Conrad Black on the anti-Trump narratives

Bob Gorrell cartoon via The Federalist Papers 

Amidst all the media hysteria and political posturing in the aftermath of the Charlottesville riot, IMHO, Conrad Black is still thinking through the reporting and editorializing quite clearly. This piece is on the American Greatness website, and here are just a few morsels:

Almost everything about the Charlottesville riot was disgraceful except the conduct of the president. The move to take down the statue of General Robert E. Lee was nonsense. Lee has few rivals as the greatest general in American history (Grant, Sherman, MacArthur, and Eisenhower perhaps). He opposed the secession of Virginia from the Union but, as was common in the South then (and has not entirely died out in any region of the United States today), believed he owed his first loyalty to his state over the United States. He was less dedicated to the virtues of slavery than was Charlottesville’s most famous son, Thomas Jefferson, founder of the University, neighbor at Monticello, and, of course, author of the self-evident truth “that all men are created equal.”

. . .

As the day unfolded, it was clear that orders had been given to the local police to ensure that a serious fracas occurred. The police did nothing to disperse the armed groups on each side, on several occasions herded them toward each other to encourage combat, and then withdrew at times to facilitate the violence. It must be assumed that orders for an insufficient law enforcement and ineffectual rules of engagement emanated ultimately from the governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, the ne plus ultra of Clintonian zeal and cynicism, and former Democratic Party chairman.

. . .

The facts of Charlottesville should be ascertained by impartial investigation, prosecution, and exposure, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions has promised they will be.

This incident is of a piece with the mindless violence at Berkeley and other university campuses. The nihilists and anarchists of both sides want bloody conflict and vandalism, and most of the Democrats and the anti-Trump Republicans and the national media are trying to pin the phenomenon on Trump. . . .

Read the whole thing here.

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Not this guy again…

From Weasel Zippers (and it’s the intro line that got my attention):

BREAKING: John Kasich Suggests There May Be 

A Primary Challenge 

To Trump In 2020…

Not this guy again…

And from the comments:

           Did he mention his dad was a mailman?

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Ramirez sums it up

Cartoonist Michael P. Ramirez nails it again – via Creators.com / Townhall. (Click on image to embiggen or click on the Townhall link.)

Meanwhile, TexasVet4Trump2 posts:     

Black people who were never slaves are fighting white people who were never Nazis over a confederate statue erected by democrats, because democrats can't stand their own history anymore and somehow it's Trumps fault?

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Solar eclipse a week from today. Warning!

The much-anticipated total solar eclipse takes place a week from today. A map of the eclipse path is here. Another one is here. This cautionary message by an optometrist is from a Facebook page, via Conservative Treehouse.

As an Optometrist , I want to express concern that I have about the solar eclipse on Monday, Aug 21. There are serious risks associated with viewing a solar eclipse directly, even with the use of solar filter glasses. Everyone should keep in mind if they or their children are considering this.

We have to keep in mind that some people will encounter the inability to control every aspect of this exercise. For instance, true solar eclipse glasses are made for adults, do not fit children well and should not be used without direct parental supervision. If the solar glasses do not filter out 100% of the harmful UV rays, if they are not used absolutely perfectly, or should there be a manufacturing defect in any of them, this will result in permanent and irreversible vision loss for any eye exposed. Just like sunburn to the skin, the effects are not felt or noticed immediately. I have a great fear that I will have patients in my office on Tuesday, Aug 22 who woke up with hazy, blurry vision that I cannot fix. It is a huge risk to watch the eclipse even with the use of solar glasses. There is no absolutely safe way to do so other than on TV.

The biggest danger with children is ensuring proper use without direct parental supervision. As the eclipse passes over many places, including Columbus, the moon will not block 100% of the sun. Because so much of its light is blocked by the moon, if one looks at it without full protection, it does not cause pain as looking at the sun does on a regular day. Normally if you try to look at the sun, it physically hurts and you can’t see anything. During an eclipse, however, it is easier to stare for a bit….and even less than 30 seconds of exposure to a partially eclipsed sun, you can burn a blind spot right to your most precious central vision. With solar glasses you can’t see ANYTHING except the crescent of light of the sun. Kids could have a tendency to want to peak around the filter to see what is actually going on up there. One failure, just one, where education and supervision fail, will have such a devastating consequence.

Please, please be safe. Watch it on television.

