About the 2-year budget compromise

image credit: foxbusiness.com

About the 2-year budget compromise now signed by President Trump

From Guy Benson’s “Analysis: Let's Face It, Neither of These Awful Parties is Actually Serious About Fiscal Responsibility” at Townhall:

The biggest problem with the compromise is that abandons all pretense of fiscal restraint, and virtually guarantees more harmful and irresponsible can-kicking.  The GOP-led Congress has agreed to a two-year plan that will add $1.5 trillion to deficits over a decade, establishing a higher baseline from which "cuts" will be opposed, and on which additional spending will be built.  And Republicans have done so while surrendering a powerful mechanism (reconciliation) that allows them to pass budget policies without requiring the help of tax-and-spend Democrats (as they did on tax reform). 

Benson’s full article is here. Charles Hurt at Breitbart didn’t think much of it either:

Any time you hear Washington talk about bipartisan agreement, America, grab your wallet and run!

Once again, lawmakers in Washington have finally cut through all the thorny brambles of partisanship and discovered (yet again! yippie!) something they can all agree upon: spending scads and scads more of other people’s money that we don’t even have!

Support for military expenditures was a key talking point for Congress critters like Sean Duffy, who voted "yes." 

It’s still out-of-control spending. And back to Benson:

Here's what bothers me: Republicans didn't even really try.  They could have attempted a full-court press explaining the need for increased military funding, while arguing that in an era of $4 trillion in annual federal spending (up from less than $1.8 trillion in fiscal year 2000, just for some perspective), breaking caps on domestic spending is unnecessary.  Or they could have demanded that in exchange for some heightened domestic spending for discrete priorities, Democrats would have to agree to some modest and mathematically-essential entitlement reforms. 

Instead, we got this [via The Washington Examiner]:

In 2017, for the first time in the post-Tea Party era, Republicans finally gained unified control of government. They spent months blundering on healthcare, and ultimately reneged on their eight-year promise to repeal Obamacare. They have now agreed on a deal with Democrats that would blow up the spending caps that were a legacy of the Tea Party movement — to the tune of $300 billion over the next two years...The agreement would boost military spending by $165 billion above the 2011 caps and nonmilitary spending by $131 billion; it boosts emergency disaster relief spending by $90 billion (remember when the Tea Party Republicans believed emergency spending needed to be offset?); provides $6 billion in more money to fight opioid addiction; has $20 billion in infrastructure funding; it provides more funding for community health centers; and it repeals the Independent Payment Advisory Board, one of Obamacare’s cost-containment initiatives, without any significant alternative ideas to curb Medicare spending. Now, let’s get one thing clear. It's possible to rein in long-term debt while keeping taxes relatively low and military spending relatively high, but only if those policies are met with a dramatic strategy to restrain entitlements and other non-defense spending. But that’s not what Republicans are doing.

I had hoped for better. Reminder to self: the GOPe are members in good standing of the Uniparty.

# # #

Long Live the Tea Party

dontgive-uptheship-blog-blog.tumblr.com

I don’t usually agree with Rick Moran, who posts at PJ Media. But his piece “The Tea Party Is Dead, Long Live the Tea Party” was linked on Instapundit, and it had a few good thoughts, going back to the inception of the Tea Party groups in 2009:

But the tea party's real value to the country is that for the first time since the ratification debates over the Constitution, millions of people across the country were actually reading and discussing our founding document.

These weren't constitutional scholars sitting around some Ivy League lecture hall esoterically discussing the foundations of America. These were millions of ordinary people sitting at kitchen tables, in small church meeting rooms, on front porches and backyards probing the reasons America came into existence.

. . . What mattered was that ordinary people had taken a keen interest in preserving the spirit of the Constitution and the essence of our founding principles that are "self-evident" in that document at a time it has been under relentless attack.

. . .

This side of the tea parties was never widely reported on by the media, for very good reasons. The left hates getting into a discussion about what the Constitution says because they can't defend most of their ideas. Despite the fact that the founders wrote the Constitution so that basically anyone who could read could understand it, the left keeps insisting the Constitution says things that it doesn't.

