George Washington's Mother

 

For Mother’s Day, Paul Kengor at American Spectator reviewed a biography of George Washington’s mother, and below is an extract from it:

Mary Ball Washington, America’s First Mother [Harper, 2019]

Craig Shirley’s biography is a character study
of the strong woman who raised our first president

“My great age, and the disease which is fast approaching my vitals, warn me that I shall not be long in this world. I trust in God that I may be somewhat prepared for a better.”

So said a weak Mary Ball Washington, mother of America’s first president, George Washington, to her son in March 1789 as she lay dying from cancer at roughly age 80 (her exact age unknown). Her son had come to bid America’s first mother a final goodbye. He told her about this significant new office that he was assuming for his country — to which all 69 electors had unanimously chosen him on Jan. 7. The only president ever selected unanimously.

“But before I can assume the functions of my office,” he told the frail old woman, “I have come to bid you an affectionate farewell.”

The 57-year-old Washington continued, “So soon as the weight of public business, which must necessarily attend the outset of a new government, can be disposed of, I shall hasten to Virginia, and—” Here, the mother interrupted the son: “—and you will see me no more.” . . .

Mr Kengor closes his review:

And as Shirley shows, the relationship between the two was “laden with difficulty” for both of them. It was a struggle for anyone to have much affection for Mary. Shirley describes Mary Ball Washington as “self-centered and acquisitive,” “tutoring and fashioning” her son but also “driving and admonishing” him. She was not a warm lady and, frankly, was hard to feel warm about. She was not easy to like. She was a cold woman, austere, and herself quite a character — an odd one. And Craig Shirley’s book provides far more than a history of her and her son. He provides a character study that fascinates.

But whatever her personal shortcomings, this woman raised a president, our nation’s first. He was our first president and Mary Ball Washington was our first mother — one who needs to be remembered, and perhaps particularly so for America’s annual celebration of Mothers’ Day. Get this book and read and learn and remember.

Read the entire review here.

# # #

 

Student loan forgiveness: you get to pay more

 

Rick McKee’s cartoon seen on PowerLine’s "Week In Pictures"

The Democrats really do want more of your money.  At American Spectator, David Catron reports on the case before the Supreme Court concerning the cancelation of student debt; he begins:

Last week’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court concerning the Biden administration’s student-loan forgiveness plan predictably focused on arcane legal theories such as the “major questions doctrine.” Relatively little time was devoted to the profoundly inequitable structure of the program. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch did note that it would provide benefits to certain favored persons while ignoring the very real costs it would impose on others, but no one mentioned a fact that will gall most taxpayers — it would cancel student loans for college dropouts.

Remarkably, the Biden administration and most Democrats see this as a selling point for the plan. The White House fact sheet puts it as follows: “Nearly one-third of borrowers have debt but no degree, according to an analysis by the Department of Education of a recent cohort of undergraduates.” The Democrats justify canceling these loans because tuition costs have risen, ignoring evidence that the loans have driven that increase. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) claims: “Up to 4 in 10 people with student loan debt weren’t able to graduate, many because of high costs.… Canceling student loan debt would change their lives.”

The problem is that the $400 billion program would also “change the lives” of millions of Americans for the worse. How? It will raise the stealth tax known as inflation. . . .

Read the rest here.

# # #

An Elegy for the FBI

 

George Parry is a former "federal Organized Crime Strike Force lawyer, a unit chief in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, and a special organized crime prosecutor in central Pennsylvania during the 1970s and 1980s." His blog "An Elegy for the FBI" at Knowledge is Good was cross-posted at the American Spectator.  Here's some of it:

. . . It’s quite remarkable to watch a once revered and legendary organization metaphorically slit its own throat in public. But that’s exactly what happened when the FBI raided President Donald Trump’s Florida home purportedly to retrieve official Trump administration documents.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the search warrant cited the Presidential Records Act and possible illegal handling of classified information and that the raid came two months after Justice Department lawyers visited Mar-a-Lago “seeking more information about potentially sensitive material that had been taken there from the White House.” 

