May in January and Other Events in the New Era of Trump

UK PM Theresa May visited Philadelphia and DC. She met the Republican Congressional contingent, laid a wreath at Arlington, and then dealt with the Man himself, President Trump. In the interest of full disclosure, I was never a big May fan. She, of course, seems much better for the West than the milquetoast Cameron, but that's a pretty low bar to clear. I was never convinced she fully converted to Brexit, for example, and she made clear that she did not care much for Trump before November 8. I never thought she particularly cared much for the USA, in general, either. Just an impression; might be wrong; let me know.

The visit went fine. I am always a bit discomfited by US-UK summits. There is a lot of syrupy sappiness (is that a thing?) in these events with both sides falling all over each other praising the Special Relationship and reminding us all about our common history. OK, must accept that, I guess, in the interest of fortifying the Anglosphere. There is also generally a bit of the schoolmarm in the British approach to the US, with Britain playing the role of the wise ol' veteran of the world who must restrain the boisterous Yanks for their own good. The May visit had quite a bit of that in the build up with journalists and celebrities telling May her job was to get Trump under control, tell him torture is bad, and that NATO is really, really a good thing. The PM did do some of that both at the GOP retreat and with Trump. Box checked. I thought Trump was gracious, not at all in awe or awkward, and demonstrated that he has, as befits his own British background, an appreciation for Britain and the importance to the USA of the relation. Trump, in other words, was Presidential. Box checked. Not bad, at all.

Let's not forget that Thatcher and Reagan did not start off too, too well (remember Grenada?) but eventually turned into the Dynamic Duo and Killers of Commie world.

Aside from playing host to his first foreign visitor, President Trump, of course, was in the center of a bewildering array of events. He continued his Executive Order assault on Obama's sad legacy, and demonstrated that by doing what he said he was going to to do, he is the master of the news cycle. He told the Mexican President to take a hike if he wasn't going to discuss paying for the wall--and the Mexican President dutifully fell into Trump's trap. So much so that Mexico's ultra billionaire Carlos Slim gave a very rare news conference in which he proffered advice to Mexico on dealing with Trump. Slim is an extremely intelligent man, and if I were Mexican I would listen to him. At his press conference he showed an impressive grasp of complex issues and an excellent public speaking ability. He is not too dissimilar from Trump, a man whom he clearly likes and admires. His basic message to Mexico was to shape up and act like a grown up. He offered to help negotiate with Trump and the Mexican government should take him up on it. Now Slim, of course, is a major shareholder of the New York Times and at times his address sounded much like a NYT editorial--hmmm, wonder why? He praised immigration and diversity as good for the USA and urged Mexicans in the US to become US citizens. I noticed, however, that he did not praise immigration and diversity for Mexico; it seems that only the US must agree to alter its culture while everybody else gets to keep theirs. Interesting, no?

The media have gone crazy, yet again, over Trump's "Muslim ban," which, of course, is no such thing. It's actually a rather limited step, and I hope there is something more to come. He temporarily banned visas to a handful of countries, including Iran, and suspended the insane Syrian "refugee" program. Good. The list of trouble countries, however, is considerably longer than the few miscreants on the list, e.g., no Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, but it's a start.

I love the reaction from the Iranians who immediately said they would reciprocate. Wow! There go my vacation plans . . .

The reaction from the loons on the left was also priceless. It seems there is some sort of Constitutional right that the world has to get a visa to the USA. I did not know that. It also seems that if we don't give visas to any Muslim who wants one and if we stop taking "Syrian refugees"(discussed here, here, and here) then ISIS is going to get very nasty. I guess we have to let ISIS hold our immigration policies as a hostage to prove that we believe that Islam is a religion of peace. Hard to keep up.

Trump is on the right track. Hope he stays there.

A Little Aside: My New S&W

I mentioned before that I had purchased a .357 S&W Performance Center Model 327 TRR8. I picked it up on January 16 after the obligatory ten-day wait; apparently Governor Brown decided that I was of sufficiently good character that he would allow me to use my second amendment right. Thank you, Mr. Governor, thank you for your kindness and . . . never mind.

