It took four hours to fire a politically partisan acting AG who put ideology over the law. It’s taken a bit longer for most of the ‘violates constitution’ and other fake news to peter out to crocodile tears and nitpicking about process. Occasionally, something appears that gets out of the swamp and the ingrained presumptions about an evil or incompetent President. For example, consider what Trump said to front line personnel when he ‘just assumed’ they’d get the job done. Demonstrating confidence in people to be competent and do their jobs has an impact. There’s strategy and leadership to be seen elsewhere, too.

Joel B. Pollak talks strategy in What Trump Has Achieved Through the (Not) #MuslimBan – With the Left triggering their coordinated protests and judicial action and the Establishment pondering what was done, Pollak gets in the why – strategy of the action.

few seem to have noticed that Trump has made several strategic gains.

Those gains are secure even though the courts have issued a temporary stay on the executive order; even though the left is using protests to fundraise and mobilize political support; and even if the order is eventually revised to be more lenient.
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The first and most important thing that Trump has done is put the world on notice that the United States is now serious about preventing terrorism from reaching our shores.
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The second achievement is that even though President Trump’s executive order is not a “Muslim ban” — indeed, it does not even cover 87 percent of the world’s Muslims — it turns out to be useful for people to think that it is.
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The third achievement is that Trump has restored the credibility of American power.
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Whatever the other merits or flaws of the “Muslim ban,” we are clawing our way back to geostrategic advantage. The left does not understand that. For once, their mendacious dishonesty is useful.

Cameron Reddy takes another look at Trump Strategy in Saul Alinsky in the White House…Still? – “So now could the shoe be on the other foot?”

Which side is in the right on these issues of Trump’s “lies” may be of some importance, but something much more fascinating – groundbreaking – is taking place: President Trump is using the left’s playbook to stunning effect. I am not alone in seeing the connection between Alinsky’s Rules and Trump’s approach. In Real Clear Politics, Richard Porter notes that “the folks that seem to have best learned from Alinsky’s instructions … are Steve Bannon and others on the Trump team.”

Again and again we see leftists flailing helplessly, shouting their own coarse vulgarities. (Recall the sign reading “f— you, you f—— f—” poetically marched down Washington’s streets during the women’s march.). Just as Alinsky foretold, behavior such as this deeply undermines claims to sanity and legitimacy and simultaneously forces its believers to consume precious time and energy defending their way of life.

Perhaps inadvertently, Politico Magazine portrayed the left’s confusion and anxiety when it published these words: “It’s hard to know when Trump is just being Trump and when he’s fundamentally transforming the American experiment.”

Whether or not the president knows it, he is giving Alinsky a run for his money

James Delingpole: Trump’s Climate Plans Just Made the Media’s Heads Explode – “The occasion was a press conference hosted by the Global Warming Policy Foundation for Myron Ebell, head of the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency transition team. Satan’s Emissary, as liberals prefer to think of him.”

They couldn’t believe what they were hearing. They curled their lips. They laced their questions with the bitterest scorn. But they didn’t really tune into Ebell’s measured, silken, soft-spoken answers because, hell, they knew what he was saying just had to be wrong and they didn’t really understand what he meant anyway.
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Perhaps the main reason for going, though, was to witness at first hand one of the main reasons why the Great Global Warming Scamsters have got away with so much for so long: the abject failure of the media to do its job and interrogate the alarmist narrative.

Valerie Richardson says North Dakota wants hired pipeline protesters to pay state income taxes – “After spending more than $22 million on the Dakota Access pipeline protest, North Dakota wants to make sure any paid activists remember to submit their state income taxes.”

Next up is the Senate. There is the Democrat stance to filibuster any court nominee no matter circumstances, qualifications, or any other consideration. This is a part of the package of slow walking nominees and otherwise obstructing effective governance in any way possible. The 2018 elections are giving some Democratic Party Senators pause on this approach. They have been leaving a scorched earth in the previous administrations efforts and can now get a glimmer of what they have wrought. It should give pause. It will be interesting to see what the current administration does and whether the Establishment can figure out what is important to examine and what is irrelevant.

Heads Explode. The minions of the left were prepared. They immediately went to sympathetic judges. The pronouncements about Trump incompetence, sloth, stupidity, etc, etc, were all lined up and ready to go. But what happens when you actually take a look at the stimulus to try to validate the response? Uh, Oh.

Compare and Contrast: Benjamin Wittes on Malevolence Tempered by Incompetence: Trump’s Horrifying Executive Order on Refugees and Visas to Thomas Lifson on the Stunning media malpractice on Trump suspension of entry .

Wittes exposes his bias saying “Color me skeptical that this is the real purpose” and his arguments are more political opinion than legal analysis. For the latter, he accepts anti-Trump rumors and pronouncements at face value. So he does not accept what was actually written but rather what he wants it to say and bases his conclusions on hearsay rather than evidence.

Lifson addresses the incompetence and malevolence judgments by noting that “The latent fingerprints of Democrat icons, especially ex-president Obama, are discoverable all over President Trump’s executive order of the 27th titled, “Protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States.” He then cites and quotes those fingerprints so you can see for yourself.

 

Newmark cites Alder on this as Alder also thinks it is sloppy, etc. The problem is that Alder also notes that “in normal circumstances” there wouldn’t be any controversy about the validity of the EO. That implies that the only thing really wrong with the EO is that it came from Trump. That gets back to the editorial noted below about “the dark view of the President.”

John Hayward: Seven Inconvenient Facts About Trump’s Refugee Actions – The Fact Checkers are twisting themselves into knots trying to support the hysteria but nearly all of the outrage is based on Fake News from the religious based ban to the historical precedent.

The hysterical reaction to Trump’s order illustrates the very thing that worries advocates of strong immigration security: Americans’ security is the lowest priority, far below progressive ideology, crass political opportunism, and emotional theater.

On another of Trump’s ‘Lies’ is put to the test by Rowan Scarborough; Conservative groups press states to overhaul voter lists, combat fraud – 

One reason there are few investigations may be that suspected voter fraud happens in heavily Democratic districts, where it would take a Democratic prosecutor to investigate the people who vote for the party.

Washington Times: The dark view of the president – “An unhinged media has a duty to sober up, keep calm and carry on.”

The hatred of Donald Trump grows darker, more frightening and more irresponsible.
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This irresponsibility speaks volumes about how far out of touch the arbiters of the national culture are with rest of America. Steve Bannon, a senior adviser to the president, remarked earlier this week that “they don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”
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The mighty organs of the media have a special responsibility to keep calm and carry on, as difficult as that may be. The guardians of the truth, as they regard themselves, must first figure out what the truth is.
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Skepticism is healthy and necessary, and it’s a pity that it was in short supply in the White House briefing room over the course of the last administration. The press (loosely defined) and the larger media must resist the temptation to assuage its guilt by adopting an attitude that anything about Mr. Trump goes, the meaner and more irresponsible the better. This encourages recklessness in others.

See the Sunday reflection: Matthew 5:1-12 as it seems pertinent here.

Many of the arguments from the Left fail on a first inspection. Trump is a successful real estate developer with high value properties all over the world not to mention his success going upstream to win his office. That sets a high bar for those with TDS. Stupid, slothful, careless, incompetent, and other such allegations as are common and frequent, especially in the immigration issue, cannot be considered rational as they don’t accommodate the readily available evidence anyone can see. That is why the ‘dark view’ is so insidious as it denotes no acceptance of any civilized standard of behavior based on reality and respect for integrity or other people.

The desperation mounts. You’d think riots were bad enough but, no. Now we have political spies. As noted earlier, the release of a recording of a GOP meeting in Pennsylvania required permissions not obtained. Now it appears that a Woman impersonated lawmaker’s wife, snuck into GOP retreat. This gets elevated in implications because she bypassed Secret Service protections of the Vice-President.

Meanwhile, a Federal judge is working to circumvent national security as well. But DHS will continue to enforce Trump’s travel ban – “Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to the White House, said, “Nothing in the Brooklyn judge’s order in anyway impedes or prevents the implementation of the president’s executive order which remains in full, complete and total effect.”

The DHS said in the statement that they “will faithfully execute the immigration laws, and we will treat all of those we encounter humanely and with professionalism.” They also added that they plan to ensure the safety of the American people by making sure those entering the U.S. pose no threat.

Stephen Dinan: First lawsuit filed to challenge Trump’s refugee policy – “Officers told Iraqi man’s attorneys to ‘Call Mr. Trump’” … “The lawsuit said the Trump order is unconstitutional because it discriminates based on someone’s country of birth, and “was substantially motivated by animus” toward Muslims.” As one of the first comments noted, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (see also Wikipedia) is the law on the topic. A key from Dinan is the “ substantially motivated by animus” as that shows bias. What ‘animus’ there is is clearly stated as being about Islamic Terrorists and if such a bias is contrary to the Constitution, it’d require changing the oath of office for many federal employees and elected officials.

Sundance has a bit better explanation of the judicial activism: New York Federal Judge Intercedes To Clear Airports of Current Limbo Visa Holders… – “The judge did not rule on the legality of the executive order, nor did she say that others who have not yet arrived in the U.S. can be allowed to proceed.” Several other judges whose jurisdictions include international airports have also joined in on the ‘Limbo Visa Holders.’ This can get interesting as the ‘border’ up to now for airplane passengers has always been defined as a part of the ‘international’ designation for the airport. These judges want to turn that upside down.

This is another of those paradoxes such as the distinguished law professor illustrated (see a previous post) that an EO to follow the law was somehow un-constitutional. To see just how much disdain the Left has for national security, see Andrew Blake: ‘Lady Liberty is crying,’ Democrats declare in wake of Trump’s visa, asylum executive order – there is the usual: heart string tugging, reduce to the absurd fallacies, misperceptions so bald you’d think them intentional, … just more effort by the Left to gaslight the public.

Joseph Klein says Law And Order Returns To The Border – “President Trump begins fulfilling his promise in two historic executive orders.”

President Donald Trump is doing something incredibly rare for a politician in Washington, D.C. He is keeping his word. Two of the most important of his campaign promises were to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into this country and to suspend the admission of “refugees” from countries prone to terrorism until a system of “extreme vetting” is put into place.
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After eight long years of Obama administration policies that endangered the security of the American people, President Trump is placing Americans first — before illegal aliens and self-declared “refugees” from terrorist prone countries.

The president began fulfilling his promises on immigration by signing two executive orders on Wednesday at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), whose responsibilities include overseeing immigration and border security. Mr. Trump also took part in a ceremony installing his new Secretary of Homeland Security, retired Marine General John Kelly. In his remarks following the signing, President Trump emphasized that DHS is a “law enforcement agency.” He added that “beginning today, the United States gets back control of its borders.”
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The Trump administration is anticipating roadblocks put in its way by legal challenges, including activists’ exploitation of environmental laws to block construction of the wall. However, the administration should be able to prevail and move forward expeditiously. The REAL ID Act of 2005 gives the Secretary of Homeland Security “the authority to waive all legal requirements such Secretary, in such Secretary’s sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads” along U.S. borders. Federal district courts have exclusive jurisdiction to hear challenges to the Secretary of Homeland Security’s determination, but a “cause of action or claim may only be brought alleging a violation of the Constitution of the United States.” Melinda Taylor, an environmental law professor with the University of Texas, said, “The new administration has a wild card they can pull and it’s in this law. The language in this law allows them to waive all federal laws that would be an impediment to building any type of physical barrier along the border, including a wall.” Actually, “the authority to waive all legal requirements” in the statute would extend to state and local laws and regulations, as well as federal laws. The president’s constitutional authority derives from his fundamental constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” – in this case, the nation’s existing immigration laws.

Two things here. One is that Trump anticipates obstructions such as seen in today’s news. The second is that existing law is on his side. Note the requirement for a “violation of the Constitution of the United States.” That is the one being created to support the Limbo Visa Holder case. Support of that view is likely to be difficult. As Klein says “While leftists and other pro-Islamists will undoubtedly cry foul and may go to court in an effort to overturn this executive order as allegedly discriminating against Muslims on religious grounds, President Trump’s action is well within his legal authority.”

Former President Obama put Americans’ lives in danger by his ill-advised immigration and refugee policies. He also released scores of suspected terrorists from Guantanamo Bay despite at least a 30 percent recidivist rate. President Trump, by contrast, is showing that he means what he says in making the protection of the American people his first priority.

Jazz Shaw: So the courts want to fight the President on immigration policy –

So things really blew up overnight, eh? There were all sorts of “spontaneous” protests popping up at airports around the nation in response to the new executive action on immigration and refugees. (If you were watching liberal Twitter you saw how “spontaneous” they really were. This was coordinated nationally.) But of more interest are the actions taken by several judges hearing appeals from some of the travelers who were being detained. In response, one judge in New York imposed a stay on portions of the executive order, while another in Boston attempted to block the entire thing. (NBC News)
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I have zero doubt that this is going to turn into a mess in the courts. Keep in mind that if you go to the correct areas (such as Boston) you can find a judge to say almost anything, but this will eventually need to be sorted out. That’s going to be an educational experience for plenty of us because many questions regarding immigration policy can be very complicated. We’re dealing with non-citizens in different classifications as well as wrestling with the distinction between deporting people who are in the country versus denying entry to those who are not. And that’s an important point, because non-citizens inside the country, while not having the same level of rights as citizens, still maintain a more powerful position than those on the outside trying to get in. Deporting someone is always much more complicated than simply barring a non-citizen from entering.

William A. Jacobson shows why Most claims about Trump’s visa Executive Order are false or misleading – “You should read the actual EO, because most of the media and leftist pundits either have not or are lying if they have.”

It is possible to criticize the EO and Trump visa/refugee policy without hyperbole and fakery. That opponents feel the need to make false and misleading accusations is a signal that they fear losing the policy argument on its merits.

National security also involves Russia. Evgeny Lebedev takes heart in the Churchill bust episode. Thawing the permafrost with Russia – “There are good reasons to work with Vladimir Putin against a shared threat.”

Whether due to that anachronistic dogma or because their careers depend on a deliberate misreading of the geopolitical runes, America’s political and military classes will try to block any Trump-Putin embrace, citing alleged cyber-interference in the election and occupation of Crimea as twin disqualifiers of an alliance that offers our best hope of crushing Islamic terrorism. They will say Mr. Putin means to invade the Baltics as the next stage of a master plan to recreate the Soviet Union, never mind that his teetering economy is in no shape to absorb their populations.

Although I was born and spent my earliest years in Moscow, I make no claim to special insight. “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia,” was how Churchill put it in his enigma speech. Nor can this Russian emigre.

But one high priest of realpolitik said this when asked just this week if he agreed with Joe Biden that Mr. Putin’s main aim is to destabilize the West. “No,” replied Henry Kissinger. “We are worried that this is his objective. He is worried that our objective is to undermine him.”

The time has come to end this vicious spin cycle of mutual suspicion. Rebuilding trust won’t be easy. Accommodations would have to be made and sealed at a suitably trumpeted summit or conference. Yalta II, even. Mr. Putin agreeing to respect Ukraine’s borders, the West conceding Russia’s right to Crimea.

About the EO: A number of people are talking about Trump flooding the zone with so many headline grabbing pronouncements. Others range from amazed to giddy to outraged that Trump is doing something no newly elected President before him has done: follow up on campaign promises with alacrity. The Left’s line on all this is that it is hasty action not well thought out and a total mishmash illustrating incompetence and whatnot. Ed Morrissey cites CBS: This week in executive orders … – “President Trump has issued fifteen executive actions, and CBS provides a scorecard.“ This casts doubt on the Left’s line.

To paraphrase Stanley Kubrick, have conservatives and populists stopped worrying and learned to love the EO? Not really, no, but it helps to understand the nuances of executive orders and presidential memoranda. CBS’s Rebecca Shabad makes the distinction:

“Seven days into his first term, Mr. Trump has issued more than a dozen executive actions, which include a government-wide freeze on new and pending regulations, the reinstatement of a policy that bars U.S. funding to health providers abroad that discuss abortion as an option and a call for the construction of a physical wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Most of the actions taken so far are technically presidential memoranda, and four have been executive orders, which have the force of law and must be published in the Federal Register. Historically, presidents have embraced the executive order as a tool to use when there’s a lack of action from Congress.”

Shabad misses one nuance; executive orders have the force of law within the executive branch, not outside of it. To the extent they conflict with existing statutes, they have no force at all. This was the issue with Barack Obama’s executive actions, most of which did not come in the form of EOs.
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Trump’s EOs, in comparison [to Obama’s], have so far mainly stuck to exercises of authority within the executive branch’s jurisdiction, and not crossed over into conflicting with statutes.

Paul Mirengoff: An under-reported fact about the Trump presidency – “The first week of Donald Trump’s presidency received wall-to-wall coverage from the mainstream media. His every word was fact-checked, after a fashion.”

But on the whole, the mainstream media seems to be missing or under-playing one significant angle on the nascent Trump administration. The president is keeping his campaign promises.

