The Republicans control the US House, the Senate, the White House and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is going to be far more conservative as soon as Judge Brett Kavanaugh gets approved by the Senate.
So what is the response of the Democratic leadership? To send the crazies in their party out to publicly harass Republicans.
It may get the crazies all fired up for the November election, but who the Democrats need to be going after are the moderates, and I don’t see someone who on occasion votes for a Republican impressed by crazy people screaming at Republicans for the crime of going out in public.
I think it’s a bad strategy but probably not as bad as fully embracing congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
She won her primary fair and square, so she should be congratulated and recognized by the Democratic Party, but most places in this country resemble Guilford County much more than they do the Bronx. Socialists may do well in the Bronx and in Vermont, but they don’t do well in the flyover states.
The Democrats can either be satisfied with their enclaves in the Northeast and the West Coast or they can attempt to become a political force in this country again.
It would be wonderful to see the Democratic Party fully embrace the socialist philosophy of Ocasio-Cortez, because that will doom them to being the minority party for the foreseeable future. But no doubt cooler heads will prevail and the Democratic leadership will reveal themselves as the political opportunists that they are.
*****
Right now the Democratic Party seems to stand for nothing except being against everything President Donald Trump does. The economy is making that a losing argument.
People may not like the way that he has done it, but lowering taxes and continuing to eliminate the oppressive regulations of the Obama administration has made the economy boom in a way that it never did during the eight years Barack Obama was in the White House. Manufacturing employment just hit a 10-year high.
Obama supporters claim that Obama set up the economy and Trump has been fortunate to be in office when the Obama economic policies started taking effect.
If Hillary Clinton had been elected and had continued the economic policies of Obama and the economic boom was taking place that might be a plausible argument. But once Trump took office he immediately started dismantling what Obama had spent eight years building. Trump’s policies are more or less the opposite of Obama’s policies on almost everything.
One other argument against calling this the Obama economy is that if Obama could have created 3 percent growth with his economic policies, why didn’t he. Obama was in office for eight years and in his final year the growth rate started going down – until Trump was elected and then the mood of the small business owners and investors in the country changed even before Trump took office.
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Take a look at Alan Dershowitz, who has been a darling of the left for years. I don’t think his political philosophy has changed, but he is first and foremost an attorney, and as an attorney he believes that Trump is getting a raw deal, which he states over and over on news shows.
He is now being vilified by the left because he is taking up for Trump. The left doesn’t consider his legal arguments, which as always are well reasoned and based on years of legal scholarship, because in their opinion if Dershowitz believes what he is saying he should keep his mouth shut.
It doesn’t matter to the left, including the mainstream media, that Trump is being railroaded because it’s Trump and getting him out of office is more important than following the law.
*****
As a lifelong and practicing Roman Catholic, I am disturbed that the left is claiming that a deeply held Catholic faith should disqualify someone from being a Supreme Court justice. The argument is that it is OK to be a Catholic as long as you don’t really believe what the Catholic Church teaches. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi would be a great example of someone the left has no trouble supporting even though she is nominally a Catholic.
Imagine if a possible candidate for the Supreme Court were a devout Muslim and people were saying that being a Muslim disqualified them from being considered for an appointment to the Supreme Court; the left, including the mainstream media, would be up in arms about the bigotry of disqualifying someone because of their religious beliefs.
On the left it is not simply acceptable but expected to question a Catholic.
I am disappointed and disturbed also that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, including and most importantly Pope Francis, has not weighed in to condemn those who disparage his religion.
Pope Francis has no trouble weighing in on American political issues, but he is passing up a chance to defend his own faith. And it goes on down the line to the parish priests.
There should be a loud condemnation of religious bigotry. Furthermore, the Catholic Church should wield its considerable political power and quit playing nice with people who believe that a baby is not human until it is fully delivered. The idea that a baby is not a baby because part of the child is still inside its mother is absurd from a scientific as well as moral viewpoint.
Catholics all over the world oppose abortion but the Catholic Church coddles American Catholic elected officials and non-Catholics alike who support abortion in its most grotesque forms.
*****
People talk about signs of the end of the world, and for me the Clintons flying on a commercial airline flight together is a sign of something – maybe not the end of the world, but maybe the end of their ability to sell influence.
The fact that they were on a commercial flight meant that they couldn’t find a single Democratic Party bigwig who was willing to loan them a plane.
It used to be so easy for them – a couple of phone calls, the promise of some government largesse, maybe even a hint at an ambassadorship and someone would be willing to loan them a private jet.