I love revolvers. Can't get over it. When I first started in the Foreign Service I carried my S&W Model 19. As years went by, under peer pressure, I switched to higher capacity semi-autos, a variety of 9s, .45s, and even a .380 for a time. They were OK, and I love the Model 1911, but, but . . . I continued to be drawn to good old style American revolvers. Now that I am retired, and good for nothing, I no longer have to hide in the closet. Yes, I am coming out as a revolver lover! Please, don't hate me for that.

Anyhow, I finally got around to taking my new acquisition to the range. Beautiful gun. It even made me into a good shot, sort of. The action is extremely smooth; the piece is very nicely balanced; I love the fact that it carries eight rounds, and is a whole lot easier and quicker to clean than a semi-auto. I still have not completely mastered a smooth and quick reload with either moon clips or a speed loader, but will keep trying. My enjoyment got a bit soured, just a bit, by some crappy ammo. It was cheap, and I have had no problems with that brand before, but this time, gads! Out of exactly 104 rounds I fed the gun before I switched, I had 13 fail-to-fires (FTF). Now on the range, if the price is right, I guess that's not too bad; you put up with it. In an emergency, however, I think you would want ammo with better than an 87% success rate. I switched to Remington HTP 110 grain semi-jacketed hollow point and ran another 117 rounds through the weapon with no FTFs at all. Very nice. Very clean burn, too, and with a nice roar.

I am still not exactly a crack shot and need some work. At about ten yards, however, my Model 327 let me put in some very tight groups. Beyond that distance, well, let's just say it's a good thing the targets don't shoot back. I have got to get better. It's on my bucket list.

OK, that's it. I will now get back to all things Trump.

OK, OK. NOW I Believe in Climate Change!

Decades of political hot air, fetid progressive gasses, and greasy Democratic smoke have done it. The climate in DC has changed! They have produced the Trump Tornado, the Trump Tsunami, the Trump Typhoon, the Trump Tremor, the, the . . . TRUMP!

I have never seen such socio-economic-political climate disruption in all my life. President Trump, who seems to be completely energy independent, is dominating the air waves and barely giving his opponents a chance to draw breath. The media, especially the hideous New York Times is melting faster than an ice cap in an Al Gore fantasy movie.

The once mighty NYT now no longer makes any pretense at all, none, of being a newspaper. Its "news" stories are full of words such as "lies," "bizarre," "crazy," when referring to President Trump and his policies. They are stunned, stunned, I tell you, that the man is actually doing exactly what he said he would.  They call him a liar for saying that illegal aliens voted in the last election; they say there's no proof . .  . and then go ape when he says, fine, let's investigate. No! There's no need! WE are telling you, WE are assuring you that there is no evidence! I can't stop laughing.

I can only imagine the panic among the bureaucrats at my old employer, the State Department, as Trump turns his guns on all sorts of hoary and untouchable foreign policies, assumptions, and beliefs.

Look, not all of his executive orders are as dramatic as the press would have you believe, and he needs to make sure there is legislative follow-up to ensure the next guy/gal doesn't undo them . . . but, but, he has changed the climate in a just a few days, and changed it exactly as he said he would.

Hats off to the man.

Keep winning! I am not tired of it, yet!

Marching for the Right to Kill

As a rule, I do not care for mass marches. Some, admittedly, are conducted and headed with discipline, dignity, and a sense of purpose, e.g., MLK, Tea Party, General Sherman. Most, however, prove unruly, unfocussed events that leave behind trash, and attract the weird, the bored, the sad loser, and, of course, the so-called "A-List" narcissist celebrity who jets in, delivers some bombast, and then jets back out. In most of these events participants say mean and little things, and the march produces mean and little things of no lasting impact--except, perhaps, to the small businesses that have had their windows broken and premises trashed.

The "Million Women March" falls into the same category as most of these events. To their credit, these marchers did not trash businesses but, as typical with leftist marches, left behind piles of trash for others to clean up. From what I saw of it, and its companion marches in Europe and elsewhere, this was, perhaps and at best, some vague expression of unhappiness with an election that didn't turn out the way the marchers wanted, and so . . . they march. OK. They have that right. Doesn't bother me at all. Other than that, what was it about? We heard and saw marchers exhibit girlish delight in using "grown-up" profanity and coarseness, and we read pompous statements from the organizers bragging, "They said it couldn't be done!" Who are "they"? What "couldn't be done"? Are we to swoon in amazement over the organizers' ability to solicit and obtain a marching permit from DC authorities? Hate to break it to the marchers, but it's been done before--many, many times--and will be done again. This is neither the first nor last rodeo, ladies, not at all. For that, you can thank the Constitution, and a lot of men who have marched to war to defend it for you.