Personally, I think it’s ridiculous to demand that Mexico pay for a wall designed to advance U.S. interests. I have mixed feelings about coercing a U.S. company not to build a plant outside the U.S. I’m okay with a 90 day suspension of entry for people from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen, but can understand why some find this problematic.

Each of these policies or practices, though, fulfills a campaign promise. President Trump is doing what candidate Trump said he would do.

It turns out that Donald Trump needed to be taken both seriously and literally.

LuboÅ¡ Motl has two posts worth review this morning. Unreasonable university calls for a civil war against Trump and Trump’s Blitzkrieg against the rogue and fake U.S. government “scientific” tweeters.

At some moment, you could think that the climate hysteria is the most important “value” that the leftist folks really care about. But as the ongoing screaming shows, multiculturalism is ultimately above the climate hysteria. People from universities – including various people I know and sometimes like – are writing petitions, urging their colleagues to fight and resist, and all stuff like that.

The reason is that Trump has fulfilled his campaign promises and suspended the arrival of people from unsafe Muslim countries.

– – –

While the stupid media discusses big questions such as the size of his inauguration crowd and the length of his tie, the new U.S. president is working hard. We’re being assured that virtually all of his campaign promises were meant very seriously.
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Thousands of hard left scholars have signed a petition against the suspension of the Syrian refugee program and similar reductions of the immigration from the Muslim world. I’ve spent some five minutes by looking at the list of the signatories and I know about 20-30 of them in person. They’re fine and smart people, please don’t make a mistake about it. They’re just wrong about politics. And it’s also interesting to realize how many people could have been signed but they’re not. I find it clear that the non-signatories are a silent majority.
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However, something else is happening in the underground movement, e.g. on Twitter. A bunch of unofficial “resistance or rogue Twitter accounts” of some U.S. government agencies related to the environmental sciences has emerged … It’s not clear who runs these accounts and whether they’re employees of these institutions at all. They don’t have to be. In fact, they don’t have to be Americans at all. In particular, it’s consistent with everything I know that all these accounts are run by William Connolley, the British Green Party apparatchik notoriously responsible for 90% of the alarmist bias in the Wikipedia’s articles related to the climate change.
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So enjoy your fake news on fake NASA, EPA, HHS, and other accounts but the rest of us will be pleased that you will regain your status of self-evident crackpots who sleep at the treetops and you won’t be able to influence the fate of the United States of America which you basically could in recent years.

You’d think a Sunday would be a day of rest, a day a bit quieter than the weekdays. Whoops. 2500 words of note from only the first level of the stack. Come to think of it, this is Pro-Bowl day. That’s on ESPN at 5 p.m. PDT. That game has a reputation for being watered down and not serious football. Maybe that’s the antidote? 

The standard of what was acceptable in the previous administration provides an objective indicator for analysis. There are two components to examine. One is a shifting standard and the other is how that shift is rationalized. Ian Hanchett provides an example Maher: Obama’s Dishonesty Was ‘Within the Normal Parameters’ – Trump’s Isn’t –

“Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher stated that untrue statements by President Obama were “within the normal parameters” while President Trump’s aren’t.”
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Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist stated, “Obama said, repeatedly on the campaign, not once in a tweet, but again and again and again in speeches, that he was never going to raise taxes on anyone who earned less than $250,000 a year. That lasted 16 days, before he did.”

Maher responded, “Okay, but that’s within the normal parameters of what politicians do. Saying you see 3 million people that don’t exist is not.”

That sounds cute, of course, but the real issue is to resolve just who it is, Maher or Trump, that is seeing, or not seeing things. That is why Trump called for an investigation to find out who is seeing what. This case illustrates Maher shifting standards rationalized by ad hominem. There is a close analogy to Schumer’s broken promise about nominees. Shifting standards rationalized by logical fallacies are not conducive towards solving problems but many, especially in the media, seem to prefer that approach.

Donald Lambro has a bit saner approach about Trump and the facts – “Evidence suggests the 2016 election was not tainted by fraud.” His essay is headed by a misleading AP picture to provide a taste of what is to follow. The title is also interesting because the Democrat’s mantra is that the Russians skewed the vote and the popular vote was against Trump. In trying to rationalize this shift, Lambro goes ad hominem: “It was an issue that gnawed at his ego and that he has not been able to drop since the election…” This ignores the fact that the issue gnaws at Democrats and the media that continually try to use it to delegitimize the election. It is a Democrat talking point that is the source for the 3 million claim. It is the longstanding Democrat opposition to such ideas as Voter ID that raise concerns.

Lambro tries to put the focus on selected studies that can be interpreted as not supporting Trump’s claims about voting. That misses the point raised and attempts to to move the issue to trivia. Then he brings in the crowd estimates and “alternative facts” to support his ‘Trump Lies’ thesis. Again, he gets into misperceptions and shaky interpretations of statistics and misleading source data. That doesn’t stop the grand accusations presented with an aura of fact. Conway came up with ‘alternative facts’ to give the media an out, to allow for misperception and differing views of statistical or incomplete data. The Left missed that and now is trying to cudgel the Trump camp with it. All too often, it becomes apparent that those with the ‘alternative facts’ that go well beyond a reasonable interpretation are on the Left, not in the administration. More pictures and other data surface that show that the brouhaha source was off base. Additional studies come up that show the voter fraud problem is indeed a concern. More Fake News about the administration in major media gets retracted.

For more on these ‘alternative facts’ see Jom Hoft: Confirmed: More People, More Hotel Rooms Booked for Trump Inauguration than Either of Obama’s – William Campenni: Illegal Aliens Really Do Vote – a Lot – Deroy Murdock: Why Do Democrats Fear Trump’s Probe of “Fake” Voter Fraud? – John Sexton: Freakout of the day: Trump Photoshopped his hand in White House photo – Ed Morrissey: Correction of the year? The Atlantic regrets …. Update: And regrets … – the ‘facts’ aren’t quite as clear as Lambro, Maher, and others in their camp would like to believe.

This same angst shows up in response to other antics. Mercedes Schlapp describes The very mixed messages from an unwelcoming march – besides all the vulgarity in the Women’s March:

Simply put, the Women’s March represented some women, but by no means all. For too long the Democrats have claimed to champion women’s rights by lecturing us on how we need to think. The march followed the familiar playbook, with the liberal pro-abortion agenda front and center. Many women don’t agree with this agenda and feel that the liberals have become too extreme on these social issues.

The mainstream media gave wall-to-wall coverage to the Women’s March. In fact, Newsbusters reported that the major broadcast networks devoted 129 times more coverage to the march than to the 2016 March for Life. It’s a lock that Friday’s 2017 March for Life, which my family will be attending, will similarly get nowhere near the media exposure of the Women’s March on Washington.

I want my daughters to grow up in a culture and society where everyone is respected, especially the most vulnerable and innocent. Unlike the Women’s March, a gathering dominated by of darkness and anger, the March for Life will offer an uplifting, spiritual and positive message — a message vitally important for all women to hear.

For those worried about Trump, check out Kelly Riddell on The just war on the EPA – “The EPA and its counterparts need reining, a measure that’s long overdue.” The worry is another shifting standards example. What was OK, even if it was unethical or illegal, in the past is now to be protected from an administration that is portrayed as being unethical and illegal in action to clean the swamp.

EPA staffers — who reportedly cried and had to take days off for counseling after Donald Trump won the presidency in November — are in full revolt. After the Trump administration took away their social media accounts and froze their grants, a rogue staffer at the National Park Service tweeted out climate facts.
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Tasked with unilaterally carrying out former President Barack Obama’s climate change policies by decree — because such legislation would’ve never made it through Congress — has emboldened many career bureaucrats within the EPA to become radical, partisan activists.

They don’t work for the American people, but rather to advance their environmentalism agenda. For some it almost takes on a religious fervor.
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So yeah, there’s partisan problems at the EPA.

Scott Pruitt, Mr. Trump’s pick to lead the agency, knows this all too well. He’s sued the agency 13 times, and understands its culture of executive overreach, lawlessness and environmental activism. That’s why he’s the perfect man for the job.

And that’s why the liberals, and radical left career staffers at the EPA, are freaking out.

On this front there’s also John Sexton about Flooding expected at Dakota Access Pipeline protest camp – The location will make rescue difficult and then there’s the usual Leftist mob trash problem.

Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault warned about this back in November. From Vice: “I heard that they’re digging pits down there for their human waste. That’s a flood zone. So when the floodwaters come up, that waste is going to be contaminating the water. We’re no different than the oil company, if we’re fighting for water. What’s going to happen when people leave? Who has to clean it up? Who has to refurbish it?”

Archambault tells the AP, “There is a lot of debris, abandoned cars. When the flood comes all of that stuff is going to contaminate the environment.”

Scott Johnson: Extreme vetting, here we come – “President Trump began to fulfill one of his signal campaign promises yesterday with the promulgation of an executive order addressing immigration from Muslim countries yesterday.” Johnson cites the NYT which has posted the text of the EO.

The order proceeds through a series of cross-reference to other laws that renders it incomprehensible on its own terms.
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According to Shear and Cooper, the order suspends the entry of refugees into the United States for 120 days, and Syrians indefinitely. It also suspends immigration from seven Muslim countries for only 90 days, while ordering priority be given to visas for Christians from Muslim nations (I don’t see the religious distinction in the text of the order). The seven Muslim countries are Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.

Shear and Cooper want to imply that differentiation among faiths for the purposes of the order is unconstitutional: “Mr. Trump also established a religious test for refugees from Muslim nations: He ordered that Christians and others from minority religions be granted priority over Muslims.” The Constitution, however, only bars religious tests for office or “public trust.”
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Despite its difficulty, the order is worth reviewing in its entirety. The following provision, for example, should resonate with citizens of sound mind

In other words: Fake News Alert! The ‘alternative facts’ available for misperception and outright bias in perception creating what is not in the EO in order to bash Trump are easily seen.

Betsey Newmark started off yesterday with administration leaks and a ‘woe is me’ approach. What she was talking about appeared to be more a matter of transparency than leaks. For something more serious, Scott Johnson wonders At GOP retreat, whodunnit? – there may be consequences on this one.

Taking a quick look around online this morning, I believe that Pennsylvania is one of 11 or or 12 states that requires all-party consent for the recording of conversations as a general rule. The applicable law is set forth under chapter 57 of Pennsylvania’s criminal code (Title 18 of the Pennsylvania statutes). The general prohibition is set forth in § 5703. The law does not apply under circumstances where the speaker lacks a reasonable expectation of privacy. The exception is derived in the definition of “oral communication” set forth in § 5702.

What does come out of all of this is that the Left is going to any length to try to find meat for their ‘alternative facts’ fodder.

About that Doomsday Clock Glen Reynolds notes: “as Brendan O’Neill put it on Facebook: “The same media attacking Trump for making stuff up is now excitedly reporting that a bunch of scientists have moved the imaginary hand on an imaginary clock half-a-minute closer to an imaginary apocalypse. #fakenews.” The absurdity with pending Trump nuclear apocalypse is the fact that the last person who’d want such an event is a real estate developer with world wide multi-million dollar holdings. See also They scream about Trump having nuclear codes, but the hawks of WWIII reside on the left – “Ask them why Trump – a supposed Putin puppet – would start a nuclear war when it would decimate his international finances and destroy his puppet master’s country in the process, and you’ll get one of two things: a blank stare or deflection.” Logical consistency goes with intellectual integrity and can be used to evaluate positions and arguments.

Trump may be delivering death by a thousand cuts – or maybe he is applying that fable about boiling the frog slowly enough so that it doesn’t notice it is getting cooked until too late. Consider:

Glenn Harlan Reynolds: Trump is playing with the press – “when the press is constantly attacking him over trivialities, it strengthens his position and weakens the press.“

The first thing to understand is that one of the changes going on with Trump generally is the renegotiation of various post-World War II institutional arrangements. One of those is the institutional arrangement involving the press and the White House.

Brian C. Joondeph: Trump Playing Rope-a-Dope with the Media – “Notice how each story knocks the preceding story off the front pages and the evening news?”

All the while, Trump is taking body shots from the media. Letting them believe they are effective fighters, standing up for truth, social justice, and their favorite left-wing causes. They think they have Trump on the ropes. Yet behind the scenes his agenda marches along. Rope-a-dope.
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Every day is Christmas. Presents under the tree each morning begrudgingly reported by a media still fussing over whether Trump or Obama had the larger inauguration crowd. A question that will never be answered for certain and doesn’t even matter.
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Trump continues to take the blows from the media and the left, dodging and weaving as they tire themselves out, and in return throwing jabs that they don’t see coming.

Ace on Steve Bannon: The Media Is the Actual Opposition Party and It Should Just “Keep Its Mouth Shut” Until It Figures Out Why People Hate Them – This is a link to a link by another link. The depth is its own indicator. Allahpundit, also at Hot Air, says ”It’s not so much “shut your mouth because you have no right to criticize” as “do less talking and more listening and you’ll be better at your jobs.” Also see Ace’s The Media’s Incompetence and Ignorance Is a Bigger Problem Than Their Bias – “Lots of “WOW” reactions about senior State officials resigning.”

The IBT Editorial: Illegals Did Vote In November, And Trump Is Right To Investigate – “This week, John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky, who have both tracked voter fraud extensively, detailed multiple specific examples of noncitizens casting ballots in U.S. elections. Among them: … “

Jonah Goldberg [no Trumpist he and it shows]: ‘America first’ isn’t a Trump creation – “Granted, it’s more complicated than mainstream journalists would have you believe.” (advice Goldberg needs to take unto himself)

The America First Committee was founded in the spring of 1940 by isolationist students at Yale University and quickly became a major national movement — though it was never the purely right-wing phenomenon many claim. … The entire purpose of the America First Committee was to keep FDR from dragging the U.S. into another European war. Given the still fresh memory of the horror — both at home and abroad — of World War I
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That Mr. Trump could so easily adopt “America first” without being hobbled by its negative connotation was a political coup.

Byron York: Trump’s radical immigration plan: Enforce the law – “There’s one fundamental difference between the new White House and the old when it comes to immigration: Barack Obama ordered his administration not to enforce a number of immigration laws. Donald Trump has ordered his administration to enforce them.”

Wesley Pruden: A nation derided for doing the right thing – reference The Gipper:

Immigration, both the legal and the illegal kind, is destined to be a contentious issue in America forever. That’s the price of living in the place where everybody wants to be.

This tempts some people to lead with their emotions when they talk about immigration. If you engage these folks in a conversation about immigration, you have to expect to be called Scrooge (or worse) if you say America’s borders must be secure and there must be a fair, firm and orderly way to accommodate newcomers.
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But no nation in the world allows open borders, and America is the only nation in the world that is chided for doing what every other nation does. America has always kept the front door slightly ajar, and how far ajar has been an issue always simmering, and sometimes — like now — on the boil.
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The Republicans, depicted as churls, skinflints and worse for trying to lead the way on restoring immigration sanity, have tried twice in recent years to “regularize” the border.
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We’re still a nation of immigrants. We always will be. That’s a source of strength. But a nation of immigrants doesn’t have to be a nation of saps. The Donald understands that.

Matt Mackowiak: While the Democrat-media axis recoils, Trump keeps his promises – “the collective freakout over everything President Trump or his team says or does is reaching unprecedented levels in modern history.” … “Before rushing to judgment, can’t we all simply just wait a few months and see what the results of these policies are?”

Ed Morrissey cites The Dude on Trump: Maybe we should all just abide, man – “Jeff Bridges has advice for Republicans, Democrats, Donald Trump, and everyone else: Just take it easy, man.” If The Dude isn’t your cup of tea, try The Pope.

Glenn’s [see Reynolds, above] advice to the press is very similar to that from Francis and El Duderino (if you’re not into that whole brevity thing, man) — patience and discipline. However, Glenn is very skeptical that the media is capable of either. Perhaps we can set the example.

Thomas Lifson: “It’s your feel-good video of the day.” Trump-hating flag burners in Iowa absolutely, positively foiled – “The Supreme Court may rule that flag burning is protected expression under the First Amendment, but that doesn’t mean that it is acceptable to endanger ordinary citizens, who also have rights to express themselves. In this case, with a fire extinguisher.”

Two members of the group, Osgerby and Kelli Ebensberger, also of Iowa City, were charged with violating Iowa City’s public burn ordinance, a simple misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail or a fine of up to $625.

A delivery truck driver noted the blaze and grabbed his fire extinguisher to put it out. Open burning is considered a public hazard and he arrived on the scene just in time.

There is a … You Might Be A Democrat list – (h/t Jeff Foxworthy) with some additional contributions, it is getting to be quite a list and extensive summary of the ‘thousand cuts’ that have been noticed.

John Sexton notes that Democrats have settled on a ‘scorched-earth’ approach to Trump – “Democrats are now worried Schumer is too willing to compromise and are demanding a harder line. The problem, of course, is that they don’t have the votes to really block anyone without Republican help.” Scorched earth policies are attrition warfare. It only works if you have the muscle like in Sherman’s march to the sea in the war between the states or in the airpower in WW II bombing campaigns. Everybody loses. The only question is who runs out of something to lose first.

