Why Listen To These Partisans?

President Trump has listed three individuals as nominees to serve on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.  Two were nominated over the objection of both of California's senators (Feinstein and Harris).  The Democrat senators denounced the nominees as unacceptable partisans.

Think about that for a moment.  Feinstein and Harris have both been extremely partisan in connection with the confirmation of judges.  Remember, it was Feinstein who launched the whole last minute smear campaign against Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he was being confirmed to the Supreme Court.  Harris has jumped into the attacks on judges as well.  For example, Harris has attacked some nominees for being Catholic.  Nevertheless, Feinstein and Harris want to preserve the 9th Circuit as the nation's most liberal and loony federal court.  Even though they voted against essentially every one of the judicial nominees put forward by President Trump on partisan grounds, they want to lambaste Trump for nominating a conservative over their objection.  Trump is just so partisan, you see.

President Trump deserves our congratulations for ignoring Harris and Feinstein, especially on the basis of "partisanship".  These new nominees will be confirmed in the near future.  They will bring the total of judges on the 9th circuit appointed by Trump up to 5.  That's less than remain on the court appointed by Clinton, or Bush, or Obama.  The leftist tilt of the 9th Circuit will remain in place until Trump gets to appoint more judges.  There has to be some balance restored to the 9th circuit.  We ought not have a court where the results are so clearly predictable just relying on politics alone.

Today's Extreme Intelligence

I just got a phone call from a college student who was calling on behalf of a progressive political organization that wants to "remake" the Democrat party.  That's her word, not mine.  She told me that the Democrats were too wedded to old capitalist ideas and that her organization had been successful in supporting candidates last November and would do so again in 2020 to defeat President Trump.  She then listed Elizabeth Warren and Steve Pollack as two of her group's big successes last November.  I told her that I knew of Elizabeth Warren but I couldn't place Steve Pollack.  I asked who Pollack is.  She told me he was a senator but she could remember the state off hand.  I responded, "no problem, I'm sitting at my computer and will Google his name."

I asked her for the spelling of Steve Pollack and she told me.  I did the computer search and was told that Pollack was an entertainer.  When I reported those results, I told her that she must have the wrong name.  She seemed baffled by this.  Then she just hung up.

It's not hard to imagine that I am getting calls from people who are raising money for a group and don't even have the facts about what the group is doing.  

By the way, does anyone have a clue who has a named like Steve Pollack who might be the politician in question?

Chilling News From Venezuela

Here's a tweet that was sent about 20 minutes ago by Juan Guaido, the president of Venezuela:

"Right now, FAES [the special police force controlled directly by the dictator Maduro] is in my home, my family hom.  I hold Nicholas Maduro responsible for my daughter who is there."

Guaido has been recognized by the USA, and most countries in North and South America as well as Europe as the acting president of Venezuela.  Maduro retains recognition of Cuba, Bolivia, Russia and China.  More important, though, Maduro still has the support of much of the armed forces.

Assuming that the tweet is accurate, it now seems that Maduro is going directly after Guaido with the secret police.  This means Maduro is getting desperate.  He knows he is losing the long term battle, so he is trying to take out the leader of the opposition.  If he doesn't get Guaido, Maduro may decide to hold Guaido's child hostage or, even worse, kill her.

The situation in Venezuela is totally out of control.  I hope this doesn't end with foreign intervention, but Maduro is certainly pushing things in that direction.

It's Not Right vs. Left, But Right vs. Wrong

In the last week, there have been two moves in state legislatures with regard to legalizing "late term abortions."  New York passed a new law that allows abortions to be performed by doctors, dentists, chiropractors, and podiatrists up to delivery.  Virginia attempted to pass a similar bill allowing abortion up to delivery, but it was defeated.  These are horrible and immoral laws.

The true horror of the law was made clear by VA governor Northam.  He explained what would happen if during labor an abortion were attempted.  He actually said that if the baby were delivered alive, it would be "kept confortable" but then the mother and her doctor would decide what should happen next.  Think what that means.  A baby would be born alive and the mother would then be able to decide to have the child killed.  This is not abortion one month into a pregnancy.  The argument has gone on for decades whether or not a fetus only one month old has a right to life.  Until now, however, no one has argued that a full term baby who has been delivered alive does not have a right to life.  Governor Northam also said that the law would only apply to babies who were not viable or who suffered deformities.  Those babies could be murdered.

I admit to being horrified by these bills.  I believe that both laws are unconstitutional.  The baby has a constitutional right to life; it is the most fundamental right of any American.  No action by a state legislature can take that right away.  Beyond the Constitution, however, these bill are allowing homicide.  But, the other side says, these laws only apply to infants with deformities or who are not viable.  As for viability, the only way to know if the baby is viable is to try to keep the child alive and then to see if the child survives.  No mother and no doctor should be allowed to just decide to give up on treatment and instead to have the child killed.

 

Extremely Frightening

I saw an article at Powerline this morning which reports that in Seattle, just under 20% of children in the city's elementary school have not had the polio vaccine.  Think about that for a moment.  Polio has not been eradicated around the world.  It is very rare due to public health efforts and vaccination, but the disease is still out there.  All it would need is a group of susceptible people exposed to the virus.  Seattle is building such a group with its anti-vaccine fanaticism.

Imagine that just one person travels to Seattle carrying active polio and spends a week there.  While traveling around the city, that person could come in contact with hundreds of non-vaccinated children.  By the time that the polio virus manifested itself in its first victim, there could be a great many people infected.

Polio is not measles which has seen a major outbreak in Washington state due to the lack of vaccinations.  Measles can be deadly, but the percentages so affected is small compared to what polio does.  Seattle could actually see mass deaths and paralysis due to a polio outbreak. 

This is extremely frightening, especially since it is the result of something that is so easily avoided.

A Truly Amazing Article From CNN

In the annals of the most bizarre articles, CNN holds many of the top 25 examples.  Today, however, CNN came out with an article that is just the strangest thing one could ever imagine.  CNN published an article today that explains why the Democrat nomination in 2020 is Kamala Harris's to lose.  CNN would have you believe that Harris has the nomination wrapped up if she just doesn't blow it.

Here are some actual facts.

1.  In preference polls of Democrats taken in the last month or two, Harris has never even finished in the top four.  She normally gets support from fewer than 5% of those responding to the poll.  That doesn't sound like she has locked up the nomination.

2.  With the announcement of her candidacy, Harris has faced a barrage of stories reporting how she began her political career by becoming the mistress of then Speaker of the California legislature Willie Brown.  Brown was both married and over 25 years older than Harris at the time.  Brown got Harris appointed to two different state boards which she used to launch her career.

So we have a relative unknown with a rather tawdry past that will present problems to Democrats who are concerned about the MeToo movement.  The idea that she has the nomination all but locked up is about like saying that the NY Jets have the 2020 Super Bowl victory locked up.

The Left Welcomes Howard Schultz to the Race

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was at an event promoting his book in Manhattan yesterday.  The night before Schultz had told 60 Minutes that he was likely going to make a run for president as an Independent.  That brought the left out in force yesterday in NYC.  Some of them got into the event and disrupted it by calling Schultz an "egotistical billionaire a--hole."

The strange thing is that Schultz agrees on most issues with many on the left but not on all.  For the blasphemy of those disagreements, Schultz will now be subjected to the full force of the left wing crazies who come out to denounce anyone who disagrees with them.  How long will it be before we learn from these same crazies that Schultz is actually a racist, homophobic, xenophobic white supremacist?  Then we'll likely hear about how Schultz sexually abused a classmate in the third grade.

Some things just never change.

If No One Was Going To Watch Before, Now the Audience Will Be Truly Tiny

The breaking news this afternoon is that Stacey Abrams is going to deliver the Democrats' response to the State of the Union.  For those who don't recognize the name, Abrams is the woman who was the losing candidate for governor of Georgia last November.  She was in the Georgia legislature, but that's about it.  Abrams was also a rather poor loser in November.  She lost by about 4%, but she refused to concede for about a week or more after the results were in.

It's hard to believe that the Democrats chose Abrams for this spot.  She does have three things going for her:  1) she's black; 2) she's a woman and 3) she's about the only Democrat who is NOT running for president.  The problem, though, is that outside of Georgia (and even to a lesser extent inside of Georgia) Abrams has a very low level of recognition by the public.

 

Changing Tracks

There are a bunch of articles today in the mainstream media discussing pools asking if the country is on the right track or the wrong track.  According to the articles, the fact that a majority of people say the country is on the wrong track is definite proof that America is unhappy with President Trump and the just ended partial government shutdown.  It's either total propaganda or an amazing display of ignorance by the media (or both).

The right track/wrong track question is a staple of polling.  The results over time have shown that a majority of those polled have said that the country is on the wrong track and that result has been consistent for the last decade.  Further, the margin for wrong track has declined on average to a lower number under President Trump than was the average under Obama. 

Let's put it another way.  The simple truth is that the right track/wrong track polling question tells us nothing at all about the country's view of the shutdown.