Any clever lawyer or willing judge can twist the meaning of the Constitution so that it says anything they want it to say to accomplish any end they wish to accomplish. So the budget deal may have killed fiscal sanity in Washington and -- perhaps -- the tea party's political power to some extent. And the GOP may have co-opted most of the larger tea party groups to do the party's bidding.

What remains of the tea party is, to my mind, the best part. The desire of ordinary people to govern themselves, to take personal responsibility for their own lives, and to try to do something about the denigration and increasing irrelevance of the Constitution.

As Glenn Reynolds concluded: Don’t give up the ship.

# # #

Falcon Heavy rocket boosters perfect landing

YouTube 

INSANE! SpaceX Falcon Heavy Side Boosters Landing Simultaneously at Kennedy Space Center

Off topic, but just "awesome." The Falcon Heavy SpaceX test launch earlier this week was as astonishing to watch as was Neil Armstrong taking his first step on the Moon. And Elon Musk put a Tesla inside the rocket as payload. Nice touch. 

But it was the booster rockets that disconnected from the main rocket and guided themselves back to earth, hitting their landing pads perfectly - sort of like pencils landing directly on their erasers. The split screens show the booster coming down to Earth feet-first, as it were, and the cameras on the boosters themselves let you watch the landing pads come into focus as the boosters approach their target. I've never seen anything like it. 

# # #

Houston: we have a man-splaining problem

image credit: memegenerator.net

Until recently, Doug Powers blogged at Michelle Malkin’s blog site. When he posted his final blog on her website a week or two ago, he pointed to his own blog, and since then, I’ve visited him several times a week. He’s irreverent, but I rather like that. He posted the other day on Canada’s Justin Trudeau's moronic response to a question at a townhall:

Questioner: “My question is about volunteering. So, the World Mission Society Church of God is truly growing and changing society through our volunteer work. We have received the Queen’s Award in the UK… [and] have received many awards throughout the whole word; however, unfortunately in Canada, our volunteering as a charitable religious organization is extremely difficult. Extremely. That’s why, in actuality, we cannot do free volunteering to help our neighbors in need as we truly desire. So, that’s why we came here today to ask you, to also look into the policies that religious charitable organizations have in our legislation so that it can also be changed, because maternal love is the love that’s going to change the future of mankind…”

Trudeau: “We like to say peoplekind, not necessarily mankind, because it’s more inclusive.”

Cue: eye rolling.

But the humor that Doug Powers brought to this craziness is why I am posting his commentary below. Cue: belly laugh:

Can you imagine if somebody like this had been in the control room at NASA in 1969?

***

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

#Beep

“Ok Neil, Um, I’ve got a couple problems with that. Can you climb back up there and come back down instead with maybe ‘one small step for a non-binary hu-person, one similar step for person-kind’? ‘Giant leap’ seems a bit presumptuous, and it could be a little triggering for those with the inability to leap.”

#Beep

“Houston, this is the first manned mission to another celestial body, could we save this discussion for later?”

#Beep

“Manned? Have you not been paying attention, Neil? … Neil?”

#Beep

“Uh, Houston, Buzz, Michael and I have decided to just go ahead and stay up here if it’s ok with you.”

Political correctness is out of control. Doug Powers showed how pathetic it is in this one little sketch.

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Diversity 360 – huh?

image credit: thedailysheeple.com

Our friend Steve Salvi at Ohio Jobs & Justice Pac posted about this on FB:

The universities have become cults, pushing BS ideas...An example from one of Cleveland's most prominent Universities...Case Western Reserve University. You can learn about your "privilege" and about "microaggressions" from the CWRU website:

Diversity 360^o is a new campus-wide diversity education program for students, faculty and staff developed in collaboration with the Office for Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunity, the Division of Student Affairs and the Office of Multicultural Affairs.

Diversity 360^o can be implemented and customized into modules for undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff that will assist the campus community in advancing its efforts to be a welcoming, inclusive environment for learning, leading, and innovation.

Based on research from higher education and the corporate sector about cross-cultural competency and on results from university climate surveys, the modules will engage participants in learning to:

• Increase capacity to recognize and engage in dialogue across the breadth of differences;
• Deepen understanding of how affiliations in privileged and marginalized groups impact treatment on campus, campus climate and productivity;
• Deepen awareness of types of microaggressions and how they affect experiences on campus and in the local community; and
• Discover ways to become a change agent and diversity champion with new knowledge, ideas and resources about university policies, programs and best practices.

