Something to Ponder

Here's the mayor of San Juan Puerto Rico, a strident Democrat who has heaped praise on FALN terrorists, whining about lack of aid while being literally surrounded by pallets of aid and not addressing the reality of 10,000 Federal workers on the island trying to restore services.  I know it's tough and a devastating situation, but shit doesn't happen overnight.

Friday Funnies

It's the Culture, Stupid

Remember the saying?  In the '90s when Bill Clinton was rolling to amazing popularity, his brilliant if snakelike consigliere, James Carville came up with the saying that proved to be the key to his wins.  "It's the economy, stupid" was tacked up on a wall by Carville and everything they did became focused on the economy.  And the rest is history.  Clinton was the master of triangulation and he could deftly flex to whichever the winds were blowing.  But his focus on the economy never waivered.  He worked hard to pump us his base by manipulating the economy in their favor.  And it worked.  He was hugely popular to his folks and acceptable to many others.  Of course, his deft abiltiy as a politician didn't hurt.  

That focus has diminished over the subsequent 16 years.  Of course GW Bush had 9/11 and a war to contend with.  Obama was very busy dividing the nation and reorienting many of our institutions.  And they both, because of different reasons, wound up accepting whatever the economy would give them.  We had the crash of 2008 and that interrupted a lot of growth.  Obama had to take some extreme measures to ensure that the crash didn't damage his image.  I don't think he was too concerned about the economic impact but more about how it impacted him.

And through all of this, there was a buildup of dissatisfaction throughout a broad swath of Americans.  That is undeniable.  President Trump is exhibit number one.  The fact that we have a President Trump is the ultimate 'fuck you' to the establishment.  I really think that there were a ton of people who voted for him simply because he was an outsider who would shake things up.  And they really didn't care if he accomplished much except to upset a lot of apple carts.  They thought 'what's the worst that could happen?'.  People had been suffering for a long time without anyone appearing to give a shit about their plight.  Why not throw a bomb in the middle of their comfortable, oh so insider lives.  And Trump is the ultimate bomb.  

I saw a pretty interesting article today that somewhat explains this phenomenon.  You can read it here.    Now I know what you're thinking.  David Brooks!  You've got to be kidding me.  But I have a love/hate relationship with Brooks.  Mostly hate.  But every once in a while he writes something that resonates.  I think his explanation of the impact that Trump is having and will have on the culture is pretty spot on.  Now if you've been reading you know I was never a Trump guy and didn't vote for him.  But I was 10,000% against criminal Hillary so I'm okay with him in the oval office.  He has done a few good things (Neil Gorsuch for one), some okay things, and a bunch of idiotic things.  As long as he doesn't go nuts and get us in a shooting war in Korea I'm pretty okay with his attacks on the media and elites.  As Brooks says, "Because of him, a new culture will have to be built, new values promulgated and a new social fabric will have to be woven, one that brings the different planets back into relation with one another.  That’s the work of the next 20 years."  At least if they're doing that, maybe they'll leave us alone.  It's the culture, stupid!

The First Amendment

I've been trying to not pay too much attention to the whole NFL protest issue.  You know, one jackass decides to kneel during the National Anthem, nothing comes of it except he loses his job, then a few more jackasses decide to emulate him, and it's mostly a distraction but not much else.  But then President Trump, in a way that only he can, steps in it and decides to call the guy out.  And not only call him out but declare to the world that "the son of a bitch should be fired".  So that causes the NFL players and owners to circle the wagons, do some further demonstrations of solidarity, and escalate the issue to heights that it should never have been escalated to.  It is beyond stupid.  A pox on all their houses.  And I'm mostly pissed because we have disasters to attend to, health care to fix, tax reform to pass, an infrastructure plan to create, and a ton of other things to get done.  But the MSM is focused on a bunch of millionaire jackasses who perceive that kneeling during the National Anthem will bring light on injustice.

I really, really find Trump's actions distateful.  I really, really find the NFL distateful.  I saw this video over on FB and it captures what I've thought pretty well.  Bottom line...the First Amendment trumps everything.  That doesn't mean I have to like those NFL idiots.  But by God they have the right to protest.  So Trump should just shup up.

Something to Ponder

Unless you're living under a rock you've seen all the hoopla about President Trump calling NFL players to task for not respecting the National Anthem.  Everyone seems to have an opinion.  As you would expect, I think they need to stand respectfully during the Anthem.  I won't regurgitate all the reasons on both sides because everyone thinks they are right.  So be it.  But I think Trump is playing to his base and they love it.  And if some primma donna NFL players get pissed, he doesn't care.  So we'll see where this goes but for now I think it's sort of a stalemate.  But more importantly he just came off a week in which the consensus was that it was a good week for him.  And now he stirs up a controversy where there didn't need to be one.  As President, he shouldn't be commenting on this issue.  It's beneath him.  But he just can't help himself.  So the cycle repeats itself.  He has a good stretch and then creates a controversy that is damaging.  Don't know how long this can last.

