Tag Archives: Trump

Bob Dylan to the Establishment: “It ain’t me babe” (redux)

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Note to readers: I published this right after Robert Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan, won the Nobel Prize for Literature eight years ago. You’ll see that it has some relevance to current events. (This year’s winner, just announced, is someone named Han Kang. I’m sure she’s very good, but I’ve never heard of her. But I don’t read many books – too many words!)

The establishment got spanked. Here’s the story:

Some old geezers in Scandinavia are very proud of some prizes they give. They call them “Nobel Prizes.”

The prize comes in several flavors. The “Peace Prize,” for example, is awarded by Norwegian politicians. They give it to other politicians they like.

One year they gave it to a guy who said he invented the internet, then lost an election for United States president, then refused to accept the election results, then threw the country into chaos for a month, then lost in the courts, and then got rich inventing global warming.

Another year they gave it to an American president who succeeded in getting elected and nothing else (I suppose they had to give him one for getting elected after giving one to the earlier guy for failing to get elected) and who later succeeded in escalating but not winning a war in Afghanistan, which is now the longest-running war in American history.

One year they gave their Peace Prize to a Palestinian terrorist.

There’s also a Nobel Prize for “literature” for the person they deem the planet’s best writer. This one is given by an obscure club of 18 lousy writers in Sweden. They call themselves the Swedish Academy. Everyone else calls them “Who?”

Their motto sounds like an advertisement for a suburban dinner theater: “Talent and Taste.” (I’m not making that up.)

This year, they gave their Nobel Prize for literature to Bob Dylan. Or at least they tried. Seems Bob wouldn’t return their phone calls.

Bob has a history of bucking the establishment. He was born Robert Zimmerman in a small Minnesota town. He learned some acoustic guitar and taught himself the harmonica. He changed his name, went to Greenwich Village and made a new name for himself as a folk singer. Hippies liked him.

Then he decided to plug the guitar in. The hippies went berserk, even without their drugs. Overnight, their cheers turned to boos just because Bob had tried something new.

Hippies were like that. They always wanted you to be new and different, but only if you did it their old-and-same way.

Bob survived being ostracized by the hippies for being different. On the sheer strength of his creative talent (not so much his singing voice) he became truly great.

The hippies eventually grew up, or at least older, and became liberals watching public television fundraisers showing Peter, Paul and Mary singing saccharine versions of Bob’s songs about ’60s protests that they never actually participated in.

And then Bob threw another switch. In middle age, he became a Christian.

Like the hippies earlier, the liberals went berserk. Christianity is for hicks, they believed, not for Bob and other sophisticates like themselves.

Later still, Bob defended Israel’s right to defend itself. The liberals, now rebranded as politically correct “progressives,” didn’t like that, either. Bullies never like people who believe in defense.

Nobel Prize announcements are watched almost as closely as “American Idol” and the Swedes know it. So this year they grandiloquently proclaimed that Bob had “created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

Huh? What are “poetic expressions”? Is that a wooly phrase for “poetry”? Anyway, I told you they were lousy writers.

That evening, Bob gave one of the hundreds of concerts that he still gives at age 75. He made no mention of his big prize. And for a month he still wouldn’t return the Swedes’ phone calls.

The Swedes got mad— for Swedes, anyway. One said Bob’s refusal to acknowledge this prize that he never asked for was “an unprecedented situation” and called him “impolite and arrogant.”

I already told you twice that they’re lousy writers. But they do have a talent and taste for unintentional irony. If they want to avoid “unprecedented situations,” then maybe they should give their little prize for creativity to someone less creative.

As for “arrogance,” it’s this self-appointed committee of hacks, not Bob, who presume to judge the world’s best writing. And then when Bob refuses to acknowledge their judgment, they presume to whine, “Just who does he think he is?”

Here’s who. He’s an independent thinker who is unwilling to allow himself to be used by establishmentarian prigs seeking to award themselves the authority to decide what is good.

Eventually, Bob returned their calls. And he says he’ll show up for the big ceremony, “if it’s at all possible.”

Bob being Bob, it sounds like he’ll have a concert to give that night instead. Even bad Swedish writers would recognize the symbolism.

In other symbolic news about the establishment, the dishonest, self-dealing insider whom the establishment hand picked to be the next president lost to a businessman who builds things.

The times, it seems, they are a-changin’.

Hey, this election is not about your precious feelings!

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The choices in this election are evidently Donald Trump and Not-Donald Trump. Nobody is voting for Trump’s chimeric, charlatanic opponent, but many are voting against Trump.

Those Against-Trump voters fall into three camps.

Camp 1 comprises people who genuinely disagree with Trump on the issues. I think these voters are mostly wrong, but I grudgingly respect them. At least they’re analyzing the issues, even though they’re coming to the wrong conclusion.

So, OK . . .

