Category: Politics

Well this didn’t take long.

Media mogul Oprah Winfrey has no interest in running for U.S. president in 2020, she said in an interview with InStyle magazine published on Thursday after weeks of speculation and calls to run fueled by a speech she made at the Golden Globes.
Oprah says ‘not interested’ in 2020 U.S. presidential

Oprah Winfrey’s name is being floated as the Democrat candidate that can rid the political world of Donald Trump and reestablish the Democrat brand in Washington. Under her leadership, we will get a person much like Hillary but with a reputation of making us feel better about being a second rate people.

In the wake of her Golden Globes speech Sunday night, Oprah’s people were talking up the prospect. Her longtime partner Stedman Graham told the L.A. Times, “It’s up to the people. She would absolutely do it.”

And NBC seemed to be on board. “Nothing but respect for OUR future president,” the network tweeted…
The pundits swoon over Oprah for 2020 – but running for president is brutal

My wife came home from work yesterday and I asked her about this and the Liberals at work were joyful that Oprah would be their candidate. They were ready to go vote now. The lunch room was ecstatic at the prospect of Winfrey in 2020 and retaking the White House.

However, would Oprah subject herself to the scrutiny of a campaign?

Truthfully, I think it will never happen no matter how good a friend and supporter of the Obama or Clinton clans that she has been. She has much baggage that will haunt her. Below are a few reasons that she will never run.

After Oprah Winfrey’s highly publicized speech at the Golden Globes sparked speculation of a presidential run, actor James Woods tweeted three pictures of her with disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
After Golden Globes Speech, James Woods Shares 3 Photos From Oprah’s Past

Here is one photo that actor James Woods shared on Twitter.

Another factor that would kill her candidacy is her residence. Lest you forget, Oprah lives in Chicago. Yes, the murder capital of America.  This place is owned, lock, stock, and barrel by Liberals. The guys running this place into the ground are her friends and supporters. Most of the violence is blacks murdering other blacks. Where is Oprah while this carnage is occurring? What has she done to help in her own backyard? She has armed security, drivers, and doormen to care for her. She can never claim to be “one of us” even if she came from an impoverished background.

Oprah is just the latest generic candidate.  Remember Colin Powell? Everybody liked him until he started taking positions on issues and then his political stock fell like a rock. He lost my interest when he came out for abortion on demand and defended Roe v Wade. Powell was just another RINO in a shiny uniform. Likewise, Winfrey is just another Liberal in a different package. If she is really as smart as people claim that she is, she won’t run but will bask in the praise of the moment.

Liberals can’t beat Trump this easily. Besides we just got rid of one President named “O” from Chicago, I don’t think we need another.

2018 will be a pivotal year for American politics.

I look for a huge change in the composition of membership in the House and Senate. The “swamp” is just not as much fun as it used to be before Trump came to town. Also, I think several folks will be challenged in the primaries. Look for President Trump to find more cooperation next year on his legislative agenda. This situation will improve even more after November. Furthermore, look for another Supreme Court vacancy that will impact the November elections.

In contrast, look for California politics to make a marked turn towards the Left within the next 18 months. Look for the bifurcation of Prop 13 as business exemptions are lifted while residential restrictions are left intact—for now. The per mile tax on vehicles will pass. We will have double taxation on vehicles—high gas taxes and mileage tax. The State will set a date to outlaw internal combustion engines. Lastly, no Republicans will be on the ballot for the top two election in November and their registration will continue to decline with them officially being the third party as Decline to State (or no affiliation) moves to second.

I look for “adjustments” in the economy due to “bubbles” in some sectors. Trump’s tax cuts will soften the blow from what it could have been. Investment opportunities will become more varied and the stock market will not be the only place to put your money.

At this time next year, Windows devices on ARM processors and 5G internet speeds will be a big deal and gaining momentum.