PDVSA -- or Can You Say Sanctions?

The US government has imposed sanctions on the state owned oil company in Venezuela, PDVSA.  This will not completely cut off American purchases of oil from Venezuela, but it will shut off much of the cash flow that was used by the Maduro regime to keep itself in power.  It's a smart move that raises the pressure on the Maduro regime.  At some point, we will reach the breaking point and the army will toss Maduro out.

I'm waiting to see how the Democrats react to this move.  It presents them with a problem.  The sanctions are a good move by the USA and president Trump.  Still, if it is like nearly everything else, there should soon be a bunch of Democrats and pundits who denounce the action as dangerous and detrimental to US security.  The reasoning? -- Trump can do nothing right!

Hey, Why Not? Everyone Else Is In

Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend Indiana has formed an exploratory committee for a run for the Democrat nomination in 2020 for president.  For those who don't know Buttigieg -- okay, for everyone -- he's a 37 year old Democrat.  He won election as mayor in South Bend 8 years ago and was re-elected four years ago.  He's a military veteran, a Harvard grad, and a Rhodes Scholar.  More important for the Democrats, Buttigieg is gay.  He ran a few years back as the Democrat nominee for State Treasurer in Indiana but lost 62% to 38%.

So here we have a guy who has government experience at the municipal level only.  He has no business experience.  Nevertheless, he's running for president.  Given the rest of the Democrat field he actually could have a chance.  And he really should run.  It seems that everyone else is doing so. 

The real question for the Democrats in 2020 is whether there will be more candidates or voters in the primaries.

What's Going On In China?

The Chinese economy is slowing.  That is something with which nearly every observer agrees.  According to the official statistics, China is still growing at just over 6%.  The consensus of economic observers has long been, however, that the Chinese inflate their reported growth rate.  Right now, some say that the Chinese economy is growing at a rate something like 1% or that it may even be in recession.  No one knows the real facts on this.

What does a slower Chinese economy mean?

1.  For the last 30 plus years, China has been rapidly modernizing and raising the living standards of its people.  At the same time, the Chinese have been denied many rights that Americans take for granted.  There has been little effective protest about the government while it has produced the economic miracle.  If that rapid growth ends, the Chinese people may change that.  President Xi knows that, and he has to do what he can to keep the growth rate up.

2.  On top of a normal economic slowdown, the Chinese are feeling the effect of the trade dispute with the USA.  America is China's largest export market and exports are much more important to China than they are to the USA.  For this reason, the Chinese really need to bring the trade disputes to an end quickly.  It doesn't mean that they will crumble and accept whatever deal the USA proposes.  It does mean, though, that it will be possible to make fair agreements with China.  The Chinese need the deal more than we do.

3.  China has been working for a long time to become the regional hegemon in east Asia.  The basis for Chinese power is, ultimately, China's economy.  If that weakens, Chinese power also weakens.

 

A Sad First Step -- Howard Schultz on 60 Minutes

I watched Howard Schultz be interviewed on 60 Minutes to hear him announce his independent run for president in 2020 and, even more, to hear his views.  I was curious to hear his positions.  After all, the advanced billing said that he was going to position himself as a centrist unafraid of setting forth actual policies that work rather than the platitudes and talking points used by Democrats and Republicans.  Well I have to say it was sad to watch Schultz answer questions.  Schultz could have been Hillary Clinton without the pants suit.  He talked about his concerns but never about his proposed solutions.  For example, he denounced the huge debt run up by the federal government but never once said how he would approach reducing that debt or at least stop it from growing.  He spoke about how he cared about people who don't even have $400 in savings, but he never said how he would change that.  He talked about the importance of healthcare, but he offered no insight as to how he would approach the problem.

No one would have expected Schultz to put for detailed plans at this point.  We all understand that it's really early in the process for those details to emerge.  It's not too early, however, for Schultz to have a point of view on solutions rather than just on problems.  We've had too many people in Washington who always talk about caring about this problem or "fighting against" that problem, but who never actually accomplish anything.  They care and fight but things go on as before.  Schultz seems thus far to be just another member of that group.

It was a very sad first step.  Schultz claims he is offering something different.  Then he goes ahead an seems to be just another rich guy offering no real solutions.  He's going to have to do a lot better in the future is he hopes to have any chance of success.

Today in 2020 -- Howard and Hillary and Harris

The news today about the 2020 presidential race is all H's.

Howard Schultz is saying that he is seriously considering a race as an Independent.  For those who have no idea who Schultz is, he is the former CEO of Starbucks and also a principal owner of the coffee, etc. chain.  He is reputedly worth close to 4 billion dollars, so he could easily self fund a campaign.

Just the hint that he might run as an independent has caused much of the left wing media to try to discredit Schultz already.  Of course, no one is paying attention, so it doesn't matter much.

The media, however, is concerned that Schultz could get anti-Trump votes and split the opposition to the President, thus assuring his re-election.  Somehow, though, I doubt that.

The second "H" is Hillary Clinton.  Hapless Hillary is back seriously considering a third run for the presidency.  This seems like perhaps the worst choice that the Democrats could possibly make.  No one likes Clinton any better today than they did in 2016.  She wouldn't win.  Nevertheless, by trying for office again, she would put herself back in the spotlight and all those indictments that she just missed last time would resurface with the possibility that this time, they would end in government action.

The third "H" is Kamala Harris.  This weekend, Willie Brown, the former Speaker of the California legislature admitted that he got Harris appointed to 2 state positions during the time that he was sleeping with Harris (even though he was married to someone else.)  Harris slept her way into two positions that got her political career started as well as that furnished her with an income of nearly $500,000.  The question is whether or not a woman who advances her career by sleeping with a powerful man more than 30 years older than her will fly in the MeToo era.

And this was just one day.

What Have The Loonies Created?

There's a measles epidemic in Washington state and the governor there has declared a state of emergency.  Think about that for a moment.  Over 30 years ago, the CDC declared that measles had been eradicated in the USA.  The country had gone for more than a year without a single case, all thanks to the measles vaccine that had been developed.  Of course, that was before the anti-vaccine crazies started pushing the idea that vaccines cause autism and other maladies.  There is no proof of any sort that the measles vaccine has any ill effects, and certainly no link between measles vaccine and autism.  Indeed, most autistic children would display signs of autism before being old enough for their first dose of the measles vaccine, but that doesn't matter to the anti-vax crowd.

Because of the anti-vaccine movement, there are some areas where something like 5% or more of children do not get vaccinated.  Most of these areas are in heavily liberal areas where there is a belief that the pharmaceutical companies would push harmful vaccines to make outrageous profits and that the government would lie to cover up wrongdoing by these companies.  It's people who combine conspiracy theories, ignorance, and anti-capitalism to support their beliefs.  Over time, this lack of vaccination means that a group of those who can contract the disease has been growing. 

Lately, there has also been a batch of people trying to enter the US or who entered illegally who have been diagnosed with measles at the border.  The problem is that measles is contagious during the period prior to there being any discernible symptoms.  A sick individual could move through society for something like a week spreading the disease without even knowing that he or she was ill. 

If you put together one sick individual who came from abroad and an area in which there are many who have not vaccinated their children, you have a recipe for an epidemic.  That is what has happened in Washington.  Measles has spread quickly among those who are not protected by the vaccine or by having had the disease in the past.  (Measles is a disease which can only be contracted once.) 

But here's the worst part of this.  Measles is deadly to about 2% of children who contract the disease.  There is no treatment once the disease has manifested symptoms; it just has to run its course.  We know that so far there are over 30 cases in a small area of Washington.  What we don't know is how many more people have been exposed to the disease and have caught it.  Remember, measles does not require contact to spread.  It travels through the air, so a sneeze by an infected person could actually lead to five or ten others getting sick.  And we do know that some of those who now have the disease were at crowded places like an NBA game and the airport while they were contagious.

One has to wonder how many of these families who "protected" their children by refusing to get vaccinations for them will lose a child to this disease.  Hopefully the answer will be none, but it is truly crazy that the anti-vax loons have taken this risk.

Those Candidates Better Watch Out -- Bernie Is In

Reports today say that Bernie Sanders is imminently getting into the race for 2020.  This is big news.

Bernie came close to beating Hillary Clinton in 2016 for the nomination and might have actually won it but for the fact that the DNC worked with Clinton to rig the process to favor her.  In fairness, it's not really clear that the votes Bernie got were due to him or his views.  A big chunk of Bernie's voters probably were voting against the ever-despicable Hillary Clinton.

So how will Bernie do in 2016?  My prediction is that he will fare much like Rick Santorum did in his second attempt to win the GOP nomination.  Remember, Santorum came in second in 2012 behind Romney for the GOP nod.  When he ran again in 2016, he failed quickly and ran way behind the new candidates among the GOP contenders.  He was "yesterday's news" and I think that the same fate awaits Bernie.

If you think about it, Bernie was too old to run last time.  This time, he is getting to look more and more like a cadaver than a presidential candidate.

