Charlotte, NC RNC - Local Reporting

 I won't actually be IN the Charlotte area this upcoming week - family business takes precedence.

However, I will be monitoring the news, talking to people, and generally keeping an eye on the situation.

For now, it seems that the 'festivities' have started early. The demonstrators are out, and engaging in their usual polite and congenial interactions with the po-po.

I kid, I kid - the demonstrators have already attacked police not too far from the Convention Center.

Now, I've had the advantage of attending multiple events at the Charlotte site; it's located right downtown, near the south side of the commercial/shopping area. It's a typical modern center - multiple glass doors on different sides of the building. It works, because the place is set up to funnel compliant convention-goers through one entrance, with guards to monitor the attendees, register them, several businesses catering to the crowd nearby (snacks, Starbucks). Once past the guards, registration tables are generally set up just past the shops, and, from there, you move either down very spacious hallways, or take escalators/elevators to meeting rooms.

Large ballrooms are on each floor, followed by hallways leading to multiple meeting rooms, which can be expanded or contracted by folding walls. There are a few places to eat inside; most people leave the premises to find nearby restaurants.

The area just south of the center is freeway, a few businesses (not generally catering to the casual shopper), and some vacant lots. The highway construction has made it kind of a wasteland for pedestrians.

So. The center is relatively defensible (other than those glass doors, which will likely be shattered early). The biggest problem will be if conventioneers want to leave during the day.

I'm going to keep this up for the next week, and add to it, as necessary. I'll put the new stuff at the top.

Clarity For Nothing

     (But, sadly, no “chicks for free.”)

     Seriously, there are moments in the midst of what seems completely senseless turmoil that everything becomes perfectly, undeniably clear. Some of us attain clarity faster than others, owing to having paid more attention to developments and having resisted the urge to “ignore it and maybe it will go away.” But even the least attentive, most reluctant Americans, when they confront an array of stories such as this:

• The Racist New York Times: We've Discovered the Fundamental Problem With Public Education. It's (Prepared to be Stunned) White People.
• Dear White Parents, Stop Caring About Your Children
• Soros-Funded Revolutionary Prosecutor Kim Gardner's Office Tampered With Evidence to Charge The McCloskey's With Crimes
• Mentally Deranged Black Man Attacks White Women in Laundromat With Handsaw, Using It as a Slashing Weapon; Police Try to Arrest Him, But Antifa Crowds Taunt Police and Force Them to Let Him Go
• “Peak Depravity” Edition
• Pro-Life Is A Racist Term That Must Be Cancelled

     ...will be jarred willy-nilly into clarity.

     If you haven’t yet read those stories, please do. Follow the embedded links. Reflect on the momentum being given to the vector of American dissolution – a Second Civil War – that such events and exhortations provide. Yes, just now the violence is confined to a few cities along the nation’s “blue margins.” But will it remain there? Reflect on what you would do – you personally — were the chaos to swell large enough to threaten your community.

     Did I mention that I had plans to relocate my family to North Idaho? No longer, but I’ll get to that a bit later.

---

     We are witnessing history in the making. Never before in our nation’s 200-plus years has a political movement deliberately fomented lethal tensions between the white and black races. Yet that is what is happening as we speak.

     The “Black Lives Matter” movement isn’t even slightly about “black lives.” It’s about creating an Us versus Them mentality: the sort of “class struggle” tableau revolutionaries need to advance toward their objectives. Without fracturing society into mutually hostile groups, they cannot rise to power. A society at relative peace will always reject their demands.

     The violence is the giveaway. Violence polarizes a society. It inculcates a survival attitude in those at whom the violence is aimed. Thus, we see hordes of decent persons fleeing the riot-torn cities as fast as they can. They’re fleeing the violence, certainly, but there’s more: they’re internalizing the Us versus Them attitude. Their refuges, which are nearly uniformly white, will fiercely resist any influx of blacks. The folks already there already fear what could happen if blacks move in, and the folks moving there are learning to fear it through immediate experience.

     Ironically, the overwhelming majority of American blacks are peaceable, responsible people. Self-supporting. Sincere Christians. But the non-conforming fraction – this may be as low as 1% or as high as 20% – are spoiling for a fight, and doing their damnedest to make it happen. Why? Because they think white Americans can be had. They’ve been convinced by the demagogues that they can beat us into giving them what they want: above-the-law status, generous, labor-free incomes, and complete dominance of the government sector.

     The Democrat Party hopes to profit from the disorder, but only a handful of their figures are among the fomenters. This is much more about the aspirations of totalitarian revolutionists who’ve decided that this is their best chance to strike...that there may never be a better one. And given the confusion and disharmony that has flowed from the Russian Collusion hoax-coup and the Chinese Coronavirus shutdowns, they could well be right.

---

     What will come of all this depends on who will mobilize to do the jobs local and state governments have (so far) refused to do. That is: to pacify the chaos-stricken regions by force.

     We have police forces and a military to maintain peace in the streets and to put down insurrections. Yet with very few exceptions, our local and state “authorities” have refused to given them the appropriate orders. Indeed, President Trump has been vilified, even condemned, for sending federal forces to Portland, where the violence and vandalism are currently the worst. Figures on the Left have called him a dictator for using federal agents to restore order and protect federal property. Some have called the deployments a “rehearsal” for what Trump would do should he lose his bid for re-election.

     It’s unacceptable, from bottom to top. That Democrat office holders who have no excuse for not knowing better should dare to denounce the president for doing his Constitutionally assigned job is beyond the pale. Yet there are several such, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Congress can do nothing about them.

     They would like to paralyze President Trump, so the riots can go on indefinitely. They believe that would increase the Left’s chances in the November balloting. Whether it’s within their power to do so, I cannot say. However, I can say what would be required of us were federal forces somehow restrained from acting in the face of such an obvious insurrection.

     Decent private-citizen Americans would have to rise up – and I don’t mean by voting.

     That’s why I’ve decided to remain on Long Island. I anticipate a time in which we who love America as founded – the bastion of liberty this website celebrates – must take up arms to defend it. As old as I am, I refuse to run from the confrontation. I will be there, and I will participate to the best of my ability and armament. I expect that many Americans as old or older will be there with me.

     No, I don’t anticipate it with pleasure. I fear it. It would cost many lives, possibly including mine. The toll on the nation would eclipse that of the first Civil War. But we who love this country must be ready to defend it.

     A dear, departed friend of great wisdom and insight once said to me: “If you think the time has come to fight, grab your gun and your gear and go stand on your porch. Then look toward your neighbors’ porches. If they have done the same, then go forth with them to join the battle. If they haven’t, go back inside and wait, for the time has not yet come.”

     Perhaps the time has not yet come. Perhaps the Trump Administration will act with dispatch and vigor, now that it’s clear that the Democrat mayors and governors of the afflicted cities and states are willing that the chaos should continue. But we cannot wait for much longer...and I think we will not.

     “When the system fails, righteous men rise up.” – Bosch, Season 6, Episode 10

Quickies: A Perhaps Unintentional Bon Mot

     Unless you play contract bridge, you’re unlikely to be familiar with the bridge lexicon. It contains a number of phrases you’d be unlikely to encounter outside of a contract bridge game. Yet I’ve just stumbled over one of them that strikes me as strangely, charmingly appropriate:

Joe diGenova says US Attorney John Durham is working guilty pleas with various Deep State actors involved in the Trump coup attempt.

