Things President Trump Got Right

First of all, why is President Clinton always referred to as President Clinton and President Trump often referred to a Donald Trump? Subtle manipulation by the media?

On Sunday, Breitbart posted the following headline:

New York Times Columnist Admits ‘ Trump Got Three Big Things Right’

If you honestly look at President Trump’s accomplishments and record as President and compare it to where we are now, your choice in November is obvious.

The article analyses The New York Times article:

The January 11 article was posted under the headline: “The case for Trump … by someone who wants him to lose.”

Stephens wrote that “you can’t defeat an opponent if you refuse to understand what makes him formidable [and] too many people, especially progressives, fail to think deeply about the enduring sources of his appeal.”

…“Enforcing control at the border — whether through a wall, a fence or some other mechanism — isn’t racism,” Stephens wrote. “It’s a basic requirement of statehood and peoplehood, which any nation has an obligation to protect and cherish.”

Trump also caught the public’s mood of decline and pessimism, Stephens wrote. “Far too little has changed since then … If anything, Trump’s thesis may be truer today than it was the first time he ran on it,” Stephens admitted.

Trump also amplified the public’s falling trust in experts, professionals, and merit institutions that were supposed to be independent of politics, Stephens wrote.

…Many voters in 20224 will remember Trump’s first term fondly, he said. “Americans have reasons to remember the Trump years as good ones … Wages outpaced inflation, something they have just begun to do under Biden.

I question the claim that wages have begun to outpace inflation. What used to be a $75 trip to the grocery store is still about $125. President Trump represents the hope of the American people that someone will speak up for them in Washington. We don’t want the government meddling in the home appliance market. We don’t the government performing S.W.A.T. raids on citizens that are not a threat to society. We don’t want the government refusing to enforce the law when Supreme Court Justices have their homes unlawfully picketed.

This Would Be Funny If It Weren’t So Serious

On Wednesday, Hot Air posted an article about the ongoing battle between Congress and the Supreme Court. According to the U.S. Constitution, Congress and the Supreme Court are co-equal branches of government–neither has oversight responsibility over the other.

The article reports:

According to both Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, 15 Democrats from the Judiciary Committee have sent a letter to the Appropriations Committee asking that funding for the security that defends the lives of the Supreme Court Justices and their families be denied until the Court buckles to the demands of the Democrats.

The article reports those demands:

The Democrats are making demands that the Court accept a Code of Ethics being pushed by the Left, and apparently, they have threatened to withhold funding for the security details that protect the Justices unless Chief Justice Roberts caves to their demands.

The article quotes The Washington Post:

Justice Samuel Alito was supposed to speak to law students at George Mason University in Arlington, Va., but when they showed up, he wasn’t there. “That Alito was speaking via closed circuit from a room at the Supreme Court seven miles away, rather than in person, was a sign these are not normal times,” the Washington Post reported. The Post didn’t explain what made the “times” abnormal.

It wasn’t a lingering fear of Covid-19. In a mid-April interview in his chambers, Justice Alito fills us in on the May 12, 2022, event: “Our police conferred with the George Mason Police and the Arlington Police and they said, ‘It’s not a good idea. He shouldn’t come here. . . . The security problems will be severe.’ So I ended up giving the speech by Zoom,” he says. “Still, there were so many protesters and they were so loud that you could hear them.”

…He adds that “I don’t feel physically unsafe, because we now have a lot of protection.” He is “driven around in basically a tank, and I’m not really supposed to go anyplace by myself without the tank and my members of the police force.” Deputy U.S. marshals guard the justices’ homes 24/7. (The U.S. Marshals Service, a bureau of the Justice Department, is distinct from the marshal of the court, who reports to the justices and oversees the Supreme Court Police.)

A federal law called Section 1507 makes it a crime to picket or parade “in or near” a federal judge’s residence “with the intent of influencing” him “in the discharge of his duty.” During a hearing last month, Attorney General Merrick Garland told Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah) that the marshals have “full authority to arrest” violators of Section 1507. But according to training slides obtained by Sen. Katie Britt (R., Ala.), deputies on the justices’ residential details are told to enforce the law only as “a last resort to prevent physical harm to the Justices and/or their families.”

Maybe it’s time to send our Justices through Concealed Carry Training and issue them weapons. I am not sure the police are able or willing to protect them.

When The Department Of Justice Decides To Enforce Only Some Of The Laws

On Wednesday, Hot Air posted an article about the protests outside the homes of the Supreme Court justices after the leak of the Dobbs decision.

The article reports:

Freshman Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) exposed an inconvenient truth Tuesday during a budget hearing. Attorney General Merrick Garland was questioned during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing about the fact that U.S. Marshals guarding the homes of Supreme Court justices have been instructed not to arrest protesters even though Garland previously claimed that the marshals have a free hand when it comes to making arrests.

Senator Britt came with proof that the marshals are instructed in the training package that arrests of protesters outside of the homes of Supreme Court justices are not priorities. The protests are regularly held outside the homes of the conservative Supreme Court justices in response to the Dobbs decision which overturned Roe v Wade. Ever since a draft was deliberately leaked last spring that indicated the Court would overturn Roe v Wade, protesters have violated a federal statute that outlaws protesting at a judge’s home with the intent to influence a ruling. That is exactly what the protesters are doing.

In today’s highly-charged political atmosphere, such protests have the potential to turn deadly. Last June, local police arrested an armed man who traveled from California to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home in suburban Maryland with the intention to kill him. He told police he was angry about the Supreme Court’s decisions on abortion and guns. He was charged in federal court with seeking to assassinate the Supreme Court justice. That incident highlighted the potential danger the justices and their families are in while they are in their homes. Congress approves additional security for the justices.

