The Obama/Trump Contrast

Mark Noonan70 Comments

Victor Davis Hanson, as usual, has something interesting to say regarding the stark contrast between Barack Obama and Donald Trump:

…The nation did not suddenly become liberal in 2008 or conservative in 2016. Rather, in both years it rejected blasé centrism — first trying out a left-wing deviation from establishmentarianism, then in frustration turning to a right-wing antidote to both the failed medicine and the original diseased status quo.

Antidote One, of unapologetic progressivism under Obama, did not lead to an economically robust and growing America, one safer abroad in a more secure world, and more cohesive, united, and stable at home — at least if that truly was the leftist agenda rather than the more hushed opposite goal of more equal but poorer Americans, America as just another nation among many, and a cultural revolution aimed at accentuating rather than assimilating race, class, and gender identities.

We shall see if the subsequent Antidote Two, of unregretful conservatism under Trump, will provide what conservatism has always promised: greater prosperity, security, and unity…

We shall see, indeed.

I don’t really know what to make of President Trump. Like most of you, I backed someone (anyone!) else in the GOP primaries. I resigned myself – after flirting with Never Trump – to voting for Trump as the only viable alternative to the absolute horror-show that a second Clinton Administration would be. I expected, in the unlikely event of his victory, that he’d do a few Conservative things, but also do a few liberal things…all in the name of a bi-partisan effort to “Make America Great Again”. And I expected the Conservative things to mostly be about cutting taxes and building up the military…I expected a slew of squishes to be appointed to the Courts and some flings with liberal social issues. I never expected Donald Trump – Donald Freaking Trump, Manhattan billionaire and one-time Playboy – to adhere to such a strictly Conservative line on all issues. Even in his expressed opinions on dope and same sex marriage, it really comes down to a defensibly Conservative principle of deferring to States’ Rights on such matters. For a Conservative, there is nothing in Trump’s first year to be upset with – second year does seem to promise some sort of infrastructure bill…but even there, I’m getting the distinct impression that if we’re going to flash the cash at such, Trump will make sure its used for things that will be useful to the nation…unlike Obama’s stimulus bill, we might get a bridge, a dam and a Moon shot out of Trump’s deficit spending. Not Conservative, but at least not something as stupid as bike paths or “cash for clunkers”, right?

Is Donald Trump a Conservative? He might be. Remember, his wife’s Catholic…and maybe, third time’s the charm, he’s actually learned the lesson all wise men eventually learn: do what your wife tells you to do. Sure, Melania Trump has a bit of a past…but anyone who knows Catholics (or any real Christians of any sort) knows that this is no hang up: all saints have a past, all sinners have a future. Maybe she’s moving him towards the right on social issues while his natural, businessman inclinations, are towards the right on economic matters? Who can know? All I do know is that I’m getting more Conservatism than I’ve had since January 20th, 1989. I like it.

And as Hanson points out, we’re getting a fair test: after eight years of Obama, we’re going to get four to eight years of Trump…and if we Conservatives are even half right in our ideals, then the Trump years will blow the Obama years out of the water. It’ll be undeniable, if it works (of course it will) that the proper way to go is low tax, low regulation, States Rights, individual liberty…we won’t have to struggle against a false, Progressive Narrative anymore because everyone will know that what we say is the way to go. And I think, deep down, this is what the Progressives and the overall Establishment fear the most…that it will be shown that we do better with less intrusive government and free markets. That we don’t need an Obama to lecture us on “who we are”. And that will simply kill them…they’ll hate living in a world where we don’t need them, or even so much as care what they think.

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

Mark Noonan59 Comments

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

Mark Noonan66 Comments

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!

Mark Noonan59 Comments

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

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.