Notice

The Schumer Shutdown began at 12:01 a.m. EDT. Let the firings of uncivil servants commence.

The Aggrieved, the Resentful, the Angry ....

Power Line's Scott Johnson posts a paragraph from The Spectator (behind paywall) written by Chillton Williamson, Jr., in which he characterizes today's Democratic Party. Williamson takes no prisoners.

Today, the Donkey party is the party of the aggrieved, the resentful, the angry, the neurotic, the desperate, the illogical, the delusional, the irrational, the unchurched, the metaphysically uncentered, the unattached and childless, the anti-social, the resentful, the failures and the congenitally rebellious – all those not nailed down or secured to anything, beginning with themselves. They are the product, or rather the detritus, of an anti-traditional, aggressively secular, excessively technological, overly connected, trivialized and wholly commercialized and urbanized society divorced from nature and the direct experience of it that had been basic to human existence until a couple of hundred years ago.

A thoroughly repellant bunch of life's losers ....

Catching the Cheaters

Power Line's John Hinderaker often plugs Alpha News as the only reliable news source in his home state of Minnesota. Here Alpha reports on a coordinated sweep of immigration fraud cases in the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul area, done by USCIS, ICE, and FBI working together.

The Feds looked at 1000 cases which had come to official attention in some fashion. USCIS Director Edlow announced:

Our officers encountered blatant marriage fraud, visa overstays, people claiming to work at businesses that can’t be found, forged documents, abuse of the H1-B visa system, abuse of the F-1 visas, and many other discrepancies.

According to Edlow, authorities found indications of fraud, noncompliance, or public safety concerns in 275 cases.

As we work to undo the neglect of the Biden Administration, we will continue to launch operations like this across the country. Operation Twin Shield was a major enforcement operation and we will be bringing many more efforts like this to cities across the country.

Imagine how much immigration fraud and abuse there is nationwide, if a sweep of metro MN netted 275. We're looking at tens of thousands, at a minimum.  

‘Overachievement’

An interesting quote by conservative commentator Rod Dreher, posted by Instapundit. I wonder if his statistics are accurate? Stunning, if true.

Black males make up 6.7% of the total US population, yet according to government statistics, are responsible for between 45-47% of all murders.

I translate as follows: 67 of every 1000 Americans are black men. Those few commit nearly half of all US murders. It is the sort of “disparate impact” black activists don’t want publicized.

Petardry

Check out a light-hearted Spiked essay on the common experience of being hoist on one’s own petard. That being Shakespeare’s phrase meaning blown up by one’s own bomb, or damaged by something the damagee created. In current US slang, FAFO.

Democrats are whining about Trump doing to them what Biden did to Republicans. Dems FAed and now are FOing as Trump pursues his former pursuers. The author calls it petardry or the worm turning, and it’s glorious fun. Hat tip to RealClearPolicy for the link.

The Businessman's Bias

President Trump has announced a 20 point peace plan for Gaza. He has gotten buy-in from European leaders and islamic leaders in the region, and he has gotten buy-in by Israel. It seems thorough, but it amounts to a Hamas surrender.

What he hasn't gotten so far is any sense Hamas is willing to give up on martyrdom and slink off into the twilight, leaving technocrats running Gaza. Trump says if Hamas doesn't sign on, he will okay Israel to keep killing until Hamas is no more.

What if Hamas says something like "Bring it, infidels" and fights to the death? Count on Hamas to try to ensure that their defeat kills as many non-combatant Arab women and kids as possible. Can Israel survive the disgust of the world community at the slaughter that will entail? 

I fear Trump has projected his desire for peace on the Gaza Arab population, when it's likely only a minority share his aim. After all, he projected that same desire on Russia's Putin, when it clearly wasn't shared by Vlad. 

If Trump has a weakness, it is that he believes a deal that will move both parties toward increased prosperity is everyone's top priority. Call it "the businessman's bias." It is evident many players esteem prosperity less than Allah's blessing, national or tribal dominance, revenge, or indeed some other goal.

I hope he succeeds, but hope is a lousy plan and I'm not optimistic.

Monday Snark

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics'

Cartoons of the Week.

Only Citizens Should Count

RealClearPolitics has a long column arguing for the Census to count only US citizens, which hasn't been the practice in the past. I find the arguments favoring this change persuasive, perhaps you will as well.

