Open Thread

Mark Noonan88 Comments

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.

We Need to Rethink Conservative Strategy

Mark Noonan67 Comments

My wife was reading the news and came across an item and I heard her mumble to herself, “why are they cutting the top tax rate, idiots”. Now, to you and me who are long time Conservatives, we know precisely why: lowering the top marginal rate spurs growth and thus, ultimately, leads to more revenue for the government. But to someone like my wife, who despises politics, it was just a dumb give-away to people who already have quite enough. You have two ways to go with this:

1. Call my wife stupid (I advise against it, but you do you) and try to hammer her into believing that cutting rich people’s taxes is a good idea or…

2. Understand for regular folks who don’t pay close attention that in a political sense, cutting taxes on rich people is not going to be popular. Ever.

Abraham Lincoln advised that a widespread belief, whether well- or ill-founded, cannot lightly be set aside. You can, with patience, set yourself to the task of educating people into your views, but while they have the views, all you can do is work with them to advance as much of your cause as you can. Another example of where Conservatives, who are right, will still run afoul of the people is in the matter of the minimum wage. You and I know that the minimum wage, itself, is one of the dumbest ideas ever created in economics – that all it does is price low-skill, entry-level workers out of the labor market. We can explain this until we are blue in the face and it won’t get us anywhere…average folks just figure that if a person is working, it should be for a wage they can live on. The folks are going to look at it in terms of, “could I live on $8.25 and hour?”, and there answer is going to be a flat “no”, and so they’ll think that paying someone that much per hour just isn’t right.

I bring this up not in order to urge us to abandon Conservatism, but in order that we might understand that there are some brick walls we’re up against and we’re going to have to adjust our playbook to work our way around or over them. That is, we have to play the game on the field that exists, not the field that we might prefer. And it’s not just we who have this problem: our Progressive friends do as well. They have a whole host of ideas which are not remotely popular but they are determined to enact come heck or high water (in this, we have the advantage: more of our policies are actually popular than Progressives policies are). They, too, have to work their way around the widespread beliefs of the people. They do it by lies and disgusting political tricks. As we have a sense of honor, we can’t do it that way…but we still have to lean new ways of doing things.

What our Never Trump, Fredo-Cons don’t get is that we’re not going to have anything Conservative if all we’re doing is quoting the Founders and arguing for lower taxes. First off all, taxes and the Constitution are not the crux of the matter. We’ve seen even Progressives agree to lower tax rates from time to time and we’ve especially seen over the previous eight years that the Constitution is utterly meaningless to them. Additionally, as long as their unconstitutional actions don’t immediately harm the mass of the people, the people will not rise up against them (they did screw up with Obamacare – shoving it through unconstitutionally wasn’t fatal to them, however…what was fatal is that the bloody thing didn’t work, not even half-work like Social Security does). In order for us to have anything – to leave any semblance of America to those who will be alive 100 years from now – we on the right are going to have to get very smart about how we take on issues which matter to the people.

Think about it like this – if the Republican Party were to cut taxes across the board except that on people who make more than $1,000,000.00 per year, the top marginal rate was going to 40%, then we’d win the tax debate in a walk-over. All we would have done is move the top rate four tenths of a percent higher and on income which is 120% higher than now. The top marginal rate today is 39.6% and it kicks in at $400,000.00 per year. Even the highest income earners would get relief because there’s $600,000.00 more in yearly income which would be at a lower rate than now but we on our side would be able to say, “see, we’re making the rich pay their ‘fair share'”.

Let’s raise the minimum wage to $16.00 per hour – with an allowance for companies of less than 100 employees to deduct on taxes, dollar for dollar, each dollar over $8 per hour. It makes us in favor of a “living wage” without putting an undue burden on small to mid-sized companies (larger companies can carry the freight).

Yes, I realize that all of this is based upon a false understanding of pure, free-market economics. But, what are you going to do? Tell a blue collar worker in Michigan that the rich guy has to pay less in taxes than he does, now? Tell people that they don’t need a higher wage?