Still, we have the unanswered question: What was this really about? I, for example, never understood the march in Paris put on after one of the Islamic atrocities and wrote about my disgust that,

It was a very typical, in fact, an extremely typical leftist/progressive/narcissist manifestation akin to so many others we have seen over the years. It was replete with the usual trademarks of progressivism: prancing and preening; empty slogans and rhetoric; and equally empty gestures and cartoonish props, e.g., giant pencils, rakishly worn bandanas, silly make-up, etc. . . In sum, the "march" was a call to do, what exactly? Simple: It was a call to do exactly nothing. The march was about nothing.

We can say much of the same about the January 21 festivities: a lot of mostly white middle and upper class women, wearing funny hats, claiming to be "oppressed" in some way, and giving "notice" that they will "resist." They said nothing about the real oppressor of women today, Islam, and, in fact, went out of their way to make nice with Islam; a prominent Muslim pro-Sharia "activist" had a major role in organizing the event. I am surprised that CAIR did not put on a Sharia-approved honor killing demonstration, or one on how to throw acid in the face of girls who "dishonor" family, or how to perform a clitoridectomy on a screaming girl, or how to hang gays from construction cranes: well, maybe next year, along with one on how to drive a truck into a crowd . . .

The only concrete theme was abortion. That seems to serve as the sole unifier of today's feminism, i.e., preserving and expanding the right to kill the unborn with no restrictions. That seems to define bravery for these folks; that's the core impetus behind the move to "resist."

So, in the end, I guess I am partly wrong. Unlike the march in Paris, this march wasn't about nothing. It was a march for the right to kill.

President Trump

Against the odds, and in defiance of the polls and the predictions of our political savants, Donald Trump has become the President of the United States.

Few gave his campaign any hope of coming close to clinching the GOP nomination not to mention the White House. The science was settled: he could not win the GOP primary battle. Even once he did become the Republican candidate, beating a crowded and even impressive field of other candidates, it seemed that every week the media pronounced him DOA, announcing with 100% certainty that Hillary Clinton would be President 45. The science was settled: he could not win the Presidency. Even once he won the election, the opponents would not stop: Popular vote! Russians! Faithless electors! Stop him in Congress! Riots in the streets! One major media organization even ran a piece suggesting that were he and Pence assassinated, personnel of the Obama administration would remain in power and run the country. The progs have no shame.

Well, Donald Trump is President. Let the progressives run off to therapy--maybe what they really need is rehab. Donald Trump is President thanks to a wave of revulsion and disgust with what progressives have done to our country over the past 25 years.

Trump's inaugural address? I thought it was just right: terse, to the point, no flowery empty phrases. Minimal use of "I."

Many prog and some conservative commentators--the same who thought he would never become President--criticize his address as just another campaign stump speech. Yep. They're right. That's why it proved so powerful. I saw no sign in that speech of him backing down from the themes and the promises of his campaign. That is very good. He seems intent on trying to do what he said he would try to do: drain the swamp and return our country to its people. That's a tall order, and, frankly, I don't think he will succeed 100% . . . but, but, but he is going to try and, bold prediction, he will make some major progress in that direction. I liked how he had no reluctance to tear into the disaster that has been "establishment" rule, with the major representatives of the establishment sitting right behind him. The man has guts.

All the best, President Trump.

Obama's Exit: Definition of No Class

Judging from his performance these past few days, the last of his hideous reign, President Obama clearly thinks of himself as Hernan Cortes confronting the events of June 30, 1520. Mexico history buffs--and it is a genuinely remarkable history, well worth studying--will recognize that date as the infamous La Noche Triste (The Night of Sorrow) during which Cortes and his army of Spaniards and Tlaxcala allies fought their way out of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. Cortes barely escaped with his life when the Aztecs, at last, grew wise to Spanish intentions, deposed the ineffectual Moctezuma, and went into full revolt captained by their new King, Cuitláhuac. Cortes, having survived the bloody escape from Tenochtitlan, lived to fight another day, and eventually exacted a brutal revenge on the Aztec civilization, including King Cuitláhuac and the Aztec capital (read Victor Hanson Davis's account of the battle in his masterful Carnage and Culture.) Obama apparently thinks he, too, will lead the counter attack to take back the capital city which has fallen to the illegitimate tlahtoani Donald "Call Me Cuitláhuac" Trump.