Its one thing when the opposition plays fast and loose with perceptions and promises. It’s another entirely when it is within a working group. Jemma Lifhits takes a look at one step over the line and its consequences. Republicans Rethinking Relationship with Schumer after Pompeo Incident. What gets lost in this incident is how it isn’t just politics as usual.

“I guess what we’re going to have to do is to find out when he does make a deal, is he speaking for himself or is he speaking for the Democratic caucus?” he said. “You didn’t have to wonder about that when you were dealing with Harry Reid.”

Harry Reid is no model for comity or honesty but he did lead his party in a way that Republicans could depend upon his positions as being those of his party in the Senate.

Victor Davis Hanson: Fake News: Postmodernism By Another Name –

In sum, fake news is journalism’s popular version of the nihilism of campus postmodernism. To progressive journalists, advancing a leftwing political agenda is important enough to justify the creation of misleading narratives and outright falsehoods to deceive the public—to justify, in other words, the creation of fake but otherwise useful news.

John Hinderaker: Press Pretends to Fact-Check Trump, But Only Misleads Readers – “We have seen this pattern over and over: Donald Trump says something that may be debatable or exaggerated, and in their quest to bring him down, reporters and editors publish “fact checks” that are more misleading than what Trump said in the first place. It happens every day.”

LuboÅ¡ Motl: Trump’s crowd and leftists’ fake news and propaganda – “Moreover, I am highly concerned with the brutally obvious inconsistency in these leftists’ claims “whether they care about the size” and “whether they are actually claiming that Trump lies”. You may see inconsistent claims in most anti-Trump tirades about this issue.” – A good start to figuring out what the deal is with those mall pictures.

Andrew Follett: Scientist Plan March Against Trump After Ignoring Obama’s Science Problems For 8 Years – “A group of “science enthusiasts” are planning a march on Washington, D.C., to protest President Donald Trump’s supposed anti-science policies. …Organizers said it’s part of a movement by “scientists and science enthusiasts in protest of the policies of the United States Congress and President Donald J. Trump,” and specifically focuses on “science denial” by Republicans … But these same scientists were quiet under the Obama administration.”

For more Fake News on SciTech, see Jessica Hall: Trump administration immediately starts trying to muzzle scientists – “Memos obtained by different media outlets show that the Trump administration has ordered scientists at the EPA not to communicate with the public, and definitely not the press. They also show that, despite earlier reports, Trump has not attempted to put a gag order on the USDA.” What’s the Fake News here? It is that there is no muzzling of scientists. The story is about standard and routine expression of government policy, not censorship. The ‘scientists’ are not muzzled, they just can’t use the authority of office to express their opinions. Consider also “Trump’s assertion of control over the EPA makes sense in light of his campaign’s vendetta against climate science.” Vendetta? Wow. The essay constructs a villain out of whole cloth, one that even rudimentary objective examination will show is honest to goodness Fake News based on paranoia and ideological fixation. – for why this is so, see Lord Monckton’s Ten for Trump and America (climate disengagement at hand).

Ilya Somin exposes his TDS in explaining Why Trump’s executive order on sanctuary cities is unconstitutional – and then “The order indicates that sanctuary cities “that fail to comply with applicable Federal law do not receive Federal funds, except as mandated by law.” So following the law is unconstitutional? Somin is constructing a case not based on the evidence to hand but rather on his misperceptions that belie such evidence and show inordinate bias.

Tim Cushing ignores the preamble to the Constitution and asks Do You Want A Police State? Because This Is How You Get A Police State – “But is the “anti-police atmosphere” really “wrong?” and then cites Obama DoJ anti-police reports. This is the rather typical misdirected outrage. It is also the ‘all or none’ logical fallacy. Police are necessary and, as with any governmental agency, they must be held accountable. That is not the false reality that Cushing has created as illustrated when he ignores administrations that demonstrated a lack of regard for law but instead castigates one that has shown regard for the laws of the people.

A few days in and it is beginning to look like the campaign promises were an actual to-do list.

Stephen Hayward says “Looks like we’re just going to have to inaugurate a new regular feature here on Power Line, which I’ll call “The Meltdown Notes.” We’ll have to exert some discipline to keep it from becoming an hourly update.” He may have something …

The Washington Times: They said it couldn’t be done – “The Donald would never redeem extravagant campaign promises.” Enforce the existing law?

“From here on out I’m asking all of you to enforce the laws of the United States,” he told the Homeland Security Department, delivering the instructions live and in person. “They will be enforced, and enforced strongly. We do not need new laws. We will work within the existing system and framework.”

This is the pushback against the flabby enforcement of the immigration laws that many wanted but few dared expect.

That is what is strange more than anything else. The campaign promises actually having weight is indeed unusual but the follow through on those promises with the structure of existing law is incredible. No new toothless laws. No outrageous out of bounds executive action. Just follow the law.

And then there’s that bit about “live and in-person” … that’s the MBWA ethos (management by walking around popularized by HP) on display. Another example is the CIA visit. Paul Mirengoff gets off on this with Trump at the CIA, Part Two – and concludes: “Give me a break. The mainstream media never showed concern for morale at the CIA when Obama was releasing terrorists and Holder was persecuting agents. The mainstream media isn’t concerned about it now. The mainstream media is just looking for ways to bash President Trump.”

But Wait! There’s More! Andrew P. Napolitano is amazed. Donald Trump, revolutionary – “In Obamacare, the president sides with individuals against the government.”

He ordered that regulations already in place be enforced with a softer, more beneficent tone, and he ordered that no penalty, fine, setoff or tax be imposed by the IRS on any person or entity who is not complying with the individual mandate, because by the time taxes are due on April 15, the IRS will be without authority to impose or collect the non-tax tax, as the individual mandate will no longer exist. Why take money from people that will soon be returned?

Then he ordered a truly revolutionary act, the likes of which I have never seen in the 45 years I have studied and monitored the government’s laws and its administration of them. He ordered that when bureaucrats who are administering and enforcing the law have discretion with respect to the time, place, manner and severity of its enforcement, they should exercise that discretion in favor of individuals and against the government.

It looks like what we have here is bald faced selective enforcement – but in favor of the individual and against the government? And not dismissed or ignored law but just ‘kinder and gentler’ with no hurry enforcement? With a rationale that the law will change, soon? There are indeed some revolutionary concepts in government as it has been up to now.

Dan Burton thinks Trump’s trade stance is right on the money – This is an issue because many of the current trade agreements hew to the free trade ideology. The problem with that is what happens when ideology meets actual practice. There are oversight agencies to assure compliance with agreements and the U.N is providing an example of where those can go awry. Trade is not simple and nations can engage in various tactics to give themselves an edge.

Burton says “in the 1960s, 24 percent of American workers were employed in manufacturing, today only 8 percent. “ and “Many experts say the shift away from manufacturing was inevitable.” Mark Perry fell into this trap by noting that it was productivity that was the proper measure but missed the concept that automation and other productivity enhancers that displace the workforce should not mean to eliminate it but free it to do more. That phenomena has been behind a lot of government effort to assist people in finding new careers and in training for new skills. That, in turn, gets into looking at government effectiveness in these efforts.

Kellyanne Conway struck a nerve and Suzanne Fields explains about Telling the post-truth with alternative facts – “Statistics, once a reliable guide, have become arrogant, insolent and discredited.” The media, of course, is trying to force an alternate reality: “Alternative facts are not facts,” Chuck Todd told her. “They’re falsehoods.”

Fudging facts — turning them into “alternatives” — is both science and art in the nation’s capital. Everyone remembers Bill Clinton’s famous denial of hanky-panky in the Oval Office as depending on “what the meaning of is, is.” The Obama White House spun the most egregious example of fake facts with its assertion, on all the networks, that the Islamic attack on the American consulate in Benghazi was inspired by an obscure American-made video and kept the fake facts alive for days. Everyone at the White House knew better.
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In the intellectual world, where standards once disciplined language and the philosophical canon required precise definitions rooted in common appreciation of reality, the debate over ideas is devoid of indisputable evidence testifying to facts. Stephen Colbert of “Comedy Central” coined the word “truthiness” to describe what speakers want to be true rather than what they know is true. The Merriam-Webster dictionary a decade ago called it the word of the year. Media in the last election, dominated by Hillary fans, suffered from acute truthiness.

This particular problem isn’t just in the matter of estimating crowd sizes or public preference polling. For an example of hard core statistical malfeasance, consider the Climate Alarmists famous Hockey Stick. That was subject to rigorous mathematical exposure as being not only ‘alternate facts’ but also false facts but such exposure didn’t matter much to the many who depend upon it to support their ideology of catastrophic human caused climate change.

One of the big ‘alternative facts’ stories is that of voter fraud. For years, the Left has thrown everything it could at voter ID and similar measures to improve election integrity. Their position has always been that there is no proof of any voter fraud. That is, until they lost the last election and then they decided there was massive fraud at the hands of the Russians. But they still denigrate Trump’s claim about voter fraud as another Trump Lie. David Sherfinski and Stephen Dinan say the Watchdog sees need for election fraud probe – “Many wonder why Trump complains.”

More than 140 jurisdictions across the country have more people registered to vote than their entire voting-age populations, according to a watchdog group that says there is reason to have the kind of investigation into voter fraud that President Trump called for Wednesday.
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The League of Women Voters said the claims were false and that it was odd for the winner of an election to call for an investigation.

So, who to believe? The League of Women Voters and others on the Left are looking at one particular election while Trump and the watchdog group are looking at the process involved in all of the elections. Then there is the precautionary principle. Those on the Left see no need for precautions while others think prudent and reasonable precautions are a good idea. Who is obsessing on the Russians but ignoring the graveyard voters and other anomalies uncovered in voter rolls? Who is personalizing the issue versus who is not? For more on this, see Jazz Shaw: Even if there were zero voter fraud, wouldn’t you want to know rather than just guess? – find out how the murder rate in NYC is a factor.

An IBT Commentary: President Trump Gets His Wall — Thanks To Democrats –

It’s a classic case of a political party being too clever by half. Many Democrats, fearful of an electoral backlash, signed on to the idea of building a wall knowing that they could stall it in Congress. If they won control of both houses, the bill to build a wall would become a dead letter. They thought they had killed the idea for sure in 2008, by amending a spending bill to essentially defund the project.

So they were for the wall before they were against it.
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Now the Democrats have been hoisted by their own petard, so to speak. Their cynical vote to approve the wall was pure political theater to fool voters back home that they were really doing something to control rampant illegal immigration into the U.S. In fact, they weren’t interested in doing anything about it.

The rant of the day: How Losing My Political Values Helped Me Gain My Freedom [Warden] – this is a gut reaction to the ‘both sides do it’ fallacy.

There’s a frustrating game that the left plays with conservatives. It’s an Alinksy tactic called, “Make them live up to their values.” … The left loves to exploit these shortcomings–every Christian who falls short of perfection is a hypocrite; the social values candidate you voted for just got arrested for drunk driving. Haha, everything you believe and advocate is now discredited. … They got away with it for years, waving away the lies, hypocrisy, indiscretions, and criminal behavior from their own politicians while beating the right mercilessly with the missteps of their own. It’s effective because the right always maintains a baseline of integrity not displayed by the left
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I will attack, attack, attack, attack using their own tactics against them until they learn their lesson.

What I will not do is let them play my values against me ever again. I don’t need to prove that I’m better than them. I already know it.

On the Fake News front: Gaslighting seems to be a word getting a lot of use lately. David Wolfe says this is “a form of emotional abuse that causes a victim to question their own feelings, instincts and sanity, giving the abusive partner power and control.” His list of 10 signs “you’re most likely being gaslighted” provides interesting material for examining the concept. There are efforts to play the media as the victim of Trump’s gaslighting but the reality is that the media has been gaslighting Republicans for ages and Trump is mirroring their efforts back on them. Perhaps one of the more telling indicators of what is going on with this is the many ‘what if a Democrat did this’ contrasts that are becoming more common.

Consider Willis Eschenbach on AltUSNatParkService – “After the Trump Administration told the Department of the Interior to shut down all their Twitter accounts because they were being used for partisan political purposes by Democratic government employees, some National Park Service employees got in a huff about how their rights were being violated. So they put together a new Twitter account called AltUSNatParkService.”

They’re organizing meetings and the like because of these fears. Gotta say … I’m getting tired of people trotting out their fears and using these fears to justify all kinds of actions. I get it that folks are afraid. And I know that the fear they feel is real. But that is not sufficient reason for me to automatically take their fears seriously and buy into their fright, particularly if nothing untoward has happened to date. It’s just baseless fears.

In any case, they’ve shot themselves in the foot. They are putting themselves out as if they represent or are part of the real National Park Service, both by their name and even to the extent of using the official arrowhead emblem of the Park Service on their Twitter site, as seen above. … Why is their using the arrowhead a huge mistake? Because using it is not just a bad idea. It is a crime to use the official NPS “arrowhead” emblem without specific permission from the NPS

For more in this vein, see Tyler O’Neil Is President Trump Launching a ‘War on Science?‘ – “scientists … allege that President Donald Trump’s administration has slashed funding, gagged scientific findings, and pressured them to abandon “science-based policies.”

Fallout from the riots continues as people notice the vulgar and destructive and uncivil behavior.

Tammy Bruce: This divided nation – “The Woman’s March deepened the chasm between liberals and the rest of the country.”

With the media coverage surrounding the so-called women’s marches on Saturday you’d think we were watching some sort of organic, spontaneous uprising, much like, oh, the tea party. But it wasn’t. There has been excellent commentary in the days that followed exposing the fact that the march wasn’t about women at all; it was about leftist politics. And group therapy.
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But this is what the left has always done — co-opt a genuine issue of concern within society and then use it, like parasites, to further the failed and deadly policies of the left. While America got sucker-punched for the past eight years, we will recover. The Democratic Party, not so much.
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Democratic leadership, the political bureaucracy and legacy media want Americans to believe there’s a Grand Canyon-sized division in this country. And they’re right — it’s between themselves and the American people.

There’s a lot brewing. “Last week, Reps. Kevin Yoder, Kansas Republican, and Jared Polis, Colorado Democrat, reintroduced the Email Privacy Act, a bill that will protect Americans’ privacy rights from bureaucratic overreach by updating the grossly outdated 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA)” [Williams]. – “Forty years ago, Congress enacted the Hyde Amendment — a law that continues to this day to proscribe federal Medicaid funds from being used to subsidize abortion in most circumstances” and now HR7 would “Make the Hyde Amendment and other current abortion funding prohibitions permanent and government-wide” [Smith]. – “Under the CRA, unless Congress disapproves of a rule, the regulation becomes law by default. The REINS Act would reverse this, canceling any major regulation Congress does not explicitly approve” [Burnett].

On the Trump front, today was announced as immigration and security day for the President’s Pen. The National Park Service is learning that it has a new boss and that tweeting irrelevancies related to the climate change religion is now inappropriate [Wolfgang]. The a priori propaganda machine assumption that the new administration lies like no other has the usual ‘Splinter and Beam’ problem while, on the beam side of things, “What’s most encouraging about the episode, though, is that Team Trump is not rolling over” [Martin]. The DOW has topped 20,000 for the first time.

Democrats used a Senate committee looking at national security to put up their favorite picture an Jim Hoft reports that CNN Quietly Releases Updated Pic Showing Trump’s Inaugural Crowd Size Greater than Obama’s 2009 Inaugural Crowd – this is the source of the current “Trump Lies” meme.

The media remained silent on the crowd size numbers when it was clear that Trump was crushing Hillary in this area. But late last week the media finally reported that crowd size does matter. CNN (Fake News) reported that President Trump’s crowd size was much smaller than President Obama’s crowd size in 2009, and CNN provided two pictures to show the difference.

However, the pictures in the article show the crowd size for Obama when he was speaking during his 2009 inauguration with the crowd from Trump’s inauguration approximately 3 hours before Trump spoke.

In part, this crowd size thing was pushed because of the discrepancies noted between Trump and Clinton campaign rallies, especially in light of polling and media rhetoric. It’s use by Democrats illustrates an attempt at rationalization, much like the popular vote mantra, and denial. Its appearance in committee illustrates that partisan politics has a higher priority for Democrats than does national security.

Howard Kurtz has more on this: Split-screen presidency: Media favor controversies over Trump’s fast start –

In just two days, President Trump has met with corporate honchos, union chiefs and auto executives, courted congressional leaders, frozen federal hiring, killed the Pacific trade deal and moved ahead on two major pipelines.

So are the media filled with headlines about how he’s off to a fast start?

Not exactly.

A front-page New York Times headline says “Meeting with Top Lawmakers, Trump Repeats an Election Lie.”

This is the split-screen reality of the new administration. In television terms, the main image on the screen is the 45th president’s actions, and in a small box on the bottom right is the distraction du jour—Trump declaring war on the media, tweeting something provocative or making an unsubstantiated claim.

Thomas Lifson picks up on this by asking Why are so many media people puzzled that Trump keeps bringing up illegal votes? – “The MSM outlets are nearly unanimous that President Trump is “lying” and presenting “deliberate falsehoods” to the American public about illegal votes tipping the majority to Hillary Clinton in the election. The mantra is that there is “no evidence,” so Trump is “losing his credibility” and will no longer be believed.”