In any event, Bernie is going to give it a try.  Here's a picture his campaign has released in the promos to get people to tune in for his announcement:

Truly Amazing

An important note from the UK Telegraph.  Fake News is not limited to the USA.

So What Next For the Border Wall?

I've been reading the coverage of President Trump's statement on the short term deal to reopen the government.  It seems that most of the reporters did not watch the same speech by the President as I did.  First, there's the media group that proclaims today's deal a terrible defeat for Trump.  These people even say that Trump looked shaken and defeated when he made his statement.  (I doubt that these so called reporters bothered to watch Trump's speech.)

Then there's the larger group that says that Trump was "defeated" by the Democrats but that he was trying to put a good face on the loss.  I don't think that these reporters understand what happened either.  They are correct that the government reopened with no money going for the wall.  They seem to miss the fact that the Democrats have been saying that once the government reopened, they would negotiate in good faith.  If they don't keep that promise, it will be much easier for Trump to proceed down the path of an emergency declaration.

My take is that Trump had to reopen the government because things were getting to the point where there were real consequences from the shutdown.  I still think that when Trump says that there will either be a deal in the next three weeks or else he may well use his emergency powers that he means just that.  While an emergency declaration will surely be tested in court, there is a very strong case for Trump to be successful in his use of these powers.  There may be some delay, but the wall will still be built.

 

Storming Stone Manor

I've already written about the indictment of Roger Stone; it is a big nothing as far as Russia/Trump collusion is concerned.  I don't want to omit, however, the extremely questionable tactics used by the FBI and the Mueller team to arrest Stone this morning.  Rather than asking Stone to surrender to the police, the FBI conducted a pre-dawn armed raid on Stone's home.  They awakened him with guns drawn and dragged him off to jail.  Oh, and CNN just happened to have a film crew on site to film the entire thing. 

Supposedly, before a raid like this is authorized by the FBI, there has to be a safety report written which concludes that the target is dangerous and needs to be taken down by a bunch of heavily armed agents.  Most likely there is no such report.  The acting Attorney General ought to ask for a copy of that report to be sent to him today.  If there is no report, then heads should roll.

Also, it is hard to imagine that anyone could have concluded that Stone was any sort of threat.  I mean, a judge has already released him on a rather low bail.  If he truly were a threat, the prosecutors would have presented that to the court.  They didn't.

Even worse, someone ought to explain how CNN had a film crew on site.  Surely, CNN wasn't staking out the Stone home at 5 in the morning.  This was a set up by the FBI or the Mueller team to make Stone look like a dangerous criminal.  After all, the main crime he is charged with is lying to Congress.  Remember, George Papadopoulos got 14 days in prison for the same thing.  The arrest was staged as if the FBI were taking down a terrorist group, though.

America deserves to know if the plans followed for this arrest of Stone were approved by Mueller, the FBI director or anyone of moment in the Justice Department.  If such plans were approved, then the people who so approved should be tossed out right now.  It's our justice system, not our system for inflicting political revenge.

The Indictment of Roger Stone

I just read the indictment of Roger Stone, the political "insider" who was connected to the Trump campaign in the 2016 election.  What is remarkable about the indictment is not what it says, but what it doesn't say.  The indictment says that Stone had many indirect communications with Julian Assange of Wikileaks in 2016 about the emails regarding Hillary Clinton and her campaign that Wikileaks released during the campaign.  According to the indictment, Stone lied to federal investigators about his communications and what documents he had in connection with those communications with Assange.  Stone is also charged with witness tampering because he convinced another witness to claim his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination and pleaded with the witness to lie if he did testify (which he did not.)  These are all process crimes.  They pertain to the investigation, not to the underlying events.  What the indictment does not say is that anything Stone actually did was illegal.  Indeed, when you read the summary of underlying events set forth in the indictment, it is pretty clear that the special counsel is not claiming that Stone or the Trump campaign did anything illegal.

The main thing missing in the indictment is any link to Russia.  There are plenty of allegations about the release by Wikileaks of Clinton related emails.  The indictment, however, only mentions Russia twice.  The first time it alleges that "Company 1" (the security firm brought in by the DNC) stated that the DNC hack had been done by the Russians.  The second time it quotes Stone as saying that despite media reports there is no proof that it actually was Russia that hacked the DNC.  Interestingly, there is also no allegation that Stone knew or even had been told by Wikileaks or Assange that the Russians were the source of the emails.  We do know that Assange has repeatedly state that the Russians were not his source.

This is important stuff and likely is a window into the final conclusions that the Mueller probe will reach.  Remember, there is nothing wrong per se with an American. whether a journalist or a politician, communicating with Wikileaks.  Anyone with Assange's email address could have asked Assange in 2016 about the Clinton emails without breaking the law in any way.  And it doesn't matter that the emails Wikileaks released were improperly obtained through hacking.  Indeed, we don't even know that they were obtained that way.  The FBI was never able to see the DNC computer system that was supposedly hacked.  There is only the statement of the security firm hired by the DNC which is hearsay that provides no actual proof of Russian involvement at all.  There have always been those who believe that the documents obtained by Wikileaks came as a result of a DNC employee who leaked the info after realizing that the DNC had participated with Hillary Clinton in rigging the primary campaigns against Sanders and for Hillary.  So there really is nothing wrong if the ultimate facts were to show that the Trump campaign tried to get advance info on what Wikileaks was going to release next.  That is not proof of collusion, just of normal campaign practices.  It would be like the Clinton campaign trying to get advance notice of the questions to be asked in a televised debate.  That actually happened, and it was not a crime.

It is possible, of course, that Mueller has proof of some sort that the Russians really did hack the DNC computers, but it surely does not seem likely. 

It is also worth reporting that if the allegations of the indictment are correct and there are no defenses raised by Stone, he is likely to be found guilty of lying to federal investigators.  The witness tampering charge seems very weak.  I do not think that advising someone to take the Fifth can be a crime.  So the question, then, is whether or not it is criminal to ask a witness to lie if the witness never testifies and never lies.  That's problematic at best for Mueller.

The Truth that Never Gets Mentioned

Here's a question for you:  did you know that three times in the last two weeks measures were presented in the House that would have resulted in federal workers getting paid immediately.  The resolutions would have authorized the government to pay workers for the period since the partial shutdown began and to continue to pay those workers in the future.  In short, the resolution would have enabled all the federal workers who have been on the job unpaid to get their wages and those who have been furloughed to return to work with pay.  There would still be other items on hold due to the partial shutdown, but the main people suffering from the shutdown would have their pain ended.

On each vote, the GOP was unanimous in supporting the measure.  The Democrats overwhelmingly opposed the measure, however.  There has been some movement towards supporting this bill among Democrats, but so far only 13 are currently voting to pay federal workers.

If the House were to pass this measure, it would quickly pass in the Senate and would get signed by the President. 

Next time you see a report about how the Republicans are causing the federal workers to go without their paychecks, look to see if the reporter even bothers to mention that it is the Democrats who have stopped the workers from being paid.  It's not very likely that it will be in the news article.  It's hard for reporters to blame the GOP if they tell the truth about how the Democrats are blocking getting the workers paid.

The Covington Aftermath

There's an article in The Atlantic summing up what happened with the video about the boys from Covington Catholic High School and the elderly Native American man.  Written by one of the editors of that magazine, the article is one that you would expect to provide a left wing perspective on what happened.  Strangely, though, the author does a pretty good job of chronicling the actual events.  A video that shows nothing of the sort is proclaimed by the media and others to show racial hatred and abuse of the elderly man.  The elderly man is lionized as a peaceful Vietnam vet who has been harassed by MAGA hatted teens, except it turns out that the guy is not a Vietnam vet as he claimed and the teens didn't harass him.  Other video shows this clearly.  The point of the article, though, is this:  by rushing to report a story that actually had not happened and then piling on in criticism of boys who had done nothing wrong aside from wearing hats that the reporters didn't like, the mainstream media has reinforced the perception that this was more fake news from a media that regularly pushes fake news.

I have to agree with this article, although I would say that media reporting of fake news is not a "perception" but rather a "truth".  You can be certain that none of this story would have been reported had the boys not been wearing MAGA hats.  And once they story took off, no accusation was too vile for the media to make even though there was no proof of anything happening.

Won't They Ever Learn?

In today's news, there's a story that Michael Cohen has "delayed" the date for testifying before a congressional committee because he is concerned about threats against his family made by President Trump and Rudy Giuliani who is Trump's attorney.  It's a bogus story.  Sure, Cohen didn't want to testify right now for whatever reason, so he called for delay and blamed it on "threats" that never happened.  I mean is there anyone in the USA with even half a brain who believes that the President and his lawyer both threatened Cohen's family?  I doubt it.  That's especially true since the supposed threats are not described in detail and there is no evidence of any such threat being made aside from what Cohen is now saying.  And Cohen is, of course, an admitted liar who is going to prison for lying to Congress.

This is just the latest fake news story of the last week.  So what is the reaction in the mainstream media?  I happened to tune in to MSNBC to watch a panel discussion about how threatening a witness was an impeachable offense.  The media is running with the story as if it is true, but it is not.