But if document retrieval was truly the goal, why didn’t the FBI obtain and serve a subpoena duces tecum instead of resorting to a gangbusters-style ransacking of Trump’s home? After months of discussions with the president’s lawyers, during which they voluntarily handed over 15 boxes of presidential documents to the National Archives, was there some reason to believe that a raid was necessary to prevent the destruction of what remained at Mar-a-Lago?

. . .

There are many more such examples that amply demonstrate that the FBI has been reduced to being the armed muscle and praetorian guard of the Democrat Party. But, while all of that is bad enough, the FBI’s ill-conceived raid on the home of a former president who also happens to be the leading political opponent of the bureau’s masters in the Biden regime, is a historic, hideous, and radical abuse of its law enforcement authority that has obliterated the bureau’s relationship with a vast swath of the American public. To those citizens, the bureau’s agents are no longer regarded as the respected and stalwart G-Men of legend. They are now widely and justifiably mocked and dismissed as the Stasi, Gestapo, KGB, secret police, and banana republic thugs for hire. 

Thanks to the raid of Trump’s home, the FBI is not only faced with having lost the confidence and cooperation of almost half of America. It has also transformed itself into a despised moral leper colony — a painted, hagged out, repellent, and whorish mockery of what it used to be. . . .

Much more at the link here.  Irreversible damage.

# # #

Medicare is going broke

image credit: nextavenue.org

Betsy McCaughey has been one of the most informed critics of healthcare policy ever since Obamacare reared its ugly head. Her latest column at American Spectator sounds the alarm over Medicare Part A and the Democrat candidates’ promises of Medicare For All (titled "Democrats To Seniors: Drop Dead”):

Medicare is going broke,
and the Dems’ presidential candidates couldn’t care less

Baby boomers beware. If you’re in your 50s or 60s and you’re counting on Medicare to pay your future hospital bills, you’re in for a shock. Medicare Part A — the fund that pays hospitals and nursing homes — is running out of money. A mere seven years from now, it will no longer have enough to pay your providers’ bills in full. 

The Medicare Trustees sounded the alarm in June, urging Congress to act “as soon as possible” to protect people “already dependent” on the program.

Good advice, but don’t expect most politicians to take it. The Democrats running for president are in fantasy land, proposing to expand Medicare to millions of younger people or even to the entire population through “Medicare for All.” Never mind Medicare’s insolvency. That’s like a family that can’t pay its mortgage out shopping for a mega-mansion.

. . .

Currently, Trump is using his only option. He’s reducing benefit costs. Any other remedy would require Congress’ cooperation, which is unlikely.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and other backers of Medicare for All are making big promises with no way to pay. 

Read the rest here.

# # #

Blatant: Google’s censorship

The other day, this blog linked to a report about Google’s dishonest and ham-handed censorship of Kay Cole James, Heritage Foundation President. Now there’s this by Jeffrey Lord at American Spectator:

As we now learn from the Daily Caller, The American Spectator has been blacklisted by Google. The DC’s headline, in a post by J. Arthur Bloom, is this:

Exclusive: Documents Detailing Google’s ‘News Blacklist’ Show Manual Manipulation Of Special Search Results

. . .

[American Spectator founder R. Emmett] Tyrrell drew the analogy of Communists taking over an old-fashioned pre-computer-age public library — and then methodically going through the card catalogue to remove the cards listing conservative books and authors. “Google can make all kinds of excuses,” he added, “but this is censorship, the most blatant censorship imaginable.”

Indeed it is.

. . .

(Google CEO) Sundar Pichai . . . looked a congressional committee in the eye and insisted that “we don’t manually intervene on any particular search result” — while the Daily Caller revelations revealed that “Google does manipulate its search results manually, contrary to the company’s official denials, documents obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller indicate.”

There is a name for doing that. It’s called lying to Congress. A federal crime with jail time attached.

. . .

This time around, the target is The American Spectator. This time around the iron fist belongs to Google.

The question has reached the point that conservatives need to have a serious conversation among themselves. Is it time for government regulation of these tech giants? Or is it — my preference — time for free-market competition that provides serious and successful competition to these companies?

Full report is here.

# # #

More censorship on social / online media

Daniel J.Flynn, a senior editor of The American Spectator, points out the chilling effect of de facto censorship on social media and online platforms. (One of the most recent examples is Amazon, which yanked Tommy Robinson’s new book on the Koran.)

