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Didn’t President Trump See “Hillary’s America”?

January 4, 2019January 24, 2017 by debisimons

So, on the Wednesday before the Inauguration (hereafter to be described as the “National Day of Patriotic Devotion”) at-that-point-still-President-Elect Trump and VP-Elect Mike Pence appeared somewhere, and Trump mentioned that admirers were telling him, “There hasn’t been anything like this since Andrew Jackson.” He has issued statements saying that Jackson was “an amazing figure in many ways.”

Wait, what? Wasn’t it just this summer that the great Dinesh D’Souza epic “Hillary’s America” hit the multiplexes, in which Andrew Jackson is portrayed as a total villain? As the founder of the . . . Democratic Party? I’m confused. So I took a look back at a review on that peerless purveyor of news, WND.com, in which Chuck Norris lays out the ten best things about the movie. One of them is: “The Democratic Party was the original pro-slavery and anti-minority party, and still is, when one understands its underlying motives and tactics. From Andrew Jackson’s suppression of slaves and slaughter of Indians . . .” (from July 31, 2016) So my memory isn’t playing tricks on me. That was Andrew Jackson in the film, whipping slaves (when he wasn’t coercing comely females ones into bed) and driving Native Americans off their lands.

So why isn’t Pres. Trump insulted that people are comparing him to Andrew Jackson? Beats me.
Could it be (this is just a suggestion) that American history lessons don’t figure bigly on cable news? Just askin’!

Praying Properly for President Trump.

January 4, 2019January 20, 2017 by debisimons

I’m linking to an article below by the estimable Russell Moore, the president of the Southern Baptist Committee on Ethics and Religious Liberty, who refused to support Donald Trump during his candidacy and, like many other honorable and thoughtful conservatives (and in his case, also a Christian), has paid a personal and professional price for that refusal.

So when he says to pray for Donald Trump, now, as of noon today, President Trump, well, I guess I’d better listen. Even more important, I guess I’d better listen when Moore quotes Scripture. I’ve addressed this issue before in a couple of posts last year—one in November and one in December—but now that we truly do have a President Trump I guess I’d better do some more pondering about my responsibilities as a Christian citizen.

Two Alternatives about the Trump Dossier

January 4, 2019January 13, 2017 by debisimons

Interesting article yesterday in National Review from a highly-qualified source, David Satter, who has been writing about the Soviet Union and Russia for four decades and holds the distinction of being the only American journalist expelled from Russia since the Cold War. I think he knows whereof he speaks.

So when he says that he thinks the infamous Trump dossier is a Russian fabrication designed to sow discord in our government he isn’t talking through his hat. He says that the document bears the marks of Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) disinformation and that the perception that the Russians cared one way or another who won the election is false. They simply wanted to be a disruptive and destabilizing influence no matter who won. So far, so good.

Trump Supporters Didn’t Think He Was Serious.

January 4, 2019December 21, 2016 by debisimons

Now they’re facing severe consequences if he goes ahead and does what he said he’d do.

There’s a great novel by Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Soldier, that begins this way:

”This is the saddest story I have ever heard.”

That line would also apply to the article below. Sure, there are greata-bigga-huge problems with Obamacare that need to be addressed, and should have been addressed before the thing was rammed through. But you can’t just jerk the rug out from under people.

Retroactive Explanations of Trump’s Behavior Are Foolish.

January 4, 2019December 21, 2016 by debisimons

Let me give you an example here of what is meant by “retroactive explanations.” We have a realtor coming Friday to take pictures of our house for a listing. (We may end up not putting it up for sale after all, but that’s not germane to this story.) The house is in pretty good shape except for the basement, which tends to become a repository of items that don’t have a home elsewhere. So some serious cleaning up needs to happen down there, and it needs to take place tomorrow.

Okay. We’ll say that this afternoon I went out to get the mail and, due to my congenital klutziness, I fell down the porch stairs and broke a bone in my foot. (I actually did this back in Virginia and ended up in a cast and on crutches, so this example is entirely within the realm of possibility.) It’s all completely accidental, but guess what? It gets me out of helping to clean up the basement.

So you come along and say, “Hey, Debi, pretty smart move! Brilliant, as a matter of fact! Look at all the work you avoided!” Well, as a matter of fact, I didn’t do it deliberately. I just wasn’t paying attention.You can see where all this is going, can’t you? I give you yet another peerless article from Jennifer Rubin of, as I never tire of pointing out, the Right Turn blog, right as in conservative:

“Retroactive Explanations for Trump’s Actions Don’t Make Sense”

Trump vs. Conservatism

January 4, 2019December 20, 2016 by debisimons

Excellent article posted below by Michael Gerson, a conservative columnist and former George W. Bush speechwriter. Although I can’t speak with certainty about whether or not he is a Christian, he certainly gives every indication of a Christian mindset. He is gravely concerned about the state of conservatism now and gives an eloquent defense of what that ideology actually is. Then he says:

“This is not the political force that has recently taken over the Republican Party — with a plurality in the presidential primaries and a narrow victory in November. That has been the result of extreme polarization, not a turn toward enduring values. The movement is authoritarian in theory, apocalyptic in mood, prone to conspiracy theories and personal abuse, and dismissive of ethical standards. The president-elect seems to offer equal chances of constitutional crisis and utter, debilitating incompetence.”

