Ain't It Great?

                It would be so wrong for me to say, “For the first time in my life, I’m proud to be an American.” I have always been proud to be an American. It would even be wrong to say, “I am again proud to be an American.” I repeat, I have always been proud to be an American.

                When Obama was president I was ashamed of him but not of my country.

                But after watching President Trump’s speech at the Davos Economic Summit live Friday morning I can say, “I am as proud as I have ever been to be an American.” And I’m also proud of our President again, and it has been awhile since I could say that.

                It is of no small note that in spite of the leftwing media’s predictions (wet dreams) that there would be an embarrassing walk out of international leaders when Trump took the stage that instead the conference center was filled to capacity and additional people crammed into three other large rooms to watch on TV screens.

                After the fact, the only thing CNN could find to criticize was that music was played only for Trump and no other leaders as he approached the podium. I’m guessing he got more scoops of ice cream than everyone else too but CNN missed it.

                From his opening remarks when he said, “I’m here to represent the interests of the American people and affirm America’s friendship and partnership in building a better world,” my chest swelled up. He didn’t add, “in spite of the media and the opposition from the extreme left,” but I was happy with it anyway.

                He suggested that all nation’s should be taking the same approach to advancing the prosperity and security of their citizens, and other than France who couldn’t make it if no one took care of them, I suspect many agreed but only Trump is a nationalist or a populist in the media when he says it about us.

                “There has never been a better time to hire, to build, to invest and to grow in the United States. America is open for business and we are competitive once again,” sounds so much more proud and inspiring than any of Obama’s lame and apologetic speeches filled with self-loathing for being born (well, maybe he was) in the greatest country in the history of the planet.

                The media and the alt left, of course, can’t hear anything positive when Trump speaks. When he says, “Love,” they hear a different four-letter word. He could hardly not mention some of the great economic success the U.S. has experienced because of his policies (sorry, Obama had nothing to do with it and we probably will get to discuss that another day) and that as a result of his tax cuts millions of American workers have received raises already, including bonuses for some “as large as $3,000.”

                The next day The New York Times jumped all over that statement calling it “fictional,” because only one company (The IAT Insurance Group, you’re welcome that I looked it up for you, you lazy slackers at the NYT) gave out a bonus that large.  I kind of thought the phrase “as large as” took that out of the realm of “fictional,” but I thank God every night that I am not forced to view the world through the blackened, smudged, filthy lenses of the left.

                And while the NYT and others continued to try and give Obama credit for, I guess, fooling us all by telling us mediocrity was the “New Normal,” that we “Didn’t build that,” and that those jobs would never come back, he was really just laying the groundwork for the sudden and almost immediate prosperity under President Trump. Whatever.

                Still, my favorite part of the Trump Presidency is the reduction of federal regulations. Trump called regulation “stealth taxation,” assessed by unelected bureaucrats with “no vote, no legislative debate and no real accountability.” At the summit Trump announced that while he had ordered no new regulation to be assessed without first eliminating two, that in fact his policy had lead to the elimination of 22 federal regulations for every one added, freeing businesses so they can thrive.

                I suppose Obama had that in mind, as well.

                Trump emphasized that putting “America first does not mean America alone.” He talked about our important alliances, the need to be unified against terrorism, and that when all nations work for their people’s prosperity all boats float, leading to innovation and discovery “that help people everywhere live more prosperous and far healthier lives.”

                He did not say that working together with other nations was the same thing as America paying for everything other nations want to see done.

                Neither did he add that working for the prosperity of a nation’s people doesn’t include the leadership intercepting and embezzling aid meant for those people and instead funneling it into their own bank accounts, but he was trying to keep it positive and not get into another round of “Why Do You Keep Your Country a Shithole?”

                He did, however, say “The United States will no longer turn a blind eye to unfair economic practices,” which CNN kind of felt like called out China directly. Maybe, but prior to the summit China lowered tariffs voluntarily on U.S. imports so while journalists may not be able to understand the mechanics of how a guy personally worth $4 billion negotiates, it seems to work.

