Month: July 2018

President Trump didn’t discuss Tester’s Big Lie about the Transfer of Public Lands at yesterday’s rally.   I was disappointed, since I think it’s a perfect line of attack on Tester.  But after Rosendale finished his remarks Trump told him that he’d be back.  There will be another Trump rally this year in Montana.  Trump gave Rosendale that promise.

In the mean time, Tester will continue to attack Rosendale, with the Big Lie that Rosendale wants to have public lands transferred to the state.  I’m not in Montana, and haven’t seen the ads, but my son Darren says they’re all over the place.

As long as Tester pursues this line, it’s better to let him go unmolested.  The longer he keeps it up, the worse it will be for him when it’s exposed as a Big Lie.  The time for Trump to attack Tester on the Big Lie will be at the second rally.

I think Trump is playing a similar game with Mueller/Rosenstein, the FBI and the Justice Department.  They can’t touch him.  He has nothing to fear from them.  And the longer this whole Special Prosecutor-Russia-Collusion-Witch Hunt plays out, the more pissed off people are.  Not against Trump.  Against the media and everyone else who keeps ragging this story along.  Enough!

So when Trump does lower the boom on this crew, he’ll have the people behind him.  We’re already sick of them, and it’s only going to get worse.  So my guess is Trump starts the new year by firing the lot of them, from Sessions on down.

I keep wondering, what is going to happen between now and November which is going to help the Democrats?  The Mueller Report?  But there’s noting there.  What else?  The economy tanks in a trade war?  Never going to happen.

What will happen is Trump getting his second Supreme Court appointment.  I would argue this is the most important appointment in over 80 years.  Constitutional liberals have controlled the court since the 1930’s.  This appointment means constitutional conservatives will, at long last, have their majority.

The economy will keep humming, and foreign policy progress is likely with the Norks, the Russians, and in the Middle East.

So the Democrats are screwed, and will be for a long time.  Because peace and prosperity are what the Republicans are delivering, and as long as that lasts the Democrats are in the minority.

Once they understand they’re in the minority in this country, they can do what conservatives did back in the 1950’s.  We were in the minority back then, and we knew it.  But we knew we were right.

We all knew Barry Goldwater wouldn’t win in 1964.   But he ran to take over the GOP for conservatives, and to set a marker for others to follow in the future.  Which is exactly what Reagan did sixteen years later.

So the Democrats will have plenty of time to ponder how to get back in the good graces of American voters.  As members of a political minority, perhaps they’ll see the merits of federalism.  Federalism is, after all, the refuge and the protector of political minorities.

Who knows, they might even see the merits of Article V.

 

Montana Senator Jon Tester’s campaign for reelection is based on a lie.  He says his opponent, Matt Rosendale, favors the transfer of public lands in Montana from the federal to the state government.  That’s not true.  Rosendale opposes any such transfer.

Such a transfer is opposed by a majority of Montanans, Montana sportsmen in particular.  They think the politicians in charge of the state of Montana would sell such public lands, and the new, private owner would then exclude the public from them.  Vast tracts of Montana fishing and hunting areas are currently controlled by large out of state owners, such as Ted Turner.  This is resented.

For any such Transfer of Public Lands (TPL) to take place, Presidential approval would be required, through the President’s appointee, the Secretary of the Interior.  President Trump will never allow such a transfer to take place.  As a candidate in January of 2016 he told Field and Stream magazine that he opposed TPL.   It was a position he stood by throughout the campaign, even though it cost him Alaska, Wyoming and Idaho.  (Cruz supported TPL, and won these states because of it.)

So when he gets up in front of the crowd tomorrow afternoon in Great Falls, the President needs to expose Tester’s Big Lie.  There’s not going to be any transfer of public lands in Montana.  Trump won’t allow it, and what’s more Rosendale would fight any such effort tooth and nail.

Tester knows this of course.  But this line of attack against Rosendale is all he’s got.  He’s got no accomplishments to speak of, no legislation he’s sponsored, no reason to be reelected.  He’s got nothing, except a record of obstruction against every initiative which President Trump is launching to make America great again.

All he’s got is Tester’s Big Lie.

 

 

Trump likes optics.  He thinks Mike Pence looks like a President, and that helped get him the VP job.  The optics of appointing Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court are too good for Trump to pass up.

The finest “optics” I’ve seen in a judicial confirmation fight were in Sam Alito’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Alito is as mild mannered as you get, as is his law librarian wife.   She was obviously very proud of her husband as she sat behind him in the gallery while he was being questioned.

As Ted Kennedy launched a wholly spurious and vicious libel against her husband, Mrs. Alito could be seen on television as she reacted to this attack.  She was horrified, and you knew Kennedy was full of it.  He came across as an ignorant bully, and his attack got nowhere.  It was wonderful political theater.

Ideally, during her confirmation, some Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee would attack Judge Barrett on her Catholic faith.  It would be political poison, but they might not be able to restrain themselves.  It’s worth nominating Barrett just on the chance that even just one Democratic Senator will reveal anti-Catholic bigotry.  Judge Barrett could drive the left as batty as Trump does.

And when the time comes to overturn Roe v. Wade, it will be Justice Barrett’s job to write the majority opinion.  It will look better, coming from a woman.  Just as it will look better when Justice Thomas authors the opinion overturning affirmative action.

I don’t doubt that Roe will go.  It’s such a terrible decision, it has to go.  Chief Justice Roberts has uncommonly good political instincts.  He’ll decide when the time is right.

Speaking of Roberts and his political savvy, I would argue the Trump Revolution began in June of 2012 when Roberts ruled Obamacare was constitutional.  Because of that ruling, in October of 2013 Obamacare went into effect, and the Trump Revolution began.  A little more than a year later, in the 2014 elections, Democrats lost the Senate  —  because of Obamacare.   If Roberts had ruled Obamacare unconstitutional in 2012, the Senate would have stayed Democrat, and would probably still be Democratic today.

This will be the Roberts Court for another generation.  Roberts is 62, and in good health.  He could be around for another 20 years.  Lots of time to undo generations of mischief done to constitutional jurisprudence.  By a court led by a man with a brilliant political mind.

Law and politics are virtually the same thing.

 

 

Rallies on June 21st in Duluth, June 27 in Fargo, and now July 5th in Great Falls, Montana.  You can’t get much further north.  Trump does well in the colder climes.

I am very pleased to report that son Darren, daughter in law Colleen,  and grandson Hawksley have met Senate candidate Matt Rosendale, and have agreed to help out on his campaign.  Apparently they’ll be accompanying him at the opening parade of the Livingston Roundup Rodeo tomorrow.  And they will be going to Great Falls on Wednesday evening to help prepare for the next day’s Trump rally.

The Tester-Rosendale race will be a good introduction to politics.  There’s nothing like being closely involved in a big state wide political contest.  It gets the blood flowing.  And after Rosendale wins, it’s always good to have a friend in the United States Senate.

Tester’s toast.