Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economics, Election 2020, Foreign Polidy, Freedom, Politics, Progressivism | Tags: Donald Trump, Joe Biden
This is certainly the strangest election of my lifetime. For the last four years the politics have been vicious. The Democrats expected to win the last election with Hillary Clinton. They had counted on winning with the first woman president, and they had no idea how unpopular Hillary was. They carefully planted “evidence” of some kind of collusion between Donald Trump and the Russians, that they were sure would sink his candidacy. Didn’t work. Trump won. Perhaps there is some case in the past of the losing party behaving so badly, but I’m unaware of it, and I thought I had a fairly good grasp of history.
Think back over the last four years. Before “Black Lives Matter” and before the riots and statue toppling. Donald Trump was attacked viciously from day one. He has been prominent for years, as a TV personality, as a builder, and simply as a personality in New York. Democrats reacted with fury. I’ve lived under quite a few presidents (don’t ask) and political partisans may not like the president of the opposing party, but I have never, never seen such viciousness.
Donald Trump is not one to suffer quietly under attack, nor to wait quietly for someone else to defend him. He responds. And he has found Twitter an easy way to respond. Some people object. UN-PRESIDENTIAL!! Presidents should be former generals, or sons of presidents, or a prominent governor, or, or. Just not. He has done a remarkable lot for the American people. And now Nancy Pelosi is trying desperately to find a way to declare the president so unfit from his bout with the Covid-19 virus that he is somehow incapable of performing the duties of the presidency adequately.
So what about Joe Biden? We know he was Barack Obama’s vice president, but we, as usual, don’t know much about vice presidents do. They own the record of the president they serve. So what’s the record of the Obama administration? Read it and weep.
Look at those carefully. Cost of living way up, federal debt way up, unemployment way up, median family income way down. That’s not partisan politics, but just what their policies produced.
Democrat efforts to blame Trump for all the deaths from Covid -19 were a complete failure. His reaction to the news from Washington State of the deaths of residents and staff in the nursing home visited by someone from Wuhan, China was prompt and decisive. He banned all flights from China to vast outcry from the Democrats who loudly accused the president of racism, attacks on Asian people, because they were a different color, that sort of thing. Democrats belive in “Global Warming” and the end of the Earth in the near future, probably because they have never bothered to study up on the science, and they fall for anything that seems as if it might be useful.
Because petroleum scientists have discovered a better way to find natural gas and extract it, we are no longer dependent on oil and gas from the Middle East, and we have plentiful supplies. Gas prices are the lowest in years, hovering mostly only slightly over $2 for a gallon of regular. The highest gas prices are found in California. Biden wants to ban Fracking, the very technology that has made us energy independent. The cost of energy percolates through everything we buy or do.
The “Green New Deal” advocated by AOC, would be a disaster for the economy, and accomplish nothing whatsoever for the climate. Joe Biden was eager to sign on, which is frighteing. Carbon Dioxide is a natural fertilizer for plants, and makes crops grow better. It is not the control knob for the climate, which has been changing for centuries and probably will continue to do so. We have had ice ages and warm periods, and the warm years are nicer. The climate seems to be controlled by the action of the sun. If you study up, you won’t fall for the climate catastrophists.
Donald Trump is doing a remarkably good job. He understands what he is doing, and how his policies will work to improve the lives of Americans. And they are working.
Filed under: Asia, China, Communism, Environment, Foreign Polidy, India, Iran, Iraq, News, Politics, Technology, The United States | Tags: All of Asia, Glacier Fed, The Tibetan Plateau
While we are complaining about smoky air, there are a few towns that have completely burned up. Destroyed by fire. Some lives lost, I’m not clear if it is among the firefighters or just people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
On the other side of the world, the world is watching to see if China’s Three Gorges Dam survives the flooding of the Yangtze River. Fascinating article.
That led to the Epoch Times and a long interview with Maura Moynihan, daughter of the former Senator and former Ambassador to China. She is an activist about Tibet, the plateau that controls all of Asia, and China and the CCP. If links in the article don’t get you there, just go to Epoch Times which will. My complaints about my view and the air quality pale in comparison. I may not sleep well tonight. I learned a lot about geography, and the Chinese Communist Party, and the relations among the countries of Asia.
Moynihan suggests that the Chinese don’t know much about flood control, nor about building big environmentally sensitive dams, nor about constructing a dam to stand for years and withstand big floods. All the major rivers of Asia flow from the Tibetan Plateau, so it is a very very big deal indeed.