                Trump signaled that the U.S. was about to become a key player in energy production for the world because “no country should be held hostage by a single provider of energy.” Ok, that sounds more like calling somebody out directly.

                He was also pretty direct about our intent to make historic investments in our military because the world cannot have prosperity without security. He asked our allies to make similar investments in their own defenses and meet their financial obligations to help keep crazy at a minimum (crazy is my word, not his).

                He specifically asked for maximum pressure on the Korean Peninsula, for unified confrontation of Iran’s support for terrorists and to block their path to a nuclear weapon (and I will certainly give Obama credit for paving that path). He didn’t ask for help but acknowledged that we were already working with our allies to destroy ISIS and that we have “retaken almost 100% of the territory held by these killers in Iraq and Syria”

                Again, The NYT thought they were making a strong point by crying, “Fiction!” They pointed out that ISIS had occupied 35,000 square miles of territory at their zenith in 2015 but that in his last two years as president Obama had beaten them back to only 23,000 square miles.

                In their own article they eventually mentioned that in the last year, Trump and our allies have reduced ISIS’ holdings to only 2,500 square miles. There may not be a minimal math requirement anymore to get a journalism degree. What are all those zeroes for, anyway?

                Trump concluded his discussion of terrorism with “When it comes to terrorism we will do whatever is necessary to protect our nation. We will defend our citizens and our borders.”

                That’s not quite as dramatic as “Mr. Gorbachev, take down that wall,” but compared to the ever-moving line-in-the-sand BS we had to listen to for eight years I found it really refreshing.

                There was so much more, of course, but the clock on the clubhouse wall says I’m close to overload. I left half a dozen fine points unargued to give my friends on the left something to get worked up about if I even motivate them that much. We’ll get to all of it. We’ve got seven years.

                In the meantime, I saw a meme on social media this week that I thought was especially fitting for the way we are successfully reclaiming America:

                “I didn’t win the lottery but I did wake up in the greatest country in the world and that’s almost the same thing.”

                Amen.

Left, left, left, right, left...

                My cup runneth over.

                So, still from last week I have been wanting to comment on the Hawaii incoming ballistic missile warning that wasn’t, but other than for my own satisfaction to take Jamie Lee Curtis to task I don’t know how to get 1,000 words out of the only one that matters: “Oops.” It would make a better cartoon anyway.

I guess we could talk about conspiracy theories surrounding why it took the state of Hawaii 40 minutes to assure its citizens that they were not really going to incinerate but my tinfoil hat is at the dry cleaners.

Believe me, it is also more than tempting to skewer Chuck Schumer and his band of merry men for endangering out national security and inconveniencing a nation by shutting down the Federal Government to play politics with an issue that could be clearly and easily resolved. And if you think that means completely screwing over 800,000 DACA “kids,” you really need to consult another source other than CNN or MSN.

And what I spent my spare time researching all week (I even watched the one hour and 14 minute press conference twice) was the media’s frustration and visible anger that President Trump is healthy as a horse and sharp as a tack.

I could have gotten a thousand words out of just comparing the press corps reaction to McDonald’s hamburgers and Kentucky Fried Chicken to Obama’s chain smoking off camera. I understand their frustration. I truly do. What the heck good is the 25^th Amendment if you can’t use it on a president you don’t like. And shouldn’t that be up to the media, anyway?

Well, probably not.

But then about Wednesday I heard an interview with a young lady who was super excited about the “annual” women’s march this Sunday and I should have known then what direction I was going to have to go.

And it’s not really because I have any issue with the idea. I can’t possibly because I absolutely do not understand what its about so I don’t even know with what to agree or disagree.

According to the official website of The Women’s March on Washington, the mission is “to harness the political power of diverse women to create transformative social change.” A little vague, but who can’t get behind that?