Much of the anti-ICE rhetoric in Congress has come from big city Democrat Representatives representing their (non-citizen) constituents who by law, of course, are not permitted to vote. 

Trump tried to change to citizen-only counting for the 2020 census and failed by one vote in the Supreme Court. The Court now has a originalist majority and he should get the change locked in place sooner rather than later.

Adams Out

The New York Post reports incumbent Mayor Eric Adams has dropped out of the mayoral race in New York City. 

[He was] polling fourth, far behind frontrunner Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and also, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.

Adams did not endorse any of the other candidates, and even took subtle swipes at Mamdani and Cuomo — issuing a warning about local government being used to launder radical ideals and urging voters not to elect a mayor who’s flip-flopped on the issues.

You might infer a stealth endorsement of Curtis Sliwa, as he was not sideswiped in Adams' exit. But the idea of a Republican winning the mayoral race is so far from reality Adams didn't bother to put him down. 

Adams' term as mayor was marked by charges of corruption and subordinates who abused their offices, according to the NYP. It is unlikely history will treat him well. 

NYP thinks his exit helps Cuomo. Are New York voters into European-style strategic or tactical voting? We will find out.

Joe's Revenge

Writing for the very leftwing Salon, Amanda Marcotte entitles her column, "Kamala Harris is right: Biden set her up to fail."  Well ... her title is right although her description of how that came about leaves out that her defeat was Biden's revenge on a party that had thrown him - their supposed leader - under a bus.

Joe Biden gave Kamala Harris a ringing endorsement when who the Democrats would choose post-Biden was still up in the air. The fact the generous early campaign contributions were all in his name made his endorsement much weightier than it otherwise would have been.

Biden is a doofus, and mentally foggy to boot. Still, he had spent four years closer to Kamala Harris than most of us, and had doubtless noted her near inability to perform as a campaigner, or as much of anything else. 

Biden's endorsement of Harris was entirely cynical. Her performing down to expectations brought about the desired outcome, a Democratic loss that was decisive (312 to 226 electoral votes). 

Call it "Joe's revenge" on a party to which he'd been loyal his whole life. When things got ugly, Democrats didn't reciprocate his loyalty. 

It turns out he had a dirty trick left when the need arose, and he played it. I like to think Trump would have won regardless, but it would have been a much harder slog against a more able candidate.

Misery loves company, and revenge is a dish best served cold, consumed at leisure. Each Democrat outrage at a Trump action is another morsel of delight at Casa Biden where the banquet is scheduled to last another 3+ years.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Autism and Tylenol?

Does Tylenol cause autism? The truth is we don't know for sure. Okay, so what do we know pretty much for sure? That women who took Tylenol during pregnancy are somewhat more likely to have an autistic child. But isn't that causation? Possibly but not necessarily. 

What if carrying a fetus that becomes autistic causes the mother pain, for reasons we do not now understand? That would encourage her to take Tylenol for the pain and create the appearance of causation being Tylenol => autism when it is actually autism => pain => Tylenol.

Correlation ≠ Causation, although it suggests the possibility of causation. It is always possible some third factor is causing the other two to vary in tandem.

Mexico-Bashing

Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, spoke at the third annual US - Mexico Policy Summit. The National Interest has the text of his recent speech, presented as an article. Roberts is very tough on Mexico, and almost equally tough on the policies of both nations in the recent past. For example.

Together, Joe Biden and Andrés Manuel López Obrador represented the worst versions of American and Mexican leadership that have hurt our countries for decades.

Biden and Lopez Obrador’s disastrous leadership was not an anomaly—it was the most destructive example of a longstanding dynamic in the US-Mexico relationship stretching back to NAFTA. American leaders undermined sovereignty, exported jobs, and imported labor in the naive hope that Mexico would liberalize. Mexican leaders took advantage, empowered cartels, and consolidated power in Mexico City.

Roberts really gives Mexico an earful of bad news, and much of it has needed saying for a long time. I think you might like to read his speech.

Three Choices

The story of SecWar Hegseth calling a meeting of all general-level military officers continues to reverberate. It probably will do so until said meeting is history. 

If you'd like to read the educated guess of a retired Army colonel who writes as Cynical Publius, American Greatness has what Publius imagines Hegseth will say to the assembled brass. 