  • If they think Trump is wrong to tighten up the southern border;
  • If they think Trump is wrong to extend the tax cuts (which disproportionately benefited middle- and low-income Americans);
  • If they think Trump is wrong to keep nukes out of the hands of the Ayatollahs;
  • If they think Trump is wrong to encourage oil and gas production at home at reasonable prices and under stringent environmental safeguards rather than in places like Russia and Venezuela where they produce it dirtily and then sell it to us expensively;
  • If they think Trump’s economy of 1.4% inflation and low unemployment was bad compared to much higher inflation and unemployment under his successor;
  • If they think Trump is wrong to oppose racial discrimination in hiring and in college admissions; and
  • If they think Trump is wrong in his desire to slim down the Federal government;

. . . then I think they’re mistaken. But if they believe those things, then they’re probably right to vote against Trump. I say “probably” because it’s hard to be certain that Trump’s opponent is in their camp, since she waffles daily and hides her positions (with the aid of a complicit, biased media).

Camp 2 of Against-Trump voters are those who sincerely believe he’s a “threat to democracy.” I have a bit less respect for those voters because I think they’re being melodramatic rather than analytic.

Some of them are at least sincere and are voting the way they think serves the country. Others, however, are just parroting the “threat to democracy” line to rationalize their true reasons for being against Trump, namely that they are in Camp 1 or 3.

As for the threat Trump poses to democracy, Camp 2 points to Trump’s action and inaction on Jan. 6, 2021. Indeed, it was not his finest hour.

But the notion that we almost lost the Republic that day – to a hooligan in a buffalo-horn hat and his unarmed sidekicks who made a ruckus and swiped some souvenirs from the Capitol Building – is overblown, at best. Note that the Supreme Court ultimately decided that the gross offenders were grossly overcharged by the Democrat prosecutors, and the Court threw out the most serious charges.

This Camp 2 also points to Trump’s personality. Bellicose is perhaps a word to describe it. In a prior life, the guy had fun with a reality TV show where his punch line was “You’re fired!” In a more serious vein, Trump has bragged that he fired people right and left in his first administration.

Sometimes people do need to be fired. But good bosses don’t relish firing people. Moreover, a boss who frequently fires people should be looking a bit at his own failings in hiring and supervising such people to begin with.

But none of that makes Trump a “threat to democracy.” If you want to talk seriously about a threat to democracy, then talk about an administration that:

  • Refuses to physically protect to its political opponents;
  • Routinely characterizes its opponents as “threats” to the nation;
  • Calls for a “bullseye” to be put on its opponents;
  • Pressures media outlets to censor news and opinions they don’t like;
  • Hides the encroaching senility of the Democrat President, acknowledges it only when they get caught, and then replaces him behind the scenes with a woman who helped hide his senility to begin with and has never won a Democrat delegate in her life – while they still keep the senile President in the office of “Leader of the Free World” even as they acknowledge that he’s too senile to run for that office;
  • Seeks to put skin color ahead of merit in hiring and college admissions;
  • Frequently compares their opponents to Nazis:
  • Repeatedly overreaches in legal matters to the point that their court record on challenges is abysmal;
  • Refuses to follow Supreme Court rulings, and slams the Court as “illegitimate.”

In other words, talk about the Democrats.

That brings us to Camp 3. These are the voters I respect least, even though they’re the most amiable on the surface. These are the voters who mostly agree with Trump on the issues, but they simply don’t like his personality.

Trump is certainly not a slickster. He didn’t even graduate at the bottom of his law school class like the current Delaware beach bum and sometimes Oval Office occupant. In fact, he never went to law school at all. I doubt he even knows how to say “Pass the sweet-and-sour shrimp.”

But despite, or perhaps because of, all those things, I have a hunch that I might like the guy in person.

On the other hand, if I wouldn’t, so what? We’re not electing Homecoming Queen. We’re electing someone to preserve and enhance the interests of America and the world.

The left knows that. That’s why they hate Trump. It’s because he protects the interests of the country and culture they hate: America and Western Civilization. (If they lived in Africa or Southeast Asia, they’d hate them too, but that’s another column.)

If you’ve read this far, you’re not a leftist. But maybe it makes you feel good to join the left in voting against a person you find tacky and bellicose – someone you deem beneath you in social graces, polish, and good hair – even though he protects American and Western interests. Well, fine.

But actually, not fine at all. The price for your personal feel-goodery is to put our people, our nation, our civilization, and our world, at risk. This election is about something bigger than your feelings.

As for those who will vote neither for nor against Trump, my question is this: Do you really think Trump and his opponent are exactly equally bad at protecting our country and culture? Are you seriously contending that you graded them out on the issues and each of them came to a grade of, say, 73.41?

C’mon, man. You know which came out higher. Your refusal to vote for him is an exercise in virtue-signaling to yourself and others.

But this isn’t about you and your virtue and your signals. Get over yourself, and do the smart thing. The world is at stake.

Haitians eat cats and mud – the only question is where

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Two countries share the Caribbean island that is called Hispaniola. The west side is Haiti. The east side is Dominican Republic. The latter shares practically nothing with the former except that island, but it’s racist to point that out.

