The State of California is putting the finishing touches on the “California Values Act." Essentially, this is California's New 'Sanctuary State ' Law. The new law, just vetted and passed by the California Assembly Judiciary Committee would prevent state and local law enforcement from cooperating in any way with federal immigration authorities.
State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De Leon, (D-Los Angeles), is sponsoring the state senate version of the new law, Senate Bill 54 to fight what he called the “Trump Deportation Machine.”
Back in February when he was first crafting the bill, De Leon admitted in an interview with left wing public broadcasting station KPPC that, "half my family is here illegally" and using fake IDs, a felony under California and federal law:
"I can tell you half of my family would be eligible for deportation under [President Donald Trump’s] executive order, because if they got a false Social Security card, if they got a false identification, if they got a false driver’s license prior to us passing AB60, if they got a false green card, and anyone who has family members, you know, who are undocumented knows that almost entirely everybody has secured some sort of false identification. That’s what you need to survive, to work. They are eligible for massive deportation."
“Someone simply who received or purchased a [fraudulent] Social Security card down at MacArthur Park, or elsewhere in my district would be eligible immediately for mass deportation,”
And of course, with a fake Social security card or a fake green card, many illegal migrants can easily obtain social welfare benefits like welfare, SSI, food stamps, section 8 public housing, and MediCal, California's taxpayer funded free medical care. And of course, they can - and many do- also vote, especially since in California it's established policy in social welfare departments and the state's voter registration office not to check things like immigration status too closely.
That last fact is a huge reason why De Leon and many of his fellow Democrats are going all out to protect illegal migrants from being deported. Believe me, if illegal migrants voted Republican, people like De Leon would be calling out the National Guard to conduct mass deportations, and the Border Wall would have been built a long time ago. The Democrats want the votes of this new 'constituency' and the campaign donations from donors who love the continued flow of cheap labor.
“Under constitutional threats from the reckless Trump administration, SB 54 protects state and local law enforcement and resources necessary to keep our communities safe,” De Leon said. De Leon also claimed that "Arrests of undocumented immigrants with no previous criminal record are up 150 percent since Trump became president.”
We'll explore these falsehoods in a second.
Assemblywoman Eloise Gomez Reyes chimed in, saying the measure is necessary not just for California, but for the nation. “California must send a clear message that we will remain the last line of defense against the fear-mongering and xenophobia,” Reyes said. “Rather than addressing the failure of policy, the federal solution has been to demonize our immigrant communities.”
Hmm...if these people she's talking about are 'immigrants' rather than illegal migrants, why ever would they need fake IDs? And why would public policy in California need to have such strict measures against inquiring as to someone's immigration status? But I digress. None of these politicians seem overly concerned about ID theft, voter fraud or respecting any existing laws that conflict with their political agenda.
Back on May 25 of this year, there was a raid in which ICE agents arrested 188 illegal immigrants in Los Angeles. But according to U.S. immigration officials, total numbers of arrests of illegal immigrants are relatively flat in California and somewhat lower than during the Obama administration. So De Leon's nonsense about the 'Trump deportation machine' is simply partisan horse manure.
Oh, and his other remarks about how SB54 keeps our communities safe? Let's see how California's New 'Sanctuary State ' Law does that.
Most of the illegal migrants arrested in the May 25 raids had ties to El Salvadoran prison gangs such as MS-13, one of the most vicious and violent gangs in America. Almost 90 percent had previous criminal records for a variety of crimes including drug offenses, domestic violence, DUI, sex crimes, battery, weapons violations, assault, burglary, fraud, vehicle theft, arson, cruelty to a child, robbery, obstructing justice, property damage, larceny, escape, manslaughter, prostitution, trespassing, incest, and receipt of stolen property.
Under SB 54, none of these individuals would be transferred to ICE after serving their sentences after they were tried and convicted for these offenses. The bill specifies “serious felonies” but doesn't include almost all of the ones listed above. Instead of being turned over to ICE for deportation, these criminals would simply be released into the very communities De Leon and his cohorts claim SB 54 would 'keep safe.'
The question of the bill's legality is interesting.
SB 54 was given a a constitutional legal sign-off written by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who was paid a large sum for his analysis and is still on the State of California's payroll as it's lawyer to defend California's sanctuary policies. The state's Democrat legislators chose to pay for Holder's analysis rather than rely on one prepared by the California legislature's Legislative Council.
As Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, (R-Rocklin) pointed out, Holder announced his approval of SB 54 just one day before announcing his intention to run for president in 2020. how convenient!
So what are the actual legal precedents for California's New 'Sanctuary State ' Law?
The Constitution is pretty clear on the subject. The 10th Amendment states that those powers not claimed by the Federal government in the Constitution "are clearly are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Control over immigration and naturalization, like the coining of money or foreign policy are expressly given to the Federal Government.
And legislation signed, ironically by none other than President Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s bars states from creating laws that restrict communication with federal law enforcement agencies.
Now there are also two recent decisions by the Supreme Court that ruled against Federal Law superseding state laws ( New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 [1992] and Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997). Neither involved powers reserved constitutionally to the Federal government, since one involved the dumping of waste within a sovereign state's borders and the other involved a clear violation of the Second Amendment via the Brady Bill.
There are also a few judicial decisions at the lower federal level, creating precedents that the federal government cannot commandeer local law enforcement resources for the purpose of immigration enforcement. SB 54 deals with all cooperation with ICE including merely providing information on criminal illegal migrants. Do these decisions apply? The feds are not asking for the use of manpower or other resources to round up illegal migrants but merely for basic cooperation by local law enforcement that SB 54 essentially blocks,
Given the effort, time and taxpayer dollars Democrats are willing to spend in protecting illegal migrants, even criminals from being deported, California's New 'Sanctuary State' Law will probably be headed to the Supreme Court if Governor Brown signs it and SB 54 becomes law.
President Trump received a warm and enthusiastic welcome when he spoke spoke in front of a large and enthusiastic crowd at Krasinski Square at the Royal Castle in Warsaw at the foot of a statue commemorating the 1944 Polish uprising against German occupiers. He and first lady Melania Trump laid a wreath at its base.
The Polish crowd greeted President Trump with the sort of warmth and enthusiasm the president gets at his rallies, with repeated chants of 'Donald Trump' and 'USA!'
And what President Trump had to say to them was almost Churchillian:
Here's a brief excerpt: "Each generation must rise up and play their part in [their culture's] defense. Every foot of ground and every last inch of civilization is worth defending with your life. Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield, it begins with our minds, our wills, and our souls. Today, the ties that unite our civilization are no less vital and demand no less defense than that bare shred of land on which the hope of Poland once totally rested. Our freedom, our civilization, and our survival depend on these bonds of history, culture, and memory, and today as ever Poland is in our heart and its people are in that fight. Just as Poland could not be broken, I declare today for the world to hear that the West will never, ever, be broken. Our values will prevail. Our people will thrive. And our civilization will triumph."