Far fetched? Maybe, but Obama is certainly not going out quietly and with class. He will not replicate George W. Bush's graceful exit and subsequent political silence. At his FINAL (?) press conference, Obama's lack of class, grace, and reflection, and the absence of any sense of personal responsibility shone brightly. He performed before the pet journalists of the White House press corpse as though he were taking a victory lap. He proved full of praise for himself, and brimming with "sage" advice for his successor and for the press in dealing with the new President. He wanted them to be as tough on Trump as they had been on him . . . low bar, insert jokes here . . . He could not admit that nearly everything he touched has turned to disaster for America and, ironically, for his own political party which has become irrelevant in huge swathes of the country. He vowed, a la Cortes, to come storming back if he saw his values under attack! Unlike other ex-presidents, he will remain in DC, just so he can try (Good Luck With That!) to steal the spotlight from President Trump. In other words, this final press conference will not be the final press conference from the biggest disaster ever to occupy the White House.

Worse, however, than the evident narcissism and delusion on display at the presser, and in his even more pompous "farewell" address, Obama has taken actions in his last days in power to make life much more difficult for President Trump and for America, including his outrageous commutation of Manning's 35-year prison sentence. Manning should have been left to rot.

While Trump will quickly dismantle most if not all of Obama's absurd Presidential Directives, Obama has set down IED's for the new administration in foreign affairs. Obama's last minute discovery, for example, that Russia has interests of its own and that they do not necessarily coincide with ours will create long-term problems. The dispatch of US troops, for example, to Poland in the waning days of this horrid misadministration sets up a dilemma for Trump. If he leaves the troops there, the job of reaching out to Russia becomes all the more difficult. If he pulls them out, he will be accused of being a Putin puppet, out to destroy NATO. This is not a problem without resolution, but it is an unnecessary one. Likewise, the Obama/Kerry/ Powers last-minute blitz on the Middle East in which the US has sided openly with the corruptocrats and terrorists of the so-called Palestine Authority, and placed Israel's core interests at risk in exchange for, well, nothing, sets up Trump for an immediate clash with the Arabs, the UN, and, potentially, our ally Israel who feels betrayed. Israel and our own interests have been betrayed not only by Obama's actions at the UN but by the fake Iran deal, (go here, here and here, for example) that legitimizes and helps fund terrorist Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons. Trump will now have to deal with a surging Iran. In East Asia, of course, the Obama misadministration has so mishandled relations with our allies there, including Philippines, that the new administration will have an even more difficult time than necessary in dealing with the growing threat from China. In the Americas, Obama has up-ended decades of US policy towards the Castro regime, again, in exchange for nothing, and at the price of making America seem weak. I am sure you can spot many more Obama IEDs.

Anyhow, tomorrow we will have a new President, one that actually seems to want America to do well. What a change from the past eight years . . .

On Russia, Again

On this, the last week-end of the Obama misadministration, I charge onward, onward like Lord Cardigan  . . . Ok, Ok, I am getting carried away. It's all this talk about Russia that has me on my charger heading into the "Valley of Death." I am going to repeat myself a bit, as I have written quite a lot about Russia, but events drive me "Half a league, half a league/ Half a league onward. . ."

I am deeply touched by the sudden progressive concern for the security of the United States. Most of the same people now screaming "RUSSIA!" and accusing President-elect Trump of being the Siberian Candidate, historically have opposed a strong US military, opposed efforts to fight Soviet Communism, laughed at "a Red under every bed" as paranoia, derided the CIA as murderers and coup-plotters, wanted immediate US nuclear disarmament, made fun of Romney's concerns about Russia, defended Hillary's use of an insecure server, and, well, lots more--you can fill it in. They also have opposed strong US border defense, and an immigration policy to protect us from foreign jihadis, rapists, murderers, and urban criminal gangs. Obama, the ultimate political expression of the progressive world view, gutted the US military, instructed our intel and enforcement agencies to focus on "climate change," ordered them to downplay the illegal alien and jihadi threats, tried to politicize them and shape them into extensions of the DNC (see DOJ, IRS and EPA, for example). He, in sum, turned them into purveyors of the usual progressive nonsense that has gotten us into our current socio-political-economic fix, and, by the way, led to the election of Donald Trump.