Liberals hate Donald Trump and want to attack him. Despite their best efforts, Trump’s base is sticking with him. Most of Trump’s supporters are Conservative and most Conservatives are religious. Liberals have been looking for a wedge issue to peel-off Trump’s base of support. Trump has been married several times and is married to a beautiful woman with perfect children. Further, Trump tends to employ more women than men in his companies. Liberals are sure there is some skeleton in Trump’s moral closet that they can hit him with. But their latest attack has gone horribly wrong…

You see, Liberals lobbed their moral grenades at the President and they bounced off him right back into their ranks and BOOM. First Harvey Weinstein gets fragged. Harvey was the go to guy in Hollywood for fundraising for Democrats including Hillary Clinton. Ironically, one of the first people to pile onto Harvey after the news broke on his conduct was Chelsea Clinton, who got taken to the woodshed about her dad acting the same way as Harvey and arguably even worse. This thread is really worth reading.
Chelsea Clinton Gets Torched After Sharing Thread

Several more dominoes in Hollywood have fallen in the wake of Harvey’s downfall. Many people knew but looked the other way.

Matt Lauer and several others in the media have lost their jobs as well. National Public Radio has lost some executives as well. This trend was ok when it was just Fox News but now it’s a disaster for the Left. Again, people knew and looked the other way.

Al Franken and Charles Rangel have followed in the steps of Jesse Jackson and Ted Kennedy and lost their jobs as a result. Several others in Congress have resigned or decided not to run. Again, for many of these politicians, many knew but did nothing.

The irony of all this is that Trump is responsible for all of this but did nothing to make it happen. This only happened because he is in office.

For those of us that think this country has been racing to transform itself into Hell on Earth, this purge is a welcome change. Frankly, we have been praying for God to intervene in the direction that we have been heading and this seems to be an answer to our prayers. I really don’t care what Trump says on Twitter, but I care deeply about what he does. He has been a champion of religious liberty and promoting Christianity.

The swamp is being drained just because Trump exists.

Give the above; what do I do about Judge Roy Moore?
The accusations against Moore have proven to be false. Dems have tried the guilt by association trick and it hasn’t worked. For me, the jig was up when Gloria Allred did her press conference about a US Senate race in Alabama from New York City. Gloria didn’t even have the good sense to pretend to go to Alabama and meet with the “victims” and do the press conference there. Believe me, there is enough media on the scene to cover her remarks had she chosen to do so. Also, if the allegations were made in Alabama, law enforcement would be compelled to investigate. That was not her purpose; she was brought in to smear Moore’s reputation. The seriousness of the charges is always more important than the evidence for the Left. And the accuser that Allred produced was a partisan Democrat that was active in the Hillary Clinton Campaign, hardly an innocent victim. Other accusers have had their stories fall apart under examination.

Moore’s accusers have had their stories dismantled by people that knew them including parents and siblings. Any detail that you remember has been debunked but the narrative stands in the minds of many. This is an illustration of he who frames the issue will win the debate or at least has the advantage. How many of you could document what you did 40 years ago to prove or disprove such a claim. Unlike the other people, Moore has never been accused of acting inappropriately since he got married. No pattern of continuing conduct has been alleged. This is markedly different than those that have lost their jobs.

Lastly, back in the 1970’s—which is when all this supposedly took place—the age of consent was 16 in his state. Think about it, could you prove you didn’t kiss Sally behind the gym at 3 pm on May 5th 1978?

More reading on Moore

Cop Accuser—-Unsupported Claims
Efforts to Derail Roy Moore Right From Establishment Playbook

Update
Roy Moore accuser admits she wrote part of yearbook inscription attributed to Alabama Senate candidate

This why I’m ReallyRight ‘cause I told Ya

“As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
—Donald Rumsfeld

Candidate Donald Trump was not given a snowball’s chance in hell by the political class when he announced his run for office. The smart money was on people like Jeb Bush. With a full slate of House and Senate races already in the pipeline, Trump had few options available in terms of available personnel when his campaign started picking up traction with voters. The top tier political consultants and more experienced people were already committed to other campaigns. Trump was at a disadvantage in terms of traditional campaigning. Thankfully for him, he was willing to spend his own money to make-up the difference in media buys.

For a while, this served him well but he had huge holes in his organization as he entered the spring of 2016. In many cases, he was left with a combination of inexperienced or disreputable people to run his campaign. Roughly speaking, these folks could be called the “bottom feeders” of the political world.

Such was the case in California. Trump basically had a choice of two consultants to choose from when he began gearing up his California operation. If you recall, it was looking like Trump might need the delegates from the winner-take-all state of California to seal the nomination against Ted Cruz. Trump’s California choices were folks with availability to work for him because they had losing records in running statewide campaigns.