We just watched the media get embarrassed by pushing the BuzzFeed story which falsely claimed that Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress.  That was followed by idiots in the media and among the Democrats who distorted the story of the Covington Catholic High School boys, changing them from victims of harassment into some sort of racist monsters.  The man they supposedly harassed turned out to be a fraud.  Now we have yet another bit of fake news that the media is accepting without seeking any corroboration for yet another lie from Cohen.

Won't they ever learn?

It's Time To Impeach Trump (SNL Version)

Alec Baldwin pleaded guilty today to assaulting a man in New York last year because the guy parked in a spot that Baldwin wanted.  When the assault happened, Baldwin denied any wrongdoing.  He claimed the press was not reporting what had happened accurately.  Now, he's admitting his guilt.

Baldwin is best known these days for his angry portrayal of President Trump on SNL.  Just think how funny it would be for SNL to "impeach" Baldwin for his high crime of assault.

Is It Government or a Skit on SNL?

Nancy Pelosi blocked President Trump from being able to address a joint session of Congress with the State of the Union speech next week.  She says she wants to wait until the government is open again before holding a joint session of Congress.  It's a truly childish move.

A few weeks ago, Pelosi extended the formal invitation for a SOTU speech on January 29th.  That was about two weeks into the current partial government shutdown.  Nothing has changed since then, but now Pelosi is rescinding her invitation because of the same shutdown that was in place when she made the invitation. 

President Trump could easily now hold the SOTU at a different location.  Nothing requires that the speech be given in the House.  Trump could go ahead in the Senate chamber and invite House members to come if they want.  Most likely the Democrats would boycott the speech, so there would be sufficient seating in the Senate.  If not, then the House members could stand; after all it was the choice of the Speaker to force the speech to a smaller venue.  Alternatively, Trump could give the SOTU speech in an arena filled with his supporters.  A transcript of the speech could then be delivered to Congress to fulfill the constitutional requirement for a report to the members by the president. 

Of course, with the venue shifted, the next question will be if the networks cover the speech.  It would be crazy for the mainstream media not to cover the speech, but these days, crazy is what passes for normal in the media.

I wish the Democrats would just for once try to be reasonable and act in an intelligent and respectful manner.

Does He Think No One Is Listening

The Democrats' leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, made clear that he has a very low opinion of most Americans.  For the last four weeks, Schumer has been announcing that the Democrats will not negotiate with the President or the Republicans in the Senate about border security until the government is reopened.  If you pay any attention to the news at all, you will undoubtedly have heard Schumer says this.  And the Democrats have acted on that position.  Last week, the President invited Democrats to the White House to discuss border security and some sort of compromise deal, but not a single Democrat showed up.  As a result, on Saturday, Trump gave a speech and announced his own compromise plan for border security and to reopen the government.  It was a reasonable offer containing items like extending DACA that the Democrats have wanted.  The Democrats' immediate response was that they would not negotiate until the government was reopened.  Both Schumer and Speaker Pelosi made this clear.

Yesterday, senator McConnell and the GOP put a measure on the Senate floor which was in line with the President's proposal.  Senator Schumer had an immediate response.  Unbelievably, Schumer complained that the Republicans had put forth this proposal without first discussing it with the Democrats.  Amazing!  Schumer says he won't talk about border security until the government is opened and then criticizes the Republican for putting forth a proposal without talking about it with him first.  Does he think that no one listens to him?  Does he think that no one cares when he talks out of both sides of his mouth?  As Elizabeth Warren would no doubt say if she were being honest, "Schumer speak with forked tongue."

Schumer obviously thinks that Americans are too dumb to remember what he said last week or too stupid to recognize the obvious contradiction.

The Right Decision From SCOTUS

The Supreme Court ruled today that the government could go ahead to enforce its policy that limits the ability of transgender individuals to serve in the armed forces.  In order to understand why this is the proper result, you need to look at the background of the case.

1.  Until the middle of 2016, transgender individuals could not serve in the armed forces.  Then, during the 2016 presidential campaign, the Obama administration changed those rules and opened the service up to transgenders.  There were no limits on such service of any sort.

2.  In 2017, the Trump administration reversed that new rule and ultimately put in place a new policy.  Under that policy, transgenders could join the military, but those who want to get surgery for sexual reassignment would not be eligible to join or stay in the forces.  This would mean that the government would not be responsible for the very costly surgery and follow up care for such surgery.

3.  A district court in California ruled that the administration could not follow that policy since it was illegally discriminatory.  The court enjoined the military from following the policy anywhere in the USA.

4.  The case went up on appeal to the 9th Circuit where it is in the process of being argued.  Meanwhile, the government appealed to the Supreme Court to stay the district court injunction while the appeal is pending.  This will let the courts consider the issue and would let the government follow its policy without interference unless and until the appeal is completed and a ruling issued against the government.  In other words, the policy would stay in effect unless the plaintiffs win the appeal.

The Supreme Court stayed the effectiveness of the district court injunction today.  This is clearly the right decision from SCOTUS.  One federal district court ought not be able to issue an order stopping the federal government from following a new policy until after the court system issues a final judgment on the matter.  For the last years, the district courts have often jumped into the fray and interfered with the proper functioning of the federal government.  One local judge should not have that power.

The Oscar Nominations

The nominations for Oscars are out.  To me, the most interesting part of these nominations is that for the first time in as long as I can remember, I have not seen any of the films which got any sort of nomination.  Even more interesting to me is that after looking at the list of nominees, I still have no desire to see any of them.

What does that mean?  Maybe it's proof that Hollywood doesn't make films for any demographic other than millennials and teens.  Maybe it's proof that while the studios do not limit themselves to only that demographic, the people who make Oscar nominations do impose that limit.  Maybe it's just proof that I don't really like movies (which is not true.)

No matter which, if any, of these possibilities are correct, it still amazes me that there's not even one film with nomination that looks even slightly appealing.   

Fear and Ignorance Run Amok

I really did not want to write about Alexandria Ocasio Cortez any more, but with AOC being the new face of the Democrats, I have to discuss her latest excursion into fear and ignorance.  Yesterday, she was interviewed at an event for MLK Day.  Here's an excerpt of what she said:

“And I think the part of it that is generational is that millennials and people, in Gen Z, and all these folks that come after us are looking up and we’re like, the world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change. You’re biggest issue, your biggest issue is how are going to pay for it? — and like this is the war, this is our World War II. And I think for younger people looking at this are more like, how are we saying let’s take it easy when 3,000 Americans died last year, how are we saying let’s take it easy when the end person died from our cruel and unjust criminal justice system?

How are we saying take it easy, the America that we’re living in today is dystopian with people sleeping in their cars so they can work a second job without healthcare and we’re told to settle down. It’s a fundamental separation between that fierce urgency of now, the why we can’t wait that King spoke of. That at some point this chronic reality do reach a breaking point and I think for our generation it reached that, I wished I didn’t have to be doing every post, but sometimes I just feel like people aren’t being held accountable. Until, we start pitching in and holding people accountable, I’m just gonna let them have it.”

It's a bizarre rant filled with fear mongering and misinformation.

1.  The world will end in 12 years from global warming.  AOC actually says this.  I remember when Al Gore told us we had 10 years.  That was in 2002.  We're still here.  Atmospheric temperatures have not risen according to the satellite system put in place to monitor global temperatures.  Ice levels in Antarctica have risen, not fallen.  Ice in Greenland has declined, but not enough to offset the increase at the South Pole.  In addition, and this is the key, even were global temperatures to rise by a full degree in the next decade (which they won't), the world would not end.  In fact, the world would still not be as warm as it was in the days of the Roman Empire.

2.  3000 Americans died last year due to global warming.  No they didn't.  The actual number of those who died due to global warming is zero.  Sure, there were some people who lost their lives in hurricanes, but hurricanes are not the result of global warming.  They have always been around.  For instance, back around the beginning of the 20th century, a hurricane hit Galveston and 6000 people were killed.  It had nothing to do with global warming.  This is just ignorance promoting fear.

3.  People died from out cruel and unjust criminal justice system.  Who?  I assume AOC means people of color who were killed in confrontations with police.  How many were there in this category last year?  How many ten years or fifty years ago?  In AOC's worldview, it seems that any person who dies in a confrontation with police is automatically a victim.  That's just not true.  Only a distorted view of reality turns criminals into victims.

4.  America has people living in their cars so that they can get a second job without healthcare.  This one is ridiculous even for an ignorance-based lie.  Imagine someone who is working two jobs but who can't afford a place to live but who still has a car.  Sorry, if you work two jobs, you can find a place to live.  And if your income is truly low, it doesn't matter that your job doesn't provide healthcare; you can get Medicaid which will give you medical care. 

I know that AOC is a phony.  She calls herself a Bronx girl, but she was raised in a prosperous suburb in Westchester County, NY.  She has "reinvented" herself to provide a bogus proletarian background.  That lack of honesty on her part makes me wonder if she knows that much of what she says is false and she doesn't care.  Is she really this ignorant or is she just willing to lie and lie and lie?  Either way, no one ought to pay attention to her.