OK, let's turn to Putin and  Russia. I wrote some time ago that,

It does not require a genius to see what is happening in the post-USA world of the Obamistas. Other actors, many of them ruthless opponents of Western values of democracy and liberty, are stepping in to fill the power vacuum and reshape the world--and do it while laughing at us. Of these actors, Putin is the most determined and committed to reforming the globe into a place much less congenial for those Western values, and much friendlier to Russia's rise to the top. His plan is exceedingly simple. No Snowden-like revelations required. Taking advantage of the weakness and self-loathing of the Obama misadministration, Putin is out to neutralize Europe and make it into an economic resource for Russia, e.g., gas sales, investments, access to high tech, and to ease the US out of the picture. NATO is to be seen for what it increasingly has become, to wit, a joke.

I also noted in another 2014 piece that,

Russia almost always, if not always, has been on the edge of Western consciousness. Before anybody gets offended, there is no doubt about the greatness of Russia's contributions to the hard sciences, literature, theater, and music. Russia for numerous reasons, however, never has been fully a part of Western civilization. Starting with Peter the Great, Russia's Tsars made on-and-off, and usually half-hearted efforts to become part of the West. Those rulers were attracted to the wealth, power, and technological advancement of the West, but had little to no interest in adopting Western ideas of democracy and, especially, liberty which made that wealth, power, and technology possible. There seemed always a dark, conspiratorial, even piratical tone to Russia's relations with the West: we seeing Russia, not unreasonably, as a crude, obscurantist, dangerous bogeyman, and Russia viewing the West, not always inaccurately, as looking down on Russia and intent on preventing it from finding its rightful "place in the sun." Russia's attempts to find this "place in the sun," of course, ran into notable obstacles such as Japan's own quest for that sunny spot which generated a massive defeat for Tsarist efforts to become a major force in Asia and the Pacific, and, lest we forget, World War I which ended the Tsars and served as midwife for the even more horrid Bolshevik rule.

That, in my humble view, still proves an accurate assessment today. Russia is a big, important country, with a significant military and intelligence capability. It is governed, unfortunately, by some, ahem, very difficult people such as Vladimir Putin, who have no love or respect for democratic norms--in fairness, however, we should note more freedom exists in Russia under Putin than did in the USSR under the progs beloved Gorbachov. Russia's leaders, above all, are Russian nationalists full of resentment for the West's alleged failure to take Russian interests seriously. That said, Russia is much weaker and less dangerous than the old Soviet Union, and beset by enormous economic and demographic problems which undermine its ability, even without Western opposition, to find its "place in the sun."

We must realize, of course, that even under the best of circumstances and the best of intentions on our part, relations with Russia most likely will prove difficult. They will become even more difficult if the left's current obsession with undermining any approach to Russia continues. I can't help but think that this leftist obsession with trying to undermine Trump's ability to deal with Russia is linked, at least in part, to the fact that Russia is no longer Communist. The progs liked Communism, whatever they might claim now. That Russia loudly proclaims itself a Christian power and makes no secret of its politically incorrect animosity to jihadi Islam, has won Moscow no friends among Western progs.

How to deal with Russia? It does not involve labeling Putin and Russia as war criminals, especially since the story about what happened in Aleppo seems to be changing; the information provided by progressive folk heroes such as the "White Helmets" is coming into question. We can deal with Russia, as I stated before, by ensuring our own energy independence, having a reinvigorated and highly lethal military force, and showing less willingness to listen to the Europeans, who, with the exception of the British, have a remarkable track record of being wrong on almost every major issue for the past three hundred years. We should keep in mind that Russia has intel capabilities that it will use against us, and must be willing and able to use ours against Russia, as needed. In addition, as noted before, we frack, we stand by Israel and the Kurds, and we strengthen our military and our domestic economy. With Russia we deal on narrow, very concrete issues, and we should do OK, unless the Russians prove more irrational than I think.

For example, Russia and the US could reach an accommodation on the Middle East and on Eastern Europe that does not threaten the interests of either country or sell out our allies such as Israel and Poland. Israel, please note, is seeking better relations with Russia. Improved relations between Russia and the USA would, it seems, serve also as a counter to Chinese aspirations to become a superpower. These are not bad things. If we can achieve some of them, that's good for us and the West. The odds are against, but . . . .