If you apply this personnel deficit on a national scale, you might start to understand why Trump kept changing personnel throughout the campaign and during his first few months in the White House. In fact, even as recently as last month he is still changing people faster than the Senate can confirm them.

The special prosecutor and indictments that were unsealed don’t lead to Trump as the author of any wrongdoing.  The wrongs alleged in the indictment dates back to 2014 and even before; long before Paul Manafort was on Trump’s payroll. The media is still stuck on their Russia narrative but the facts lead elsewhere. Assuming this prosecutor is an ethical guy—which I know is a charitable gesture, if your last name is Clinton or Podesta, you might want to “lawyer-up”.  Trump will survive this sideshow and Hillary will fade away if she knows what’s good for her.

Addendum
I was contacted by the Sith Lord who shed some more light on the reason that Donald Trump hired Paul Manafort in the first place.

If you recall, as the Trump campaign was winning various state primaries, Ted Cruz supporters were systematically trying to highjack the delegate selection process to get Ted more delegates than he was winning at the ballot box. By doing this, Ted was boosting his delegates in many states with more relaxed systems of delegate selection. Their goal was to deny Trump an outright victory on the first convention ballot and force a brokered convention where Cruz hoped to pick up more supporters in subsequent ballots. Some Trump delegates were actually Cruz supporters that would then be free to vote for Ted after the first vote. Many Establishment types were also hoping for a brokered convention where they planned to dump both candidates and bring in someone like Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney.

It was because of this possibility that Manafort was hired. Per the Sith Lord, Manafort was instrumental in the last brokered convention where he flipped delegates from Reagan to Ford at the 1976 Republican National Committee Convention. Manafort was the “enforcer” for Gerald Ford making offers that delegates simply couldn’t refuse.

As the likelihood of a brokered convention fight between Cruz and Trump dissolved, so did Manafort’s influence in the Trump campaign. He lingered long enough to help with the transition into the White House and then Manafort and Trump parted ways.

Remember that political realignment that many of us have been waiting for?

It has begun.

Republican voters and donors are at war with the Congressional leadership or lack thereof.

Here are two samples to prove my point. Folks, the heat is on and the GOP may lose their majority and I really don’t care. Ya’ll have done nothing so its time to get some new people in Washington.

For Republican Leaders in Congress, the Headaches Keep Mounting

An audiotape surfaced of Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers, lambasting Republican leaders and urging conservative donors to close their wallets to lawmakers who are disloyal to President Trump.

Republican leaders on Capitol Hill are making no attempt to mask their fear, predicting that failure to pass a tax overhaul in the coming months will lead to a wipeout in next year’s midterm elections. For the first time, some senators are contemplating whether their advantages on the electoral map next year could crumble amid a wave of primary challenges and other departures, putting their two-seat majority in jeopardy next year.

Mr. Trump is not helping. Speaking at a high-dollar fund-raiser for his re-election at Le Cirque restaurant in New York last week, Mr. Trump asked contributors what they would think if he worked with Democrats on health care, should Republicans prove unable to repeal the Affordable Care Act, according to a dinner attendee.

“I might very well end up making a deal with the Democrats,” he said, drawing applause.

GOP Donors Grow Skittish Over Lack of Legislative Progress

At a gathering of Koch network donors at a luxury resort nestled in the Rocky Mountains over the weekend, major Texas-based GOP donor Doug Deason announced that he and roughly 10 other Dallas donors have chosen to withhold funds until the White House and Republican-led Congress notch some significant legislative victories.

“Get Obamacare repealed and replaced, get tax reform passed,” Deason said, according to the Associated Press. “You control the Senate. You control the House. You have the presidency. There’s no reason you can’t get this done. Get it done and we’ll open it back up.”

For us in the real world, the pop culture definition of insanity comes to mind when we look at articles like on that recently appeared in the free side of the Wall Street Journal.

The headline says it all:

One House, 22 Floods: Repeated Claims Drain Federal Insurance Program

Brian Harmon had just finished spending over $300,000 to fix his home in Kingwood, Texas, when Hurricane Harvey sent floodwaters “completely over the roof.”

The six-bedroom house, which has an indoor swimming pool, sits along the San Jacinto River. It has flooded 22 times since 1979, making it one of the most flood damaged properties in the country.