Still trying to understand, let’s look at the fine print. What transformative change? The website states that women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights. No argument with that, but I still don’t know what’s being protested.

The website goes on to specify “ending violence.” I’m good with that. Especially because I thought with this being a women’s march that we were probably talking about domestic violence and I can certainly get behind raising awareness and protesting that, because I think men who beat women are a life form that shouldn’t be tolerated.

But no. That’s not the violence we’re talking about, although I don’t think the organizers are in favor of it. No, the violence they specifically define is “police brutality…racial profiling and targeting communities of color.” Sigh. That mythical, statistically unsupported detritus of the Obama Legacy again. Doesn’t seem to have much to do with women to me…and I’ve already lost interest in chasing fairy tales.

Next on the list is “reproductive rights.” Specifically, healthcare services, birth control, STD prevention, and sex education.  They beat around the bush a bit but eventually get to stating that this means the right to an abortion, “regardless of income, location or education.”

Ok. Whether you agree with them or not that is a real issue and in this country, like it or not, people have a right to express their opinion on the subject and peacefully demonstrate to advance their cause. Roe v. Wade has been undefeated in court for 45 years but I understand it is under constant attack and concern over constant vigilance and awareness of the issue is a valid thing for which to march. There is a piece of paper under glass in a building in Philadelphia that says so.

Now we’re getting somewhere. Next on the list is LGBTQIA rights. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what the “I” or the “A” stand for. The bottom line is that the movement wants us all to be “free from gender norms, expectations and stereotypes.”

And I’m confused again. Doesn’t seem like this one is about women specifically or even generally, but see “women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights.” Well, ok. If we’re talking about being ok with gay marriage, being gay, gay rights, I know there’s a lot of progress and understanding still needed there (on both sides) but it seems we’re headed in the right direction. I’m ok with that part but it seems like they’re making it a weirder issue. Maybe that’s just me.

Well, maybe it will be easier for me to understand “worker’s rights.” And for the most part it is, especially if we are talking about equal pay for equal work for both sexes and whatever the “I” and the “A” do stand for. The group also wants to include all domestic, farm and migrant worker classes as well as “undocumented” workers which is another way of saying “illegal alien workers.” So, I’m with you up to everything before that, but not with giving illegal aliens rights reserved for American citizens.

Wouldn’t the world be great if we could be happy about agreeing on ¾’s of a thing and not obsessed with disagreement over ¼?

“Civil Rights” is next on the list. Well heck yes. “…including voting rights, freedom to worship…freedom of speech and protections for all citizens regardless of age, race, gender or disability.” I’m pretty sure we already have that although we may not be perfect in all places at all times about it’s enforcement.

The group wants an all-inclusive Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution to ensure that it happens which makes me think that they are not being completely transparent about what they’re after since that is one of the bedrocks, at least in intent and law, of current U.S. society.  Lost me.

“Disability rights.” (Still with me? Hang in there. Women have a lot of things to protest) The group strives for the disabled “to be fully included (to) contribute to all aspects of American life, economy and culture.” Well, of course. Again, we already have laws for that but there is nothing wrong with a parade to raise awareness and increase sensitivity to the issue. Good one.

                “Immigrant rights.” Here we go. I won’t bore you with the whole paragraph but the last sentence is “We believe migration is a human right and that no human being is illegal.” The English language can be a funny thing. Obviously it isn’t illegal to be a human being. But it is pretty darn skippy illegal to sneak into the country as if there were no borders, no right to vet one’s criminal record, and no right to expect a contribution to and assimilation into our society. 

                Sorry, ladies. Vote for Oprah and she’ll have me killed for being an old white man, but until then: Nope.

                FINALLY, the last item in the group’s mission statement is “Environmental Justice.” After the part on clean air, clean water, and the right to enjoy public lands, which is cool with everyone I would think, they get into global warming, corporate greed and things that seem sort of ill-defined and not worth putting on a pretty pink hat and going for a walk.