All of these warnings about lies coming from a president come at the hands of media outlets that rarely if ever used the word “lie” with regard to President Obama’s many prevarications on serious issues, such as the video causing the Benghazi attack and the Obamacare promise of keeping your plan and your doctor. These were politically consequential lies that I do not recall CNN warning about, as this morning’s newscast warned Trump about losing his credibility.
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If Trump’s media enemies like CNN once again ignore the March for Life, they will discredit themselves. It is very clear to me that President Trump intends to destroy the credibility of his media enemies.
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That is the context in which his multiple remarks concerning illegal votes has to be understood. I think President Trump knew that if he made remarks about illegal voting, the media would spring to action and present the opposite position and would characterize his thinking as a lie. The problem with this is that a lack of evidence is not proof for the contrary position. … The very act of asking for voter ID is considered discriminatory by many, including some in the courts.
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John Fund has written and co-authored two well documented books on the extent of vote fraud. The MSM are now demanding proof for Trump’s assertions, opening the door for the Trump administration to conduct a detailed investigation of vote fraud, which has to have been a strategy all along. When the investigation will be attacked as an effort at “vote suppression,” the Trump administration will have media demands for data to point at.

In other words, the media is being played. Their own proclivities are being used to lead them into efforts that contradict their desired message. This will create dissonance and it already has. That is going to stimulate behaviors that further undermine their propaganda efforts.

The Guardian is reporting that a half dozen journalists got caught up in the rioting and charged with felonies. “Based on the facts and circumstances, we determined that probable cause existed to support the filing of felony rioting charges,” William Miller, a spokesman for the office, said in a statement. “As in all of our cases, we are always willing to consider additional information that people bring forward.”

The IBD editorial asks Can Trump Win His Battle With The Unionized, Bureaucratic ‘Deep State’? – they are worried about public sector unions.

What is surprising is that no recent president has taken a serious whack at our out-of-control bureaucracy, which has become a fundamentally undemocratic part of our government, unresponsive to the people, arbitrary, overpaid and hyperpoliticized. It is a giant impediment to change and reform.
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Trump’s battle with what some call the “deep state” promises to be epic. But in the end, the only way to make government work as intended is to abolish public employee unions entirely. Government workers shouldn’t answer to union leaders, but to the American people, their employers.

The show continues ….

Things are calming down a bit now that the steamship has launched and is reaching cruising speed. There is still a lot to do to get the passengers settled and the cargo properly secured but the voyage has set its course.

The DC Women’s Tantrum by Trevor Thomas”

Have you ever wondered why liberals get so upset when they lose elections? It is because they have placed their hope in the forces of this world, especially political ones. Thus, when they lose at the ballot box, often, a fit ensues. Those who understand that this world is not our home — that real hope and real change are not brought about by mere politicians — are not very prone to throwing vile and violent tantrums when an election doesn’t go their way.

Glen Reynolds has more on this in his USA Today Column: Elections Matter — Too Much. – “In other words, if Americans increasingly find it intolerable that their political opponents control the government, that’s because government controls too much.”

Don Surber on how Conway tamed Chuck Todd.

Todd was arguing crowd sizes, she was arguing Obamacare. Which one was the serious person?

Notice the Transparently Absent – It’s Who Was Not at The White House That Also Tells a Story… by sundance:

Yesterday President Trump held a day of meetings with corporate business titans, CEO’s, and also skilled labor union officials. However, two men were transparently absent from both group meetings: U.S. CoC President Tom Donohue, and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
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Both Donohue and Trumka are operational agents and groundskeepers for the Swamp. It’s an open secret never discussed by media; however, in the era of Trump their transparent absence speaks loudly.

Ed Morrissey – LiveAction investigation: Planned Parenthood pre-natal care “virtually non-existent” – Live Action checked on Planned Parenthood claims that it provides pre-natal care. The study exposed a lie, a set of lies, really. Conway has more ammunition for the likes of Chuck Todd. But Wait! There’s More! See Ed on bad math with a purpose at the DoE.

Steven Hayward notes on Powerline that “The Washington Examiner reports that the stretch limo protesters set afire in Washington on inauguration day was owned by a Muslim immigrant who was opposed to Trump. And he doesn’t know whether his insurance policy will cover damage from rioting.” It looks like the driver was a Hispanic, Luis Villarroel, 58, who went to the hospital for cuts from the glass.

Reynolds cites: Women’s March Protesters Booed Trump Hotel Staffers Who Aided Woman Having Heart Attack. – “You [are] booing…” the officer continued. “They are trying to save one of y’all’s life.”

The feel good story of the day is from Aaron Gell: Meet The Marine Veteran Whose Heartfelt Plea To Flag-Burners Just Went Viral – The video concludes, “Your day will come. Maybe you’ll get wise one day and realize that the symbol of the flag isn’t what you’re protesting. That’s what gives you the ability to protest. You should cherish that, not burn it.”

Eric Worrall found an academic treatise on propaganda tactics: Study: Presenting Deliberately “Weakened” Skeptic Arguments Increases Climate Acceptance – another way of saying that is that it’s OK to lie if you think you know the Truth and the other guy is too stupid to see it your way.

The moral premise of this study is my most serious concern – it is not OK to play increasingly devious psychological tricks on people to win support. Of course it is possible to convince more people by providing them with a distorted, “weakened” version of your opponent’s position, which is what “inoculation” theory seems to be about – but that doesn’t make it right.

The Conway v Todd interview looks to be a favorite. The idea of ‘alternative facts’ is being picked up to ‘prove’ dishonesty as an inherent and basic Trump Trait. Anyone choosing this path displays ignorance if not actual malicious bias. It gets especially interesting when TANG memo Dan Rather starts up on the meme. The presser on Monday calmed down the weekend brouhaha because Spicer did a very good job explaining that what one knows may be incomplete and human perception is not always accurate as to the message actually intended. i.e. Trump continues to make those with hyperbolic hate towards him look silly.

What was the riot all about? Nobody seems to know for sure, especially the rioters. Between that and the Fake News there is a lot of analysis going on that the Primal Scream Day may have done more damage to the Left than anything else. What is becoming more clear is that those engaged in screaming, vulgar, rants are protesting their own positions.

A proper response to the insanity, bigotry, hatred, and vulgarity shows up on occasion. See the FoxNews story about a Woman kicked off plane for berating Trump supporter in viral video. Note the response from the other passengers:

Koteskey said, however, the reactions of his fellow passengers were heartening.

“As the lady was removed I saw that I was surrounded by blacks, Latinos, Asians, and whites, all who had chimed in asking her to be removed and who had defended me,” he wrote on Facebook. “I was touched and moved knowing later that not all these people were Trump supporters. The black man who took the seat next to me was a registered Democrat and he and I had a very good discussion about the beauty of free speech and coming together when people insult and commit acts of violence just for having differing views.

“It truly was a great demonstration of AMERICA and its people coming together and standing up for one another.”

Luboš Motl comments on this: “Maybe many of the leftist spoiled brats in the U.S. must prepare for a wobbly ride because so many exemptions from the laws and rules that they have enjoyed throughout their life will no longer work for them.”

A Sane Look at EO1 provides another example. David Catron says it’s The Right Prescription: Trump’s Obamacare Order Is Bigger Than You Think – “It is no mere sop to his supporters nor is it a symbolic gesture.” What is worthy of note is that the Executive Order is about following the law, not trying to bypass it. That includes the recognition that ObamaCare must be changed by law and not fiat.

Section 5 shouldn’t even be necessary. It merely requires that executive agencies follow the law when they promulgate new rules and regulations. The atrocious record of the Obama administration, however, has been such that Trump and his advisors felt the need to remind the various agencies that they are not above the law: “To the extent that carrying out the directives in this order would require revision of regulations issued through notice-and-comment rulemaking, the heads of agencies shall comply with the Administrative Procedure Act and other applicable statutes in considering or promulgating such regulatory revisions.”
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The reality that his opponents have forgotten is that much of Obamacare can be repealed by this executive order for the same reason the justly reviled contraception mandate can be tossed onto the ash heap of history. Even the much-hated individual mandate can be effectively neutralized by simply expanding the eligibility for hardship waivers to anyone without insurance coverage. It just takes the stroke of a presidential pen, and Donald Trump has clearly shown with Friday’s executive order that he isn’t afraid to wield that particular weapon.

Joel B. Pollak takes up the Propaganda Machine efforts as Fake News: Three Mainstream Media Lies on Trump’s First Day – “The mainstream media lost no time in attempting to undermine President Donald Trump, as opposed to actually reporting information.”

After eight years of kowtowing to Obama, they have suddenly discovered a civic responsibility to hold the government accountable. But they are focusing on minutiae, and in some cases actually telling lies, both of omission and commission. That risks alienating the public even further — making it harder, actually, for the media to act as watchdogs.

Lie #1: President Trump was focused on the crowd size at the inauguration.
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Lie #2: President Trump insulted the CIA.
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Lie #3: The anti-Trump protests in Washington, D.C. were important.

The crowd size thing is particularly indicative. It was based on a snapshot taken from the Washington Monument that contrasted with a similar snapshot take at the 2008 inauguration. The contrast became a rationalization for TDS of the ‘vox populi’ fallacy variety. Much like with the ‘warmest year evva’ claims, the analysis should be about the motivations and methods behind the assertions rather than the assertions themselves. Here’s from Glenn Reynolds:

Trump knows that the press isn’t trusted very much, and that the less it’s trusted, the less it can hurt him. So he’s prodding reporters to do things that will make them less trusted, and they’re constantly taking the bait. They’re taking the bait because they think he’s dumb, and impulsive, and lacking self-control — but he’s the one causing them to act in ways that are dumb and impulsive, and demonstrate lack of self-control.

This leads to a more subtle example of bias. In this case, it’s Taylor Millard about Thank Barack Obama for Donald Trump’s war on the media – The topic is a Saturday press briefing and he thinks “Sean Spicer has become a bit of a laughingstock for some of his Saturday night comments to the media.” What Spicer said was “There’s been a lot of talk in the media about the responsibility to hold Donald Trump accountable. And I’m here to tell you that it goes two ways. We’re going to hold the press accountable, as well.” Millard says that “only support our beliefs that Trump doesn’t really support free speech.” The question is how holding someone accountable can be construed as not supporting the Constitution? Free speech is not a license to speak unchallenged and the Administration has never expressed any proposal to censor others. It has only challenged veracity and often with rather obvious credibility based on reality.

Another item needing a bit of examination is The Soros Coincidence. Scott Johnson cites research of Asra Nomani published in the NYT that revealed the coincidence.

Johnson also takes a look at a Rumor of Schumor and finds Republicans are still surprised when they find they can’t trust Democrats. “In case you didn’t know this about Schumer: what a weasel.”

Paul Mirengoff takes a look at Trump at the CIA – this is an example of Trump bypassing the barriers of the swamp establishment.

As has been the case for months, the mainstream media has an ally in John Brennan, the anti-Trump former CIA head. A spokesperson for Brennan said:

“Former CIA Director Brennan is deeply saddened and angered at Donald Trump’s despicable display of self-aggrandizement in front of CIA’s Memorial Wall of Agency heroes. Brennan says that Trump should be ashamed of himself.”

Brennan’s hyperbole confirms his status as a hyper-partisan and a Trump hater.

In its self-absorption and desire to slam Trump, the media has intentionally missed the real story of the Langley visit. The real story is Trump’s show of support for the CIA.
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The distinction between the brass and the rank-and-file also sets up an easy refutation of the media’s claim that Trump is a hypocrite for blasting the CIA and then coming to Langley to praise it. Trump was blasting John Brennan and his crew, not the folks he addressed yesterday.
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If your new boss, a crass guy, comes to your house for dinner, he’s going to talk loud, brag, and possibly burp, even if you serve dinner on china handed down from your great-grandmother. But the main takeaway will be that the boss thought it worthwhile to dine with you, and that he praised you and expressed his support.

Make it clear. Put it on the table. Confront the obfuscation, misperception, propaganda, deceit, dishonesty. 

It just doesn’t quit.

Ed Morrissey: The narcissistic petulance of “the resistance”

Those weren’t protests — those were attempted revolutionary acts, which fits right into the hyperbolic and irresponsible language adopted by the very same people who lectured us on accepting the results of elections just three months earlier.
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In a self-governing republic with established democratic processes, there is no honorable role for “resistance.” What are they “resisting,” especially before the new administration even takes office? Free and fair elections — the kind that this particular group hadn’t lost in twelve years. They only believe in elections when it gives them access to power.

Rather than take on the honorable and difficult task of the opposition party and rebuild themselves for future success, some on the Left have decided that they’re victims of oppression. To excuse that and their actions that have followed, they now wrap themselves in the mantle of the free French in World War II, or perhaps more relevantly, those few and brave dissidents in actual dictatorial regimes like Cuba. That’s not only ridiculous, it’s an insult to those who have had to fight true oppression and who had self-governance stripped from their hands, to the extent they had it at all.
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The “resistance” styles itself as anti-fascist, but they are the fascists. They don’t like the outcome of the election, and now they want to seize power by force and intimidation. And everyone who contributes to this hysteria and uses the hyperbolic language of revolution is adding to the environment in which these groups take action.

The American people spoke in this election, not just in the presidential race but at every level of governance, and they rejected Democrats and the Left. It happens; Republicans had the same experience in 2006 and 2008, and spent their time fitfully repositioning themselves to appeal to voters, at least in relation to Democrats. You’re not a “resistance,” you’re an opposition, and your arrogance and self-regard are at least part of the reason your side lost in November. Grow up, get real, and perhaps rethink the decisions to cling to the calcified leadership that led you into your political dead end.

Jazz Shaw says The White House web site for law enforcement has… changed

One of the first items which sent liberals to the fainting couches was the disappearance of the climate change page under the issues section. (The old URL is now just a broken link.) This was viewed in some quarters as a sign of the End Times approaching. The page’s apparent replacement with the America First Energy Plan only poured salt in the wound.
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But that wasn’t the page which first caught my attention. Also in the White House issues section was a bold proclamation having to do with the nation’s law enforcement officers and it has nothing to do with finding more efficient ways to lock up cops. The title reads, Standing Up For Our Law Enforcement Community and it’s a doozy.

Carr: President’s ‘dark’ speech a ray of light for millions –

The inaugural speech was “dark” — that’s the storyline among the Democrats and their allies in the Fake News industry. It was “radical,” “Hitlerian,” or maybe Mussolini-ian — or both, according to Comrade Chris Matthews.

But mostly it was dark. What else could it have been? If it was all sweetness and light in America, how far would Donald J. Trump have gotten in his campaign?
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How out of touch can anyone be to be offended by a president who says: “It is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.”

Jazz Shaw explains why There are no longer any rules of engagement in political warfare. It’s heavy.

Perhaps the most unusual thing about yesterday’s bizarre political landscape (which reminded me of a bad Salvador Dali print by the time it was over) was that virtually nobody in the mainstream media seemed to find it unusual. I’m speaking, of course, about the women’s march which unfolded on the National Mall and in a number of other cities. The reaction of the press was to cover these events as if it were not only the most natural and expected thing in the world, but completely justified and glorious.
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The reporters go on to describe how the participants were “inspired” to be there and hail the marchers as, a like-minded sea of citizens who shared their anxiety and disappointment. It’s almost as if they were covering the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. But not all the action was taking place out in the streets. In the enclaves of liberal movers and shakers, announcements were going out detailing the vast sums of money being earmarked to defeat Donald Trump or at least battle him at every turn. Of course, much of the cash is coming from David Brock and his friends. (Politico)
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And if all that wasn’t enough, liberals have already kicked off an effort to impeach the new president.

So what’s missing from all of this coverage, you might be wondering. It’s not hard to identify. There is a complete, stunning silence among the media lambs in terms of the utter rejection of the election results which is on display. Yes, there are huge numbers of people protesting and the cable news coverage is such that they allowed Madonna to drop three F-bombs on the crowd before cutting away from her foul mouthed tirade. There’s a carnival atmosphere to the whole thing, even if it’s more akin to the Carnival of the Bizarre.

He goes on the explain the false point he saw so often in the assertion that ‘both sides do it.’

So no… there is no equivalency here. But as far as I can tell, the gloves are now fully off and there are no longer any rules on the political battlefield. Democrats and liberals in vast numbers are trying to destroy the Trump presidency before it’s even begun and the silence of the Fourth Estate has placed the media seal of approval on the effort. They are hoping to shut down the executive branch and are clearly willing to engage in a scorched earth policy to achieve that goal. So the next time a Democrat winds up winning the White House, you can expect the same in return. I don’t care if they elect a white man, a black woman or a transgender Latino pirate. I don’t want to hear any kvetching from MSNBC about racism, sexism or any other isms. Everyone is free to simply swamp the public square and reject the election results if they don’t like them, no matter what the next president has done or, more likely, not even had time to do.

Progressives started this phase of the war. Sadly, since there’s no way to win, nobody is going to be able to finish it.

