Regarding “The Donald”

Leo Pusateri15 Comments

Trump

To my good conservative friends- especially those who support “The Donald.”
In these days of milquetoast (or worse) defenses of conservatism by elected leaders, especially the ‘establishment’ GOP leadership, it is easy to get excited over a seemingly unapologetic firebrand who finally articulates much of what you and I have wanted to scream from the mountaintops.

I get that.

But remember what was happening 8 years ago. Many on the left and ‘center-left’ rallied behind a charismatic, well-spoken candidate who nobody really knew much about.

Not that there wasn’t information available. There was information galore about Barack Obama– from his associations with known domestic terrorists, to his belonging to a communist party in Chicago; from his 20-year association with a preacher who preached hate about the United States, to his being mentored by an avowed communist in his earliest days. The information was available to any who wished to do even a cursory internet search.

Many (myself included) tried to warn people about Barack Obama, how he wasn’t the man whom he portrayed himself to be.

But people would have none of it. They looked upon Obama as an open canvas; they looked upon him and projected upon him their greatest hopes, and ignored the reality of his checkered past. They didn’t see a guy raised by communists and people who hated America. They saw a guy descending from Greek columns. They saw ‘the One”–their own personal messiah the one who would finally deliver them to the “Promised Land” and make the sea levels lower and the earth heal. They scoffed at reports of his past, thinking, “Well, even if he did cut his teeth on communism and Islam, he wouldn’t *govern* like one. He would certainly out of a sense of duty and responsibility carry out America’s most time-honored traditions.” And they elected him anyway. The ‘cult of personality’ took over. There was no reasoning with people who refused to be reasoned with.

And we all know how that has turned out.

Now, back to Trump.

Donald Trump does an awfully good job at selling himself. He can sell ice cubes to Eskimos. He is very good at portraying himself as larger than life.

He is very good at ‘portraying’ himself as an unapologetic conservative.

But understand, people. Donald Trump is NO conservative. He has a very long record of taking very progressive stances on everything from border security to abortion to tax policy. He has engaged in crony capitalism, and has been part of the problem all along.

Are we to believe that he REALLY took a 180 on all these issues, just in time for the Republican primary?

Again– I understand how Donald Trump can be appealing. He is charismatic and unapologetic–something we wish more of our elected leaders would be. But let’s leave our passions behind and look at things realistically:

1. Given his long track record of being a crony capitalist and a big-government, pro-abortion progressive, can we reliably count on Donald Trump to actually govern as a conservative?

2. Even if Donald Trump were to attempt to keep his promises (which I have sincere doubts), can he accomplish all that he proposes in a system of checks and balances? Or will he govern with a ‘phone and a pen’ like our current dictator-in-chief?

Let’s not let our passions get in the way of our good judgment. We have an embarrassment of riches in fine candidates such as Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, and Ben Carson who, while admittedly not as charismatic, have long track records of conservative stances and successfully advancing the conservative agenda with reasonable chances that they will govern accordingly.

No more cults of personality, please.

Debate Open Thread

Cluster149 Comments

Carly Fiorina did very well in the early debate. She is a formidable candidate. Can you imagine a Trump/Fiorina ticket? Speaking of Trump, if he can dial down his ego, add more details to his ideas, and act presidential – he just might run away with this. This will be a fun night, well at least for us political junkies.

On the Iran Deal, Obama Gets Tough…

Mark Noonan10 Comments

With his fellow Americans, of course – not with the Iranians:

President Obama: I realize that resorting to force may be tempting in the face of the rhetoric and behavior that emanates from parts of Iran. It is offensive. It is incendiary. We do take it seriously. But superpowers should not act impulsively in response to talks… Just because Iranian hardliners chant ‘Death to America” does not mean that that’s what all Iranians believe. In fact, it’s those hardliners that are more satisfied with the status quo. It’s those hardliners chanting “death to America” who’ve been most opposed to the deal. They’re making common cause with the Republican Caucus.

So, there you go – the only people who want to kill the Iran deal are those on the side of the Iranian hardliners! Kerry is also out there warning us against upsetting the Iranian hardliners…and they’ll be mad as wet hens if we don’t do this deal! So mad, I guess, that they’ll start sponsoring terrorism and building up nuclear weapons…

This is getting unreal – the Obama position is that if you don’t want his deal, then you want war. Here’s just a small bit of advice for Obama and Kerry – the alternative to the deal isn’t war, but simply no deal. Status quo. And that means Iran’s government is still hobbled by sanctions and has much fewer resources for sponsoring terrorism and building nuclear weapons.