                So you’ll either have to take my word for it, or not, that I support women and have been vocally in favor of many aspects of women’s rights in the past and present and plan to be in the future.  I think this particular movement has gotten a little fuzzy and I actually think it’s less than honest.

                If you can keep from getting bogged down in the “women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights,” linguistic shield, most of the rights women have, deserve and need to protect, expand and enforce are not new. I’ve been hearing about most of them for most of my life and I’m old. Why did women begin their “annual” protest on the anniversary of the date Donald Trump was sworn in as President?

                Hmmmm. I wonder. Well why not just say so?

                Are we where we need to be on all women’s rights? Are we done? Heck no, and in that spirit march away. But be honest ladies. This has a lot less to do with your rights than it has to do with the fact that left-leaning women are upset that Donald Trump is President.

                Don’t let the media use you, please. You’re better than that and THAT seems to me like one of the things you should be protesting.

If It Looks Like a Duck, And It Quacks Like a Duck...

                Sometimes the hardest part about writing this blog is knowing which topic to pick. There is never a shortage of outrage in the media and on the left, and Donald Trump seems tailor-made to feed the somewhat less than tolerant rage and hatred of both.

                Same teapot. Different tempest.

                It would be a fool’s errand to defend the President’s remarks on Friday referring to Haiti and most of the countries on the African Continent as “shitholes.”  (So I have to try, right?) It was decidedly unpresidential and cringeworthy in every respect coming from the mouth of the President of The United States.

                It’s also the kind of thing that explains why he is in the White House instead of the most flagrant and transparent criminal in modern political history. As Jesse Waters said on The Five Friday night, “This is how the forgotten men and women of America talk in bars.”

                It’s also the way those gentle, loving, way-smarter-than-us souls on the left talk about us, but that’s ok because it’s about us.

                Is it the way most of us probably wish our President would talk publicly? I would imagine not. But here is one of the things: it wasn’t actually said publicly.

                It was said in an Oval Office meeting where a group of lawmakers were trying to hammer out the details of a new and improved immigration policy. Like most meetings between lawmakers it wasn’t going well. President Trump has doubtlessly sat through countless meetings of a similar nature in his private business operations. The key difference is if you walked out his conference room in Trump Tower as one of his employees and found the nearest reporter with whom to share foul language spoken in the heat of a debate you’d be fired.

                Good incentive to keep your mouth shut. But Trump can’t fire the guys who were in that meeting because they don’t really work for him and his detractors have multiple incentives to share anything that will incite the left and give the media some sound bytes that allow them to send strong-minded liberals to the park to howl at a vacant sky.

                Can you imagine if Lyndon Banes Johnson’s alleged comments behind closed doors about welfare got out? For instance when he was alleged to have said, “If we give those niggers welfare we’ll own ‘em for 100 years.”

                Or when Bill Clinton said (and I believe it was more than merely alleged) to Ted Kennedy about Barack Obama before the 2008 election when HRC first believed she was a valid candidate, “C’mon, 10 years ago the only thing he’d be doing in the White House is fetching us coffee.”

                Both remarks did eventually see the light of day but received much less fanfare in the lamestream media and evoked a much less outraged reaction amongst the loving left. As in, no one really noticed or cared. Gee, do you think they just don’t like President Trump? Because he’s the racist.

                We had dinner last night at some friend’s house (they will remain anonymous so those super tolerant, loving, caring, enlightened souls on the left can’t firebomb their new house) and after tossing it around for a bit we all agreed that “shithole” is embarrassing as a Presidential remark but none of us could come up with a better description of Haiti.