The focus of most discussion has been about the assault on culture in other areas like religion. What Shaw highlights is that there has also been an assault on governance. Many of the customs and traditions that have held the country together have been torn asunder or set aside. The sources for this assault have become quite clear. There is a way to win and Trump described that in his inauguration speech. We will see if the people carry through. 

It’s the day after. The womyn gathered in such large numbers that the original parade route had to be changed. The media is concentrating on the vacant seats at the inauguration set up for the Democrats who don’t believe in democracy and ignoring the masses on the mall and the masses trying to get past security checkpoints. Some of those checkpoints had been blockaded by protesters and a number of the violent protesters are facing felony charges. The NYT is reporting Soros links to dozens of organizations behind the womyn’s gathering. And egregious Fake News in the Left’s Propaganda Machine are being noted. It’s a new era.

Roger Simon has a calm rundown on the The Pointless Paranoia of the Women’s Marches.

I am no stranger to protesting … But I have come to think over the years that too much demonstrating can get to be a bad habit, like smoking.
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Now I’m not talking here about the Gloria Steinems and Michael Moores, for whom protest is so much a way of life they couldn’t exist without it.
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I’m talking about the rest of us, especially, this weekend, a fair percentage of the women of America who descended on our nation’s capital and elsewhere in impressive numbers.

Excuse me if I don’t get it. What exactly was motivating them?
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So back to square one. What was the purpose of Saturday’s demonstrations? None, I think, meaning nothing substantive in the provable sense. They were propaganda. Basically the protests were media and social media ginned-up events intended to continue opposition to the myth, not the reality, of a Trump administration for political purposes.
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Which leads me to a final point — people who demonstrate all the time should consider they risk morphing into a collective version of the boy who cried wolf. When there’s something really worth protesting, no one believes them anymore.

For a bit less calm view, with pictures, see Sundance on the Making Moonbattery Great Again….

Most of America knows the organizers of the various “Women’s Marches” today did not construct women’s events, they constructed events for women who are anti-Trump and voted for Hillary Clinton, ie. liberal women. After all, billionaire George Soro’s financing is behind more than 50 groups who organized the various events.

There is a specific type of moonbattery exhibited by people demanding they must not be defined by their body parts, while they simultaneously hold up signs defining themselves by their body parts. An intellectual irony seemingly lost almost all the marchers.

On the Fake News front, WaPo has an excellent example of the innuendo version. Matt Zapotosky: Trump White House vows it won’t coddle ‘the rioter, the looter, or the violent disrupter’. His first clue is in picking up the “carnage in America” quote and attempting to minimize it: “That is true, though lethal violence remains low by historical standards.” Another example is “The statement noted rioters, looters and disrupters, but it made no mention of people’s First Amendment rights to free speech. The only amendment it mentioned was the second, the right to bear arms.” As if free speech is going to be abridged by considering rioting and looting as a crime rather than free speech. Finally, he brings in the case of Eric Garner with the BLM based debunked Fake News errors of the past to end with the idea that it is the authority that is criminal, not the criminals. 

T. Becket Adams says It has been a really bad week for journalism and provides a litany of examples.

It has been a particularly embarrassing week for the press, and it’s only Saturday.

For an industry that’s as disliked and distrusted as Congress, there’s a lot of work that media need to do to win back viewers’ trust. There’s no room for error, especially now that there’s a subgenre of “news” that has zero basis in fact, and is created from thin air for the sole purpose of generating cash.

But learning to be more careful and even-handed is apparently difficult for some in media, and this week was especially rough for newsrooms that are already struggling to regain credibility.

In no particular order, here are some of the most embarrassing media moments from this week:

There’s the NYT hit on Perry, The MLK bust, The Gelernter slam, Christian prayer shaming, bullying MKL III, First Lady website resume juice, and the website revision paranoia. This last showed up in local news about downtown protests. That was a ‘woman on the street’ interview with aimlessly wandering people thinking they were protesting something that illustrated that they were out only due to ignorance, bigotry, and hatred with nothing constructive in mind. One cited the last of testimony of support for LGBT causes on the White House website as his cause for paranoia.

This is the sort of blind hatred that Thomas Lifson notes in The conspiracy to impeach Trump already launched.

It should be crystal clear to all Americans that his political enemies are searching for any pretext to launch an impeachment effort to unseat President Trump, once they think it would have a chance of success. Given the level of animosity toward Trump in his own party, and the possibility of midterm election losses for the president’s party (the normal pattern in American politics), these efforts can’t be dismissed as impossible.

We know about this secret conspiracy because of a leak to the Washington Free Beacon.
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If this sounds like a sales pitch, that’s because it is. Brock functions only with the funding of rich leftists like George Soros and his allies, and his humiliating failure to deliver for them in the 2016 election leaves him no option but to escalate, in hopes the suckers donors will throw good money after bad.

The sales pitch presents a well-oiled machine already operating:
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I have little doubt that the megaphone of the White House will be employed to publicize this memo. What are the odds that Brock will blame the Russians? But the Vast Leftwing Conspiracy has been exposed laying out its plans in serch of a pretext for all to see.

The left is counting on media support to make its case for impeachment work. But that is a diminishing asset for them, and the Trump administration has signaled that it is ready to help dispatch the ailing members as they collapse. I think it is time to ask prominent Congressional Dems if they are willing to condemn the effort to impeach before a pretext is even available.

One of the problems here is that the Democrats have established precedent to set the bar very very low. The analogy is their invocation of the ‘nuclear option’ that handcuffs their opposition to nominee ‘advice and consent’. For impeachment, they have shown that even behavior egregious enough to get a president expelled from the bar is insufficient to remove him from office.

Andrew Malcom takes a look: Of 45 presidents, Trump joins a super-select group who were not politicians. Excluding George Washington, only six of 45 presidents have not come up through the political ranks.

all six have been members of the Republican Party or its predecessor, the Whigs.

Half were retired generals, in effect, military chief executives. Two were wealthy businessmen, successful civilian executives. One was a career government executive who is the only person to ever head the executive and judicial branches of America’s government.

Only two of the six served two terms.

It is really rather remarkable that, over more than 200 years, Americans have chosen presidents outside the swamp more than 10% of the time.

Douglas V. Gibbs provides a bit more evidence than the Intelligence Community did on the Russians supporting his theory for who was involved in trying to corrupt the election: WikiLeaks: Hillary Clinton Bribed Republicans to Influence Election.

Never mind the Russians. It was Hillary Clinton who was actually trying to sabotage the 2016 Presidential Election, according to a WikiLeaks release.

The information released shows that the Hillary Clinton campaign staffers bribed six Republicans to “destroy Trump”.

The evidence includes an email from John Podesta to Huma Abedin discussing diverting Clinton campaign funds to various Republicans who were secretly on the Clinton payroll.

Ed Morrissey describes why the Inaugural shows ‘The Resistance’ is an attack on democracy.

At a time when the nation set out to celebrate the peaceful transfer of authority, activists on the left descended on the nation’s capital to show just how fragile that can be.
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A self-governed nation must have ways to hold elected officials accountable, and the existence of peaceful, law-abiding demonstrations can assure us of the health of our liberty.
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That, however, was not what we saw on Inauguration Day. It didn’t start on Inauguration Day, either, or even on Inauguration Eve. This started immediately after the election, when those on the losing side of the election began dubbing themselves “The Resistance.”

This grandiose and pretentious appellation insults those who actually have to live under authoritarian regimes, including Cuba, whose oppressed no longer have the promise of expedited asylum if they manage to reach the United States, thanks to the outgoing president’s actions in the final hours of his term.

Those who lose elections in free countries are the opposition, and can fix that by winning the next election. Instead of asking why they lost, the “resistance” decided to pretend the loss of an election amounts to oppression and have adopted the language of revolution to rally themselves.

That incendiary language didn’t just get adopted by a few on the fringe, but by many on the left, including some in the news and entertainment media.
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After they lost, the activist left refuses to accept that fact and instead wants to grab power at the point of a stick, the blunt side of a brick and the business end of a riot. That’s about as far from “anti-fascist” as it gets.
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What we have seen in Washington this week is not a rational or lawful exercise of freedom of speech but a violent temper tantrum by those who will accept no governance other than their own rule, regardless of the expressed will of the electorate. That will be a lesson voters should learn and consider for the next election — and beyond.

There are reports that the ACLU has already started filing lawsuits, the carping about personal financial records and imagined conflicts of interest continue unabated, that attacks on the President’s young son have already started, that Democrats are doing everything they can to oppose just because a Republican is trying to do something and taking offense at any slight imagined or otherwise, and hyperbolic excessive pessimism about everything … i.e. business as usual for the Left. The question is whether it will be damped by public shaming or, as it has for the last few years, be fanned into hatred and violence.

The apologists take the ‘everybody does it’ excuse. That is a denial of what is readily evident as the Right does not engage in wholesale riot, property destruction, or adamant opposition no matter the position.

The new President has offered an invitation to all to come aboard and address inner city poverty and violence. Will the Democrats join in the effort or will they continue to oppose and impugn and build walls and isolate themselves? Will they continue to obsess on the words he uses to describe that violence or join in to address the problem?

ACSH: Media Think World Of Science And Health Will End On Inauguration Day 2017 – “a substantial number of Americans, goaded on by a sensationalist press and the hyperpartisan echo chamber of social media, strongly disagree. One could be forgiven for thinking that America is diving head first into a new Dark Age… or worse.” FUD Mongering headlines are cited. Then there’s the question: Are Science Journals Politically Biased? Editor-In-Chief Of ACS Journal Refuses To Discuss Editorial Policy – “there is a small but growing perception among Americans that scientists are becoming politically biased. Indeed, surveys have confirmed that Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans in academia. And, over the last few months, the behavior of high-profile scientific journals has only served to reconfirm these perceptions of bias.”

It is difficult to avoid the perception of bias among the public when editors at journals are condemning a new president before he has even taken office.
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Given the oddity of preemptively declaring war on an administration before it has taken charge, I was curious if ES&T Letters had published any editorials critical of President Obama. After all, he presided over at least two extremely controversial policies that were decided by politics rather than science
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Combined, the message being sent by the scientific community is loud and clear: “We will give preferential treatment to politicians we like, and we will refuse to even consider treating fairly those we don’t.” That’s hardly an attitude befitting a scientist; on the contrary, it is what we would expect from a partisan or TV pundit.

Such conduct is bad for science. The honor and privilege bestowed upon this “secular priesthood” ought not be abused. Currently, science continues to earn widespread admiration from both sides of the political spectrum. And though a large majority of Americans still believe scientists are politically unbiased, that reputation will erode unless the scientific community makes a better effort to behave that way.

That horse has already left the barn and the concerns are a day late and a dollar short.

Ian Hanchet: Krauthammer: Young Man Starting Fire at Anti-Trump Protest Has ‘A Whiff of ISIS To It’ – “[I]t tells you how completely weird the parents and the other people out there are. These are the same people who show up at the IMF meetings, and world bank, the Occupy Wall Street. You ask them, ‘Why are you out there?’ They’re completely incoherent. … I mean, these people ought to be medicated.”

I think the real culprits here are the people who ought to be the adults. The one’s who ought to set an example, and that’s the one-third of Democrats in Congress, who will refuse to attend, and actively boycott the inauguration. I think that is scandalous. An inauguration is not the celebration of party victory. It’s a kind of civic sacrament for something that it is exceedingly rare in the world, which is the transfer of power, uninterrupted now for 240 years, the longest anywhere on earth. That’s something that you celebrate.”

Valerie Richardson picks up on this as Trump trashing and bashing becomes a permanent role for political left – “Is the political left getting ahead of itself in bashing and trashing the Trump White House?”

Nobody expects the losing party to celebrate after a presidential race, but political analysts say the postelection frenzy of fundraising, war rooms, protests and social media hysteria represents an alarming departure from the traditional stoic acceptance of years past.
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“A democracy only works if the factions, the divisions are done peacefully and resolved peacefully, and compromises are made,” Mr. Horowitz said. “There’s a honeymoon after the election in which the losing party defends the legitimacy of the election result. That’s why we’ve had peace since the Civil War in this country.”
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Democrats say Republicans didn’t make it easy for Barack Obama, who had barely got comfortable in the White House before the tea party announced its arrival with a march on Washington in September 2009.

On the other hand, conservatives never tried to upend the 2008 Electoral College result by urging electors to defect, or called for his impeachment before he took office, or organized dozens of demonstrations to coincide with his inauguration.
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Fixating on Mr. Trump also prevents Democrats from promoting a positive message for voters, especially if he winds up scoring policy victories early on in his administration.

“His job is to produce for the American people,” Mr. Gingrich said, “and frankly, to the degree that the Democrats decay into just being the anti-Trump party, they will keep themselves in the minority a long time.”

Jon Fleischman: Dems Boycotting Trump Should Burn American Flags, Too – “When elected federal legislators announce that they are boycotting the official swearing-in of the new president, they are not protesting the person that was elected, they are protesting America itself.”

But I believe that for an elected member of Congress ,being on hand to affirm and support this peaceful transition of power between chief executives is their responsibility — one they are shirking to make a cheap political statement that does more to diminish themselves than anything else.

Thomas Lifson says Wynton Marsalis nails it on performers boycotting the inauguration – “Make people cheat you to your face, son.”

As some performers disgrace themselves with dishonored vows to leave the U,S. upon Trump’s election and petulant bullying of peers who dare express willingness to perform at the inaugural, a genuine star has put them all to shame. Wynton Marsalis posted an essay on Facebook that deserves to be read in its entirety

Mike Kimmitt describes The Democrats’ acidic petulance – “Still posted on the CNN website is a months-old interview that again reveals the stunning phoniness of today’s hard-left Democrat-press complex.”

Earnest believes that the rapidly diminishing numbers of Democrats remaining in Congress and in state houses across the land are so convinced of their own righteousness that the most revolting display of petulance is not only acceptable, but encouraged.

With thousands of anarchists conspiring to disrupt or curtail inaugural events, Democrats in Congress are essentially urging them on with their acidic behavior.

CNN did its part with a stunningly irresponsible report in which it wistfully speculated that Democrats might be able to maintain the White House if Trump were assassinated before being sworn in.
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The dangerous garishness of the Democratic Party and their sycophants in the press and on the streets of Washington, D.C. is as unprecedented as it is shameful.

On the State Left’s Propaganda Machine Kelly Riddell notes The one-sided coverage of Donald Trump – “Everybody, including the Never-Trumpers suffers for it.” Wesley Pruden picks up on consequences as a A hearty last laugh for the Donald – “Donald Trump’s greatest contribution to America will be his stripping the media, particularly the overpaid and undereducated television media, of its last pretense to fairness and objectivity.” Jennifer Harper says Battered mainstream press limps into uncharted age of Trump, social media – “There’s no press honeymoon now and not much chance for one in the future.” Warren L. Dean Jr. fits in here, too with his look at The Democrats’ ‘dossier’ – “Spying on Russia’s mischief, or even faking it, is a dangerous game.”

“Our new president is a master of communicating directly with the world in his own way, and social media enables him to bypass the press,” said veteran pollster John Zogby. “Meanwhile, the mainstream press is out of the loop, suffering from fewer viewers and subscribers, and threatened by serious distrust from the public. Ironically, the media seem to need Trump more than vice versa because he is such good drama and copy for them.”

Then, if you are into FUD Mongering, consider Andrew Blake: Passwords of top Trump appointees leaked online after earlier data breaches: Report – “Cabinet members identified in the report had their internet passwords compromised and leaked online as a consequence of high profile data breaches suffered by LinkedIn, MySpace and other websites hacked between 2012 and 2016, Channel 4 said.” This is why the prudent person manages his passwords according to accepted best practices, unlike Podesta. The fear being spread is that anyone can now read the incoming official’s private correspondence. The reality is that the incoming officials are rather more prudent than the outgoing officials as there were no such leaks as envisioned by the FUD Mongerers in the Propaganda Machine.

Charles Hurt: Donald Trump the Revolutionary – “He is coming to change many things in the lives of Americans.” Indeed, the fear of change is what is driving much of the TDS hysteria. But consider:

From the darkest corners of the bloated federal bureaucracy to the bright marble columns of the Supreme Court, Mr. Trump’s mandate is as broad as it is dramatic. Illegal immigration, international trade, education, Obamacare and America’s war against terrorism are all on the table for complete overhauls.

Refreshingly, Mr. Trump’s mandate is not a partisan one. He owes very little to the Republican Party and absolutely nothing to the Democratic Party. He handily defeated partisans on both sides of the political aisle.

He also owes nothing to any industry or special interest group except the voters who elected him and the free market system that made him a billionaire. He is owned by no one.

As a result, Mr. Trump stands poised to reinvent the entire federal government in favor of the American people alone. He is a tireless agent of disruption and an unbending force for creative destruction.
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Donald Trump would not know a “talking point” if he saw one. He could barely get along with the teleprompter.

But he could talk.

And in plain English, he promised to re-invent the federal government from the ground up. People here were shocked, horrified, scandalized, frightened. But, outside Washington and the establishment media, people loved it.