Trump's words had particular impact in this time and place. Poland has always been in the forefront of defending the West, whether is was the Mongols, the Ottoman hordes, the Nazis or the Soviets. The monument in Krasinski Square commemorates a heroic Polish uprising against the Nazis in 1944 that saw something like 200,000 people murdered, almost all of them civilians and Warsaw razed to the ground.
And Poland, since its liberation from the Evil Empire has always been a firm U.S. ally, even sending its soldiers to fight at our side in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their reward, of course, was to be betrayed by Barack Hussein Obama and denied them the anti-missile protection they were promised. To add insult to injury, President Obama's announcement came on September 17th, the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's invasion of eastern Poland during World War II in collaboration with the Nazis.
When Polish President Polish president Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria, Solidarity leader Anna Walentynowicz,Poland's National Bank President Slawomir Skrzypek, Army chief of staff General Franciszek Gagor were killed in a tragic and somewhat mysterious airplane crash over Russian territory, President Obama almost alone among world leaders declined to attend the funerals.
In another context, Trump's appearance in Poland and at the Three Seas summit* marks a major change in the relationship with what former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld presciently referred to as 'New Europe and the United States. What we're talking about is brand new, stronger ties to the Visograd nations and the Balkan countries.
Aside from the obviously much warmer and friendlier climate with a key ally, President Trump put three very important cards on the table:
Poland and very likely Czechoslovakia and other Visograd nations are going to finally be able to purchase U.S. Arms, particularly missiles and missile defense elements. And security cooperation is going to be vastly improved.
President Trump reaffirmed his iron clad commitment to Article 5 of the NATO charter, that an attack on one signatory would be considered an attack on all.
Poland just received its first shipment of American liquid natural gas. Remember the war between Russia and Georgia? As I pointed out in the story linked above, one big reason for Russia's aggression had nothing to do with South Ossetia but with energy. Russia's biggest 'persuader' when it comes to Europe is the Kremlin's monopoly on the energy export routes to the West from the old parts of its former Soviet empire. The one part the Russians didn't control was the oil and gas pipeline that leads from energy-rich Azerbaijan to Turkey, across Georgia...and it's notable that the Russians bombed it as well as the Georgian port of Poti, neither of which is anywhere near South Ossetia. What President Trump is talking about here is removing a key element of blackmail from Russia's arsenal by all by guaranteeing an alternate supplier to New Europe. And as you'll hear in the joint news conference below, Poland's conservative President Duda has hopes of making Poland a trading corridor for U.S. energy and goods to the rest of the Visograd and Three Seas nations.
And finally, President Trump is signalling support for New Europe in defying Germany and Angela Merkel on Muslim migrants and even remaining in the EU itself if it comes to that. A recent poll revealed that 70% of the Poles would rather leave the EU that be bullied into importing the same kind of chaos Germany, France, the UK and Sweden among others have brought into their countries.
Before the speech, President Trump held a joint press conference early Thursday morning in Warsaw with Polish President Andrzej Duda.(skip ahead to 51:53 for the actual joint press conference)
I particularly like the part where some idiot U.S. 'journalist' tries to once again tries to resurrect the old story about Russia hacking the election, and wasn't the president going to admit that? After all, hadn't 17 U.S. intelligence agencies all come to the same conclusion?
President Trump's reply was a gem.He patiently explained that maybe Russia was involved, but it might also have been at least five other countries. And he also let her in on the fact that it was only three intelligence agencies that thought Russia was involved, although there was no real evidence yet. And a lot of what he called her 'compatriots' had already had to apologize and correct their stories.And then he lowered the boom...
"Here's the question I want the answer to. The CIA told president Barack Obama that there was a possibility of Russian hacking in the election back in August. Now th eelection was in Novemeber. That's a long time,but he never did anything about it. Why? His people say he choked, but I think it was because he was sure Hillary was going to win the election and he didn't want to disturb anything."
The reporter immediately blurted out a follow up again insisting that Trump say that Russia was responsible, so President Trump calmly repeated his answer.
Now as you'll see in the video, President Duda had told the press beforehand that there would only be four questions because he and President Trump had to be at Krasinski Square for the ceremony, but this woman paid no attention, which didn't exactly make her popular with the other reporters. She said pretty much the same thing again, after which President Trump and President Duda exchanged a brief, weary smile , President Duda made slight gesture and the harridan's microphone was cut off so the two men could leave for a far more important task.
* The Three Seas summit, convened by the presidents of Poland and Croatia, involves nations situated between the Baltic, Adriatic, and Black Seas and is designed to strengthen trade and economic ties and energy platforms as well as address joint national security. Most of the nations involved have refused to obey German Chancellor Angela Merkel's diktat to open their country's borders to more Muslim 'refugees.' Many of these countries, like Poland have Euroskeptic governments.President Trump's appearance there after his speech was a major coup for the Poles and an excellent opportunity for a lot of the leaders of New Europe to meet President Trump forth first time, a vastly different leader than his predecessor.
Now, it's off to the G-20 summit in Germany, where President Trump is, shall we say, far less popular. and of course, a meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin for the first time. Alpha male meets Alpha male!
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass.Let me work. - Carl Sandburg
One hundred and fifty four years ago today, brave men fought in and around a small town in Pennsylvania to determine whether the Union would endure or whether it would not.
The Battle of Gettysburg broke the tide of the advance of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and while the war itself didn't end for another 22 months, Gettysburg decided the outcome.
Lee's objective was psychological as much as strategic. By 1863 there was substantial sentiment in the North to allow the Confederacy to go its own way and end what had become an increasingly bloody, unpopular and costly war. By subjecting the North to the same sort of invasion the South had been subjected to - in essence, bringing the war home - Lee hoped to increase this sentiment and force the North to negotiate a settlement.
Gettysburg was very much an accidental battle. Neither side was really looking to fight here, but the armies accidentally collided, largely because Lee was deprived of Jeb Stuart's cavalry in the early stages of the battle and thus lacked his usual awareness of where the Union forces were. Once the initial impact was made,on July 1st 1863 in a battle between Brigadier General John Buford's Union cavalry division and two corps of Union infantry and two large Confederate corps that attacked from the north and northwest under General Richard Ewell, the armies came together and the battle was on.