His bottom line can be summarized as follows: "Your choices are three. Commit to the new warrior program, resign or retire (if eligible), or be courtmartialed for insubordination."

274 FBI Present on Jan. 6

The Biden DOJ repeatedly promised us there were zero undercover FBI agents on Capitol Hill for the Jan. 6, 2020 riots. Now, the Trump DOJ admits there were some 274 plainclothes FBI personnel mixing in the crowds. 

We're learning many of them were really unhappy to be so detailed. They apparently didn't agree with their bosses, one of whom is now under criminal indictment, who believed that half the US population is disloyal.

I'm afraid we must conclude our government will tell us whatever story makes them look good, regardless of its relation (if any) to the actual facts of the matter. They do this knowing enough of us will believe them that they'll get away with lying, if that's what is needed.

Lying to the public is politics, lying under oath to Congress is perjury, a felony. Former FBI Director James Comey stands newly indicted of this crime and of obstruction of justice. 

Does he deserve the usual caveat of innocent until proved guilty? Technically I suppose he gets that fig leaf, whether he deserves it is another matter entirely.

Friday Snark

Images courtesy of Politico's 

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Curious

Google seems to think something in the post below, entitled "Surprise, Surprise," "violates community standards." Most of it is just a rehash of a Red State article which speculated about why DoW has called a meeting of all generals and admirals, without posting an agenda. AP, NYPost, and NYT all covered the story too, it isn't as if it was top secret.

Maybe it was because I sarcastically used the term "tight sphincter" to describe how worried those summoned senior officers are. That isn't very scatological, is it?  If you click through their warnings you can read the post, see if you can find where I violated "community standards." I cannot.

Anyway, it was a first for this site, we rarely get very excited about anything much. I propose to treat it as an amusing anomaly.

Surprise, Surprise

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

A Rich Lifestyle, Funded by Others

Below, we wrote about Trump speaking to the UN General Assembly. He told them they were basically useless, when they could be a force for good. In that opinion, he was 100% correct. 

Which is not to say the UN serves no purpose, on the contrary it is very useful to the elites of many third world nations. It gives them an opportunity to travel to a first world country, live there in comfort, meet others of similar high status from other unimportant countries, and shop for first world goods. 

They do all of this while their far-from-rich country pays their tab and they are protected from local police harassment by diplomatic cover. Some are hired by the UN in which case their expenses are indirectly paid for by the US and other affluent countries which fund the world body.

So the UN provides an enhanced lifestyle and travel opportunities for elites whose status at home would otherwise get them a position of being the kings of a dunghill. Is it any wonder they cherish it?

The real wonder is whether the US gets its money's worth from the UN. It is easy to think the answer is "No." Much of the time it is a sort of diplomatic Potemkin village, play-acting at being a deliberative body while nations which matter ignore or bypass its pronouncements.

Actually, people who study the matter are unsure if it provides a "safety valve" for venting hostile opinions. It truly may do that.

Is Trump Bluffing?

In the current game of "showdown" over funding the government after current appropriations run out, President Trump cancelled a meeting with Democrats Schumer and Jeffries. To continue the poker metaphor, instead of calling, Trump raised.

Politico has the story, not behind their paywall.

The White House budget office is instructing federal agencies to prepare reduction-in-force plans for mass firings during a possible government shutdown, specifically targeting employees who work for programs that are not legally required to continue.

The Office of Management and Budget move to permanently reduce the government workforce if there is a shutdown, outlined in a memo shared with POLITICO ahead of release to agencies tonight, escalates the stakes of a potential shutdown next week.

Given that most federal employees are Democrats, potentially tens of thousands of Ds could find themselves suddenly unemployed. Lawsuits would ensue, but presume for a moment most would lose. Is this something Schumer and Jeffries want to risk, wholesale punishment of a key constituency? 

Calling Trump's bluff could be very costly. Failing to do so could be nearly as bad politically. A nice dilemma to put Congressional Democrats in, I believe.

Thursday Snark

Image courtesy of Ed Driscoll, posting at Instapundit.

Naked Ladies

The day is beautiful and sunny, but too cold for outdoor dining or back porch sitting. More and more leaves are turning pale gold and more than a few are already on the ground.

