General Mattis on the government shutdown

DC Whispers shared General “Mad Dog” James Mattis’s letter to our men and women in uniform concerning the government shutdown:

Click to embiggen, if necessary.

Photo credit: theepochtimes.com

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One year ago today

Photo credit religionnews.com

The inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States took place one year ago today. Several hundred thousand people witnessed in person the ceremony held on Friday, January 20, 2017 on the West Front of the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

President-elect Donald J. Trump was sworn into office by Chief Justice John Roberts, with his hand on two Bibles held by his wife Melania. Wow. 

wstale.com

  

Fashion note: Melania's gown for the Inauguration evening festivities is now in the Smithsonian. But somewhere I read (and recent searches failed to find the source) that FLOTUS conceived of the dress as an homage to America’s founding documents, and her concept of the dress was symbolic of those founding documents on parchment, complete with red ribbon. OK, I could not find the interview, but here’s a visual:

Happy Anniversary!

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Derangement Syndromes

photo credit: cnn.com

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s inauguration. It will also be the anniversary of  Hillary Clinton's failure to ascend to the Presidency. Robert Arvay at The American Thinker reflects:

I have a confession to make.  I have HDS – Hillary Derangement Syndrome.   It is dormant, but only because Hillary Clinton did not become president of the United States.  Had she, I would now be every bit as deranged as are those who exhibit Trump Derangement Syndrome.

It would have started on election night.  I watched on television as Hillary-supporters wept in disappointment, even anguish [see photo above], as it became clear to them that their expected victory celebration had suddenly turned into the lamentation of their crushing defeat.  In a bizarre way, I felt sorry for them – not because I wished they had won, but because I had pessimistically expected to be in their state of mind.  I had expected to be disgusted by the sight of a fiendishly grinning Hillary Clinton coming on stage to don the crown she so fervently believes is her birthright.  The depth of my sorrow for America would have been more painful than the grief experienced by the 'Clintonistas.'

After that brief moment of empathy, I felt overjoyed.  The Trump victory had rescued the nation from a fate worse than we knew at the time.  Given the revelations of corruption that have surfaced since then, the suppuration of bureaucracy is even more sinister than we had imagined.

. . .

The very Constitution itself would have become a swirl of words that would mean anything the radical left deemed.  Our history would be taught only in terms of condemnation. 

I could go on, but the bottom line is that, along with millions of my fellow citizens, I would be adamantly opposed with every glint of my being to the policies Hillary Clinton would have imposed.  My opposition would be based on the principle "whatever it takes" to preserve freedom for my children and grandchildren.

I would no longer view my political opponents as merely mistaken, but as evil, just as they now regard us.

Happily, none of this came to pass, and hopefully, it never will.  But just thinking about it gives me a little better understanding of those who feverishly and frantically exhibit Trump Derangement Syndrome.  Their world is ending, and they know it.  They are like the Beast who knows that his time is short and seeks to devour whom he may.

They are not to be underestimated.  They will stop at nothing.

We dodged a bullet - perhaps an incoming missile. Mr. Arvay's full article is here.

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Cartoon of the Day

Cartoonist Gary Varvel at Townhall:

image credit: Townhall 

Lots more laughs at the GOP website announcing winners of President Trump's 2017 Fake News Awards, starting with Paul Krugman. Link is here. 

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Sparta Report’s Biggest Fools Of The Year

cartoon credit: joyofjello.com

Sparta Report announced its Winners Of The 2017 Fools Of The Year Contest, determined by over 1,000 of their readers. My kind of contest.

The big winner is NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. The other winners were CNN’s rudest moron, Jim Acosta (includes video of his arrogant and unprofessional meltdown in front of President Trump and President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan; and Hillary “Felonia von Pantsuit” Clinton.

Fun commentary / photos / video are here.

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Keep the immigration enforcement/no amnesty calls flowing

art credit: beforeitsnews.com

From our friend Steve Salvi at Ohio Jobs & Justice Pac :

The backlash that Pres. Trump has gotten from immigration activists is moving him away from his "I sign anything" stance just days ago. Keep the immigration enforcement/no amnesty calls and social media posts flowing into the White House and US Congress! We're still far from stopping an amnesty let alone any end to chain migration, visa lottery, and funding for border protection.