An astounding fact about Gettysburg is that the victorious commander of the Union forces, General George Gordon Meade, had only been in command of the Army of the Potomac for a scant three days, after General Joseph Hooker was relieved of command. Meade was caught by surprise with the sudden collision of the two armies, but he reacted with coolness and unexpected courage at several points when the battle could very well have been lost with a different sort of general in charge.
The missing man at Gettysburg, one who might very well have altered the course of the battle and of history was Confederate General Stonewall Jackson, who was accidentally killed by his own troops after his amazing victory at Chancellorsville.
The key to Gettysburg was the control of the high ground, the hills and ridges outside the town. After Gen. Buford's troops were scattered into the hills that first day of battle, they could easily have been driven out of the high ground with an assault by the victorious Confederates, and had Stonewall been in command there's no doubt he would have driven his troops to do exactly that, digging them in on the high ground and reinforcing them with Longstreet's divisions to wait for General Meade's Union Army to come at them. Gettysburg would then have been a very different battle. But the troops Jackson would normally have commanded were under the command of General Richard Ewell.
General Ewell, even after he was ordered by Lee to take the Union position on Cemetery Hill "if practicable" chose not to make the attack. When he finally did, on the second and third day of the battle, it was the Union forces who were reinforced and dug in and the Confederates who were forced to assault them. Ewell's hesitancy likely cost the South the battle.
On the second day of the fighting, July 2nd, General Lee sent General Longstreet's divisions against the Union Left flank in an attempt to roll it up and knock the Union forces off of the high ground. Meade sent reinforcements to the Left flank to shore up positions that later became legendary - the Peach Orchard, the Wheatfield, Plum Run Valley and the Devil's Den. The Union forces held on in spite of horrendous casualties. One of the most amazing exploits of that day happened in the defense of Little Round Top, where Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, a former college professor in command of the 20th Maine maintained a precarious hold on the Union's extreme left flank under assault from General John Hood's troops.When the 20th were almost out of ammunition, Colonel Chamberlain led them in a surprise bayonet charge downhill that swept the Confederates off the hill, saved the position and likely the Union, a deed for which he later won the Medal of Honor.
On the third day, July 3rd, Lee decided to risk everything on a frontal assault on the right center on the Union lines, and 12,500 Confederate troops advanced from the ridge line three-quarters of a mile (1,200 meters) towards Cemetery Ridge in that gallant attempt to reverse fortune known to history as Pickett's Charge.
It was a slaughter. The Union artillery had deliberately held its fire during the Confederate bombardment prior to the Charge, but as the Confederate troops approached they were hit with fierce artillery fire from Union positions on Cemetery Hill and north of Little Round Top, and from the Union center. Nearly one half of the Confederate troops who participated in the Charge failed to return from the attack.
Somehow, some way, Confederate General Lewis Armistad's brigade managed to make it through the withering fire and briefly breach the Union lines at a place called the "Angle", a place with a low stone fence near a small wooded area. But they were quickly hurled back, and with that, the battle was essentially over.
After the battle it rained, something that occurred frequently enough to give rise to a belief among soldiers on both sides that the smoke and gunpowder somehow brought on the weather.
The two armies, both licking their wounds and having been through almost more than men should be able to bear gazed at each other across the field of battle on that long ago July Fourth. On both sides combined, there were over 50,000 casualties from three days of battle.
Late in the evening, Lee began the torturous retreat southwards. Did he understand at that point that the war was lost? We have no way of knowing. But on that July Fourth, one nation's hopes for independence were doomed and another nation's hopes reaffirmed.
After the battle, there were huge amounts or corpses that needed to be disposed of, and the Union decided to make the site a national cemetery, for convenience as much as anything else. Four months after the battle, on November 19, the cemetery was dedicated, and a ceremony was held.
The main speaker was a nationally known orator, Edward Everett. In those days of oratory as a national sport, he was expected to deliver a real rip snorter of a speech, and he reportedly did just that.
Oddly enough, Everett's isn't the speech that's remembered.Almost as an afterthought, the organizing committee invited President Abraham Lincoln to participate a scant two weeks before the ceremony, where they requested that he appear and "make a few brief remarks to honor the occasion".
So after Edward Everett finished his speech, which clocked in at close to an hour, the President rose and delivered those few brief remarks, ones that started with "Four score and seven years ago" and have come down to us through the mists of history.
Gettysburg today is a living version of Sandburg's poem. The grass has done its work, much of the original landscape has been altered and it takes some effort to visualize what happened there.
To do that, you have to go there when its quiet and listen to the ghosts. Trust me, they're there in abundance and they'll tell you the whole story if you feel like listening.
Have a wonderful July Fourth...and take a moment to remember and honor the ghosts of July Fourths past. They deserve that much, at least.
(reposted by request)
Addendum: This year, the Antifa movement threatened that they were going to invade the Gettysburg site and desecrate the graves and the monuments. This is an excellent indication of what bullies and sniveling cowards they really are. They would never dare to attack these brave men if they were alive...although I must admit, watching these Antifa dregs mixing it up with some of Pickett's Division or the men of the 2nd Vermont would have been amusing.
Fortunately, a number of men from the local militias, Sons of Confederate Veterans, a number of the locals and similar concerned parties went to the park armed and ready to protect it from these scum. And the Antifa clowns made the wise decision not to show up.
Every week on Monday, the WoW! community and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question: Trump's Tweets - Effective Communication Or National Embarrassment?
Patrick O' Hannigan: On the question of whether President Trump's tweets are an effective form of communication or a national embarrassment, I lean toward "effective communication," but would also suggest that we embrace the power of "and."
When people say that Trump's tweets are an embarrassment, they usually mean that they're undignified. That's a valid point, but also a criticism that could be leveled against almost *everything* on Twitter. The platform encourages a "sound bite" mentality no matter who uses it.
If you muscle past limitations of Twitter itself and think about how the president uses it (to mock his enemies, rally his friends, and nudge public discourse along in unfiltered ways), you're free to lament Trump's sometimes-coarse sentiments. But if we take the measure of a nation by the foibles of its chief executive, then we've tripped over ourselves. The degradation of office is not new. I'd argue that when Barack Obama was president, he cheapened the presidency by sharing his NCAA basketball tournament picks with fawning reporters, and climbing on his high horse to increase racial tensions at every opportunity (Remember "The Cambridge police acted stupidly" and "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon Martin"?). Similarly, Bill Clinton before him was wrong to respond to a silly question about whether he wore boxers or briefs.
"Trump is not the first to embarrass the presidency" is an admittedly lukewarm defense of his Twitter usage, but a remarkable thing about those Trumpian tweets is how many of them manage to irritate professional journalists, exposing progressive biases in ways that few other tools can (and the tweets are, in fact, tools -- they're part of the Trump brand).
