring is to attempt to degrade the left wing cultural Borg of its own social status, thereby reducing its ability to set tastes, serve as “gatekeepers” of what the right-minded people agree are proper attitudes and beliefs, and demonize dissenters.

This is often ugly — but that’s how the sausage gets made. It does not matter if you produce a well-researched and well-cited bit of argument as to your position if the cultural princelings of the left can simply say “You’re a Nazi and you hate women” and thereby, with seven stupid words, raze not only your argument but your entire claim to basic human dignity.

The only way to rob them of that ability is to reduce their own social status to a low level. You cannot confer or reduce social status unless you yourself have a great deal of it.

Raise your hands if in past years you held back from saying things because you feared being socially ostracized by the Elite. Ok. Now raise your hands if you are now entirely uninterested in what the Elite thinks about you. I see all your hands raised. Good. Had a little Facebook discussion today where, for the zillionth time, I was called a racist. Why? Because I didn’t agree that racism is whatever someone says it is – I insisted upon a hard and fast definition, and if an action didn’t fit that definition, it wasn’t racist. The affect of being called racist was zero…but, more importantly, the other people in the discussion weren’t afraid to point out that I was merely making a rational demand that we at least agree on our terms if we are to debate. Trump is winning the culture war. This might be the most crucial thing he does as President.

V the K over at Gay Patriot has another take on the same subject, well worth reading.

A Tweet from Razor – well worth following, if you have a Twitter account:

You know a Republican is in the White House when Apple announces a commitment to the economy of $350B and 20,000 new jobs, North and South Korea are talking, the Dow closes above 26,000 for the first time… and the news media is focused like a laser on the President’s weight.

Open Thread

So, Trump set social media afire – apparently making comments about sh**hole countries. Vulgar – but my take is that he’s merely pointing out that there isn’t much wisdom in just willy-nilly taking in everyone. A judicious selection has to be taken. We don’t actually need any immigrants…so, if we’re going to take some in, might as well take the best of the best. Progressives and NeverTrump are up in arms about it…but, no one really cares what they think.

Twitter “shadow bans” Conservative voices – this is where they just don’t allow a Conservative’s comments to be easily noticed. I’ve seen it going on for a while…and what trends on Twitter isn’t what is trending, but what Twitter chooses to have trend…invariably whatever it is that Progressives are yammering on about.

Chrysler is building a new factory in Michigan, it would seem. This is just proving my point that manufacturing is entirely viable in the United States and it has mostly been tax and regulatory policy keeping it down. There isn’t that much of a plus in cheap labor, which is all any foreign nation can offer us. When you relieve the tax and regulatory burden and combine that with our superior infrastructure and rule of law, we just can’t be beat.

The crime lab – useful; but like all things government these days, it seems that our crime labs are often just making it up…and sending innocent people to jail. We’ve discussed this many times before – those who are charged with enforcing our laws are often not doing their jobs and we need to find a mechanism to force them to do so, and punish them when they don’t.

Senator Feinstein leaked some Fusion GPS transcripts and has now come up with several, equally absurd excuses as to why she did it. I go with the obvious: she released them as a cheat sheet for everyone who will be called to testify about it in the future: “make sure your lies square with these!”. The Trump/Russia Collusion scandal is rapidly morphing into the biggest political scandal in American history…and its all about Democrats.

Hey, It’s January: How About Another Open Thread?

We’ll have a lot of Presidents going forward, but I don’t think we’ll ever have such a Grand Master Troll on Twitter like Trump, again:

I will be announcing THE MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR on Monday at 5:00 o’clock. Subjects will cover Dishonesty & Bad Reporting in various categories from the Fake News Media. Stay tuned!

What is most amusing is that his opponents take such jokes seriously. They light their hair on fire every time he makes a joke like this…they have intense discussions of What It All Means and how We’re Doomed Because of This Tweet. It is a glorious thing to behold. I highly recommend getting on Twitter just to watch.

William Jacobson Legal Insurrection goes over the Iranian crisis. Do read it. For me, I’ve been watching Elite Opinion cover itself in filth over the whole thing – trying to some how twist this yearning for freedom on the part of Iranians into a bad thing. They are just so desperate to preserve Obama’s legacy in the Iran Deal. I can only imagine its because they get paid – no one would be that stupid except for money.

Don Surber points out that the purveyors of Fake News just never seem to learn their lesson.

Further to that point, CNN’s Pentagon Correspondent wonders why the Secretary of the Navy would wear a sidearm in Afghanistan…I don’t know, maybe it’s because there’s a war going on, or something? Just my best guess, of course…

Deep State agent complains about Trump bringing attention to the Deep State.

That Grand Jury Mueller is using to railroad Trump people? There’s a bit of a perception of bias according to people in the know. Quite honestly, given the overwhelmingly Democrat make-up of the jury pool in the DC area, federal grand juries and trials should be held outside of the DC area…randomly select a city with a federal court for each case.

