Search This Blog

De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Observations From the Back Row: Editor's Picks


This Woman Should Be Trump’s First Supreme Court Pick - Diane Sykes has become a clarion voice for conservative jurisprudence. For many conservatives, including myself, the decision to vote for Trump was not an easy one. But after a long, nightmarish primary, the calculation came down to a simple binary choice: vote for Trump to stop Hillary and save the courts or vote for Hillary (or a third-party candidate or write-in) and watch the erosion of our courts continue  It’s important to note the commitment made by candidate Trump. Part of the deal for many conservatives was that, in exchange for their vote, there was an expectation of strict adherence to relevant commitments. For those of us who see the future of the courts as crucial the preservation of liberty, Trump’s list must be followed in the spirit of Justice Scalia — read within the four corners of the document.....To Read More....
 
Other News About Secretary of State......

"Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will meet with Donald Trump this weekend to discuss the secretary of state position, a source close to the president-elect with direct knowledge of his thinking told NBC News.  Others reportedly under consideration for the secretary of state position include former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. Another possibility is Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, who told CNBC on Wednesday he's "in the mix" for the job. "
 
"Separately, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich told NBC News on Thursday he will not be in Trump's cabinet, instead choosing to focus on "strategic planning for the emerging Republican majority."

Leslie Rutledge, Arkansas A.G.: Hillary's worst nightmare? The blog for the Arkansas Times is reporting that our attorney general, Leslie Rutledge, is in New York meeting with Trump transition planners. Rutledge, a diminutive fireball conservative elected two years ago, is quoted:
"My interest is in helping the Trump administration," Rutledge told reporters as she arrived for meetings at Trump Tower in New York. "Whether that's continuing on as the attorney general of Arkansas or (working) in the administration, then my ears are open."
It's the first of those two options, "staying on in Arkansas," that sets my antennae tingling for the simple reason that Rutledge is one of two state attorneys general in the country who have undisputed standing to investigate the Clinton Foundation.  The other state is New York, but their thoroughly politicized Democrat attorney general would never lift a hand against the Clintons, no matter how outrageous their corruption.  Both A.G.s have standing by virtue of the physical location of Clinton Foundation offices within their borders.......Read more

Donald Trump Begins Filling Cabinet With Offers to Jeff Sessions, Mike Pompeo - President-elect Donald Trump reached outside the Republican establishment as he started populating his senior team, announcing Friday that he would nominate Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general and Rep. Mike Pompeo as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  Mr. Trump also said he planned to appoint retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as his national security adviser. Gen. Flynn joins Reince Priebus, who will be chief of staff, and Steve Bannon, who will be chief strategist, as White House advisers who can begin... To Read More...

The Privilege That Wasn’t - The experience of many white people across the country is the opposite of privilege. Many of those in the public eye have assigned “privilege” to all white people. Recently, I’ve seen several people share a quote on social media that reads, “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” The assertion is that Trump voters don’t recognize their privilege over marginalized groups seeking equality. But quite a few people are missing a big part of the picture. For a good many white people in the U.S., “privilege” is not a word they relate to. And equality — as far as attention to the problems they are facing — is something they too want our leaders to give them......The first and greatest privilege of all is for a child to be born into a marriage. As this piece reports, children born to married parents “are more likely to thrive in school, to steer clear of encounters with the police, to avoid having a teenage pregnancy, to graduate from college, and to be gainfully employed as an adult.” Read the entire piece — the results of marriage privilege are unbelievable.   So yes, there is a place for discussion of white privilege. There’s also a place for discussion of a multitude of other privileges not based on race, ethnicity, or sexuality........To Read More.....

The Pro-Worker Reforms that Could Fix Social Security and Health Care - President Trump could correct huge systemic flaws while giving working-class voters a bigger stake in the economy. If Donald Trump’s stunning upset victory last Tuesday proved anything — aside from Hillary Clinton’s remarkably durable lack of popularity – it is that millions of Americans don’t feel like they are part of the economy, and that their detachment has led them to support bad trade policy.  The economy as a whole may benefit from trade deals, but many workers see only the dislocations that directly impact them, rather than the hidden pluses. Fortunately, there are some potential policy changes that would give workers a more direct stake in the economy.   If President Trump wants workers to have a real chance to share in economic growth, he should consider bold reforms to Social Security and health care that would turn workers into the real owners of the economy.....To Read More....