“Failed state” is an understatement to describe Haiti. It’s one of the poorest, most dangerous places on earth. You can scarcely call it a nation. Gangs run the government. It’s been eight years since the last election in Haiti. But no matter; the elections are all rigged anyway.

The State Department has honored Haiti with a “Level 4 Do Not Travel” advisory. That’s the worst advisory they give. It puts Haiti in the company of Iran and North Korea. Quotes from the advisory are fun reading, such as:

*Carjackers attack private vehicles stuck in traffic. They often target lone drivers, especially women.

 *Crimes involving firearms are common in Haiti. They include robbery, carjackings, sexual assault, and kidnappings for ransom. Kidnapping is widespread.

*Shortages of gasoline, electricity, medicine, and medical supplies are common throughout the country.

*U.S. government personnel are subjected to a nightly curfew and are prohibited from walking in Port-au-Prince. U.S. government personnel in Haiti are also prohibited from:

  • Using any kind of public transportation or taxis. 
  • Visiting banks and using ATMs. 
  • Driving at night. 
  • Traveling anywhere after dark. 
  • Traveling without prior approval and special security measures in place.Subscribed

Haiti makes Chicago by comparison look like . . . well, forget it. Nothing could make Chicago look any better, not even hell itself.

Haiti was the site of an earthquake about 15 years ago. It seems impossible, but the earthquake made things even worse. And so for a time thereafter, upper-class, liberal, white, American do-gooders made a fetish of going there to do good, or at least feel good. I can remember them to this day: “Dahhling, you really MUST go to Haiti! Those two weeks were literally spiritual for me (not in a literal sense, mind you). It made me an even better person!“

The US sends Haiti billions of dollars in aid. Despite all that free money, the place remains the crotch of humanity.

Fox Butterfield, is that you?

A staple of the Haitian diet is mud cakes. That’s not a charming name for a foreign food, such as “bangers and mash.” And it’s not a magical name for food that might be tasty apart from what it is, such as “haggis” or “Rocky Mountain oysters.” Mud cakes are cakes of mud – dried clay to be specific. The nutrient value is accursed, but they do heal your hunger, or at least fill you up.

You see, roughly half of the Haitian population goes hungry. This country in the tropics with good soil is unable to conjure up enough food for its own people.

Apart from mud cakes, they also eat pets. When the alternative is mud cakes, who wouldn’t?

Hunger is not the only reason they eat pets. Another reason is that their religion calls for it. About half the population of Haiti practice various forms of Voodoo, an odd theatrical religion drawing from the worst of African paganism with a touch of Roman Catholicism. Zombies are at home in Voodoo. So is spell-casting. So are skeletons.

So is animal sacrifice – it’s one of the standard rituals of Voodoo. When it comes to the species of animal, they’re flexible. It’s whatever can’t outrun them. Goats, deer, racoons, sheep, lizards, cats, dogs, etc.

After the animal is sacrificed, its remains are consumed by the entranced attendees of the ritual. It’s either that or mud cakes. If they aren’t eating cats in Haiti as you read this, it’s only because they already ate them all.

A little town in Ohio named Springfield has a lot of recent Haitian immigrants. Given that there are about 11 million Haitians still in Haiti, the good people of Springfield can expect more. Many of these immigrants are from Port au Prince, shown above, a place that is to princes what Rocky Mountain oysters are to oysters.

A few reports surfaced recently that the Haitian immigrants to Springfield are satisfying their hunger and practicing their religion in the manner of their culture: They are catching, killing and eating people’s pets.

The reaction of the liberal media was predictable. “Noooo waaaay!” they exclaimed in unison.

The notion that Haitians in Springfield were doing what Haitians do in Haiti was objectionable to the liberal media for at least three reasons. One, it was Donald Trump who mentioned it.

Two, the allegation suggested that the culture of some immigrants might be different than the culture of typical Americans. That’s taboo, unless the differences make the immigrants better, not worse.

Three, Haitians happen to be Black, or at least black. (When they’re foreigners, are they Black or just black? I’ll consult the AP Stylebook and get back to you.) The liberal media thus simultaneously judged Haitian religious animal sacrifice to be a bad thing, and contended that Haitians don’t engage in it, because, after all, they’re b(B)lack so they wouldn’t do such a bad thing. Not that it’s bad, at least when it’s done by b(B)lacks.

To contend otherwise makes a person racist. The definition of racism today is being critical of a person with dark skin. It doesn’t matter whether the criticism has anything to do with the person’s dark skin.

For that matter, it doesn’t even have to be a criticism. Simply making a factual observation about people that is deemed to reflect badly on them is deemed racist if they have dark skin.

Observing that the b(B)lack murder rate in America is seven-times the white murder rate, is racist. Observing that the b(B)lack illegitimacy rate in America is 72% is racist. And observing that Haitians in Haiti sacrifice and eat cats and dogs is racist.

The media therefore rejected these reports that Haitians love dogs and cats (“Taste like chicken!”). They said there was “no evidence” that the reports were true.

