Republican Heros

From Woodsterman blog

I might have added Ike to this painting ... and Nixon had he not resigned ... since his resignation has given us the blood lust with which much of the current media is infected.

I know, I know ... he covered up the Watergate break-in ... small potatoes compared to what the Obama administration did to Trump. But we forget ... he DID get us out of Vietnam, a nearly impossible task (something like Mideast peace.)

Yes, he would have been impeached and likely convicted in the Senate ... but our media might still be sane ... and we might be less timid about going after Hillary and Barack & Co.

But, then again, he opened up to China ... which turned out to be a disaster ... mainly because of what Bill Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama did and didn’t do.


Afterthought: This picture’s artist forgot that Trump doesn’t drink alcohol.


STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

Tough Decisions

All our presidents have faced making difficult decisions. Here might be the toughest tests for our last 14 presidents:

FDR - Declaring war on Japan AND Germany

Truman - Dropping the atomic bomb on Japan

Ike - Agreeing to an armistice in Korea

JFK - Embargo on Cuba during the missile crisis

LBJ - Handling the Vietnam war protests

Nixon - Watergate and his eventual resigning

Ford - Pardoning Nixon

Carter - Trying to rescue our Iran hostages

Reagan - Walking away from Helsinki meeting with Gorbachev

Bush 41 - Desert Storm war

Bill Clinton - Impeachment and fessing up to Monica Lewinsky affair

Bush 43 - America’s response to 9/11

Obama - Osama Ben Laden raid

Trump - Restarting the economy after the coronavirus shutdown

Headlines

Louisiana delivers Trump a black eye

China and U.S. has ‘constructive’ discussion’ about phase-one trade deal, state media says

26 Muslim candidates won elections across USA this year ...

Turner: Trump tweet ‘unfortunate’ not criminal

Steve Scalise: Trump's military pardons  boost troop morale

Saudi Aramco’s IPO is set to value the oil giant at up to $1.9 trillion

President makes ‘unprecedented’ Walter Reed visit for medical exam ...

Shifty Schiff busted omitting pro-Trump evidence from Morrison transcript summary

Bloomberg says he was ‘wrong’ on ‘stop-and-frisk’

Democrats hold on to Louisiana governor’s seat despite Trump

USA, SKorea shelve military exercise in bid to break nuke deadlock with North ...

Pelosi: Trump ‘so much worse than Nixon’ ...

Pulling the Wool

Today’s vote on the Impeachment Inquiry is a sham. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff have tried to pull the wool over the American voters eyes. Instead of a traditional impeachment process like what was used for Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, the vote taken today is for a process so unfair, so dictatorial that Democrats are hoping that American voters don’t find them out.

Well, I will do my small part here to burst that balloon. Two days ago I referenced this resolution ... and I need to repeat the actual plain text HERE. Republicans yesterday tried to amend this bill to make it passably fair. All 17 attempts were beaten back by the House Democrat majority ... see: C-SPAN video of Rules Committee meeting. Kind reader, take at least a half hour to watch what these Dems are pushing with this phony resolution.

Basically, instead of opening an impeachment inquiry in the Judiciary Committee, this resolution authorizes seven other committees to conduct fishing expeditions to try to find some dirt on Trump. (Perhaps, he once kicked a puppy?) And each of these House committees are given the same Gustapo-like authorities that Sniff has been using in his secret Star Chamber — no White House Counsel, no right to call witnesses, the opposition can only ask questions approved by the chairman, etc. These tactics are draconian, yet the Dems somehow think they are being fair. Their white-hot hate of Trump has obviously twisted their logic into unconstitutional illogic.

It is only after these effective seven special prosecutors have completed their fishing trips that the Judiciary Committee comes into play ... like what happened with Nixon and Bill Clinton. I can’t imagine that this might not happen until late next year. How interesting?

The Dems today might succeed in pulling the wool over America’s eyes ... but I can’t fathom the damage that this process will have done to our legislative process. Basically, they will be then empowered to negate the powers of the presidency with Fascrism dressed up as faux fairness.

Afterward: Even though this resolution is more onerous than the present process, the Dems will use this fake vote to try to badger Trump into cooperating with these 7 committee chairmen ... and most of the media will concur. Will theAmerican people understand this scam ... or is it too much in the weeds? Pelosi is betting on the latter.