Obama Ignores Destructive Influence of Prison UnionsYou don’t have to like the idea of privatized prisons to see how much is wrong with the president’s comment – namely his assumption that government-run prisons aren’t “infected by the profit motive.” Ignore for a moment the idea that the “profit motive” is an infection, or that market forces don’t prevail just because we don’t want them to. But consider more closely the president’s remarkable ignorance about how American prisons actually run. California’s, for instance, are controlled by the profit-seeking California Correctional Peace Officers Association.......And a word about their income: over 1200 corrections employees earn over $100,000 per year in retirement, a survey of government data shows. To earn that sort of income, you’d have to invest more than $3 million at 3%. These men and women are rightly called millionaires.......To Read More....

Bannon Critics Okay with Sharpton, Ellison, The mainstream media, having failed to derail or even anticipate Donald Trump’s victory, have now seized on discrediting one of the architects of his victory, calling Navy veteran, entrepreneur, and Breitbart publisher Steve Bannon a “white nationalist”. They cite as evidence some Breitbart headlines designed to provoke and attract readers as being beyond the pale. Compared to what? The New York Times, perhaps?  Publishers don’t necessarily control every jot and tittle of content in their publications, but if one concedes the point of Bannon’s critics, those who have problems with Bannon advising Trump had no problem with race-baiter Al Sharpton serving as adviser to President Obama on, of all things, race relations: As Politico magazine reported:..........Read more

Dems Done In by the Politics of Hate, Today’s Democrat Party spends an exorbitant amount of time preaching against “hate” and “the politics and policies of hate.” It has seemingly become the central theme of all the party touches. What the Democrats don’t realize is that they have so perfected the repeating of “hate, hate, hate” that their own message is what has done them in.   Labeling voters, calling them names, and placing your blatant disdain for them right out front for all to see is not the way to win elections. Read More

Senate Republicans want to pass Obama's 2017 budget, not Trump's, Donald Trump has asked Republicans who control Congress to delay action on a 2017 budget until he gets into office. House Speaker Paul Ryan has apparently agreed, but Senate Republicans have other ideas........The way the budget process has worked for the last eight years is that Obama told Congress exactly how much money he wanted, and Congress, afraid of Obama shutting down the government and blaming them, gave Obama 100%. This is the process that Blunt, Alexander, and perhaps even McConnell still want to continue, even with Trump's election as president. If they do this again, this will needlessly lock Obama's budget into Trump's first year as president. As Mark Levin is so fond of saying, we have to get rid of Mitch McConnell the next time he is up for re-election....... Read more
 
Ryan Blocks Effort to Bring Back Earmarks, House speaker Paul Ryan stepped in Wednesday to block an effort by some House Republicans to partially resurrect earmark spending, six years after the practice was banned. Here's the Wall Street Journal with the report:......In a closed-door meeting of House Republicans, Mr. Ryan stepped in and stopped lawmakers from passing a change to their internal rules on Wednesday that would have allowed them to make limited funding requests for their districts, according to House GOP aides.  Mr. Ryan noted that Republican Donald Trump had just won the White House last week with a pledge to "drain the swamp," and that the House couldn't immediately turn around and bring back the practice without public debate, according to someone in the room. He pledged to debate the issue more thoroughly and let them vote on it by the end of March 2017.......... Read more 

This a must read article

10 Reasons Michelle Rhee should never be considered for Trump's cabinet, In 2008, Rhee won over Tea Party conservatives and Republicans with her tough stance on vouchers, charters, school choice, the unearned trophy meme, and a willingness to fight teacher unions. The epic public relations blitz that preceded and followed her arrival in D.C. in 2007 included an interview with Oprah, a Time magazine cover, and a feature documentary touting her as the new education messiah. Obama praised Rhee months before his win in 2008. Too bad the hype didn't match the reality...... Read more