Filed under: Canada, China, Domestic Policy, Economy, Foreign Polidy, Health Care, Immigration, Italy, Law, National Security, Politics, Science/Technology, South Korea, The United States | Tags: COVID-19, Medicine, Progress, science, TTechnology
Today, Wednesday 18th, Presidential Press Conference. Long, but very informative. Worth your time. Here’s what they are doing, why, and how, and what they expect to result from their actions. Democrat talking point that calling it the “Chinese virus” is somehow “racist” appears. Embarrassing. Everybody in the entire world knows it originated in Wuhan, China. It is customary to call viruses by the name of the locale where it first appeared to specify exactly which virus it is. You may have heard of the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. That’s not racist either.
Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economics, Education, Foreign Polidy, Free Speech, Freedom, History, Immigration, Intelligence, National Security, Politics, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Free Citizens, Longtime Residents, Nationalism for America
In a speech at Hillsdale College in October, Victor Davis Hanson talks about Nationalism. Is is good or bad — and what are the lessons from history? It’s fairly long, but worth every minute, if you are satiated after turkey and all the fixings, and don’t want to move for a while… or save it for another day, but do watch it when you can. Lots of food for thought. important food for thought.
Filed under: Blogging, Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Education, Foreign Polidy, Freedom, Immigration, Israel, Latin America, Mexico, Middle East, Progressives, Regulation, The Constitution, The United States, Unemployment | Tags: Explaining The Politics, Trump's Accomplishments, Victor Davis Hanson
This was first posted in May, this year. I think it’s time to review it once again, because there is so much here and it is so valuable. Please watch the whole thing, you’ll be glad you did. It’s a long conversation, but you can spread it out over several days if need be.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Domestic Policy, Environment, Foreign Polidy, History, Japan, Junk Science, Media Bias, Politics, Regulation, Science/Technology, The United States | Tags: A Founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore PhD, The Sensible Environmentalist
Patrick Moore was one of the founders of Greenpeace, and deeply interested in saving the world’s whales when Japan was increasing their interest in whaling. Japanese whalers have for many years exploited a loophole in the founding treaty of the International Whaling Commission which allows whaling for ‘scientific research’. Whaling was a major industry, peaking in 1846 to1852 for whale oil, spermaceti oil and whalebone for ladies corsets. (think Moby Dick). The Japanese have announced a return to whaling in July of this year.
Moore came to environmentalism because of who he is and where he was born, and left Greenpeace because he is an honest man. He believes firmly that science and environmentalism can go together. He is not impressed with the Green New Deal, to put it mildly.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Communism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Europe, Foreign Policy, Foreign Polidy, History, Media Bias, National Security, north Korea, Politics, The United States | Tags: The Singapore Meeting, What Did It Accomplish?, What Does It Mean?
President Trump has gone to Singapore, had a good meeting with Kim Jong Un of North Korea, and returned home to the utter consternation of the media. They were eager for some kind of catastrophe. Trump is too new, too ill-informed about international affairs not to have made a complete mess of it. Here, from the White House, is the joint statement of President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the Singapore Summit. (You might find it fun to look up the Democratic People’s Republics of the world and see just who they are, and how they’re doing.)
The agreement is not all that much. They agree to try to make peace. They agree to try to commit to de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and they will commit to recovering POW/MIA remains. Nancy Pelosi threatened that the Senate would have to confirm it. It’s not a treaty, Nancy, there’s nothing to confirm. They had a meeting and agreed to try to do a little more.
President Trump said that the entire effort was dedicated to Otto Warmbier, the young American who made the mistake of taking a propaganda poster in Korea, whereupon the Koreans threw him into prison, brutally mistreated him and when he was released, he barely got home before he died.
I’m including links to some articles that capture some of the ideas that explain what is going on. The first is “How Twitter Diplomacy Works” by Thomas Farnan. He begins:
President Trump this week will bust 68 years of diplomatic white paper inertia and meet the leader of a nation with which America has been at war since 1950. President Trump this week will bust 68 years of diplomatic white paper inertia and meet the leader of a nation with which America has been at war since 1950. …
Do read the whole thing.