Or live stream it via NASA. Pass it on.

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Conrad Black: Choose Sides in This Civil War

image credit: tothedeathmedia

Conrad Black has a sobering if scary take on the minefields and treachery that President Trump has to deal with every day. Here are a couple of paragraphs (and considering the “Never Trump” bias of National Review, I am somewhat surprised that NR published the piece in the first place):

Trump opponents need to understand what the alternative is. The battle lines have been so sharply drawn, in what is now a bloodless civil war for direction of U.S. public policy, that the two sides cannot really communicate with each other. There is a commendable candor in Kellyanne Conway’s statement: “They hate us and we hate them.” . . .

. . .  There is now unfolding what must be the last civilized debate about the trajectory of events in Washington before the civil war moves from the heavy and frequent skirmishing that has intensified since the election to the fight to the death that seems inevitably to impend. The president said in a powerful address to a very enthusiastic audience in West Virginia last week, where he received the grace of conversion to the Republican party of the formerly Democratic governor, Jim Justice, that the entire special-counsel investigation into relations between the Russian government and the Trump campaign is “a total fabrication” and “an attempt to [reverse] one of the greatest political defeats in American history.” So it is.

. . .

Whether [Robert] Mueller conducts himself professionally or not, there is no excuse for a special counsel to have been appointed, and the president was (as he need not have mentioned publicly) badly let down by Sessions. The scramble of nominal Republicans such as Lindsey Graham, and drooling partisan Democrats such as Chris Coons, to pass redundant, grandstanding legislation to protect Sessions and Mueller is nauseating. Trump ran against and defeated both parties, the Clintons, the Bushes, and Obama, and most of their close collaborators in the Congress. The war continues and until the president has enough economic progress, or enough time without gaffes that the hostile media can amplify into a wall of noise, or a sudden foreign-policy success such as with North Korea or even Venezuela, if he wants to start moving the needle of the polls upwards, he will face the problem of cowardice and lethargy in his own party. Senator McConnell’s statement in Kentucky this week that Trump was responsible for the almost total failure of the Republican Congress to achieve anything in the past six months was just more self-serving claptrap from a familiar and very tiresome source. . . .

. . .

This is a civil war and the apostate conservatives should realize that, if Trump loses, they don’t get a new Reaganism in the Republican party and renewed importance and self-importance for themselves; they get the semi-permanent return of those responsible for the decline of America, the sleazy transformation of America into an ineffectual force in the world and into an inert, economically stagnant welfare state. The choice, for sane conservatives, is Trump or national disaster. . ..

Read the whole thing here.

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Cleveland in the headline

via YouTube: "North Korea is a template for Trump: Mark Steyn"

"Pricing in the nuking of Cleveland"

Mark Steyn is a favorite commentator and analyst. And he is funny. From his website: 

[Steyn] started the day with a full hour on one of his favorite shows, "Varney & Co" on Fox Business. Stuart was as irrepressible as ever about the way the market had shrugged off the news from North Korea, and Mark gleefully chided him for "pricing in the nuking of Cleveland". However, they also addressed the situation rather more soberly.

Click above to watch (and it’s short).

It’s worth it just to watch an exasperated Steyn kick off with: "I'm so sick of listening to Mitch McConnell explain why nothing can be done." 

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It's a start

image credit: rainbow law

Yesterday, Kathryn Covert at the Washington Free Beacon reported:

GOP Donors Respond to Obamacare Repeal Failure, Withhold Donations

Republican donors are protesting GOP lawmakers' failure to repeal Obamacare by withholding donations to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

At least $2 million in contributions originally promised to the NRSC have not materialized, CNN reported Tuesday.

The failure of Republicans to fulfill a central campaign promise particularly concerns some donors because it could disillusion core voters heading into the 2018 midterms. The uncertainty could put the Republicans' majority—especially in the House of Representatives—at risk.

The Republican majority in the Senate is widely viewed to be safe in the 2018 midterms. Nonetheless, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.) has been privately warning his colleagues and donors that the GOP's 52-48 majority should not be taken for granted, according to CNN. A campaign donation shortfall could impact the GOP's ability to effectively campaign in states where Democratic senators are vulnerable.

. . .

Withholding contributions is a good start, but it’s just a start. Remember when Dave Brat upset Eric Cantor? We need two or three more primary challenges. 

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