Whew! His article is well worth thoughtful, careful reading. As we head into the actual Trump administration we will be well advised to keep these ideas in mind. We’re stuck with him! There is no longer any point in talking about what might have been. There is no last-ditch effort that will now rescue us. But if Gerson is correct, and there’s no doubt in my mind that he is, then after four years of a Trump administration the conservative movement will have been well and truly sidelined, if indeed that hasn’t already happened. Here’s the article:

“The Republican Party Is at its Peak, but Conservatism Has Hit Rock Bottom”

The Great Danger of Trump’s Pro-Putinism.

January 4, 2019December 19, 2016 by debisimons

I’m just a-goin’ to keep on a-bangin’ this drum, because this cozying up to Putin is the biggest worry many people have about the new Trump administration. I’m not making this up! Watch this space later this week for a review about a book that will freeze your blood but, I hope, stiffen your spine. In the meantime, read the article below. We need to be on guard more than ever. To sink back into complacency because your candidate won is a step farther down the wrong road.

This is the exact opposite of what Ronald Reagan did, folks, so please stop saying that Trump is going to be “an even greater President than Ronald Reagan.” Of all the nauseating things I’ve heard about Trump that one is the most sickening.

Here’s the article:

“Will the GOP Be the Pro-Putin Party”

The Folly of Making Donald Trump the Pro-Life Poster Boy

January 4, 2019December 16, 2016 by debisimons

I’ve had the experience several times over the course of this election season of developing ideas of my own that I think are pretty good and then running into an article and admitting, “Wow—that’s so much better!” So I had realized that, absent my personal fear and distrust of a Trump presidency, I would actually have a much better time of it if he won than if she-who-must-not-be-named won, because then I could just sit back and watch the disaster unfold, knowing full well that I had done all that I could to prevent it. Then this article by Jonah Goldberg came along.

I had done some deep logical reasoning, I thought, on the whole you-have-to-vote-for-Trump-because-of-the-Supreme-Court issue, and then I ran across this excellent article by Ian Tuttle which went several orders of magnitude deeper.

Trump’s Backwards (and Backward) World View.

January 4, 2019December 16, 2016 by debisimons

T. Rex for Secretary of State, anyone?

I date my political awakening to sometime at the end of this past March, when I suddenly thought, “Say wh-a-a-a-t? Is this Trump guy for real? Surely not!” Up until that point I had taken very little interest in politics.

Now, looking back to the 2012 election, I have to admit deep regret over not getting involved with that one and, specifically, not getting out and supporting Mitt Romney, an honorable, honest, decent man who got royally slammed for telling the truth about Russia. (I actually, just now, had to go back and look up to see who got Colorado’s nine electoral votes; Barack Obama did. And he got 332 electoral votes total to Romney’s 206, winning over 51% of the popular vote to Romney’s 47%. Pretty decisive, I’d say. But still! I could have gotten a little more involved as a citizen. I just thought, ‘Meh. Romney’s kind of boring and bland,and there’s no way Obama is going to lose as the incumbent and as such a charismatic figure.’ I did vote for Romney, you understand.)

Well, even though Romney didn’t get the Secretary of State pick (not that there was any real chance of that, ever, unless Mitt climbed the stairs of Trump Tower on his knees, which, to his real and lasting credit, he refused to do), his prognostications about Russia have been justified, big time.

Takeaway from the following article by Fareed Zakaria, who writes laudable foreign-policy articles for the Washington Post:

It’s ironic that Mitt Romney has been passed over for secretary of state just as his key foreign policy judgment is being vindicated. Romney famously said in 2012 that Russia was the United States’ “No. 1 geopolitical foe.” President Obama mocked the claim, and others — myself included — thought it was an exaggeration. We were wrong; Romney was right. (emphasis mine)

Read the entire article here:

“Vladimir Putin wants a new world order. Why would Donald Trump help him?”

Ayn Rand Is Going to be a Pernicious Influence in Trump’s Cabinet.

January 4, 2019December 15, 2016 by debisimons

photo credit: Wikipedia.

So far the incoming administration is planning to nominate huge Ayn Rand fans as Secretary of Labor, Secretary of State, and head of the CIA. The PEOTUS names Rand as a big favorite of his:

The president-elect said this spring that he’s a fan of Rand and identifies with Howard Roark, the main character in “The Fountainhead.” Roark, played by Gary Cooper in the film adaptation, is an architect who dynamites a housing project he designed because the builders did not precisely follow his blueprints. “It relates to business, beauty, life and inner emotions. That book relates to … everything,” Trump told Kirsten Powers for a piece in USA Today. (from an article in the Washington Post)

Break it down!

First of all, since everyone agrees that Trump never reads books, we can be pretty sure he’s just seen the movie. (Fountainhead is about 700 pages long. I’ve read it at least twice.) I have no idea how faithful the movie is to the book.