     I should have expected the phrase Trump coup to appear sooner or later. It’s one of the more advanced tactics involved in the play of the hand – i.e., the phase that comes after the bidding is complete. Here’s a good explanation of the trump coup, for non-bridge players interested in exploring the matter further.

     President Trump won the presidential election by Constitutional means. Those determined to thwart him believed they held “higher cards” than his mere Electoral College majority. But Trump over-ruffed them: by his performance in office, by his direct appeals to the electorate, and (of course) by his innocence of the spurious allegations made against him.

     Indeed, we could even call this a grand coup -- the version of a trump coup in which the non-trump cards the Declarer over-ruffs are the highest in their suit (i.e., winners by themselves). But that would pollute the beauty of the phrase.

Remember When...

     ...the disgracefully gleeful face of Adam Schiff – forever assuring us that he had seen evidence of Trumpian high crimes and misdemeanors – seemed to be everywhere?
     ...virtually every nightly news story that referred to the Trump Administration began with “the beginning of the end” or “the walls are closing in” – on President Trump?
     ...pundit after pundit predicted that President Trump would be impeached, convicted, and removed from office – possibly sparking street violence from Trump’s supporters?

     Of course you do! How could anyone forget such lurid reportage, such apocalyptic predictions of so titanic a downfall? And if you were inattentive to the actual, factual developments you might even have begun to believe all those prognostications. It would be a historic moment were President Trump to be forced from office, to be sure, but a sad one as well.

     But upon occasion, the annelid completes a circuit:

• Nunes: Mueller Team To be Subject To Criminal Referrals
• Joe Biden Meltdown, Bashes Charlamagne Tha God Calls Him “Wise Guy” Says He Worked Like A Devil For Black Votes
• Nolte: Politico Admits Democrats ‘Dread’ Fast Economic Rebound

     Heh, heh, heh!

---

     Throughout 2015 and 2016 media figures scoffed at the Trump for President Campaign as a “joke.” They repeatedly assured their audiences that the real-estate developer and reality-TV star had no chance of prevailing against the “superbly qualified” Hillary Clinton. Trump’s victory sent them into a state of shock that swiftly morphed into denial: Trump must have cheated! And because their faith in their own foresight was impenetrable, they seized upon any suggestion, however dubious, that might support that contention.

     But no evidence of Trumpian misbehavior ever materialized. Indeed, those who were most vocal about having “seen the evidence” said the exact opposite when called to testify under oath. The “Mueller team,” as zealously partisan a group of witch-hunters as has ever been assembled, could produce nothing even of marginal substance. They were caught falsifying FBI interview reports — the famous “302” documents – in the attempt to bring down Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, regarded as the key entering wedge in the campaign against the president.

     The dreams of headhunting glory and of the indulgence of a grateful re-Establishment dissolved like a predawn mist before the rising sun. All their hopes were ashes, ashes everywhere. Nowhere was there a mouthful of compensation to be had.

     The Usurper Trump would have to be unseated electorally. But how? He was proving both effective and popular – and not merely among Americans. And by whom? The Democrat Party had no figure with national recognition who didn’t possess serious negatives. Where to turn?

     They settled upon former Senator and Vice-President Joe Biden as the antidote: the “moderate” Democrat with broad support who could unseat the usurper. They touted him at every opportunity, even before the primaries had delivered a definite nominee. They did not anticipate the gaffe parade, the many well documented deceits, or the endless video clips of their chosen one’s gropings. They did not expect Biden’s various flip-floppings on policy to be so closely analyzed. They certainly did not expect the Ukraine Affair to become national headline news.

     Great is the media’s downfall, and delicious the Schadenfreude among the president’s supporters.

---

     As the saying goes, “Don’t get cocky.” There’s still a broadly hostile media to contend with. There’s still election fraud to be prevented. There’s still the economic damage from the Wuhan Virus to be recovered from. And there’s still the Republican Establishment, much of which has never cottoned to Trump and would be willing to lose the White House just to see him expunged and control of the party restored to their grip.

     But for a little while at least, we who have been greatly heartened by Trump’s America First stance, by his aggressive attitude toward our problems, by his pugnacious responses to his assailants, and by his demonstrated fidelity to his promises can enjoy our satisfaction. He whom we chose to right the nation, though stormed at with shot and shell, remains unbowed. What remains is to get him four more years to complete the deal. We must also find and prepare his successor, for choosing a successor to the most successful president since Coolidge will be no small task. Reagan botched it; we must not.

     Remember in November.

Know Your Enemies And Name Them

     The title sounds “obvious,” doesn’t it? If you have enemies – i.e., people who intend you harm – you must know who they are. Moreover, you must be unafraid to name them, so your supporters will know them too. Those steps are indispensable to any sort of combat, including political combat.

     Just now, the president of the United States is a rather embattled figure. A major political party has taken as its mission to do all that it can to harm him. There are specific faces associated with certain of the initiatives against him, but it must be admitted that their party as a whole has adopted their agenda. The recent votes on the impeachment and conviction of President Donald Trump will bear no other interpretation.

     Now, if all that strikes you as “obvious,” I have a question for you: Why would anyone disagree?

     NeverTrumper David French does:

     This year’s national prayer breakfast was a study in contrasts. Washington Post columnist and former American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks spoke before Donald Trump. He delivered a theologically true and moving address about a profound and difficult biblical command—loving our enemies....

     Then, Trump spoke. At the outset he said, “Arthur, I don’t know if I agree with you” and proceeded to do exactly what Trump does—hate on his enemies. He aired his grievances against political opponents in personally insulting terms, at length. But none of this is truly news. This is what the president does, day after day, on Twitter, during rallies, and to the press. It’s been a core theme of his presidency and, before that, his candidacy. When many of his most zealous Christian defenders say that “he fights,” this is exactly what they’re talking about.

     David French has enlisted in the forces of evil – and he’s done so under a mantle of false Christianity. I can say this after having viewed the video French linked in the above. Linking to it was a mistake French ought not to have made, as it refutes his contentions completely. But then, French himself is blinded by hatred: his hatred of President Donald Trump. Missteps come easily to the blinded.

     Yes, Trump has a combative style. He names his enemies, insults them, and showers them with derision. But hatred? The open expression of a desire that someone else should come to harm? If Trump hates anyone, he keeps it to himself. Or does French claim that it’s “hatred” to wish harm on a political enemy and hope that he’ll lose his office at the next election?

     Politics is combat: a struggle over power and how it will be used. The GOP had largely renounced it before Trump’s ascension. Things are different today, and well that it should be so. Why, in a combat situation, would the chief combatant refuse to name his enemies and give their motives and conduct proper, public coloration? Especially in the wake of an attempt to destroy his good name and remove him from office under entirely contrived, entirely false premises?

     David French needs emotional and psychological help he’s unlikely to get.

---

     I have become mortally tired of those who point pseudo-Christian fingers of condemnation at Donald Trump. Yes, Trump has sinned. Haven’t we all? (If you plan to tell me that you never have, I look forward to reading about your canonization proceedings.) If your political support were reserved strictly for non-sinners, you wouldn’t have cast a vote in any election. You certainly won’t be casting a vote in November.