Jazz Shaw on the bitter end of the Obama Era provides a wrap up.

The proceedings have started. There is much more commentary and news. Time for a breather.

There’s so much more but this is already up to near 2500 words.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University, published a ‘twofer’ of his thoughts today. One is about the racial disparity in crime and the other about international trade. Both are top agenda items for the new President. Here are selections from Dr. Williams thoughts.

Black Crime: The FBI reported that the total number of homicides in 2015 was 15,696. Blacks were about 52 percent of homicide victims … and over 90 percent of the time, the perpetrator was another black. Listening to the news media and the Black Lives Matter movement, one would think that black deaths at the hands of police are the major problem. It turns out that in 2015, police across the nation shot and killed 986 people. Of that number, 495 were white (50 percent), 258 were black (26 percent) and 172 Hispanic (17 percent). A study of 2,699 fatal police killings between 2013 and 2015, conducted by John R. Lott Jr. and Carlisle E. Moody of the Crime Prevention Research Center, demonstrates that the odds of a black suspect’s being killed by a black police officer were consistently greater than a black suspect’s getting killed by a white officer. Politicians, race hustlers and the news media keep such studies under wraps because these studies don’t help their narrative about racist cops.

Today’s level of lawlessness and insecurity in many black communities is a relatively new phenomenon. … The presence of criminals, having driven many businesses out, forces residents to bear the costs of shopping outside their neighborhoods. … Politicians who call for law and order are often viewed negatively, but poor people are the most dependent on law and order. … Ultimately, the solution to high crime rests with black people. Given the current political environment, it doesn’t pay a black or white politician to take those steps necessary to crack down on lawlessness in black communities.

International Trade Thuggery: Some American companies relocate in foreign lands because costs are lower and hence their profits are higher. Lower labor costs are not the only reason companies move to other countries. … One of the unappreciated benefits of international trade is that it helps reveal the cost of domestic policy. … My argument here is not against the costly regulations that we impose on ourselves. I am merely suggesting that we should appreciate the cost of those regulations. The fact that a good or service can be produced more cheaply elsewhere helps.

Trump’s threats to impose high tariffs on the products of companies that leave ought to be a worry for us … President Barack Obama has circumvented the Constitution and Congress through executive orders. … One wonders whether Trump plans to broaden that power by implementing trade tariffs through executive order. … By the way, all trade is fair in the eyes of the parties trading, or else they would not trade. It’s third parties who seek to interfere.

His worry is indicative. He is worried about the incoming president where the worry is speculative but just notes the reality of his worry about the current president. He also illustrates that his base concern isn’t so much executive abuse of the Constitution as it is of the regulatory agencies run amok.

Tucker Carlson ‘interviewed’ one of the House Boycotters and demonstrated that the boycotters concerns were ignorant of Trump’s published positions and ideas and that the Representative had much in common with Trump’s views despite asserting no common ground.

On the Russian blame game (one of the two most common Leftist excuses for losing several thousand elections country wide): “It should come as no surprise that the Democratically commissioned dossier is virtually incredible.” … “The strangest part of this story is that the so-called intelligence community in the United States reportedly got bamboozled into briefing President Obama and President-elect Trump on the dossier, and possibly presenting a summary of it to them.” … “The real story here is that the perfidious Russians were themselves being spied on.” [Warren L. Dean Jr]

It’s “Drunk on Group Think” (Kennedy). What makes it remarkable is that it is an anti-civilization effort based on blatant ignorance and dishonesty. It makes it clear that many Democrats have effective governance very low on their list of priorities and grievance politics at the very top. Trump inauguration boycott grows to third of Democratic caucus – “President-elect’s feud with John Lewis fuels unity. ” Even the Washington Times is showing the Left bias here. A cursory look at the Lewis ruckus reveals it was a Lewis feud with Trump based on fake news (The Russians and the LA/NYC vote) and ignorance of Trump’s positions. No matter. That’s just intellectual integrity and that is not valued much on the Left.

“It seems fairly unprecedented this number of people would boycott and in such a formalized manner,” said Barbara Perry, presidential studies director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

House Democrats know a thing or two about boycotting Republican inaugurals — a handful skipped the 2001 swearing-in of President George W. Bush — but the only event comparable to this year’s exodus in terms of scale is the 1973 inauguration of President Nixon.

David Sherfinski: Newt Gingrich on boycotters: Why would you ‘abandon America’? – ““They’re childish and silly. The inauguration is not about Republicans. It’s not about Donald Trump,” Mr. Gingrich said.” On the up side is the idea that they are making this clear to the public at large. This perfidy in politicians has much to do with Trump winning the election and the antics of the left like the aggressive bullying and the pompous boycotting may help educate others who have not yet understood the lesson.

On the bias in evidence front, Douglas Ernst reports that Bill Maher puts Hollywood ‘bubble’ on notice: ‘We’re the losers now’ – ““It’s very insular, just the liberals talking to themselves, which they are very good at doing,” Mr. Maher said.” Then there’s this: “It is a very troubling idea that the FBI is politicized. When the internal police department is politicized, that’s a place I don’t want to be on the wrong side of — I mean, that’s fascism.” He ‘forgets’ that the FBI issue was based on the politicization of the DoJ and efforts to dance around top down pressure and the AG meeting with the suspect. That bias about pending Fascism also misses what has been happening in the IRS and other agencies. i.e. there is a who lotta’ projection going on.

Robert Oscar Lopez says Want to Know Why Trump Won? Just Ask His Supporters – He highlights why the TDS temper tantrums are so dangerous. The tantrums feed into the angst that elected Trump. The election was the proper, the peaceful way for the angst to speak. If it is not heard then other ways to speak will happen.

If you have never been publicly accused of bigotry, you may have a difficult time understanding what political correctness means for the ordinary citizen who cannot afford to be fired, does not retain a personal lawyer, has no publicist, and lacks the resources to rescue his reputation from the onslaught of a left-wing character smear.
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“Bigot! Hater!” These used to be allegations that might make one less attractive on the social scene, but nowadays they are as deadly as being accused of sorcery in 1690 in Massachusetts, or of sodomy in 1890 in London, or of Communism in 1953 in Washington, D.C.
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Since Trump won, I find a huge burden lifted from me. So much of people’s ability to make me afraid to speak honestly pointed ultimately to Obama’s presence at the top of the chain of being, to marshal civic powers against anyone accused of hate. Without the IRS, the Department of Justice, the intelligence community, and the whole federal behemoth backing up the P.C. troops on the streets, we are…free.

It feels wonderful, and Trump isn’t even president yet.

S.E.Cupp has her opinion, too: Democrats, please control yourselves: Trump derangement syndrome will not help win policy fights – “If Democrats want to project strength and confidence in their ability to survive in the era of Trump — and one day defeat him — they have a long recovery ahead.” People are observing and many understand what they see.

In the hours and days following Trump’s toppling of Hillary Clinton, liberals around the country collapsed into seizing, heaving piles of inconsolable apoplexy. And it’s led to some truly tragic, and embarrassing, behavior among some.
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Snit fits about every little thing are not an effective way to oppose a President’s agenda.

Party leaders and activists don’t look defiant, resolved and unified; they look alarmingly insecure, weak and spastic.

She falls into the ‘both sides do it fallacy’ – can you find any mainstream Republican kicking and screaming in response to Obama like we see now by Democrats in response to Trump? But, in this case, that is a minor issue in her main point that “if we want to get through this, and maybe get a Democrat or another Republican elected in four years, we need to pick ourselves up, put our heads down, and go to work.”

Don Surber takes up the compare and contrast in President Trump and Obama — a Tale of Two Palms – It highlights the fact that Trump, and much of his cabinet, are entering government after retiring from successful careers while the Obamas, and the Clintons, and Harry Reid entered government as paupers looking for wealth and fame in government service. He illustrates the absurdity about these ‘unfit’ judgments and complaints about lack of experience or lack of qualifications directed at Trump.

Only after he succeeded in life, did Donald Trump seek the presidency.

Then there is Barack Obama, a man who built nothing and did nothing prior to running for office. He wrote two books, did he?

Trump wrote 18.
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As an over-rated community organizer once said, You Did Not Built This.

By the way, the Clintons and the Obamas mooched off friends to vacation in Martha’s Vineyard. Both Bushes and Reagan went to their own vacation places.

On the typical Leftist smearing of the ‘Republicans are going to push grandma off the cliff and kill women and children variety’ is John Merline asking Are Those ‘ObamaCare Saved My Life’ Stories Legitimate?

But the relevant question isn’t: “Did ObamaCare help some people?” The relevant question is: “Could the same benefits have been achieved at lower costs?
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Did ObamaCare help some people? No doubt.

Are there a better, cheaper, more competitive, less intrusive ways to expand insurance coverage by making it more affordable?

Given ObamaCare’s enormous price tag, the disruptions it’s caused, the false promises made to get it enacted, the market implosion it sparked, and the ongoing lack of public support, the answer to that question is also a definitive “Yes.”

On the Fake News front is the IBD on Media Malpractice In The Age Of Trump – “For eight years, it was virtually impossible to get reporters interested in legitimate Obama administration scandals. Now, reporters are so eager to run scandal stories about the incoming Trump administration that they are making them up.” The example is the attempt to smear nominee Tom Price.

In other words, there is no story here, much less a scandal.

The fact that CNN pretended that there was one says nothing about Price’s ethics. It does, however, say plenty about the blatant partisan bias of today’s “independent” press.

The rant of the day award goes to Colin Flaherty on Trump and Obama’s Legacy of Racism – “Racial quotas and affirmative action is an essential part of every cubicle in every office in every department. Top to bottom … white people have to fix that. Because black people are not responsible for their own behavior. .”

Now the only question is whether Trump and his army are going to be ready to take the helm of a federal government that has made racial resentment a fundamental organizing principle of its existence. Part of the DNA of every policy in every nook and cranny in every federal office.

Or whether they think this cancer of institutional racial resentment can wait another day.

On the gun control issue Jazz Shaw says A roundup of illegal guns in Washington, D.C. proves telling – “one thing we do know is that the vast, vast majority of firearms used in crimes were not bought at the local gun shop by someone who passed a background check.”

one of the bright spots at the Washington Post has been the work of Colbert I. King. While we obviously don’t agree on everything, he usually covers the D.C. metro beat and his reporting is generally fair and critical of the district’s government where deserved. He’s done a lot of work on the outrageous but often unreported crime rate and the problems residents have been facing on that score. This week he looks at a collection of weapons confiscated from criminals and highlights some important information. Shockingly for the WaPo, it doesn’t point to an immediate demand for stricter gun control laws. In fact, a closer look indicates almost precisely the opposite.
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think about the work the district police are doing. They are finding a relatively huge number of guns considering that D.C. has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. And pretty much all of those guns were obtained illegally. Keep that in mind next time you talk to someone pushing for more background checks and tougher restrictions on legal firearms purchases.

Stephen Hayward manages to come up with both a smear and Fake News and media malfeasance: Washington Post Goes Full Retard – “And people in the media wonder why Trump, and much of the population, think the media is the enemy.” The case is dissected.

You may have seen the latest claims about ‘warmest evva’ – Luboš Motl explains what’s going on in GISS: 1998-2016 comparison suggests a trend of 2 °C per century.

Just a few more days and the pessimist wonders what these folks will turn to, then.

The bullies at the gate ahead of the Trump inauguration – “Hollywood, liberals and the political establishment descend into panic.” By Tammy Bruce – – Wednesday, January 18, 2017

As Jan. 20 approaches, the bullies are at the gate. Hollywood, liberals and the political establishment are panicking because they have no idea what to expect when Donald Trump officially becomes the president of the United States.

What Hollywood does know is that anyone in their industry who does not conform to the standard Trump Derangement Syndrome will be bullied until they submit.
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The civil war we’re experiencing is not limited to the political parties and Washington, D.C., it’s throughout a culture within which a select few have cultivated an “us vs. them” mentality in order to benefit from government largesse and the power and influence that it provides.

The bullying isn’t only about performers. The Woodmont Country Club is also getting the treatment. Jazz Shaw:

“But the mayor – one Jeffrey Slavin, who I’m just going to assume is a Democrat – seems to be milking this for all he can get out of it. Rather than simply disagreeing with his fellow golfers, he’s chosen to quit and put out a statement describing the potential decision as intolerance. It doesn’t take much ability to read between the lines to know what that means. He’s accusing the members of being racists and the press is picking up the ball and running with it.”

On that civil war thing, consider the mercenaries. Record protest crowds expected to greet Donald Trump at his inauguration – “Take President-elect Donald Trump, add the rise of the professional protest class, and you’ve got a recipe for a record-shattering inauguration protest.” By Valerie Richardson – The Washington Times – Tuesday, January 17, 2017. The professional protest class has become prominent enough to attract scammers. Hoax ads in two dozen cities offered protesters up to $2,500 to agitate at Trump inaugural – “‘Dominic Tullipso’ prompts Fox host to laugh, say ‘this is performance art’.” Meanwhile, O’Keefe drops another video (DisruptJ20 Dramatically Scales Back Plans to Sabotage Inauguration After Project Veritas Sting) …

On the climate front, there is the ying and the yang. Richard W. Rahn describes the Bias, ignorance and reality in climate science – and why “Refusal to own up to the distortions of climate science is a costly mistake.” Then Seth Borenstein illustrates what Rahn was talking about by asserting Global warming could steal postcard-perfect weather days.

Trump Gores a Sacred Cow, and Liberals Lament – “The great Broom of Time recently swept away another failed ideology and political movement.” By Daniel L. Mallock

That the reaction of the Utopian Progressive Left is based upon anger, resentment, hatred, intolerance, and pique rather than logic is not important to them; it is a point that remains always unaddressed. Every political “dirty trick” that seems obviously a sham is accepted at face value, and bitter attacks built upon these false accusations immediately begin. The dizzying speed of the reactions, the overwhelmingly standardized nature of the talking points and commonly invoked yet faulty arguments, suggests a uniformity of thought more typical of an ideological movement or cult than of reasoned, cogent advocacy for a political candidate within a democratic open society.

Roger L Simon: The Real Reason John Lewis and Company Boycott the Inauguration – “When people “act out,” it’s often because a particularly raw nerve has been touched, some basic fear triggered.”

But that’s the surface of what’s really upsetting them, what the shrinks call the “presenting complaint.” Deep down it’s something else, something far more potent.

They’re afraid Donald Trump might actually succeed.

In a world where we often talk of disruptors in business, Trump is the ultimate political disruptor.
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But the wound is too severe. Even devoid of a viable ideology, they fight on tooth and nail. Power itself has always been more important than what it stands for. The battle, as is clearly evident, is far from over.

To illustrate that point, John Merline: The Washington Post Takes Anti-Trump Bias To A New Level – 

The mainstream press loves to tell readers that it can be trusted because it employs professional journalists backed by layers of editors. Oh, and they’re all unbiased.

So how to explain a recent Washington Post headline, which manages both to misrepresent its own poll and expose the ridiculous extent to which its reporters and editors will go to bash President-elect Donald Trump?

Or, there’s this by John Kass: Trump, the media and a cure for hysteria.

So how about gigantic, five-gallon jugs chock-full of Prozac, or other such antidepressants, placed in every newsroom?

Because it should be clear by now that something is needed, since much of journalism leans to the political left, and that many of the left are beyond fear and hysterics over Trump.
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And so, here’s the Democratic game: Delegitimize Trump even before his term begins, use outrage and media anger toward Trump to shovel it out to America, and shame anyone who dares say otherwise, to save those 10 senators running in the pro-Trump states.
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So what do you do if your voters are getting itchy? You bind them with fear and anger.

Ace provides another example citing Mollie Hemingway and the Generals Leading the Intelligence Community’s War on a Duly Elected President. “A plausible answer, it seems to me, is that the media is protecting the sources it knows damn well are the leakers.”

Regarding the Manning commutation, see Jazz Shaw on The aftermath of the disgraceful Chelsea Manning commutation – “What’s of greater interest to me is the proper level of outrage being expressed over this blatant insult to the military, the intelligence community and the citizens of the nation. The New York Post provided a fairly good roundup of some of the initial reactions last night. Speaker Ryan was one of the first out of the gate.” Even Allahpundit picks up on this: “Sean Davis extracts the lesson here: “Giving classified info to Wikileaks is good as long as it only endangers national security and not Democrat careers.”

This isn’t the only one and the release of Gitmo terrorists is just another part of this story of Obama’s thinking about terrorism and treason. Consider also the commuting of the sentence of Oscar López Rivera, a former Chicago community organizer turned FALN terrorist. Andrew C. McCarthy explains The Damage Done to America by Manning … and Obama –

Third, the degree to which Obama has wielded executive power in favor of America’s enemies and against his own political opponents and scapegoats is breathtaking.
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But if you are Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative Obama critic, the Justice Department inflates an administrative violation into multiple felonies and aggressively advocates (thankfully, without success) for a stiff prison sentence. If you are a tea party group gearing up to fight Obama’s re-election, here comes the IRS. If you are “anti-Muslim video producer” Nakoula Basseley Nakoula and Obama needs a scapegoat for his derelictions in Benghazi, you end up in the slammer. If you are a deep-pocketed financial institution that Obama wants to make the culprit for the government-driven financial meltdown, or to raid so the radical left’s legion of “community organizers” can be funded, prepare to pony up a 9- or 10-figure “settlement.” If you are a police department, be ready to be scandalized as a practitioner of racially malicious enforcement. If you are Israel, brace for the “international outlaw” smear.