Headlines

Pelosi: Democrats, Trump administration are close on USMCA

The Federal Reserve could soon pause in its latest rate-cutting cycle

Gallup: 52% support [Trump] removal ... Mirrors Nixon ...

Donal Trump urges prayers for ‘very sad’ Nancy Pelosi

China threatens ‘strong countermeasures’ if Trump signs bill supporting Hong Kong rights

Trump Doral to host G-7 summit — sparking yet another ethics fight for the White House

Impeachment blockade crumbles as witnesses agree to testify ...

All eyes on Michael Bloomberg as Joe Biden flops in debate

State Department restarts some Central American assistance

Surging SUV demand is canceling out the environmental benefit of electric cars

More pumping: Fed injects $104 billion in short-term liquidity ...

Elijah Cummings death rocks oversight

Alpha Male

There s almost always is an alpha dog in every pack ... except during periods of mortality  changeover.  Whether this is a fact of nature or a gratuitous event, ti's so. If, due to circumstances, some societal construct does not have an alpha animal, the life of this construct is threatened. Ergo, alpha animals are essential in moving societies forward.

How do animals become alphas? Generally through continued combat. Their "toxic masculinity" continually challenges the other males in the troop to battles to assert their dominance. Some of these fights are cakewalks ... some can turn deadly. But, in the end, the alpha male must keep winning to control the other animals and maintain breeding rights with many, if not all of the pack's fecund females.

And since humans are animals ... so it is with humans -- CEOs, prosecutors, governors, popes, mayors, cops, dons, team coaches, presidents -- there is almost always an alpha position leading such  human societal constructs. And some of these aloha males are female -- Thatcher, Merkel, Meir. These alphas roles are seldom the result of physical encounters anymore. They are often elected positions and have traditionally been male although this requirement is rapidly changing.

Strangely enough, the president isn't always the  alpha dog in any administration. One could argue the Henry Kissinger was Nixon!s alpha male and Valarie Jarrett was Obama's. There is little doubt that Trump is our alpha dog now ... although it seems that the entire world is vying to oust him. Actually, he seems to enjoy these contests ... which is driving most never-Trumpers bonkers.

Nixon

Cynthia Nixon's chant in her race for NY governor: "Votr for the homo, not the Cuomo!"  (She just lost.)

Headlines

Cuomo scrambles to stamp out Cynthia Nixon revolt

US-China trade war could cause bear market, stress test shows

Immigrants cited in theft of 39 million Social Security numbers ...

... Terror content remains on social media 17 years after 9/1

White House planning second Trump-Kim summit

The hurricane that's about to hit the Carolin as could be the worst in 60 years

100 Bangladeshi nationals apprehended near Texas [border] ...

Pope Francis compares Vatican whistleblower to Satan

Gov. Brown: Trump administration's rollback of methane rules 'insane'

Trump told Gary Cohn to 'print money' yo lower national debt, according to Woodwatrd book

Job openings climb to record 6.9 million ...

Media expert: Big tech monopolies are going to be a problem more and more

Headlines

Trump personally lobbying senators to flip om Sessions

Weekly jobless rate rises, [but] labor market still tightening

Palin excluded from McCain funeral

Coulter: Media 'angry,' they want South African genocide to happen

Months of animosity boil over in Cuomo, Nixon debate

India's rupee falls to an all-time low

Space station 'hit by meteorite'; depressurization ...

CA assembly passes bill mandating 100% 'green' energy by 2045

Haunted by FBI investigation, Gillum faces tough climb in Florida's governor's race

Consumer spending increasing strongly, inflation rising

Amazon wages war with Bernie [Sanders] ...

Reports: Chinese hacked Hilliary's email server

Uber Alles

"The media is the message" -- Marshall McLuhan

Freedom of the press does not require fiefdom of depress. Yes, the media can responsibly report anything they chose .... even shading things to their political bent. However, the monolithic nature of today's message makers allows outright lies (fake news) that  seem to go beyond what the framers of our constitution had in mind. To this observer, many of our traditional news outlets seem to believe that they should set government policy ... and they are willing to use their megaphones to make this happen ... since they are so much smarter than the people who elected our current government.