To the progs, it is time to give it a rest. One proven foreign intervention in our politics came from Mexico. If you are really concerned about our sovereignty, focus on that.

An American Coup D'etat?

This has gotten completely out of control. I never thought I would see our country's politics reduced to the degrading levels of a Banana Republic. Are we destined to become Honduras with rockets?

I had begun to write about Obama's last Presidential exercise in Super Narcissism, in other words his Farewell Address, and Rex Tillerson's excellent appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but all that has been overtaken by other events. I refer, of course, to the "fake news" put out by certain media outlets re a secret Russian dossier on Trump containing all sorts of blackmail useful information. I won't link to BuzzFeed and CNN, the two major outlets that ran with this insane story. I read the report and it is pure trash. The info in the "report" cannot be verified, and the whole thing stinks of a hatchet job.

Before going on, I would note that the purpose of blackmail is to have something secret and untoward on somebody; once it gets out, no more blackmail. When I first joined the State Department in the 1970s, we had active official discouragement of homosexuals in the ranks. Our security people feared that the Soviets and others could use an FSO's homosexuality against him (mostly men in those days) and extract state secrets in exchange for not ruining the FSO's career. Some smarter folks figured that it would prove best for homosexuals to admit their sexual preferences "in confidence" to the security folks; the idea, of course, being that then there could be no risk of blackmail since the officer's superiors already knew he was gay. That didn't work initially because the tendency was to fire anybody who admitted to being gay. So a gay FSO wouldn't be blackmailed, he would just be thanked for his honesty and fired. It would seem then that in the very, very off-chance that this report about Trump is true, the blackmail potential is gone now. But, of course, I digress.

I don't know the origins of this trash report. There are stories out there about an ex-MI6 man engaged by NeverTrumpers in the GOP to do "oppo" research. He, apparently, claimed to have anonymous well-placed sources in Moscow who provided him all sorts of lurid details of Trump's behavior while in Moscow for a beauty pageant and of Trump's alleged financial links to the Russians. Once Trump won the primary, this version goes, our intrepid Brit then flogged his story to the Dems, and even to some media. Another version has the story being made up out of whole cloth on a website and basically trolled to the Dems and the media. I don't know.

It does seem, however, that this "report" has been floating about since at least last October, that Mother Jones mentioned it in passing, and the always more than slightly nuts Harry Reid and John McCain, separately, pushed the report onto the FBI. After that, it really gets even more murky. Did the intel agencies incorporate info in the report into the intel briefings they gave Obama and Trump? Did at least a couple of our highly politicized spy masters feed the story to the press, but this time with the implied imprimatur of "intelligence"?

Trump was rightfully furious at his January 11 presser. I thought he did a masterful job of taking charge of the press conference and dropping napalm on his tormentors. The exchange between Trump and a loud-mouthed, rude, and disrespectful CNN rep is a classic. This is truly "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" with a hefty dose of "Rambo" and "Crocodile Dundee" thrown in for good measure. Look it up. It's worth doing. Trump handled it.

I think Trump quashed this attack for now, but it demonstrates what is to come. I have never seen such a pile on as the one we are seeing with Trump. The press, the leftoid idiots on the street and in Hollywood are joined, of course, and most troubling, by at least some of our intel agencies which have allowed themselves pressed into the service of one political party.

We could be seeing nothing less than an attempted coup by the bureaucratic mandarins and their minions in our federal government against an incoming president.

It is not just political appointees at the top of key agencies who are involved. Let us not forget that in their long march the progressives have targeted such key institutions as the CIA, FBI, NSA, Homeland, and State for special attention. These agencies are now increasingly staffed from bottom to top by products of our progressive universities and are becoming full-time believers in the progressive vision of the world. In addition they see, thanks to Hillary Clinton, that mishandling classified information brings no penalty. They apparently have no reluctance to join efforts to subvert our electoral system. The long march has not yet completed its sweep of the military but has made significant inroads; if that happens . . . . .

The attack on Trump comes from all sides. The swamp is much more fetid, dismal and deep, and the bottom much more foggy than anybody could have imagined.