One of this season's fawns is having a lie-down and cud-chew in the yard. It has shed the trademark white spots with which fawns are born in late spring and its mama is nowhere to be seen. Now is the breeding season, she's probably off somewhere getting pregnant with next spring's fawn.

This was the season when we bought this piece of property, maybe a week or so later than this in the late 1990s. We saw the For Sale sign, walked up what we later learned was the Naked Lady trail, and were stunned by the beauty of fallen leaves and still golden aspens. We fell in love and bought the lot, if not that day, soon after.

Our driveway is simply that same salaciously named trail, widened slightly and graveled. Basque shepherds once drove their flocks up this trail in the spring and back down it in the fall. They still graze flocks in much the same way across the valley in Idaho.

Aspen trees have paper white bark, with blackish accents. Horny shepherds would carve silhouettes of naked women into the bark of these trees to pass the time, as sheep move slowly. 

We were lucky enough to see one of these carvings before the last of the 'decorated' trees, which don't live to be ancient, fell down. Today only the name remains, and few now know of it. It is our little piece of antique local lore.

Trump at the U.N.

President Trump was scheduled to give a speech to the U.N. General Assembly today. When he and Melania arrived the local staff turned off power to the escalator they were going to take. Then they spooked the P.A. system and the teleprompter was balky. Did he throw a fit and refuse to speak? Not he.

Instead he scrapped his 15 minute teleprompter speech and gave them a 50+ minute off-the-cuff speech about how they were screw-ups, were making a potentially good organization into a joke and a failure, and how they had to stop the massive illegal immigration that is destroying their nations. Along the way he said Ukraine might well take back all the territory now occupied by Russia, and how they had to give up green power (wind, solar) as it was destroying their economies. 

He did all of this in a measured, calm voice that hid any irritation he felt at the petty harassment upon his arrival. I'm sure the assembled multitudes hated nearly every word spoken, and deserved being told off by him. Nobody was laughing, that's for sure.

Later ... The Wall Street Journal concludes their report on Trump's speech to the UNGA thusly.

In 2017 the U.N. delegates laughed at Mr. Trump’s General Assembly remarks, but not this time. If they were honest with themselves, at least some of them would admit that he has the place nailed.

Tuesday Snark

Image courtesy of Lucianne.com, 9/24/2025.

Fall Color

We were out for a drive yesterday and the other DrC took some very nice pictures of the fall color on display. These are now posted on her blog, check them out. 

To what she wrote I'd add only this, the mountain maples are more shrub than tree, and never seem to flourish on the flat like they do on sorta steep hillsides. No idea as to why that is so.

A Salute to the Equinox

Tomorrow at 12:19 pm MDT we in the Northern Hemisphere experience the autumnal equinox. At that moment the north and south poles of this planet are equidistant from the sun and we experience equal amounts of sunlight and darkness.

The autumnal equinox is when summer officially ends and autumn officially begins. Since the summer solstice three months ago, we have gotten increasing amounts of darkness each day until we reach the winter solstice some three months from now. Tomorrow we reach the halfway point in this process.

As we've already reported, autumn comes early here in the mountains at 6300 ft. elevation, something like three weeks ago. By now many of the aspen leaves have turned a pale yellow, and the hillside mountain maples are turning red. We've had rainy days with gray skies and cool nights too. 

It's getting to be time to think about migrating southward soon.

How Hitler Happens

It is time to repost an Instapundit Glenn Reynolds quote that isn't new but is evergreen.

The thing is, you don’t get Hitler because of Hitler — there are always potential Hitlers out there. You get Hitler because of Weimar, and you get Weimar because the liberals are too corrupt and incompetent to maintain a liberal polity.

I fear the stench of Weimar is very much on today's wind. 

Truss Likes Farage, and Trump

Speaking with Newsweek, Liz Truss who was briefly a Tory Prime Minister in 2022, has had an epiphany and now favors a “MAGA moment” for the UK. She thinks Trump is on the right track, one Britain should be emulating, and said she was very impressed with Charlie Kirk and admired his ability to reach young people with a conservative message.  

I think she might be willing to serve in a Farage cabinet, if Reform wins the next election. She talks about the unelected civil service being the real power in the U.K., as if this was a new idea. It is not.