So here are two recent CTP Action Alerts, re-posted:

#1   Take Action and call the White House

White House comment line: 202-456-1111

What to say: Ask the President to oppose any illegal alien DREAMER amnesty and to immediately end the unconstitutional DACA program.

Need talking points or background before you make your call? The Cleveland Tea Party blog citing Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) on DACA is here. Our blog citing Mark Steyn, with link to Ann Coulter, both on the priority of stopping illegal immigration, is here. 

This blog also linked to additional facts and background information about the DREAMers amnesty. Click here.

#2   DACA Amnesty Alert from NumbersUSA:

CAN YOU HELP STOP THIS? The bi-partisan Senate proposal is a DACA amnesty that

(1) continues Chain Migration

(2) rejects E-Verify

(3) gives green cards to TPS, and

(4) rewards parents of DACA with lifetime of work permits

In other words, the Senate proposal is the opposite of the House of Representatives DACA bill -- H.R. 4760 -- that NumbersUSA is endorsing.

Your senators need to know that their voters see the so-called balanced senate amnesty deal as a scary joke.

Phone Sen. Sherrod Brown at (202) 224-2315

Phone Sen. Rob Portman at (202) 224-3353

Pick one or more numbered items from above that you oppose and tell the Senators' staffers that is why they should make it clear that they want nothing to do with that "Durbin-Flake amnesty proposal" presented to the White House Thursday.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

photo credit: alcalde.texasexes.org

The above pictures monument of Rev Martin Luther King, Jr. is at the University of Texas; it was installed in 1999. It captures the inspiration of the man. 

Then there is the The Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial monument in DC, which was dedicated in 2011. At that time, blogger Aaron Worthing at patterico’s pontifications had this to say:

However, there has been controversy over the choice of Lei Yixin, a 57-year-old master sculptor from Changsha in Hunan province, to carry out the work. Critics have openly asked why a black, or at least an American, artist was not chosen and even remarked that Dr King appears slightly Asian in Mr Lei’s rendering.

And of course the actual work was mainly outsourced:

Mr Lei, who has in the past carved two statues of Mao Tse-tung, one of which stands in the former garden of Mao Anqing, the Chinese leader’s son, carried out almost all of the work in Changsha.

More than 150 granite blocks, weighing some 1,600 tons, were then shipped from Xiamen to the port of Baltimore, and reassembled by a team of 100 workmen, including ten Chinese stone masons brought over specifically for the project.

Personally, I think to focus on the ethnicity of the man kind of misses the point of Dr. King’s legacy.  If the best sculptor doesn’t happen to be black, what of it?

Wanting to have it made in America isn’t wrong, however, but let me posit this.  If it should be a source of national pride for the Chinese that one of their own made this, then perhaps it will encourage the Chinese to learn more about the man.  They will learn in his belief in freedom, and equality of opportunity.  They will learn of his courage, and he will tell them forthrightly from the grave that it was his faith that gave him that courage.  Is that such a bad thing?  It seems the Chinese could use some of his philosophy.

So my only objection is, well…  look at it.

Photo credit: AP via Patterico’s Pontifications

The monument is intended to honor a great American, but instead it brings to mind the role of cultural Marxism in expressions of art, architectures, etc., and, in this case, statuary. Jay’s Analysis has a summary of that school of expression:

It is a frequently misunderstood notion that "modern" and "abstract" art was an organic development that arose from grassroots battles against "oppression" and the "folk art" of the lower classes. In fact, ugly, degenerate art arose from Soviet and communist circles as a means to attack aesthetic beauty. I often remark that "Bauhaus" architecture is communist to the surprise of listeners, but the facts are, "modern art" is almost wholly a communist and Soviet invention of weaponized culture. To understand this, one must look at the Frankfurt School of Marxism, tasked primarily with social engineering and destroying culture.

Weaponized culture was a key tool for destroying the West's social values and social structure. This is also true of the modern transformations of "art" into its own internal nihilist critique of meaning itself  . . .

It’s in the same family as what Olivia Mull described as “Brutalist buildings” in London. Big, clunky, and just plain ugly. Well, that's my take, anyway.

Here’s a link to photos of two dozen monuments to the Reverend. Most of them strike me as a more appropriate tribute to Rev. Martin Luther King than the one in DC.

Here's the background on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

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