Remember when the establishment media had kittens over "covfefe" and what that might mean? Whether the word was a typo, I don't know, but it's in the Urban Dictionary now, and Fox News recently reported that Georgia had banned that Trumpian coinage from appearing on vanity license plates. My favorite reaction came from a wag inspired enough to echo "Glengarry Glen Ross" in writing gleefully that -- wait for it -- "Covfefe is for closers!"
Rob Miller: First off, may I point out that WoW! anticipated Drudge on this question by a couple of days. Here are the results of his online poll as of this AM:
**DRUDGE POLL** SHOULD PRESIDENT TRUMP USE SOCIALS?
Now, to the question at hand. As far as I'm concerned, the only embarrassment involved is that of the left and their trained seals in the media. Our president is playing them the way Jimi Hendrix used to play his Stratocaster guitars, and I'm enjoying every minute of it.
President Trump is using social media in 4 distinct ways, all of them brilliant. First, he is using it to communicate directly with the American people, which means he no longer needs the Leftist media. At a time when they are deeply distrusted by almost 80% of the American people per the latest Gallup poll, President Trump, along with news sites like Drudge and Breitbart, has destroyed their ability to filter the news except among the True Believers.
Third, he is using it, especially the tweets to drive the news cycle wherever he wants. We saw a recent example of this when he spanked Leftist commentators Joe Scarbourough and Mika Brzezinski with a richly deserved tweet that took up all the headlines - while the House passed Kate's Law mandating heavy jail sentences for illegal migrants who repeatedly enter the country after being deported as well as legislation cutting federal funds to sanctuary cities. The press, of course, concentrated of the attack on their own rather than the more important stuff. President Trump does this constantly, and the media always falls for it. To me, it's like watching one Roadrunner cartoon after another.
And fourth? He's letting the legacy media know that there's a cost for their actions.
These corrupt swine mostly come from very similar effete, privileged backgrounds. They grow up in the same kind of neighborhoods, go to the same schools, have almost identical politics, frequently marry each other, socialize together and have similar ideas about their entitlements and priviliges. They really thought, until now, that they could openly lie, conspire among themselves ,insult, demean, libel and destroy not just ordinary people but any political figures they chose to as well as their families without any cost to themselves. And up to now. it has mostly worked.
They were so in their bubble, so certain they could do the same thing to Donald Trump and so anxious to get Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama's third term in power that they overplayed their hand and got careless, exposing themselves. And they were so used to getting away with it that they actually expected to do destroy Donald Trump in the usual fashion without cost to themselves.
Big mistake.
For one thing, Trump is a fighter. He's half a Scot on his mother's side, the country whose national emblem is the thistle and whose national motto, inscribed by the Stuarts in Latin on Scotland's coat of arms is Nemo me impune lacessit 'No one hurts me unharmed' or in the Scot's Gaelic, Cha togar m' fhearg gun dìoladh (don't ask me how I know stuff like this - long story).
And for another thing, President Trump realized early on how despised these self important talking heads were by most Americans and how tired we all were of their lies and contempt for most of America's people. One of the hit songs at Trump's rallies (and they resembled rock concerts in many ways) was to have the fans turn around and boo the Leftist media covering the events. That, and the savvy of alt-media guru Steve Bannon, who rebuilt Breitbart and clued the president in on exactly how to use the powerful alt media to his advantage.
The latest giggle is the Leftist media meme that President Trump is 'fomenting violence' against the media by his tweets reveling in their defeat.
This comes after they openly help foment the 'resistance,' in an attempt to bring down a sitting elected president, cheerfully published leaks of classified material, and celebrated a play simulating his murder and a photo shoot with a truly heartless woman holding up a bloody model of a severed Trump head that scared his young son Baron to death when it was shown on TV. It comes after they have all but accused him of treason, have attacked his wife and children and made news out of the fact that he and the GOP are murderers because people will die if ObamaCare is repealed and replaced. And it comes after we've seen that almost all of the politically motivated violence is coming from the Left - Antifa, the Resistance, #blacklivesmatter with their assaults on police and race rioting, even the actual attempted assassinations of Republican congressmen - rationalized and even egged on in some cases by these same media talking heads.
And now they're suddenly afraid of violence being directed at them? Hilarious. Keep on keeping on, Mr. President. There might have been a few tweets I might not have sent or would have worded slightly differently, but overall it's a killer tactic.
Don Surber: President Trump tweet attacked Psycho Joe and Crazy Mika for two reasons: 1. To watch the media members belittle themselves as they chase this around as if it were Watergate. 2. To distract media attention from the real issues.
Trump is accomplishing a lot under the radar. He has to go under the radar because the Democrats could kill a bill in the Senate by making it a controversy. All they need is three of the 10 RINOs in the Senate to block any legislation. No controversy means McCain cannot get a guest appearance on "Meet the Pres" out of it, so he will vote with the party. Ditto Lindsay Graham.
As for the media (clears throat) I've written two books on how Trump played the media to win the nomination ("Trump the Press") and on how Trump played the media to win the nomination ("Trump the Establishment").
He knows the media better than anyone. He cut his teeth in the media capital of the world, arm-wrestling George Steinbrenner for the sports fronts of Newsday, the Post, and the Daily News back when Trump owned the New Jersey Generals. He endured a very publicly near bankruptcy, and a divorce of the century. In short, he's played bigger rooms than Washington.
And it shows.
Chuck Todd thinks he can embarrass Trump out of the White House?
Has Chuck Todd been munching lead paint chips?
Trump got elected after the Billy Bush tapes.
Speaking on behalf of most Trump supporters: We do not care.
Psycho Joe and Crazy Mika have been calling him crazy for over a year. Finally, the mongoose strikes back.
Better get her to the waaaaaaaaaaaaaambulance.
The bottom line is tweet attacks distract attention from proposals allowing them to get through Congress. The tweets also get the media to further discredit itself, which amuses Trump supporters no end.
Maybe Hasbro can come out with a Psycho Joe action figure.
Stately McDaniel Manor: President Trump’s tweets are, to actual Americans, as opposed to Americans in name only--AINOs--refreshing. I had the opportunity to watch Mr. Trump delivering a speech to a group of veterans, past and present, at Lincoln Center not an hour ago. I was struck by how relaxed and comfortable he was, and by how quickly he has improved at public speaking. In every way, he is better now than he was during the campaign. But how is this possible?
If the Media AINOs and the RINO/AINOs are right, Mr. Trump should be a shambling wreck. He’s constantly under attack from every direction. The Republican controlled Congress is barely functional, and plenty of them are determined to undermine him. Because AINOs can’t imagine anyone doing more than one thing at a time, and that taking a very long time, they’re stunned to see him producing prodigious work, and do their best to ignore and cover it up.
