This And That

The negative ramifications from Barack Obama's failed presidency will take years, (if ever), to correct. Charles C. W. Cooke warns leftists that they should think twice about cheering the precedents set by their dear leader. Obama's use of executive fiat and bureaucratic overreach to fulfill their ideological wishlist will eventually come back to haunt them.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428909/royal-presidency-presidents-act-kings

William Voegeli explains why, even as he is cognizant of Donald Trump's unsuitability for the presidency, he's anti-anti Trump. 

That such a flawed contender could be a front-runner tells us more about what’s wrong with the country than about what’s wrong with his followers.

...Demagoguery flourishes when democracy falters. A disreputable, irresponsible figure like Donald Trump gets a hearing when the reputable, responsible people in charge of things turn out to be self-satisfied and self-deluded. The best way to fortify Trump’s presidential campaign is to insist his followers’ grievances are simply illegitimate, bigoted, and ignorant. The best way to defeat it is to argue that their justified demands for competent, serious governance deserve a statesman, not a showman.

http://claremont.org/crb/basicpage/the-reason-im-anti-anti-trump/


Why is Donald Trump polling as well as he is? A major reason is that there are many Trump supporting Democrats identifying as Republicans. And why is this? One - Many Democrats really do support him because he reflects their ideology and/or, they like his endearing style. Two - Many Democrats are trying to sabotage the Republican primary process.



Jay Nordlinger --

Donald Trump likes to brag about his Ivy League education — in part because he likes to brag about everything (and bragging, as we all know, is a classic conservative trait). Recently, he said, “I went to an Ivy League school. I’m very highly educated. I know words, I have the best words.”

...Trump first attended Fordham, then transferred to the Wharton School at Penn. The old joke is that, if someone says he went to an Ivy League college, he went to Penn — because Harvard people say, “I went to Harvard,” Yale people say, “I went to Yale,” etc.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/429181/latest-donald-trump


Andrew McCarthy writing about and quoting Mohammed parodist Bosch Fawstin --

"Mohammed cartoons don’t inspire Islamic violence. Islamic violence inspires Mohammed cartoons."

..."I draw Mohammed,” he says, “because the enemy tells me I can’t."

..."The way I see it, if drawing Mohammad can get you killed, then he should be drawn again and again and again and again, until drawing him loses all power. And, within reason, doing something that an enemy doesn’t want you to do is reason enough to do it, on sheer principle."

...Growing up, Fawstin increasingly sensed incongruity: His family was “moderate” in their adherence to Islam, rarely going to mosque and selectively following sharia strictures; yet the Jew-hatred and misogyny that are hallmarks of Islamic supremacism ran rampant among his “moderate” relatives.

...The enemy is no match for America on the military battlefield. Nor can they compete in the battle of ideas, where their tactic is suppression precisely because their repugnant ideas cannot bear examination. As terrorists, their only power lies in paralyzing us, instilling in us a fear to defend our principles, like free speech. Obama and Clinton loudly signal a readiness to surrender those principles, theorizing that the enemy will be appeased. Bosch Fawstin defiantly lives those principles, reckoning that if we all did, the enemy would not stand a chance. I like his plan better.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429175/draw-mohammed-cartoonist-speaks-out-why-i-entered-garland-contest


Have you heard? Hillary Clinton is a woman, a fact she rarely fails to bring up on the campaign trail. What she doesn't mention is that she is ideologically anti-woman and anti-feminist.
Katherine Timpf (NRO) --

Hillary Clinton claims to be pro-women, yet has actively worked to ruin lives of so many of them. She’s running on a “feminist platform” — she’s even dared to say that sexual-assault survivors have a “right to be believed” — despite the fact that what she did to the women who accused Bill went far beyond not believing them. She attacked them.