To me, the whole thing is clearly not about getting Iran to stop being Iran, but about getting sanctions lifted. Obama and Kerry appear to believe that we can befriend Iran’s current government and they’ll work with us for peace and stability in the Middle East…that it will be a peace of the grave for many and the stability of Iranian tyranny doesn’t seem to concern Obama. To Progressives any sort of peace is superior to any sort of war – and if it is a bunch of foreigners living far away who are paying the blood price for our peace, no problem at all.

Of course, we’ll get war, eventually. The thing about helping tyrannical regimes to gain in power and prosperity is that this merely provides them with more sinews for war, as well as convincing them we are a paper tiger which can be defied at will.

Out and About on a Tuesday

Mark Noonan

Biden to get in? He should. No Democrat should be on board a coronation of Hillary Clinton. It is un-American. One thing I have learned – I have some young relatives who are on the Progressive side and they despise Hillary…she’s going to have far more trouble than everyone expects.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is just soaring in the polls. I have to say that this is entirely unexpected by me. But when you look at it, you see why: the GOP base has been treated with utter contempt by the GOP Establishment. Trump is taking the base seriously and speaking to at least some of their real concerns. The GOP – if it doesn’t want Trump to hang around for quite a long time – had better figure out a way to out-Trump the Donald.

400 families are responsible for 50% of all campaign cash raised so far this year. This is what we’re ticked off about, GOP Establishment. I’m hoping that Walker or Jindal keys in on this sort of thing. Robert Reich notes the rising revolt against the Ruling Class from the Progressive point of view – pity there isn’t a Progressive out there who will actually fight the Ruling Class (no, Sanders isn’t fighting anything – all his programs call for more money and power to flow to the Ruling Class to be doled out to the good little Proles who do as they’re told…but he is talking the game of fighting, and that is why he’s drawing support away from Hillary…same way that Trump is drawing support away from Walker, Cruz and Jindal…especially Walker, who really has fought and beaten the Ruling Class). There is 65% of the vote just sitting there for any candidate who will really fight against those who are destroying this nation. We’ll see if anyone wants it.

Over at Ace, Maetenloch has a good article to read on the subject of hunting. Do keep in mind that lions, as such, are merely pests who eat cattle and, some times, humans. They have no economic value to the Africans who live near them and unless there is some economic value created for lions, the locals would probably exterminate them. Sure, tourism to go see the lions does help, but so does hunting to go kill the lions. Probably need both activities to keep the locals willing to tolerate the lions. To bring it closer to home, Nevada charges a bucket of money for the privilege of hunting a Big Horn sheep ($1,200.00 for non-residents, just for the tag!)…so few are the permits issued that if you manage to get one, it is a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing. And if you fail to get a sheep in your hunt, you’re just out of luck. But the money raised by hunting has helped Nevada keep a large, healthy population of sheep in the wild.

Professor makes a post condemning the terrorist group Hamas – student fascists go after him, colleagues head for cover, professor is forced to flee campus. There are people on the left who will destroy all freedom of expression if they can…and for you Progressives out there thinking they won’t come after you, think again…when this sort of thing starts, it is those who hate the most and love oppressing the most who take the lead. You think because you’re a good, little Prog that you’re safe and only bad, old conservatives will feel the heat. Solzhenitsyn had some words for you – “you’ll never believe it until they hiss at you, ‘you’re under arrest!'”.

Never Again?

Leo Pusateri96 Comments

I was watching “Band of Brothers” last week–the episode where the Nazi death camp is discovered.

They (the Nazis) were massacring tens of thousands of people, in a camp located right near their community, right under the noses of those in the community–and they did NOTHING.

After they liberated the camp, the 101st Airborne conscripted the nearby townsfolk to carry all the bodies out of the death camp and to bury them. The people were aghast as they carried out their grisly duty; unaware that such atrocities could occur, right under their noses. They had no answer when interrogated as to why they continued to allow those atrocities to occur.

At some of those death camps, there were even bizarre experiments in dismemberment, disfugurement, and other forms of torture conducted, sometimes on live prisoners.

After WWII, the solemn pledge that arose was the phrase, “NEVER AGAIN!”