But influence comes and goes. Right now the Clintons have none and it doesn’t appear they will have any in the near future.
Hillary Clinton is quite naturally talking about running in 2020, but if she weren’t feeding those rumors no one would give a hoot what she did or said. By keeping her name out there, at least the mainstream media are going to continue to rate her as one of the top contenders for the Democratic nomination.
It would appear that the wealthy Democratic donors don’t agree, but at least she still has her followers in newsrooms.
I hope she does run in 2020 because she has now proven twice that the American people don’t want her to be president. She only beat Sen. Bernie Sanders by cheating, and then she managed to lose a campaign that every major political pundit in this country said was impossible for her not to win.
How could she possibly beat Trump in 2020? She couldn’t beat him when he was a real estate mogul and a reality television star. Now Trump is president and the economy is breaking records on employment.
Trump, however, has another ace in the hole – he loves to campaign. Trump enjoys getting out in a front of a crowd of supporters and talking to them.
Hillary Clinton hates to campaign because she hates the little people but knows she needs their votes. She probably hates really rich, powerful people as well, but she does like those private jets, so she has to be nice.
Maybe Hillary Clinton in 2020 could talk Pelosi into being her running mate. Pelosi will be a spry 80-year-old in 2020. It would be two old, tired women who haven’t had a new idea since they were out campaigning for women to have the right to vote (OK, that’s a slight exaggeration). Wouldn’t it be loverly?
Hillary Clinton could get her custom designed, bulletproof minivan, Scooby Doo, out of mothballs and take it back out on the road. Just two grandmothers, Hillary and Nancy, driving around the country trying to buy votes. It’s a delightful image. Of course, one of them would have to be taught how to put gas in a car and that might take some time.
*****
I understand the politics of it, but it is still funny that the Democrats were all geared up to oppose the Trump Supreme Court nominee before the nominee was named on Monday night.
If nothing else, it demonstrates how partisan the country has become. The Democrats don’t believe that Trump should be able to nominate anyone to the Supreme Court because they don’t believe he should be president. The fly in that ointment is that Trump is president.
Trump defeated the darling of the Democratic Party, the candidate that the Democratic National Committee felt so strongly about that it cheated to get through the nomination process. It’s not Trump’s fault that Hillary Clinton is a terrible candidate and evidently didn’t understand how a president is elected. If she knew how a president is elected – not by popular votes but by electors from the states – then she certainly wouldn’t have wasted so much of her time in California. Except there are all those beautiful people in California and Hillary Clinton could pretend to be one of them. It was extremely enticing.
It is amazing from a political standpoint that almost 20 months after Trump won the presidential election the Democrats have not accepted the outcome.
Republicans didn’t like it when Obama won, but they learned to accept it. They fought Obama’s policies but Republicans didn’t claim he wasn’t president.
If he runs in 2020, Trump will most likely win the popular vote and the real election in the Electoral College. For a sitting president, the election usually comes down to the economy and Trump knows how to make the US economy spin like a top.
*****
The mainstream media have finally run Environmental Protection Administration Secretary Scott Pruitt out of office. It’s kind of amazing that it took so long. It’s also amazing that when Pruitt became aware that every move he made was being analyzed to the point of absurdity that he continued to behave as he did.
But the left should be wary of getting what it wished for.
The left really didn’t care whether or not Pruitt took the cheapest or the most expensive flight possible. How many articles were there during the Obama administration about how much Cabinet secretaries spent on flights or their offices, or how much they paid in rent? Maybe there was one at some time during the eight years Obama was in office, but I would be willing to bet that more negative articles were written about Pruitt’s actions than all Cabinet members of the Obama administration combined.
Pruitt was put under a microscope and everything he did was bad, but that wasn’t what really bothered the left. What bothered the left was what Pruitt did in his job. And although Pruitt is gone, the goal for the Trump administration regarding the EPA is not going to change.
If Trump is smart, he is going to appoint someone to replace Pruitt who is going to insist on sitting at the back of any plane in the seat right next to the toilet. He’s going to live with his elderly mother who paid off her mortgage in 1963. He will bicycle to work everyday and walk to the only phone booth left in Washington to make private phone calls. All the while he will be implementing the same policies as Pruitt but with more vengeance.
If you don’t believe that Al Gore is the top scientist in the world on climate and therefore have some doubts about Gore’s theories on global warming being caused by the activities of other humans but not of his own, then you are going to disagree with a lot of the policies of the EPA.