But in a court of law, reports themselves are evidence. Standing alone, they might not be definitive proof, but they’re certainly evidence.

Then the media escalated to hyperbole in proclaiming that the spooky reports were not only unevidenced, but “false.” Devilry, those reports are.

To conclude that the reports are “false” without any evidence that they’re false – but merely a lack of definitive evidence that they’re true – does violence to the legal principles of evidence. It’s witchcraft. It’s like saying the allegation that OJ Simpson committed murder is “false” because he was acquitted. And because he was acquitted, there’s “no evidence” that he was guilty.

But I’ll leave all that for another column. Today’s column points are (1) Haitians in Haiti commonly eat cats and dogs for bad reasons of religion and good reasons of hunger, (2) the Haitian immigrants in Springfield probably didn’t leave their religion back in Haiti, (3) the Haitians probably didn’t leave their hunger back in Haiti either, (4) the cats and dogs of Springfield are readily available, and (5) cats and dogs are tastier and more nutritious than mud cakes, or so I’m told.

You can connect the dots, but that would be racist.

Are the Democrats trying to assassinate President Trump, or are they just rooting for it?

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Shortly after Donald Trump was inaugurated after the 2016 election, a so-called comedienne posted a picture of herself holding Trump’s severed, bloodied head. That apparently passes for comedy among Democrats.

In a presentation of Julius Caesar in the venerable Shakespeare in the Park production in New York City a few months later, a likeness of Trump was cast in the role of Caesar. I don’t need to remind you what happens to Caesar in the end.

The violent rhetoric from Democrats just keeps on coming, through Trump’s first term, into this year’s re-election campaign, and right up to weeks before the election. And now, it’s predictably escalating from violent rhetoric and into violent acts.

A month ago, a would-be assassin missed Trump’s cranium by a quarter-inch with a bullet from an AR-15, only because Trump luckily turned at the last possible second. It came out that the Trump campaign had requested beefed-up security prior to the incident, and the White House had denied his request.

The Secret Service at the time was headed by a DEI hire, and the agents at the event were test-failing amateurs. They allowed the shooter within 130 yards of Trump on an unsecured rooftop. Even after they saw him there, with a gun, they failed to take him out and failed to alert Trump or his staff until he’d fired eight shots, killing one man, seriously wounding another, and grazing Trump’s ear.  

In an apparent admission of near-lethal negligence by the Service, five agents were later suspended.

Their replacements seem not much better. In yesterday’s attempt, a Democrat donor got within easy range of Trump on a golf course with a rifle equipped with a high-powered scope. The shooter was wearing a Go-Pro, apparently to post his assassination on YouTube where Democrats everywhere could cheer it. He was thwarted only because he was foolish enough to poke his rifle out of the bushes, where an agent happened to see it.

The shooter had been on the golf course for at least 12 hours. One must wonder, how did he know Trump’s golfing schedule at least 12 hours in advance?

Even now, after two assassination attempts that missed due only to incredible luck or Providence, President Trump is not afforded the level of protection that President Biden or even Vice President Harris receives.

Most recently, President Doofus again falsely accused Trump of saying that neo-Nazis are “fine people” even though that accusation has been thoroughly debunked even by leftist fact-checkers.

Kamala Harris repeated the lie in her debate with Trump – and was not corrected by the moderators even though the moderators purported to correct at least seven Trump statements (some of which were not factual claims, but mere opinions).

You might think the mainstream media would condemn these assassination attempts in the strongest words possible. But if you do think that, then you haven’t been paying attention to the mainstream media for the last ten years.

The mainstream media is implying – no, they’re outright stating – that Trump has all this coming because he’s a Republican who says nasty things. The Washington Post has already dismissed the assassination attempt and has framed it instead as Trump unfairly capitalizing on the incident politically.

The media take their cue from Biden and Harris. They routinely equate Trump with Adolf Hitler, the mass murderer of millions.

The Democrats let their rank and file connect the dots: Everyone has been taught, correctly, that killing Hitler would have been a heroic act that would have saved millions. So, the Democrats don’t exactly say “kill Trump” but they do suggest you’d be a hero if you did.

Donald Trump’s anger might not take him any further

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When I was a kid, I had a bad temper. I suppose in today’s psychobabble, they would say I had an “anger-management issue” and perhaps they would give me drugs, a handicapped parking pass, and special privileges. But back in the day, I was just a kid with a temper.

One summer day when I was about 11, when my parents weren’t home, my brother and sister locked me out of the house for reasons I don’t remember (but they were probably good ones).

A back door to the house was sliding glass. This was before modern safety glass or double-pane windows. It was a simple un-tempered sliding glass door.

In a fit of anger, I kicked it. Not just with my toe, but with a big round-house kick. It felt good to see it tremble and shake, so I did it again, harder.

It broke. Sheets of jagged glass fell straight across my extended leg. I was wearing shorts.

