Month: February 2018

The political slant of Facebook and Google are far more menacing than the Russians.  The number of confirmed instances of censorship grows daily.  These people have immense and growing power, and they’re using it to promote their leftist ideology.  Can, or should, anything be done about it?   Congressional investigations are the forum where such subjects can be explored.

I  believe the relevant Committees are  House Science, Space and Technology (Rep. Lamar Smith, Chair) and Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation (Sen. John Thune, Chair).  I’d like to see the top dogs at Facebook, Google, and maybe a few others, put under oath at public Congressional Committee meetings chaired by these gentlemen.

There are so many questions to ask, the hearings could extend for weeks.

Trump’s vigor is a constant source of amazement to me, personally, because we’re the same age.  He wants a second term.  As long as he’s on his game, he deserves one.  I think he’s enjoying himself, and as long as that holds true, why quit?

He is crushing his enemies, driving them before him, and hears the lamentations of their women.  It doesn’t get any better.

He’s a master of distraction.  We stare at all the bells and whistles of fake Russian news, and the Florida school shooting, and don’t notice our wallets being picked.

Through such sleight of hand Trump quietly adopts a fiscal policy which, if uncorrected, will bankrupt the country in his second term, at the latest.  And he has no plans, and no one in Congress has any plan, to correct it.  No wonder the market got spooked.

Well, actually Trump does have a plan, which he described to CPAC.  He wants more Republicans elected so that the Democrats can’t force him to spend $155 billion more on domestic programs than he wanted to.  That’s the entire plan.

I keep waiting for one of these nitwits in the press corps to ask how how he plans to deal with the totally predictable financial crisis we’re headed for.  Nothing.

I almost feel sorry for the Democrats.  They may win the House in November, but not if they can help it. With the addition of gun control to the top of their agenda, they could wind up blowing their last best shot at slowing Trump down.   Socialism, open borders and gun control, that’s the ticket!

Trump, meanwhile, is gassing the economy to a level we haven’t seen since the Roaring 20’s.

With his imminent replacement of Justice Kennedy with another Gorsuch, Trump will have the most conservative Supreme Court since the 1930’s.

With his rejection of the Bretton Woods framework, he has adopted an American First trade policy that we haven’t had since the 1940’s

He is adopting the most pro-business regulatory environment since the 1950’s.

At the end of the day, he will have adopted an America First immigration policy that we haven’t had since the 60’s.

Peace and prosperity are hard to beat.  I thought Bill Clinton was toast in 1996.  I thought Paula Jones had made him such a laughingstock that he could never get reelected.  But people held their noses and voted for him, just as they’ll do for Trump.

He’s magic.

 

 

The recent turmoil in the stock market is a sign of things to come.  Investors have realized no one in Washington cares about debt.  The Republicans have caved, and our reckless deficit spending will only end when the market leaves no alternative.

When we get to that tipping point  — when interest and inflation finally spike  — the politicians will, at last, be forced to act.  They will have lost the confidence of the market, and they will have to win it back.

What is the alternative to draconian cuts and massive tax increases?  A planned, multi-year downward ratcheting of deficits, to the eventual point of a balanced budget.  But to convince a skeptical market that such a plan will actually be implemented, it must be set in stone, in the Constitution.

The role of the President in Article V of the Constitution has seldom been considered, because he has no formal role to play.  But, in point of fact, no 3/4 amendment ratification can be achieved without the political support of the most powerful and influential politician in the country  — the President.

Since he has a poltical veto, the President can largely dictate the outline of any balanced budget amendment coming from an Article V Convention of States.  President Trump can have the amendment he wants.  The actual implementation of the amendment can be timed to suit his needs.

This is Trump’s economy, and the market will force his hand.  When that time comes, he can turn to the States, and their power under Article V, to save the country.

Like Nixon went to China, Trump wants to give at least 1.8 million illegals a path to citizenship.  Nixon’s reputation as a fierce anti-communist protected his right flank, just as Trump’s reputation as an immigrant hawk is protecting him.  The Democrats in Congress have no protection on their left flank.  The Bernie Sanders left doesn’t trust them.

I think this means Trump can offer the Democrats a very reasonable compromise, one which they can’t accept.

So that’s what the November election must be about.  A common sense compromise, rejected by the activist left of the Democratic Party.  That’s what’s on the table.

Trump has all the cards, and he’s playing them for all they’re worth.  As a student of politics, I watch with increasing admiration.

One reason I didn’t support Trump is that I wasn’t sure what he really stood for.  Now I know.  He’s the first honest to God conservative in a hundred years with the opportuntiy of actually enacting the conservative agenda.

We haven’t had a President like him since Calvin Coolidge.

The supporting structures of leftism are in various stages of disrepair, and the good ship Democrat is in trouble.  Virtually every American institution on the left is in decline.  The future looks bright ahead.

1. The MSM is in losing its influence, and the American people are finding alternatives.  Their ability to control the narrative is weakening.
2. The Democratic Party is the party of by and for the government.  Trump is in the process of shrinking it.  He has a long way to go, in a target rich environment.
3. The federal judiciary, the source of so much recent mischief, is gradually being transformed.  Justice Kennedy, the swing moderate on the Supreme Court, may not retire until 2019, but he’s on his way out.  Justice Ginsberg is feeble, Breyer is old, and Sotomayor may have health issues.  Before Trump’s term is up, he will be able to nominate another Gorsuch, or even two, giving strong constitutional conservatives control over the judiciary for a generation.
4. Unions are on their last legs, and their only strongholds, public employee’s unions, are being undermined in state legislatures and in the courts.  The traditional labor union is obsolete.
5. Universities are becoming dinosaurs.  They use teaching techniques which were devised in 15th century Italy, and the internet revolution will make them irrelevant.
6. Hollywood and the entertainment industry (including the NFL) is losing its influence as it beclowns itself.  Their hysterical extremism is a turn off.
7. The FBI and the Justice Department are stacked with political activists, ever alert to the interests of the Democratic Party, who may at last be outed.
8. Anti-abortion extremism is costing Democrats the support of people in the mushy middle on this issue.
9. Tax and spend blue states are going to take a serious hit with the loss of tax deductions.  Frugal red states will enjoy the benefit, and the growth.
10. American Jews who care about Israel will gravitate away from the Democrats.  (See Alan Dershowitz, disgusted with pictures of Obama and Farrakhan.)
11. The immigration chain is being broken.  More Hispanics are identifying as white.  And Asian immigrants are taking a second look at the party of Nikki Haley.

Add all that to the new Monmouth poll showing the D’s with an insignificant two point lead in the generic ballot, along with the continued roll out of business expansion and job growth, and 2018 doesn’t look that bad.