The White House prepared for the meeting carefully. They learned that Kim was a big movie fan with a huge library of movie videos, and they prepared their own—which Trump played for the Chairman on an iPad. Scott Adams (Dilbert) discusses the video brilliantly here:
There has been some angry objection from Conservatives that Mr. Trump buttered up Kim, said he cared about his people, (but he doesn’t and he;s a brutal dictator and murderer. ) Yes, but refer back to the simple statement that we have been at war since 1950.
There are some underlying things that we just don’t know about. North Korea has been a subsidiary of China, and China’s Xi has ambitions. How North Korea fits into that we don’t know. Useful or annoyance? When Kim shot off this last batch of nuclear tests, something happened to his test site, and the mountain collapsed, but we don’t know how bad it was or what it means.
Our media wants to portray the whole thing as a colossal failure of one sort or another. They want Trump embarrassed, disgraced (TDS kicks in here) so you can’t rely on much that they have to say. They’re already going on about the failure of Trump’s G-7 meeting and how he insulted the Canadians etc. ,etc. Here’s some useful commentary on that: American Greatness: “Trump is Right: G7 Needs a Wake-Up Call on Trade.” From Investor’s Business Daily: President Trump Didn’t Sigh G-7’s Leftist Agenda—Smart Move”.
From The Wall Street Journal: “Why Trump Clashes With Europe” (subscription barrier), and THE WEEK: “If Europe is serious about challenging Trump, it should actually challenge him” by Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry.
This is not all that much reading, you will find it valuable. There are some important insights here. And keep that one phrase in mind: “68 years of white paper diplomatic inertia.”
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Conservatism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Foreign Polidy, Health Care, Immigration, Junk Science, Law, Media Bias, north Korea, Politics, Taxes, The Constitution, Unemployment | Tags: Doubled Economic Growth, Reporting Accomplishment, Two Million New Jobs
How about a little good news for a change? You may be astonished to learn that it comes from Canada. Conrad Black says that “the Canadian media has failed in its coverage of the biggest political news in the world in many years. Trump is the most successful U.S. president since Reagan.” (Do read the whole thing.)
But no one relying on the Canadian media would be aware that he has more than doubled the economic growth rate, reduced illegal immigration by about 80 per cent, withdrawn from the insane Paris Climate accord, helped add trillions to U.S. stock market values, created nearly two million new jobs, led the rout of ISIL, and gained full Chinese adherence to the unacceptability of North Korean nuclear military capability. He will probably pass the greatest tax cuts and reforms since Reagan, if not Lyndon Johnson, by Christmas, and may throw out the most unpopular feature of Obamacare, the coercive mandate, with it.
And here’s Victor Davis Hanson at American Greatness:
After 10 months of governance, Trump’s deregulations, a foreign policy of principled realism, energy agendas, judicial appointments, efforts at tax reform and health care recalibration, cabinet appointments, and reformulation at the Departments of Education, the EPA, and Interior seem so far conservative to the core.
In the few areas where Trump conceivably differed from his 16 primary Republican rivals—immigration, trade, and foreign policy—the 20th-century Republican/conservative orthodoxy was actually closer to Trump’s positions than to those of recent Republican nominees, John McCain or Mitt Romney.Vast majorities of conservatives always favored enforcement of federal immigration law rather than tolerance of sanctuary cities. They wanted to preserve legal, meritocratic, diverse, and measured immigration, not sanction open borders. And they championed the melting pot over the identity politics of the salad bowl.
After the daily criticism and angst from the junior journalists, it’s nice to hear about the president’s accomplishments for a change, for there are a lot of them. A little celebration is in order.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economics, Economy, Energy, Foreign Policy, Foreign Polidy, Global Warming, History, Junk Science, Media Bias, Politics, Science/Technology
After President Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords, many lefties seem to be asking “But don’t you believe the climate is changing?” Of course the climate is changing. That is what climate does. You have perhaps heard of the Ice Age when much of America was covered with an ice sheet? Or the Little Ice Age from which we have been recovering? Here is a simple graph showing the natural climate variability of the past 2,000 years showing the average of 18 non-tree ring proxies that coincide with known events in human history. Note the decimal points. Water freezes at 32º Fahrenheit or at 0º Celsius. The chart shows temperature anomaly.
The Medieval Warm Period (900 to 1300 AD) was the finest weather known to man. Ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice contracted enabling sea exploration and settlements at higher latitudes. Villages and farms were established on Greenland and grain crops were sown and cattle and sheep were raised. Cathedrals were built in Europe, and monasteries and universities. Population increased, food was more plentiful. The warming was global. The Little Ice Age began in the late 13th Century with a decrease in solar activity. There was crop failure, famine, disease, war and depopulation. The Little Ice Age ended around 1850 and it has been warming a little ever since.
