Donnie J and the Second Amendment Blow Out

If ever Democrats played into the Donald's hands, it has to be this flap over his remark that "the 2nd amendment people may be able to do something," about Hillary nominating gun unfriendly judges to the Supreme Court,  which Vice Presidential candidate Kane immediately claimed was an incitement to violence, a call for gun lovers to shoot Hillary. 

Oh, plueeze, Tim:  Get a life. 

As if to prove Donnie John's claims the Democrats are all about political correctness, semantic games and not to be taken seriously because all they care about is scoring points on ridiculous hysterical hyperbole, the Democrats and some in the media, have tried to inflate one of the few relatively innocent remarks coming from Donnie John into something threatening and inappropriate, thus confirming what Trump supporter's already think they know about the Democrats and the "liberal media." 

This morning on NPR they went over his statements playing clips of each sentence, and then having an analyst tell you what he meant or might have meant and in the end they bemoaned how the Donald manages to control the news cycle every day, after they thrust the controls into his hands.

He, quite correctly, laughed it off, saying this was just another example of the liberal media trying to portray him as dangerous and out of control when in fact, he had simply remarked that the NRA, with all its political clout might be able to reign in Hillary, but he never suggested anyone shoot her, which, of course, he had not. 

People have been talking about the Donald undermining his own campaign but he is losing no ground in that department to the Democrats.

Susan Collins: Clarity in a Storm

Susan Collins is a Republican.  She is one of the few non T party Republicans left un purged in the Senate, which is not to say she votes like a Democrat. She wants to undo Obamacare and she would vote down any Supreme Court nominee presented by President Obama.  If I had my druthers, a Democrat, any Democrat would be sitting in her seat.

But her op ed in the Washington Post was an actually bone fide exercise in conscience, as she detailed all the reasons she could not vote for Donald Trump:  1/ his denigration of the parents of Captain Khan, including the suggestion the mother could not speak because Muslims do not allow women to speak  2/ His taunting and denigration of a handicapped reporter  3/ His attacks on Meghan Kelly, the Fox News reporter, who, he suggested must have been made emotionally unstable by her menstrual cycle, as women are wont to be 4/ His insistence no Hispanic could render an unbiased and fair opinion on his legal case, despite the fact the judge of Mexican heritage was born and raised in Indiana, thus maintaining you are what your ancestors were and nothing more.   

She continued down a list of other offenses, although she did not mention his promise to build a wall along the Mexican border and make Mexico pay for it and she did not mention his assertion we should ban all Muslims from crossing the borders of the United States, which he then tried to walk back as all people from countries vexed by terrorism, wink, wink, which are, of course the Muslim countries. Well, those and France, England and the United States.

Even omitting mention of these points, her op ed is persuasive, if you read op ed's. If you read the Post, which excludes nearly all Trump supporters, who, for the most part, like Mr. Trump himself, stopped reading years ago, well stopped reading anything more than Tweets. More than 140 characters and their eyes glaze over.

So, Senator Collins had a moment of moral clarity.

Remember, she's not up for re election this time.  

Her Republican buddy, Kelly Ayotte is up for re election.  What have we heard from Senator Ayotte. Well, I'm supporting him but not endorsing him.  I voted against it before I voted for it.  I'm a Republican, but not one of those Republicans. 

The fact is, electing Hillary Clinton will not be enough.  We have to defeat every Republican we can, clean house, clean Senate. As Bernie noted, it's not enough to defeat Trump; the Tea Party has to be cleaned out like baby rattle snakes.

Then, maybe once we've hit reset, the Republican party can rebirth as a worthy opposition. 

The Damage Pundits do: Russia is Beating US in Syria

Remember Afghanistan? You know, that graveyard of empires where the Russians fought for years, only to be ignominiously defeated and forced to withdraw, having squandered blood and treasure for nothing but the everlasting enmity of those left behind. It became a failed state, a breeding ground for terrorists and festers still as President Obama has still, for reasons known only to God and the Oval Office still not managed to extricate the US.

Now, we have Syria and a front page, above the fold New York Times article in which a pundit from the Woodrow Wilson Center says, "Russia has won the proxy war."  The article goes on to describe how the good guys, the men fighting the nasty regime of Bashar Al Assad, were making progress using anti tank missiles against Assad's forces, but when the Russians committed airplanes and bombs, the managed to turn the tide in Assad's favor. Now the Russians have "won."