The bottom line is that we’re in a crisis in this nation. We’ve got schools failing to teach kids to read but filling their minds with Progressive garbage. We’ve got a popular culture which relentlessly and mercilessly attacks basic human decency. We’ve got a Ruling Class which is corrupt to the bone and willing to sell us out to anyone, foreign or domestic. The institution of the family is under attack. Religion is being forced to prove itself worthy of being allowed to exist. Fifty more years of this, and there won’t be an America left to conserve. We’ve simply got to get power and keep it, for a long time. And we can’t obtain and retain power unless we’re offering something to the people which is of immediate, tangible benefit to them. Remember, the people are generally on our side on the matters of faith, family and property – only Progressive lunatics want to destroy faith and family and take away everyone’s property. They don’t dare campaign on that because they know their vote would drop to 20% if they did. We can’t beat something with nothing – we’ve got to bring something to the table.

Trump did – in 2016, he promised tangible things to the people. Yes, tax cuts were included – people do like their taxes cut, they are just less enthused about taxes being cut for people who make more than they do. But he also offered to bring back the jobs that Obama and the Fedo-Cons said weren’t coming back. He promised us a border wall…which is actually supported by a far larger segment of the Latino population than the MSM wants anyone to know. He promised to drain the swamp – and the people, correctly, view our government as hopelessly corrupt. What Trump didn’t promise us was that he was going to ensure that the 4th Amendment was going to be enforced just as the Founders envisioned. He’s enforcing it like that, but that wasn’t part of his sales campaign for the Presidency (and every political campaign is, at bottom, a sales campaign). You see? Promise what the people want, and then in addition to that, do the other things which need to be done, but don’t necessarily have a huge political constituency behind them.

We’ve got Trump in, now. He’s beset by enemies trying to annul the 2016 election. They may succeed: time will tell. But our fight was, is and remains to obtain and retain power for as long as we can. The longer our people are in charge the more likely our total program will be enacted. Give us 20 years of uninterrupted GOP government and we’ll have saved our nation. By the time the Democrats get back in after that, it’ll be too late for them to undo what we’ve done. It took the Progressives 80 long years to get us to where we are…because no one really wanted anything they were selling, so they have to go slow and disguise their real goals. We don’t have to do that – we can say with pride what our goal is: a people free, secure and able to do with their own as they wish. We can turn the clock back a lot faster than the Democrats pushed it forward…and turn it back in such a manner that it is increasingly difficult for them to get rolling again.

The key is power – we must have it. Having it means that we can’t be pie-in-the-sky purists on policy. We have to tailor our desires to what the people want at the moment. Never abandoning the goal and, indeed, never actually compromising it…but by weaving together what is possible with what is best, moving the ball forward, day after day.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan23 Comments

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”.

Out and About on a Tuesday

Mark Noonan61 Comments

Chancellor Merkel is having one heck of a hard time forming a government – not entirely surprising for a party leader who only got 33% of the vote (the lowest vote for her CDU in the post-WWII era). She won’t work with populist AfD, and the classic-liberal FDP couldn’t go with Merkel’s immigration and economic policies. Latest is she’s trying to work out a deal with the socialist SPD…and that a supposedly Conservative party would want to work with the SPD is all anyone needs to know about how corrupt politics is these days (earlier, she was trying to work with the downright fascist Greens to form a government). It has got me thinking: Germany is nothing but a mistake.

I know, kinda harsh. But, really, what is Germany? It was a mere geographic expression until Bismarck dragooned most of it (less Austria and a couple other bits and pieces) into joining Prussia in the misbegotten German Empire in 1870. Prussia, itself, wasn’t much to write home about – like all German States, it was really no more than the personal property of one family – in this case, the Hohenzollern’s, who started out as the Margrave of Brandenburg, and managed to get their estate raised to the dignity of a Kingdom in 1701. It had no organic connection to, say, Bavaria or Baden…heck, even the type of German spoken in Prussia was different from that spoken in Bavaria. And Bavaria and Baden had vastly more culturally in common with France and Austria than they did with Prussia. But, the deed was done – and it was fused together by Prussian militarism and Bismarck’s bleakly amoral Realpolitik. In hindsight, the proper policy to pursue after the monster was slain in 1918 was to re-break up Germany. All we did by allowing it to survive is to give Hitler his chance – and since the defeat of Hitler, what we’ve got in the center of Europe is a still powerful entity which doesn’t even know what it is or what it wants. Unified Germany has been a bane to rational policy in Europe for 147 years. I feel for a people who can’t be patriotic because to be a German patriot would mean either honoring the Kaiser or the Fuhrer – broken up into constituent parts, a Bavarian or Saxon patriot would have something to talk about. What is to become of it, I don’t know – but as long as Merkel is in charge, it’ll just go from bad to worse.