The Ghost of John Calhoun has settled in California.

Happy New Year Open Thread

Polls are worthless, of course, but I understand the Rasmussen poll shows Trump at 46/53 approve/disapprove…which, oddly enough, is precisely what Obama’s rating was in the Rasmussen poll on 12/28/09. Honestly, I suspect that Trump’s actual approval rating is in the 53-55% range. The MSM/Social Media bubble is very distorting…one has to pull away from it and look at things from time to time. I have just not heard in real life any strong expressions of disapproval of Trump. Meanwhile, more and more people – like me – are going from qualified, I-Just-Didn’t-Want-Hillary resignation towards enthusiastic support. We’ll see how it all comes out, but I suspect that the Experts will be just as wrong in the future as they have been in the past.

This is disturbing: Don Surber picks up on a Sharyl Attkisson report that the sort of domestic spying Obama engaged in started under President Bush…and before 9/11. Do read the whole thing. This is just wrong. I don’t know, of course, if President Bush was precisely aware of what was going on (we’ve seen recently how the Deep State tends to go on its own). As you guys know, I’ve long had grave doubts about our intelligence services – both as to their effectiveness and their risk of corruption/tyranny. The bottom line, for me, is that they don’t very often pick up on the bad guy’s plans in time to stop them and that they engage in domestic spying is just flat wrong. We need a massive overhaul of our intelligence services…make them smaller, and strictly targeted at gaining intelligence in foreign lands.

NFL won’t be going with Sunday Night Football on the 31st…it would probably be a ratings disaster, if they did. New Years Eve, but also a season-long decline in viewership. The rule is: go Social Justice Warrior, go broke. Lots of reasons are given for the NFL’s mistake, but it is really quite simple: Goodell is a big, ol’ liberal and he simply couldn’t face his liberal buddies if he didn’t inject massive liberalism into the NFL. They wouldn’t have forgiven him…and that the owners ok’d a renewal of his contract shows that most of the NFL owners are more interested in Elite opinion than in what their customers want.

Liberals have taken to flinging poop to express their views…much like monkeys in the zoo. This surprises none of you.

When not flinging poop, they’ve taken to shouting at the animatronic Trump at Disneyworld. We’re not dealing with sane people.

Trump did an epic troll on Global Warming:

In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!

Some people persist in saying that Trump’s tweets are just wrong. Sorry, Trump’s tweets are things of epic beauty.

Schlichter strikes gold, again:

Trump owns his foes. They are mere satellites orbiting around him, and his gravity is all that keeps them from spinning off into space. They have willingly submitted to the reality of a Trumpocentric political universe. It’s hilarious.

Their impeachment fever dreams are fading, so they look at popularity polls and take solace at the numbers. They took solace in them on November 8, 2016, too. It’s a bit over 10 months to the midterms, and there is a growing, gnawing fear in their guts not that tax reform will be a disaster but that it will succeed. They look at their swelling 401(k)s and mourn their prosperity. They take cold comfort in the fact that with a zillion dollars they managed to beat by less than two points an accused strange-o whose campaign strategy was to ride around on his horse. But they fear that the Republicans won’t oblige them again by nominating more weirdos.

Why you’ll get more Trump:

Two professors from San Diego State University claim in a new book that farmers’ markets in urban areas are weed-like “white spaces” responsible for oppression.

Pascale Joassart-Marcelli and Fernando J Bosco are part of an anthology released this month titled “Just Green Enough.” The work, published by Routledge, claims there is a correlation between the “whiteness of farmers’ markets” and gentrification.

“Farmers’ markets are often white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized,” the SDSU professors write, the education watchdog Campus Reform reported Wednesday.

So, after Pence finishes his eight years in office, who is next? What up-and-comer is there in the Trump team who will roll into office in 2032 based upon the fact that the Democrats are still insane and waiting for the Marshall of the Supreme Court to arrest Trump?

Merry Christmas!

I’ll be driving most of tomorrow and then with family for Christmas Day, so I first off wish all of you a Merry Christmas! Even if you don’t celebrate – Merry Christmas, anyway!

Thing to remember about Christmas – it is either about nothing at all, or the most important thing which ever happened. Personally, I couldn’t see the point in celebrating it unless I believed (as I do) that it celebrates the most important thing which ever happened.

Israel gets a surge in Christian pilgrims this Christmas season. Israel: the only place in the Middle East where a Christian has some assurance of safety and liberty.

Jerry Brown is busily pardoning people who face deportation – this is just bizarre. And I think this sort of thing will prove devastatingly bad for Democrats as time goes on.

Trump taxes Harvard. We all laugh.

Have a great and safe holiday, my friends!

Open Thread

Seems that Mueller’s people obtained a lot of documents and computers relating to Trump’s transition – trouble is, getting that stuff might have been illegal. Once again: shut it down. Whole thing stinks of corruption.

Don Surber goes over just how rotten this whole thing is – really, we’re talking about an Obama Administration attempt to undermine an incoming American President. That’s the subject which needs to be investigated.