It so happens that Trump is not a climate change true believer. Trump is not going to appoint someone who agrees with Obama that climate change caused by man is the biggest threat the world faces. Even honest climate change true believers will admit they don’t know exactly how much man’s activities are affecting the climate.
It doesn’t matter for instance that climate change true believers predicted that by 2013 the Arctic ice cap would disappear and that some Arctic ports in July 2018 are still using ice breakers and some ships are still frozen in place.
For some reason, when climate change true believers make a prediction about the imminent demise of the world and it doesn’t come true, then that’s OK and it doesn’t prove that their theories or calculations were wrong. It seems they were right but somehow nature was wrong.
Trump has learned quite a bit about how to make appointments that work in Washington in his time in office. Many people in this country – in particular people who have had to deal with some of the more ridiculous and costly regulations dreamed up by the EPA with no apparent purpose other than to harass businesses – would love to see the EPA eviscerated. Trump’s next EPA administrator may do just that.
*****
Since everyone else is piling on Kavanaugh, I have my own complaint. I object to the fact that another president has nominated another graduate of Yale or Harvard.
The only justice that did not graduate from Harvard or Yale law schools is Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and she attended Harvard law school but then graduated from Columbia.
Harvard and Yale are certainly two of the top law schools in the country, but they aren’t the only two. And graduates of other law schools should certainly qualify to be appointed to the Supreme Court.
Some of the focus on nominees to the US Supreme Court is on diversity. No one today would think that only men should be on the Supreme Court. It is rather startling that the country’s first black president, Barack Obama, did not nominate a black justice to the Supreme Court, but he chose not to.
But the idea that only graduates of Ivy League law schools qualify for the Supreme Court means the court lacks diversity in legal reasoning. Most not only attended Yale or Harvard law schools but also attended an Ivy League college as an undergraduate. Justice Clarence Thomas graduated from Holy Cross but then graduated from Yale Law School. Justice Stephen Breyer attended Stanford as an undergraduate and then went to Harvard Law School.
This is an extremely diverse country and the opinions of the Supreme Court might fall in line better with the beliefs of the country if there were more diversity of legal education among the justices.
I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know a number of extremely smart people in my life. If I think about the top four or five people I know based on brainpower alone, none of them are graduates of Yale or Harvard, although I also happen to know a number of graduates of both and, of course, they are not dummies. But one of the most intellectual people I know went to Furman, another to Brigham Young and several went to Duke. None are attorneys, but for sheer brainpower I’d put any of them up against the justices on the Supreme Court.
It seems to me that the presidents who make the appointments are eliminating most of the possible appointees by only considering those who attended Harvard or Yale.
*****
The idea that it is somehow the fault of the president of the United States that people who entered this country illegally with children in tow were being separated from those children when they were detained for entering the country illegally doesn’t make sense. In fact, it makes even less sense when you realize that the Obama administration did the same thing and it was not a terrible, awful, inhumane action by Obama. I don’t even remember people complaining.
But whose fault is it? Is it the fault of the US for enforcing its laws or is it the fault of the foreign nationals who come to this country knowingly breaking those laws and being held accountable?
First, people who are arrested are routinely separated from their children by law enforcement, not just ICE but any law enforcement agency. If American citizens are being separated from their children because they broke the law, it’s hard to believe that foreign nationals who have no right to be in this country have more rights to remain with their children than US citizens.
Second, reports are that often the people being separated from children are not the parents and not even a relative. The children are being used as a shield to get past the authorities.
There is a way to apply for asylum in the US without breaking any laws. By making exceptions for those who are breaking the law the US is simply once again encouraging people to cross our borders illegally.
The Muse and I went on day trip to Vancouver, Canada, last summer. We are US citizens with passports, and it took a lot longer to get back in the country than I had anticipated. We were asked a whole bunch of questions about where we had been and what we had bought while in Canada. I had thought that we’d wave our passports at the Border Patrol people and drive on past, but that’s not how it’s done these days.
If, instead of going to a port of entry, we had been caught sneaking over the border, we would have been arrested. So why should foreign nationals be treated better at the border than US citizens? It doesn’t make any sense to me and I think the Trump administration should make it clear that anyone caught crossing the border illegally will be arrested and they will be separated from any children in their entourage for as long as it takes to straighten things out. And straightening things out should mean sending everyone who illegally crossed the border to their home country where if they want to seek asylum they can do so legally.
*****
I don’t understand why it is big news that the Russians meddled in the 2016 election. The US has been meddling in the governments of other countries for at least 200 years. Some US policies like the Monroe Doctrine state that the US has a right to meddle in the governments of other countries. Panama did not separate itself from Columbia helping clear the way for the Panama Canal without the help of the US.