Creepy people at massive corporations imagine themselves as the policemen of public content, except they would never use such as gendered term as policemen to describe themselves.

A former Facebook worker revealed evidence to Project Veritas that the online platform secretly uses a “deboost” function to suppress conservative speech on the social media platform. “The ‘deboost’ tag appears after the word ‘Sigma,’ which Project Veritas has learned is an artificial intelligence system used to block potential suicide and self-harm posts,” the exposé explains.

Does this mean Facebook analysts rationalize the suppression of conservative speech on the grounds that it induces self-harm? The corporate behemoth refuses to say. Facebook responded to the Project Veritas revelations by noting that it had fired the whistleblower, as though this discredits her instead of credits her story of a company fixated on controlling information.

Online Goliaths that deny suppressing speech strangely openly boast of banning it.

. . .

“Currently, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram pretend that they are not publishers to avoid lawsuits involving libel law,” Zmirak tells The American Spectator. “But they are acting like editors of magazines. If they are editing content based on it not being illegal but it being objectionable to them, they should lose their exemption. They have to pick, either they are neutral platforms or they are publishers.”

Flynn identifies four potential solutions: 1)  eliminating exemptions from libel law;  2) billionaire-funded alternative platforms;  3) trust-busting;  4) individuals refraining from using FB, Twitter, etc.  Flynn does not favor option #4, and his fuller evaluations are here.

# # #

Tucker Carlson’s Ship of Fools

image from Amazon

Jeffrey Lord may have been fired from CNN for no good reason, but he continues to publish on various websites, including American Spectator. Yesterday, he posted his review of Tucker Carlson’s bestselling Ship of Fools. It’s a rave, and I am posting a few paragraphs, either for those who are interested in reading the book or those who want a short précis instead:  

A serious look at a serious American problem by a serious thinker

A truer examination of a serious American problem could not be had.

In his new book,  Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution, Tucker Carlson gets to the heart of the seriously bad situation that confronts America.

Ship of Fools is, says the opening flap of the book, “the story of the new American elites, a group whose power and wealth has grown beyond imagination even as the rest of the country has withered. The people who run America now barely interact with it. They fly on their own planes, ski on their own mountains, watch sporting events from the stands in skyboxes. They have total contempt for you.”

In thumbnail, that could not possibly be a more accurate description of American elites, not to mention the reaction they produced: the election of Donald Trump. As someone who long ago left the precincts of Inside the Beltway Washington, D.C. to come home to the wilds of Central Pennsylvania, it was plain what was coming down the pike in November of 2016. This area was awash in Trump signs. They were everywhere, even hand-painted on the sides of barns. As it were, this was a sure sign of what Tucker describes this way:

Trump’s election wasn’t about Trump. It was a throbbing middle finger in the face of America’s ruling class. It was a gesture of contempt, a howl of rage, the end result of decades of selfish and unwise decisions made by selfish and unwise leaders. Happy countries don’t elect Donald Trump president. Desperate ones do.

Bingo.

Read the full review here.

# # #

And the censorship goes on

Four headlines reporting censorship on social media and at movie theaters -- just in the last week:

From Newsbusters:

Twitter Locks Conservative Site Outfor ‘Hate’ Citing Facts About STDs

From Steve Green at PJ Media:

Twitter Permanently Bans 'GayPatriot' Bruce Carroll, Cites Kafka for Precedent

From Beth Baumann at Townhall:

Suppression: Theaters Drop 'Gosnell' Movie Despite It Being a Top-Grossing Film

From John Stossel at NWF Daily News:

            Shut up, they explain

UPDATED 5pm

From Scott McKay at American Spectator:

           A Letter From Facebook Jail: The casualties of Big Tech’sassault on free expression

# # #

President Trump is a dope?

cartoon by A.F. Branco at legalinsurrection.com

At The American Spectator, Dov Fischer traces the sorry history of the liberal media branding a (D) President as brilliant, and an (R) President as a bumbling moron, regardless of the factual record. Then Fischer gets to President Trump. I am posting the paragraph because it’s a handy and concise summary of the first year of his Presidency:

