Month: July 2016

Manifest Destiny was an American imperialist manifesto, but it only applied to North America.   We became truly imperial, in the international sense, with the Spanish-American War, and the acquisition of Cuba and the Philippines.  This stupid war, egged on by New York tabloids, gave Americans the opportunity to follow Rudyard Kipling’s advice, and take up the white man’s burden.  This was the sort of thing that appealed to the likes of Teddy Roosevelt, and for the first half of the 20th century we were, idiotically, an imperial power.  Pulled into the geopolitics of the Far East, we wound up fighting an unnecessary war against Japan.  It doesn’t get much dumber.

We are not a country interested in conquest and empire, because the Good Lord gave us the two great oceans of the world as our protectors, all the land and resources we need, and we have no fear, or need, of war.  No power on earth is a threat to us, unless all powers combine, and it is virtually impossible to see how that could happen.   There may or may not be great land wars in the 21st  century, but we won’t be engaged in any of them, because none of them are will be vital to our national interest.  Trump, I believe, understands that.  And this is why the last desperate attempts against his nomination are led by the neocons.  They stand, above all, for a sort of neo-imperialism, and are not, properly understood, conservatives at all.  Trump’s nomination will make them irrelevant in the short term.  In the longer term, they’re kaput.  They have no constituency in this country.  They were welcome allies in the fight against communism, and have been nuisances ever since.

There may not be land wars, but police actions are sometimes called for, as today one is necessary against ISIS.  Obama will not conduct one, so it won’t happen until next year.  If the recent past is any indication, we’ll have more Nices and Orlandos between now and election day, and every one will be a blow to Clinton’s chances.  Obama’s passivity is her burden, and it’s going to get heavier.

If I wasn’t, in fact, a libertarian, I’d probably cave and support Trump, because he is, in my opinion, a true American nationalist.  Cruz seems to be ready to bite the bullet.  It’s actually looking more and more likely that this crazy blowhard will be the next President, and then what are we supposed to do?  Boycott a duly elected “Republican” President?

The thing is, Johnson could have a shot at some electoral votes if he did some smart campaigning.  A new report published in Health Affairs has exciting news for people concerned about the opiod epidemic that is wreaking havoc in certain parts of this country.  The way to help solve it is by decriminalizing marijuana.  They looked at the numbers, and states with lax marijuana laws have a much smaller percentage of people getting opiod prescriptions.  Marijuana, believe it or not, has value medicinally.  To take advantage of its medicinal qualities, it needs to have its classification as a controlled substance to be changed.  It was almost going to happen, but then Big Pharma stepped in, and put a stop to it.  Marijuana, a natural drug, is a threat to the big prescription drugs, and they fight to suppress it.

Johnson knows all this.  Until recently he worked as an executive in a marijuana company.  Why doesn’t he go out and raise hell about this?  Go to New Hampshire, where opiods are a plague, and tell the story.  What’s he got to lose?

David Long is the long time President of the Indiana Senate, and a long time leader of the Article V movement for a BBA.  He knows Pence very well, and knows Pence’s feelings in favor of Article V.  I hope he gets a chance to sell Pence on the idea of getting Trump to embrace Article V and the BBA.  It has great political appeal, and Trump is smart enough to see that.  On the other hand, Trump has shown no interest in cutting back the size and scope of the federal government.  He just wants to run it, so he can make deals.  But, in this, and in everything else, with Trump you never know.  Because it’s all from the gut, and studying the Donald’s entrails has no appeal to me.

If Trump came out for Article V I’d have to support him.  It would make me feel like a whore.  But for Article V, I’ll be a whore.

I expect Trump’s acceptance speech in Cleveland will propel him into the lead in national polling, and the polling wizards at 538.com will be calling the race a toss up.  Because this speech will include specifics.  He’ll lay out, in some detail, his plans to destroy ISIS, and he will promise an active federal investigation of groups who are targeting police in this country.  And he’ll double down on his call for a moratorium on immigration from the Middle East, and endorse the Gingrich/Reagan Project proposal to screen Muslims for supporting sharia law.

This is what people want to hear.  What, precisely, do you intend to do about all this terrorism, and attacks on police?  Trump’s got an answer.  Clinton doesn’t.  Advantage Trump, big time.

A few months ago Gingrich, a brilliant if erratic man, said he had no idea of what a Trump Presidency would be like, and didn’t think Trump knew either.  It could be a version of the movie Idiocracy.  Or it could be a lot better.  No one knows.  Since, by the end of next week, he’ll be an even bet to win, maybe it’s time to think about how he can be persuaded to be rational.  Mike Pence is a good, if not great, start down that road.  The economic team of Moore, Kudlow & Laffer has apparently got his ear, which is a good thing.  Somebody needs to sit Ivanka and Jared Kushner down and have a very long talk about where they should be directing their substantive discussions with the old man.  They’ve got the influence, and therefor the responsibility to exercise it.  Most of Trump’s political instincts are good.   If he’s got good people around him  there may be hope.