Mr. Trump took a few gentle swipes at the media during his speech, and the crowd was, to put it mildly, enthusiastic. They were Americans. When Mr. Trump lets a self-important media blow-dried pajamaboy, or a female anchor with more plastic surgery than many African nations see in a year have it, Americans rejoice. They know exactly how much the self-imagined elite hate them, and if Mr. Trump is a little coarse in expressing himself, hey, it’s a hard world out there, and Americans live in it. They’re a lot more worried about putting food on the table and braces on the kid’s teeth than being invited to the right Georgetown parties. AINOs want to rule the paradise they just know they can create if only there weren’t so many of those deplorable, stupid as shit Americans--as CNN has put it--mucking things up.
Does Mr. Trump occasionally say things in ways I wouldn’t? Who cares? During my police days, I occasionally said worse, not because it was reflective of my character or normal way of speaking, but because I worked among Americans, all kinds of Americans, and they don’t all speak the same way or relate well to people that don’t sound like them. That was OK then, and it’s OK now.
There is, of course, far more going on than the occasional tweet that might have given one’s great, great, great Grandmother the vapors. AINOs know--but won’t admit--Mr. Trump is a man used to working long, hard hours, and accomplishing great things. They know he surrounds himself with the same kinds of smart, driven, capable people, as demonstrated by his appointments. They know he is used to working with all kinds of Americans, and know he likes them, and they like him. They know Americans do not share their obsessive, deranged hatred for Mr. Trump. All of that scares them--badly.
They can see he is changing the way things are done in DC, and are scared to death about how deeply he is going to dig the rot out of the swamp. He really is rich, is proud of it, and doesn’t owe anyone anything, which makes him more dangerous than any president in memory. They know Americans don’t begrudge him that wealth, which threatens to wipe out one of their primary “hate the wealthy” narratives. Worse, he is determined to exert the full power of his office, but not in the manner of Barack Obama. He’s restoring the rule of law and the constitutional limits of government. They shudder at the thought.
Media AINOs are particularly horrified that he does not fear them or prostrate himself before them. He extends them no courtesies, and expects them to be, at the least, accurate and honest, and is unbowed and ruthless at calling them out when they are not, which seems to be more often than not these days.
Oh, but the tweets damage the dignity of the office! They lower the discourse of Washington! Right. Lower than Bill Clinton’s sexual escapades or Barack Obama’s wholesale trampling of the Constitution? The tweets are not the official policy pronouncements of the American government. Americans understand that. They’re Mr. Trump’s off the cuff commentary at people he believes are damaging America, and Americans, for the most part, agree, and they laugh, oh they laugh. Even those that don’t wholeheartedly agree could care less. They can tell the difference between letting off a bit of steam, and being diplomatic when it matters. The idea the unwashed of flyover country are laughing at them drives AINOs to distraction. How dare they!?
Mr. Trump is saying some of the things Americans shout at the TV. He’s giving voice to the things Americans would love to tell morally flexible politicians and smug media twerps. He’s doing precisely what Americans elected him to do.
And oh boy, oh boy, are they enjoying it.
Doug Hagin:Well, it is hardly a national embarrassment. It is well short of the embarrassment that our media is. He should use Twitter to go over the heads of Congress. But he should stop short of the grade school insults. Using Twitter to inform the public and to push his agenda is a great strategy. But, again, he should cease with the verbal BS But I will take a president who goes that route over one that is actively trying to "fundamentally transform" America any day!
Dave Schuler : Both. It aggravates those who have never liked him and wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances and delights his supporters who see it as standing up to a bullying, prevaricating leftist press.
The concern would be that it alienates those who voted for Trump despite his coarseness and oafishness. It also won't attract those who found his views better on the issues but couldn't put up with the coarseness and oafishness. So far his base support of 39% is holding. As long as that's the case, it puts him in no real danger.
What I don't think that the folks at CNN and MSNBC appreciate is that their constant hectoring of Trump is hurting them worse than it is him. Every antagonistic exaggeration, contrived anonymous source, or unsupported allegation may push Trump down a notch but it pushes them down, too.
It's like that old wisecrack about mud rasslin' with a Ppig: you get dirty and the pig enjoys it. While Trump is still not in any real danger, the liberal media may be. It won't take a lot of successful libel suits to render them non-viable.
Bookworm Room :Why can't the tweets be both? Yes, it is embarrassing to have our commander in chief get into fights with two sleazy, half-brained talk show hosts. Having said that, it needs to be done. First, all those Republican presidents who showed dignified silence in the face of savage press attacks were, in fact, savaged. The media hyenas didn't see that dignity as a sign of strength; they saw it as weakness and doubled down on their attacks. Trump is crude, but he's effective.
Second, the media ProgBots are incapable of keeping more than two things in their collective mind at more than one time, especially when one of those things is about them. In that case, the thing about them is all that they can think of. And while they're obsessing about insults to those two sleazy, dimwitted talk show hosts, Trump is getting things done, lots and lots of useful things.
A short list of Trump's accomplishments is forcing Europeans to step up to the EU obligations and making the German's back down from their climate hysteria; simultaneously slimming down federal agencies while allowing those agents still employed to do their jobs -- especially when the job is enforcing our existing immigration laws; unleashing the American economy by unleashing America's capacity to produce fossil fuels; and allowing General Mattis to run the military like a military, rather than like an LGBTQRSTUV social justice experience. Given enough time, he'll lower taxes. And if the GOPers would abandon their dignity and their animus, he'd get rid of Obamacare too.
Frankly, I'm at the point at which I would accept (although be disgusted by) President Trump doing a half-naked pole dance in the Oval Office if that would distract the media enough to allow the president to do his job. The media is the enemy and it needs to be tamed. And -- and this is an important point -- President Trump is not abusing the First Amendment when he attacks the media, because he's not using the power of the government to silence them. (See, e.g., Turkey, Russia, Iran, or the entire Muslim Middle East for examples of government aggression towards media.) Instead, bless his heart, President Trump is using the power of his personality to fight the media at their own of hurling insults game.
You go, guy! That's all I can say. You're crude, rude, distracting . . . and very effective.
Laura Rambeau Lee :Regarding the latest Trump Twitter controversy, one question no one is asking is “did Mika and Joe go too far?” They have spent countless hours saying outrageous things about President Trump. Enough is enough! President Trump is using his Twitter posts to communicate directly with the American people and is effective in getting his message delivered free of the negativity and #FakeNews utilized by the main stream media. I am happy President Trump is savvy enough to use these new media tools to his advantage.