I was lucky the glass didn’t cut my leg off. As it was, a big razor-sharp glass sheet penetrated well over an inch into my calf through a four-inch incision. In the gaping wound, I could see the fat layer and, beneath it, the red muscle tissue. I screamed in horror and pain.

My sister grabbed a towel, and we threw it around my leg. She ran across the street to ask a neighbor for help. I limped to his car and he casually chatted as he drove me to the ER. When I emerged from surgery an hour later, the neighbor was white, for he’d been told in the meantime about the severity of my injury.

Fortunately, the glass missed the artery, though there was plenty of blood. It did cut a nerve to my foot and left me without feeling on one side of my foot for a few months. To this day, that side of my foot has a funky sensation.

That evening, my father came home from work as usual.

Father: “I hear your temper got the best of you today.”

Me: “Yeah.”

That was it, and we never spoke of it again. I still lose my cool occasionally – most men do – but that’s the last time I can remember that my anger drove me into doing something dangerously stupid.

Anger is a powerful force. Channeled strategically by high-testosterone men storming the beaches of Normandy, it can save the world. Used less-strategically, it can destroy it – and them.

There’s a place for anger in politics. Like a lot of people today, I’m angry. Like a lot of people today, I want to kick the glass doors of our government, media, universities, and big businesses for their censorship, their racial discrimination, their wokeness, their antisemitism, and their incompetence.

Like a lot of people today, I like a candidate who feels similar anger. That’s why I voted for Donald Trump in 2016, again in 2020, and will again in 2024. He’s angry about the right things for the right reasons.

But anger has its limits. The boys storming Normandy had anger, and they sure as hell kicked in the glass door of Hitler’s house, but they weren’t just kicking a glass door.

Those boys also had a careful plan that was devised over months of thought, analysis and discussion by brilliant professionals like General Dwight D. Eisenhower. There were plans, counterplans, contingency plans, a retreat plan, and even a failure plan. Eisenhower himself drafted a mea culpa taking complete responsibility for the effort in case it failed.

Donald Trump has done a ton of good for America, but his anger is reaching the limits of its effectiveness. On Tuesday, he seemed to be kicking glass doors that weren’t even locked.

That appeals to a lot of people, including me in some circumstances. But it turns off women, who are often frightened by a man’s anger. And it turns off unengaged independent and moderate voters. You may despise such people, but they’re the ones who decide elections.

I’ll vote for Trump again, as I’ve already said. But I don’t expect him to win, and I don’t expect any Eisenhower-type mea culpa from him when he loses. Anger has its limits.

Joe Biden’s quiet quit

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The latest craze among lazy people is “quiet quitting.” That means they quit working, but don’t tell their company. By doing it that way, they continue to collect their paychecks.

It’s easy to “quiet quit” in an age when objective measures of productivity are out of fashion because they reflect badly on bad employees whose feelings must be spared, and it’s especially easy when employees “work” from home.

In my opinion, it’s theft.

Which brings us to Joe Biden. Joe was never exactly a workaholic. To get elected, he did a virtual campaign from the basement of his Delaware house. The poodle press permitted him to get away with that under the pretense of COVID but it was really because . . .

ORANGE MAN BAD!

Early in the first and only term of his presidency, Joe routinely worked 30-hour weeks. It’s common knowledge that he spent about 40% of his time back at that Delaware beach house.

From that low baseline, he’s descended still further after being defenestrated from the 2024 race by the three Y’s – Nancy, Barry and Kammy. (More about them later.)

I would say Joe is pouting, but he seems to lack the energy for even that. He has simply checked out.

Let’s look at his schedule for the last couple of weeks. For that, we have the venerable non-partisan newspaper “Roll Call” which keeps tabs on such things based on the White House official reports.

Last week, Joe did nothing all week, except “receive the President’s Daily Brief” each day. The official reports don’t mention whether he was awake for those briefings, or was in his briefs for those briefings.

Even the daily briefs didn’t happen on Saturday or Sunday when, apparently, nothing happens in the world that is worth mentioning to the Leader of the Free World.

The prior week he did do something. On Monday of that week, he shouted at the teleprompter in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. His shouting was pushed back to 11 pm, in order to minimize the number of people watching it.

That’s way past Joe’s bedtime, so then he immediately jetted off to wine country in Napa Valley where he recuperated for the rest of the week at the 8,000-acre estate of a rich Democrat donor. He did nothing at all the whole rest of the week other than to “receive” those daily briefings. And once again, he didn’t even do any brief “receiving” on Saturday or Sunday.

The office of the President of the United States is notoriously difficult and arduous. It’s often described as the hardest job in the world, at least when performed committedly.

Joe is not performing the job committedly. He’s barely performing it at all.

Speaking of the Y’s, it’s been reported that they collectively threatened Joe with invoking the 25th Amendment if he continued his refusal to drop out of the 2024 race. That’s the Amendment that allows the President’s Cabinet to report to Congress that he’s physically or mentally unable to perform the duties of office. It requires the Vice President’s sign-off.