Legal Insurrection points out that the Mueller investigation looks more and more like the revenge of James Comey, and I can’t find much to disagree with on that. On the other hand, some observers I’ve come across figure that Mueller might have switch to the pro-Trump side and is actually setting up a massive attack against the Deep State – there is some sense in that. After all, we all look at is as bad that a whole bunch of Obama- and Clinton-bots were brought in by Mueller but, think about it: these people are no longer at Justice or the FBI and thus can’t gum up the works there. I’m still in favor of firing Mueller and bringing this charade to an end – but I guess Trump has his reasons for holding fire. I can’t believe that it is fear – the man clearly doesn’t fear what his opponents will say about him over any particular action he takes.

Snowflakes demand we stop calling them snowflakes because this hurts their feelz. I’m sure all of you will accord this demand all the respect you can muster for snowflake whines.

The Bake the Cake court case has caused a lot of social media argument. My view: no one should be compelled to work they don’t want to do. Unless the public safety requires it, everyone should be free to refuse service to anyone, at any time, for any reason…or none at all.

Most of those we deport are sweet, well-meaning Dreamers who just want to help terrible criminals we don’t want in our country. I know, you’re totally shocked.

Our tax-loving liberals are displeased they’ll have to actually pay their taxes. Advocating for high taxes is merest virtue-signalling…most often done by people who are rich enough to pay the freight/canny enough to hide their income.

Conyers has called it quits – and endorsed his son to replace him. Funny, I thought we tossed out monarchy in 1776.

Interesting observation from a comment over at Instapundit:

Did the prosecution tell Flynn’s lawyer that their main witness against him was removed for bias? Since Strzok led the interview and his testimony would be needed to establish untruthfulness, he is a critical witness not just a prosecutor. If not disclosed, would this not be a Giglio violation? This is the kind of misconduct that can get a case dismissed and a lawyer disbarred. It is a Constitutional violation. This has bothered me since I heard about it.

It does seem odd to me – the whole case seems to hinge on the word of a man who is clearly on the side of Hillary and opposed to Trump.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan36 Comments

Personally, I think that Flynn is being railroaded and he copped a plea simply to make it end – unlike certain Clinton people we know, Flynn hasn’t amassed a gigantic fortune over his years of public service and thus can’t afford the massive legal team a drawn-out case would require…and as he’d be tried in DC, where 91% of the people voted for Hillary, even a first-rate legal defense might be unavailing. As there was no Trump/Russia collusion, there’s nothing Flynn can say, even if he wants to, which would in any way compromise the President. Given that Trump has been in the public eye for decades and has never run afoul of criminal law before, I suspect there’s nothing Flynn can say which will cause Trump legal trouble in that direction. He might be able to help Mueller get someone else on a process crime, but that would be about it. Given that one of Mueller’s investigators was revealed to be a pro-Hillary hack, there are grave doubts about the entire investigation. My view remains as it has been: fire Mueller. End this charade.

Our liberal friends are reacting to the Senate passage of the tax bill in the calm, reasonable way we’ve come to expect: America has been killed. Outside of that, there are some things to like, and some things not to like in the bill. Everyone, I think, can find things to delight and dismay in the bill…and such is the way of things when laws have to be enacted on consensus. The basic thrust of it – a reduction in tax rates – is unarguably good. Be better if there were deficit reductions attached, but we also know (“we” as in Conservatives; liberals don’t know this because they refuse to know it) that the spur to economic growth will result in revenues far in excess of those projected, so the long-term effect will be deficit reducing. I’m in favor of the elimination of the SALT deductions – sorry, high-tax-State fellow Americans, but I don’t think it right that low-tax States should essentially subsidize your profligate and almost entirely Democrat-run States. Don’t like it? Vote in some tax-cutting Republicans. Increasing the child-tax credit is generally a good thing, but anyone thinking that tax credits actually help in demographic matters is foolish: Americans aren’t having kids because they’ve lost hope. Restoration of hope will result in a higher birth rate.

Poll says Roy Moore is ahead. Poll says Roy Moore is behind. Polls are bogus. Especially the poll showing Moore behind – supposedly, Donald Trump is approved by 50% of Alabama voters. Just a year ago, Trump got 62% of Alabama’s votes…and I can’t think of a single thing Trump as done which would make Alabama voters sour on him. Still, don’t go with polls…remember, you’re being told to trust “free” information provided in a partisan election. No one provides “free” information in such a setting unless they’ve got an axe to grind, one way or the other. I think that this is what was missed in most polling over the past 50 years: the people providing the polls are not disinterested. And in these days of hyper-partisanship, just less so than before. Personally, I think Moore wins it by about 10 percentage points – but, we’ll see.