Diversity 360^o includes pre- and post-assessment of diversity-related knowledge, as well as, ongoing programming to assist members of the campus community with the goal of creating a welcoming campus climate at CWRU.

It’s worse than “ugh.” It’s politically correct indoctrination.

# # #

Devin Nunes, a deplorable dairy farmer

photo credit: impactlab.net

Historian Victor Davis Hanson always comes up with insights on today’s headlines, and in his latest, he offer perspectives not only as a scholar and professor, but also as a California farmer. His column at American Greatness on “Counterfeit Elitism” starts off:

Those damn dairy farmers. Why do they insist on trying to govern? Or, put another way:

Why are Republicans trusting Devin Nunes to be their oracle of truth!? A former dairy farmer who House intel staffers refer to as Secret Agent Man because he has no idea what’s going on.

Thus spoke MSNBC panelist, Yale graduate, former Republican “strategist,” and Bush administration speechwriter Elise Jordan.

Jordan likely knows little about San Joaquin Valley family dairy farmers and little notion of the sort of skills, savvy, and work ethic necessary to survive in an increasingly corporate-dominated industry. Whereas dairy farmer Nunes has excelled in politics, it would be hard to imagine Jordan running a family dairy farm, at least given the evidence of her televised skill sets and sobriety.

Republicans “trust” Devin Nunes, because without his dogged efforts it is unlikely that we would know about the Fusion GPS dossier or the questionable premises on which FISA court surveillance was ordered. Neither would we have known about the machinations of an array of Obama Administration, Justice Department and FBI officials who, in addition to having possibly violated the law in monitoring a political campaign and unmasking and leaking names of Americans to the press, may have colluded with people in the Clinton campaign who funded the Steele dossier.

The rest of his article is here. It’s a long look at the insulated elites who know better than the basketfuls of deplorables.

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Yet another reason not to watch today's Super Bowl

This lovely report is by Colin Flaherty at American Thinker:

Everything you need to know about the Super Bowl can be found in the rap hit “Dreams and Nightmares,” by Meek Mill. But which more truthfully could be named after a line in the song: "The Murder Game" or "All I Know Is Murder."

Everything about how far professional football has fallen and how the NFL celebrates the obscene, the vulgar, the dangerous, and the foolish will be on full display as that song blares as the Eagles take the field.

This song that the Eagle players have chosen is about guns, drugs, money, bitches, and murder, over and over and over. Just like the rest of Meek Mill songs, which also include a healthy dollop of the evils of the white man.

We do not know whether the Eagles will be kneeling prior to the big game as they have during the season. Or whether they will be following the dictates of their union which, after accepting $100 million from the owners, decided that white racism and police brutality were not so bad after all.

Meek Mill will not be there. He’s in the joint. The slammer. All for a violating his parole over and over and over. All for committing crimes over and over and over.

The Eagles don’t think that is fair. Don’t you know that crime is the new black entitlement? The mayor and district attorney of the City of Brotherly Love certainly do: That was their platform during their recent elections.

. . .

The rest of Flaherty’s report is just as bad.

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Memo fallout

 image credit: eutimes.net

Which is worse?

The Media response to “The Memo” as reported by George Neumayr at The American Spectator (Obamagate : Confirmed”)

The media’s response to the release of the Nunes memo surpasses the level of Pravda covering a Soviet show trial. No sooner had the memo appeared than journalists immediately began throwing sand into their audience’s eyes. The story, according to the media, is not that Obama’s Justice Department/FBI snookered FISA court judges and used Hillary’s purchased Steele dossier to spy on Trumpworld. No, the scandal is that the evil Republicans exposed this outrage, and that Trump, the ultimate target of this espionage, has the gall to defend himself. How dare a defendant in our kangaroo trial defend himself with the truth — that’s the upshot of all the media’s bleating.

or Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s initial reactions:

         “No department is perfect”

and this headline at Sparta Report:

Jeff Sessions Today: [FISA Fraud] Rod Rosenstein Represents‘The Kind Of Quality And Leadership That We Want In The Department’

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"Americans are Dreamers, too!"

image credit: 989thewolf.net

I thought President Trump's State of the Union speech was outstanding, and most of the commentary I've read is positive. I especially appreciated a few short takes by Don Surber:

Trump forced one of his nagging critics, Chris Cillizza, CNN's editor-at-large, to concede the brilliance of the move.