As the sitting Vice President, Kammy evidently was part of this palace coup that told Joe he must go, so that she could take his place, else they’d rat him out to Congress on the grounds of 25th Amendment unfitness.

But recall that Kammy was telling people simultaneously that Joe was sharp as a tack – and still is, notwithstanding his quiet quitting.

So, which is it? If Joe was unfit for office, as Kammy and her gang threatened to tell Congress in order to leverage him out the window and onto the White House lawn, then she has lied to the American people by stating that he was sharp as a tack. Moreover, Joe’s continued employment as the President while he’s unfit for office puts the nation and world at risk.

On the other hand, if he is indeed sharp as a tack, as she has contended all along, then her threat to falsely invoke the 25th Amendment so that she could replace him was probably an illegal blackmail – and perhaps an impeachable offense.

An honest media would ask Kammy, “Did you go along with threatening the President with the 25th Amendment while you were telling the American people that he was sharp as a tack?”

But alas, we do not have an honest media.

Here we go again with that hopey-changey scam

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Barack Obama was elected in 2008 on his vague promise of “hope and change.” It was a shrewd strategy. He played into Americans’ perpetual dissatisfaction with their elected officials. Who doesn’t want change in the political system, and what better thing to hope for?

Moreover, by running mostly on a slogan, he became an empty vessel for people to fill with their individual hankerings. If you hoped that college would be changed to make it tuition free, then Obama’s your man because, after all, he did promise hope and change. If you hoped your dad would change his criminal ways, then Obama’s your man because, after all, he did promise hope and change. If you hoped the Burger King down the street would change to a Chipotle, then Obama’s your man because, after all, he did promise hope and change.

You get the idea.

When Obama was elected, he promptly declared it was the start of a “fundamental transformation” in America. Once again, he kept everyone happy (well, not me) because he wasn’t specific. We had to wait and see.

It all worked for Obama, for long enough. He did fundamentally change America. For the worse, in my opinion. But he did change it.

You might wonder how Obama got away with a campaign so short on particulars. Why didn’t the press ask him for some?

Two reasons. First, the press wanted a Black man to be elected President and would settle for a half-Black one who “identified” as all Black. Indeed, they liked it better that way because this crowd is scared of fully Black men who have left the Democrat plantation. (See, Thomas, Clarence and Sowell, Thomas)

I voted against Obama for reasons having nothing to do with his race. It was because he looked far too liberal to me. His race was actually a positive for me. On election eve in 2008, I felt a bit of pride that America had elected a Black man to be President. What an opportunity for healing, I naively dreamed.

Second, the press even back in 2008 was overwhelmingly liberal, and, despite Obama’s vague campaign, they could see that he was too. People who hang with the Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers are plenty liberal if not downright radical.

These two factors set the stage for the press’s most obvious and shameless bias since the days of Franklin Roosevelt – when we had a world war to win. Because in the minds of the press, we had another world war to win.

Kamala Harris is trotting out Version 2.0 of Hope and Change. Of course she can’t call it that, since Obama owns that empty phrase and, besides, promising “change” sounds funny from someone whose distance away from the presidency the last four years was just a heartbeat, and a very feeble one at that.  

And even she is smart enough not to make a dramatic multicolored poster of herself like the one Obama traded on, pictured above. That’s sui generis. (Art, not so much.)

So . . . she ginned up something similar to “Hope and Change.” It’s “Joy.” We’re told her campaign is full of “joy.” Who dislikes joy?

“Donald Trump, that’s who!” is their punch line.

Just so that we don’t confuse joy with governing, maybe we should have a British-style monarchy where the monarch gets tasked with “joy” while the Prime Minister gets tasked with governing.

The reason for Kamala’s joy is that she looks forward to a future “unburdened by the past.” In other words, don’t judge her by her words and actions in the past, including the past four years. Instead, judge her by the words and actions you imagine her speaking and doing in the future. Anyone who dredges up her words and deeds of the past is not unburdened by the past and is a real killjoy.

Like Obama 16 years ago, she won’t spoil what you imagine her saying and doing in the future with any contradictory words today. Since she became the putative Democratic nominee a month ago, she has not held a single press conference and has not sat for a single interview.

It’s working. As in 2008, the press is mostly in the bag. They’ve half-heartedly criticized her for her metaphorical basement campaign, but you get the sense that what they’re craving are not answers to hard questions, but clicks. They want a press conference not to inform the public – they’ll make sure to make it a Press Conference Lite – but to motivate people to tune in to them and their lame questions.

That’s because, as in 2008, but even more so 16 years later, they want another Black president – this time a Black woman. And once again they’ll settle for one that’s only half-Black. In fact, they prefer it that way, since, as mentioned, fully Black people scare this crowd.

And, as in 2008, they are confident that Kamala is very liberal. Ridiculously so, to the point that even they cannot stop themselves from noting the absurdity of some of her proposals like federal price controls on groceries. (Hot dogs will cost only $0.14, but you have to stand in line two hours to get them – and don’t you dare complain, comrade.)