NEVER AGAIN! would the world allow such atrocities to occur against a defenseless group of people.

NEVER AGAIN! would the world stand by and do nothing in the face of what is surely evil.

And now, eighty years have passed, and there are now ‘death camps’ scattered all over America, centered mostly in minority urban centers–these death camps are massacring hundreds of thousands of babies every year. These death camps are also known as ‘abortion ‘clinics,’ most commonly known as “Planned Parenthood” clinics. At a goodly portion of these death camps, bizarre and horrific dismemberment and disfigurement of their victims take place for later experimentation and other uses, sometimes perpetrated on born-alive victims.

These atrocities take place right under our noses. And the powers that be do nothing. People literally whistle past the graveyard. Even our own United States Senate, charged with the Constitutional Duty to protect the Right to Life, today refused to remove the mechanism through which these atrocities are funded and are allowed to continue. Even after the atrocities, thanks to the Center for Medical Progress, had been documented on film ad nauseum, the abject cowards in the United States Senate refused to lift a finger to keep these atrocities from continuing.

We who individually and collectively refuse to defend the defenseless can no longer lay claim to live in a blessed nation. I cannot fathom a Creator who would continue to bless his creation for disrespecting and wantonly desecrating that which was made in His own image, and that we were charged to protect.

A moment of Judgment is no doubt coming… one in which our Creator will force US to view and to confront the horrors which we have wrought, and one in which which we will singularly and collectively have to answer the question, “What did YOU do to defend the defiling of My creation?”

I’m afraid my answer will be, “Not enough Lord…not enough.”

Never again?

Leo Pusateri's photo.

The Closed Liberal Mind

Mark Noonan16 Comments

Liberal atheist Camille Paglia has some interesting things to say:

…I’m speaking here as an atheist. I don’t believe there is a God, but I respect every religion deeply. All the great world religions contain a complex system of beliefs regarding the nature of the universe and human life that is far more profound than anything that liberalism has produced. We have a whole generation of young people who are clinging to politics and to politicized visions of sexuality for their belief system. They see nothing but politics, but politics is tiny. Politics applies only to society. There is a huge metaphysical realm out there that involves the eternal principles of life and death. The great tragic texts, including the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles, no longer have the central status they once had in education, because we have steadily moved away from the heritage of western civilization.

The real problem is a lack of knowledge of religion as well as a lack of respect for religion. I find it completely hypocritical for people in academe or the media to demand understanding of Muslim beliefs and yet be so derisive and dismissive of the devout Christian beliefs of Southern conservatives…

Ah, but they don’t demand an understanding of Muslim beliefs. Liberals aren’t asking us to look at the theological basis of Islam. They don’t want us to get an in-depth view of Islamic civilization. They don’t want to discuss the morals and manners of Islam. Islam, to liberals, is just yet another handy club with which to beat the Judeo-Christian West. Muslims have been assigned victim status and thus provide a prop in the liberal morality play. Who Muslims are, what they believe and what the various types of Muslims may want are irrelevant – indeed, it would be dangerous to know, because knowing might wreck the assigned victim status and thus wreck a perfectly good prop. Kudos to Paglia for understanding that her fellow liberals are sitting in the dark condemning the light – but she still fails to fully understand how obscuritanist the left really is. C.S. Lewis, who started out as an atheist, once stated that an atheist cannot be too careful in what he reads – if he’s not careful, he’ll eventually run across something which questions the premise of atheism, and then he’s cooked.

Continue reading →

Getting Back to the Open Thread

Mark Noonan14 Comments

I was working on a good, fantastic, fabulous open thread for Monday Morning – but as I’m on vacation, that didn’t work out…so, here it is, later in the day, and I have some more things I’ve been thinking about.

…The duelists had from their own point of view escaped or conquered the chief powers of the modern world. They had satisfied the magistrate, they had tied the tradesman neck and heels, and they had left the police behind. As far as their own feelings went they had melted into a monstrous sea; they were but the fare and driver of one of the million hansoms that fill London streets. But they had forgotten something; they had forgotten journalism. They had forgotten that there exists in the modern world, perhaps for the first time in history, a class of people whose interest is not that things should happen well or happen badly, should happen successfully or happen unsuccessfully, should happen to the advantage of this party or the advantage of that part, but whose interest simply is that things should happen.