On Introducing the Hollyweirdos to Reality

OK. This will be short as it's a bit out of my normal area of concern.

I just heard about Meryl Streep's silly pronouncements at the Golden Globe Awards show. I must confess that it's been years since I have watched any of those awards shows. I gave up on the Oscars maybe ten-fifteen years ago, and the Golden Globes, well, I never really watched those. I found them all deadly dull exercises in scripted rich lefties giving each other prizes and praise, and proclaiming to the skies "Aren't we clever?"

Most of the films up for consideration in recent years were not ones I bothered to watch, and many of them, even with the advent of ROKU and other on-line streaming gadgets and services I still have not seen. I, for example, have never seen a James Bond, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or Jason Bourne film all the way through. I say this with sadness since as a kid I loved movies and television. I grew up in an immigrant household, and always felt a bit disconnected from my surroundings. Books, TV, and movies served as my means of connecting to America, and seeing what a "real" American household looked and sounded like. I never had any inkling of what politics Clark Gable, Jimmy Steward, Gregory Peck, etc. espoused, and don't think I really cared. The movies nominated for Oscars were all films we had seen or dearly wanted to see. The Awards ceremonies were corny and awkward and way too long, but they were about entertainment. They were part of the illusion of Hollywood glamour. The big studios, as a rule, kept their herd of actors, directors, and producers pretty well under control and away from controversy.

OK. As we all know, that is not true any more.The Hollywood types now insist on inflicting their politics on us, and on lecturing us lowly unglamorous types about our lack of virtue. They, of course, have redefined virtue into something totally unrecognizable to an audience of, say, the 1950s. We have to listen and watch them as they emote and cry about McCarthyism (of course, McCarthy had nothing to do with films, but never mind) and the evilness of big corporations and the racism and the greed and our lack of concern for the environment and children and women and working people and, so on and on and on. We must not see the contradictions between what they preach and how they live their own lives. While they proclaim their moral superiority to us all, and their undying love for children, workers, and Gaia, we must not focus on the scores of parentless children they leave around, often getting involved in drug use and other anti-social behavior. We must ignore their jetting about on private planes and limos, as they lecture us on climate change. And, OK, let me get to the real point of this rant: we must ignore how they, in fact, hate the average worker, they hate their customers. While we get lectured on social responsibility and our greed, they demand and often get huge salaries from the multinational corporations who own the studios nowadays. They scour the planet for cheap shooting locales and massive tax breaks and public subsidies for their productions and don't give a whit, for example, about the unemployed blue collar workers of the American movie industry.

Well, in the spirit of President-elect Trump and his successful cajoling of Carrier, Ford, Toyota, Fiat-Chryser, etc., into keeping jobs here, I make a modest proposal re Hollywood. I think states and cities should stop subsidizing film production with taxpayer money. Any movie production that gets tax breaks and subsidies from abroad for filming abroad, should be taxed an equivalent amount by the US government. Trump has threatened car makers with a 35% tariff, why not a similar fee on run-away movie production? Let's see how those big salaries get reduced and the benefits shared with the blue collar types who build sets, drive trucks, etc.

Bernie Sanders, are you with me?

See you at the movies!

Progressive Shambles

The opposition to Trump continues its shambolic ways.

The popular vote recount stunt in selected states failed spectacularly as Trump gained votes and the process showed that, in Michigan, for example, it was the Democrats who had engaged in vote fraud. Suddenly, the progs lost interest in recount efforts as those posed potential threat to the claim that Hillary won the popular vote. Prog icon, Jill Stein, however, managed to walk off with a couple of million bucks she had raised for recount expenses, so not all was bad news.

The effort to shame state electors into defying their states' vote tallies and refuse to vote for Trump, similarly backfired as five electors defected from Hillary's camp--that wasn't supposed to happen. The last ditch effort to have Congress not certify the electoral college results also proved a disastrous PR shambles. Poor, poor Joe Biden, who had to preside over the certification process, could not hide his frustration with his own party as various members tried to disrupt the certification process but did not even know the rules for how the vote tallies could be contested. Got to hand it to the VP: he managed the affair relatively well despite his Democratic colleagues.

Has-been director Michael Moore and other Hollyweird types are calling for a disruption of the January 20 inauguration, and making a big deal over their "brave" refusal to perform at that inauguration. Nobody cares. Hollyweirdos strutting their stuff just don't know what to do with an audience yawning in boredom.