     There’s a saying among Catholics that’s hugely relevant here:

Every saint has a past.
Every sinner has a future.

     Donald Trump has never been indicted for a legally actionable offense. If he played along the margins of the law in his business dealings prior to becoming president, the law has had nothing to say about it. As for his divorces and his infidelities, those are in the past. By the way, Ronald Reagan had a divorce in his past as well. I don’t recall any of that period’s David Frenches exhorting Americans not to vote for him! And need I mention the name of John Fitzgerald Kennedy?

     What the Frenches of our era are unwilling to allow is that, if Donald Trump is a flawed man, so are we all. While his conduct both on the campaign trail and in office has been combative, it has been appropriately so given his enemies’ many accusations and attempts to impede and unseat him. In a sense, the Frenchist NeverTrumpers’ beef with President Trump is that he has done what they could not bring themselves to do: He has met his political enemies in battle and has defeated them.

     In his talk at the Prayer Breakfast, President Trump said toward the end:

     “When they impeach you for nothing and you’re supposed to like them, it’s not easy, folks.”

     It’s there in the video. And he’s right: It’s not easy. But it’s also not required of us. Christ’s exhortation to “Love your enemies,” in the theological lexicon of First Century Judea, simply means to regard them as children of God like yourself. You are not to wish them harm, nor to harm them by any action you can avoid. But if you must fight them for a good reason, you do so.

     Jesus never told us not to defend ourselves. He certainly never told us not to fight for our beliefs. Did He not tell His disciples to purchase swords?

     And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing. Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end. [Luke 22:35-37]

     And what is one to do with a sword if he does not know his enemies?

Quickies: Impeachment Fail

     Among the reasons the “trial” of President Donald Trump before the Senate is likely to come to an end today is this one, nicely expressed by a minor character in The Godfather:

     She threw it all away just to make me look ridiculous. And a man in my position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous.

     For “she” in the above, substitute the impeachment-crazed House Democrats. For the “man in my position,” substitute any Republican Senator (and possibly a few Democrats) who’s been listening to the representations of the Democrat “impeachment managers” and trying to make a particle of sense out of them.

     I have no doubt that several Republican Senators would have been happy to vote for Trump’s removal from office had the Democrats presented them with a non-ridiculous justification. After all, several GOP Senators are “NeverTrumpers,” or close to it. Collins, Alexander, Murkowski, and Romney are the names that spring to mind. Trump’s several bold and brilliant successes in matters that range across the policy spectrum have occasionally made those Senators (among others) look like wastes of a perfectly good seat in that body. So they might have been eager for some rationale to vote against him.

     Now Lisa Murkowski is a likely vote to foreclose further testimony: i.e., no witnesses will be called by the Senate. Several Democrats – Manchin, Sinema, and Doug Jones – are said to be leaning that way as well. So it is highly likely that the proceedings will end today with an acquittal.

     Murkowski, in particular, is unwilling to be made to look ridiculous. Perhaps Collins and Romney will bite into that bullet; Collins is a wild card and Romney’s fuming anger toward Trump is well known. As for Lamar Alexander, I’d say it’s six-five and pick ‘em. But Murkowski alone would give the “get it over with” group fifty votes. That’s enough to defeat the suggestion that the Senate should call further witnesses.

     Overall, the “impeachment managers” have been tedious and insulting. They’ve produced no credible case that President Trump has committed an offense that would justify his removal. Indeed, Jerry Nadler alone would have been enough to queer the pitch, with his rants about how voting to exonerate Trump would be tantamount to treason. But add Adam Schiff, who might be the most disliked man in politics at this time, and you have a recipe for a boredom and insult souffle that was guaranteed to fall flat.

     For an excellent, more detailed presentation on why the Democrats’ fatuous impeach-and-remove case is an epic failure, see Mollie Hemingway’s excellent article at The Federalist.

Three Years On

     It might not seem like a long time, but a president can get an awful lot done in three years if:

• He keeps his priorities in mind at all times;
• He ignores what his enemies say about him;
• He rewards success and penalizes failure.

     Here's an 84-second summary:

     Spread it around.

The Hostage

     Israel, of course:

     Iran fired as many as 15 ballistic missiles into Iraq, targeting U.S. military and coalition forces early Wednesday, officials said, in a major retaliation by the rogue regime after the U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Quds Force Gen. Qassem Soleimani last week.

     Ten missiles hit Al-Assad Air Base, one missile hit a military base in Erbil and four missiles failed to hit their targets, according to a U.S. military spokesman for Central Command, responsible for American forces in the Middle East. The attacks unfolded in two waves, each about an hour apart.

     Initial assessments showed "no U.S. casualties," a U.S. military official in Baghdad told Fox News....

     Iran’s Revolutionary Guard then warned the U.S. and its regional allies against retaliating over the missile attack in Iraq.

     The Guard issued the warning via a statement carried by Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency: “We are warning all American allies, who gave their bases to its terrorist army, that any territory that is the starting point of aggressive acts against Iran will be targeted.” The Guard in the warning also threatened Israel.

     I added the emphasis.

     The Iranian government, as mad as it is, cannot harm the United States except by firing missiles at American military bases in Iraq – and it appears that those missile attacks, while they’ve done property damage, have not reaped any lives. Whether President Trump will respond to those strikes with force remains to be seen, though the zero casualty count lessens the probability. But what the Iranian announcement tells us is at least as significant geopolitically.

     Iran might or might not have a nuclear weapon; in that regard a regime that does business with North Korea is beyond confident assessment. But it does have a large army and the ability to launch ballistic weapons it most certainly does have against Israel, America’s Middle Eastern ally and client state:

     Iran possesses missiles capable of reaching Israel’s population centers. Moreover, the states geographically between Iran and Israel would not prevent Iranian ground forces from advancing against Israel from the west. Thus Iran’s threat to strike Israel in “retaliation” for an American response is credible from a geographic standpoint. But is it likely?

     I can’t decide. On the one hand, Israel is a nuclear power that could obliterate Iran’s government and the greater part of its population, and the Iranian theocrats know it. On the other hand, the Iranian theocrats are irrationally evil (or “chaotic amoral” in gamer’s terms) and cannot be relied upon to act in the objectively best interests of Iran. On the gripping hand, Washington would surely attempt to restrain the Israeli government from “drastic” measures. So any calculation of “probable” responses to further Iranian provocations must be performed under a cloud.

     One thing seems certain: Iranian tactics that get Iran’s rulers what they want will be repeated. Hearken to Charlie Martin:

     Looking back over the last 10 years, we've seen the Obama administration ignoring Iranian provocation to get the "nuclear deal," sending them billions of dollars in cash — and releasing this same Soleimani from previous sanctions, something John Kerry tried to explain by saying it wasn't this Soleimani, but another guy of the same name (which was a lie, by the way), and then ignoring blatant violations of the agreement they were so proud of making, while Iran continued to attack the Iraqi government and kill civilians.

     When you reward a behavior, you get more of it. And we have: since the Obama deal, Iran has increased its military budget using the money the Obama deal supplied; support for terrorism has actually increased.

     Of course, this is what we'd expect: we keep rewarding the Iranian government, they keep doing what gets them rewarded.