Well, there it is! Make sure to drop by every Monday for the WoW! Magazine Forum. And enjoy WoW! Magazine 24-7 with some of the best stuff written in the 'net. Take from me, you won't want to miss it.
Effective state tax rate ($50,000 taxable income): 3.75 %
Highest tax bracket: flat
Rate at highest tax bracket: 3.75% of federally adjusted gross income
Moody’s recently downgraded the credit rating to its lowest investment grade rating, the lowest of any state and other financial credit rating companies have followed along, with a 'junk bond' rating imminent.
And Illinois currently has $251 billion in unfunded pension obligations, and a backlog of unpaid bills worth $15 billion.
Illinois got into this situation because for years they have followed the failed Blue State model of taxing and spending other people's money. Literally thousands of residents and businesses have fled to the lower taxed and more business friendly states of Indiana and Wisconsin. Governor Bruce Rauner a Republican, has been unable to accomplish anything because the State’s general assembly is dominated by Democrats led by House Speaker Michael Madigan, who has obstructed all attempts at real reform. Illinois has been run without a budget for 3 years as unpaid debts and obligations have piled up, and stop gap temporary arrangements have been used instead because Democrat Speaker Madigan and his good friends the public employee unions haven't allowed anything else.
With the state facing bankruptcy, Governor Rauner called an emergency session of the General Assembly in a last ditch attempt to stave off the Grim Reaper. And in response, a bi-partisan majority passed a $36.5 billion budget plan authored by the Democrats.
It calls for slashing spending, cutting public employee pensions and lowering taxes in an effort to create more economic growth and attract business to Illinois.
Hah hah, fooled you! This is a budget authored by Democrats, who hold a majority in the assembly, remember? This new 'budget' calls for nothing of the kind. Illinois decided on slow death,at least their state government did.
Instead, it calls for a humongous $5 billion tax increase and for a lot more spending. Especially for public employee union benefits, public schools, universities, social service groups, and other Democrat Party supporting groups latched on to the teat of government funds
Illinois Democrat legislators, as usual, have shown absolutely no desire to confront the state's finances or the death watch on the states' unfunded pension liabilities, nor are they interested in anything to make the business climate more attractive. Instead, they doubled down on more spending and higher taxes...again.
The real laugher is that this isn't even a budget, not yet anyway. Yes, it passed the Illinois House 90-25, with 23 Republican votes.But it still has to be read a third time and passed. After which, the Illinois Senate needs to approve it and Governor Rauner has to sign it.
Meanwhile. Democrat Speaker Madigan sent begging letters to credit rating agencies, which had let the state know they they would downgrade the state's bonds to “junk” level on July 1 if there was no budget. He asked the agencies to “temporarily withhold judgment and allow legislators time to negotiate a bipartisan, balanced budget.”
Like that's going to happen! Oh, something might get passed, but it won't be a balanced budget. No, Illinois decided on a slow death instead.
I confess to being surprised that 23 Republicans voted for this, or that Governor Rauner would sign it. Why take a bite of this particular crap sandwich and share the blame?
Now, some Assembly Republicans were smart enough to realize this, criticizing their GOP colleagues for voting for this travesty,calling the budget a disaster and suggesting that for Illinois taxpayers, it's literally time to pick up and leave.
Of course, that's already happening, and if said crap sandwich passes through the bowels of the State of Illinois's government and gets instituted, the current river of taxpayers and businesses fleeing Illinois will turn into a flood.
What we're seeing here, of course, is the beginning of a trend. We're seeing the blue state model collapse as they run out of other people's money to purloin. Connecticut, New Jersey, and California aren't all that far behind Illinois.
This song, "Stiff Upper Lip" was written by Byron De La Vandal. it is about the UK in the 21st century and reflects the emotion of quite a few people in the UK in view of their government's inaction against Islamist terrorism and subversion.
After failing to thwart two terror attacks that have occurred in the U.K. so far this year – both of which were carried out by suspected jihadis who were known to U.K. authorities – intelligence agencies have identified 23,000 potential jihadis living in Britain, according to a report published in the Times of London on Saturday.
Out of that total, 3,000 are suspected of posing an “imminent threat” and are being investigated accordingly, the Times reports. Meanwhile, the other 20,000 have been involved with past investigations and have been categorized as posing a “residual risk.”
Those MI5 figures were confirmed by UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd the following day on Andrew Marr's BBC show.
I personally bet this is a low ball estimate, based on the UK's law enforcement agencies previous desire to ignore Islamist extremism for the sake of political correctness. And even at that, these men and women are still free, even the 3,000 who pose an imminent threat.
More proof that MI5 is likely underestimating the nature of the problem is the fact that both Manchester attacker Salman Abedi and Westminster killer Khalid Masood were in a pool of “former subjects of interest” and were no longer the subject of surveillance efforts, the Times reported. Abedi, a 23-year-old whose parents immigrated to the U.K. from Libya, killed 22 kids, in addition to himself, when he detonated a bomb just as attendees of a concert by American singer Ariana Grande were rushing for the exits following her concert.
Is it any wonder that hideous attacks like the one on the Finsbury Mosque in London are occurring as people see their government as ineffectual in providing even basic public safety from Islamist terrorism? That some people are likely to take matters into their own hands?
By an odd coincidence, a motion picture is premiering soon that is based on one of Britain's finest hours, Dunkirk. In 1940, when France fell to the Nazis, the British expeditionary force was trapped on the beaches at Dunkirk with their backs to the sea, subject to artillery and tank attacks from the land and strafing and bombing from the Luftwaffe. To rescue their army, the British pulled off an amazing feat of heroism. They sent everything that could float across the channel to pick up the stranded troops - naval vessels, tug boats, even pleasure boats and yachts captained by civilians who volunteered and jauntily sailed their boats into fire and shell. As Churchill put it afterwards, "The little ships of England brought the Army home." And the rescued soldier became the core of the British Army who helped defeat Hitler.
Does that spirit still exist in Britain? Does it still live there? Byron De La Vandal's "Stiff Upper Lip" and the accompanying video seems to indicate that it does and will surface in the end. Time will tell. In any event, it seems that things are going down to the wire.
Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com and other publications.
Discussing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement targeting the Jewish state, Ambassador Dani Dayan, Israel’s Consul General in New York, declared that the “real war” is the intimidation, disruption and attempted silencing of pro-Israel voices on U.S. college campuses.
"There we have a real war,” Ambassador Dayan said, referring to attempts to shut down pro-Israel speakers on American campuses. “And we have to be much more aggressive, much more assertive. … But it is not only an Israeli problem, what is happening on many campuses across America. I think it is first and foremost an American problem.”
