The Summer of Our Gaslighting Discontent

Overwhelmed by the riots, statue-toppling, and other manifestations of insanity? Brian Cates at UncoverDC expects we are in for 4½ months of more of the same. But there is a brighter side to all this. His article “The Summer of Our Gaslighting Discontent” begins:

I’ve got some bad news for you, folks. To get to that massive Trump landslide in November, we’re going to have to go through an ordeal because there will be a relentless and almost overwhelming amount of gaslighting until the election gets here.

A massive amount of time, effort and money will be invested by the Progressive Left to hide the real cultural shift going on in this country, as they use the legacy media to try to manufacture a fake cultural shift in the other direction.

Confederate statues were the start, now in less than two weeks the mob has moved on to founding father Thomas Jefferson and President Abraham Lincoln.

. . .

Mr. Cates concludes:

So keep this truth in mind the next 4½ months as you watch many prominent celebrities, newscasters, sports stars, musicians, and major companies all endlessly babbling about this awesome cool cultural shift away from America’s systemic racism [and Donald Trump!] to Marxist Social Justice and Joe Biden.

Well, let them babble. This 2020 election is not the referendum on America’s Systemic Racist Past as the gaslighters are so desperate to frame it.

It’s about a return to SANITY. That’s what most Americans will demand, and the elections results will demonstrate that.

Mr. Cates’s column is here. (And I hope he’s right.)

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chuckle of the day

Today's meme from the Patriot Post :

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Pastor Darrell Scott and Henry Davis

photo credit: foxbusiness.com

The first time I saw Pastor Darrell Scott was in March 2016,when he introduced Donald J. Trump as a GOP candidate for President out at the IX Center. Pastor Scott was a showstopper at the Cleveland Tea Party “Spirit of America” rally in support of President Trump in March 2017. 

Pastor Scott is really something, and so is a man named Henry Davis from Missouri. Mr. Davis loaded up a 2-minute Twitter video of himself expressing his gratefulness and pride as a black man living and witnessing today the extraordinary accomplishments of the Trump presidency and what it means for minority employment, opportunity, and the possibilities for the future.

After Pastor Scott saw the video, he tweeted a message -- not just in support of Mr. Davis, but also promising to invite him to the White House to discuss joining the Urban Revitalization Team. Then he picked up the phone and called Mr. Davis to make the arrangements.

Vivek Saxena has the story and a link to the video here at BizPacReview. 

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Trump, Kudlow, and Pompeo

image credit: theconservativetreehouse.com

 

James Delingpole specializes in climate topics at Breitbart London, but his political takes are always thoughtful. Here are some of his remarks on President Trump’s two most recent nominations/appointments (“Trump’s picks Just Get Better and Better”):

Larry Kudlow’s appointment as President Trump’s next Economic Czar has been anti-endorsed by at least two of my favorite foaming leftists.

Here’s Jonathan Chait in New York Mag:

Trump’s New Economic Adviser Lawrence Kudlow Has Been Wrong About Everything for Decades

Here’s Soros-funded Think Progress:

Trump’s new economics director is a climate denier who thinks animals can ‘snuggle’ under pipelines.

Could there be any more encouraging a sign that with his latest appointments, Trump is right over the target?

I wrote the other day that Mike Pompeo was a great choice for Secretary of State – way better than the corporatist swamp denizen Rex Tillerson. But I think I’m even more excited about Kudlow.

First, it means that the battle for the soul of the Trump administration’s economic policy has been won by the Art-Laffer-style supply siders. (This was by no means a given: remember all those GOP experts who told us in the early days that Trump was just a Democrat wearing Republican clothing…?).

Second, Kudlow – like Pompeo, unlike their respective predecessors Tillerson and Gary Cohn – is a climate change skeptic.

The rest of Delingpole’s comments are here.

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The Wall ~ progress report

Via Breitbart: Yesterday, President Trump inspected eight prototypes for The Wall at the Mexican border. He prefers ones with see-through capability at ground level as well as those with a rounded top to make it more difficult to use a rope or grappling hooks to get over.

The controversial Dangerous blogger/authorMilo also preferred the one Trump leaned toward. Milo had some fun comments on the various prototypes of an artistic nature; I had missed the aesthetics. His blog is here. 

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Blogging for the Cleveland Tea Party

photo credit: pinterest

photo credit below: zazzle.com

Everyone is doing their Year-End round ups, think pieces, retrospectives, and so on. Here is mine.

