Dazed and Confused

Hillary continues to blame everything under the sun for her election loss.

Can anyone actually put today’s politics into rational perspective? I don’t know about you, but sometimes it is all a bit too daunting. And perhaps sometimes others should do the talking. This is one of those times. On June 1, Peggy Noonan wrote “I don’t want to beat up on Hillary Clinton. She thought she’d win and she lost, embarrassingly, to a man she considered deeply unworthy. At the same time she won the popular vote by 2.9 million. It would take anyone time to absorb these things emotionally and psychologically.

But wow. Her public statements since defeat have been malignant little masterpieces of victimhood-claiming, blame-shifting and unhelpful accusation. They deserve censure.”

She then said “She lost because America is a hopelessly reactionary country in which dark forces fight a constant “rearguard action” to “turn back the clock.” She lost because Republicans are both technologically advanced and underhanded. Democrats, for instance, use data and analytics to target and rouse voters—“better messaging.” Republicans, on the other hand, use “content farms” and make “an enormous investment in falsehoods, fake news, call it what you will.” Democrats “did not engage in false content.” She lost because of the Russians: “Who were they coordinating with, or colluding with?”

She lost because of “voter suppression” and “unaccountable money flowing in against me.” She lost because the Democratic National Committee didn’t help her. “I inherit nothing from the Democratic Party. I mean it was bankrupt. . . . Its data was mediocre to poor, nonexistent, wrong. I had to inject money into it.

She lost because FBI Director James Comey told Congress the investigation regarding her email server had been reopened. “So for whatever reason . . . and I can’t look inside the guy’s mind, you know, he dumps that on me on Oct. 28, and I immediately start falling.”

She lost because she was “swimming against a historic tide. It’s very difficult historically to succeed a two-term president of your own party.” She lost because she was “the victim of a very broad assumption that I was going to win.” She lost because the news media ignored her policy positions.

And then there was sexism. “It sort of bleeds into misogyny. And let’s just be honest, you know, people who have . . . a set of expectations about who should be president and what a president looks like, you know, they’re going to be much more skeptical and critical of somebody who doesn’t look like and talk like and sound like everybody else who’s been president. Any you know, President Obama broke that racial barrier, but you know, he’s a very attractive, good-looking man.”

Oh my goodness, how she thinks.”

I could go on (or Peggy could-and did) but you get the point. As a Republican, I can’t tell you how much I hope Hillary deludes herself into considering another run at the White House. As a reasonable human being, I can’t imagine that ever happening. But good Lord, I could never imagine so much of what happens every day ever happening!

To summarize, here is my note to Hillary. ‘Hillary, enough already. Stop looking for scapegoats. You ran a horrible campaign. You had no resonating message. You cannot succeed on the politics of envy if you make people squirm when you talk. Get over it, and do so now, for your sake, your family’s sake, and out of compassion for your country.”

Moving on, I want address an issue that has been raised by two good friends. One is a registered democrat, and the other (I believe) considers herself to be independent. In both cases, they have taken umbrage at my reference to the progressive left and “dimocrats” as too broad and sweeping a characterization, and insulting to those who feel unjustly swept up in the wide swath of my broom. In hindsight, I do tend to throw all democrats to the wolves when I refer to the imponderably inane policies promulgated by their spokespeople. And for that, I apologize. There are obviously myriad forms of democrats just as there are many factions in the GOP. It is not fair to throw all who voted for President Obama or Hillary into the same fruit basket. Some deserve an opportunity to repent! Suffice to say, I will attempt to be more prescriptive in my future diatribes.

Moving on. The President’s overseas trip was good. I love the fact that he restored relations with the Sunni leaders in the Middle East, reiterated his support for Israel as our staunchest ally in the region, and visited the Pope. It was well conceived, and well executed. His ensuing NATO message was clear. He supports NATO, but deadbeats need to pay their fair share. (NATO also believes he supports the organization. Click here to read more.) Look, I don’t like the way President Trump says and does a lot of things. He is abrasive and can act like a bully. But at the end of the day, he is absolutely right to take on those NATO allies who have drafted on the back of our economic engine for far too long.

The budget is outstanding. (Click here if you want to read about it.) If any semblance of this White House budget is passed, we will see economic growth and, ultimately, increased revenues to the Treasury. (Once and for all, let’s put this piece of democrat propaganda to rest once and for all. In spite of all protestations to the contrary, the Laffer curve works. It worked wonderfully after the Reagan tax cuts. Yes, the deficit increased, but that is because we were in an arms build-up war with the Soviet Union. The irrefutable truth is that revenues to the treasury increased during those years. Click here to read more on this topic.) Just as important, we will see curtailment of runaway Federal spending. Folks, I said it in 2008, 2012, and 2016. We cannot keep spending money we don’t have! Sure, it would be wonderful to throw money at every problem that comes our way. Allow me to ask you a question. Is that the way you handle things in your family? Well, a nation is no different. It has to make tough decisions, and those tough decisions have been deferred for decades. If President Trump can actually make the buck stop “here”, (nod to President Truman) all power to him.

The Russia thing. Yawn. The only part of this whole story that intrigues me is if, at the end of the day, Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller ends up focusing on the Obama administration  surveillance activities before and after the election, and conscious decisions taken to “unmask” names of American citizens; names that may have surfaced during (possible illegal) covert intelligence operations. This, folks, is where it could get interesting. Of course, if Mr. Mueller’s investigations do head in that direction, you may rest assured the main stream media will quickly lose interest.

And so there you have it. Not too much happening, right? Are you dazed and confused? I am.

More to follow-