He's certainly correct, given how conservative speakers are routinely treated when they attempt to speak on campuses and cut through the leftist propaganda students are deluged with.
Ambassador Dayan himself has experienced this. Just last month, he was heckled and interrupted repeatedly during a speech at the City College of New York by students from the CCNY chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine and other anti-Israel groups.
Regarding the anti-Israel actions on U.S. campuses, Ambassador Dayan said, “In some senses, I think we are in the same boat, as we say sometimes in Israel, with other movements that their freedom of speech is obstructed on many campuses.”
He continued: “It happens on the West Coast. It happens on the East Coast. I think as a foreign representative I have to be very careful but I think it is a problem that American society has to deal with not only in respect to Israel.”
“In some senses, it is the same phenomenon that we see on campuses by extreme elements that are also anti-Israeli but not only anti-Israeli. In some cases they are even anti-American. And we as Israel, we have to be relentless. We cannot give up.”
As to that, Ambassador Dayan has vowed to return to CCNY and refuses to be intimidated. We should not give any ground to our enemies,” he stated. “On the contrary, I will make a point of coming to the same place again next year and the next semester. And we must persevere.”
Danon also had something to say about the BDS movement as a whole, which he described as 'a “big failure.”
“Let’s not forget that. “You know, I saw a survey of the market value of the companies targeted by BDS and all of them – for sure the average, maybe there was one that for common business reasons didn’t – but on the average they made twice the market performance. So the economic BDS is a total failure. And it is sufficient to see the shape of Israel’s economy these days.”
President Donald Trump and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi met at the White House for two days and the good chemistry between the two men is obvious.
The two leaders spoke about how theyhave forged important agreements on trade, commerce and mutual national security.While congress still has to approve it, the president is lobbying for India to be able to buy 22 Guardian MQ-9B unmanned aircraft for maritime surveillance
The AP story accompanying this video has one huge outright lie in it, which is unfortunately typical. It says, " He (Modi) forged a strong relationship with President Barack Obama."
Actually, the relationship between the U.S. and India deteriorated during Barack Hussein Obama's time in the white House.
President Obama's conduct while in India where he refused to visit the Golden Temple further alienated India, and the disrespectful handling and arrest of one of India's diplomats in December 2013 in New York pretty much destroyed whatever was left of any good relations between India's previous Singh government and the U.S.
When Prime Minister Modi was elected in 2014, one of the first things then-President Obama did was to hammer on the Indian government about how they needed to 'make a settlement on Kashmir' with Pakistan. This shocked the Indians, who responded forcefully that the status quo was fine as far as they were concerned and Obama (this is almost a direct quote) was 'barking up the wrong tree.' He further angered them by excluding India from any meaningful input on Afghanistan, and by making a disgraceful deal with terrorist David Headly, AKA Daood Gilani.
Headly, you might remember, was the 'point man' for the hideous 2011 Mumbai terrorist
attacks promulgated by Lashkar-e-Tiaba and Pakistan's ISI, scouting out targets in advance and recording coordinates for the terrorists on a GPS. The Obama Administration refused to even let Indian intel interrogate Headly directly, let alone extradite him.
Modi is a lot like Trump. He was elected when India's economy was stagnant and has since made amazing progress in putting the Indian economy back on track. It's not surprising the two of them seem to be getting along so well, especially since they both have another friend in common, Israel's Benyamin Netanyahu. Like our President, Modi and his BJP party have a strongly pro-Israel stance.
President Trump's revitalizing America's relationship with Israel, the Sunni emirates, Egypt and India and his vastly improved chemistry with China are pointing in an obvious direction. Israel, America and the Sunnis have a common enemy in Iran, and India, Israel and China both have problems with Islamic extremism and terrorism.
What I think we're seeing here is vastly improved ties and coalition building.
Every week on Monday, the WoW! community and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question: What's Your Reaction To The Special Elections?
Bookworm Room : The special elections mattered only because the Democrats had three erroneous beliefs: (1) That Trump voters and former #NeverTrumpers want to disable Trump; (2) that money can buy votes; and (3) that polling is credible.
The reality is that even those conservatives who don't particularly like Trump, including those, such as Paul Mirengoff who have moved from being #NeverTrumpers to reluctantly Trump supporters, are pleased with what the President has been able to do despite the Progressives' unrelenting efforts to sidetrack him and, if possible, destroy his presidency entirely. Trump is busy rolling back Obama's unconstitutional executive orders, authorizing federal agencies to enforce laws already on the books, repealing onerous regulations, appointing conservative judges, and leading from the front in international affairs. Compared to that, his occasionally confusing or bombastic tweets seem insignificant.
It's also nice to see that, when it comes to deeply held principles, Americans can't be bought. Progressives can run all the ads they want in Georgia using money from the San Francisco Bay Area, but it's just not going to work. Again, while conservative voters (especially college-educated conservative voters) may not like Trump's style, they sure like his substance.
Finally, who in the world is dumb enough today to put all their faith in the polls?
The reality is that each of the special elections played out precisely as logic would dictate: conservative voters voted for conservative candidates. Wise Progressives (all three of them) have figured this out; the rest of them are providing us with delightful entertainment by attacking Nancy Pelosi and insisting that they would have won if only they'd pulled even harder to the left. You go, guys!
What fascinates me more is the Dem reaction. It has split the party wide open. Not that the split wasn't there before, but this has exacerbated it.
Julian Assange, has an interesting piece on Twit More that I dissected that explores this in depth. He says that the Democrat party is doomed. As a Bernie supporter, Assange paints a picture of what he sees as the party's future.
Mike McDaniel: My general reaction to the special Congressional elections in GA-6 and SC-5 is: so? I’m not demonstrating indifference or apathy. In fact, I don’t care about apathy. My point is I expected both Republicans to win, and within the five-point range, which is exactly what happened.
I was secure in this expectation because for decades, it has been apparent, and even proved through research, which the media has endeavored to keep quiet, that polls tend to favor Democrats by no less than five points. Some suggest it’s because pollsters always oversample Democrats, because of confirmation bias, because some pollsters misreport--purposely--results that favor Republicans, because the media don’t report polls that favor Republicans, particularly by significant margins…the list goes on, and all are likely correct to one degree or another. Therefore, whenever a Democrat is said to be likely to win a close race, I expect the Republican to win by 3-6 points, and am rarely disappointed.
Do I need to point out how utterly unreliable the media are? Do I need to observe if they report it’s dark at midnight, I have to go outside to confirm it? Need I note if the media think the Dem is a shoe-in, I know who is going to win? Thought not.