 

A Rather Horrifying Thought

It hit me tonight that today is the first day of the second half of President Trump's current term in office.  That's worth noting as a milestone.  More important in my view is that even though Trump's term is just half over, there are already six declared Democrat candidates for president for 2020.  Sure, there are about another 30 who have yet to jump into the race, but that will happen in the next month or two.  After that we will have the start of the endless campaign.

Does it really make sense for all these people to have an endless campaign for president?  I don't think so.  Most people aren't paying any attention to the race at all.  Only the political junkies (who make up a small part of the population) are paying attention now.  Remember, it is about a year until the first caucus takes place in Iowa.  What are all these candidates going to be doing during that year?  The endless campaign will get boring very quickly.

The Joys Of Socialism Venezuela Style

Today brings news that things have gotten worse in Venezuela.  That may seem hard to believe, but it's true.  During the night, there was a mutiny by National Guard troops outside of Caracas and also something of a rising in a very poor neighborhood near the presidential palace.  Both were put down by police and other troops.  Then this morning the Supreme Court (which is controlled by the socialist dictator Maduro) issued a ruling that overturned certain laws passed by the National Assembly.  Those laws had moved towards invalidating Maduro's standing as president.  The Court also referred the Assembly to the state prosecutor on the grounds that the members had violated the constitution of Venezuela by moving against Maduro.  In response, the Assembly called for a strike across the nation on Wednesday.

Venezuela is one of the richest countries in the world.  It has huge oil reserves which could fund development for many decades, if not centuries.  Despite that, the socialist policies followed first by Chavez and now by Maduro have bankrupted both the country and all of its people.  There are chronic shortages of all sorts across the country.  Items as mundane as toilet paper are no longer for sale.  Millions are starving.  According to statistics, the average Venezuelan now weighs 32 pounds less than he or she did 12 years ago as a result of mass hunger.  Even as the economy has collapsed, there has not been a major upsurge of violence until lately.  It seems, however, that a tipping point may have been reached.  We may soon see a civil war in Venezuela if the army stays loyal to Maduro.  On the other hand, if the army support starts to melt away, Maduro will be history in the near future.

Bernie Sanders Moves Further Left

It has been instructive to watch socialist Bernie Sanders move further into the pit of hatred, anger, and dishonesty that is the left wing of the Democrat party.  In 2016, Sanders fought the good fight against Hillary Clinton but he lost.  Most likely he would have lost even had the DNC not worked with the Clinton campaign to rig the outcome.  Sanders presented a socialist vision for America which resonated with many Democrats.  Others just had such a low opinion of Hillary that they rejected her and voted for Bernie.  Despite there being a reasonably close race, though, Sanders in 2016 did not run a vicious campaign against Hillary.  He easily could have denounced Clinton for her email scandals, her lies about Benghazi, or the many other constant dishonesties that fell from her lips.  Sanders stayed positive, though, despite the tempting target that Hillary presented.  Even in the general election, Sanders supported Hillary, but while he denounced Trump's policies, he did not go in for dishonest personal attacks.

Now Sanders is getting ready to run again in 2020.  This time, though, he seems to have recognized that if he is to dominate the left wing of the party, he will have to get into the muck of hatred and anger directed towards Trump and the entire GOP, even though he knows that much of that hatred and anger is based upon lies.

Today, Sanders spoke at a rally commemorating Martin Luther King.  Bernie used the occasion to denounce President Trump as a "racist".  Bernie didn't criticize particular policies; he denounced the President as a racist.  That's sad.  It's not hard to disagree with the President on many of his policies, but there's really nothing to indicate that Trump is a racist.  What has Trump done to attack African Americans?  Right now, the black community is doing better than it ever did under Obama.  Black unemployment is at historic lows.  Black business formation is at historic highs.  Black median income is closing the gap with whites.  So, once again, one ought to ask what has Trump done to attack or harm black Americans?  The answer is nothing.

Well maybe Trump is anti-Hispanic.  Sure, Trump is trying to cut off illegal immigration.  He has denounced Hispanic gangs like MS-13, but that can't be racist.  If one denounces a group that engages in murder, rape, robbery and extortion as a regular practice it does not become racist because most of the members of the group are Hispanic and more than it would be anti-white to denounce the Mafia as a bunch of criminals.  Interestingly, while Sanders is calling Trump a racist, Trump's approval numbers have reached all time highs among Hispanics with the latest Gallup numbers showing a majority of Hispanics approving of his performance.  If Trump were an anti-Hispanic racist, I doubt that Hispanics would approve of his performance.

So Bernie Sanders is out there shouting that Trump is a racist and denouncing him.  There's no doubt that Sanders knows that the charge isn't true, but he's pandering to the Democrat base.  By doing this, Sanders is throwing away his claim to being a different sort of candidate.  He's trying to move into the position of being another angry Democrat filled with hatred of Trump who doesn't feel bothered to look at actual facts.  That's just sad.

New Confrontation Between Israel and Iran

Iran launched a military "message" for Israel yesterday afternoon.  At that time, Iranian forces (not Syrians) launched a mid range ground to ground missile from Syria towards an Israeli city.  The Israeli Iron Dome system shot down the missile and no one was hurt.  The explosion, however, was visible from the ski slopes of Mt. Hermon on the Golan Heights. 

The missile launched by the Iranians was unusual in two respects.  First, the crew that did the launch consisted of Iranian soldiers, not Syrian or Hezbollah troops.  The assumption is that this staffing for the launch was meant to make clear to Israel that Iran was confronting them rather than trying to hide in the background.  Second, the missile used by the Iranians was of a type that requires a long period prior to launch to prepare.  Even a quick set up of such a missile would take 10-12 hours according to military experts.  That means that this was not a spur of the moment move by Iran.  It must have been approved at the highest levels.

The second point is important because Iran justified the launch on the basis of Israel's forcing an Iranian plane not to land at the Damascus airport that had happened about a half hour prior to the Iranian launch.  Clearly, the Iranians were waiting for some action by Israel that they could use as an excuse for the missiles firing.  The Iranian plane was on a flight from Teheran and was reported to be carrying arms for the Iranian and Hezbollah forces in Syria.  The Israelis warned the Russians about 20 minutes before the plane was scheduled to land that it had better turn back to Teheran or it would be shot down.  The Russians told the Syrians and Iranians and the plane turned back.

After the Iranians launched a missile attack on Israel, the Israelis responded.  Again, it was a different sort of response.  First, the Israelis told the Syrians through the Russians that the response was coming and told the Syrians not to turn on the anti-aircraft radars or missile systems.  The Israeli air force then attacked and destroyed four or five Iranian/Hezbollah weapons storage facilities in Southern Syria.  The Syrians, however, did turn on their radars and began tracking the Israeli jets.  As a result, Israel attacked the anti-aircraft facilities and took out something like a dozen of them.

So what does this all mean?  Clearly, the Israelis are still trying to dissuade the Iranians from digging in in Syria anywhere near to Israel.  Clearly, the Iranians are trying to make clear to Israel that Iran will not be deterred from doing just that.  The Syrians under Assad remain unable to deal with the Israeli air force and they just lost something like a quarter of their air defense systems as a result.  The Russians continue to play a very important role in the whole exchange.  Beyond that, it also means that in the longer term the fight between Israel and Iran in Syria will continue and likely will get bigger.  If the Iranians ever get one of their missile through into Israeli territory and harm civilians, the response is likely to be amazingly fierce.  The likelihood of Israel jumping over Syria and attacking Iran itself is also something that could happen.  The Saudis would no doubt be happy to provide the Israelis with staging areas for any future raids on Iran by the Israelis.  In short, none of this looks good for regional peace.

And Another One Joins The Fray

Kamala Harris, the Democrat senator from California, just announced that she will be running for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2020.  That leads to the inevitable comment:  "So what?"

That actually is a fair question.  Let's forget all the horse race type of stuff that the media will focus on.  Let's ask the basic questions instead:  "What does senator Harris offer as her vision for America? What policies does she propose that will help improve the lives of Americans?  What is her foreign policy to make us safer?"

As of now, the answer to these three questions is unknown.  Think about it for a moment.  Without doing research on the subject, what do you understand to be Harris' vision for America?  I guarantee that is a question that 99.9999% of Americans cannot answer and for those few who do answer, most will get it wrong. 

Harris is running because she satisfies certain demographic niceties.  She's half-black and half South Asian.  She is a woman.  That may look good to those who praise diversity, but how does it help govern the USA?

Harris is going to have to provide answers to these questions if she is to succeed.  Normally, a successful presidential candidate already has given answers for years prior to announcing.  Senator Harris will need to catch up on this front if she is to go anywhere.

So What Was The Point?

Yesterday afternoon, President Trump delivered a statement from the White House in which he made a compromise offer to deal with border security and to get the government reopened.  Democrats rejected the President's offer starting a few hours before he even made the proposal.  The offer, they said, was "inadequate" and they would not discuss border security until the government was reopened.