"Perhaps not surprising for someone who has lived his life in the spotlight and who built a life on image and brand, the stagecraft of Trump's first State of the Union was outstanding. From the families who lost loved ones to the MS-13 gang to Otto Warmbier's parents to the North Korean defector and his crutches, the visuals -- and the stories they told -- were haunting and memorable," Cillizza wrote.

The photograph that won the night was not President Trump, but rather Ji Seong-ho holding his crutches aloft. He escaped North Korea in 2006, and now lives in South Korea helping others escape.

Here’s the photograph of Ji Seong-ho:

I did not know Ji Seong-ho’s story, and it is harrowing. Here’s the link to the page on Wikipedia. Surber continues:

His presence was testimony to the appreciation of President Trump's efforts to confront Kim Jong Un, which may lead to the departure of Kim, and the unification of the two Koreas.

Incorporating the victims of MS-13 and the heroes of America made his message theirs. And they are more credible to those who are not as Trumpian as we are. They sold his policies.

To be sure, [there] was the co-opting of the Democratic Party line. The line of the night was "Americans are Dreamers, too!"

For the rest of Don Surber’s SOTU commentary, go here and here.  

 # # #

State of the Union and more!

photo credit: cnn.com

Your television viewing guide for this evening (Tuesday, Jan. 30):

President Donald J. Trump’s first State of the Union address is tonight at 9pm on all major news networks.

Massachusetts congressman Joseph Kennedy III will present the Democrat party’s official response following the SOTU.

After the SOTU address, Rep. “Auntie Maxine” Waters (D-CA) will probably renew her demand for impeachment on BET TV. According to the HuffPo:

Waters will deliver her remarks on the BET program “Angela Rye’s State of the Union,” 

a program that is not at present showing up on the Cleveland Spectrum listing. 

UPDATE: The BET program is on Weds., Jan. 31 at 9pm.

# # #

Good bye to Chief Wahoo

vintage official scorecard

Good bye to Chief Wahoo (because, you know, it’s r-a-a-a-a-cist)

ABC News reports:

Divisive and hotly debated, the Chief Wahoo logo is being removed from the Cleveland Indians' uniform next year.

The polarizing mascot is coming off the team's jersey sleeves and caps starting in the 2019 season, a move that will end Chief Wahoo's presence on the field but may not completely silence those who deem it racist.

The Associated Press was informed of the decision before an official announcement was planned for Monday by Major League Baseball.

Yet another casualty of political correctness. I grew up with this logo and am sorry to see it go. 

PS I always thought choosing a mascot carried with it a compliment. Indians were worthy warriors. Who would want to be cheering for The Cleveland Worms? 

# # # 

Today’s scary read: the moving dictatorship

Image credit: trump.news

Daniel Greenfield redefines the “Deep State” and it’s scary. The full transcript of his speech to the  South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention in Myrtle Beach is also posted at Zero Hedge (h/t Instapundit).   Here are a few extracts:

the Democrats have rejected our system of government

…

You can hate the other party. You can think they’re the worst thing that ever happened to the country. But then you work harder to win the next election. When you consistently reject the results of elections that you don’t win, what you want is a dictatorship.

Your very own dictatorship.

The only legitimate exercise of power in this country, according to the left, is its own. Whenever Republicans exercise power, it’s inherently illegitimate.

The attacks on Trump show that elections don’t matter to the left.

. . .

It’s the moving dictatorship. It’s the tyranny of the network.

You can’t pin it down. There’s no one office or one guy. It’s a network of them. It’s an ideological dictatorship. Some people call it the deep state. But that doesn’t even begin to capture what it is.

To understand it, you have to think about things like the Cold War and Communist infiltration.

A better term than Deep State is Shadow Government.

Parts of the Shadow Government aren’t even in the government. They are wherever the left holds power. It can be in the non-profit sector and among major corporations. Power gets moved around like a New York City shell game. Where’s the quarter? Nope, it’s not there anymore.

The shadow government is an ideological network. These days it calls itself by a hashtag #Resistance. Under any name, it runs the country. Most of the time we don’t realize that. 