     So far, this “should” be “obvious.” But this is less “obvious:”

     A lot of the responses, so far, have been sanctions. Sanctions sound like a great idea: sanction a country and its people suffer, and they pressure the government to mend its ways.

     Unfortunately, that doesn't help much with an authoritarian theocracy that is willing to gun down 1500 protestors. "Hey, you can make our people suffer, but we kill them! Top that!"

     As Skinner found out, negative reinforcement is not as effective as positive reinforcement. To work at all, negative reinforcement has to be negative — it has to hurt, or at least be unpleasant.

     Charlie doesn’t lean on that point hard enough, so I’ll do it for him:

Negative reinforcement must be
MUCH HARSHER
Than the positive reinforcement it seeks to negate.

     (Can you say “disproportionate?” I knew you could.)

     President Trump is not in the mold of other post-World War II presidents. He sincerely values the integrity and security of Israel. He’s not in thrall to his “foreign policy experts.” Moreover, he believes in simple remedies for simple diseases. There’s no simpler disease than violence between nation-states. The remedy is a response with overwhelming force: enough force so that those who can learn must draw the lesson, and those who cannot are all dead.

     This could prove to be the big test of Trump’s first term. Watch this space.

“Not A Member Of The Club”

     Quoth Roger Simon:

     We all know why impeachment is really happening -- and when I say all, I include especially the Democrats and their devoted media allies/leaders. They know because they live in fear of what they wrought and desperately want to hide it or bury it (under impeachment) before it is laid out before the public.

     I refer, of course, to the imminent exposure -- at least we hope it is coming -- of the predicates of the Russia probe, easily the most despicable and seditious attempt to unseat a president in American history. This attempt to impeach or, at that point, to interdict began on or not long after June 16, 2015, the day Donald Trump announced his candidacy.

     Concealing the mechanics of the “Russian collusion” narrative is the immediate reason – i.e., the object most imperative at the moment. But the last sentence in the above is what intrigues me: the immediate perception, from June of 2015, by the “better sort” that the upstart might succeed at gaining entry to the corridors of power. How did they know?

---

     Political establishments have always been hostile to persons they deem “not a member.” Nor is the reaction peculiar to the United States. However, only in a nation where a popular vote has the potential to break through the elite’s defenses is the ascendance of a populist in such a dramatic fashion a possibility.

     Establishments don’t need to be “respectable.” Indeed, those outside North America and Western Europe seldom are. Consider the regimes of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines as recent cases. From my own survey of establishments over the past millennium, I would conclude that “respectability” is a recent innovation. At least that seems to be the case.

     “This is the way things are done around here,” a superficially conservative attitude, has been the reflexive defense of establishments of all kinds. It couples nicely with the notion that only those who have “been around” should be trusted with the reins. They who prattle about “qualifications,” in speaking of a political candidate, are quietly invoking that idea. By triumphing over “the most qualified candidate in history,” Donald Trump smashed that precept to flinders. But the most interesting aspect of the matter was that our political establishment sensed the threat from “unqualified outsider” Trump in mid-2015, well before his popular support could materialize.

     Yet it wasn’t Trump’s first sally toward the presidency. He’d stepped forward in the 2000 presidential campaign season, though the seriousness of that earlier effort is open to dispute. His 2000 gesture might have served to reassure the establishmentarians. “The dilettante merely wants a new arena in which to test his mettle,” they might have said to one another. They didn’t; they took his candidacy seriously from its first days, arguably before anyone outside their number did so. How did they know of the threat he posed them?

---

     I hadn’t intended to write anything today. I’m on a retreat from political commentary just now, for the sake of my equanimity. But Roger Simon’s brief article got my engine turning. Call it Porretto’s First Law of Motion: once I’m in motion I tend to keep going. (“He’s like the lazy preacher who wrote long sermons. He got to writin’ and was too lazy to stop.”)

     I distrust simple explanations for complex political phenomena. They can be correct, but when something so unexpected is the subject – and the overturning of every political applecart in the District of Columbia came as a considerable surprise – I tend to look for connecting threads. One that’s been much on my mind recently is the swelling support for a literal interpretation of the Second Amendment.

     In truth, there’s never been a good case that the Founding Fathers “didn’t really mean it,” as many commentators hostile to the right to keep and bear arms have claimed. After all, they were the survivors of a revolution in which the American colonists defeated the Western world’s preeminent military power. Had the British succeeded in disarming the colonists before hostilities could erupt, what chance would they have had?

     President Trump is the most ardent defender of that right to reach the Oval Office in a century. No, he’s not perfect; the bump-stock ban should put that notion to rest. But he’s criticized restrictive concealed-carry laws and supported national concealed-carry reciprocity. Which of his predecessors could say the same?

     That the citizen has a God-given right to keep and bear arms is the most populist imaginable stance...and it’s being more widely, openly, and vibrantly asserted than since before the Civil War. The various arguments against it are all falling in the face of the evidence that an armed citizenry is safer, in aggregate, than a disarmed one – and not just against the “private” predator. The issue is a perfect match to the rise of Trump the Disruptor.

     I can’t say of my own knowledge whether Donald Trump was as open and vigorous a supporter of the armed citizen before he announced his candidacy in June of 2015. But the stance dovetails beautifully with the unprecedented swelling of support for him, virtually from the moment he stepped off the Trump Tower escalator.

     Was that what alerted the political elite to the threat to their bastion, or was it merely one ingredient in a larger stew?

     Trump in 2020, and damn the weeping and the gnashing of teeth from the mandarins of “the way things are done around here.” Their machinations have failed them. God willing, they will fall as well. It’s long past time.

In The Annals Of Counterpunching...

     ...yesterday’s “testimony” by Corey Lewandowski before the House of Representatives ought to receive a special prize. Lewandowski did exactly what was required to let the air out of the Democrats’ impeachment gasbag: he behaved like a Democrat being questioned by Republicans! He averted, evaded, provided facetious answers, answered questions that hadn’t been asked, and in the case of the Dishonorable Sheila Jackson Lee, he made explicit note that her five-minute rant at him contained no question to answer. In short, he made the smear peddlers of the Left, desperate to find something with which to defame President Trump, look like what they really are: yapping Pekinese and Chihuahuas dogs, trying vainly to bite the ankles of a far better man.

     (DELIBERATELY OFFENSIVE OBSERVATION AHEAD: Read the following paragraph at your own risk!

     Concerning Sheila Jackson Lee: What is it with these self-important black women and their three-names fetish?^[1] Do they harbor some cargo-cultish notion that it can make them members of the political elite? That if they pattern their names after those of Old South plantation mistresses and Beacon Hill blue-bloods, it might elevate them to comparable altitudes? Not bloody likely, La’ShaNee*Qua!

     Thank you for your forbearance. Our normal, normally offensive commentary will now resume.^[2])

     It’s not the first time a “witness” from the Right has humiliated a gaggle of Leftist thugs with seats in Congress, but it’s one of the most memorable. Moreover, it illustrates one of the Trump virtues that previous presidents and their aides have failed to exhibit: the willingness to fight back, using the enemy’s own weapons when and as appropriate.

     There are other memorable moments to be savored from this first Trump term, of course. Have a few of my favorites:

     And we have this: When a court forced Jim Acosta back into the White House after his press pass was pulled at President Trump’s order, the president didn’t merely shrug and say, “foiled again;” he took another approach: he canceled presidential briefings to the press:

     It's been six months since the heckling stopped. Six months since the last White House press briefing. Six months devoid of noxious nonsense....