It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions. We announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring posters that a man has not fallen off a scaffolding. Yet this latter fact is fundamentally more exciting, as indicating that that moving tower of terror and mystery, a man, is still abroad upon the earth. That the man has not fallen off a scaffolding is really more sensational; and it is also some thousand times more common. But journalism cannot reasonably be expected thus to insist upon the permanent miracles. Busy editors cannot be expected to put on their posters, “Mr. Wilkinson Still Safe,” or “Mr. Jones, of Worthing, Not Dead Yet.” They cannot announce the happiness of mankind at all. They cannot describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all the marriages that are not judiciously dissolved. Hence the complete picture they give of life is of necessity fallacious; they can only represent what is unusual. However democratic they may be, they are only concerned with the minority… G. K. Chesterton, The Ball and the Cross, Chapter IV.

Trigger Warning: the book was written more than 100 years ago and uses words and phrases which Precious Snowflakes Who Got Awards for Participation may find offensive. But, it is a good read for everyone else. And it pretty much in those two paragraphs demonstrates why paying attention to what the MSM wants you to see is not really wise.

The Chinese stock market crashed 8.5%! That is amazing for one trading day. It would be as if the U.S. stock market shed around 1,500 points in a day. I guess that even with injections of more funny money and the prospect of getting arrested if you sell hasn’t convinced China’s stock market to start going up.

Should Jonathan Pollard be released? Pollard has been in jail for decades. The article notes that Donald Rumsfeld doesn’t want him released – and a lot of people are on Rumsfeld’s side on this. To me, mercy triumphs over justice. Maybe it is time for Pollard to be released? Pollard becomes eligible for parole in November.

The Senate GOP leadership is, well, rather foolish. We know that they are in bed with big corporations and we know that they are largely Establishment drones who just want to go along to get alone (and, of course, so is the Senate Democrat leadership) – so, we know that they want to reauthorize that bit of corporate welfare known as the Export-Import Bank and they want their pork-laden highway bill. We in the base dig all that – and there’s no chance we’d ever actually like the GOP passing such things. But if they were to de-fund Planned Parenthood and take a big swipe at Obama’s Iran deal, we’d better deal with Ex-Im and the Iran deal actually happening. But, nothing doing – the GOP leadership by legislative hard-ball blocked conservative efforts to do both things…and then rammed through re-authorization of Ex-Im on the highway bill. Turns out, though, that the House GOP leadership (which is much more threatened by that tiresome, will-of-the-people thing), isn’t going to play along. Hey, Mitch – here’s a bit of advice: you have to play ball for things to get done. Just throw us a conservative bone once in a while…geesh!

Assad is hunkering down in his section of Syria and essentially writing off the parts controlled by the rebels. The reason for this? Fundamentally, because Syria isn’t a nation. Iraq isn’t a nation, either. Joe Biden caught a lot of flack when he suggested a post-war partition of Iraq, but it was about the only sensible thing he’s ever said. Syria and Iraq were drawn willy-nilly by Anglo-French imperialists in the post-WWI settlement. They are collections of different peoples with, often, very different ideas of what constitutes the good life. They were only held together – and held down – by imperial and dictatorial powers. Partition may be the only viable solution.

Governor Bruce Rauner (R-IL) is locked in a battle with the State’s government unions – who, of course, control the State Democrat party. This is a re-do of the battle in Wisconsin, but Rauner lacks a legislative majority as Walker had. The fundamental situation is the same – a bankrupt State government faces out of control spending forced through by government unions and their willing minions in elective office. It is either reform, or collapse – but the unions don’t care and insist the only way to go is more taxes and more spending. But Rauner isn’t backing down – and I’m certain that the Democrats/Unions will pull out all the stops. They have to. It was bad enough they were crushed in Wisconsin where the whole government was in Republican hands – but if they get crushed in Illinois where the Democrats control the Legislature, then it is game over for the government unions, and thus the whole idea of Big Government at the State level. Keep and eye on this one – and if Rauner pulls it off, pencil him in for 2024 (if the GOP wins next year) or 2020 (if it loses).

Another Monday Comes

Mark Noonan

We just can’t avoid them, now can we?

Seems that whole economy things still isn’t working out as well as promised.