But is the President stupid? It depends. Without any prior political experience, he defeated a field of serious Republican candidates for the nomination and then defeated a former United States Secretary of State, U.S. Senator, Yale Law grad with half a century of political experience for the Presidency. In a year, he has set the economy booming with a huge nationwide increase in consumer confidence, a soaring stock market, sustained economic growth exceeding three percent for consecutive quarters, muted unemployment, a record number of successful appointments of federal appellate judges, and much more. He has revived the energy sector, deregulated the economy, honored promises from approving the Keystone XL and Dakota oil pipelines to recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, induced allied world leaders to start paying their fair share of NATO costs, sharply reduced illegal immigration along our southern border, restored civil liberty protections to college students accused of assault, promoted charter schools and school choice, enacted the most overarching tax reduction in the past thirty years — perhaps the most ever — and advanced an ambitious agenda for his second year. So, if that is the mark of stupid, then this guy is a dope.

The most recent attacks on President Trump’s unfitness for office or stupidity or [fill in the blank] prompted Trump’s response on Twitter, branding himself as a “stable genius.” Which, as Scott Adams of Dilbert fame pointed out, was sheer genius itself, because Trump’s detractors will keep referring back to his tweets, endlessly mocking him as a “very stable genius.”

# # # 

Governor Kasich and Senator Portman on Obamacare

art credit: Conservative Review

The Washington Examiner reports:

Ohio Governor John Kasich said Sunday the collapse of the Republican healthcare bill in the U.S. Senate was a "good thing," but was adamant the policy debate was not over.

David Catron at The American Spectator blog named Portman as one of the six Senators whom he describes as liars, frauds, charlatans – well, you get the idea:

The following Republican Senators demonstrated [last Wednesday] that they are liars and frauds: Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Dean Heller (Nev.), John McCain (Ariz.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Rob Portman (Ohio).

. . . if a Republican won the 2016 presidential election, the same bill [as an earlier partial repeal bill] or something very similar could be quickly passed by a GOP-controlled Congress and signed into law. Every single Republican who ran for the House or the Senate in 2016 made similar statements, including the six charlatans listed above.

These mountebanks, all of whom voted for “clean repeal” when Obama’s inevitable veto made it safe and politically expedient to do so, voted against a virtually identical bill [last week] — knowing full well that President Trump would sign it. In other words, they consciously betrayed their constituents, their party, and the nation as a whole.

At least we know where Kasich and Portman stand.

# # #

What’s wrong with Rob Portman?

cartoon credit: Walt Handelsman

via US News and World Report / The New Orleans Advocate

Scott McKay at The American Spectator asks:

Do Lisa Murkowski, Rob Portman, and Shelley Moore Capito expect to ever get votes from Republican voters again?

Here’s a question: How long have Republicans been running for federal office on repealing Obamacare, in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s terminology, “Root and branch”?

Answer: since 2010.

. . .

You would figure that with Donald Trump in the White House and Republican majorities in the House and Senate, repealing Obamacare would be a no-brainer.

OK, the repeal-and-replace angle could be harder to pull off. That’s understandable. There are lots of different kinds of Republicans, and it might be hard to get all of them to coalesce behind a single federal healthcare policy to replace it. Those of us whose studies of the American public sector have led to an understanding that the less federal healthcare policy there is the healthier the healthcare industry will be have a far simpler solution to that problem, but we are unfortunately not the majority — in the House, Senate or public. That’s a shame, and it’s a symptom of a larger civic disease, but that’s for another column in this space. There will be a replacement for Obamacare, and we can hope it’s less awful than what it stands in for.

But when the Senate version of an Obamacare replacement foundered and McConnell announced the next step would be, early next week, an up-or-down vote for an Obamacare repeal now and the crafting of a replacement as a consensus for one emerges, that’s something an entire GOP caucus can vote for.

Minus Susan Collins, of course; Maine’s quote-unquote Republican Senator wouldn’t vote to repeal Obamacare back in 2015 when McConnell’s majority sent a bill doing just that to then-President Obama’s desk to die. But outside of Collins and Mark Kirk of Illinois, who is no longer in the Senate, the rest of the caucus was on board with the repeal.

And yet Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, West Virginia’s Shelley Moore Capito, and Ohio’s Rob Portman have now joined Collins in announcing they won’t support a repeal when the vote comes up next week.