You can just imagine the glee in the eyes of Donnie John, reading this. Oh, we are going to hear about this now.

Weak America. Always losing. But when I'm President, we'll be winning.

Does any of this Syria story sound at all familiar?  American CIA rocket propelled grenades are sent to all those heroic mujaheddin fighters in Afghanistan, who hump around the dusty, mountains, using the terrain and their knowledge of local geography and culture  to neutralize the technological advantages of a super power? Remember that? And one of those good guys fighting the Russians was a cool cat named Osama Bin Laden.  Remember him? 

If you have a really long memory, there was that quagmire in a place called Vietnam, where American technological advantages were thwarted by little guys in black pajamas carrying AK47 rifles and living on rice and rat meat until that inevitable day when the Americans got tired of slogging through rice paddies and went home. 

Local politics the Americans could never understand + fanatical opponents = defeat and withdrawal (aka "Peace with honor.) Remember that formula? 

And what happened after our "defeat?"  Exactly nothing.  Well, not exactly nothing. The world communist conspiracy collapsed, and Vietnam became capitalistic and we now send American tourists over there. 

Imagine that. All this winning, from a "defeat."

So now the pundits from the New York Times and the Woodrow Wilson Institute tell us the bad guys (Assad's regime + the Russians) are winning and America is losing again.  They could not be writing Donnie John a better script if they tried. And some of them are trying. Makes the pundits feel important. They get invited to talk on TV. And they get salaries at the Woodrow Wilson Institute, at the Heritage Foundation and other places where effete conservatives can pedal their wares. 

And what would "winning" look like in that cesspool of Syrian radical Islamic maelstrom?   If the "good guys" won and Assad was strung up by his ankles in Damascus and the Russians sent packing, what then?  Libya?  Iraq?  

Thing is, in that part of the world, dealing with Sunnis and Shiites--I can never keep all the factions straight--what does victory look like? 

Some people think they know.  Robert Duval famously said, in "Apocalypse Now" sniffing the gasoline smell, "Smell that? Napalm! It smells like...Victory!"

Moishe Dyan, a former Israeli general was asked how little Israel, surrounded and vastly outnumbered by Arab states managed to survive and prevail.  "Well, look at who we are fighting," He laughed. "They shoot three bullets at each other before they fire one at us." So it is with ISIS and Saudi Arabia and Iran and Syria today. 

Astonishingly,  in 1974 when Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, there were over 1,400 bombings by revolutionary (terrorist)  groups in the United States that year.  We have ten or twelve terrorist shootings and Donnie John says the whole country from Peoria to Portland is about to collapse. 

Once was a time we fought an enemy who was easy to understand. He wrote his beliefs down in a book, "Mein Kampf" and he planted flags in Paris and Prague and Vienna and Oslo and Amsterdam. And we could organize an army and kill his uniformed soldiers and roll across the Rhine in our tanks and plant our flag and say, "There, you are beaten."  Then we laid a Marshall plan on his country, hanged his henchmen, put our preferred enlightened leaders in place and ultimately, we got a woman Prime Minister in his place who, in 2016,  opened her arms to Syrian refugees and other undesirables and that is what winning looks like when you are fighting a people from a culture which is very much like your own. 

But this mess in Syria--as Bernie said, it's a quagmire within a quagmire. 

Pundits told us Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States. Pundits told us he had weapons of mass destruction in big tanks of nerve gas ready to be loaded on missiles and launched locally and delivered, eventually to our own shores. One guy, in a Navy admiral's uniform, came my hospital and showed us a power point with pictures of the nerve gas barrels. Right there in Baghdad. The CIA had the photos! Pundits! They knew!

Of course, like the guy from the Woodrow Wilson institute, like Donnie John and Ted Cruz (who would make the desert sands glow) and all the other tough guy war hawks who never had a bullet fired at them in anger, they all know Russia is winning and we are losing. 

Just let's all vote for Donald. He don't need no pundits. We'll all be winning so much we'll get bored and we'll forget what losing feels like. 