ObamaCare – the disaster that keeps on disasting:

State-run health insurance markets that offer coverage under President Barack Obama’s health law are struggling with high costs and disappointing enrollment…

…”The viability of state health insurance exchanges has been a challenge across the country, particularly in small states, due to insufficient numbers of uninsured residents,” said a statement from the office of Hawaii Democratic Gov. David Ige, announcing last month that his state’s sign-ups were being turned over to the federal government. (emphasis added)

Insufficient numbers of uninsured residents? But, wait – weren’t we told of tens of millions of uninsured who were all going to die horrible, painful deaths unless we passed ObamaCare? Could it be that – and I’m just spit balling here – they exaggerated the numbers of uninsured in order to create a crisis which they would not let go to waste?

Democrats Memory Hole Jefferson and Jackson

Mark Noonan7 Comments

It started as a bit of a Twitter joke in the wake of the Charleston shooting – if Democrats wanted to get rid of the (Democrat) Confederate battle flag, then they’d better stop having their Jefferson-Jackson dinners because Jefferson and Jackson both owned slaves. Well, nothing is too silly for our Democrats:

Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson are history in Connecticut.

Under pressure from the NAACP, the state Democratic Party will scrub the names of the two presidents from its annual fundraising dinner because of their ties to slavery.

Party leaders voted unanimously Wednesday night in Hartford to rename the Jefferson Jackson Bailey dinner in the aftermath of last month’s fatal shooting of nine worshipers at the historic black church in Charleston, S.C.

There is some discussion out there in the left about how to re-name the event, one suggestion being the FDR-JFK dinner.

Our Democrats in 2015 cannot even pretend to honor the United States of America. It is just impossible – there are too many people in America’s past who don’t live up to whatever is the latest notion of the Progressives. The complexities of human life just don’t matter – unless you are a true-blue Progressive on board with 100% of whatever the latest Progressive Twitter hashtag is about, you are out. And if you were born 200 years before Twitter, that is just too darned bad. Trust me on this, flaws will be found in FDR and JFK – heck, the mere fact that they were white males will eventually doom them in the Progressive pantheon. Just wait for an official demand from some Progressive group to have our capital re-named because Washington also owned slaves…and calling it the District of Columbia will also have to go.

The key for us is to just highlight this sort of nonsense. Point it out. Let the LIV know.

Out and About on a Wednesday

Mark Noonan6 Comments

Attorney General Lynch says she will look into those videos of Planned Parenthood looking for “less crunchy” ways of carrying out an abortion. The question remains whether she’ll be looking for criminal activity on the part of Planned Parenthood, or will be out to get the makers of the videos.

Governor Brown (D-Peoples Democratic Republic of California), says global warming threatens human extinction. As soon as he calls for a ban on limos, private jets and beach houses larger than 1,000 square feet, I’ll take him seriously.

Our new Partners for Peace in Tehran say they will buy whatever arms they want.

If you ever thought there was a bottom to the well of Progressive silliness, you were wrong.

Perry rips into Trump. He has to. First off, as a matter of principal: Trump is simply not the man who will win the White House for the Republican party. Secondly, as a matter of electoral politics – he’s an also-ran so far in the GOP sweepstakes and he has to gain some traction. Attacking Walker or Cruz will work against him (their supporters might be angered), attacking Bush and Christy is boring – we already know he’s not on board with them. Attack Trump and you get noticed.

Hillary Clinton is polling just terrible in the swing States. Before you get too excited, I understand the polling sample over-states Republican numbers – but, still, with 99.99% name recognition Hillary is down 9 points against Walker, who probably doesn’t have 50% name recognition in, for instance, Colorado. She’s a giant on weak legs.

I really don’t know what to say about the Bland case – woman gets stopped for failure to signal (with, I guess, also doing a rolling stop at a stop sign) and it escalates into her being arrested and then dying in prison – officially by suicide but the full investigation isn’t close to done. The only bit of wisdom I can impart is to wait until the investigation is complete before rendering anything like a judgement on it.

In the Fundamental Transformation department – newly sworn citizens don’t have to swear to bear arms in defense of the United States. It makes sense – after all, some of the people becoming citizens might not want to defend the United States; why inconvenience them with something as trivial as being loyal to the nation they voluntarily immigrated to?

List of the 20 cities Americans are fleeing from in droves. Oddly enough, a lot of them appear to be governed by Democrats. Shouldn’t people be moving into Democrat governed areas? I mean, they really care about the little guy and have the best solutions for all of us, right?