     When any Republican is president, at least one or two reporters become hecklers at the White House press briefings. It’s their ticket to liberal media fame. It started with Dan Rather heckling Richard Nixon. Then Sam Donaldson badgered President Ronald Reagan all the way to national stardom, despite looking like a muppet and acting like a grinch. Who can forget how David Gregory of NBC went after Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer during 43’s first term?...

     CNN’s White House correspondent [Jim Acosta] showboated every day, badgering White House press secretaries Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee Sanders with gotchas designed not to illuminate or inform, but to make himself the star of the perverse show. Sanders always handled him with a grace he never deserved. Acosta may have believed he was helping the audience—the American people or, more likely, his fellow anointed scribes sitting around him—but he was only helping himself. He used the justified revocation of his “hard pass” to rally more media hecklers to his side. And then he got a book deal out of it. All while he and his fellows in the anvil chorus pretend that every time President Trump pushes back against their insults and petulant on-air rants it’s somehow a new and unprecedented threat to democracy.

     Try grabbing for that microphone, Acosta!

     Among the things this president will be remembered for, his lessons to other Republicans on how to fight back are the foremost. Yes, President Trump is achieving greatly. Yes, he’s straining to the limit to fulfill his campaign promises, and God bless him for it. But the great failing among Republicans this century past has been an unwilllingness to fight when attacked. Ann Coulter could have told them so; in fact I think she did. President Trump is giving them examples to study – and study they must.

     It’s been a great almost-three years. Please, God, let us have a second Trump term! The exploding heads in the media would make it worthwhile all by themselves!

     That’s all for today, Gentle Reader. I have a major dentist’s appointment to prepare for. Back tomorrow...I hope.

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And now, in laudatory emulation of my Esteemed Co-Conspirator Col. Bunny, the Notes section:
[1]: Cf. Marian Wright Edelman, Carol Moseley Braun, et alii.
[2]: “If I am offensive, you may take it that I am offended!” – Christopher Plummer as Sherlock Holmes, in Murder By Decree

Aftermath

     (No, this won’t be a piece about the Rolling Stones.)

     Robert Mueller’s testimony before Congress yesterday utterly baffled unbiased onlookers who paid it any attention. The supposed head of the “Russian collusion” investigation into the 2016 presidential election didn’t appear to know anything about...well, about anything. He waffled. He evaded. He refused to answer many questions. He appeared totally uninformed about what was in the report that was produced by his investigators and has been tagged with his name. Anyone truly dispassionate about the enveloping controversy would have been left scratching his head and asking himself “What was that supposed to be about?”

     Congressional Democrats were displeased, to say the very least. They’d hoped for the Big One, the missile that would finally bring down the Trump Ascendancy. The Mueller Report had given them nothing. Perhaps Mueller himself could supply the missing ingredients. As Mollie Hemingway put it, they’d hoped that “the movie would be better than the book.”

     But all Mueller’s appearance did was to suggest that the special counsel appointed for this supposedly critical task was detached from his own supposed investigation. Indeed, at several points his testimony suggested that he’s become detached from reality.

     And it’s not merely the Democrats who are disappointed:

• NYT’s Charles Blow: Dems Turning Trump into ‘Folk Hero’ by Not Impeaching
• MSNBC’s Matthews: It Will Be ‘Second Term or Prison Term’ for Trump
• MSNBC Analyst Bash: Mueller ‘Sucked the Life Out of the Report’
• Chris Wallace: Mueller Hearing Is ‘a Disaster’ for Democrats and Mueller’s Reputation

     Those four links cost me all of ninety seconds at Breitbart. I could provide more, but I think my Gentle Readers will get the point.

     I’m unsure about just what we’re seeing here. I don’t think “partisanry” is an adequate description. There’s too much unconcealed hatred and too much unbottled rage on display. Is this what we see in the final stages of the disintegration of a major political party? Did something like this happen to the Whigs?

     I think we’d have to see political prisoners thrown into giant pits of vipers on live TV to get any more lurid – or horrifying. As public spectacles are rated, this one is right up there with the slaughters of Christians by wild animals in the old Roman Coliseum. It’s definitely not laugh material, regardless of whatever quantity of Right-inclined laughter we might hear.

---

     The Left is desperate. Desperate people do desperate things. They stake it all on long odds. They grasp at their sole remaining chance to prevail, however slender, and refuse to look past it. And if possible, they shave the dice, tilt the pinball machine, bribe the refs.

     This is the hour of maximum danger.

     Recall how many Left-inclined commentators and spokesmen have worried publicly about the outbreak of a second civil war, fomented by us in the Right. Leftist mouthpieces have a history of “worrying” about what the Right will do, while (or just before) the Left does that exact thing. That is where the Republic stands as you read this.

     There’s no need for me to wrap hundreds more words around this matter. The writing on the wall is large enough to be read from orbit.

     Be watchful. Be prepared. Know what you’re willing to do, should it come to the rub. Make sure those around you know it too.

     And pray.

Election 2020: A Few Early Thoughts

     The skies have brightened since the election of President Trump – we’re not at war, the economy has improved, and there are a couple of new, Constitution-respecting Justices on the Supreme Court – but there are clouds on the horizon that one must not overlook. The most important of them is that in a year and a half we’ll face another electoral test. The Democrats will go all-out to win this one, by any means expedient.

     There will be massive vote fraud. There will be “ballot harvesting.” There will be millions of votes from non-citizens. There will be intimidation at the polling places. There will be campaigns of propaganda blacker than anything since 1860. And of course the sham “investigations” of non-crimes for which there’s no evidence will continue up to Election Day and beyond.

     Whether the Republican Party will step up to the necessary degree is questionable. Quite a large fraction of the GOP still resents Trump for showing them up, including a few governors and senators who, pace John McCain and Mitt Romney, feel that it was “their turn.” Now that turn might never come (boo hoo).

     President Trump will stand for re-election, of course. If he wins, which seems likely but is by no means certain, he might finally succeed in “draining the swamp” and restoring a semblance of Constitutional government. But his many opponents, the nabobs of the Deep State prominent among them, are resolved that his tenure shall be a brief interregnum rather than a restoration.

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     The factor most in favor of a second Trump term is the appalling lack of stature of the Democrats’ declared candidates. Quantity, in this case, does not make up for a lack of quality. Only Joseph Biden, serial plagiarist and doddering pre-Alzheimer case, has anything resembling a national profile. The others are essentially unknowns outside their state and local domains. (Pete Buttigieg? Really?) No amount of artificial clamor can give them a stature they don’t possess.

     You might have thought the excellent economy would be the first factor. I can’t see it. The Left is campaigning against prosperity and people are listening. The key has been to frame their assault as a quasi-religious matter: “global warming,” “economic inequality,” and similar shibboleths that defy both objective evidence and objective definition. How many voters will be swayed by this bilge is unclear.

     The factor most opposed to Trump’s re-election is the Democrats’ success at perpetuating the notion that he’s mired in impeachable scandals. The entirety of the major media is enlisted in that effort, for the usual reasons. It’s entirely at odds with the findings of the Mueller investigation. Indeed, it involves crimes committed by the Obama Administration and the Deep State against Trump and several of his relatives and associates. But the media megaphone won’t permit those facts any column-inches or air time.