As we have discussed before (here and here, for example) the progs also have hit on the scheme of bringing out some of America's highly politicized intel agencies to make thunderous claims, with little lightning, that the Russians threw the election to Trump: a totally confused mess which we have discussed before and is not worth going into too much detail, again. We have yet to see the devastating evidence that Putin got Trump elected. We see a lot of blanket assertions, we see a bizarre critique of Russia's state-owned TV service--Who watches that?--but no real facts or evidence that whatever it is the Russians did or allegedly did altered the electoral results. If Putin wanted Trump to win, I think, in fact, Putin will come to regret Trump's presidency. Russia's so far free-hand in Europe and the Middle East most likely will find opposition from a reinvigorated energy-independent United States headed by a man with a clear understanding of American interests. Putin will miss Obama, almost as much as Hollywood does.

Not a good time to be a prog.

BTW, on a more interesting note, I finally made the jump, and bought a S&W .357 Performance Center Model 327 TRR8. If the Diplowife doesn't cancel my credit card privileges and Governor Brown approves of my purchase it should be in my hands on January 16. This 327 just had that indefinable je ne sais quoi of a decidedly cool weapon--and being cool, after, is at least 50% of the game, right?. 

I look forward to the 16th and the 20th as particularly good days to be an American.

The Year of Trump

2017 is on! It clearly will be the year, good or bad, of President Trump. There can be no doubt that nobody will doubt who is President.

The year starts with the hacking story. The Dems, their prog media allies, and their Twitter trolls continue with a garbled account accusing the Russians, Mr. Putin, in particular, of doing something to the US elections. That "something" is a bit confusing. At first, we saw vague statements about the Russians "hacking" into the voting machines in a bid to favor Trump. Once that did not pan out, the losers of the 2016 elections moved on to make different allegations but always leaving the first one sort of floating there. We heard that the Russian intel services broke into the DNC and, apparently, provided all the juicy tidbits they found there to creepy Julian Assange. From his lair in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London the Aussie Mastermind carefully manipulated the information provided by the Russians to throw the election to Trump. Not clear why either the Russians or Assange would want Trump elected, but that's the charge.

As noted before (here) the Obama misadministration has gotten some of the US intel agencies to issue a vague and highly imprecise report that claims to provide proof of Russian "hacking." Obama, suddenly finding his backbone, lost for the past nearly eight years, kicked out 35 Russian spies from their compounds in New York and Maryland. It still remains unclear what it is these Russians supposedly did except, perhaps, maybe, just possibly, figure out that John Podesta's email password was "PASSWORD." Yes, you need a world-class espionage service for that. The report, I would note, never actually alleges that the Russians passed any info to Assange--odd given how we are being told on the side that Wikileaks is a Russian front.

Let's review the basics, yet again. Do the Russians spy? Why yes, yes they do. They spy a lot. So do the Chinese, and they do so much more effectively--notice, for example, how their new weapon systems always seem to look just like ours. The Chinese, let us not forget, also broke into OPM's databank and made off with millions of active and former US government employees' private information (the Diplomad and Diplowife among them, I would note.) No Chinese spies were sent packing; no hissy demands that China "cut it out." The North Koreans broke into a Hollywood studio and messed with their data in retaliation for a terrible movie that nobody saw mocking the Dear Leader. Lots of people, state actors as well as private and corporate criminals, spy; lots of them break into computer systems and steal data. I guess, however, it's only important when that theft is of emails from the DNC revealing the dirty tricks of the DNC and the complicity in those of many media outlets. That's worth a war with Russia!

I do not like Julian Assange. I think he's an anti-American creep to his core, but then I can say the same thing about Obama. I would note, furthermore, that Assange has a much better track record for accuracy than does Obama. To those who demand we believe Obama simply BECAUSE he's the President, I would say, well, that's not how it works; they know it from their own track record of not believing, for example, President Bush on Iraqi WMD.

Anyhow, that's the 2017 the Dems are hoping to have in their ceaseless quest to deligitimize Trump and the 2016 elections.

Trump will be at the center of it all, and it is critical that the Republicans in Congress do not panic, do not seek to gain that "strange new respect" from the New York Times and others; in other words, the Republicans must not become John McCain. If we can avoid that, then we might just have a very good year.