Between 1979 and 2015, government records show the federal flood insurance program paid out more than $1.8 million to rebuild the house—a property that Mr. Harmon figured was worth $600,000 to $800,000 before Harvey hit late last month.

Homes and other properties with repetitive flood losses account for just 2% of the roughly 1.5 million properties that currently have flood insurance, according to government estimates. But such properties have accounted for about 30% of flood claims paid over the program’s history.

The article goes on to describe government’s unwillingness and inability to purchase such properties and prevent them from being rebuilt. It does mention that folks are reluctant to sell instead of rebuild. You may have a right to build on your own property but why do folks have an absolute right to be repeatedly bailed-out of subsequent problems by other taxpayers? What happened to fool me once…?

Oh, the government flood insurance program was 25 billion in the hole before the hurricanes this month. Yet another example of why big government doesn’t work.

Dear readers, please take these hurricanes and other such disasters very sober mindedly because when our turn comes in California, what you’ve seen elsewhere could be a picnic compared to what we will experience here. If you thought that no rebar in the Oroville dam spillway was the only shortcut government has allowed in California then you are a fool. I think our turn is coming soon.

Only idiots like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell couldn’t see this coming. President Trump is now working with Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer to get parts of his severely gridlocked agenda back on track. Yes, the author of The Art of the Deal is beginning to school the political class on how to actually get stuff done in Washington. Specifically, Trump is making a deal with Democrats on the debt ceiling to get parts of what he wants thru the Legislative branch.

Having cut a deal with Democrats for help with the debt ceiling, will Trump seek a deal with Democrats on amnesty for the “Dreamers,” in return for funding for border security? Trump seemed to be signaling receptivity to the idea this week.

Will he give up on free-trade Republicans to work with Democrats to protect U.S. jobs and businesses from predator traders like China?

Will he cut a deal with Hill Democrats on which infrastructure projects should be funded first? Will he seek out compromise with Democrats on whose taxes should be cut and whose retained?

We could be looking at a seismic shift in national politics, with Trump looking to centrist and bipartisan coalitions to achieve as much of his agenda as he can. He could collaborate with Federalist Society Republicans on justices and with economic-nationalist Democrats on tariffs.

—Patrick J. Buchanan

Not since Ronald Reagan was President has anyone purposely had to make it a practice of reaching across the political aisle to get their agenda adopted on a large scale. Likewise, Reagan bypassed to media and went to the American people and Trump is following a similar model.  But Trump is even more brilliant than that because by openly working with the Democrat Leadership and actually getting substantive things accomplished he is making it virtually impossible for anyone to run against him next time. Why? Because if Democrats are working with him, how can they campaign against him as a bad guy? They are standing with him at all the photo ops at the White House.

Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans are baffled and extruding brilliance such as this:

“Nobody does policy better than Speaker Ryan, but we do have to transition to the place where it’s not just about vision-casting, but it’s about execution,” said Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., chairman of the conservative House Republican Study Committee. “I think with any coach, team, business or ministry, whatever it may be, I think the ones calling the shots have to bear some of the responsibility.”

Ryan’s already-shaky status with GOP colleagues takes another hit

Radio talk show host Laura Ingraham puts it more bluntly.

Conservative radio host and Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham says Republicans “are finished” if they don’t get tax reform done quickly.

“He wants to be a popular president. He’s a conservative populist. That means at times, if Republicans don’t deliver legislation that he can sign on the critical matters that he campaigned on, he’s going to look to move the ball down the field with another set of players,” said Ingraham to host Sean Hannity.

“If they do not get tax reform done, they are done. They are finished.  Paul Ryan came out today and had an extra special spring in his step on tax reform. It’s funny what Trump working with the Democrats will do to the Republicans.”

Laura Ingraham: Republicans ‘are finished’ if they don’t get tax reform done

If Trump can get things done building coalitions then great, but I still say that he will be working to get new faces elected to Congress and incumbents will not be given a free pass to be sent back to Washington. Look for him to be reshaping the Republican Party and draining that swamp too. It will not get the media coverage that it deserves until it has happened but I’m confident that it’s in the works. Unlike Obama, Trump knows that in order to keep his accomplishments in tact long after he leaves office, he needs to get them thru the Congress not just issue Executive Orders that can be rescinded at a whim.