It was a strange spectacle.  I could picture Pelosi, Schumer and the other congressional Democrats in a room somewhere with their hands covering their ears while yelling nonsense syllables so that they couldn't hear any of what Trump said.  I doubt if I'm the only one who had that reaction.

Surely, President Trump got the reaction from the Democrats that he expected.  His offer was dead on arrival; so what was the point of making the offer? 

1.  Trump appeared reasonable while the Dems seemed unreasonable.  Trump proposed a compromise, but the Dems just said no.

2.  The compromise Trump offered was one that many Americans would consider reasonable.  That includes many who are not locked into fixed positions of pro-Trump or pro-Democrat.  The vast middle of the country heard a reasonable offer from Trump and foot stomping rejection from the Dems.

3.  Trump managed to come across as the "adult in the room" who is forced to deal with petulant children.

4.  Trump managed to break through the media blitz of bogus Russia stories and put the border security issue back as the focus for the American people.  Most likely, Trump will do this again and again in the next few days culminating in the State of the Union address.  Trump was helped in this effort by the phony BuzzFeed bit of FakeNews for which the media went in so crazily.  If Trump can keep the issue on the shutdown about border security, he will win the debate.  Ultimately, the Dems cannot afford to be seen by the public to be keeping the government shut in order not to deal with border security.

The Next Big Problem For New York

On Friday, I wrote about how New York under governor Cuomo was focusing on raising the tax burden of the extremely wealthy who currently live in the state and the likely loss of state revenue if the high taxes drive even a small percentage of these individuals to other states.  Today, there's another bit of news that focuses on the destruction of the NY economy by Cuomo and the Democrats.  The news may not sound like much.  Con Ed, the local electric and natural gas utility, notified state regulators on Friday that as of March 15 it will no longer accept new customers in Westchester County, the biggest suburban county north of New York City.  Another gas provider National Grid has made similar announcements.  Reports say that Con Ed will shortly cut off new customers in New York City itself.  The reason given by Con Ed for stopping new hook ups for natural gas is "lack of supply."

Think about this for a moment.  How can there be a lack of supply.  The biggest natural gas field in the world is in Pennsylvania.  There's an enormous tidal wave of gas coming out of the ground in an adjoining state, but New York doesn't have enough gas for new hook ups.  There's so much gas being produced right next to New York that much of it is being shipped overseas and the infrastructure for such exports is growing by a huge percentage each year.  Gas prices are low.  Clearly, there is gas coming out of the ground in a quantity that could easily cover new customers in New York.  So I say again, how can there be a lack of supply?  The answer is not a shortage of gas, but rather a shortage of pipelines to carry the natural gas to customers.

Cuomo has been in office for long time.  During that time, he has tried to discourage the use of natural gas for supposed environmental reasons.  Each time a natural gas supplier has tried to build a new pipeline to supply gas across the state, the Cuomo administration has done all it could to stop construction.  Pipeline applications have been denied for some rather bizarre reasons.  The only pipelines that get built are those for which the utility goes to court and fights for years to get an order releasing the permit.  That's very expensive and also very risky.  A company could easily fight all the way to the state's highest court only to lose after spending tens of millions.  The result is that essentially no new pipelines have been built.  Over the last eight years, the amount of gas used in New York has risen, though, to the point at which the entire supply carried by pipelines is now about used up.

Strangely, at the same time that Cuomo has discouraged any new gas supply, he has worked to greatly increase the demand.  Cuomo has put the Indian Point nuclear plant on the course to total shutdown.  That plant supplied on third of the electricity used in the New York City region in NY.  Cuomo also put in place regulations that made oil and coal fired electric plants uneconomical.  These moves gave a great push to the construction of new natural gas fired generating plants.  That used up a chunk of supply.  Cuomo talks about how wind and solar power can fill the gap, but that's a pipedream that cannot be realized.  So the result of Cuomo's policies is a shortage of gas with a resulting shutdown of new customers.

Now consider what the lack of natural gas for new customers means.  If you want to build new homes in the region, your choice for a heating system has just been limited to electric.  You could use a fuel pump, but that still needs an auxiliary source for heating.  Electric heat is much more expensive than natural gas heating, so it will push the ability to own a home beyond the means of many people.

If you want to relocate a business to New York, you will also be out of luck if you need a natural gas supply.  Sure, those who work in offices may not be affected immediately, but those companies that run factories or even warehouses may quickly find that they can't get the fuel they need to heat and power their installations.  A factory might well locate in Pennsylvania rather than New York just because of the problems in the NY natural gas supply system.  This won't affect every new company, but if it cuts those coming to NY by even 20%, it will make a big dent in the growth of the region.

Cuomo and his "green" policies are actually doing nothing more than damaging the economy in New York.  It's a sad thing to watch as the misguided progressive religion of Climate Change results in the sacrifice of the NY economy.

The Essence of the Democrats

President Trump is going to speak in a half hour.  No one knows what he is going to say.  There are articles that speculate on what his message will be, but they are just guesses.  No one knows what he will say.

I point this out because I just read a tweet that Senator Richard Blumenthal sent about twenty minutes ago.  Here's the text:

More fake promises raising false hopes—this Trump con will fool few Americans. It is not serious or credible as a dreamer remedy. First & foremost: Reopen the government

Blumenthal has already rejected Trump's message without even knowing what Trump will say.

The simple truth is that the Democrats don't want a resolution of the partial shutdown.  They won't negotiate.  They won't even listen to the other side.

Hopefully, President Trump will declare a national emergency and build the wall without Congress.  The country deserves better than the Democrats like #LyingDick Blumenthal who refuse to even consider a compromise solution.

There Is No Apology, Just Complaints

Yesterday evening, the special counsel put the lie to the BuzzFeed story that claimed that President Trump had directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress.  More precisely, the BuzzFeed report claimed that the special counsel's office had gotten testimony from Cohen that he had been directed to lie by Trump and that this had been confirmed by internal documents and interviews with people from the Trump Organization gotten by Mueller's team.  The BuzzFeed report set off a storm of media and Democrat screaming about impeachment.  Then Mueller released a statement saying that the BuzzFeed report was wrong.  Since BuzzFeed said that its report was based upon information obtained by the special counsel, the Mueller statement was an undeniable death blow to BuzzFeed and its lies.

Because the storm in the mainstream media and among the Democrats had been so loud and so strong, I thought (and wrote) that they owed the President an apology.  Well, no surprise here; there is no apology, just complaints.

For example, yesterday morning on CBS News, roughly two-thirds of their 8 a.m. report was devoted to BuzzFeed and the possibility of impeachment.  Today, the same 8 a.m. report didn't even mention the news that the BuzzFeed report had been blown up as untrue by the special counsel.  There was only silence.  In other words, CBS put out a false story yesterday at great length and today didn't bother to tell the audience that the story was, at best, wrong and, at worst, a lie.

Another example comes from the ever-anti-Trump CNN.  Here's what Chris Cuomo said last night about Mueller:

“Mueller didn’t do the media any favors tonight, and he did do the president one, because as you saw with Rudy Giuliani and as I’m sure you’ll see with the president himself, this allows them to say, ‘You can’t believe it. You can’t believe what you read, you can’t believe what you hear, you can only believe us.  Even the special counsel says that the media doesn’t get it right.'”

So Cuomo is busy complaining that Mueller told the world that the BuzzFeed story was untrue.  How could Mueller do that?  What nerve!  He's helping the President. 

Cuomo didn't care about reporting accurate facts rather than phony lies made up by BuzzFeed.  The truth didn't matter; all that mattered was what was good for the media and what was bad for Trump.  There could never be a clearer example of bias and Trump hatred at CNN.  The reality is that CNN ought to dump Cuomo off the air for this.

So Where's The Apology?

For the last day the mainstream media and the Democrats have been going crazy talking about the BuzzFeed report stating that president Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress.  It was grounds for impeachment, and it was the beginning of the end for President Trump according to these people.  As I wrote both yesterday and today, the BuzzFeed story seemed totally bogus.  I won't rehash the items that led to this conclusion, but despite those facts, the media and the Democrats ran with the story non-stop.  But now we have confirmation that the BuzzFeed story is false.  It's Fake News.  It's a lie!  Special Counsel Bob Mueller's office issued a statement announcing that the description in the BuzzFeed article of supposed statements gotten by the Mueller team and of emails and other internal documents from the Trump Organization were inaccurate.  In other words, the Special Counsel himself, who never comments on anything, felt compelled to step forward and brand the BuzzFeed article Fake News.

When the story came out early this evening, I switched on CNN since that network spent the last 24 hours featuring the bogus BuzzFeed report.  I actually saw a CNN contributor say that since they now had the article on the one hand and the statement of the Mueller team on the other hand, she didn't know which to believe.  Even when faced with the facts, this CNN "pundit" couldn't bring herself to admit the truth.