Forty years ago in the 1980s two related TV sitcoms Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister had this fact as their central organizing theme. A befuddled elected MP was forever being one-upped and shut-down by a senior bureaucrat, named I believe Sir Humphrey. It was true then, it is truer now. Twas ever thus.

This interview is for Anglophiles, likely not relevant for the majority of Americans whose reaction to Britain is "meh."

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Friday Snark

Images courtesy of Politico's 

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

A Noem ‘Poem’

Something different in the New York Post. Miranda Devine writes about Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem going along on an ICE raid to pick up a wanted fugitive in a Chicago suburb.They get their felon and several more illegals. 

If your main view of Noem has been the “ICE Barbie” label was accurate, you could change your mind. There is a Queen Boadicea feeling to her role at DHS, Noem is way tougher than her image. Regardless, it is a good, quick read. 

Gas from the Past

Earlier this evening I saw recent video of former President Barack Obama commenting on the Kirk assassination phenomenon. His content was the usual partisan nonsense, but what really struck me was his sad appearance. 

Echoing a Matt Damon line from one of the Jason Bourne films, "Get some rest, Barack, you look tired." Obama doesn't look well. 

Having kids looking at him asking, "Didn't you used to be someone?" has got to be galling.

Death and Rebirth

Writing at PJ Media, Scott Pinsker looks at the Kirk assassination plus the reactions to it, and draws some dramatic conclusions you may find interesting.

Not just Charlie Kirk died on Sept. 10, 2025. So did the old Democratic Party. Unfortunately, what’s coming in its place is even worse.

Today’s Democratic Party is in the process of transitioning to the Democratic Socialist Party. A new national poll from Jacobin makes it crystal clear:

Democrats prefer democratic socialism to capitalism by a 58 point margin. Socialism wins overall with likely voters under forty-five years old.

Candidates who identify as democratic socialists are viewed just as favorably (+69) among registered Democrats as candidates who identify only as Democrats (+67).

Prediction: The Democratic Party will rebrand itself as the Democratic Socialist Party, because that’s what their liberal base demands.

My analysis: Some Millennials and many Gen Z feel trapped economically and willing to try socialism. Everyone older is less negative. 

Trump is trying to turn around our economy with his tariff moves to reindustrialize the US. The vital question is this, will Trump succeed in creating enough opportunity for all before those preferring socialism become a voting majority? 

Whoever wins that race gets to call the tune the piper will play. Saying everything depends on the outcome is an understatement.

The Surveillance Society

Public events often have unintended (and unexpected) consequences. I have been amazed at the extent to which the UVU shooter was on-camera everywhere he went. It’s clear he had no idea how pervasive it is.

To be sure, it takes something as earth-shaking as this assassination to bring the many independently done videos all together. Still, what I take away from this event is that in an era of doorbell, dashboard, traffic and other security cameras, plus people shooting video with their phones, many of us are on-camera more often than not whenever we leave our homes, and sometimes not even then.

The lesson in all this, live your life as you want others to notice it. Doing shabby things you’d be embarrassed to have on-view, in the believe no one can see, is increasingly a false hope. Imagine video of you picking your nose or scratching your crotch on national TV?

What is odd is that the surveillance was installed without any public debate on whether it should be encouraged, or even permitted. “The night has a thousand eyes” isn’t just a song anymore, and it is worse in daylight.

I’m reminded of a TV catch phrase from my youth. “Smile, you’re on candid camera!” I fear that’s most of us today, especially in urban and suburban areas. Another reason, if one is needed, to live in a rural setting.

George Orwell was a prophet.

The First Swallow?

Danny Kruger - an established Tory MP and no outlier - has left the Conservatives and joined Nigel Farage's Reform Party. Hat tip to RealClearWorld for the link.

Kruger isn’t some eccentric loner. He was appointed shadow work and pensions secretary under Kemi Badenoch and spearheaded the [Tory] party’s opposition to assisted dying. Prior to entering parliament he was David Cameron’s speechwriter and Boris Johnson’s political secretary.

He is the first solid Tory to make the switch, and doing so he announced, "The Conservatives are over." If you keep a weather eye on UK politics (as I do), you know this could be significant. The timing, coming soon after the "million man" Unite the Kingdom march in London, gives the move extra impact.

Aristotle was right, one swallow does not make a spring. But it can only be a favorable omen. 

