- This is real -
Image courtesy of Breitbart.com.
Sunday, May 10, 2026
About the Wiles Claim
On Friday we wrote that Trump's office manager Susie Wiles thinks Trump would have won the 2020 election were it not for mass cheating. You may have wondered, as I did, what led her to make this statement.
At PJ Media, Matt Margolis has assembled at least some of what Wiles has been hearing. He reports Monica Crowley, White House chief of protocol, believes the evidence will be forthcoming.
On-air, FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo concerning rigging of the 2020 election.
We are going to be making arrests, and it's coming, and I promise you, it's coming soon.
Margolis adds:
A federal grand jury in Florida is actively examining issues related to the 2020 election. The Department of Justice has also just brought in former U.S. attorney and Trump ally Joe diGenova to work alongside prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida.
The Covid epidemic gave the Democrats near-perfect "cover" for their 2020 election machinations, with "extreme emergency" powers being exercised left and right. I hope these investigations don't become another extravagant promise that fails to materialize.
Saturday, May 9, 2026
Happy Mothers Day
Time to wish all mothers who read this a Happy Mothers Day tomorrow. The DrsC's mothers have passed, but we remember them fondly.
We both had very good mothers, bright, multitalented and hard working. What neither of them exhibited was an excess of gushy, sweet empathy.
I've often wondered if the then-conventional wisdom was to be as matter-of-fact as they both were. Regardless, they raised successful children for which we are grateful and of whom they were proud.
Friday, May 8, 2026
Wiles: He Wuz Robbed
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, speaking to the Independent Women’s Forum’s Awards Gala in Washington, DC, yesterday. She told of first meeting Donald Trump after the 2020 election.
We had a lovely dinner and at the end of it, he wanted to know why he won Florida but maybe struggled in some other states—that I think we’re going to find out he actually did win. (emphasis added)
The 2020 election was hinky six ways from Sunday. Where did millions of extra voters - seen never before or since - come from and disappear to? It wouldn't surprise me if Wiles is correct.
An Emerging Trend?
Recent months have seen a lot of back and forth on Congressional redistricting but it is starting to look like Republicans are going to win the battle and come out with more seats. Don't expect any gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair at COTTonLINE over that outcome.
Honest evaluators have long felt the US is at heart a center-right country and its legislature should reflect our ideological balance. Obviously Congress hasn't always done so. Perhaps it will going forward.
I recognize more than a few of my acquaintances and neighbors will be unhappy with the expected policies that result. Reciprocally, I care as little about their new angst as they cared about my unhappiness in years past.
Onward....
Reform Kicks Arse
Like it or not, I’m an Anglophile; some of my ancestors came from Britain almost 400 years ago and our culture is an outgrowth of theirs. The Brits just held what is kinda-sorta like our midterm elections and neither of the “establishment” parties - Labour and Conservative (Tory) - did at all well.
The big winners were Reform (their MAGA), and the Greens which is similar to our Democratic Socialists. Translation: the right went farther right and the left went farther left. Writing at Sp!ked, Brendan O'Neill concludes:
No one can look at England this morning and deny that the masses have executed a coup against a complacent regime by choosing Reform as the new vessel of their moral hopes.
And who are these people? They’re the Brexit people. They’re the people who, 10 years ago next month, defied virtually the entire political and cultural establishment and opted to seize back Britain’s destiny from the unelected suits of the European Union.
I am happy for our British cousins.
The Worm, Turning
The prolific Joel Kotkin chronicles the decline of California yet again, writing for Sp!ked about how tech billionaires have supported anti-industry and green initiatives. I like his conclusion.
Ultimately, the woke oligarchs may find that they have virtue-signalled their way to a confiscatory form of socialism. For years, the tech elites and their minions have served as key enablers of progressives and their programme. They fed this monster, and now the beast seems ready to devour them.
Karmic outcomes like this one are deeply satisfying.
Thursday, May 7, 2026
Hayward Reviews a DJT Speech
Steven F. Hayward, long time contributor to Power Line, writing for the Claremont Institute's The American Mind, considers President Trump's White House lawn speech welcoming King Charles. Hayward finds the speech both masterful and atypically subtle for Trump. Two Trump quotes I deem especially important.