The latest Fake News flare up was ABC’s Brian Ross putting out a bogus report on the Flynn plea – asserting that something happened during Trump’s time as a candidate when it actually happened when Trump was President-Elect. The crucial aspect of this is that what Flynn did for President-Elect Trump was not only legal, but fairly routine for a Presidential transition. Ross reported it falsely and it stirred up quite a storm…even tanked the stock market for a bit. Ross is now on suspension. Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) has long advised that we should treat MSMers as Democrats with by-lines – I go a little further and advise to treat them like Pravda. The MSM, as it relates to Trump, has not the slightest interest in telling the truth. I can only assume they’ve got their marching orders from the DNC and have been told to just say whatever comes to mind, as long as it works out anti-Trump. This can’t just be error; it can’t just be partisan Democrats getting ahead of themselves – they are telling such stupid and egregious lies that it must be coordinated. Someone on the Democrat side has decided that this will work to Democrats long term benefit. I can only suppose they hope the constant drumbeat will eventually convince Republicans in Congress to abandon Trump. There is something to be said for that…but I think, in the end, too many GOPers in Congress know that crossing Trump is political suicide for themselves. A Corker, Flake or McCain out there doesn’t care…but I also note that Corker and Flake aren’t running for re-election while McCain’s prospect of surviving until his next election is thin. Unless something Earth-shattering comes out about Trump, the Congressional GOP will stick with him…and, meanwhile, the MSM lying all the time will just make it ever more likely that nothing Earth-shattering can come out because even if it did, no one will believe it.

I’ve been saying that Never Trump would move over to Progressivism – and over the past couple days I’ve seen prominent Never Trumpers say the TEA Party was motivated by racial animus against Obama and that the tax reform plan is just a giveaway to the rich. So it goes – and I’m more and more convinced that the reason these people called themselves Conservative is because they didn’t want to be in a party which had working class people as it’s backbone. As the Democrats abandoned the working class, so have they become more acceptable to those we now know as Never Trump. It’s really just all an attitude on their part…and they spoke the words of Conservatism because, from Reagan to Trump, there was no real worry that being Conservative would have you associating with those uncouth, redneck morons. On reflection, this shift was inevitable once the TEA Party got started…once, that is, that common folks who aren’t government dependents started speaking up. Trump merely accelerated the process…and it makes me think that Trump saw what I saw: that there was a chance for the GOP to poach lots of Democrat votes if they’d jettison the Country Club/Chamber of Commerce style Republicanism. Never Trump – and the Democrats – think that they’ll now capture the suburbs and thus return to dominance. What they’re going to find out, however, is that playing well in the ‘burbs is nation-wide political poison. You’ve got to get working folks on your side – most Americans fall into the working stiff category. What I expect to actually happen over the next ten years it that the GOP, now Populist-Conservative, will start to make inroads into working class votes in the cities to go along with their working class votes in the rural areas. Never Trump will join their Progressives and be happy sneering at us…and we’ll be happy they keep losing.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan64 Comments

Trump calls out Faux-ahontas, gets her mad…but she really needs to come fully clean on her claims of Native ancestry.

Keith Olbermann has decided to call it quits on anti-Trump rants.

In case you’re keeping score, the gender wars are now up to “LGGBDTTTIQQAAP“.

Joy Behar, who some years back said she didn’t believe in God, is now saying that God is calling her to save our country.

There are reports that black Africans are being sold in slave markets in Libya – another of Hillary’s grand legacies.

Europeans are decorating anti-terror barriers for the Christmas holidays. I suggest if they’d actually become Christian and rediscover bravery, they wouldn’t need the barriers…but, that’s just me.

Leandra English, a Progressive hack holding an Obama-era sinecure at the CFPB, is suing President Trump in an attempt to prevent him from replacing her as director of the CFPB. The level of absurdity on the left just keeps growing.

The End of Conservative Never Trump

Mark Noonan29 Comments

We all understood it. Very many of us greatly sympathized with it. The idea that Donald Trump, long-time Democrat and close buddy of the Progressive Establishment was to be the Republican Party’s standard-bearer was a lot to swallow. It just didn’t seem right. Add to it Trump’s background of divorces, sharp business practices and general crudities, and it was just a bridge too far. It couldn’t be borne.