A standard defense for the current crop of Barack Obama’s pardon and commutation binge is that it is only about folks incarcerated for inoffensive drug possession or, perhaps, the awful racist U.S. injustice system. Jazz Shaw says The clemency train is ready to pull out from the station again and cites Heather Mac Donald at National Review [who] covered this [nonviolent criminal] problem last year.

For an example of the TDS vitriol, consider Rachel and her Truth in the Age of Trump – and this from a self professed ‘conservative’:

Quite apart from the security headaches, the road closures, and the not-inconsiderable prospect of violent demonstrations the day of, or the days after the event, the prospect of it filled me with disgust. I wanted to be far away from the pleasant city that is our national capital. Donald J. Trump has repeatedly revealed himself as a lying, crooked, narcissistic ignoramus, incapable of generous thoughts or deeds, indeed, incapable of seeing beyond himself at all. The idea of that man living in Lincoln’s house is nauseating.

But he is the President, so what is one to do? More particularly, what are conservative intellectuals to do?

The most important thing is to speak the truth, indeed, to become somewhat fanatical on the subject.

Perhaps a first step towards finding truth is to examine the basis of one’s own perceptions? The nausea is a clue that there is a problem in this area. You cannot speak truth until you find it. Blinded by hatred is no way to find the pathway to truth.

Back after a holiday and the planet is popping. The ‘stack of stuff’ Limbaugh uses must need a warehouse and Amazon robots to manage. That means the distillation of the news is getting further distilled to focus on a selection of headlines.

Washington Times lists some of its most popular: Ads in two dozen cities offer protesters up to $2,500 to agitate at Trump inaugural – Planned Parenthood failed to take sex trafficking seriously after infamous sting, ex-employee says – President Obama leaves legacy of wider racial rift – Democrats wasting time hating Donald Trump – Alveda King, MLK’s niece: ‘I voted for Mr. Trump’ – Ryan Zinke defends expansive federal reach in land policies plus others Departing CIA chief John Brennan wants his legacy to be the work he did for LGBTQ community – Politico admits White House press corps been asleep last 8 years – More U.S. Marines deployed near Russian borders … Talk about a loaded plate! But wait! there’s more!

Ed Feulner says it’s about Reversing a dangerous power grab – “The feds just took over the U.S. election process.” What he highlights is that the current Left’s thing about blaming the election results on the Russians drives policy decisions that bode ill for keeping the Russians out of elections.

That’s not to say that other forms of election tampering aren’t possible. Far from it, unfortunately. Voter fraud is a real danger, and many cases have popped up across the country.

But these occur invariably at the state and local level. It would be extraordinarily difficult for anyone, foreign or otherwise, to tap in and tamper with the results on a national level — for the simple reason that there’s no central place to tap.

Designating our election systems “critical infrastructure” places that security in jeopardy.
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Despite all this talk about the Russians hacking us, the real enemy is within. It’s time to expose this naked power grab — and reverse it.

“Environmentalists like to call themselves conservationists because they think it makes them look less extreme. The tactic, dating back decades, is part of a larger public relations strategy designed to craft an image that won’t alienate the average American.” Jeff Goodson describes the history in another battle with the left in Trump and the Rough Rider’s conservation ethos – “Like Teddy Roosevelt, the Donald would unlock America’s natural resources.”

Then there’s Renee Garfinkel who asks Can democracy continue without norms? – “In America, Middle East or elsewhere?” It’s a good thesis but the presentation starts to get suspicious when she starts using Trump for illustration, expresses the ‘everybody does it’ fallacy, and then comes up with this howler: “The right challenges truth by substituting emotion for reason, and embracing “truthiness” and “post-truth politics.” What you can find in the essay is a case of projection, not truth, not insight, not reality. It is moral preening that overwhelms a good point and destroys its thesis. That is very sad as much of the violence in the deep cities is related to the violence planned to disrupt the inauguration and the riots against everything from pipelines to the police. There is where you will find a dangerous violation of civil norms, not in such things as the voyeurism seeking private records of public officials in order to find political attack fodder.

More headlines this morning, this time from Lucianne: – Anti-Trump protesters caught on camera planning acid attack on ball for activists as part of bid to close down inauguration celebration – A hellscape of lies and distorted reality awaits journalists covering President Trump  – Hungary set to turn screws on Soros-backed NGOs – Breaking: DeploraBall Organizer Contacts FBI – Will File Charges Against #DisruptJ20 Thugs=> Conspiracy to Commit Terrorism – Atlanta Journal-Constitution Botches Crime Stats in Defending John Lewis – Obama rushes to fill dozens of federal jobs before leaving office – “Statistical Evidence Not Required” – Mason Weaver Has a Dream, Representative John Lewis Has a Nightmare… — New O´Keefe Video: Leftists Planning Stink Bombs At ´Deploraball´ –

Ace has a nightmare: The Intel Community “Deep State” Is Conducting Political Warfare inside the US and says “What scares me here is not the sinisterness of this — but the gross incompetence, clumsiness, and obviousness of it.”

Jazz Shaw describes how The media rules for covering the White House are about to change… radically with examples and illustrations. HotAir is another hotbed of headlines this morning, too, especially of the compare and contrast type (refuting the ‘both sides do it’ fallacies).

Paul Mirengoff gets into problems in moral turpitude with “NEVER Trump” Republicans Whine That Trump May Say “NEVER Them” – this is part and parcel of the idea that Trump is the one with the intemperate pronouncements and not those who called him “unfit” or worse.

Am I being too harsh in thinking that the moaning of such “all-stars” is pathetic? If you are on record that Donald Trump’s candidacy is a danger to the nation, how can you expect Trump to offer you a job? Both letters are extraordinarily harsh.
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Words have meaning. “Never” doesn’t mean “not until he wins.”

Mirengoff also notes a Trump Effect as Great Britain refuses to sign on to an anti-Israel agreement and Canada is looking for advice on NAFTA. Also at Powerline this morning Hinderaker quotes reporters harassing Martin Luther King III to denounce Trump and notes “The Democratic Party thinks it derives great power from its control over the press, but increasingly, Americans just yawn. Or laugh.”

Luboš Motl also gets into it with an observation from central Europe about what he sees as important.

Donald Trump has given an interview to Bild, … Donald Trump didn’t say anything that the Europeans should be scared of. He just makes sense. Much of what he’s saying just reproduces what wise Europeans like me have been saying for many years
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I guess that the Donald is going to be the first Euroskeptic U.S. president.

Even though lots of nonsense has been said about his not being qualified etc., this Euroskepticism shows that he has a much deeper understanding for the European affairs than most others. He sees much of the internal structure of Europe. He even knows 1,001 differences between a Czech wife and a Slovenian wife (and believe it or not, many – but not all – of these lessons actually can be generalized to the whole two nations). The previous U.S. administrations were supporting the ever closer European integration and things like that. Why did they do it? What made so many U.S. politicians and citizens think that Europe should be increasingly integrated or unified? Why were they so close to the pseudoelite of Brussels even though their own power didn’t depend on the approval from the EU “capital”?
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It’s clear that Donald Trump’s views are much closer to the views of Europeans such as myself than the opinions of the unelected commissars in the European Soviets.
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The members of the European Soviet, the general secretaries of the European Union parties, and other unelected institutions are saying that Trump’s views about Europe are dangerous for Europe. In reality, they’re mostly dangerous for these deceitful unelected individual parasites happily living somewhere in the ivory tower between Brussels and Strasbourg – and all major European capitals. You are not the same thing as the population of the European continent, dear comrades, and you should better internalize this fact as quickly as you can.

Instapundit wonders “Is anybody keeping track of Robert Creamer, Jan Schakowsky’s (D-IL) husband, who ginned up violence at Trump rallies on behalf of Hillary’s campaign? Because what’s going on now isn’t some sort of spontaneous upwelling. It’s organized, which means that there are organizers.”

North Dakota isn’t happy about the Pipeline protesters. North Dakota lawmaker’s bill protects drivers who negligently hit someone obstructing traffic. “You have the right to “peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Not to block traffic and make yourself a nuisance or a danger to people trying to get on with their lives.”

OK, Instapundit joins the collection of collections of pot boiling headlines. Go see yourself.

Patricia McCarthy says The Left Is Thoroughly Bamboozled – “Truly melting, as surely as the wicked witch of The Wizard of Oz melted when Dorothy tossed some water on her.”

Interesting times. The cover is being yanked off the ugly and the ugly aren’t happy.

There is a problem. Headlines say at least 20 Democrats will ‘boycott’ the inauguration, Senator Feinstein thinks the Russians took over the election (David Robertson:”If Democrats keep swimming in denial, then they had better watch out for crocodiles.”), and the outgoing president refuses to assert that the incoming president is legitimate. Jed Babbi takes up on Fake news from the intelligence agencies – “A disinformation campaign to undermine the new president smells like payback.”

The news stories about the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election won’t end this week, this month or this year. That narrative is just a new version of the “Bush was selected, not elected” meme from the 2000 election.
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There are many reasons to believe the IC report is politically-motivated. In December the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) requested an IC briefing on the alleged Russian election cyberattacks. HPSCI was refused the briefing, which indicates an IC desire to avoid scrutiny.
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What is most troubling is the appearance that the IC is conducting a disinformation campaign against our president-elect. If it is, the need to reform of our intelligence community becomes all the more urgent.

Hinderaker: Dishonest CIA Director Rips Trump; Trump Should Rip Him Back [UPDATED]:

John Brennan’s career in the Obama administration, first as counterterrorism adviser, then as Director of the CIA, has been a disaster. We have written about him many times; just search “John Brennan” on this site. Along with being an inept CIA Director, Brennan is a political hack. Today he went on Fox News Sunday and attacked Donald Trump. But the real news was Brennan’s inability to respond to questions about his agency’s use of the fake “Russian dossier” to smear Trump.

For more on payback, see S.A. Miller: Hillary Clinton’s operatives stoke doubts of Trump presidency – “Spread rumors about Russian vote rigging, push protests.” Several pundits have noted that Bob Woodward “separates his journalistic integrity from the corrupt bastardization of CNN and Carl Bernstein.” See Sundance: Woodward Skewers Bernstein – Bob Woodward Dismantles Propaganda of CNN and Carl Bernstein (video)… “After being called onto the carpet, and doused in sunlight for their endeavors, CNN has been rabid in their attempts to obfuscate the construct of the intentional hit job and defend the indefensible. … Today, Bob Woodward appears on Fox News Sunday and calls out Brennan and Clapper for their indefensible politicization of institutional U.S. intelligence agencies.”

Hinderaker describes how Democratic Party Bullies Try To Scuttle Trump’s Inauguration

This morning on Meet the Press, Democratic Party hack John Lewis said that he will not attend Donald Trump’s inauguration because Trump is “not a legitimate president.” Shocking though it may be, this anti-democratic rhetoric is common in the Democratic Party, and many have taken it to an even lower level. Never before in our history has one party been so petty as to try to interfere with the traditional celebrations that accompany a presidential inauguration, but that is what the Democrats are doing now.

Every performer who has agreed to participate in the inaugural has been bullied mercilessly by the Democrats
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Most people don’t like bullies. Around the country, millions are watching the Democrats’ crazed attacks on Donald Trump, and on anyone who declines to join their hate-fest, and are more convinced than ever that they voted for the right candidate.

David Catron has an interesting analogy: The Right Prescription, The Exorcism of Obamacare From the Body Politic – “It must be done and Tom Price is just the man to cast out this demon.”

If you were astonished by the egregious antics of congressional Democrats during the recent procedural votes that started Obamacare down the path to perdition, you should reread The Exorcist, in which William Peter Blatty vividly describes just such head spinning, vomit-spewing, and gratuitous execration. This isn’t the last time you’ll see the Democrats reenacting the behavior of Blatty’s most memorable character. Indeed, had he lived to see their grotesque performance, he might have suggested that the Democrats are controlled by an entity even more diabolical than the demon that possessed Regan MacNeil — an abortion lobby that forbids compromise on Obamacare.
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In other words, Tom Price is the exorcist who will banish many of Obamacare’s worst provisions to outer darkness. In fact, as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, he will possess the power to make all manner of changes to the reviled “reform” law without waiting for Congress to pass legislation. He will, for example, have the authority to kill the notorious contraception mandate that William Peter Blatty, like so many other Americans of faith, found so offensive. The mandate is found nowhere in the text of the “Affordable Care Act.” It is an HHS rule concocted by Kathleen Sebelius and her minions before they got down to the serious business of botching the Obamacare rollout.

Then consider the White House spokesman being most proud of having no Obama scandals versus the sad sagas of DoJ, the FBI, the EPA, and other agencies (besides intelligence). Perhaps the brag is about no ‘personal’ scandal like with President Clinton? Or is it, perhaps, no scandal because there was no holding accountable by the State Propaganda Machine?

Robert Knight talks about Restoring justice – “When Sen. Sessions takes the reins, justice can return to the Justice Department”

Eric Holder and Loretta E. Lynch have been perhaps the most flagrant partisans ever to hold the office of attorney general.

Year after year, they rubber stamped whatever the Obama administration wanted to do, legally or otherwise.

So it was an eye-roller when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, New York Democrat, announced Thursday why he was going to vote against fellow Sen. Jeff Sessions’ nomination for U.S. attorney general:

“I am not confident in Sen. Sessions’ ability to be a defender of the rights of all Americans, or to serve as an independent check on the incoming administration,” Mr. Schumer said.

“Rights of all Americans?” “Independent check?”
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“When it came to John Lewis’ upcoming testimony against Sessions, the morning shows seemed to forget that Sessions held hands with Lewis as the two walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 2015 as part of a march commemorating the 50th anniversary of the same march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama.”

Regardless of the ginned-up hysteria, complete with demonstrations by left-wing zealots inside the committee room, Sen. Sessions presented himself with dignity and grace.

Dignity and grace are two attributes that are difficult to apply to any on the Left right now with a straight face.

Meanwhile, when the California Governor is thinking about massive new taxes on fuel and vehicles in order to prop up the state’s pension obligations, Peter Morici is worried about Trump’s billionaire dealmakers – “They have the opportunity to show the government how to do it.”

With Donald Trump, the nation is about to embark on a bold experiment in government management. To guide the economy, he has selected billionaire dealmakers and folks with marketing expertise and shunned seasoned policy experts.
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Many conservatives and Republicans — these days those cannot be assumed one in the same — have harbored the view that Washington is not just corrupt but run by a bunch of bumbling dolts and if business people were put in charge, they could miraculously transform the place for the better.
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Now we will test the hypothesis that private sector experience is generally transferrable to government and from one radically different kind of activity to another
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This requires a bold leap of faith and unusual disregard for history, because experience elsewhere indicates that private sector management skills don’t necessarily transfer well across industries or into the public sector.
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More than sour grapes, Democrats may be right, and 2020 could be a good time to be the successful Democratic governor of a large state with high ambitions — enter Andrew Cuomo.

The problem is that professor Morici misses the point that much of Trump’s political success is due to the failures of the policy people he praises and finding a “successful Democratic governor” is a ‘tried and failed’ effort that has led to massive gains by Republicans in most states.

On the media front, Paul Mirengoff picks up on the attempt to “make hay out of Donald Trump’s exchange with John Lewis.” Even Chris Wallace got caught here in an interview with VPE Pence. Wallace cited part of Trump’s tweet on Lewis but left out the critical subject and that was only one of several such bias inflections from Wallace in that interview. Here’s Mirengoff responding to a WaPo story:

First, let’s note that the Post’s reference to Sen. McCain should be a reminder that Trump’s exchange with Lewis is unlikely to hurt the new president. Many people, including me, thought that when Trump questioned the heroism of McCain, chiding him for being captured by the North Vietnamese, it might well sink his candidacy. It didn’t.

Trump’s response to Lewis was considerably milder. He simply suggested that Lewis spend more time helping his district, and said that, in this regard, Lewis is all talk and no action. “I can use all the help I can get,” Trump added.

Trump never denied Lewis’ status as hero. He never chided him for being arrested. There is nothing scandalous or even improper about what Trump wrote.
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Many of those who support Trump now think less of Lewis, and unless the Trump presidency is a disaster will continue to do so. People are starting to point out that, though Lewis acted heroically 50 years ago, he has for a very long time been a partisan hack.
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Lewis’ over-the-top attack on the president-elect of the United States is his introduction to a generation or two of Americans. It is his legacy for them, and now part of his legacy for the rest of us.

And Lewis is dragging a bunch of friends into his slime pit as well.

For more on Trump, Instapundit says Look At The Confirmation Hearings For His Cabinet Picks: … a Robert Charles Fox News Opinion.