Motivation Monday

Friday Funnies

This explains a lot!

Trump's Finest Moment (so far)

Today's speech at the UN was simply Trump's finest speech.  Talk about a Tour De Force!  Now I know that much of the media, his critics, and the apologist amateur diplomats will hate it.  They will say it was an embarrassment, too direct, too forefull, and that he shouldn't have called out countries and individuals in particular.  Bullshit.  It's high time that an American President tells it like it is.  I say bravo.  If you haven't heard it, here you go.

Motivation Monday

Friday Funnies

It's all in just good natured fun!

Hillary

The hits just keep on coming!

Outrageous

Just read that Harvard's Kennedy School of Government is making Bradley Manning, oops...I meant Chelsea Manning a 'Visiting Fellow'.  Here's what they said:

“She speaks on the social, technological and economic ramifications of Artificial Intelligence,” the Harvard announcement said. “As a trans woman, she advocates for queer and transgender rights as @xychelsea on Twitter.”

Yikes!  "She" is a convicted spy.  "She" leaked over 700,000 classified documents and was convicted of 6 espionage charges.  "She" should be in jail for a very long time.  But you know what happened.  Yep. Obama pardoned "her".

So now she's a Visiting Fellow at Harvard.  I've heard of a lot of crazy bullshit in my life but this just about takes the cake.  The good news is that Mike Morrell, former acting Director of the CIA resigned his Fellowship in protest.  I hope others will take the same action.  I mean...this is just unbelievably outrageous!

Single Payer

So the worst kept secret has been that Crazy Bernie would come out with his single payer health care plan today.  It's a beauty.  And a lot of the useful idiots over on the left are wetting themselves over the prospects of this system.  As for me, I can't wait for the CBO to score it.  It should be a hoot.

Something To Ponder

I've been seeing Hillary make the news on her book tour.  Have you seen her on the talk shows and news programs and the like?  Me neither.  But it's difficult to miss her presence.  I had really hoped that she would just fade away.  But no.  She will never fade away.  She has got to be the most pathetic, naive, sniveling, lying, crooked, whining poor excuse for a person in the public eye that I've ever seen.  I mean...I thought she was awful before.  But now?  I just can't even describe how bad I think she is.  I know it's difficult because the fawning MSM is falling all over themselves to give her a platform and explain away her loss, but my advice is to steer clear whenever you hear her name.  It'll be good for your health.

Never Forget

Have been seeing a lot of posts on all the social media sites about remembering 9/11.  Happens every year.  And it's always appropriate.  When I was a kid that the Remember Pearl Harbor remembrences were strong every year.  There are just some things that should live on in the life of the country.  But it will fade.  A lot of the dates that were so important when they happened just fade.  Look at D-Day.  There are still some who remember, but it's fewer and fewer.  So while we can, we should remember the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001.  Most of us who were alive at the time remember it like it was yesterday.  Not only is it appropriate to remember the fallen and the heroes, but it's also appropriate to realize that life dramatically changed on that day.  It was really the birth of radical Islamic terrorism and the start of a long, torturous, bloody path to where we are today.  And the bad thing is that most can't see where it ends.  The most important thing though, at least from my perspective, is that we stay the course.  The threat is real and the challenge is continuing our resistence to those who would destroy our way of life.  So remember 9/11.  And at the same time remember that this experiment in Democracy we call America is fragile.  And we all need to work to maintain and protect it.

Motivation Monday

An Angry Black Man

Have you heard of this guy, Ta-Nehisi Coates.  No?  He's an up and coming writer of I guess you'd call social commentary.  He's got an article out at The Atlantic called "Donald Trump is the First White President".  You can read it here.  It's a long read, but is very...I don't even know.  Disturbing?

I scarcely know what to say.  It is one of the most shocking, angry, outlandish, and sobering (from the perspective that a lot of people heap praise on him) articles I've read...ever.  I like to read all perspectives to keep abreast of all avenues of thought.  So I stumbled on this over at Real Clear Politics.  I guess there is a large segment of the population that resonates with his dubious rhetoric and poisonous theories.

That he is smart cannot be denied.  He is very adept at spinning the story of America as a despicable place filled with racists.  But it just made me sad.  I either am oblivious to what so many think is true, or a lot of our citizens are being led like sheep to believe the worst of each other.  I feel like screaming.  But maybe the best thing is resignation and retreat.  Don't know.  All I know is it makes me sad.