In the last hour, I look for the statements from prominent Democrats apologizing for jumping the gun on the need for impeachment.  The senators from my state of Connecticut, Chris Murphy and Lying Dick Blumenthal had both issued a number of statements describing the serious nature of the BuzzFeed report and the inexorable process that would lead to impeachment of the President.  So far, Murphy and Blumenthal have been silent.  It took less than 15 minutes for each of them to put out statements after the BuzzFeed report appeared.  Somehow, when the BuzzFeed report is disclosed to be phony, these senators have nothing to say.

And it's not just the senators from my state.  So far, I have seen statements by over 100 Democrat members of Congress or the Senate talking about the terrible conduct of President Trump reported by BuzzFeed and the need for impeachment or at least a full Congressional investigation.  Despite that, I have yet to see even one apology from these fools who can't wait for actual facts before jumping into the lynch mob.  They better apologize NOW.

Remembering Or Not?

When I was a child, I first noticed the license plates of cars from Quebec that said "Je me souviens."  I had no idea what it meant, so I looked it up and found out that the phrase is the motto of the province of Quebec and it literally means "I remember." 

The phrase comes to mind today as I see the crazy response to the Buzzfeed article that reports, without sources or evidence, that President Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the time line for the proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow.  Most people know by now that the reporter for BuzzFeed admitted that he hasn't actually seen any evidence to support the story.  There are also no named sources cited.  On top of that the White House has said that the story is completely false.  None of that seems enough, however, to stop the crazed reaction from the Democrats and the media.

The crazy reaction is best summed up by the reaction of certain Democrats in the House who have said that if the story is true, the President Trump must be impeached immediately.  Got that?  They don't know if the story is true, but they're already calling for impeachment.  After all, if the story is true, then Trump told someone to lie to Congress.

Clearly, there are major problems with this story, not the least of which is that it would require believing Michael Cohen who has already pled guilty to lying repeatedly.  Cohen, a felon, is not really entitled to the benefit of the doubt here.  Further, there are all sorts of other problems with the story that I discussed earlier today. 

There are, however, further problems with this knee jerk call for impeachment by the Democrats.  First, they seem to be forgetting the last president to be impeached, Bill Clinton.  The basis for Clinton's impeachment was his own perjury.  He lied under oath to a federal court and there was no confusion about that lie.  There was physical evidence that proved Clinton had conducted an affair with Monica Lewinsky, but he denied it.  The perjury was clear, and it was serious enough that Clinton was disbarred for it.  Even so, at the time, the Democrats went on and on about how perjury was not a sufficient basis for impeachment.  Indeed, Nancy Pelosi who was a member of Congress at the time was outspoken about how actual and undeniable perjury was not enough for impeachment.  But that doesn't seem to matter to the Democrats; they seem not to remember their view at the time.  Instead they want to ignore the past.  Now, an unproven and inherently questionable claim that Trump told someone else to lie is absolutely enough for impeachment. 

I doubt much will come of this whole episode.  It will turn into just the latest installment of the never-ending stream of Fake News put out by second rate leftist media sites like BuzzFeed.  Still the Democrats would do well to remember the past and not to jump the gun here.  And by the way, they should also remember the past when after Clinton was impeached, his approval rating went up and his party did quite well in the next election.

Gun Reality

The government released a study detailing the usage of firearms in the commission of crimes in 2016.  The results are astounding and they really undermine arguments of those supporting the push for background checks, waiting periods, and other restrictions on purchase. 

To compile the figures, interviews were held with about 300,000 prisoners in federal and state prisons for crimes committed in 2016.  Among those who used a gun in committing their crime, less than 5% bought their weapon at a gun shop.  Then there's those gun shows that the gun control people always discuss as a way of avoiding background checks.  It turns out that less than 1% of criminals got their weapons at a gun show.  So where did the guns come from?  About half of the firearms that were used were stolen.  The rest came from friends or family members.  So this means that over 90% of the guns in the possession of those who actually committed criminal acts in 2016 were obtained in ways that would not be affected at all by stricter background check or waiting periods. 

The results of this study make clear that gun violence won't be meaningfully affected by the remedies being pushed by the gun control crowd.

Think About The Difference In Treatment

Today marked the annual March For Life in Washington and cities across the country.  Here's a picture of a portion of the crowd gathered in DC. 

 

Estimates of the number of people present in DC are above 250,000.  When the other marches across the nation are included, the estimated number of participants is over a million people.

 

Given the huge nature of the event, one would think that the mainstream media would cover it, but that would be incorrect.  I checked CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN sites and the only mention of the March for Life was a sentence near the end of an article on ABC News discussing things happening today in Washington.  None of these news organizations discussed what the March for Life is, what it supports or the huge outpouring of support it engendered. 

 

Now consider the Women's March that is supposed to happen over the weekend.  There are at least eleven articles today on the sites mentioned above covering that event.  Some of the coverage is about the anti-Semitic nature of the leaders of the Women's March, but about two-thirds of the coverage is a discussion of the objectives of the Women's March and its big success in turning out people.  Of course, we will have to wait and see if the Women's March gets anywhere close to the turnout that the March for Life attained.

 

I don't mind that the mainstream media slants coverage in favor of pro-abortion events.  I do, however, think it is truly reprehensible that the mainstream media just ignores news stories if they don't fit the narrative.  After all, it's hard to portray pro-life groups as tiny collection of crackpots when you have to report that a million people turned out to march in support of that position.  The media's answer is just to deny reality.

NY Moves To Destroy Its Tax Base

I live in Connecticut and the taxes here are high.  For those with middle income or higher, the income tax is just under 7% and there are no real deductions.  Our property taxes are also high.  Even so, the tax burden is still much lower than in neighboring New York.  And New York seems to be working to raise its taxes even higher.  Couple those high taxes in New York with the loss of the deduction for state and local taxation over $10,000 per year, and you get a recipe for pushing wealthy individuals out of New York.

The force driving high income earners out of New York seems to be working.  So far in 2019, the state of NY has reported that its revenue from the income tax is coming in at about half a billion dollars below estimates.  This is not the federal budget where half a billion dollars is a rounding error.  In NY, the budget has to be balanced according to the law.  The state uses some accounting gimmicks to achieve that balance, but a shortfall of half a billion dollars cannot be ignored.

So what is NY's response to this?  Governor Cuomo just proposed extending an "emergency" tax on high income people which has been in place for the last ten years.  It seems that emergencies never end in the Empire State.  This emergency surtax on high income individuals guarantees that New York taxation on the highest incomes will remain much higher than the rates in neighboring states, indeed higher than anywhere but in California.  The tax was supposed to expire this year.

Here's a key statistic that one needs to keep in mind.  In New York, the top 1% of those paying income taxes pay over 40% of the total for the state.  Many of those high earners work on Wall Street and are forced to stay in New York, at least for now.  Many others, however, live in New York by choice.  They could easily leave.  For example, someone with an income of ten million dollars each year could likely save a million dollars in taxes by moving to Florida.  Think for a moment what a million dollars a year could get you in some very ritzy area of the Sunshine state.  Sure, if you earn ten million a year, you can afford the taxes in New York, but how many people would still look at those taxes as something that could easily be avoided by moving?  It would not take many people moving for New York to suffer a really big hit.

 

A Furor Over Fake News

This morning, the big news pushed all through the mainstream media is a report from BuzzFeed that the President directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Trump Tower project.  Cohen already pled guilty last year to lying to Congress about that subject.  The documents filed at the time of the plea by Cohen made reference to the President, but they said nothing about Cohen being directed to lie.  Today, BuzzFeed says that Trump directed Cohen to lie but gives no named source for the report.

Inescapable logic indicates that this is just Fake News.  Think about it.  There's no way that the prosecutors in New York or in the Special Counsel's office would have let Cohen plead to a charge of lying to Congress without indicating in that paperwork that Cohen was directed to do so by the President.  Remember, Cohen is such a liar that he was willing to plead to anything in order to get a shorter sentence.  Further, if Cohen actually could provide proof that Trump directed him to lie, Mueller and his team would likely have given Cohen a letter attesting to his cooperation and made a strong pitch to the court that he should get no jail time.  Mueller didn't do that.  He didn't even provide a letter of cooperation.  There's simply no way that Cohen told Mueller that he was directed by Trump to lie.

On top of that, it's important to note the way the mainstream media is reporting this.  CBS, for example, is reporting that BuzzFeed says that Cohen was directed by Trump to lie, but CBS adds that it cannot verify that this is true.  When anti-Trump media takes care not to claim that the charge is true, you can bet that it is not.  Indeed, my guess is that the media knows that this is false.

A Big Non-Story

There's a big splash today with the "news" that Michael Cohen is supposedly going to testify that he used cash to hire people to fix the various online polls about the GOP presidential candidates in 2015 right before Donald Trump entered the GOP contests.  The story is a yawn, but you would think it is the biggest thing ever heard from the media coverage of it.  Here are the main facts as far as can be determined.

1.  Prior to Trump entering the GOP contests, there were a few polls taken on line which asked respondents to identify the candidate that they favored.