                There are 55 countries in Africa. I tried listing them and could only come up with 16 the first time I tried and 13 the second time, so I obviously don’t know as much about the continent as Nancy Pelosi but “shithole” seems a pretty apt description of countries where those who are in power exploit those who are not in ways that would make even the strong of stomach wretch, while diverting aid from other countries (mostly us) to their own private coffers as there principal exports are industries built on the backs of conscripted child labor (care to speculate where Tesla gets the components for their electric car batteries and the average age of the worker who supplies them?).

                Libya, and other African countries, still practice the slave trade with the sale of human beings taking place in open-air markets the way it has gone on for hundreds of years. I actually have no argument with Barack Obama saying, “off the record” (see how this stuff never works out?) to Jeff Goldberg of The Atlantic in a 2014 interview that Libya was nothing more than a “shit show.”

                I just wish the media were a little more indiscriminate in their crucifixion of presidents. But I wish there were unicorns too, so there you go, but I don’t think you can make the argument that “shit show” is more complimentary than “shithole.”

                Sort of amazing how who said it has absolutely everything to do with the media and the left’s reaction.

                The media wants to make “shithole” a racist thing. I am not sure it matters what color the people are in a country with living conditions and exploitative governments like the ones we’re talking about. A rose by any other name is still pretty much a rose.

                It amuses me though that the Scandinavian countries, which have recently been presented as ideal models of Utopian socialism by the left (and which are 80% white), are now suddenly bastions of Aryan fascism because President Trump wondered why we can’t bring more people here from Norway.

                It pains me to point out flaws in the President’s logic, but the simple answer is that they don’t want to come here because their country is not a shithole.

                So you knew it would end up here.  Loud emotional screaming and garment rending about what a foul creature Donald Trump is to those who think HRC is a saintly and matronly grandmother and a total lack of focus on immigration reform.

                The President’s goals, besides ending chain migration, building a wall and increasing security are to make the country stronger by “welcoming those who can contribute to our society, grow our economy and assimilate into our great nation.”

                The democrat’s goals seem to be to expand our welfare program to those who can’t get those benefits in their own (shithole) country.

                You decide.

                Actually, I think on November 8, 2016, we did.   

Tempest In A Teapot. Again.

                There will be no end.  No end to the media’s incessant, fabricated, delusional screeching and ranting about President Trump. Not theirs or that of the political party they control.

                Most of the time it has just become background noise to me, and I suspect many others, because you can only listen to Don Lemon and The Morning Joe guy go on and on about the same nonsense day after day after day. And so much of it relevant to how the country is being governed—Donald Trump has two scoops of ice cream; he drinks too much diet coke; he eats cheeseburgers after midnight in bed; there was a Russian girl in his kindergarten class. Pretty soon it all just becomes a bunch of people at the park howling baleful notes into a cold night sky. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

                In fairness, they do mix it up a little. There’s usually a theme-of-the-week, which sometimes lasts even longer unless it backfires on the left—sex scandals for example. (It must have been really frustrating that the accusers of Hollywood stars and executives and liberal lawmakers didn’t even require payment to come forward the way the left had to pay Trump’s accusers.)

                There’s also been his “alliance” with white supremacy groups because he dared to say all hate groups are bad, thereby including #onlyblacklivesmatter and Antifa  in the same category when they’ve murdered less than two dozen police officers and only beaten a few score of folks in MAGA wearables. Plus what a racist/nationalist/mean person he is because he wants to secure our borders and stem the flow of ILLEGAL aliens into our country and maybe vet them a bit first for criminal histories in case they want to live somewhere other than California.

Don’t forget either how he wants a fully automatic weapon in every household because he’s a tool of the NRA and because he just doesn’t want Diana DeGette to be able to read all those magazines before the bad gun people kill everybody. And there’s also been his feud with Kim Jong Un. That’s not done but the media seem bored with themselves this week (or maybe that’s just me) so we’ve moved on.

There are so many other examples (Russia, Russia, Ruzzzzzzzzia) but you get the point. I want to get to this week’s tempest in a teapot and get after President Trump’s mental stability, intelligence level and the left’s ongoing Christmas wish that he is unfit for office.