What is wrong with these people?

Capito laced her announcement with a special bit of arsenic for Republican voters. “I didn’t come to Washington to hurt people,” she said.

No, Senator, apparently you came to Washington to lie to people.

. . .

What’s wrong with these people? My guess in one word: Uniparty. And the rest of Scott McKay's article is here.

The Russians Are Coming and Fake News

“Whatcha doin’ up on the wall there, Muriel?”

Doro Merande in The Russians Are Coming at Great Big Canvas

Just got back from out-of-town, so blogging has been light. But I did some of my usual web-surfing en route, and one of my regular Sunday stops is at the American Thinker.  ICYMI, Clarice Feldman’s “Clarice’s Pieces” was a good way to sift through some of the Fake News in the MSM. including the seemingly endless obsession with The Russians Are Coming. She references Mr. Belmont Club (Richard Fernandez at PJ Media), Scott McKay at American Spectator, and PowerLine, among others, so if you’re short on time, check out her Sunday articles for quick links to good analyses of phony baloney reports:

the non-stop media promotion of some nefarious scheme between Russia and Trump does not pass even the most cursory forensic examination, proving once again in the age of fake news, you cannot remain a passive consumer of news. You have to bring to each story the good sense and diligence with which you handle your most important personal affairs. . .

Nothing so illustrates why the media has deservedly lost all credibility than its unending, overdone effort to fit any action on the part of the President or those around him into a narrative of Russia somehow colluding with him to defeat Hillary. This week’s take was the short meeting his son held with a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower last summer. . . 

You’ll just have to work harder in the face of such ignorance and bias to find out what you need to know.  

Clarice makes it a little bit easier.

# # #

UPDATES: Spirit Of America rallies

 Image by Keln via Conservative Treehouse

  UPDATES:

Spirit of America Rallies

Join in the Main Street Patriots nationwide "Spirit of America" Rallies! These rallies will be positive, patriotic, uplifting, and open to anyone who supports President Trump and an America First agenda.

As heard about on Rush Limbaugh and posted by Breitbart, there are currently *70* locations across the US (and growing). Come join us and stand united as one across this great nation and rally in the Spirit of America.

Below are the Spirit of America Rallies being held in Ohio this weekend.

Belmont County

Date: Saturday March 4, 2017

Time: 2:30pm

Contact: Bob Connors / wtpov@reagan.com

Location: Corner of Lincoln Ave & Main St Bridgeport, OH 43912

Boardman

Date: Saturday March 4, 2017

Time: 12:00pm - 3:00pm

Contact: Mark / mark@compcoind.com

Location: Summitville Tile

631 Boardman-Canfield Rd (Rt 224) Boardman, OH 44512

Cincinnati

Date: Saturday March 4, 2017

Time: 2:00pm – 4:00pm

Contact: Alysha Johnson / ajohnson.ohio@gmail.com

Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/389042678129230/

Location: Sharon Woods 

11450 Lebanon Rd. (S. Meadow Dr), Sharonville, OH 45241

Clark County

Date: Saturday March 4, 2017

Time: 2:00pm

Contact: Laura Rosenberger / larosenbrgr@att.net

Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/111501169372685/

Location: State Route 41 & N. Bechtle Ave. Springfield, OH 45504

Cleveland

Date: Saturday March 4, 2017

Time: 12:30pm

Contact: Ralph King / kingsrightsite@yahoo.com

Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1096367760485791/

Location: Voinovich Bicentennial Park

E. 9th Street Pier Cleveland, OH 44114

Columbiana County

Date: Saturday, March 4, 2017

Time: 12:00pm Noon

Contact: Anita Fraser / anitateaparty@gmail.com

Event Page:

Location: 124 W. Lincoln Way (Marching to Downtown Gazebo)

Lisbon, OH 44432 

Jackson

Date: Saturday March 4, 2017

Time: 1:00pm

Contact: Regina Matson

Location: Jackson County Court House

295 Broadway St. Jackson, OH 45640

Mid-Ohio / Mansfield Area

Date: Saturday March 4, 2017

Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm

Contact: Bonnie Oleksa / info@bloodofpatriots.org

Event Page: Click Here

Location: W. 4th St & Lexington-Springmill Rd. Ontario, OH 44906

Marietta

Date: Saturday March 4, 2017

Time: TBA

Contact: GlennNewman / rightwayoh@yahoo.com

Event Page:

Location: TBA

Toledo

Date: Saturday March 4, 2017

Time: 12:30pm - 1:45pm

Contact: Tommy Mori /

Event Page: Click Here

Location: International Park

2 Main St.  Toledo,  OH 43605  (Click for Map)

Zanesville

Date: Saturday March 4, 2017

Time: 2:00pm - 4:00pm

Contact: Kay Clymer / clymerkay@gmail.com

Event Page: Click Here

Location: Muskingum County Court House

401 Main St.  Zanesville, OH 43701 (Click for Map)

Join us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/mainstreetpatriots/

For more on the Cleveland Spirit of America Rally (with keynote speaker Rev. Darrell Scott), go here.

# # #

In the news: ‘Spirit Of America’ Rallies This Week

The Spectacle Blog, a feature of the online magazine The American Spectator, ran an article on the Spirit of America rallies this week across the country. Cleveland’s own Ralph King was quoted!

Main Street Patriots Gather Nationwide For ‘Spirit Of America’ Rallies This Week

Americans throughout the country will be rallying this week to show support for President Trump and his policy agenda.

The rallies will be taking place in nearly 60 cities, with some taking place on Monday, while others are planned later in the week, including on Saturday. [See full schedule, with locations.]

“These rallies are inclusive, non-partisan, and open to anyone supporting President Trump in his efforts to bring back manufacturing jobs to America, put the security of our nation ahead of political correctness, improve our infrastructure, revitalize the inner cities and secure our nation’s borders,” stated Debbie Dooley, one of the rallies’ organizers, in a press release.

Although the rallies are to show support for President Trump and his agenda, the Spirit of America rallies “have no direct tie with the White House or Trump’s campaign organization,” rally organizer Ralph King told Cleveland.com.

“This is literally grassroots,” King stated. “Whether you’re doing this with 1,000 people or you’re doing this with a handful, get out there. That’s what it’s about.”

Since the surprise election of President Trump in November, left-wing agitators and disappointed Democrats have engaged in raucous protests and riotous actions in various cities across the country.

In a way, the Spirit of America rallies are a grassroots’ counter to the left’s protests.

“This is not about left or right. This is about right and wrong. Enough is enough! Our voices will be heard in a peaceful approach, and we will continue to let others know that we are proud of our president and of our country,” stated Barbara Hemingway, a host of a March 4 rally in Sarasota, Florida.

For more information on the March 4 rally in downtown Cleveland,go to our previous announcement here.

# # #

Media Mission: Destroy Donald Trump

art credit: pinterest

Jeffrey Lord is a regular contributor to The American Spectator blog, but more Tea Party people may recognize him as a regular panelist – often the only conservative – on CNN prime time news. He attended a recent Trump rally and published a piece exposing the utter dishonesty in the mainstream media. The following is an extract from NewsBusters:

The other night I spent some time with Donald Trump. He had come to Cumberland Valley High School in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, a mere five or so miles up the road from my house.

The Trump rally was filled - completely - with thousands inside and outside thousands more waiting (in vain) to get in the door. Here’s what interested.

Never once - not once - did I hear Donald Trump mention the Khans, the now famous parents of a son killed in battle in Iraq. Even more to the point? In talking with many people in the audience before and after the rally, no one - say again not a single soul - mentioned the Khans. What I did hear from Trump was talk about jobs, trade, the economy, ISIS and more. Which was the talk from members of the audience when I spoke to many of them before and after the rally. They volunteered directly to me, conversation after another, their thoughts about ObamaCare, a sick child, jobs, trade ,pride in America, Hillary and so on.

And yet? Mysteriously when I returned home and turned on the television or checked on-line it seemed to be all-Khan all-the-time. As if Trump had spent the evening re-hashing the whole subject yet again. Which he had not.

In my conversation with Donald Trump himself he was upbeat, every bit as enthusiastic as his audience. Yet what was the media take on the Trump campaign this week? Here’s ABC’s Jon Karl:

“I am told that senior officials at the party are actively exploring what would happen if Trump dropped out. How to replace him on the ballot.  They can’t force him out, he would have to go out voluntarily. And then it would be the 168 members of the RNC through a complicated process they would pick a new candidate.” 