There are a number of problems with the protesters at the justices’ homes. First of all, protesting at a judge’s home to influence a ruling is illegal. Secondly, Justice Roberts created a problem when he voted to uphold Roe v. Wade. Because his vote made the decision a 5-4 decision rather than a 6-3 decision, it sent a message to the abortion lobby that all they need is one justice to reverse the decision. That was a bad move on Justice Roberts’ part and may result in violence against one of the other justices. Meanwhile the protesters breaking the law don’t have to worry about the fact that they are committing a crime.

A Coup We Never Knew

On January 6, Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at The Daily Signal about the changes we have seen in America over the last two years.

The article begins:

Did someone or something seize control of the United States?

What happened to the U.S. border? Where did it go? Who erased it? Why and how did 5 million people enter our country illegally? Did Congress secretly repeal our immigration laws? Did President Joe Biden issue an executive order allowing foreign nationals to walk across the border and reside in the United States as they pleased?

Since when did money not have to be paid back? Who insisted that the more dollars the federal government printed, the more prosperity would follow? When did America embrace zero interest? Why do we believe $30 trillion in debt is no big deal?

When did clean-burning, cheap, and abundant natural gas become the equivalent to dirty coal? How did prized natural gas that had granted America’s wishes of energy self-sufficiency, reduced pollution, and inexpensive electricity become almost overnight a pariah fuel whose extraction was a war against nature? Which lawmakers, which laws, which votes of the people declared natural gas development and pipelines near criminal?

Was it not against federal law to swarm the homes of Supreme Court justices, to picket and to intimidate their households in efforts to affect their rulings? How then with impunity did bullies surround the homes of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas, furious over a court decision on abortion? How could these mobs so easily throng our justices’ homes, with placards declaring “Off with their d—s”?

Since when did Americans create a government Ministry of Truth? And on whose orders did the FBI contract private news organizations to censor stories it did not like and writers whom it feared?

How did we wake up one morning to new customs of impeaching a president over a phone call? Of the speaker of the House tearing up the State of the Union address on national television? Of barring congressional members from serving on their assigned congressional committees?

That is just the beginning. Please follow the link to read the entire article.

The article concludes:

Were Americans ever asked whether their universities could discriminate against their sons and daughters based on their race? How did it become physically dangerous to speak the truth on a campus? Whose idea was it to reboot racial segregation and bias as “theme houses,” “safe spaces,” and “diversity”? How did that happen in America?

How did a virus cancel the Constitution? Did the lockdowns rob us of our sanity? Or was it the woke hysteria that ignited our collective madness?

We are beginning to wake up from a nightmare to a country we no longer recognize, and from a coup we never knew.

It’s time to join or to start a local grassroots organization dedicated to protecting the rights and structure defined in the U.S. Constitution. We have a number of organizations like that in eastern North Carolina. Hopefully there are some where you live.

Supporting Harassment Of People You Disagree With

There are a lot of Americans lamenting the lack of civility in our current political debate. However, many of those same Americans are not willing to look at some of the roots of that incivility.

On Saturday, The New York Post reported the following:

A left-wing activist group is offering $50 to anyone who gives them the location of the six Supreme Court justices who voted last month to overturn Roe v. Wade.

ShutDownDC said it would pay the bounty to anyone who shares a “confirmed sighting” of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett or John Roberts.

The group will pay a whopping $200 if the justice was still in the location where they were sighted after 30 minutes, according to a Friday tweet.

This is not acceptable behavior, but I haven’t heard a lot of voices calling them out. The article includes a Tweet advertising that they will pay for a sighting of one of the conservative justices. Where are the voices calling for civility in American politics?

The article notes:

Twitter prohibits users from encouraging or calling on others to harass an individual or group of people, according to its rules and policies document. The platform hasn’t yet commented on why the bounties don’t violate its rules, Fox News reported.

ShutDownDC’s public bounty offer came after protesters affiliated with the group targeted Kavanaugh while he dined at a Morton’s steakhouse in Washington DC Wednesday evening. Kavanaugh was ultimately forced to flee the eatery through a back door.

This is a new low in American politics and needs to be discouraged strongly. This is harassment of people with opposing views. What we need is honest debate–not harassment.

 

Losing Civility Courtesy Of The White House

On Thursday, The Daily Wire reported the following:

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday that there was no “official U.S. Government position” on where protesters chose to gather, even if that meant they were publishing the home addresses of sitting Supreme Court justices.

After congratulating Psaki’s incoming replacement Karine Jean-Pierre on being named President Joe Biden’s next press secretary, Fox News’ Peter Doocy turned to the topic of planned protests over the recently leaked early opinion draft indicating that the Supreme Court could be poised to overturn landmark abortion cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

The article reports the following dialog:

“Not about yesterday, just about moving forward — these activists posted a map with the home addresses of the Supreme Court justices,” Doocy said. “Is that the kind of thing this president wants to help your side make their point?”

“Look, I think the president’s view is that there’s a lot of passion, a lot of fear, a lot of sadness from many, many people across this country about what they saw in that leaked document,” Psaki replied, saying again that the White House supported peaceful protest.

“He doesn’t care if they’re protesting outside the Supreme Court or outside someone’s private residence?” Doocy asked.

“I don’t have an official U.S. Government position on where people protest,” Psaki replied. “I want it — we want it of course to be peaceful … I think we shouldn’t lose the point here, the reason people are protesting is because women across the country are worried about their fundamental rights that have been law for 50 years. Their rights to make choices about their own bodies and their own health care are at risk. That’s why people are protesting — they’re unhappy, they’re scared.”

When does protesting become harassment? How much violence is the political left willing to tolerate to move their agenda forward (think riots of the summer of 2020)? When the political left disrupted the Senate during the Kavanaugh hearings, how is that different from January 6th? Is anyone protecting the rights of American citizens simply trying to do their jobs?