     Where the balance falls in the correlation of forces for November 2020 is not at all clear.

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     No one ever won a war by playing defense. If we want a second Trump term, we must attack, without reservations or any restraint of our forces. But what does that mean in an environment like the present one, in which the enemy’s major weapon is a miasma of unsupported accusations? How does one attack such a haze?

     Is it enough to expose the motives of Trump’s detractors and show how unsavory their own behavior has been? What about the channels they use to promulgate their propaganda? Can we take those down, or are they immune to our displeasure? Are there other means available that aren’t criminal?

     In presidential politics, a year and a half is like unto the third quarter of a football game: time isn’t going to run out right away, but the opportunities for new initiatives and course corrections are dwindling. It’s time for this discussion to get serious.

Fighting The Incentives

     I’ve written frequently about the importance of structural and institutional incentives in determining the behavior of organizations. In that connection, David L. Burkhead cites one of Milton Friedman’s most insightful and important statements:

     Incentives aren’t quite omnipotent, but they come as close as any sociopolitical force known to Man. Powerful incentives to do the right thing – as Dr. Friedman said in the above, by making it the profitable thing – could make an evil creature reconsider his malice. Inversely, powerful incentives to do the wrong thing could make a saint behave like the lowest of demons. The incentives built into the laws and instantiated in America’s governments beckon the Rulers to peculation and tyranny while urging deceit and dissimulation upon the Ruled.

     That makes the emergence of persons who fight the incentives and triumph over them a remarkable development, something to be noted and analyzed. Particularly deserving of attention is the rise of a champion among them, one who can rally them around him sufficiently that the incentives and those who’ve engineered them are overturned.

---

     To lead off, let’s peer over Kurt Schlichter’s shoulder at one individual who’d rather “go with the flow” despite the contradiction to his supposed “principles:”

     “Civility and decency” is the common refrain within the [David] French Fredocon Legion. Understand that the civility and decency requirement applies only to us, and it operates only to restrict our ability to accurately describe and aggressively fight our enemies. It does not apply to our betters’ conduct toward us. Look at their last three years of attacks on Donald Trump and we who support him – super civil and super decent, right? My Twitter feed is an endless series of vicious tweets from libs and True Conservatives^TM telling me what an awful, awful person I am for thinking that we should jam that same civility and decency right back down their collective throat.

     French himself recently dubbed us the “gutter right” in a tweet, wherein he also described himself as a “real man.” Peak cringe aside, I’m pretty sure “gutter” is not a term of civility or decency, but then the rules never apply to protect us, only to restrain us. Remember, you are morally obligated to lose for some reason. Anyway, this utter nonsense is why we should ignore the Priss Platoon’s rules and do whatever we have to do to protect our liberty and property.

     In this case, “the flow” is the availability of a platform and financial backing. David French is an Establishmentarian who’s “done a corner” in being a “conservative in opposition.” He has no experience with being “on the winning side” and would have to scramble for a perch to pontificate from. The same could be said of many figures on the NeverTrump pseudo-Right. They vilify President Trump and his supporters despite Trump’s extraordinary record of successes because of the incentives that apply to their positions.

     It’s not my way to be quite as scathing as Schlichter. I know the power of incentives. I know how much resolve, how much fortitude it takes to oppose them. It takes a stronger-than-average man with a character of adamant. There aren’t many of those in politics, neither inside the corridors of power nor peering into them and commenting about them.

---

     President Trump is fighting the incentives. He could have quadrupled his wealth by playing the game the way the rest of the Rulers’ wealthy supporters do it. He chose a different course. It’s already cost him heavily in several dimensions. Yet he fights on. More significant yet, he’s been winning consistently. He’s attracted a growing base of support not only for his policies but for his supposedly uncouth methods as well.

     We who support President Trump face a weaker but still significant array of disincentives. We must bear with being demeaned and slandered by our opponents, including those in the media. Many have faced personal penalties of various kinds for being candid about their positions. We must endure the denigrations of those such as David French, to whom many once looked for the articulation of their positions and sentiments. It’s a lot to cope with.

     Nevertheless, we have found our champion. We’ve stood behind him despite the disincentives, and we’ll remain there for as long as he faithfully carries our standard.

     In consequence, the incentives are changing. Relentlessly and implacably, Donald Trump is changing them. With each new Trump Administration success, it’s slowly becoming more profitable – politically, economically, and socially – to be with him than against him.

     Ask the president of Mexico if you disbelieve. Ask the queen of England and the prime minister of Japan. Ask the panjandrums of Western Europe who continue to dismiss him as a passing phenomenon, and the satraps of Eastern Europe who’ve already seen the light.

     Look at the array of losers and nonentities who hope to contest the presidency against him next year. You can learn a lot about a man from the stature and character of his enemies. This lineup tells a revealing tale – and it’s not in their favor. Not one of them has a morsel of Trump’s moxie. Should the Democrats nominate one of them, Trump might take every state but California and New York.

     Things are changing.

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     The lesson, of course, is that there are greater and larger “institutions,” each capable of setting out its own incentives. The largest “institution” of all, the American electorate, had its say in 2016, is being rewarded for its decision, and is responding to those rewards. The lesser institutions of the Deep State / permanent government, the big donors, the unions, and the media have struggled to stem the tide. To be fair, their resistance has partially stanched the flow in Trump’s favor. Even so, he’s out-muscling them to a thunder of cheering from ordinary Americans.

     Politically, election results outweigh the incentive structures of lesser institutions, as long as those results are honest and honored. That points directly to the battlefield that’s genuinely critical for the 2020 election and those beyond it. Draw the moral.

Giveaways Dept.

     Apparently it’s unacceptable for an American president to be gracious toward the Queen of England…if that president is Donald Trump:

     CNN rolled out chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward to argue that Trump was polite to the queen not because being polite to the queen is something heads of state should do but “perhaps he likes the idea of being a king.”

     On your mark, get set, groupthink: CNN international correspondent Max Foster followed up by repeating the same idea, “He likes the idea of being a king, which would explain why he’s so reverential in the palace environment.”

     CNN White House correspondent Kate Bennett echoed the idea with the message of the day, saying that although it was no big deal when previous presidents brought their children to meet the British monarch, “the president perhaps sees his children as American royalty or this is sort of our equivalent … the equivalency, which, you know, it’s not at all how we operate in America.”

     This isn’t reporting. It isn’t even “analysis,” the way journos take a drop or morsel of news and make it into a banquet of opinion. It’s practicing mind reading without a license. If President Trump said, “I like people,” Brooke Baldwin and Jim Acosta would pop up on CNN to somberly warn us, more in sorrow than in anger, that our president has just admitted he was a cannibal.

     Leftists are unanimous that President Trump shall be brought low. No means that might assist them in that effort, including mealy-mouthed nonsense such as is exemplified above, is out of bounds. And the major media, virtually without exception, are fully committed to that undertaking.

     Such badmouthing of Trump has descended into risibility. These miscreants can no longer conceal the personal hatred they hold for the man who thwarted their fantasies about a Progressive Century led by the First Woman President. Yet these are the people claiming that Trump is an agent of division who’s busily spreading “hate.”