A little increased Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, a fertilizer for plants, makes progress in human well-being. The greening of the Earth feeds hungry people. Louis Pasteur’s germ theory and the principles of vaccination, pasteurization, and the cause of disease was a monumental advance. Then there’s Jenner( smallpox vaccine) and Lister( antiseptics) and Fleming(penicillin). Then there’s our own Norman Borlaug, father of the green revolution who is referred to as the man who saved a billion lives, with the development of high yielding crops. May I suggest that Liberal angst over President Trump’s exit from the misleading Paris Climate Accords is a wee bit misplaced?
Filed under: Foreign Policy, Foreign Polidy, History, Military, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, The United States, Vietnam | Tags: Rediscovering History, The Failure of the Media, The Vietnam War
Filed under: Blogging, Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Crime, Democrat Corruption, Economics, Economy, Foreign Polidy, Free Markets, Freedom, Media Bias, National Security, News, Politics, Progressives, Regulation, Russia, The United States
Are you paying attention to the news? It is difficult. James Comey has been unjustly fired, Comey deserved to be fired. Comey kept memos of his conversations. Comey is very close to Senator Schumer. Comey refuses to testify before Congress. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller will head the investigation into Russia ties. Robert Mueller and Comey are old friends. Robert Mueller is widely respected.
The storm has been gathering for more than a week. It started when Trump impetuously fired the FBI director, James Comey, claiming at first that he did so on the advice of Rosenstein. Then the president changed his story and told NBC News that he was going to fire Comey anyway and that part of this was because the bureau’s Russia investigation was dragging on.
The Comey camp soon struck back. First his allies leaked that Trump had asked Comey for his loyalty back in January over dinner. Then in a more damaging story, the New York Times reported on a memo Comey had written to record a conversation in which Trump asked him to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn, the national security adviser Trump fired after three weeks on the job.
To state the obvious, all of this made Trump look like he had something to hide. And it did not take long for Democrats to seize on this theme, mounting a campaign for a special counsel as a condition to approve the next FBI director.
If you read all that or the equivalent, and there is lots of equivalent out there, you know no more than you did before you started reading. Here’s The American Conservative:
America is in crisis. It is a crisis of greater magnitude than any the country has faced in its history, with the exception of the Civil War. It is a crisis long in the making—and likely to be with us long into the future. It is a crisis so thoroughly rooted in the American polity that it’s difficult to see how it can be resolved in any kind of smooth or even peaceful way. Looking to the future from this particular point in time, just about every possible course of action appears certain to deepen the crisis.
What is it? Some believe it stems specifically from the election of Donald Trump, a man supremely unfit for the presidency, and will abate when he can be removed from office. These people are right about one thing: Trump is supremely unfit for his White House job. But that isn’t the central crisis; it is merely a symptom of it, though it seems increasingly to be reaching crisis proportions of its own.
The President who is so unfit for the presidency has assembled the most impressive national security team, perhaps since Eisenhower: James Mattis, John Kelly, H.R. McMaster, Nikki Haley. His appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court is outstanding. Executive orders have begun the task of whittling down the abusive powers of the rogue EPA. Illegal immigration is reportedly down around 70%. He’s working to simplify the tax code and business regulation to boost the private sector.His cabinet appointments are outstanding. Today he is leaving on a trip to meet some of the heads of state of our allies and some who are not. He has been criticized for meeting with Erdogan, and Abbas, yet he clearly wants to get a feel for who these people are, rather than just read the intelligence dossiers.
Trump is described as crude, uncouth — and he tweets. Democrats, in the meantime, seem unable to utter a simple sentence without the F-word or the S-word. They suggest in the crudest way incest, that Melania Trump was of low morals, attack the Trump children, late night “comics” compete to see who can be most vulgar, and who can do the most repellent imitation. Maxine Waters waffles between demanding Trump’s impeachment, being confident that she can turn up an impeachable offenses and denying that she ever asked for his impeachment.
Trump promised to deport criminal aliens, so many sanctuary cities have redoubled their efforts to protect illegal immigrants.