In the Georgia race, the arguments of the candidates also told the tale. Jon Osoff, as pure a pajamaboy as the DNC could find, began as a doctrinaire Democrat, but as election day approached, he began tacking sharply toward the center, sounding very much like--gasp!--Donald Trump. Karen Handel hit Osoff hard for his earned carpetbagger status, and for the tens of millions of out of state money--mostly from California--that made the race the most expensive in history. Her frequent invocation of Nancy Pelosi was also telling. Americans aren’t fond of her; she’s the embodiment of the San Francisco liberal, clueless, entitled and self-imagined intellectually and morally superior to the flyover country deplorables about whom she and Osoff pretend to care. The comparison stuck to Osoff even as he frantically tried to present himself as just one of the working middle class Democrats love to call racists in particular and bigots in general.
These elections don’t demonstrate quite as much as Republicans and Democrats claim. The Dems have indeed lost four in a row, but in the 2018 elections, they’ll win some--law of averages. I doubt they’ll take back the House, but may slightly narrow the margin.
However, the victory, and the Dem’s bizarre spin(s) regarding it, indicate yet again that Progressivism cannot be falsified. It is akin to religious faith for the aggressively and angrily non-religious. No progressive policy or tactic can possibly be wrong, and no evidence can ever exist sufficient to prove it wrong. If a policy or tactic appears to fail, it’s because not enough money was spent: more than $30 million wasn’t enough, and besides, the Republicans spent lots of money too and didn’t win by as big a margin as they should have! Not enough time has gone by for the policy or tactic to triumph as it inevitably must: yeah we lost now, but just wait until 2018 or 2020; Americans will love our narrative then! Or inevitably, Republicans have been allowed to exist to oppose the righteous: they cheated; it was the weather; Republicans lied about us and our candidate; Russia!, TRUMP!
This makes it very unlikely that Democrats will be able to diagnose their failure and make adjustments. They’ve spent decades so stirring their base into derangement, the entire party is essentially socialist, leaning communist, will all the totalitarian tendencies of those ideologies. Some Dems are apparently recognizing at least some of their huge liabilities, but it’s unlikely the base monster they’ve so willingly created will allow them to move anywhere near the center of traditional American politics.
Thank goodness--and Nancy Pelosi--for that.
Oh, and what must life be like for such perpetually angry, hateful and aggrieved people? All people of good will must pray for such miserable people.
Doug Hagin:Well, I am pleased with the results, although not surprised in the least. And, I am happy that the Democrats still do not get why they lost. They really are in denial.
Don Surber: The special elections represented five open congressional seats, which are the best way to flip a district, especially this late in the 10-year redistricting cycle.
However, all five seats -- four Republican and one Democratic -- remained in their respective parties's folds. This shows the regional partisan split continues.
Rare will be the state that has a Republican senator and a Democratic senator in the future. Last year, there were 34 Senate races. Republicans took all 22 in the states Trump won. Democrats took all 12 in the states Clinton won.
At present, the double victory on Tuesday gave Trump a boost. Democrats are deflated. The party is becoming a coffee klatch run by a bunch of bickering, catty, little old ladies -- Hillary, Nancy, and Chuck Schumer. To keep the troops moving forward, they dialed up the rhetoric to 11. It isn't working.
Obama will try to rev up the base, but he split the base by playing racial politics for eight years. The return of the Black Liberation Movement under the alias of Black Lives Matter makes politics less fun for white people.Who needs the guilt? So he is turning off much of the base.
On top of that, Obama has the smell of loser now.
Trump let the air out of all of Obama's programs. We are not even six months into this administration. Even Michelle's carrot sticks and kale school lunches are gone. Trump is feeding the kids corn dogs and cheese puffs.
Ossoff's head is on the pike. Pajama Boy is this year's Wendy Davis. Abortion Barbie meet Planned Parenthood Ken.
The Karen Handel Forget Planned Parenthood Money Act is coming. Revenge is being served hot and spicy.
We may not get tired of winning, but surely the big Democratic donors are exhausted from all that losing. DNC revenues hit their lowest in 14 years last month. Adjusted for inflation that is, let's see (gets out calculator) pitiful.
At some point, losing no longer is fun. You do something else. I say this as a Cleveland sports fan. About this time of year, you assess the Indians record and calculate if the Tribe is worth the emotional investment. This year the verdict is yes. Other years no. I went through 35 seasons in which the Indians had only 6 winning seasons. A fair weather fan is a sane fan.
So it is with politics. If Trump lost, I would have quit blogging. It's that simple.
Imagine people more marginally involved in politics. Has anyone seen Jane Fonda lately?
So the short answer is Democrats are deflated, Trump is pumped.
Dave Schuler: The Democratic National Committee, with the obtuseness they've displayed for the last dozen years or so, chose to make the special elections a referendum on Trump. Now they're stuck with it.
No matter how much they wish it were otherwise, politics has been, is, and will remain local. The Democrats need to learn how to do retail politics again. Field qualified candidates who actually live in the districts they want to represent, who know the districts and are known by them. Formulate an agenda and run on issues. Build local organizations.
Don't expect the electorate at large to recoil in horror from Republicans the way you do. Other than in a few urban centers and college towns, most people just don't look at things that way.
Laura Rambeau Lee : The Democrats appear unaware the majority of Americans remain firmly center right. The Democrat Party of today offers nothing but nasty partisanship and hateful rhetoric. Their progressive Marxist ideology and identity politics appeal to a very small segment of the population. The American people do not want this continued chaos and division being stirred up by progressive agitators. We want good jobs. We want the opportunity to better ourselves and raise our families and for the most part to be let alone. We want less government intrusion into our lives, not more. We do not want a nanny state and we know that promises of free health care and college tuition are lies. We treasure our freedom and are seeing it slip away, particularly through policies implemented by the Democrat party.
The Democrat Party has no good leader and no message that appeals to the average American voter. These last special elections prove no amount of money or celebrity endorsements can buy our votes. As long as the Democrat party remains deaf to the needs of the American people and continues to push their radical agenda they will continue to lose support for their candidates.
As for me, I’m still laughing my Ossoff.
Well, there it is! Make sure to drop by every Monday for the WoW! Magazine Forum. And enjoy WoW! Magazine 24-7 with some of the best stuff written in the 'net. Take from me, you won't want to miss it.
Patrick Condell in another classic commentary, this time on what he calls the invasion of Europe. As usual, he gets right to the heart of the matter.
As Patrick Condell points out, this is a self inflicted wound, and a particularly dangerous one for women, gays and Jews. And slowly but surely, the cost of keeping these 'refugees' many of whom remain on welfare is slowly bankrupting the EU. There's also the cost, both human and financial, of crime.
Will Europe eventually wake up and stop this slow suicide? Time will tell.