     Among other things, they need a refresher in English grammar and syntax. Hate is a verb. The correct word would be hatred…though the assertion would remain utterly false.

No Rain In The Forecast

     The above title both expresses my fondest wish for the coming week, and is coupled to a prediction that, sadly, strikes me as a sure bet.

     The New York Metropolitan Area, which includes (unfortunately) Long Island where the Fortress is situated, has been getting soaked this spring. It’s caused the usual train of inconveniences and irritations: dampness in the basement, grass that grows faster than I can cut it, and worst of all, the postponement of Yankee games. Fortunately, we’ve just had a spot of waterproofing done where the worst of the moisture used to seep into our abode, plus new and better gutters for the whole house. However, that does nothing for the lawn, and the Yankees haven’t suffered this many postponements in thirty years. So I and my neighbors are all praying (it’s a Catholic neighborhood) – for a nice long stretch of dry, sunny weather so we can scrape the moss off our north sides and keep it off.

     But there’s one area of current interest where a good “hard rain” would be my fondest wish:

     The skies are growing dark and increasingly ominous for dirty officials at the top of Obama-era law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Leading the “I’m really worried” list are James Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, Loretta Lynch, and their senior aides, all political appointees. They expected Hillary Clinton to win in 2016 and bury any traces of malfeasance, just as they had buried hers. It didn’t work out that way.

     Now they need protection themselves. House Democrats and anonymous leakers are busy providing it. Many are delicately called “current and former senior officials” by the New York Times, Washington Post, and other legacy media. Gee, I wonder who they are?

     These defenders of the old guard are sliming Attorney General Bill Barr, who heads the investigation into their actions. They have good reasons, if not clean hands, for their attack. First, they want to keep as much secret as they can. Exposure can only harm them. Their main argument is that any disclosures will damage U.S. national security. Second, they want to paint the disclosures and forthcoming indictments as President Trump’s revenge, the illegitimate use of powerful agencies that should be nonpartisan. That, of course, is precisely what they are accused of doing.

     Barr won’t be deterred. He did not return for a second stint as AG to pad his résumé or protect Donald Trump. He returned to clean out the Augean Stables. He needs to muck out the mess left by his predecessors and find the horses that left it.

     If only. There are at least two reasons why the malefactors that ignited the “Russian collusion” hoax against newly elected President Trump will face no penalties. First comes the “collegiality” armor worn by every member of the Washington Establishment. (Britons would call this the “a member of my club” defense.) Damned few Republicans and no Democrats will agree to the prosecution of these people. Virtually everyone in Federal office is guilty of some abuse of power and position. Thus, to see their former colleagues and cocktail party guests in orange jumpsuits would strike too close to home. The pressure they’ll put on Attorney-General Barr to refrain from pursuing criminal indictments would turn coal into diamonds.

     Second, and even more potent a deterrent, is the array of mechanisms these formerly prominent Federal officials could use to take revenge. They range from revealing secrets their tormentors cannot afford to have revealed to the incitement of FBI, CIA, and NSA campaigns of harassment against them, their loved ones, and their professional associates. Those three agencies have been shown to be above the law de facto. Their middle managers and low-level workers can get away with virtually anything. If Ruby Ridge and Waco may be admitted as data points, the mass murder of innocents is entirely within the spectrum of possibilities. And while Comey, Brennan, Clapper and the rest are no longer in high office, they continue to command the loyalty of many within their former demesnes…in some cases for the same reasons their nominal enemies fear them.

     An organization that stands “above the law” is an unstoppable weapon in the hands of whoever controls it. The best known such agencies are state and county-level “child protective services” and “family courts.” These answer to no one, can treat their targets as guilty until proven innocent – yes, really – and are unbound by any of the strictures the Constitution and Anglo-American legal tradition place upon normal jurisprudence. The IRS looks upon the power they wield with envious eyes – again: yes, really.

     During the “Red Scare” years, the FBI often harassed persons who declined to testify to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, as was their right, out of jobs, homes, and marriages. Employers feared what the Feebs could do to them far too much not to bow to the threat implied by an FBI visit to their places of business. It was a grotesque abuse of power – and the FBI got cleanly away with it in every case. Today, with the legal cover of the PATRIOT Act and the information-gathering power of the CIA and NSA at its disposal, there is no doubt in my mind that the FBI could arrange for the incarceration without trial of any American it might choose to target.

     Therefore, my money is on there being no penalties for any degree of involvement in the “Russian collusion” hoax, the pervasive and totally unwarranted spying on the Trump campaign, or the various acts of fraud and deceit under oath the involved persons have committed in the defense of their positions and reputations. I could be wrong. Indeed, I hope I am. But if so, I also hope that Bill Barr and everyone else in the Trump Administration are braced for impact. Any “hard rain” they drop on the anti-Trump conspirators could fall just as hard, though undeservedly, on them as well.

An Important Omission

     In the foofaurauw over the Mueller investigation and Mueller’s ponderous, tendentious, meandering report, the critical facts are all too often glossed over:

• The extent of “Russian interference” in the 2016 election was a modest amount of entirely legal advertising, mainly on Facebook.
• Robert Mueller could not show that any American had colluded with any Russian agent or agency.
• Therefore, Mueller could not establish that any crime had been committed.

     The investigation began, not because a crime had demonstrably been committed, but because of the Democrats’ allegations of such. They could produce no evidence to that effect; they merely shrieked it at the top of their collective lungs until Attorney General Jeff Sessions unwisely decided to recuse himself. That allowed the acting AG, Rod Rosenstein, to appoint a special prosecutor. What followed departed radically from normal prosecutorial procedure.

     Consider: If Smith were to allege that Jones had committed a prosecutable crime – i.e., an offense defined by the penal laws of the United States or one of its interior jurisdictions – he would be expected to provide the district attorney’s office with substantiation that a crime had indeed been committed. If Smith were to allege a murder, he would have to offer some evidence that a murder had occurred. If he were to allege a robbery, he would have to present a credible victim who could at least show a loss. And so on, for whatever accusation Smith might lodge against Jones. Lacking such substantiation, neither the police nor the D.A. would be disposed to get out of bed.

     President Trump’s accusers could not provide any such substantiation. Indeed, over the three years they’ve been screaming for his head, nothing of any relevance to the possibility of a crime has come to light – and you may be sure that Robert Mueller, as much an Establishmentarian as anyone in the Washington orbit, looked most diligently for it.

     President Trump was justifiably incensed about the smear against his victory. He said so on many occasions. Yet he did not do one single thing to impede the Mueller group’s operations. He did stand on his right not to testify against himself, as any American in legal jeopardy is entitled to do. Otherwise, he merely criticized the investigation as what it has proved to be: a fishing expedition whose true aim was to undo his unprecedented national victory against fearsome odds.

     So Mueller’s recent statement that he could not prove that the president had not committed obstruction of justice is both laughable and contemptible. What event occurred that could be construed as an impediment to the investigation?

     That hasn’t silenced the Democrats, of course; nothing could. They want Trump out of the Oval Office at any cost. They’re terrified not only that he’ll win a second term, but that the national mood, owing to his successful implementation of his policies, will be so good in 2024 that he’ll be able to pick his successor. So they’ll continue to shriek until they lose the assistance of the media and the attention of the general public: events about as likely as the Earth crashing into the Sun this coming Tuesday at 9:15 AM Eastern Daylight Time.