Hollywood sucks. We all know that – but Michael Walsh goes into some details about why it sucks. Greed and stupidity, mostly. They simply don’t make movies – they make comic books on film for money, and then some nauseating, Progressive tripe for the Oscars. Of course, good movies could be made – if anyone wanted to make them. They wouldn’t be global blockbusters (or, at least, they probably wouldn’t – but you never know what might catch on), but they would make money, I bet. All it would take is some talent. I’ve even got some subjects that I think could be great movies:

Soapy Smith: this guy was like the ultimate con-man of all time. You could do it for laughs, or you could do it serious. Either way, its a compelling story which would be interesting to see.

Ernest E. Evans: posthumous Medal of Honor for his actions as skipper of the USS Johnston in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The man had Native American blood, so you can play that angle. His ship was commissioned on October 27th, 1943 and sunk on October 25th, 1944: the crew was mostly recent-civilians but, my goodness, they fought and fought and fought until their ship was shot out from under them. You could research to find the stories of the men who served and have this fantastic combination of interesting characters and stunning battle scenes.

Ann and Josie Bassett: old west ranchers and associates of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They were being pressured by cattle barons to sell out, and the outlaws helped them fight off the pressure. You can make all kinds of good stories out of that.

But, Hollywood won’t make the movies…because Hollywood sucks.

Governor Walker forges ahead with the complete reform of Wisconsin government – now tackling welfare reform. We’ll see what comes after Trump, and Pence is building up a lot of good will for a future White House bid. But we could do a lot worse than getting Walker as our President one of these days.

Trump wants to repeal the misbegotten Johnson Amendment – that law which supposedly prohibits all religious groups from engaging in politics, but which actually prohibits Conservative religious groups from engaging in politics. It was in the tax bill, but now has been taken out. Once again, Trump is seen as pushing for the more Conservative reform, while the supposedly True Conservative Congress is undermining his efforts. Some how or another, we’ve got to get 6 or 7 more GOP Senators next year so we can just overwhelm the Fredo-Cons.

Open Thread

Having a chain-migration guy who is from Bangladesh try to blow up commuters in New York City will tend to strengthen Trump’s hand in the ol’ immigration debate. Not, of course, with his critics – but as his critics are mostly kinda dumb, who cares what they think? The key to Trump getting re-elected is that reality is going to continually back him up and, of course, he has the dumbest opponents any political leader has ever had.

That aside, chain-migration is about the most silly thing anyone can think of. If you decide to move to the United States, it is implied that you are willing to cut your ties to your family and your old country. That is kinda how immigration works, ya know? Each person asking to immigrate has to be taken on a one by one basis. You don’t get to come here just because you’ve got a cousin in Brooklyn.

Malmo, Sweden has a very large immigrant Muslim population and is now become a hotbed of anti-Semitic action. This surprises precisely no one; not even those who want the immigration.

The wife of that DoJ guy who was demoted for bias? Yeah; his wife worked for Fusion GPS during the 2016 campaign. Shut the darned investigation down. Really: end this charade. I’m getting more confident that Trump eventually will – hopefully soon after the first of the year. No more of this allowing Progressives free reign to try and nullify the 2016 election results.

Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) goes over the horrific investigation of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. He’s calling it the “Cheesehead Stasi”, and he’s right. What they are doing to Trump they first tried on Scott Walker. And we really have to think on ways we can prevent this sort of thing from recurring. I’m thinking along the lines of stiff criminal penalties for people who abuse the police power of the State.

Kurt Schlichter notes our greatest power: the power of not caring what our opponents think.

Trump wants us back on the Moon and reaching for Mars. This is what great Presidents do: challenge us to rise to new heights. I’m hoping that he lights a fire under NASA – the Orion program envisions sending an unmanned spacecraft around the Moon in 2019. Make it manned. The mission after that was scheduled for a manned flyby around the Moon in 2021. Make it a landing. In 2020. Let’s do this!

I just love Robert Stacey McCain’s writing style:

Like every other pouty teenage Goth girl with a Tumblr blog, Sara fancies herself a writer…

Read the whole thing. Content warning: he’s describing complete lunatics.

Hadn’t noticed this, but Trump in his Jerusalem announcement apparently went out of his way to use “AD” rather than “CE” (for Common Era). Use of “CE” bugs the heck out of me. We started using it because “AD” stands for Anno Domini, ie; The Year of Our Lord. I totally dig non-Christians perhaps not liking that, but the fact remains that this is 2017 AD. It isn’t “Common” to anyone but Christians. The year is perfectly meaningless except in relation to the birth of Jesus. If you don’t like “AD”, don’t try to change it to the fallacy of “CE”, make yourself a new calendar…and then try to get people to use it. Good luck. The French revolutionaries tried it and it lasted about 10 years…because it was a stupid idea. Anyways, our Progressive friends naturally had a fit over Trump using “AD”.