Back in 2009, I signed on to the Tea Party because I agreed with its 3 core values:  [1] Fiscal Responsibility (don’t spend more than you have);  [2] Constitutionally Limited Government (big government is not the solution; keep the accountability as close to your backyard as possible); and  [3] Free Markets (as little regulation as is possible)

But for me, there is another motivator. And I go back to President Trump’s historic address in Warsaw, in which he talked about America’s role in global society: one of things he said was “we write symphonies.” Some of the media had no idea what he was talking about, but his comment struck me right where I live. 

The great divide in America is now a crisis: it's about the magnificent culture of Western Civilization versus a nihilistic movement to destroy that Western Civilization. We (today’s generations) can’t claim any credit for its development, but Rome and Greece are not at the forefront today, Europe is collapsing, and America is the de facto or default flagship and guardian of Western Civilization. Or at least it was.

But how long can America lead the Free World if our citizens do not acquire the skills of critical thinking and logic; learn our language and history; and embrace the American culture? The collectivist left has infiltrated, quite successfully, our major cultural institutions: academia, Hollywood, and the media. And it is weakening our once robust can-do culture. It may even be that in 50 years’ time, classical music will be performed only in the Far East, not in Europe or the United States. I am thinking here of Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Gershwin, etc. and dwindling support for the orchestras.  

I spent many years in the trenches employed by various performing and cultural arts organizations, and most of my erstwhile colleagues would be in the “left’ to “hard left” categories. I identify as a fiscal conservative. Not as a Republican, but as a fiscal conservative. Until I stood up and signed up for the Tea Party, I thought I was in some sort of socio-political Siberia. That changed with the emergence of the Tea Party.

All this ties into my thoughts about the cultural collapse of America, the disintegration of behavioral self-restraint, and why I am grateful beyond words that our President is Donald J. Trump. He treasures a culture that writes symphonies, and he wants to ensure that future generations inherit that culture. 

When you have a media that calls FLOTUS Melania’s Christmas decorations at the White House a “nightmare” that would scare little children, despite the grade-schoolers flocking to her for hugs, there is, I would say, something seriously wrong with that media and those who agree with their “narrative.” I am one of many observers who think we are witnessing some form of mass hysteria. When Morning Joe warns his viewers that Trump is "mentally unstable," Joe is exhibiting the phenomenon of projection: Accuse those with whom you disagree with what you yourself are doing.

What has all this to do with my cultural concerns? In the past several years, I’ve been involved in some projects that aim to preserve our cultural assets -- much as the early Catholic monks did. They labored in many ways, and some of them sat there in seclusion, attempting to preserve the artistic, intellectual, and literary accomplishments of their cultural heritage (not to say literacy itself), out of fear that the barbarians at the gate would destroy the flowering civilization.

Archival projects today tear off a page from those monks. Maybe the Golden Age of Musical Theater (think Rodgers and Hammerstein) is not your thing, but The Musical Theater Project here in Cleveland is dedicated to such preservation. Maybe your thing is the visual arts. Cleveland has a world-class Museum of Art that offers free admission. Maybe your thing is classical music. The Cleveland Orchestra excels in performing and preserving that repertory. Maybe you’ve heard them for free at Public Square on the Fourth of July. My work over the last 20 years involved research on Shakespeare and his biography. I am so lucky that we live in close proximity to the Cleveland Public Library – it is another cultural treasure trove. 

The point is: How long will these world-class institutions survive, whether in Cleveland or anywhere else in the United States? Where are their future audiences and readers? Many schools no longer require that students read any Shakespeare or Charles Dickens. Mark Twain’s masterpiece Huckleberry Finn is banned in many schools. I weep.

I was in a conversation about some of this recently with a friend and colleague who leans liberal, but we found ourselves on common ground when it came to our cultural history and traditions. I expressed some of my concerns, and he mentioned the monks. I took his point and mentioned them above. It is frightening to even have to think that we need those monks now.

So-called "Safe Spaces" are increasing, especially on campuses. The "Snowflake" population continues to insulate itself and reject critical thinking in favor of emotional self-gratification. Identity Politics are everywhere, and as groups like BLM and Antifa turn to violence, our cultural heritage is being destroyed. Attacked. Erased. Our historical monuments -- representing our very history -- are being destroyed. Literally.