Over here at Politico was this headline:

Insiders to Trump: Drop out

'I’d rather take our chances with nearly anyone else than continue with this certain loser who will likely cost the Senate and much more,' said a New Hampshire Republican.

This media jewel began this way:

“Amid widespread chatter that Donald Trump could drop out of the presidential race before Election Day, Republican insiders in key battleground states have a message for The Donald: Get out.”

And over here at The Washington Post was this: 

GOP reaches ‘new level of panic’ over Trump’s candidacy

“Turmoil in the Republican Party escalated Wednesday as party leaders, strategists and donors voiced increased alarm about the flailing state of Donald Trump’s candidacy and fears that the presidential nominee was damaging the party with an extraordinary week of self-inflicted mistakes, gratuitous attacks and missed opportunities.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus was described as “very frustrated” with and deeply disturbed by Trump’s behavior over the past week, having run out of excuses to make on the nominee’s behalf to donors and other party leaders, according to multiple people familiar with the events.

Meanwhile, Trump’s top campaign advisers are struggling once again to instill discipline in their candidate, who has spent recent days lurching from one controversy to another while seemingly skipping chances to go on the offensive against his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

“A new level of panic hit the street,” said longtime operative Scott Reed, chief strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “It’s time for a serious reset.”       Hours later Politico took note of the Trump announcement of his economic team - a team filled with seriously competent businessmen  with considerable experience in making the American economy work.  What did Politicosay? This: 

Trump unveils all-male economic advisory team

“Donald Trump's campaign on Friday announced more than a dozen members of the Republican nominee's all-male economic advisory team, including several prominent real-estate investors, hedge-fund managers and bankers.”

Then there was this from the Media Research Center: 

CNN's 'New Day' Airs Nearly 200 Times More Coverage On Trump Controversies Than Iran

“CNN set aside nearly half of its air time on Wednesday's New Day to various recent controversies involving the Trump campaign — 1 hour, 24 minutes, and 18 seconds over three hours. By contrast, the program clearly didn't think much of the Wall Street Journal's Tuesday revelation that the Obama administration secretly airlifted $400 million in cash to Iran. John Berman gave a 27-second news brief to the report, but didn't mention that the payment was sent on "an unmarked cargo plane" New Day, therefore, devoted over 187 times more coverage to Trump than to the millions to Iran.”

. . .

To the larger point.

Monday night at that Trump rally here in Pennsylvania, a rally I have described here in The American Spectator, Trump drew what was unarguably his most sustained applause when he said of his campaign: “the biggest problem is the media.” The audience erupted, applauding and cheering, with many turning - unasked by Trump - to the back of the room where the television cameras were perched on risers and booing repeatedly. Trump went on to say this:

These are among the most dishonest people you will ever, ever meet. These people — you know, I’ve had days where I have said, ‘Boy, this was a great day. I’ll look forward to seeing it tonight or tomorrow and it’s brutal.’ And I say, ‘What happened?’

We are going to punch through the media. We have to! The New York Times is totally dishonest. Totally dishonest. The Washington Post has been a little bit better lately but not good. By the way The New York Times, which is failing badly. I call it ‘The Failing New York Times.’ Every story that they write is a hit job. I could do the greatest thing in the history of the world. I could come up with a cure for the most horrible disease in the world and they give me a front-page horrible, horrible story. The New York Times is very dishonest but it will be out of business soon. I hope. It will be out of business. It will. Really dishonest reporters. Not all of them, but most of them.

There was more, with another attack on CNN. 

But the point here is very simple. Out and abroad in the land there are millions of Americans who feel intensely that “the media” - fill in an outlet of your choice in print, TV, radio and now the Internet - are out there with the sole object of destroying Donald Trump [emphasis added]. That the slightest misstep of Trump’s will be magnified and replayed over and over endlessly - while major events like the clear case of the Obama administration’s payment of $400 million in cash to ransom Iranian hostages are simply downplayed.

. . .

Buckle in. It is a long way to November. And everything including the kitchen sink is coming in Trump’s direction courtesy of the media.

Read more here.

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