My Inner Donnie John: Learning to Love the Donald

The moment I realized I loved Donnie John was when he ordered that screaming baby out of the room.  

Actually, when I youtubed it, it was a disappointment. I had heard he got annoyed and threw the baby out. But when you watch it on youtube (link below), he was actually very funny and gracious about it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az6wof3iyIw


I had heard he was all snarly and angry, which is what I want to be when a mother brings a baby to an inappropriate adult setting.  I have mothers bring babies to their appointments and the kid is screaming bloody murder and I can barely get a word in edgewise and the mother is always cooing and smiling as if I'm suppose to enjoy this because, well, it's a baby and you are supposed to love babies. 

I do not love babies. Leave your baby with some responsible adult if you want to come see me and have an adult discussion about a serious adult topic. 

And women who come to a meeting about how we can oppose the rise of some neo-Fascist and they are knitting. Leave the knitting at home, Mother Earth. We can see from the Birkenstocks and the tie dyed shirt and the knit skirt you are a wonderful person. Don't pile it on.

But back to Donnie John. I loved it when he went after that great war hero, John McCain, who, after all got shot down, no disgrace there, and who behaved with great courage as a prisoner of war, but does that make him a hero?  

I thought part of "hero" has something to do with  success. You might admire a man's fortitude, but does that make him a hero?

Is every soldier, sailor and marine a hero? What if his service was peeling potatoes in the mess in Saigon for a year?  You will say, well, he did more to serve his country than I did, comfortably back in college, not in uniform at all. But I suspect many Vets do not feel like heroes for what they did.  I am told many hate that phrase, "Thank you for your service."  They are thinking, "Yeah, well, it was the best job I could get, more money in it than working at McDonald's. That's why I went."

We cheapen certain words: Hero, brilliant, patriot.  Plueeeze. 

Politically Incorrect

Of course these things--the baby thing, the "I like the guys who didn't get taken prisoner" and the don't thank me for my service; I did it for the money, are politically incorrect. And when Donnie John disparages that whole expected mode of behavior I do feel like standing up and pumping my fist. Finally! Somebody said it.  It's the same reason we laugh at the comedian who says what you are thinking but not allowed to admit to thinking. 

I watched an old video of Hillary chastising Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign for having said the folks who cling to their guns and their religion have nothing else and they will never vote for him. He was caught on tape and would never have said that in public, because it was true but politically inexpedient. So Hillary says, "People don't need a President to disrespect them," trying to may hay of political incorrectness. You know Hillary probably felt the same way about those rednecks but now she was pillorying Obama for saying it.

Actually, if you listen to that whole tape, Obama sounds much more sympathetic to these folks and starts off by saying how they've lost jobs and income over the years as factories have closed, as American captains of industry have abandoned them and that's why they cling to what's left.  But Hillary gets all sanctimonious, trying to score points. 

Here's the youtube link for the Obama remarks, which proved to be eerily prescient. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTxXUufI3jA

Donnie John doesn't try to score points with the empathetic crowd. 

Of course, you judge a man by the enemies he chooses:  Donnie John vilifies Muslims, all Muslims just as Hitler vilified all Jews and Marie Le Pen vilifies all Arabs. 

Finding the Positive in the Dark Side

You got to remember, Mussolini made the trains run on time.  There are things to can like about the most repugnant men. 

Maybe Donnie John should join Don Rickles, Bill Maher, W. C. Fields,  Louis C. K.  and other professional misanthropes.  But I do wish Hillary Clinton had a little more of them in her.

Too bad George Carlin is dead. I'd vote for him any day.

Obama Killed Captain Khan: Just ask The Donald

This has got to be the very best election I can  remember.  Ever!

At the Democratic Convention, the father of an American Muslim army captain killed in Iraq excoriated Donnie John.  The father pointed out that his son, who died saving the lives of his soldiers, would never have been permitted to cross the border into the United States, nor would any of his Muslim family, had Donnie John had his way. 

Gotta Love the Necklace

Donnie John's press secretary (Katrina Pierson, who wears necklaces made of bullets) responded that Captain Khan's death was President Obama's fault. President Obama killed Captain Khan! It had to do with "rules of engagement."