Some of us, though, did decide to bear it. I freely admit to happily voting for Donald Trump at the end of the day: I calculated that a Hillary Administration would be so destructive of our liberties (especially our right to free exercise of religion) and so hopelessly corrupt that nothing Donald Trump could do would be worse – and, relying on hope, I figured that some things I liked might get done, even if more by accident than design. But, still, there was a rational point to being a Never Trump Conservative right up to election day and beyond. But now we’re a year past election day and it is time to take stock.

Over this past year, we’ve had a bunch of strict constructionist judges appointed. It is impossible to over-state how important this is (I know our “law, all the time” Amazona is delighted with this). Are you irritated with all those judges who rule against the Constitution and plain common-sense just so they can virtue-signal against Trump Administration policies? That is what you get when you have Democrat Presidents: judicial appointees who aren’t remotely interested in the law, but only in whatever it is Progressives want at the moment. Four to eight more years of that and we could rely on it that the Judges would rule that the 2nd Amendment is void, that Free Exercise means “you can do it as we want, or not at all”, that Free Speech is trumped by alleged Hate Speech. Instead, we’re getting judges who will rule, for decades, the opposite of that – and Trump is just getting started. Unlike past Republican Presidents, Trump seems determined to find judges who are exactly what we want…there won’t be many, if any, stealth Progressives appointed by Trump to the bench. Over the next decades, these Judges will rule in favor of law to our immense benefit.

A good part of the reason for our economic doldrums over the previous eight years was the suffocating tentacles of government regulation. Really, it had been going on since Reagan left office (neither Bush ever made a serious effort at deregulation), but under the Obama Administration it took off like a rocket. Eight more years of this and only well-established firms able to bribe the government would be able to exist in our economy – everyone else would be shut out by a mountain of red tape. Trump has vigorously attacked regulations since he took office and he looks to keep going strongly at it until his last day in office. The importance of this is vast – and twofold. It not only frees up the economy and allows us to grow, but it also reduces the power of government. As far as regulation goes, Donald Trump is a small-government Conservative’s dream…and a Libertarian’s dream, as well.

On taxes, Trump wants complete reform – but as it looks like he can’t get that at the moment, he’s at least pushing for across-the-board cuts. This is also good for the economy and also good for liberty because each dollar government extracts from the people is just one more small piece of personal liberty chipped away.

Trump wants Obamacare repealed and replaced. GOP fecklessness has prevented this, so far, but given time and continued GOP Congressional majority, it will happen.

Trump is not a Pen and Phone President – he wants his policies enshrined into properly enacted, Constitutionally-valid laws. This devolution of power from the Presidency back to Congress is crucial to the long-term health of our republic. Whether Trump is knowledgeable on the theory or just realizes that its better to use the system to fix the system is unknown and irrelevant – that he’s doing what needs to be done to redress the balance of power between the Executive and the Legislative is crucial.

Trump isn’t anti-immigrant – he’s just in favor of legal immigration over illegal immigration. This is a no-brainer even if you are a Conservative in favor of large immigration. Of course we want all immigrants to be legal immigrants. Duh! Only an idiot would want illegal immigration to be any part of our immigration system. Whether we take in ten per year or ten million, it must be according to law. Trump is the first President since Reagan who actually wants to get hold of the problem and fix it – really fix it; not fake-fix it where we pretend we’re reforming immigration but all we really do is legalize the illegals and do nothing to prevent another ten million illegals from showing up.

Trump wants to win the war(s). Trump is not a war-monger in the least. In the old, Isolationist American tradition, he’s actually quite a peacenik…but he also realizes that if you gotta fight, then you’d better fight all the way. No pettifogging concerns about i-dotting and t-crossing. Let the troops do their job, and watch their backs as they do it. Find allies who are willing to do the things we’d rather not, and then don’t get squeamish when they do it. Rebuild our military power (since the first Bush Administration, our military establishment has been gutted…and training and readiness have come in second to politically-correct twaddle). Let our enemies know that while we are the best friend anyone can have, we’re also the worst enemy anyone can have.