The cause of freedom did not simply appear as an intellectual invention of 1776…. Long before Americans had a nation or a constitution, we first had a culture, a character, and a creed…. Fate drew a long arc from the meadow at Runnymede to the streets of Philadelphia that ran through the lives of people born and bred on the British code “that no man should be denied either justice or right.”
For nearly two centuries before the revolution, this land was settled and forged by men, women who bore in their souls the blood and noble spirit of the British. Here on a wild and untamed continent, they set loose the ancient English love of liberty and Great Britain’s distinctive sense of glory, destiny, and pride.
After this fulsome pro-British praise, Trump finished up by lauding Churchill. The implied comparison with current Labour PM Starmer - a wuss and loser - couldn't be more stark.
Wednesday, May 6, 2026
Marriage and Politics
An interesting quote from the Institute of Family Studies located at the University of Virginia, posted at USAToday.
Today, a majority of conservative men and women are married, and a majority of liberals are not.
I think about our friends and relatives who are either conservative or liberal (we have both). Yep, it sure holds true for the circle of folks with whom we are in regular contact.
Give it a try and see if it describes your circle of more-than-casual acquaintances. Hat tip to RealClearPolitics for the link.
Update
Weather here in the Mojave begins to swelter, not blistering yet but definitely hitting some 90s. Assuming our health holds out (never certain at our advanced ages), we will be in our summer place 500+ miles north within the month.
There is always a fair amount of getting ready to migrate, and we've made a start. We begin a process we call "eating the refrigerator down" meaning planning to leave very little in the freezer and less in the cooler alongside.
We make the trip with our newish full-size Ford F-150 hybrid pickup. The truck bed has a lockable hard cover, meaning we can transport quite a lot under cover (out of sight) and semi secure. Not precisely nimble around town, it cruises the interstates like a dream at a legal 80 mph.
It is a biannual process we have repeated with minor variations for the last 30+ years. We have a busy next few weeks.
Later ... Friday's high is predicted to go over 100℉.
Monday, May 4, 2026
An Error ... Corrected
Almost nobody teaches geography anymore. It is pathetic when journalists write about things of which they have little knowledge.
For example, in a Just the News article author Eric J. Lyman writes about Haitians fleeing to the adjacent Dominican Republic; the two countries share the island of Hispaniola. He mistakenly writes:
The border between the two countries represents the only international land border in the Caribbean.
In truth, there is at least one other place in the Caribbean where an international border divides an island. The island is Saint Martin and it is divided between the French and the Dutch. The French part is called Saint-Martin and the Dutch part is Sint Maarten. I've been there, the two get along just fine.
You could also make the argument that the US enclave at Guantanamo Bay is not Cuba, but it is primarily a military base that does not traffic with the host nation.
Dental Detours
The President recently visited a dentist in Florida and the appointment was not on his official calendar. Those who wish him ill have speculated about various awful maladies. Probably all such are wildly off the mark.
He and I are roughly the same age - we got our adult teeth pre-fluoride. If my mouth is any indication, he has several filled cavities and crowns. I have several and it is a rare year that one of them doesn't fall off - normally while eating - and need re-glueing.
It is no big deal, presuming you don't swallow the crown (I never have). The dentist cleans the crown and the tooth stump, applies glue, and puts it in place. You bite firmly on the crown topped with a cotton pledget for a couple of minutes till the glue sets, and are out of the office in a half hour. It doesn't hurt.
I have had this procedure done in coastal Croatia, in Kona, HI, and on Guam, as well as many less exotic stateside locations. The dentist in Croatia and I shared no language so we gestured and smiled a lot. He did a fine job, after which the cab took me back to my cruise ship at dockside.
May the 4th Be With You
Those of us who like word play and enjoyed the earlier (pre-Disney) episodes of the Star Wars epic are inclined each year to celebrate this day. In spoken English, it comes out sounding verrrry close to "May the Force be with you," a benediction often uttered in the original canon.
Luke Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobe, Han Solo and Yoda burst on the scene nearly 50 years ago. We still celebrate the Mos Eisley Cantina, memorably limned by Kenobe as "a wretched hive of scum and villainy."
Looking back, the Mos Eisley was the spaceport equivalent of a shady truck stop or a waterfront bar. I imagine a dockside bar in Singapore might have a similar ambiance, albeit with a narrower range of sofonts.
Saturday, May 2, 2026
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