I apparently went to journalism school at the wrong time. In the 70’s they were not giving out complimentary medical degrees in psychiatry and I feel like some privileged white guy somewhere must owe me the difference between what I’ve made life-to-date and what I could have made if I had an M.D. in psychiatry.

I believe the texting shorthand is ROTFLMAO (there may not be a “T” in it) for what I—and I hope you—have been doing watching the talking heads on CNN, MessNBC, et al, rail on about Donald Trump’s mental unfitness to be President, in their highly qualified, over-inflated, delusional, bat-shit-crazy opinions.

Joy Behar thinks she’s a shrink? I also heard Joy also thinks she’s a woman but we’ll save that for a blog on transgenderism as soon as they figure out definitively how many there are—Canada has the count at 63 different genders this week. Google it.

Some of you may remember the press used to say the same things about Reagan and Bush. As recently as today there was an article by a young but earnest Associated Press reporter named Jill Colvin, whom I’m willing to bet was in grade school or younger when Ronald Reagan was President, recounting how he died of pneumonia complicated by Alzheimer’s in 2004 and implying that dementia may have begun to cloud his mind during his presidency in the 80’s. Hell, if that’s true I say we load Congress up with memory-care residents.

I don’t really mean that. Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters whom are both obviously in the grip of serious dementia do not really inspire the kind of confidence that Reagan did when he rebuilt our nation following the Jimmy Carter experiment.

I recently heard that George W. reads between 80 and 100 books a year and that most of them don’t have a lot of pictures. I also know that in spite of the completely and unashamedly fictional account of Bush’s service record by Dan Rather (one of the original Father’s of Fake News) that the federal government was not in the habit of tossing the keys to an F-16 fighter to people too stupid to tie their shoe laces.

Ms. Colvin’s attempt to make President Trump look feeble and pathetic must have taken a lot of energy. It impressed the intrepid editors at The Denver Post enough to give her the front page. I would suggest to Ms. Colvin, whom I’ll bet can still count her millions on one hand—or perhaps less—that many of us wish we were as stupid as President Trump so that we too could have a net worth of $4 billion.

What is wrong with people?

And now in the same spirit of the iconic piece of feces, Dan Rather, a self-avowed bloviator (look it up, it’s hilarious) named Michael Wolff rips the roof off the White House with his scathing tell all, “Fire and Fury.” Ho-hum. Again.

My goodness. And this on the tail of the most successful year of any Presidency in the history of The United States.

Wolff not only admits that much of his book is based on unverifiable hearsay, gossip and bitter conjecture, but he is riddled as a questionable author by several sources on the left. What kind of lying sack-of-excrement journalist do you have to be to get criticized by media outlets on the left???

Even the Associated Press (perhaps the lowest of print media scum) describe Wolff’s writing style as having a “focus on atmospherics,” and to be riddled with “factual mistakes.”

Alex Shepard, writing for The New Republic, is upset with Wolff because he fears Wolff’s writing “style” damages the credibility of all media (way too late to worry about that Alex). Shepard points out that Wolff glosses over glaring “inaccuracies, falsehoods and unverifiable claims with a kind of postmodern poetic license.” So 21^st Century journalism then.

In his introduction to his book, (the only part I will bother to read), Wolff himself reassures us that in spite of “conflicts…looseness with the truth, if not reality,” that he has ”settled on a version of events that (he) believes to be true.” Man, is that reassuring.

As I said, they were not handing out medical degrees in journalism school when I attended but they also were not teaching that it was OK to settle on a version of events that you believe to be true and call it journalism. That’s ok for a Hollywood production based on a true story because Hollywood has even less credibility than the lamestream media, but not as a real piece of journalism.

I wish “Clinton Cash” had gotten half this much media attention because I think that actually is a well-researched, credible piece of journalism but that may explain why the media largely ignored it—they didn’t recognize it.