Look at what’s happening to the legacies of George Washington; Christopher Columbus; and Robert E. Lee. We expect that sort of historical erasure from ISIS – destroying Palmyra’s sacred antiquities. But we do not expect it in the United States. Except that it is happening NOW before our very eyes. Even our language is being corrupted.

So I continue with my little contribution to the Cleveland Tea Party. Most of what I blog on is related to the three Tea Party core values, often to post Action Alerts for legislative initiatives at the local, state, and federal level that affect those three core values. But for me, it also impacts the heritage that has been entrusted to us, and I speak as a senior citizen who is so grateful to our forebears for our cultural inheritance.

I stand for our National Anthem. I recite the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag. And I blog for the Cleveland Tea Party (deferring always to Ralph King, who is my mentor on whatever is going on in the political world). For me, being a Cleveland Tea Party blogger is also about a devout reverence for our Judeo-Christian traditions and values; a profound gratitude for our freedoms; and a sense of responsibility to preserve and pass on to future generations our cultural endowment, history, and yes, symphonies.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

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2017 official White House Christmas Portrait

Via Conservative Treehouse: 

The White House released the official Christmas Portrait – President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are seen . . . in their official 2017 Christmas portrait, in the Cross Hall of the White House in Washington, D.C.

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One Year Ago Today

Two and a half minutes of fun from the 2016 Election, via YouTube:

And earlier today, our President tweeted:

Congratulations to all of the ”DEPLORABLES” and the millions of people who gave us a MASSIVE (304-227) Electoral College landslide victory!

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The Consumer Financial Protection Czar and the Trump Administration

The Wall Street Journal has a report about the ill-advised Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and its director Richard Cordray. (The article link is to the CETUS website, since WSJ articles are usually behind a paywall). Cordray was appointed by the Obama administration in 2012 to head up this agency. Prior to that appointment, he had been Ohio Attorney General but had lost his Senate race against Mike DeWine.

In 2011, Cleveland Tea Party’s Ralph King pointed out that the position of the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is, “in more accurate terms Consumer Financial Protection Czar”:

The director of the CFPB is empowered to regulate almost any industry for any reason and cannot be removed for any reason other than malfeasance. The position is a five-year term, so the next president will have to deal with Cordray regulating our economy, despite the president’s wishes.

And now that next president, President Trump is having to deal with it. And the Wall Street Journal (article titled “Trump to Cordray: You’re Not Fired”) reports that the “Treasury Department has made an excellent case for dismissal.” Further in:

The problem is that Mr. Cordray won’t accept curbs on his power. Dodd-Frank states that the President may remove the director only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” rather than at-will like other agency heads. Yet the report enumerates a litany of ways in which Mr. Cordray has flouted the law.

Treasury notes the “CFPB has avoided notice-and-comment rulemaking and instead relied to an unusual degree on enforcement actions and guidance documents.” The Administrative Procedure Act requires regulatory agencies to issue formal rule-makings, or at least formal guidance, to explicate law. Mr. Cordray says “facts and circumstances” guide the bureau’s legal interpretations.

. . .

Mr. Cordray’s term doesn’t end until July 2018, and implementing Treasury’s reforms as well as attendant rule-makings could take more than a year. Meantime, Mr. Cordray can continue shaking down businesses with enforcement that he hopes will propel his expected campaign for Governor in Ohio.

Some take-aways: The WSJ may point out the excellent case for Cordray’s dismissal (not to say the elimination of the agency itself), but it’s not about legal niceties, it’s all about politics and power. Mr. Trump is still surrounded by hostile deep state operatives, bureaucracies, and Congressional Uniparty opponents who ignore Obama Administration scandals and refuse to respect existing laws  (think Lynch, Comey, and the FBI; or Susan Rice unmasking of political opponents; or Lois Lerner’s IRS scandal, and on and on)….  So it may be obvious that Cordray and the CFPB are on the wrong side of the law, but The Uniparty and Corporate Media don’t much care. Trump is probably choosing his battles.

I decided to blog on this not only because the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and its director represent more of the swamp to be drained, but also because Richard Cordray may very well run for Governor of Ohio. Voters should know what he’s been doing. The full WSJ report is here.  

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Happy President's Day

Image credit: CBSMiami

Happy President's Day!

Our new President

The Daily Mail UK is often first off the mark with photos. Here's the lead photo of President Trump taking the oath of office, with First Lady Melania holding the Bibles. And click here for more photos and the report.

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