When allegations of sexual misconduct emerged during Bill’s 1992 presidential run, she’s reported to have said “Who is going to find out? These women are trash. Nobody’s going to believe them.” Multiple people also report that she called the women “sluts” and “whores” — you know, for daring to be raped. A private investigator named Ivan Duda claims that, after Bill lost his second governor’s race, Hillary told him: “I want you to get rid of all these b****** he’s seeing . . . I want you to give me the names and addresses and phone numbers, and we can get them under control.” 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429138/hillary-clinton-feminist-bill-clinton-sexual-assault


Matthew Continetti enjoys some schadenfreude at Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel's expense --

A liberal who jumps at the chance to vacation in a slave state — and thinks it’s somehow adventurous or even brave to take your children to a place romanticized by left-wing utopians since it went Communist in 1959 — is not only morally blinkered. He’s banal. He’s the sort of liberal for whom there is no difference between self-interest and the public interest — a trait Emanuel picked up from the Clintons.

...The situation in Chicago is so dire Emanuel cut short his vacation — the poor dear. The other day a small group of protesters gathered outside his home. He held a press conference where he announced changes in police tactics. But he is really just a worm on a hook at this point. He’s lost his mandate, his reputation, his press. And as he viciously chews out whichever naïf underling has wandered, doe-like, into his midst, you just know he pities himself and lamenting: I wouldn’t have this sort of problem in Cuba.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429173/rahm-emanuel-cuba-vacation-cut-short

The Wall Street Journal published the following excerpts last Tuesday (12/29)

From “ Dave Barry’s 2015 Year in Review” in the Miami Herald, Dec. 23:

January

. . . In Paris, two million people march in a solidarity rally following the horrific terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Eyebrows are raised when not a single top U.S. official attends, but several days later, Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in France with James Taylor, who—this really happened—performs the song You’ve Got a Friend. This bold action strikes fear into the hearts of terrorists, who realize that Secretary Kerry is fully capable, if necessary, of unleashing Barry Manilow.

February

. . . NBC suspends Nightly News anchor Brian Williams after an investigation reveals inaccuracies in his account of being in a military helicopter under fire in Iraq. “Mr. Williams did not actually come under fire,” states the network. “Also technically he wasn’t in a helicopter in Iraq; it was a Volvo station wagon on the New Jersey Turnpike. But there was a lot of traffic.” A contrite Williams blames the lapse on post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from killing Osama Bin Laden. . . .

In the War on Terror, the White House, having struck a powerful blow with the James Taylor Tactical Assault Ballad, boldly follows up by—again, this really happened—hosting a three-day “Summit on Countering Violent Extremism,” featuring both workshops AND symposiums.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/notable-quotable-dave-barry-1451429963


Last and certainly not least is Kevin Williamson, lambasting as only he can, the Department of Homeland Security's inability to track foreigners overstaying their visas.

Some years ago I had a medical procedure that required visiting a few different doctors, and, dysgraphic as I am, I was intensely annoyed by the fact that at every doctor’s office, I was given pencil and paper to fill out what was essentially the same questionnaire, over and over. There being nothing much more pressing at issue than whether I am allergic to penicillin or had been feeling dizzy lately, this seemed to me like the sort of thing that ought to be done electronically and shared among practices. I pointed out to one not-at-all-interested physician that when I received bills, they were produced electronically rather than with pencil and paper.

“What’s your point?” he asked. “The point is that when it comes to my interests — the timely and efficient transmission of my medical records — you are content to use 17th-century technology, the first mass-produced pencil having been developed in Nuremberg in 1662. When it comes to your interests — getting paid — you use 21st-century technology. It strikes me as odd that we have a very sophisticated electronic system for monitoring credit scores but no such thing for medical data.”

...We are perfectly capable of keeping track of these things: Miss the January payment on your Macy’s card by two days, and financial firms around the world will know instantly, but flout federal immigration law, and the mighty, mighty Department of Homeland Security can’t find its own ass with both hands, much less locate yours.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429179/visa-overstayers-terrorism-vulnerability