It was President's Obama's fault Captain Khan got killed walking toward a car bomb because of the rules of engagement put in place by President Obama and his neer do well should-be-in-prison Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The rules required Captain Khan to approach the vehicle unarmed, waving an American flag and singing "The Star Spangled Banner."


Captain Khan was killed in 2004, and President Obama was not sworn in until 2009, but Obama was thinking about keeping those rules of engagement in place and, in any case, at no time during the 2008 campaign did Mr. Obama disavow those rules, so, Qui Tacet Consentit, he who remains silent consents. 

And Barack Obama was born in Kenya, everyone knows that. It was his fault for being the first Muslim President and not providing Captain Khan with bomb proof armour. 

And Hillary voted for that war. It was definitely her fault. 

She so belongs in prison.  She made all those Goldman Sacks speeches and that should have been illegal, even if it wasn't.  If she had signed up for courses at Trump U, she would have known that, but of course, she would have flunked every single course because she's such a cheater. And she wouldn't have got her money back. Well, nobody got their money back, but she definitely would not have got her money back. What a cheater. 

Did I mention she killed Captain Khan? 
She really owes Mr. Khan an apology. 

Mr. Trump and "Sacrifice"

Sacrifice:  n. The act of giving up something you value highly for the sake of a higher value, as in, "the doctors sacrificed the patient's leg to save his life,"  or giving up one's life to save other people, as in, "the captain died saving the lives of his men."

This weekend there was a flap over Donald Trump's attack on a Mr. Khan, whose son, a captain in the United States Army, sacrificed his life to save soldiers in his regiment. 

 Mr. Khan pointed out that if Mr. Trump had his way, Mr. Khan's son and in fact the entire Khan family, would not be allowed to live in the United States at all. 

 Mr. Khan said Mr. Trump had not sacrificed anything for the United States, while the Khan family lost their beloved son, for the sake of the the nation.

Mr. Trump, it should be noted, did not respond by saying we should not make a hero out of someone who got killed for his country; Mr. Trump might have said "Hey, the hero is the guy who makes the other guy die for his country. The guy who gets killed is just a loser."

This would be something of a corollary to what  Mr. Trump once said about Senator John McCain, who had been called a "war hero" for his actions as a Navy pilot and later as a prisoner of war.  Mr. Trump disparaged Mr. McCain's war record as that of a loser--we should extol those who fight and do not get captured, not those losers who get captured. By extension, Mr. Trump would argue those who get killed are also just useless losers.  

So we can give Mr. Trump credit for  restraint.

On the other hand, Mr. Trump replied that he had, in fact, made many sacrifices, to build his hotels and his businesses. Presumably, he was saying what the successful businessman often says about how much time he has spent away from his family, all the "sacrifices" he had made as a business person. 

But, of course, Mr. Trump was not sacrificing for his country; he was sacrificing for his own financial gain. 

I suppose Mr. Trump has a point: Mr. Khan said Mr. Trump "had never sacrificed anything,"  rather than, "Mr. Trump has never sacrificed anything for his country."

Nathan Hale. Fire that loser. 

The Donald's proclamation was not exactly "I only regret I have but one life to give for my country," but then again, the Donald would likely say, "What a sap. What a loser, giving his life for his country, when he could have built hotels, casinos or golf courses."

This is where the Donald does not play the Democrats' game:  The Dems try to appeal to what they think are the heartland values of flag waving patriots, soldiers, people to whom you are supposed to say, "Thank you for your service."  

But the Donald says, "Hey, what are you? A loser? Did you make a profit for our country, or for me?  If not, you're fired."

Mr. Trump never served in our military; he got a deferment from service in Vietnam, when he was of age to serve.  What he is saying, presumably, is he would have been an idiot to join, when he could be making money, living in beautiful places and dating beautiful women.  What fool would have chosen to sign up for grunting through malaria infested  rice paddies in steaming heat when he could be in bed with super models back in New York? No profit in Vietnamese rice paddies. 

Falstaff: There's glory for you. It stinks.

Leona Hemsley once observed, "Taxes are for little people."
Mr. Trump has added, "Getting shot is for suckers."

54th Massachusetts: Glory? What a bunch of losers!