2.  These were non-scientific polls.  That means that anyone could respond to the polls.  There was no attempt made to keep them accurate.  A candidate who could organize his followers to vote in the polls had a big advantage over those who were unorganized.  That organization was used to generate more votes and the appearance of support.

3.  These polls were the equivalent of the Iowa straw poll taken at the Iowa state fair in the summer of 2015.  Voters in that poll had to be present at the state fair.  Customarily, candidates who compete in the straw poll bussed in as many supporters as possible to vote.  In the past it has been alleged that some candidates, like Hillary Clinton, paid people to come to the fair and vote.

4.  Supposedly, Cohen hired a computer firm to write a program that would create voter IDs for the people supporting Trump.  That would let Trump roll up more votes.

5.  Using this sort of operation to win these polls is perfectly legal. 

6.  It turns out, however, that Cohen set up an operation which only used about 40% of the amount that Cohen then billed to Trump.  That means that Cohen overbilled Trump by claiming that he had spent more than he actually spent.  In short, the attempt to fix the poll was legal, but Cohen defrauded Trump in order to get more cash for his work.

Pelosi Gets Her Answer

Nancy Pelosi has been lamenting the partial government shutdown and telling America how much she want to end it.  Despite this supposed desire of hers to get funding for the government, she had the House adjourn for 11 days and planned an foreign junket for that time.  Pelosi and some others were going to leave this afternoon for Belgium, Egypt and Afghanistan.  Well, not anymore!

President Trump sent a letter to Pelosi this afternoon announcing that he had postponed the trip or, at least, he had determined that no congressional delegations could use military aircraft to travel abroad.  Trump pointed out that with some 800,000 federal workers not being paid, now was not the time for those in Congress to go on foreign jaunts.  They need to be in Washington where they can work on getting the government open again.  Trump did tell Pelosi that if she still wants to go, she can fly commercial.

It was a real slap in the face to Pelosi.  It seems to have been Trump's response to Pelosi's idiotic announcement that the State of the Union address should be postponed. 

The truth is that there really is no need for Pelosi to go on this trip.  The focus ought to be on re-opening the government fully.  Indeed, other than some shopping opportunities, there is nothing in Brussels worth a visit by the Speaker.

Gillibrand Goes For The Big Splash

So we have this Democrat senator from New York, Kristen Gillibrand, who is running for president.  Essentially no one knows her.  She has no accomplishments after years in the senate.  She has no clear policy positions which she is pushing.  So far she has focused her message on being the most stridently anti-Trump Democrat candidate.  Of course, Gillibrand has yet to realize that were she elected, she would need to govern and being anti-Trump would be meaningless at that point.  In any event, Gillibrand has just decided to go for a big splash.  She announced that she will be attending this year's Women's March in Des Moines, Iowa.

Think about that.  In the last month, the Women's March has lost sponsor after sponsor because of the exposure of much of the movement's leadership as supporting anti-Semitism.  This rose to a crescendo the other day when Tamika Mallory, one of the heads of the Women's March refused on The View to condemn the rather rabid anti-Semitic statements of Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam.  It was such a big deal that the Democrat National Committee withdrew its sponsorship and ended any affiliation with the Women's March.  This is the group that Gillibrand is now giving her support.

It's worth noting that so far none of the other declared Democrat candidates are going to be present at the Women's March.  Gillibrand is going for notoriety by bucking the tide.

It seems as if Gillibrand has concluded that she will benefit more from the publicity that goes along with her endorsement of supporters of racial and religious hatred than she will be hurt by it among the Democrat base.  I truly hope she has miscalculated.

I know that Gillibrand has roughly the same chance of winning the presidency as I do (and I'm not going to run.)  Her ultimate lack of success truly doesn't matter, though.  For a sitting US Senator to get involved with purveyors of hate in this way is disgusting.  Gillibrand deserves to be condemned by her fellow Democrats in the Senate.   

Total Lunacy

It has been just about two weeks since the new members of Congress were sworn in, but there's been some pretty bizarre twists in those two weeks.

1.  Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat from Minnesota, is one of the leaders of this trend.  Her latest move was telling CNN that senator Lindsey Graham is being controlled by the White House through some sort of blackmail.  Really, that's what she said.  She was asked for her evidence to support such an astonishing charge, and Omar offered as proof Graham's behavior supporting Trump.  Seriously, she said that because Graham supports Trump, he must be under duress of some sort.  Omar is also a blatant anti-Semite who has called for the destruction of Israel and railed against Jewish support for Israel.  This week, however, as part of the move towards bizarre behavior, Omar said that she is "surprised" that those comments offended Jews.  She's nuts.

2.  Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan is another member of the Bizarro Caucus.  I've written about her previously.  Her most recent bit of craziness is her comment on the anti-BDS bill that the Democrats are blocking in the Senate.  The bill makes clear that it is permissible for American people and companies and governments to refuse to do business with people who participate in the BDS movement.  BDS, of course, is a group which seeks a boycott of any person, company or entity which does business with Israel.  The goal of BDS is the destruction of Israel.  Tlaib says that it would be un-American and unconstitutional for such a bill to be passed because it would limit the right of Americans to exercise free speech by participating in the BDS movement.  Think about that one for a moment.  Tlaib says that Americans are exercising free speech by participating in a boycott against those who do business with Israel.  Then she says that a law which allows Americans to exercise free speech by participating in a boycott against those who are boycotting Israel is un-American and unconstitutional.  Huh?  It's a typical sort of liberal idea from the speech police.  For example, if you speak in favor of abortion, it's just the exercise of free speech, but if you speak against abortion, you are a purveyor of hate speech and must be shouted down.  It remains completely illogical.

3.  The clear leader of the Bizarro Caucus is, of course, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.  There are way too many examples of her strange behavior to list them here.  The truly bizarre thing though is not that she makes idiotic and unfactual statements on a daily basis.  No, the bizarre twist is that so many in the media just accept her remarks without ever fact checking them and pointing out the truth.

4.  Then there's the grand poobah of the Bizarro Democrats.  That's Nancy Pelosi.  Just yesterday she said that the State of the Union had to be postponed for security reasons during the partial shutdown.  Within a half hour, the Secretary of Homeland Security announced that security for SOTU was all planned and would be in place without any problem at the time of the address.  That was followed by the House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, tell Bret Baier on Fox News that there was really no security issue for the SOTU.  Hoyer said that the Dems didn't think it was right to go ahead with the SOTU during a shutdown.  He gave no reason for that.  So Pelosi offered a position based upon some supposed "facts" and in less than two hours her facts were disproven and her deputy admitted that what Pelosi gave as her reason wasn't the actual reason.  In other words, Hoyer admitted that Pelosi had lied.  Even in Washington where lying seems to have replaced baseball or football as the town's favorite sport, this was a bizarre act by Pelosi.

If this trend continues, we are going to reach total lunacy in DC in just a short time.

The ISIS Bombing in Syria

Yesterday, there was an attack in Syria on a restaurant.  A bomb exploded that killed people including four Americans who were holding a meeting there.  ISIS has claimed responsibility.  It's a sad thing, but the reaction to it is bizarre.  All sorts of people are blaming President Trump for the deaths of these Americans because of his announced policy that the USA is pulling its forces out of Syria.

Think about it.  First, ISIS has been carrying out terrorist attacks in the portions of Syria it does not control for the last six years.  Over that time, ISIS first conquered about a third of Syria but now has been pushed out of all but a tiny sliver of land along the border with Iraq.  The caliphate has been dismantled.  Even so, ISIS is still carrying out terror attacks.  In that regard, yesterday's bombing was nothing unusual.

Second, all 2000 of the US forces that were in Syria are still there.  The withdrawal is set to begin in the next few days.  To the extent that the American presence stops ISIS from attacking, those Americans are still there, yet we had the attack anyway. Clearly, the attack can't be the result of a withdrawal that hasn't yet occurred.

Third, if the attack can't be the result of the withdrawal, then -- or so the critics say-- it came about as a result of the announcement of the withdrawal.  ISIS has been invigorated by that announcement, or so we are told.  Huh?  ISIS has been badly beaten in the fighting.  It is facing a well armed coalition that hasn't lost a battle to ISIS since President Trump has been in office.  The argument of invigoration is roughly the equivalent of saying that after the allied victory in WW II, the remnants of the Nazis in Germany were invigorated by the withdrawal of US forces from Europe.

Fourth, let's assume that ISIS has been invigorated -- even though it hasn't.  Wouldn't ISIS wait for a few months until all American forces were gone before launching an attack?  The leadership of ISIS that remains would understand that it will be much harder for the USA to bring troops back to Syria than to delay the withdrawal in order to stomp out the remnants of ISIS.

I don't mean to minimize the loss of the people killed by the bomb.  It is important, however, not to use that bomb to spin a fantasy to criticize the withdrawal policy.  And to be fully clear, my own view as expressed on this blog was that it was premature to withdraw.  Even so, the bombing is not the result of the policy announcement.