In the Reagan and two Bush Administrations, foreign policy remained largely in the hands of permanent State Department employees who were beholden to the Progressive idea of what foreign policy should be. Reagan managed to buck it enough to ensure that his program vis a vis the Soviet Union was carried out, but the two Bushes were continually undercut – mostly because they carried the false idea that the bureaucrats at State were patriots interested in what was good for America, rather than what they were: Democrats who’s primary loyalty is to the Democrat party. Tillerson is cleaning house at State – over the next years, the foreign policy of the United States will be under the control of the President elected by the people to conduct our foreign policy…and, more importantly, by clearing out the Progressive deadwood and putting in our people, even after Trump leaves office there will be a legacy of rational, pro-American foreign policy inherent in the State Department.

I could go on but, seriously, what more do you want? For a Conservative, this is a bonanza. This is, policy-wise, better than Reagan. Yes, we’re missing a few things – be nice to have Trump be serious about debt reduction, for instance. But, you can’t ever get all that you want. But we’re getting plenty. Trump’s actions over the past year have completely negated any actual Conservative concern about the direction of Trump Administration policy. Whatever he was before he announced himself a candidate, he’s all we can ask for or reasonably hope to get. Even his outrageous Twitter antics are obvious, now, as tactics to irritate his opponents and fire up his base. Irritated opponents do stupid things – and we see Trump’s opponents getting stupider by the day. A fired up base means you retain the political capital necessary to take policy risks. All in all, Trump has been excellent. So, why do we still have Conservative Never Trump?

Well, I don’t think we do. Bill Kristol, a standard-bearer of Conservative Never Trump, the other day Tweeted out that Trump’s policies are bringing out his inner socialist. Indeed. Of course, no Conservative has an inner socialist. Quite honestly, you can’t carry a bit of socialist in you and be Conservative. But Kristol’s inner socialist is coming out – and that reveals that he never was a Conservative to begin with. And, at this point, no person who holds to Never Trump can be Conservative. How can you? What are you fighting against? Conservative judges? Tax reform? Strong military? Rule of law? If you’re doing any or all of that, then I’ve got a news flash for you: you aren’t Conservative. So, there’s no need to retain the concept of “Never Trump Conservative” any longer – Conservatives are on Trump’s side. He’s done the things we need done – and done them enough to fully justify a conviction that he’ll keep doing them…and thus earn ours support for his re-election in 2020. We can now just say that Trump’s opponents are all Progressives – that some will still hold on to the title of Conservative for a while is irrelevant: we’re used to Progressives hiding their real desires behind false fronts.

It’s good this happened – we now know why we kept on losing even though Conservatism is the only rational political ideology to have: we had Progressives in our midst who continually cut us off at the knees and found justifications for accepting Progressive innovations. Trump has torn the mask off them and they have self-purged from our movement. We can now go forward knowing that those who are on our side are actually on our side. This will work well for us long term – we might even keep winning for a while.

Corruption Everywhere

Mark Noonan21 Comments

I absolutely insist that any man who has driven more than one woman over a bridge be forever excluded from the Senate! I will call this the Ted Kennedy Lion of Liberalism Standard for Moral Excellence.

The Conyers story is most interesting on the assertion that, apparently, taxpayer funds were used to payoff his accusers…and some are saying that many millions of dollars over recent years was forked out in such cases. If so – and, in this case, I have few doubts that at least the basics are correct in the story – then this definitively shows the corruption of our government. That there would be even one such payout is an outrage – and all of the Congressional leadership, Republican and Democrat, must have been in on it. I can’t figure a way to get money appropriated for harassment claims without getting sign off from the leadership. This puts Speaker Ryan’s qualities in doubt – I’d always thought him an honorable man. I hope that something comes out to show he wasn’t involved…but I can’t imagine a situation where he wasn’t involved…and even if he’s clear of it, what does that say about his leadership abilities?

Back during 2016, I talked to the Mrs a bit about the overall “swamp” situation. She, naturally, was mostly bored and irritated with me for talking about it because she wisely despises politics…but I still recall saying words to the effect of, “they are working so hard against Trump because they are afraid of him. They are afraid of having someone in the White House who has no loyalty to the system. But here’s the kicker: by turning on him – and they were all his best buddies before he ran – they are making sure that he doesn’t give a damn how many of them go down.”