It mystifies Democrats, who are trying to figure out what white males in Ohio and Pennsylvania think, when they hear the Donald dismiss Mr. Khan, and his family's sacrifice as nothing more important than his own sacrifices for his businesses.  After all, it's these high school educated white males who have had to serve in the armed forces because they had no way to avoid it, or no better financial options. Don't they cling to their guns and their religion and their sense of patriotism?   

The military is very big on honoring those who served. When they die, the words: "Duty, Honor, Country" ring out. Mr. Trump says, "what losers." Democrats are stupefied when those white males all chorus out, "Amen, brother!"

Maybe, having been in the fight, they are as cynical as soldiers get about war and the "glory" of service and glorious death.  

What would Mr. Trump say about Pat Tillman, who left a lucrative NFL career to join the Army after the 9/11 attacks, to fight for his country and was promptly shot to death in the confusion of a firefight , shot to death, it turned out, by his own fellow American soldiers? 

Mr. Trump would, I am guessing, say Tillman was a fool and a loser to walk away from all that money, a fun career and a good life to join the Army. Was he really fighting for his country or for freedom?  In Tillman's case, you have to believe he was fighting for an idea. He had no economic motive for joining the Army.  But Trump's argument is:  "How is fighting halfway around the world actually defending America?,"  Mr. Trump seems to be asking. Or at least, that's the implication. Well, Mr. Khan, your son has been played for a sucker, so he's fired. Or dead. Same thing. What a chump, says Trump.

Certainly, during the Vietnam years, a substantial number of Americans did not believe soldiers serving there were fighting for freedom or for their country. Now we have Mr. Trump saying, essentially, just that. You guys getting killed in the Army, well you are there because it was the best deal you could find.  And if if you get killed, well that's just another version of "you're fired."


Make America Great Again.  Vote Donald!

Bill O'Reilly and The Well Fed Slaves

Fox News Braintrust

"Addressing Michell Obama's remarks about slaves having built the White House Bill O'Reilly said Tuesday on his Fox News program that those slaves were 'well fed and had decent lodging provided by the government."
His comments  drew swift rebukes online. He fired back on his Wednesday program, saying that the nations first president provided slaves with 'meat, bread and other staples' and 'decent lodging.'"




"Oh, massir, Ah's jez so fortunate to be a happy darkie, working here on da White House. 
They feeds me real good, with chitlins and greens and ifn the dogs doan want 'em, I get bacon scraps!  

And the lodging is so very nice. And the guv'ment gives me the lodging, which is almost as good as what Massa gives me down home. Ah knows Mr. O'Reilly doan approve of no guv'ment housing, no how. He says the private sector is always better.  He says it makes me dependent. 

But you know, tha's what being a slave is all about, actually. 

And massa taught me carpentry and I doan have no student loans neither, but now I can work here on da White House in diz hundred degree heat but Ah knows when da winter comes it'll drop to below freezing but I'll be all right once it gets dark  in my free government lodgings. 

Guv'ment's so very good to me. 

And Ah'm a happy darkie. Ah loves being a slave so I doan have to worry about getting food and lodging. 

The white massas, they give me everything I want.

Well, 'cept for Freedom. 

But you can't have everything in this life.

Swing lo', sweet chariot."

Gave me bread, meat, lodgings and a few whippings

Yes, indeed, Bill O'Reilly has doubled down on his initial reaction to Michelle Obama's observation about the possibility for change and  progress in this nation with his own demonstration that he completely missed the point. 

Oh, slavery wasn't so bad. Think of all the good things: Free food and lodging. 

The same, it must be realized, this is true for all those slackers in prison today: free food and free government lodging. 

In one sense, Mr. O'Reilly is correct: While change has come enough to place a Black family in the White House, change has not come to Mr. O'Reilly's brain, which is still back in the 19th century when white guys like him told each other they were doing Black slaves a huge, HUGE favor.

The really astonishing thing is here we have Bill O'Reilly, a bulwark of Fox News and the Right Wing saying such stuff.  Tell me again, why are we listening to this man?

Happy to be here

Is it not time for him to retire, or possibly be placed in an assisted living facility where they can prevent him from wandering off and molesting citizens who are capable of normal mentation. 

Of course, Donald Trump would have nothing to fear from Bill.