Soviet-style price controls on groceries aside, the press know that Kamala is in the bag for the left – meaning them – just as they are in the bag for her.

Will it work again? Probably. And then we’ll have Version 2.0 of “Fundamental Transformation.”

The left likes all this transforming, of course. But I sense that it leaves them unsatisfied. They want the transforming, but they’re disappointed that it seems to be happening in a peaceful sort of way, mostly. What fun is a revolution if no heads roll?

But the left typically overplays its hand. They don’t resort to conflict as a means of achieving change; they seek change as a way of provoking conflict. There’s still time for Version 2.0 to crash.

Kamala is not as stupid as advertised

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In the death throes of his presidency (at least) Joe Biden threw his DEI hire, Kamala Harris, to the back of the bus. Then off it. And then under it.

The Worst President Ever promised/threatened that if he were to withdraw from the 2024 race, his $200,000,000 in campaign funds, plus or minus, would go to her.

Left unsaid was what everyone knew: She’d waste it because she was unelectable.

Joe’s threat became less threatening as time went on and campaign donors went away. Moreover, his physical state became shakier, as did his mental state. Everyone could see it. Even the poodle media like WaPo and NYT, which had covered for him just months earlier, were forced to acknowledge his state and their lie.

Kamala became what might be called in baseball “a late-inning substitution.” Or maybe they would call her “a closer.” If she succeeds, she gets the “save.” She’ll be a “saver” for the Democrats, and perhaps even a savior.

She may well succeed.

President Trump dismisses her as “not very smart.” In a literal sense, he’s right. She’s not very smart.

But Trump uses “not very smart” to mean “stupid.” In that, I think he’s wrong. She’s not as stupid as advertised. For example, she’s not as stupid as Vice President Dan Quayle was deemed to be (and neither was Dan Quayle).

Her Indian mother received a PhD in endocrinology from UC Berkeley. Her Jamaican father was an economics professor at Stanford. I know you’re not supposed to say this, but she comes from pretty good stock.

She earned a law degree from UC Hastings, the tenth-best law school in California according to US News and World Report. She should have gotten into a better school, given her parents’ academic connections, but she did get in and did graduate (sans honors).

Upon graduating, flunking the bar, and then passing it, Harris became a government employee, and has been one ever since. She started as a prosecutor in San Francisco, and was not a bad one. Although she pledged never to seek the death penalty in a case – and kept that promise – she defended the California death penalty in a court challenge, as her position required. She was considered fairly tough on criminals. She pushed for higher bail for violent ones, and issued citations against the parents of truant students for failing to get their kids to school. 

She dated a well-connected California politician who was 31 years her senior named Willie Brown. He obligingly appointed her to several state government positions. She ultimately wormed her way up to the position of Attorney General of California, and then was elected United States Senator.

She gets difficulty points for those high acrobatic positions, even if no style points.  

Her 2020 presidential campaign flopped before the year 2020 began. But give her credit. Four years later, she’s the Democratic candidate. She’s done that without having won a single delegate, ever. She has now jockeyed herself into a close race with former President Trump.

For a person who lost humiliatingly four years ago and got thrown under the bus this year, she’s done alright. She’s in the Big Leagues.

Her policies? To me as a conservative, most of them are terrible. But since when do American voters bother to evaluate policies? It’s about politics, not principles.

In politics, she’s far more clever than the guy currently in the Oval Office basement, because she’s far smarter.

Here’s an illustration. She decided this week not to choose as her running mate the governor of Pennsylvania, a must-win state for her.

The reason Harris passed over him is that he’s Jewish and has been outspoken in his defense of Israel against the barbarian invaders. The governor’s religion and his outspokenness have earned him the contempt of the well-funded terrorist sympathizers in the Democratic Party.

Harris thus showed an abhorrent willingness to compromise principles in order to pander to antisemitism, but also showed a remarkable political shrewdness in doing so.

She might not be very smart, but she’s plenty crafty.

Does JD’s wife know he’s a racist?

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President Trump’s pick for his running mate, JD Vance, is a little hard to criticize. His mom in hillbilly Kentucky was a drug addict. He was saved, and raised, by his grandmother.

JD returned the favor in a way; he later saved his mom. He announced at the Republican National Convention that she’d been sober for many years (though he failed to mention that it was with his help). She beamed, and the crowd cheered.

JD joined the Marines, got a degree from Ohio State, and went to Yale Law School where he was an editor of the Yale Law Review. He became a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. He wrote an account of growing up called “Hillbilly Elegy” which became a best seller. He was elected to the United States Senate at age 37.

The left hates achievers. Especially when they do it on merit rather than skin color or sexual preference. If they’re conservative, they get dubbed “racists” for that.

To support the “racist” smear, the left will spin and even invent stories. In JD’s case, they’ve focused on his venture capital work.

After working for two venture firms, JD started his own. He named it after a power in the J.R.R. Tolkien books – Narya, which was a power to resist tyranny and despair.  