Paul Ryan is the key to Congress, and his connection to Pence is solid, as I understand it.  If Pence is able to assume some of the responsibility for relations with Congress, there could be hope.  I’m not expecting Reagan’s third term, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a train wreck.  It depends on the Donald, who is unpredictable.  There’s something about that that sticks in my craw, as an American.  Why in hell is the future of my country up to the whims of a 70 year old egomaniac?   Because today’s political class is weak and in large part corrupt and dishonest.

Trump would be a one termer, though he won’t admit it yet.  You don’t want to enter office as a lame duck.  Towards the end of his second term the Gipper’s age started to catch up to him, and Trump’s older than Reagan was.  So, once in, he doesn’t need to worry about reelection.  With him, you don’t know if that’s good or bad.

Mike Pence hopes it’s good.  He’s already thinking about 2020.  I feel like I’m in one of those radical new roller coasters, where they have to cinch you in tight.  It could be a wild ride.

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The EU is one center.  Another is our federal government.  The center’s agenda is globalism, an essentially borderless world to be ruled, eventually, by a world government.  But the people not at the Center resent it, and wish to have more local autonomy, not less.  I think that’s the big picture, playing out all over the world, and Trump’s success is an aspect of it, as was Brexit.

Frexit now looks more likely than ever, after the slaughter in Nice.  A borderless world is a dangerous one, at least in these times.  Marine LePen could be the next President of France if this keeps up, and there’s no reason to think it won’t.  Even the Bavarians are getting frisky.  They’ve wanted more sovereignty since 1946, and this may be the time for them to make their move.

There’s no reason to believe that racial violence will subside in this country.  Eight years ago, when the first black man was elected President, blacks felt pride and hope.  Maybe they’re still proud of him, but the hope they had was misplaced.  They’re worse off today than when Obama took office, and hope is dying, so anger mounts.  I wouldn’t go near an inner city ghetto right now.  Random attacks against “polar bears” like me  can come out of nowhere.  You read about one almost every day at Real Clear Politics.

Which gets us to Trump, who Nate Silver says now has a one in three shot at winning the election.   And every Nice, and every Dallas, will increase his chances.  Meanwhile Obama plays footsie with Black Lives Matter, who are sure to figure prominently at the Democratic Convention.  Every move Clinton makes to shore up her appeal with blacks will hurt her with whites, at least as long as the memory of Dallas lingers.  Attacking the police is a sure way to lose votes, and coddling up with BLM is bad optics.

There was a time when we called them soccer moms, and they were said to be the key to winning an electoral majority.  If they start voting for Trump, he’s a winner.  One thing is vitally important to these women, and that’s security, for themselves and their children.  If they start feeling a threat to their own sense of security, that will be the issue they vote on, and they want law and order.  It’s not a dog whistle to them, it’s just common sense.  Trump understands that, and we’re going to hear about law and order from him until election day.

Because he’s brilliant with money, George Soros thinks he’s just a generally smart guy, and so he’s gotten himself involved in our politics by funding BLM.  But Soros does not understand politics in this country.  Most Europeans don’t.  And his little plaything, the BLM, could cost Clinton the election.  Thanks, George.  Another dumb ass billionaire.

We’re a live and let live society, and are therefor incompatible with Islam.  I don’t want a religious test for immigrants.  I want a political one, just like we used to have for the Communists.  Islamists are worse than Communists, who didn’t commit random acts of terror.  To enter this country from a Moslem country should require a signed oath renouncing sharia law and accepting the Constitution.  If you don’t sign the oath you don’t get in.  It’s got nothing to do with religion, except to the extent that Islam is a political and legal system radically different from our own.

It all gets down to women, and how they are treated.  Islam is an anti-woman ideology.  We’re the opposite.  This is very basic stuff, and affects everything else.

My granddaughter is twelve, going on seventeen, and for the next ten or twenty years a great deal of her time will be spent in studying and dating boys.  All that time and effort will culminate some day when she finds a man to marry.  It’s a huge part of our culture, and our whole society is organized to assist my granddaughter in her assigned task of picking a mate.  But in Moslem countries none of this happens.  My granddaughter would be betrothed to a first cousin, and she would have no choice in the matter.  The society that supports such arrangements is a very different one from that which we live in.

It’s two different worlds, best kept at a distance from one another.

In 1934’s It’s a Gift, W.C. Fields perfected his role as the cantankerous, frustrated and unapologetic con man.  It’s one of the classic Hollywood comedies, and if you haven’t seen it you’re missing out.  Or check put The Bank Dick, which was the only film Fields made where he had complete artistic control.  He’s a cowardly bully and an outrageous liar, and people ate it up, because the character he played was consistent.