UPDATE:  As I've gone throught the day thinking a bit about this I've decided that I expressed the wrong emotion.  Although I do have an amount of sadness about this what I really am is mad.  I'm pissed that this guy who is obviously smart would use his intelligence to publish such drivel.  I'm pissed that The Atlantic would give him a platform.  And I'm infuriated at what crap like this has done to our nation.  But hey...that's just me.

Truth or Fiction?

A friend sent this to me and I thought I'd post the whole thing here.  Suffice to say, it's rather outlandish.  It may be a good fable.  Or wishful thinking.  Or someone trying to be a wee bit too clever for their own good.  But...it might just have some truth in it.  What do you think?

Say you are a business tycoon.
You just successfully completed a large-scale acquisition
and merger, bringing together multiple smaller companies
into one conglomerate. After the merger, you want to put
your own people in charge of everything. However, all those
smaller companies had their own executives - and, at least
for the short term - you need to keep many of them around
the keep things running. So, you keep many of those
executives around, and let them retain their own senior
staff. You even appoint one of them - the head of the
largest of the companies you acquired - to be the CEO of the
conglomerate, and he pledges to get all the departments
working together harmoniously.

After a transition period, some of them are doing fine in the new
conglomerate - but others are clearly causing trouble. In
fact, the one you appointed CEO is clearly a disaster. The
newly merged departments are working against each
other.

Furthermore, you have good suspicion he is dealing in insider trading -
nothing you can take to a prosecutor, but there is a lot of
circumstantial evidence building up. Worse, he is not only
doing his own dirty dealing, but it appears he may even be
leaking intellectual property to your competitors, helping
them take market share from you.

Clearly, he has to go - and go now.

Problem is, many of the senior employees in your conglomerate are
loyal to him. If you just fire him and put in your own
chosen CEO, you know you could get a lot of backlash from
disgruntled employees. And in your business, there is such a
small profit-margin that you really can't afford
anything at all that threatens performance. So what do you
do?

In comes the hatchet man.

The hatchet man is someone you bring in for sole purpose of
slashing the problems and shaking things up over a very
short period of time - but doing it in a way that deflects
any blame or blowback away from you. As soon as the problems
are hacked away, the hatchet man leaves - taking the ire and
resentment with him, and leaving you free to bring in your
new team for a fresh start.

This happens in the business world all the time. And Donald Trump
is a businessman. He knows this. He has lived this.
We've seen him do it on "The Apprentice."
We've read about it in his books. This is not a surprise
to anyone. Except for liberals and never-Trumpers.

Enter Scaramucci.

Liberals and never-Trumpers see the past two weeks as proof of a
Hitler-clown-circus spectacle, as evidence that Trump is
unhinged and our government is in the hands of madmen.
Anyone who understands the business world and Donald Trump
fully understands that what we just witnessed was a
perfectly executed hatchet man maneuver.

When Trump won the election, he essentially performed the
political equivalent of an acquisition and merger. He
brought together different political factions -
establishment Republicans, conservatives, tea party,
religious right, moderates, independents, cross-overs - into
one winning political coup. For some, it was a hostile
takeover - and if they were going to be dragged in against
their will, they would sure as hell resist.

This is where Reince Priebus came in.

Priebus, as the then-chairman of the Republican National Committee,
was hired as White House Chief of Staff to be a sort of
post-merger CEO. It was his job to bring all these political
factions together and get them to work harmoniously. But he
failed. Worse, there is ample evidence to suggest he not
only failed, but worked against Trump and the Trump agenda.
Look at the leaks. Look at all the chaos. Look at all the
bureaucracy continuing to work at odds with the president.
Priebus - and a number of other people around him - had to
go.

Back to Scaramucci.
Donald Trump has known for some
time that Priebus was a disaster. He was going to give him
his six-month trial period - that's a fairly common
thing in the private sector. After that, heads were going to
roll. But Trump himself doesn't want to be the hatchet
man. He needs to be able to lead after the bloodbath. So
what does he do? He turns to an old friend he has known for
many years - someone with nothing to lose, someone who can
step in with a hatchet and hack away, someone who can then
just walk away from it all and leave the slate clean. He
turned to Scaramucci.

So what does Scaramucci do? He comes in swinging. He fires a
few people to make a quick example. He tells others they can
"resign" right now if they want to - but if not,
they will be fired. Others see what is going on and just up
and quit of their own accord.

That problem CEO, Priebus? Oh, the new "structure" of
the organization puts Scaramucci in direct competition with
Priebus - and Priebus throws up his hands and says
"fine, I'm out of here." And Scaramucci does
it all in a way that is spectacularly visible to draw all
the fire from Trump critics.