Rachel Maddow sees something ominous in this. She notes that if you take the “N” at the start of “Narya” and reposition it to the end, you have . . . [drum roll] . . . “Aryan.”

So, there you have it. Irrefutable proof that JD is a secretly self-identifying “Aryan.” As in the Hitlerian kind.

As for Tolkien, the left has long hated his depiction of a world with good and evil. The left doesn’t believe in evil, you see.

Pause to consider the reasons that a group of people would deny the existence of evil. And then consider the consequences of that denial.

Maybe I’m a little too hard on them. They do believe in one type of evil. They believe that conservative people are evil – like JD. They believe that such people deserve to be smeared with the “racist” label, as Maddow has smeared JD, and any other vile label.

Speaking of racism, some of the real thing was on display this week. In what the media dubbed “an antiwar protest,” the left marched in DC during Bibi Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. Half the Democrats boycotted the speech. This “antiwar protest” was an appalling antisemitic march depicting Netanyahu as a horned monster with bloody fangs. Numerous signs called for a “final solution” to the Jewish “problem.”

One other thing about JD. He met a woman in Yale Law School and married her. She happens to be a Asian-American who practices Hinduism. Both her parents immigrated legally from India.

JD and Usha have been married ten years and have three half-Asian children. During their marriage, he converted from Protestantism to Catholicism.

I wonder if Usha and the kids know JD is a racist. Count on Rachel Maddow to break the news.

Trump the Grey has re-arisen as Trump the White

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“Authority had taken up this plan and enlarged it at the moment of its failure. ‘Naked I was sent back . . . until my task is done,’ said Gandalf.”

–Letter 156 of J.R.R. Tolkien about the death of Gandalf the Grey and his return as Gandalf the White

I won’t compare the events of last Saturday afternoon in rural Pennsylvania to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. I have a weakness for melodrama, but that’s a bridge too far even for me.

But the renewing effect of a near-death experience is old and powerful in literature and life – perhaps especially when the near-death is out of the blue. There’s no anticipation, no nervousness, no preparation.

The entire reaction occurs after the event is already over. Then, safe and sound, the person whose corporeal self was nearly extinguished is completely and intensely alive. The only evidence that he nearly departed is his shaking head and trembling hands.

OK, maybe his ear is bleeding, too, just to remind him how very, very close to his cranium was the Grim Reaper’s scythe.

Since he never saw it coming, he knows that he escaped not by strength, not by work, not by cunning. He escaped by luck.

Some call it Providence.

Gandalf the Grey (spoiler alert!) dies a horrible death in the course of Tolkien’s tale. The Ring-Bearer and his crew are thusly dealt a severe blow in their quest to save Middle Earth. Without a wizard on the team, they’re a rag-tag band of kids, an elf, a dwarf and a mere man.

But – Holy Smokes! – in the nick of time Gandalf reappears to help save the day and Middle Earth. In his reappearance, he is no longer Grey, but White.

Tolkien explains in the books and his letters (this explanation didn’t make it into the movies – they were quite long enough without it) that Gandalf did indeed “die” in the manner that wizards die, but an authority renewed him – stronger and wiser.

It happens.

Donald Trump will give a speech tonight accepting a nomination to save today’s approximation of Middle Earth from goblins, orks, pedophiles, fallen wizards, ballot harvesters, identity politicians, dragons, idiots, malevolence, vagrants, Antifa, dementia, wokesters, BLM, and sundry other Democrats.

On the first three days of the Convention, Trump seemed different. He seemed more calm, more at peace. Fire no longer spews from his mouth. Rather, a radiance shines from his eyes.

He’s becoming a leader. Not the “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!” type, although those were his words as his fists pounded the air when he rose from the stage floor last Saturday afternoon.

That was then, when he’d been cowardly ambushed by another messed-up product of our messed-up culture. Trump’s defiance and fight were the natural and right reaction.

But bravado now is unnecessary and unhelpful. Now, he knows he’s been tasked with something big, and so do the people. Now, he and they know that he’s fully capable of performing this task. Now, he and they know his orange head has a purpose more noble than being exploded by a bullet, and more graceful than spouting inflammatory rhetoric.

His old opponents in the Republican Party have gathered round him. He has the endorsement of virtually all of them and many who are new to the Party – from Silicon Valley moguls, to one of the world’s richest men, to each of his vanquished rivals, to an ever-increasing share of Black America, to most Hispanic Americans.

What they see is what I see: A quiet confidence, an unexpected patience, a deep resolve to complete – or at least resume – a task much bigger than he.

The running mate Trump has chosen grew up as a self-described hillbilly in Appalachia, to become a Marine, an Editor of the Yale Law Review, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and a young Senator. This guy is accustomed to being the smartest person in the room, the hardest working, and the one who has come the farthest.

Trump sees him not as a threat, but an asset. A person to whom he might someday pass the torch.

Trump is no longer a man, you see, but a movement. A mission. We’re witnessing something historic.