I think we’re starting to see that play out – possibly with a nudge or two from Trump, who probably knows where a lot of the bodies are buried in Hollywood, Corporate America and government. Right now, the President, Senator Paul and Senator Cruz are the only people I trust in DC to play it straight…there might be more, I hope there are more, but that is it, for now.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan49 Comments

I’ve been trying to think of a time when the Elite of any nation actually got it right. Now, to clarify, there have been times when a member of the Elite hit upon the right solution, but the Elite, as a class, has been consistently wrong in all ages as far as I can see. I think this stems from the fact that once safely ensconced in the Elite, you rapidly lose whatever touch you had with reality…you can’t see how what you do will effect flesh and blood people who aren’t Elite and thus can’t afford to pay the price for Elite mistakes. If anyone wants to call me wrong and pick out where the Elite went right while Joe Average went wrong, I’m all ears. But, remember, it has to be an all right/all wrong thing…no cheating by finding something where, just maybe, the Elite was slightly less stupid than the mob.

I don’t know how many of your know who Justice Willett is, but he’s the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court, Trump’s nominee to fill a seat on the 5th Circuit…and one heck of a funny Twitter user. Once upon a time, during one of our interminable marriage debates, he Tweeted out that he could support a Constitutional right to marry bacon. Naturally, his Democrat critics took the joke seriously.

Roy Moore is not backing down. How will it come out? I was getting sure that he was going to lose next month, but Larry Sabato just switched the race to “Leans Dem”, so I figure Moore has it in the bag. It is a very confusing thing, in my view: there are lots of accusers, but plenty of holes in their stories…which shows the impossibility of really judging events decades in the past which weren’t brought forward at the time. I honestly don’t know what the best course is – I don’t want to allow the Democrats to win a turn, but I also don’t want someone who would do what Moore is accused of in office. On the other hand, it’s not like the Senate is some bastion of moral probity, to begin with. I’m just glad I don’t live in Alabama so I don’t have to make an actual choice.

Someone, aside from me, is calling the Student Loan Program what is is: a scam.

Do Trump’s Liberal Critics Seem Increasingly Unhinged? Yes. Next question?

Economists around the world are stunned that by some, strange magic, middle class people are doing better under Trump…they just can’t figure out why.

The Supreme Court will take up a case challenging a California law which requires anti-abortion health care providers to provide information on abortion options. It is a free speech case and I hope the Court rules correctly.

Trump’s Own Foreign Policy

Mark Noonan49 Comments

There’s a story out that Tillerson is decimating the staff at State:

The State Department is in disarray and losing essential leaders at a “dizzying speed” under the Trump administration, according to an essay written by a top ambassador.

Plummeting morale, a rash of top diplomats jumping ship and a hiring freeze imposed under Trump have sent shock waves through the Foreign Service, wrote Ambassador Barbara Stephenson, the president of the Foreign Service officers’ union.

“There is simply no denying the warning signs that point to mounting threats to our institution — and to the global leadership that depends on us. There is no denying that our leadership ranks are being depleted at a dizzying speed.”…

First off, this sort of thing explains the rapid decline in the number of leaks. Secondly, it shows that Tillerson – and Trump – are determined to have people they can rely on to carry out Trump Administration policy. I can’t quite say where Trump policy is going – he’s keeping to his rule of not telegraphing his punches. We can glean a bit from statements and from actions, but the end game is hazy. In the Middle East, for instance, it appears that Trump has decided to go with Saudi Arabia and Israel as our primary partners…which is a bit of a fall-back to the pre-2001 US policy, but with a twist in that we seem to be willing to aid Israel and Saudi Arabia to take concrete actions against enemies – theirs and ours. If it works – and this will be highly dependent upon the new leadership in Saudi Arabia prevailing – then Trump might break the log-jam in the Middle East. We’ll just have to see – but, meanwhile, he’s going to have his people doing it his way.

Whether or not Trump’s people are going to be good at this remains to be seen. At all events, however, whomever he picks can’t possibly do worse than those who are being pushed out…the same sort of people who have been running US foreign policy for a century and have never, not once, got things right. Remember, these are the guys who started off this century of foreign policy folly by figuring we should break up the Hapsburg Empire and keep Germany intact. From there, they went on to such genius things as normalizing relations with Stalin’s Russia, using the UN as cover for us to get into Korea with a declaration of war, signed arms control agreements which merely hamstrung American power and, to wrap it all up, signed off on allowing Iran to move forward with nukes under Obama. These people aren’t just wrong, they are kind of stupid. Breaking the chain by clearing them out and bringing in new voices can only help.