So how does it all end? It ends with Trump putting in his new
CEO - the one he probably wanted from day one, but held back
- and the new CEO says "OK, Scaramucci - you are
no longer needed here."

Gen.  Kelly now has a clean slate to start fresh - and Scaramucci
takes all the heat. Where the left and never-Trumpers see a
circus freak-show, realists from the business world see a
perfectly executed post-merger hatchet-man job.

The
political wonks see Kelly taking command as the first sane
thing to happen in this administration. They don't
realize they've been played, and played perfectly. And
soon we will likely see some other changes that move the
Executive Branch further towards what Trump has wanted from
day one. And then watch the real swamp-drainer get to work.
It sucks to be Hillary Clinton right now...

Oh, and Scaramucci? He gets a sweet deal out of all this - no
doubt, he and his friend Donald Trump talked it all out
first.

Scaramucci was already facing a nasty divorce that would result in the
liquidation of his business to divide assets. A little-known
law allows people who are legally required to sell a
business as a condition of employment in the Executive
Branch (to prevent conflicts of interest) to defer the taxes
on their profits from the sale.

Scaramucci was going to have to sell his company anyway due to his
pending divorce. Now he and his soon-to-be ex-wife just
saved $80 million in taxes. So don't think for a moment
all this was an unplanned mess that went awry. Scaramucci
and Trump knew exactly what they were doing.

All of this was planned - and foreseen. Not just by me, but by
others as well.

Scott Adams wrote before Trump was inaugurated that, to his
critics, the first year of Trump would be a play in three
acts:

Act One - Trump is literally Hitler.
Act Two - Trump is not literally Hitler, but Trump is
incompetent.
Act Three - Trump is not incompetent, but we don't like his
policies.

We've seen this play out. From election night up through the first
100 days, the left was out rioting and acting as though
Trump taking office was literally the end of Western
Civilization.

But
after 100 days, when Trump had failed to do evil-dictator
things like round up all the brown people and put the gays
into camps and force women to stay home and have babies, it
became farcical to continue the "Trump is Hitler"
narrative.

And so from that 100 day point up until now, it has been the
"Trump is incompetent" game. Look at all the
chaos. Look at all the leaking. Look at all the tweets. Now,
we begin Act Three. With Priebus out and Kelly in, things
will settle down. Pretty soon, all the left will have to say
is "we just don't like Trump's
policies."...Act Three.

And
once that happens, the left is dead. Because, Trump's
policies are policies that most Americans actually agree
with. We should put America first. Build back our economy.
Create jobs. Strengthen the military. Protect the border.
Outside a few densely-populated liberal strongholds like New
York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and - of
course - Washington, D.C., Americans in general agree with
all of this. So when all the left has to say is
"Trump's policies are wrong," the left will
literally be telling most of America, "you people are
stupid."

Trump will win 47 states in 2020. The left will be scratching
their heads and wondering what the hell happened. And
you'll be able to look back and say, "Hey, some of
us told you all this back in 2017."

Friday Funnies

This one never gets old...

They've Got a Lot of 'Splaining To Do!!

He's Doing It Wrong!

Hillary

Every day brings another revelation by Hillary of why she didn't win.  Being stalked by the creepy Trump seems as plausible as any...

Something to Ponder

By all accounts President Trump will end the DACA or 'Dreamer' program tomorrow.  You know, the program that Obama created by Executive Order because he couldn't get anything done in Congress.  And the current speculation is that he'll give Congress 6 months to fix it.  Brilliant.  Throw it in their lap.  Expect massive whining by the MSM tomorrow.  Mostly it'll be about how they are all victims.  They are for the most part productive citizens who pay taxes and want to contribute to society.  They had no choice in being brought to the U.S.  But one thing that is sorta important will either be minimized or left out.  They're illegal.

Something to Ponder

So here's a new feature I'm going to try.  Sometimes there are issues that pop up that I want to make a comment on or are just idiotic enough that I want at least say something.  But then I think that I need to make a full blown post and decide not to take the time.  So I think I'll just put some things out there and let simmer.  No need for a long diatribe or rant, just consider the craziness and move on.

Here's the first.  San Diego has a terrible homeless problem in the downtown area.  They are everywhere.  Some could say they are ruining the city.  But the police and the local government do nothing.  They cowtow to the homeless advocates.  Of course, the homeless advocates usually leave for their homes in the suberbs so they don't have to deal with the threats, the filth, and the danger.  The local fishwrap had an article about it this morning that was pretty good.  Check this out and then ponder this.  Are homeless people really just bums?

Motivation Monday

Friday Funnies

Better late than never...