N.B., As I'm an Anglophile, the British struggle to regain control of their island is likely to be a story we'll follow for some weeks or months here at COTTonLINE.

Leaks

If you hunger for more bits and pieces of the Tyler Robinson-as-sniper story, John Hinderaker has some further refinements of what went down. The Mauser rifle he used belonged to granddad. It was maybe a war trophy, with an expensive telescopic sight added. 

Hinderaker also has some quotes, likely off emails or texts, from the perp to his partner, made after the shot was fired. Not much question remains about guilt.

Later ... I hear via TV news that Robinson's DNA was found on the Mauser rifle's trigger, per the local DA who was elaborating the charges and outlining the evidence supporting them.

How Soon They Forget

Scanning a Byron York column in the Washington Examiner made me aware of something I hadn't quite realized. Namely, namely the juxtaposition of 9-11 perpetrated by Islamic terrorists, and 25 years later the leading candidate for New York City mayor - Mamdani - is Islamic. 

Nu Yawkers can't manage to hold a grudge. I have neither forgiven nor forgotten, but it seems NYC has. Go figure. 

On a lighter note, I could argue Mamdani and New York City deserve each other. Quoting H.L. Mencken, 

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

NYC, don't forget the Preparation H. 

Fine-tuning Needed

While I’m writing about things that need fixing, how about the roughly half of the states with laws against “conversion therapy.” That is, counseling whose goal is reconciling unhappy young people with the biological sex into which they were born. 

The laws were passed because real abuses occurred. Some “boot camps” basically terrorized poor confused kids, often with parental approval. 

Unfortunately the mental health professions have been prevented from trying to help these youngsters at all. The laws enable a zealot to swear out a complaint against counselors and ruin their livelihood or jail them. Laws preventing coercive programs but permitting counseling should be possible. 

Surely there is a non-coercive middle ground where counselors can help kids see the world has plenty of room for “tom boy” girls and guys who aren’t Hulk Hogan. Famous examples abound. Will they, as adults, thereby receive universal approbation? Sorry, almost nobody gets that. 

At least some evidence suggests many sex-confused kids, who can get through the peer harassment of adolescence without medical intervention, become well-adjusted gays and lesbians. As such, they are as comfortable in their own skins as most of us are, which is to say, mostly but not completely. Life is like that.

Guidance Needed

People are being fired for celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk. Others are claiming this violates their First Amendment rights. 

I would like to see one of our attorney commentators do a layman’s guide to what speech and writing the amendment does and does not protect, and from whom. The answer is not a simple one.

For example is advocacy (incitement?) of clearly unlawful behavior - murder - unlawful? How about praise of felonious behavior done by others? This clarification would be helpful in the current setting.

Was It a Conspiracy?

Interesting column in the Washington Free Beacon describes various pieces of evidence suggesting transexual groups online may have had foreknowledge of the plot to assassinate Charlie Kirk. At least one message presaged the actual shooting by just over a month!

As I noted last week, certain parts of Tyler Robinson's plan appear to have needed one or more accomplices. Perhaps UVU students, which Robinson was not.

There has been no further notice taken of a song someone posted online a month before the shooting with this title. "Charlie Kirk, Dead at 31." That certainly is suspicious.

We are told the FBI is investigating the possibility of Kirk's death being the result of a murder plot by sexual exotics. There is the strong scent of Weimar decadence in this year's autumn air.

Later ... David Strom calls it a "Trantifa conspiracy," apparently the transexual 'movement' has taken over Antifa. And then there is the Armed Queers SLC group to consider.

Even later ... National Review reports FBI has found Tyler Robinson's DNA on the towel wrapped around the rifle used to kill Charlie Kirk, and on a screwdriver left on the rooftop from which the shot was fired.

Understanding Charlie Kirk

If you read this blog with some regularity, it's a near certainty you are some flavor of political conservative, even if you reject the label of "far right." I'm recommending a column to you that you may not like the tone of, or the place where it was published, a pure progressive rag: Salon.

Executive Editor Andrew O'Hehir is woke as they come, but I think he's grasped something about the Charlie Kirk phenomenon others have missed. Hold your nose if you must, but read through to the end. To be fair to O'Hehir, he admits Kirk made a big difference. 