Drown Out the Lying MSM, Imagine you have a neighboring family who initiates a relationship by bringing you freshly baked cookies. You go on to have 4th of July barbecues at their home, and your families become close. Over time, you begin to trust one another for favors, such as letting the dogs out, watching the kids, or picking up the mail while you are away. Then, out of nowhere, your friends begin having personal troubles and descend into alcoholism, financial turmoil, and audible domestic disputes. Your daughter comes home early from playing at this family’s home because she saw the husband come unglued at his wife and daughter. Your son tells you that his friend, this family’s son, is covered in bruises and won’t explain where they came from. What do you do? While hoping for the best and praying for reconciliation, the wise man would distance his family from this unstable one if unable to intervene.........Such is the conservative’s relationship to the American mainstream media......Read more

Communists and Socialists Going Bonkers Over Trump, Are communists any different from Democrats in abhorring the election of Donald Trump? If you’re in the mood for a little levity this weekend, take a gander at the websites of Communist Party USA, People’s World, and the Democratic Socialists of America (among other leftists-in-arms), where they are going absolutely bonkers over Donald Trump’s big win. To say that these comrades had been ready for Hillary is an understatement. Since early summer, with the defeat of their beloved Bernie, it was as if the ghost of Saul Alinsky had leapt into their collective keyboards and started typing copy for their girl-wonder. They were fired up for Mrs. Clinton, clearly seeing her as the next Democratic Party revolutionary to pick up Obama’s torch of fundamental transformation. It is a tragic testimony to the party of Truman and JFK that the modern Democratic agenda is hard to separate from the goals of Communist Party USA.....To Read More....

Dear Democrats: Just Keep It Up, And see what happens. The Democratic Party is broken, beaten down, shell-shocked, and scratching its heads wondering what went wrong. So, I have decided, being the noble American that I am, to offer some aid and comfort, not to the enemy, but to my fellow Americans as well as some friendly suggestions on how they can rebuild their party and image to compete in four years. President Obama should keep going around the world making incendiary comments about President (elect) Trump. There is nothing Americans like more than hearing negative comments about the person for whom they voted, and themselves, even more so when those comments are made abroad. Mr. Obama’s presidency started out with an apology tour, and to quote Yogi Berra “it’s like déjà vu all over again.” Maybe when he returns from his last world tour as President he can have a beer summit......To Read More...

Yes, There Is Such a Thing As Professional Left-Wing Protesters, Asking for reporters to examine the question of whether or not these groups have supported irresponsible actors, wittingly or unwittingly, seems like a legitimate thing for journalists to look into..... Read more

Getting Stupid, The Left’s descent into childishness and irrationality following Trump’s election is as frightening as it is amusing. We are finding out that our friends on the Left aren’t without shame solely when it comes to political rhetoric. Their lack of decorum extends far beyond that point. Not convinced? Take a look around the country. No one with a sense of shame would put on a display of neurosis and lack of composure the Democrats’ die-hards are regaling the public with right now.  We’re not talking about the riots, er, “protests” taking place with tacit approval by the party’s pols in safe blue cities around the country. There is ample evidence — sometimes so wide open as to appear on Craigslist — that those “protesters” have been paid to put on street theater and generate the media narrative that the nation is coming apart because Donald Trump is president-elect......To Read More...

So Much for Moderation, The Democratic Party is primed for a radical revolution. Make no mistake: Hillary Clinton may well be the Democratic Party’s last “moderate” candidate. Her humiliating loss to a man who upended the foundation of the Republican Party is now doing the same to her own party. With the Democratic establishment severely wounded, the far left is plotting a coup, and there will be blood. As Jonathan Easley of The Hill notes: Progressives are itching to see the national apparatus reduced to rubble and rebuilt from scratch, with one of their own installed at the top.
And there is talk among some progressives, like Bill Clinton’s former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, about splitting from the Democratic Party entirely if they don’t get the changes they seek.
Despite the fact that a Trump victory was to some degree a rebuke of the far left’s ideological largesse, it’s the far left that stands to benefit from Clinton’s defeat......To Read More....