This hubris derives from the fact that throughout our national history politicians needed the media to get their message out ... so they cultivated the various media outlets as they were created ... and visa versa. This gave the media tremendous leverage over politicians ... and they became more and more powerful. They became so powerful that they decided to take down a president who was very popular with the American people, Nixon, and they succeeded! Now they thought that their control was absolute ... uber alles.

Enter social media ... which gave politicians the ability to circumvent all the media-controlled conduits and talk directly to the people. One politician grasped this freedom and got himself elected president. Of course, most media now see that their powerful control of messaging is now seriously diminished ... and they are not happy.

So the media is fighting back. Trump is against "freeeom of the press" and a  litany of other Gestapo tactics. They are even pleading with him to give them back their leverage ... see:  Times Up. But until Twitter throttles him in, Trump is going to set his own agenda and deliver his own message ... free from the control that the media used to exert. There will be many attempts to shut this renegade down (Mueller), but, as long as he has access to an unfettered social media platform, this should not happen.

Headlines

Trump defiant after rare mea culpa on Russia

Trump: 'No,' Russia is not targeting the United States

[Alexandria] Cortez calls for occupation of airports, ICE offices ...

San Francisco opens non-citizen voting

Cuomo leads Nixon by 36 points in latest Quinapiac poll

Trump says defending tiny NATO ally Montenegro could result in World War Iii

California Supreme Court blocks measure that would divide state in 3 ...

House funds 200 miles of border wall in 2019

Poll: Corruption message gaining traction against GOP

Millennials watt retire by 61, but most have nothing saved

Rand Paul: 'Brennan most biased, bigoted CIA director' ever ...

Paul Ryan confronts Trump: 'Russia is not our ally'

Headlines

Huge rate cut for Hillary speeches -- down 85% ...

Can [Cynthia] Nixon get female voters to abandon Cuomo?

Disney princess rips Planned Parenthood: 'An abortion doesn't empower women'

Trump pushes infrastructure plan, but says it will have to wait until after midterms

Russia to expel 60 U.S. diplomats, close St. Petersberg consulate ...

Judge denies motion to depose Trump, but Stormy Daniels' lawyer vows to refile

[Coulter:] 'Shallow, lazy, ignoramus' Trump needs a 2020 MAGA primary challenger

NYC: Women's only work places?

Rival Korean leaders to meet in historic summit ...

John Bolton's knife fighting skills alarm his critics

Trump calls Roseanne after HUGE ratings

Coulter: All Trump wants 'is for Goldman Sachs to like him'

Headlines

Paul Ryan sees his wild Washington journey coming to an end

Comey draft says it was 'reasonably likely' Hillary's server was hacked

Buchanan: Unlike Nixon, Trump will not go quietly ...

Eric Holder complains about 'BS' attacks on Mueller special counsel

Rubio a 'no' on tax reform unless child tax credit expanded

US oil production will boom next year, but forecasters say  it is getting harder to nail

Over 1 million flee Venezuela ...

U.S. Displays evidence Iran violated U.N. ban on weapons proliferation

FCC votes to repeal net neutrality rules

North Korea says that Trump is taking a 'dangerous step' toward nuclear war with naval blockade

Presidential hopeful wants Finland out of the EU: Nationalism bounces back ...

Disney/Fox merger rings death knell for cable TV

Punishing Good Deeds

"No good deed goes unpunished."

Started watching the last episode of "The Vietnam War" last night ... but turned it off after five minutes and went to bed. Why you ask? Because it started rehashing Nixon's disgrace and  downfall, Watergate. I said to my wife, "What does this have to do with Vietnam?" and hit the clicker.

Actually, I suspect I know why Ken Burns and Lynn Novick needed to sully Nixon further. They had tried this in the previous episode and didn't quite pull it off. Matter of fact, this penultimate program left me with a new respect for Nixon. Yes, he was tricky and duplicitous, but he and Henry Kissinger had done the impossible. They had ended the Vietnam war, brought our soldiers and POWs home, and left South Vietnam with at least a hope of remaining out of the clutches of the North. All basically within his first four years in office.

And he had done this Herculean task, a task that neither JFK or LBJ had the slightest clue how to accomplish ... they  kept making things worse ... despite scant support from the media and the massive resistance from America's counterculture. And he had also gotten overwhelmingly reflected in the process. He had done what he had promised when he had first gotten elected ... and the rabid liberals could not forgive him for this miracle.