The policy has evolved into active non-cooperation with federal law enforcement, to the extent that Chicago, San Francisco, and New York City, for example, will not comply with requests to detain illegal immigrants unless they have recently been convicted of a serious crime and a judicial warrant accompanies the request. Federal immigration authorities have been banned from operating within municipal jails, and sanctuary cities will not expend any resources in assisting these agents.
Despite these efforts, it has not been possible for cities to protect their illegal aliens from deportation to the extent that sanctuary advocates demand. Cities cannot forbid federal officers from arresting criminal aliens in their homes, on the streets, or in courthouses. The best way to deter possible deportation, sanctuary advocates contend, is to limit interactions between illegal immigrants and the criminal-justice system, not in the traditional way—by obeying the law—but rather, by not enforcing the law. If there are no arrests, then there is no criminal record to base deportation orders on.
And so it goes. Somehow it is Donald Trump who is uncouth, not the real president, illegal, impeachable, unfit for office, yet he seems to be accomplishing quite a lot. And the once-respected fourth estate labors on enlightening and elucidating the affairs of the nation and the world, or whatever it is that they are doing, And we are all living in some dystopian alternate universe aren’t we? It’s all very confusing.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Education, Employer Bonuses, Energy, Environment, Foreign Polidy, Health Care, Immigration, Iran, Islam, Mexico, Politics, Progressives, Taxes, The United States | Tags: Bringing Down a President, Political War, The New Administration
Republicans prefer their presidential candidates to be experienced governors who are practiced at dealing with difficult legislatures, lots of state agencies and troublesome problems that pop up unexpectedly—so when they are elected they can move into the White House more or less knowing what they are doing.
Democrats prefer glamorous candidates that they can admire. They fell in love with FDR, Jack Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Obama. Republicans seldom go to that extreme, though they have liked some better than others.
We elected Donald Trump, who, having spent his life in a very liberal New York City, is not as intense a Republican, or perhaps only lately a Republican. Nevertheless, he saw something disturbingly wrong with the Obama administration’s America, and he wants to fix it — hence the “Make America Great Again” baseball caps and the “draining the swamp rhetoric.” He hit a chord in vast numbers of angry American voters.
The White House and the presidential job were a bit startling to this Chief Executive Officer of his own empire, It’s far more intense than he had expected. Democrats in the Senate slow-walked every appointment that they could. Maxine Waters got in front of every available camera to insist on impeaching the president. Selecting the best person for each cabinet post means lots of interviews, lots of recommendations to sort through, and at 120 days he has finally completed the appointments.
I can sort of imagine the problems. He has his campaign staff with him, but many of the most important cabinet officers are still new to him. Each of them must start right in with a brand new office of old Washington hands, some willing, many unfriendly leftovers. Many of the appointments seem to be outstanding. Nikki Haley has hit the ground running at the UN. Some of the new people aren’t Republicans at all. Suspicions abound. Old familiar staff and family and new staff are sizing each other up and trying to decide if they can possibly work together.
Congress is moving at a slow crawl. The news media is hostile and trying to make a catastrophe out of every word by, about and from the President. The Democrats cannot accept the verdict of the American people and are trying to bring down this president. There are “Never Trumpers” among the Republicans. The Democrats really struck pay-dirt when they found the 5 year old tape of the presidential candidate making “locker-room comments” about women attracted to celebrities. Someone remarked that it was a “class issue”, and because of that comment, the elites determined that he was lower class, and thereby beyond the pale. Uneeded complications.
Trump is meeting with a wide variety of our most repellent foreign leaders in coming days, at his invitation. I think he just wants to size them up himself, rather than just rely on what he is being told. Some are disturbed that he is willing to meet with these heads of state.
The new staff is still sorting itself out and not satisfactorily. Some will be replaced, which will lead to further attacks from the Democrats. Staff dissension will be sorted out, communication will improve, and progress will be made. Bite your tongue. Allow the White House time to sort out the newness, they are under attack in an unexpected war. We’ve got an outstanding bunch of people there. Use your annoyance and anger to attack the left’s unrelenting venom.
Democrats are unaccustomed to any possibility that Republicans might actually respond. They remind us frequently that Mitch McConnell said early in Obama’s first term that his number one goal was to make sure that Obama was a one-term president, and how rude and crass a comment! That was apparently the whole of the Republican attack on the new Democrat president. Republicans are far too polite to really go on offense. They need your help. Hang in there. Praise the successes, and try not to criticize the flops too much. They need your encouragement, not your criticism. It’s still very early on.
American Elephants 