Here are my observations and opinions from my select news of the day.
OMG! WHAT’L WE DO NOW? – We failed with the impeachment trial. Our criticism of his handling of the virus outbreak failed. Our use of the George Floyd killing to accuse him of failing minorities didn’t work. Criticism of his leadership by Mullen and Mattis had no effect.
Now, the economy is recovering, the stock market soars, 2.5 million new jobs are added, and the unemployment rate improves.
Biden isn’t exciting anyone, and Election Day is just five months away. What will we do now?
DEMOCRATS, led by Nancy Pelosi, continue their effort to slow down the recovery, with their push to extend unemployment benefits, set to expire on July 31, 2020, to January 1, 2021. By paying workers more than they were making while employed, businesses will find it difficult to get these trained people back. It’s all designed to prevent the Trump-created economy from returning. Some say this is just politics. I call it un-American.
THIS SCARE TACTIC WON’T WORK, but Chris Truax, an appellate lawyer in San Diego and a contributor to the left-leaning USA Today, continues to float the idea in an op-ed that Donald Trump will refuse to accept “his defeat on Nov. 4, 2020,” and “heavily-armed (supporters) will take to the streets all across the country claiming the election was ‘rigged.’
“President Trump invokes the Insurrection Act and orders U.S. troops under his control to occupy American cities.”
It’s hard to believe that there are individuals with sick thoughts like that, but worse, that there are newspapers willing to publish them. I see it as desperation.
MEANWHILE, self-described conservative columnist George Will, who turned never-Trumper in 2016, and now rejects the Republican Party, continues his struggle to remain relevant with little success.
I have long dismissed Will as a stuffed-shirt establishment type, who speaks and writes over the heads of the American people. Here the latest example of his lofty prose:
“In life’s unforgiving arithmetic, we are the sum of our choices. Congressional Republicans have made theirs for more than 1,200 days. We cannot know all the measures necessary to restore the nation’s domestic health and international standing, but we know the first step: Senate Republicans must be routed, as condign punishment for their Vichyite collaboration, leaving the Republican remnant to wonder: Was it sensible to sacrifice dignity, such as it every was, and to shed principles, if convictions so easily jettisoned could be dignified as principles, for … what? May I never crave anything as much as these people crave membership in the world’s most risible deliberative body.”
“The measures necessary for restoration of national equilibrium are many and will be protracted far beyond his removal. One such measure must be the removal of those in Congress who, unlike the sycophantic mediocrities who cosset him in the White House, will not disappear ‘magically,’ as Eric Trump said the coronavirus would. Voters must dispatch the congressional enablers, especially the senators who still gambol around his ankles with a canine hunger for petting.”
Most of us have our own opinions of the Senate, or at least a member or two, but I wager that most of my readers could state their disappointment more concisely.
“Will’s view is that the Trump version of the GOP is so corrupted, so broken, so beyond repair that the only solution is to raze it,” writes CNN’s Chris Cillizza, “and start from the ground up again.”
Certainly, you are not so foolish to want to allow Democrat control of the Senate with the view that we might someday regain control with individuals ordained by George Will.
AS A SIDEBAR, I found an account of a conversation Caroline D’Agati had with a middle-aged Brooklyn tow truck driver, who hated politics and hated politicians, but loved Donald Trump. She writes why in her piece, “The End of the Trump Presidency? Not a Chance,” in The Federalist.
“Because Trump is the only one speaking up for people like him.” She goes on to say why never Trumpers can’t succeed: “there’s nothing George Will, Joe Biden, or anyone else can say to this truck driver to make him feel more understood, validated, and empowered than Donald Trump does. Frankly, they don’t want this man’s support, but Donald Trump does.
“After years of being berated as racist or ignorant, Donald Trump reassures every day Americans that their views are valid and their way of life is worthwhile,” writes D’Agati. “He lets them fulfill the only dream most Americans have: to live their lives as they please without harassment or contempt from their government.”
DEMOCRAT NOMINEE STEPS IN IT AGAIN – During a virtual town hall, Joe Biden attacked President Trump, saying, “The words a president says matter, so when a president stands up and divides all the time, you’re gonna get the worst of us to come out.”
Biden frequently makes the claim of the president dividing the nation, but never cites examples.
But even worse, he followed that statement with his own form of dividing the nation. “There are probably anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the people (40 million of us) out there who are just not very good people, but that’s not who we are. The vast majority of the people are decent.” He follows with a weak appeal of uniting people.
It brought back the memory of Hillary Clinton’s campaign insult of those in her “basket of deplorables.”
THE AUDACITY of Washington DC’s black Mayor Muriel Bowser, to demand that the National Guard be removed from the district. They were called in after DC police were unable to protect national monuments, like the Lincoln Memorial and the World War II Memorial that were damaged with graffiti.
ON WEDNESDAY, a rioter was permitted to rip off the sign at 16th Street across from the White House. The entire process was caught on television, the rioter clearly in view for identification. I doubt if he was arrested for destroying public property.
Then, on Friday, in a deliberate in-your-face move, Bowser had a new sign – Black Lives Matter Plaza – posted in its place with the rioter-damaged historic St. Johns Church in the background. Disgraceful.
Bowser also permitted the words Black Lives Matter to be painted in yellow letters as wide as the street in preparation for a weekend protestor “celebration.” Incidentally, it’s the street that leads to the White House. Another in-your-face move.
May God bless the United States of America.