Nixon had given the Left what they wanted and they needed to punish him for it. So, as his reward, they pounced on one of his foibles .... his paranoia about his opposition. (Actually, by now, quite a justified paranoia.) Last night I didn't need again to see how this downfall was orchestrated by his enemies ... for I once had been one of these enemies ... and now, being more of a realist, I am feeling remorse ... for how I was led by the nose into reviling and disgracing Richard M. Nixon for his heroic deed of ending our foolish war in Nam. History was now to say that JFK and even LBJ were the innocent victims and RMN was to be the goat. Bullshit!

Coup d'Etat

I have blogged before about the slow-motion coup of Trump taking place ... orchestrated by the Deep State, the media, the establishment Republicans and Maxine Waters ... see: Drip, Drip, Drip and Slow-Motion Coup. Special Counsel Mueller has convened a grand jury and is apparently ranging far afield of the original Russian election collusion probe. The day after Trump warned Mueller that his family finances were not to be investigated, Mueller subpoenaed all of Trump's financial records. So there!

This slow-motion coup worked to up-end Nixon ... but failed against Bill Clinton ... primarily due to the solidarity within the Democrat party. This is something that may not be the case for the Republican swamp creatures when it is Trump's turn in the barrel. But, I will here predict that the longer this slow-motion coup is drawn out, the less likely it will succeed because of squishy Republicans being primaried out of office ... and Trump will achieved more of his promises. (Perhaps the reason why things are being slow-walked in Congress?)

However, there is another factor that the anti-Trumpers are dismissing and they shouldn't. And that is that the American people have seen this opera twice before (at least we over 60) and we have read the libretto. So many Trump supporters may, this time, not stand still for this slow-motion coup. How they will resist I cannot predict. But I am fairly certain they will resist ... and what the left now views as a cake-walk may end up being a tad more difficult. It may be the tipping point where the majority of Americans who deem themselves as conservatives say, "Not this time pinkos!"

Afterward: On this subject read Michael Savage.

Slow-motion Coup

We've seen this movie before. President Richard Nixon was hounded from office by a cabal of the American media, the Democrat party and millions of naive Republicans (myself included). It took roughly two years but in the end the pressure of the elite classes finally flipped the Republican political leadership to abandon Nixon over his obvious attempt to cover up for a petty Watergate break-in ... meant to do nothing more than stop the Deep State leaks inside his administration, (Remember the "plumbers" was the name of those who broke into the DNC to find the source of these leaks.)

Now, taking a lesson from this successful slow-motion coup, a similar group is attempting these same tactics to negate the 2016 vote of the American people in electing Donald Trump president. The logic behind this coup is that the drip, drip, drip of unsavory revelations about Trump and Company will eventually turn even the most ardent of his supporters against him ... and he will be driven from office. Clearly the Special Counsel Mueller has the backing of much of the media and the Democrat party (read a vindictive Hillary Clinton) in this overthrow attempt. There is one small difference this time however ... so far defining Trump's crime is dicey at best. Throw in that Trump is doing, to the best of his ability, what the voters sent him to Washington to do.

Also, as I first stated, we have seen this movie before. The script and the players are familiar to anyone who lived through Watergate ... except possibly for Bob Woodward. From recent interviews, I get the distinct impression that he has reflected on what part he played in Nixon's ouster and is less likely to take up the assassination pen this time around.

In many ways this (and Nixon's) cabal reminds me of that great novel "The Caine Mutiny" which I read many years ago. Here, Quegg, captain of a old rusty minesweeper, now a resupply ship, the Caine, was masterfully painted as the unstable, eccentric villain throughout most of the book ... until his second in command mutinies and takes over the ship in a storm. He, court marshaled for this offense, is acquitted when Quegg breaks down while testifying. Then the author, Herman Wouk, turns things upside down by making Quegg into the demi-hero for doing his small part in the much bigger picture of the war in the Pacific. Although annoying, nothing that Quegg had done deserved the disloyalty of his holier-than-thou crew. In a blink of an eye, the villain in this book became the protagonist.

So Trump is clearly eccentric and makes enemies at the drop of a tweet. But he is doing the job that the American voters asked him to do ... despite all the obstacles thrown up by the Democrats, the elite media and the establishment Republicans ... a job much more difficult than need be. Instead of his enemies taking him down with a Caesar-like assassination ... for which this country wouldn't stand ... they are opting for another slow-motion coup ... in many ways much more sinister and morally repugnant ... much like the naive crew of the Caine.