Early in the week, nominees presented a stark contrast to Senate Democrats. On one side, Americans saw well-prepared, highly dignified appointees appear before elected officials from both parties. On the other side, hostile questioners from the left grilled the nominees, almost reflexively manufacturing attacks on character and asserting gaps in knowledge – which, to a casual observer, seemed nonexistent. Half dozen nominees have been nothing – if not meticulously prepared. What does this portend for the coming Trump administration?
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Extrapolate and you see where the Trump team is going. They take nothing for granted, do not jump to conclusions or assume knowledge.

They are about outcomes, even before the mission burdens them.
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Senate Democrats may be out of touch, but these appointees have a grip. They strike average viewers as respectful and honest, capable and on task.

The contrast could not be more telling, encouraging, or head-turning.

Actions have consequences and it appears that a lot of folks have not figured that they are like early explorers investigating areas on the map marked “here be dragons.”

It’s getting to be a very common report. The assertions of the Georgia representative are being held to the ‘what if a Republican leader said this about Obama’ standard. Here’s another example by Katie Mchugh: Journalists Versus the White House: A Tale of Two Media Reactions. The C&C is between Acosta v Trump and Munro v Obama. The media sympathy, except for some folks at Fox News as Neil Cavuto so memorably pointed out, is with Acosta. Munro was considered a heckler.

It’s an interesting contrast to the neutral or supportive coverage of CNN’s Acosta, whom Smith defended, saying “journalists should [not] be subjected to belittling or delegitimizing by the President-elect of the United States.” Acosta could have told Trump he was a “fake president,” as CNN’s Don Lemon reassured his colleague.

The press’s responses to the two incidents are revealing.

When it comes to Democrat malfeasance, the press immediately pounces on anyone who questions or exposes them.
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Here is Munro’s explanation of the 2012 event, given to Fox News. Compare to the support Acosta received from media after bellowing at Trump. Obama routinely dismissed the concerns of Americans, and that’s fine with the privileged enforcers of the status quo. But when Trump dismisses a hostile media, that is an intolerable violation of the rights of the so-called “free press.”

That bit about the Georgia Representative is getting quite a bit of play perhaps because Trump took up the challenge. Sundance: President-Elect Trump Pushes Back Against Self-diminishing Rep John Lewis… – “Traditionally Republicans have curled up into a ball and refused to defend themselves against ridiculous attacks from moonbat leftists. However, Donald Trump is not a traditional republican. Today, Donald Trump pushed back”

The media (writ large) and professional political left do not have a familiar frame of reference for what to do next. Ergo, the pearl-clutching ‘how-dare-he’ ism begins… they were counting on Lewis’s race to be a PC shield against any backlash. Once again, Donald Trump proves he doesn’t see race – he sees stupid.

John Hinderaker dissects how The AP Spins Lewis Vs. Trump – “This is the kind of nonsense we are going to see for the next four years. It is all-out war between Donald Trump and the Democratic Party press, and so far, Trump is winning.” The Las Vegas Review Journal headline Donald Trump unleashes Twitter attack against civil rights legend illustrates the bias, too – Trump didn’t unleash an attack on civil rights but rather responded to a civil rights has-been that attacked him.

But the Left doesn’t know when to stop digging and James Wilkinson reports that Trump inauguration boycott grows to 19 Democrat lawmakers: Congressmen will NOT attend after The Donald’s feud with civil rights hero John Lewis, who said he will not be a ‘legitimate President’ – the quotations cited illustrate just what kind of Trump these Democrats have created in their own minds.

Reality does pop to the surface on occasion. Kyle Feldscher: Trump continues to slam Lewis, calls cities ‘burning and crime infested.’ – “Congressman John Lewis should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the U.S. I can use all the help I can get!” Trump tweeted.”

But Don Surber notes that a High crime rate is acceptable to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution –

Democratic Congressman John Lewis who locked arms in brotherhood Republican Senator Jeff Session at the 50th anniversary of the March on Selma stabbed Sessions in the back this week.

I was going to let it slide until his hometown newspaper defended him, and Atlanta’s high crime rate — all because the newspaper suffers Trump-phobia.

The bit about Sessions and Lewis arm in arm gets to The Breathtaking Hypocrisy of Senate Democrats By Bruce Walker.

Senate Democrats are trying to assume the high ground against President Trump by rubbishing his nominees. Consider the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions to be attorney general. The sum total of arguments against Senator Sessions are that at one time, many decades ago, he may have made a flippant offhand comment about the Ku Klux Klan and that he has suggested that the radically leftist NAACP and ACLU may be radically leftist.

His record of prosecuting Klansmen, desegregating Alabama schools, and generally upholding the law is, of course, totally ignored.
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The record of Senate Democrats and the brutal suppression of blacks in the South is stunning – and largely ignored by the leftist establishment media and educational systems
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The record of Senate Democrats toward the Klan is extraordinary, considering the attacks this gaggle has been making against a man who actually fought the Klan. Perhaps if Senate Democrats passed a resolution apologizing to America for producing out of their number Klansmen who became president, vice presidential nominee, attorney general, Supreme Court justice, Democrat floor leader and president pro tempore of the Senate, then the rest of America would pay a bit more attention to their silly attacks on Senator Jeff Sessions.

That last might just be ‘it’! The Democrats are after Sessions because he successfully prosecuted some of their friends in the KKK?

Lewis used ‘the Russians’ as his rationale for outrage. Clarice Feldman gets into the implications of the latest on that in The Trump Dossier Puts the Deep State in Deep Doo-Doo – “to gin up the ugliest, most scurrilous claims, and then trust the click-hungry media to disseminate them. No matter how false the allegations, the subject of the attack is required to respond, wasting precious time and losing credibility.”

Glenn Greenwald (hardly a Trump fan) thinks it’s more, and on examination of the Intelligence Community’s handling of this tripe, it’s hard to disagree with him. He points out the unprecedented support for Hillary Clinton in this “deep state,” and takes issue with their advancing the Steele memos
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David Goldman, who did support Trump, was more succinct: “Warning the intelligence communities about salacious and politically motivated leaks: the president-elect threatened to drag their shenanigans into the daylight. No one has ever done that to the spooks before. I’m lovin’ it.”

The denizens of the Left are being called to account for what they say and what they do. The squealing is horrific but a lot of Americans are with Goldman.

Paul Mirengoff asked some protesters about a Secretary of Labor nominee and found: Whoever Puzder is, they’re against him – “We’ve all heard of low-information voters. Meet low-information protesters. The Democrats’ reliance on them is telling.” Obviously, the opposition is not well informed and thus must not be conscientious or well meaning. i.e. it is destructive protests and nothing more. See also Inauguration Protesters Plan To Destroy Property And Disrupt Balls.

Jonathan H. Alder illustrates the cancer of bias in his opinion How a high school student’s painting caused congressional Republicans to act like campus snowflakes – As the proper authority decided that the painting was a violation of existing rules and the Republicans were not demanding safe spaces or freedom from offense nor committing uncivil behavior, Alder’s analogy lacks intellectual integrity. This illustrates the cancer of destructive bias.

YouTube pulled Legal Insurrection due to a copyright infringement claim. Neo-Neocon has the story about Silencing Legal Insurrection at YouTube – as another pundit noted, it’s probably not a good idea to go after a nest of law professors with bogus copyright claims.

It takes VDH to use Greek and Roman concepts to describe Trump and the American Divide. His essay has come up as the ‘must read’ of the day but it is a rather heavy slog.

Country people in the Western tradition lived in a shame culture. Family reputation hinged on close-knit assessments of personal behavior only possible in small communities of the like-minded and tribal. The rural ethos could not afford radical changes in lifestyles when the narrow margins of farming safety rested on what had worked in the past. By contrast, self-reinvention and social experimentation were possible only in large cities of anonymous souls and varieties of income and enrichment. Rural people, that is, don’t honor tradition and habit because they’re somehow better human beings than their urban counterparts; a face-to-face, rooted society offers practical reinforcement for doing so.

In classical literature, patriotism and civic militarism were always closely linked with farming and country life. In the twenty-first century, this is still true.
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Trump, the billionaire Manhattanite wheeler-dealer, made an unlikely agrarian, true; but he came across during his presidential run as a clear advocate of old-style material jobs, praising vocational training and clearly enjoying his encounters with middle-American homemakers, welders, and carpenters. Trump talked more on the campaign about those who built his hotels than those who financed them. He could point to the fact that he made stuff, unlike Clinton, who got rich without any obvious profession other than leveraging her office.

Jon Gabriel takes up President Obama’s Disastrous Record on Race – “Watching Ferguson, MO go up in flames, I ironically remarked, “My favorite part about the Obama era is all the racial healing.” Little did I know how many times people would republish that line in the years that followed.”

Before getting into politics, Barack Obama was a community organizer. This anodyne term was created by Chicago leftist Saul Alinsky who created the position to “rub raw the sores of discontent.” Many thought Obama’s moderate sounding speeches meant he had tossed Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals in the dustbin. Instead, upon entering the White House, Obama created Organizing for Action, which has trained 5 million Americans in Alinsky tactics.

A bit of news: Chinese linguist Zhou Youguang, who created the writing system that turns Chinese characters into words using letters from the Roman alphabet, has died aged 111 [BBC]. “Before Pinyin was developed, 85% of Chinese people could not read, now almost all can.” Language matters and so does the alphabet.

Hank Campbell: ‘Local Control’ Is A Beard For Environmentalists Blocking Energy Progress – tactics of the left are getting better understood.

Lobbying for centralized control has clearly worked well for activists yet now those anti-science groups have taken to co-opting the local control concept too, knowing they defuse objection from a giant chunk of the public that believes in a more decentralized approach. Yet its intent is still nefarious, not beneficial, to those local citizens. Instead of wanting real local input, these groups seek to create a bureaucratic “patchwork” of local laws and incite demonstrations that will bog down any company doing business in individual communities because of cost-prohibitive customization.

That poor people invariably suffer the burden of higher costs for such ideology doesn’t factor into their equation.
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These critics of energy are not really fans of local control, they are instead the opposite, they believe in absolute central control; the fewer politicians they have to lobby, the better. The last thing they want is the public thinking for themselves. And so local control is just a beard for their real agenda, which is raising money by scaring people – and denying the poor an affordable basic need so that they need to ask big centralized groups for help.

Landmines and Feeding the Russians: they go together. First up is an observation about landmines:

Krauthammer said, “I don’t want to impute a general conspiracy here, but it looks as if the Democrats, on their way out the door, are trying to leave behind as many landmines as they can to at least cast doubts on the legitimacy of the Trump victory. All of a sudden, as we have seen, they’ve gotten interested in Russian cyberwarfare, which the administration appeared to be extremely nonchalant about until they lost the November election. And now we’re going to have new investigations, meaning days and days of headlines about the other thing that Democrats attribute their loss to, meaning Comey’s action with 11 days to go, in which he reopened, as he said, the investigation. Many Democrats think that’s why they lost. Now, that would have faded into history. This is a way to say that it’s not going to, and it will remain there. I’m not sure this is the best way to ensure a good transition, one where you transfer not just the authority of office, but the legitimacy. But that seems to be what the Democrats want to do as they get out of power.”

Then there’s an observation.

During his confirmation hearing, Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-KS) said he would observe the proper laws forbidding enhanced interrogation of terror suspects and affirmed that he believes Russia is a threat to the United States. He also noted, however, that attempts to undermine President-elect Donald Trump plays right into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But, of course, everybody does it – think the other side is delusional, that is. NYT: Allowing Guns for Self-Defense in Unsecured Airport Areas Is ‘Delusional’ – they use a “debunked Harvard researcher David Hemenway” but Fake News™ goes along with manufactured research.

On January 12, nearly one week after a suspect gunned down unarmed, defenseless travelers at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, the New York Times argues that allowing law-abiding citizens to be armed for self-defense in unsecured areas of airports is “delusional.”

In other words, the contention that concealed carry permit holders would shoot back and stop the attack rather than collapse in fear and cry like children is crazy.

For a contrast to the view of the NYT, consider AWR Hawkins report: Armed Citizen Intervenes, Kills Suspect Beating AZ State Trooper on Roadside – “On January 12, an armed citizen stopped and killed a man who was beating an Arizona State Trooper on the side of I-10.”

Californicated Nevada is chipping in on the police pigs painting brouhaha. Andrew Craft: Dem reps want senator statue removed from Capitol over ‘xenophobia’ claims – This is rather ‘special’ as the statue was a project of Harry Reid. But who cares? That was then but now there’s a war on – for Democrats, at least. What they tear down is of little concern no matter what it is as long as it’s fodder for the current campaign against the evil opposition. Depths of depravity, anyone?

Nevada Reps. Dina Titus, Ruben Kihuen and Jacky Rosen raised their objections in a letter to Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval. The request amounts to the latest battle over artwork on Capitol grounds, amid an ongoing and separate dispute over a student painting that portrays police officers as pigs.

McCarran served as a Democratic senator from 1933–1954 and was influential in promoting the advancement of aviation. Las Vegas’s international airport is named after him. He also was an ardent anti-communist and sponsored legislation enacting a quota on immigrants and was one of a few Democrats to oppose FDR’s New Deal program.

On the pauper president front is the report Chaffetz calls on ethics head to testify day after chief criticized Trump – ““I want to talk about the whole department,” Chaffetz said in an interview. “Mr. Shaub has taken a very aggressive stance on issues he’s never looked at. He’s raised a bunch of eyebrows.” Republican eyebrows, maybe, but that’s because a supposedly non-partisan bureaucrat is pushing a party line without any rationale or even any inspection of the issues. In this particular case we also have the usual behaviors:  “the congressman said Shaub refused to meet”; the ‘never enough from a Republican; silence on blatant issues of a Democrat; blaming revenge and evil Republicans (“political retaliation”).

Valerie Richardson picks up on what can be expected based on what has been put on the stage so far: Democrats hunker down for ‘permanent opposition’ to Donald Trump presidency – “For those stunned to see Tuesday’s Senate confirmation hearing disrupted by shouts, chants and protesters dressed as Ku Klux Klan members: Get used to it.”

“You’re going to have a permanent opposition, sort of a combination of the news media and the Elizabeth Warren hard left, and they’re going to attack every single day and they’re going to find something to attack all the time,” Mr. Gingrich said on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
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Nobody expects the losing party to celebrate after a presidential race, but political analysts say the postelection frenzy of fundraising, war rooms, protests and social media hysteria represents an alarming departure from the traditional stoic acceptance of years past.
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“A democracy only works if the factions, the divisions are done peacefully and resolved peacefully, and compromises are made,” Mr. Horowitz said. “There’s a honeymoon after the election in which the losing party defends the legitimacy of the election result. That’s why we’ve had peace since the Civil War in this country.”
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“The longer they go without coming to grips about what has happened over the last eight years with respect to the dissolution of the Democrat Party as a national party,” Mr. McKenna said, “that’s not good for anyone.”

Fixating on Mr. Trump also prevents Democrats from promoting a positive message for voters, especially if he winds up scoring policy victories early on in his administration.

“His job is to produce for the American people,” Mr. Gingrich said, “and frankly, to the degree that the Democrats decay into just being the anti-Trump party, they will keep themselves in the minority a long time.”

On that ‘civil war’ meme, read Thomas Lifson on Why the left hates Trump so intensely.

The intensity of the hatred for a newly elected president faced by Donald Trump is equaled only by the reaction of the Confederacy to the election of Abraham Lincoln. That ended up in civil war, a precedent that one hopes will not be equaled. But there has been a remarkable fury at people who do not shun Trump:
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A useful perspective is to regard this as a religious conflict. Cults behave exactly the way the left is behaving when a member leaves the fold.

The real racists are showing that bending over backwards to accommodate them is fruitless. Seth McLaughlin: Congressional Black Caucus prepares for new role as ultimate Capitol Hill outsider – it’s called self segregation by irrational ideology that defies reality. It is condemned in that it is such a homogeneous racial group that 90% vote the same way. Going after Sessions with false allegations and stunning breaches of custom does not help their cause. Neither does insistence on choosing the police as antagonists despite the witness of reality.

Founded in 1971 by 13 members of the House, the caucus now has 49 members, including two in the Senate: Mr. Booker and Sen. Kamala D. Harris of California.

The organization is perhaps the most powerful force within House Democrats, with its members holding an outsized share of ranking posts on committees.

That is partly because of seniority. The districts of many black lawmakers are protected under civil rights laws.

It is a protected and coddled minority. Just watch TV advertisements. You’d think more than half the country was a part of this racial group and they were all solid middle class families. That’s propaganda as well as coddling. Or consider this: Lady Liberty Portrayed as Woman of Color for 1st Time on US Currency. ‘Never far enough’ is typical for the Left.

As for the Senate Cabinet Nomination hearings, There is Corey Booker busting Senate custom with inane and racist bias, Kamala Harris working on climate and LGBT issues as priorities for the CIA, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s obsessing about anything HUD could do that might possibly benefit anything tainted by Trump in any way. By comparison with these senators, the nominees are looking like adults in a room full of children.