. . .

Civil wars swing around a very basic question. The most basic question of them all. Who runs the country?

Is it me? Is it you? Is it Grandma? Or is it bunch of people who made running the government into their career?

America was founded on getting away from professional government. The British monarchy was a professional government. Like all professional governments, it was hereditary. Professional classes eventually decide to pass down their privileges to their kids.

America was different. We had a volunteer government. That’s what the Founding Fathers built.

This is a civil war between volunteer governments elected by the people and professional governments elected by… well… uh… themselves.

In the intro, Greenfield acknowledges and thanks “anyone and everyone still fighting the good fight.” Including Tea Party people volunteering in their communities. Read the rest here.    # # #

Unraveling Obamacare bit by bit

Steve Breen cartoon via strangefunnies.blogspot.com

Today, Mr. Speaker Gingrich posted at Fox and to his newsletter list his assessment of the Trump Administration’s ongoing efforts to bring down healthcare costs, chip away at what remains of Obamacare, and gradually introduce better options for all Americans. Here is part of his posting:

President Trump has also moved beyond opposing Obamacare and has begun to develop a better system for the future. What replaces Obamacare is at least as important as voting to repeal it.

Replacing Obamacare requires a lot of specific steps to return to a market-based, decentralized system in 50 different states. The Trump Administration and its Republican allies in Congress have been working diligently in that direction.

At the Department of Labor, Secretary Alexander Acosta issued proposed rules which would dramatically expand the availability of Association Health Plans. These plans could be national and regional, allowing for the sale of insurance across state lines, but critically still maintain state autonomy in regulating insurance – which will help police against fraud. Some of the details of the rules may need to be improved to prevent insurance companies from cherry-picking healthy customers, but overall this represents a potentially game-changing reform that could have huge cost saving implications for small business owners and the self-employed.

The Trump Administration has also allowed insurers to continue offering “grandmothered” plans created prior to Obamacare, maintaining these lower cost plans for long-time customers. This saved many small businesses and self-employed people a lot of money and anxiety which would have been caused by the Obamacare plan to force them into the government system even if they were happy with their current plan.

In addition, the Trump Administration fixed a number of loopholes in the Obamacare enrollment rules, which some customers had been using to game the system to avoid paying their premiums and wait until they got sick to get coverage, by claiming they qualified for a “Special Enrollment Period.” This fraud drove up prices for everyone. The Trump Administration issued new rules that fixed a number of these problems.

President Trump also made it easier for people to shop for health insurance without using the Healthcare.gov website. For 2019 enrollment, customers can fully use the insurer websites, as well as aggregators like ehealthinsurance.com. All of this increases convenience, expands choice, and makes lower costs possible.

Finally, just last week, Congress enacted a key reform which flew almost completely under the media’s radar. The Continuing Resolution passed to reopen the government this week suspended the health insurance tax for one year, the device tax for two years, and delayed the Cadillac tax until 2022, all of which were part of Obamacare. All of these taxes were simply passed on to patients in the form of higher premiums, so each of these steps will save patients money.

“Replacing Obamacare requires a lot of specific steps to return to a market-based, decentralized system in 50 different states.” So here is related news:

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Concerned about soaring health care costs, Idaho on Wednesday revealed a plan that will allow insurance companies to sell cheap policies that ditch key provisions of the Affordable Care Act.

It's believed to be the first state to take formal steps without prior federal approval for creating policies that do not comply with the Obama-era health care law. Health care experts say the move is legally dubious, a concern supported by internal records obtained by The Associated Press.

Idaho Department of Insurance Director Dean Cameron said the move is necessary to make cheaper plans available to more people. Otherwise, he said he fears the state's individual health insurance marketplace will eventually collapse as healthy residents choose to go uninsured rather than pay for expensive plans that comply with the federal law.

Hope to see more of this. The rest of Newt’s article is here.

# # #

Dennis K would shut down energy production in Ohio

 photo credit: change-links.org

From cleveland.com

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dennis Kucinich on Thursday unveiled a series of proposals designed to bring a complete end to oil and gas drilling in Ohio.