Rethinking History

As an idealistic, dewy-eyed young man, I was appalled by the Watergate scandal. As a result, I wore an American flag pin upside down  on my lapel and felt vindicated when President Nixon gave that theatrical wave as he entered the helicopter leaving the White House after resigning. The good guys had won ... and the "idealistic" media had saved our nation from scum the likes of Tricky Dick.

With all that is happening now, I am beginning to rethink my condemnation of Richard Nixon ... and realize that the media are not always acting out of idealism. The Watergate "plumbers" were, after all, just trying to find in the DNC the source of all the leaks emanating from the Nixon White House. Yes, this was an illegal act ... but so was this Democrat leaking.  The Left and the main stream media have an appalling well-honed knack of making a sow's ear out of a silk purse ... and they're at it again.  ... trying to take down Donald Trump. Maybe this time the American people will understand what is really going on behind that newsprint curtain ...

Outside the Box

Donald Trump has a penchant for thinking and speaking outside the box. He does not always toe even the Republican Party orthodoxy on issues ... such as his not vilifying Russia or his questioning the competency of our current crop of generals ... and this gets him in hot water with the liberal media and even some of his would-be supporters ... see: AP Story. (Note how this liberal-media article bolsters my argument and see if not the reaction to these comments are not used against Trump in the days to come.) In some ways, Trump's thinking reminds me of how Nixon opened up to China back in 1972 and how this bold move altered the arc of history.

I guess it is my own different-drummer thinking that allows me often to forgive what others view as gaffes on Trump's part ... but his questioning approach on problems is, I believe, not only healthy, but necessary. Yes, if after exploring alternatives, Trump may sometimes return to the mainstream line on issues ... and this is used by his enemies as evidence of his vacillating. But, to me, this shows the breadth of his decision making ability ... a strength, not a weakness. If this man is elected president, then most of his "outside the box" questioning should take place in closed meetings and the American people would only see better, more thought-trough decisions ... not the lazy ideological claptrap that Obummer is constantly feeding the world.

Oval Office Signs

The following signs were conspicuously displayed on the White House’s Oval Office desk during the terms of the following presidents;

Harry S. Truman                  “The buck stops here”

Dwight D. Eisenhower        “Interstate highways start here”

John F. Kennedy                 “Don’t fear the bear”

Lyndon B. Johnson             “Viet Nam starts here”

Richard M. Nixon               “The muck starts here”

Gerald Ford                          “The pardon starts in the Rose Garden”

Jimmy Carter                       “Buck teeth star here”

George H.W. Bush              “Iraq stops there”

Bill Clinton                          “The suck starts here”

George W. Bush                  “WMDs won’t drop here”

Barack Obama                    “Let me be clear" [You can …]

     

Old News

There must be a half life to scandals … and so, the Clinton's just released, this past Friday night, a dump of many documents from the Clinton Library relating to their numerous sordid scandals … Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky, the pardoning of Mark Rich, Vince Foster, etc. … see: UK Telegraph Story and News10 Story. (The bigger the scandal, the longer must be the half-life ...) Many of these documents were heavily redacted and some were held back altogether. To use a tired old chestnut, this document dump was clearly and cynically meant to inoculate the Clinton's against further use of this information. In any future discussions they can, with a dismissive wave of the hand, offer the pusillanimous slight, “That’s old news!”

I find it very curious that good (or I might say evil) politicians seem to sense the exact timing of the aging process of scandalous stories in which they are involved. Thus, Hillary Clinton can put off any testimony about Benghazi until the American people (and the media) will dismiss any damaging revelations as “old news.” (Somehow Nixon never found the exact timing of this half-life process … although he surely tried.) I, on the other hand, react entirely the opposite way. Seeing politicians play this game of rope-a-dope just incites my outrage even more ... at this politician … and at the American people for allowing themselves to be so easily manipulated.

I guess I am forever cursed with my out-of-step mind.

And even more curious, after a sufficiently long delay (using some mysterious formula), the public may again have an appetite for the details of a particular scandal … the Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson affair comes to mind. How do I respond to such ancient revelations? My normal reaction is, “That’s old news!”