In his biography, W.C. Fields, James Curtis quotes Fields concerning the part he played, “The first thing I remember figuring out for myself was that I wanted to be a definite personality.  I had heard a man say he liked a certain fellow because he was always the same dirty damn so and so.  You know, like Larsen in Jack London’s Sea Wolf.  He was detestable, yet you admired him because he remained true to type.  Well, I thought that was a swell idea, so I developed a philosophy of my own.  Be your type.  I determined that whatever I was, I’d be that, I wouldn’t teeter on the fence.”   So Fields could kick dogs, pick fights with children and put a boot to Baby Leroy, cheat at cards and drink like a fish, and people liked him because he was being true to type.  In My Little Chickadee he’s bragging about having beaten up a tough woman saloon keeper, when the bartender interrupts to say that another man actually was the one who knocked her down.  He says, “Yeah, but I was the one who started kicking her.”

If you don’t see the analogy to Trump, you and I don’t think alike.  Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, for you.  But the Trump Tribe likes their man, warts and all, which is why he might win.  They don’t want him to change, and he doesn’t intend to.  I have been operating on the assumption that the Media Hive, led by its Queen, the New York Times, would destroy Trump once he was nominated.  They wanted him as the Republican standard bearer because he’s the only one Clinton could beat.  Months ago he did an interview with the NYT, the transcript of which they have refused to release.  Just wait.  We’ll see it, or salacious parts of it, in September.  The October Surprise may be his tax returns, or maybe something else.  They’ve got a lot to work with.  Some of it will stick, and take him down.

Or will it?  Reagan was said to be a teflon politician  —  you couldn’t scratch him with a knife.  He said things that the media thought were outrageous. like trees causing pollution, or men leaving caves as habitations only because of women, or, when he thought the mike was off, “We’re bombing the Soviets in five minutes,” and never paid a political price.  He was the real deal, regardless of what he said, and maybe there’s some of that in Trump.  But Trump’s no Reagan, who was sui generis.  He’s more like W. C. Fields, and maybe that’s good enough.

We’ll all get to find out in a couple months.

The good news from Cleveland is the inclusion of the Transfer of Public Lands in the Platform.  The next step is the introduction of TPL legislation in Congress, which should happen shortly.   No news on inclusion of an Article V endorsement.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed.  I may not have this Presidential election thingy figured out (who does?), but I know this country needs Article V, and soon.

 

 

37 years ago I was in Phoenix learning how to be a member of the Alaska Parole Board, to which I’d just been appointed.  I was part owner of a couple rock and roll bars back in Anchorage called Swiftwater Bill’s and Gussie L’Amour’s, and I drove out to Scottsdale to scout out a band we might want to fly up and work for us.  I probably had a couple too many beers, and got into a little hassle with somebody in the bar.  No big deal, really.  I left before anything could happen.  In the parking lot a Scottsdale cop comes up to me, and he wants a piece of my ass.  He’s got a baton, and he’s itching to use it on me.  We’re alone, in the dark, and I kept my hands by my sides and said nothing I wasn’t asked.  The cop was disappointed he didn’t get an excuse to club me, and nothing came of it.

A lot of blacks have had the same experience, except they’re not a married 33 year old lawyer with three kids, and they handle it differently.  Those are the facts. It’s also true there are rogue cops who, unlike that cop in Scottsdale, don’t need an excuse to  beat people up.  They’re rare, but they do exist.  Blacks have a legitimate beef with a lot of cops.  But not most.  But all cops pay the price, of hatred they’re given in much of the black community.

My newest hero is the black Chief of Police of Dallas.  There’s a stand up guy.  I gather, under his leadership, the Dallas Police Department is a model.  What more can he do?  He’s calling on blacks to join the force if they want to change it.  He’s hiring.  Is there anything more that anyone can do?

Because the phrase “law and order” is perceived by some on the left as a racial dog whistle, using it is a trifle politically incorrect.  Which makes it even more effective.  And it’s a pretty hard phrase to take issue with.  Are you against law, or order, or both?  I saw a new poll with Trump to within two of Clinton.  I think there’s movement here, and in his direction.  The more violence in Cleveland, the better for Trump.  I’m glad I’m not there.  It doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.

Most people who run for President know quite a bit about the issues, and care about them.  Trump doesn’t give a fig for issues.  He’s strictly a marketing guy, and the brand he’s been marketing for over 35 years is Donald Trump.  His campaign was a display of marketing genius, something for the history books.  I am finally ready to admit that far from being stupid, Trump is, in his own way, a genius.  His grandfather, father, sister and daughter were all geniuses, or close to it.

But the Trump genius is of a special kind, and I don’t think he’s a hands on operations guy.  He hires people to do that.  I imagine that’s what he intends to do if he wins.  But he’s operating at an extreme disadvantage.  This is unfamiliar territory for him.  The Presidency is too big to delegate, and it’s a whole lot of work.  I wonder if he really wants to trade in his sumptuous lifestyle for a tough, grueling job.

I could have made a run for Governor.  My two closest political allies, Rick Halford and Robin Taylor both did.  But I didn’t want the job.  Too much damn work.  I wanted to be a U. S. Senator, where all you have to do is spout off, which I was pretty good at.