His considerable talent lay in translating the knee-jerk reactionary views of Trumpism — everything the libs have done, from abortion rights to Black Lives Matter to proliferating pronouns to low-flow showerheads, is destroying America — into the distinctive cultural language of a younger generation.

Everything about his online presence, media appearances and in-person tours was designed to reach younger people who were acclimated to the language and culture of celebrity, but weren’t much interested in the remote, tedious and pointless machinery of politics.

His rhetoric was often extreme and his positions deliberately inflammatory — he claimed to be modeling a rebellion against established order, after all — but his demeanor was radically cool, relentlessly cheerful, and never openly hostile or unfriendly.

Had he lived, devout Christian Kirk might have become an evangelical minister who presided over a suburban megachurch. Or even this century's Billy Graham. Hat tip to RealClearPolicy for the link.

Via con Dios, Charlie.

Mr. Turn-Around

I just finished reading a column I liked very much, I recommend it to you. John Tillman writes at USA Today about how purists in both parties don’t like Donald Trump because he is a practical guy, not overly hung up on ideology. Mostly he sees problems, chooses among the potentially available tools at his disposal, and tries to fix what’s wrong.

My insight, as a management prof, is that he treats the presidency as a CEO job, and his particular role is as a turn-around guy, ‘hired’ to cut the fat, and whip FedGov into shape, make it ‘profitable’ meaning working for us ‘shareholders.’ He’s proceeded to do exactly that, to the best of his ability. Hence the blizzard of Executive Orders, term limited Trump 47 is in a hurry.

As long as a CEO has the Board of Directors behind him he can pretty much do what seems right. In Trump’s case, “the Board” is public opinion. No wonder he comes down hard on the popular side of 80-20 issues. He’s working our agenda.

As the article referenced above notes, he’s been more successful with some problems than others, which is what you’d expect to happen. If he’s done anything against which the entrenched supporters of waste, fraud, and abuse have not filed suit, it has escaped my attention. Fortunately he has prevailed in the appellate courts more often than not, suggesting he gets good legal advice. 

I’d guess Trump doesn’t expect to win on every issue, nor does he need to. If he can win on a lot of the big ones, he’s done his job. He hands the country over to the next POTUS in better shape than he found it. 

Sunday Snark

Those are actual quotes, except the donkey.

Image courtesy of News Ammo's Garrison Cartoons.

Siccing Crazies on Normals

Reacting to the recent killings in Minnesota and Utah, Power Line's John Hinderaker writes a condemnation I would share with you.

Westman and Robinson are different cases. While no doubt disturbed, neither had a criminal history. Rather than being habitual criminals, they were activated by ideologies–ideologies peddled by the Democratic Party. Hatred of religion, hatred of America, hatred of conservatives, hatred of Republicans, hatred of normal people–these ideas are nurtured and encouraged by Democratic politicians, journalists, pundits and activists. 

The Democrats who peddle these messages of hate know that most people who respond to them positively will do little more than vote for Democrats. But they also know, and intend, that some damaged personalities will respond differently. People like James Hodgkinson, John Roske, Audrey Hale, Thomas Crooks, Ryan Routh, Luigi Mangione, Robin Westman and Tyler Robinson will respond to the Democrats’ dog whistles by killing, or trying to kill, Republicans, conservatives, or religious people. Normals, in other words.

Taking advantage of the mentally damaged to make kamikaze attacks on normals is brutally sick utilitarianism. It's the moral equivalent of marching prisoners across a minefield to clear the mines - at the cost of many deaths, about which you feel no remorse.

Britain Wakes Up

You are looking at the crowd Tommy Robinson turned out for a Unite the Kingdom march. The issue is illegal immigration and the government's persistent refusal to do anything Trump-like to reverse it. 

Crowd size estimates are in the 100,000 to 150,000 range. Those are probably low-balled because "official London" is appalled by the marchers' supposed "racism." I choose to think of it as real Brits defending their culture and history from an unwanted Islamic onslaught featuring rape gangs and knifings.

If PM Keir Starmer looks at this huge crowd in a country of only 67 million and continues on his current path, he is too dumb to keep his job. I'd guess everyone of those tiny dots will vote for Nigel Farage. And for each one on the street there, a hundred more like them stayed home but feel the same way. Hat tip to Instapundit for the image.

Maybe it isn't too late for Blighty after all.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.