     David Horowitz summed up the Democrats’ allegations rather pungently: they can’t establish that he committed the crime they allege, but he’s obviously guilty of protesting his innocence, so hang him anyway. Welcome to American “politics,” 2019 edition.

Candor From The Bully Pulpit

     There’s a lot going on just now, what with twenty-plus Democrat munchkins hopelessly seeking the presidency and saying insane stuff, Muslims driving cars onto sidewalks, and scores of left-wing commentators insisting that the Mueller report means that – surprise! – “the walls are closing in” on President Trump, but lately I can only write about one thing at a time, so let’s see…ah, here we go:

     Last night President Trump presided over a huge rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin – the state that Hillary can’t find. His speech was quite something and hit on all the major themes. However, today social media has been having a tantrum because he dared to talk about infanticide and abortion. Something that he is evidently NOT allowed to do.

     Here’s what he said at last night’s rally:

     “[Democrats] are aggressively pushing extreme late-term abortion, allowing children to be ripped from their mother’s womb right up until the moment of birth. And just this week your Democrat governor, and by the way we have Scott Walker here. He’s a great governor, he did a great job, he’s a great governor. He’s got kind of big future, but your Democrat governor here in Wisconsin shockingly stated that he will veto legislation that protects Wisconsin babies born alive.”

     He’s right. Democrat governors and legislatures all over the country are advocating for infanticide and late term abortion. Maine, Vermont, and New York legislature cheering their sickening and heinous bill are just a few of the states where this kind of atrocity is being pushed into the mainstream.

     However, where the leftists are really melting down is with the second part of his statement.

     “The baby is born, the mother meets with the doctor, they take care of the baby, they wrap the baby beautifully, and then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby. I don’t think so. Incredible, no, It’s incredible. Until this crazy man in Virginia said it, nobody even thought of that right? They didn’t, wouldn’t even think of that. Yeah late term, but this is where the baby is actually born and came out. It’s there, it’s wrapped and that’s it so to protect us in life I called in Congress to immediately pass legislation prohibiting the extreme late-term abortion.” [Emphasis in original]

     To which our favorite anti-American Congress vermin responded thus:

     But it is an execution, just as was Michael Schiavo’s deliberate starvation of his helpless ex-wife. It’s an execution through deliberate denial of sustenance. A newborn infant is unable to fend for himself. Therefore a duty of care rests upon his parents, whether they like it or not. They may not default on that responsibility without incurring the charge of negligent homicide.

     Remember what I said about the Left’s assault on the right to life? Add another data point.

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     The Left’s expressions of outrage over a factually correct statement by the president – indeed, one that has been made by many persons, not all of them in the Right – are themselves important data points. Yes, they hate Donald Trump with an unprecedented intensity. Yes, they are furious about the new disinclination in the Right to “compromise” with them, gradually ceding every issue to them slice by thin slice. Yes, they are desperate to regain federal hegemony and hope – possibly mistakenly – that the elections of 2018 might point the way. But it’s when the president speaks plainly that their towers are most dramatically shaken.

     Previous conservative standard-bearers have all punked out before the kill shot. Yea, even Ronald Reagan was more inclined toward “civility” than toward candor. Donald Trump doesn’t do that. He shoots…and he scores…and We the People who elected him love him for it.

     My major question is whether President Trump’s forthrightness will elicit similar conduct from other Republicans and conservative spokesmen. To this point only a few have followed the trail he’s blazing. We need more – many more. Preferably all of them, though the “Conservatism, Inc. / NeverTrumpRump” is probably a hopeless cause. Gotta keep those D.C. cocktail party invitations coming, don’t y’know.

     If we private persons in the Right can encourage our representatives to emulate the president, surely we should do so. I’m not sure how we might go about that, but the desirability is evident. The one thing that occurs to me about it is that if there’s any right to which ordinary Americans are more sensitive than the right to keep and bear arms, it must be the right to life. The attack on the lives of the newborn ought to be stark enough to get a lot of folks exercised. Why hasn’t it happened yet? More to the point, can we make it happen?

     I will add this, from personal experience:

The attack on newborns’ right to life is not new in fact, only in Left-wing political rhetoric.

     A friend of mine – a devout Catholic, mind you – was in attendance at the birth of his third child. That child was freshly out of his mother’s womb when the attending physician asked my friend and his wife “Do you want the baby?” That “physician” suggested, quite calmly, that the boy would be allowed to die by negligence if the answer were “no.” That happened more than twenty years ago, so this has been going on for a while.

     Thoughts, Gentle Readers? Assuming you’re not too horrified to have any.

The Proprieties

     With a well-chosen set of citations on the Mueller investigation and the assorted reactions to it, Mike Hendrix strikes the jugular. It’s essentially un-excerptable. Please read it all.

     Yet the NeverTrumpRump continues to bad-mouth the president. Why? Quoth David French:

     Glenn Reynolds takes a chainsaw to this. French, who seems to know very little about the history of the presidency (and thinks far too much of himself, besides), should take note. The best president of the 19th Century, Grover Cleveland, admitted to having fathered an illegitimate child. Several 20th Century presidents have been discovered to be adulterers, drug users, and guilty of other low-life conduct.

     Having said that, yes: Donald Trump has been divorced twice and married thrice. It is likely that he’s had affairs both during and outside his marriages. It’s possible that one of those affairs was with porn star Stephanie “Stormy Daniels” Clifford. Yet we elected him. He suits us. And the reasons are not far to seek.

     Oddly, the central reason nominally conservative NeverTrumpers, including failed presidential candidates Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney, detest Trump is the reason millions of Americans have come to love him: He fights. He doesn't regard himself as bound by specious rules about how "Republicans must observe the proprieties" or "Our public officials must maintain collegiality" when his enemies are trying to destroy him. "The proprieties" and "collegiality" aren't for all-out combat situations; they're for when you're standing alone on the field of battle and your enemies are bleeding out at your feet.

     In this connection, note the glaring lack of conservative accomplishments characteristic of the NeverTrumpers. Romney, of course, is responsible for inflicting a version of ObamaCare on Massachusetts when he was its governor. Jeb Bush’s tenure as Florida’s governor is unmarked by any achievement. As for the NeverTrumpers who merely bellow from the pages of supposedly conservative magazines and websites, nothing more need be said. Were President Trump to challenge any of these to a political measuring contest, they’d be humiliated – and Trump has only been in public office two and a quarter years.

     I was once dubious about Donald Trump as president. I felt he lacked the temperament required by the office. I have never been so happy to be proved wrong. He has the temperament the office has needed for a long, long time. It’s called fighting spirit. He fights!

     Trump in 2020!

The Mueller Report

     This document, only just released to the Attorney-General, is essentially the only item in the national news just now. It will speak for itself soon enough. However, the early reactions from those who believe the investigation has let them down – i.e.., those on the far Left who’ve been hoping it would provide a pretext for removing President Trump from office – suggest that we who support the president will be cheered by its emptiness. In celebration thereof, allow me to present a couple of favorite compilations:

     Enjoy a little Schadenfreude:

     PS: Would anyone care to suggest a good video-editing program? I have a need.

A Must-See From Tucker Carlson

     Just watch it. You’ll thank me.

     Game, set, and match, indeed.