In more recent times, under President Bill Clinton in 1996 the US was heavily involved behind the scenes in keeping Russian President Boris Yeltsin in power.
Obama used US tax dollars to try and oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2015.
The idea that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not take an active role in the US presidential election in 2016 is absurd. Why wouldn’t he try and influence the election when Bill Clinton had fought against him?
So for the Senate Intelligence Committee to come out with the report that Russia did try to influence the US election is not really news, it is simply confirming again what people who pay attention to international politics already knew.
The only question worth asking is whether or not the Trump campaign colluded illegally with the Russians. So far – despite over a year of investigations by what is purported to be the top investigative agency in the world and an unlimited budget – no evidence has been reported that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians.
If Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller has some evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign he needs to go ahead and reveal it. If he doesn’t then he should quit going over every bank account and traffic violation of people who worked for Trump or who held volunteer positions in his campaign and let everybody get back to work.
*****
I keep reading economists who say that Trump is dead wrong about tariffs because free trade is better for everyone. But that’s what Trump says also. According to Trump, the result of the US tariffs is going to be more free trade not less. It seems that even his critics agree that free trade is the ultimate goal and the difference of opinion is on how to get there.
According to those who oppose tariffs it seems the way to get to free trade is by begging and pleading with other countries not to put tariffs on US goods. According to Trump, begging and pleading hasn’t worked so now is the time to play hardball and if those countries want to put tariffs on US goods then the US is going to put tariffs on their goods.
Maybe Trump is wrong and the tariffs won’t result in more free trade, but it seems like its worth a try because what the US has been trying hasn’t been working.
*****
I think Congresswoman Maxine Waters is a nut. She makes the most outrageous statements and people cheer. She doesn’t want it to be safe for a Republican to go out on the street and her supporters not only cheer but then go and harass Republicans in public.
But I realized that a lot of people believe every word she says is true. She is a member of Congress. She is supposed to know what is going on in this country, so if she says it then it has got to be true. Right?
Congressional districts are made up of 700,000 people; over half of the people in her district must not think she is a raving lunatic, which is scary.
Then you have Pelosi, she appears to be on some weird combination of drugs that cause her to flap her arms all around and be unable to complete a simple sentence without going back and replacing the wrong words with the right ones. It’s like her body is on speed and her mouth is on Valium.
It’s too bad Hunter Thompson is not still alive because he would no doubt be able to ascertain exactly what pharmaceutical concoction was causing her bizarre behavior.
The bottom line is she doesn’t make any sense. If a Republican got in front of the cameras day after day and filled the air with gibberish like she does, the mainstream media would be having a heyday. It would be on the front page of The New York Times every day. But she is a good solid Democrat, so they ignore the fact that the minority leader can’t complete a sentence.
And she is the House minority leader. This woman who appears to be totally out of control is the top Democrat in the House. Imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the mainstream media if House Speaker Paul Ryan started slurring his words so badly that he couldn’t be understood and had to repeat every other sentence because he had said the wrong word.
Yet a majority of Democratic House members keep voting for her to be their leader. Maybe they have been around her so long they can understand her.
But it is scary that so many Americans believe the words that come out of the mouths of Pelosi and Waters.
*****
To here the mainstream media talk, you would think that Trump was going to give the members of NATO a hard time for not spending enough on their militaries because he is a mean man and hates everyone.
But according to a report by the German Defense Ministry, German soldiers don’t have enough tents and protective vests to serve as NATO’s rapid deployment force.
Reports are that at one point none of Germany’s six submarines were working, none of its air transport planes were operative and so many planes were unfit to fly that the pilots couldn’t get enough flight time to qualify. The reason for all of that is because Germany didn’t buy enough equipment and spare parts.
One newspaper is reporting that some German soldiers were training with wooden guns because they didn’t have enough guns to go around and that regular civilian Mercedes vehicles were being used in training exercises for tanks and armored personnel carriers because the German army didn’t have enough military vehicles.
According to the reports, a lot of the problem is because the budgets for spare parts was cut and things wear out.
All Trump is asking is for German to spend 2 percent of its budget on the defense spending. The US by comparison spends 16 percent of its total budget on defense, and it is 54 percent of the discretionary budget.
So American taxpayers are footing the bill to protect Germany, which has the largest economy in Europe. Trump is right; it’s not fair to expect Americans to protect Germany when Germany can well afford to protect itself.