The Unrepentant: Hillary, Libya, and History, It wasn’t her finest hour. Although Hillary Clinton lost her bid for the White House in part because of lingering public resentment over the 2012 terror attack that left four Americans dead in Benghazi, history will judge her even more harshly for her decisive role in the preceding U.S.-led military intervention in Libya. In fact, then-Secretary of State Clinton was instrumental at three critical junctures in convincing President Obama to green-light and escalate the war to oust Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi. First was her decisive role in the initial U.S. decision to lead a NATO air campaign in Libya. Under intense pressure from European and Arab governments to stop Qaddafi’s forces from stamping out the incipient rebellion, Obama administration officials were deeply divided. Those opposing intervention included Vice President Joe Biden, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. Those in favor included Samantha Power, a senior aide at the National Security Council, and UN Ambassador Susan Rice....History doesn’t cut the unrepentant any breaks.......To Read More....

(Another Jamelle Bouie lecture on white wickedness. Feel free to gag as you go along. ) There’s No Such Thing as a Good Trump Voter, Donald Trump ran a campaign of racist demagoguery against Muslim Americans, Hispanic immigrants, and black protesters. He indulged the worst instincts of the American psyche and winked to the stream of white nationalists and anti-Semites who backed his bid for the White House. Millions of Americans voted for this campaign, thus elevating white nationalism and white reaction to the Oval Office.  Understandably, critics of Trump have used this to condemn Trump voters, tying them to the likely consequences of their vote, blaming them for foisting Donald Trump on the country and the world. To this, there’s been a pushback. “[P]lease understand what is happening here,” writes Michael Lerner in the New York Times in a column titled “Stop Shaming Trump Supporters.” “Many Trump supporters very legitimately feel that it is they who have been facing an unfair reality.” He continues: “The left needs to stop ignoring people’s inner pain and fear. The racism, sexism and xenophobia used by Mr. Trump to advance his candidacy does not reveal an inherent malice in the majority of Americans.”......To Read More....
  • Atlanta Man Shot Dead Outside Bar After Joking That He Voted for Trump
  • Trump Supporter, 15, Beaten During Rockville Protest
  • Pelosi Calls for Investigation of Giuliani and Comey Letter, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said there should be an investigation into Rudy Giuliani’s alleged knowledge of FBI activity in the lead-up to Director James Comey's letter to Congress about the review of additional emails related to the Bureau's investigation of Hillary Clinton......... Read more
    Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan Challenges Pelosi for House Minority Leader, Ohio congressman Tim Ryan, who has served in Congress since 2003, announced in a letter to colleagues Thursday afternoon that he would challenge Nancy Pelosi in House Democratic leadership elections.   "Under our current leadership, Democrats have been reduced to our smallest congressional minority since 1929," Ryan writes. "This should indicate to all of us that keeping our leadership team completely unchanged will simply lead to more disappointment in future elections." Pelosi has led the House Democrats as minority leader from 2003 until 2007, then as speaker of the House from 2007 to 2011, and minority leader again from 2011 until the present.......Read more

    Some Senate Democrats Are Singing a Different Tune on the Filibuster, When Democrats thought they had a lock on the White House and the Senate, retiring Senate minority leader Harry Reid made one thing abundantly clear: If necessary, Democrats would get rid of the Senate's 60-vote hurdle to confirm a Supreme Court justice—just as they had done for other judicial and executive branch appointments in 2013. Read more

    Editor's Note:  The election is over and there are article's I've highlighted in the past worth repeating now.  We keep hearing the left make denigrating remarks about Trump, the staff, and team he's assembling, but we might just want to try and make sure we understand the bullet the nation - and the world - dodged when Trump won the election - this pre-election article's worth repeating.  RK

    Hillary Clinton, Bane of the Secret Service, Her temperament is perfectly unsuited for the presidency. ‘​Good morning, ma’am,” a member of the uniformed Secret Service once greeted Hillary Clinton. “F*** off,” she replied.......“When in public, Hillary smiles and acts graciously,” Kessler explains. “As soon as the cameras are gone, her angry personality, nastiness, and imperiousness become evident.” He adds: “Hillary Clinton can make Richard Nixon look like Mahatma Gandhi.”..........Read more

    No comments:

    Post a Comment