At a news conference in downtown Columbus, the liberal former congressman and presidential candidate said that as governor, he would use eminent domain to acquire and close all existing traditional and fracking-style oil and gas wells in the state. Kucinich pledged to block any new drilling permits and order a statewide injection-well ban.

In addition, Kucinich would direct the Ohio State Highway Patrol to stop, inspect, and turn away vehicles found with fracking waste.

Sounds like a winning strategy.

# # #

Another reason not to watch the Super Bowl

Even those of us who are not football fans sometimes turn the TV on just to watch the ads. Not this year. The Army Times reports:

AMVETS officials are decrying "corporate censorship" from the National Football League for their decision not to run an ad in their Super Bowl program which responds to league players’ decision to kneel for the national anthem in protest of national equality issues.

The ad, which would have cost the veterans organization $30,000, features the tag "#PleaseStand" with a picture of service members saluting the American flag and information on how to donate to the congressionally-chartered organization.

Group leaders said NFL officials refused to include the ad in their Super Bowl publication, but did not issue a reason why.

Ace of Spades comments:

The NFL claims it doesn't permit ads that could be interpreted as making a political statement.

Oh, sure, the NFL totally doesn't want political statements during its games. That's why it's permitted a year and a half of National Anthem protests, I guess.

Sad to see the American sports culture in self-destruct mode.

UPDATE: The Hill reports that former NFL quarterback and Kneeler-in-Chief Colin Kaepernick has been named a finalist for the NFL Players Association 'Community MVP' award.  

# # #

Chuck Schumer ends his shutdown

Via Instapundit:


More commentary at Legal Insurrection here.

# # #

Multiculturalism: not good

Photo credit: onlyinus.wordpress.com

American children

Many of my relatives and friends take pride in their enthusiastic embrace of multiculturalism. I oppose it because it discourages assimilation, and it celebrates cultural differences rather than common values. As far as Cleveland Tea Party is concerned, one of the core values, that of limited government, is subverted by uncontrolled immigration that expands the nanny state and dilutes our cultural fabric. The melting pot is giving way to the societal mosaic, more apt to shatter.

A Canadian contributor to PJ Media, David Solway, eloquently summarizes “The Scourge of Multiculturalism” (h/t Instapundit):

The argument made by immigration and refugee enthusiasts, namely that the Western democracies were founded and settled by immigrants and therefore should continue to welcome newcomers, is valid only to a point. In the course of time the original settlers created a national identity, a sense of communal membership in a common world unified by custom and law. It is that identity that should be preserved. . . .

I am not opposed to immigration per se, only to ill-advised and special interest agendas that would weaken and adulterate the stable domestic accords arrived at over many generations.

To say “we are a nation of immigrants,” then, is immaterial. We are now a nation of citizens. Skilled immigrants, properly screened and taking into account real domestic needs, should be part of the country’s future, but not in multiples that threaten to dilute a nation’s internal cohesion, not from backward countries whose inhabitants are all too often uneducated, illiterate and functionally unassimilable, and certainly not from parts of the world -- in particular, the Islamic world -- whose history, culture, theology and politics have ranged it against everything that Western civilization comprises. The plight of European nations like Germany, Sweden, England and France, sinking into a morass of civil unrest, criminal violence and legal subversion, should be an incontrovertible object lesson that multiculturalism is the devil’s gift to a forgetful and undeserving people.

The congeries of welfare recipients bankrupting our fiscal resources, inner-city ghettoes of disaffected and belligerent residents, the array of lawfare plaintiffs, the proliferation of de facto censorship procedures . . . and the consequent erosion of community standards are the poisoned fruit of such unstructured immigration protocols -- a scourge prettified under the term “multiculturalism.” 

. . .

There is no shame in cherishing and defending one’s “old country” patrimony and the values upon which civic and communal life are founded. This has nothing to do with an antecedent “Eurocentrism” that ostensibly degrades other peoples or with the risible canard of “white supremacy,” but with the sense of belonging to, for all its flaws and errors, the greatest civilization ever to appear on earth, a Judeo-Hellenic-Christian civilization that gave us, among innumerable gifts, the Bible and the Greek library, the magna carta, the concept of individual liberty, scientific and medical advances never before seen, and a technological, commercial and industrial infrastructure that has made life easier for untold millions.

Full essay is here.

# # #

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

# # #

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!

# # #

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.

# # #

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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