The Dangerous Invective against Trump

Victor Davis Hanson
The continued litany of threats to physically assault or kill a president will haunt the country long after Trump is gone.

"Former vice president and current presidential candidate Joe Biden has bragged on two occasions that he would like to beat up President Donald Trump.
"In March 2018, Biden huffed, “They asked me would I like to debate this gentleman, and I said no. I said, ‘If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.’”
"Biden’s tough-guy braggadocio was apparently no slip. A year later, he doubled down on his physical threats.
“The idea that I’d be intimidated by Donald Trump? . . . He’s the bully that I’ve always stood up to. He’s the bully that used to make fun when I was a kid that I stutter, and I’d smack him in the mouth.”
"Had former vice president Dick Cheney ever dared to say something similar of President Obama, what would the media reaction have been?
"Recently, Senator Corey Booker (D., N.J.), another presidential candidate, took up where Biden left off:
" 'Trump is a guy who you understand he hurts you, and my testosterone sometimes makes me want to feel like punching him, which would be bad for this elderly, out-of-shape man that he is if I did that. This physically weak specimen.”

. . . Actor Robert De Niro has repeatedly expressed a desire to physically assault Trump. A month before Trump was elected, De Niro said of him, “I’d like to punch him in the face.” Later, De Niro doubled down with a series of “F*** Trump” outbursts.

 . . . This is especially dangerous in the aftermath of progressive zealot and Bernie Sanders supporter James Hodgkinson’s 2017 attempt to assassinate Republican congressmen at a practice for a charity baseball game. Representative Steve Scalise (R., La.) was shot and nearly killed. Three other people were also shot and wounded.

. . . Representative Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), just hours after she was sworn in, said at a rally that she had promised her young son that “we’re going to impeach the motherf***er.”

. . .  A few months later, comedian Kathy Griffin issued a video where she held up a bloody facsimile of a decapitated Trump head.

Actor Jeff Daniels On Colbert Show: We Need Someone Who Can “Punch [Trump] In The Face”   Video here.

How Did the Presidential Campaign Get to Be so Long?

Intellectual Takeout

"Four hundred and thirty-two days prior to the election and 158 days before the Iowa caucus, millions of Americans will tune in for the second round of Democratic debates."If this seems like a long time to contemplate the candidates, it is.

"By comparison, Canadian election campaigns average just 50 days. In France, candidates have just two weeks to campaign, while Japanese law restricts campaigns to a meager 12 days.

"Those countries all give more power than the U.S. does to the legislative branch, which might explain the limited attention to the selection of the chief executive.

"But Mexico – which, like the U.S., has a presidential system – only allows 90 days for its presidential campaigns, with a 60-day “pre-season,” the equivalent of our nomination campaign.

So by all accounts, the U.S. has exceptionally long elections – and they just keep getting longer. As a political scientist living in Iowa, I’m acutely aware of how long the modern American presidential campaign has become.

"It wasn’t always this way.

"The seemingly interminable presidential campaign is a modern phenomenon. It originated out of widespread frustration with the control that national parties used to wield over the selection of candidates. But changes to election procedures, along with media coverage that started to depict the election as a horse race, have also contributed to the trend." . . .

Rachel Caufield is Associate Professor of Political Science at Drake University.

Seven responses to Don Lemon's obnoxious debate question about Trump

Christopher Paslay article posted in its entirety  "Don Lemon asked the following question during the first night of CNN's Democratic debate: "What do you say to those Trump voters who prioritize the economy over the president's bigotry?"

Here are seven possible responses:

1.  Yes, I know your 401K is up $75,000 since Trump took office, but he used the phrase "corrupt mess" when speaking of Elijah Cummings's home district in Baltimore.  These were mean words.  Now, Bernie Sanders said "third world country" when referring to Baltimore, which was much more sensitive and non-racist.  This is why you should vote for Bernie and his crazy socialist platform, and stop worrying about stupid things like your own retirement.

Lemon

2.  Sure, you saved $3,500 in taxes last year, but in terms of illegal aliens coming from Mexico and violating the law, Trump said Mexico is "not sending their best."  He said, "They're bringing drugs.  They're bringing crime.  They're rapists.  And some, I assume, are good people."  Unbelievable.  You should just let the government keep your $3,500 in tax savings and use it to pay off the student loans of some spoiled Ivy Leaguer who will speak about illegal Mexican border-crossers in kinder, gentler ways. 

3.  Congratulations: Your small business is really taking off.  I hear sales are up 200 percent!  Oh, but didn't you hear what Trump tweeted about The Squad?  He wrote, "Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came?  Then come back and show us how it is done."  What nerve — Trump telling his critics to put their money where their mouth is!  Better to vote for Elizabeth Warren so she can regulate your small business right out of existence.  

4.  Great news! I hear your daughter, who just graduated from Lincoln University — America's first degree-granting HBCU — just got a new job with health benefits!  Yeah, companies are really hiring right now.  And black American unemployment is the lowest in history.  Still, I'm not sure if you heard: Trump reportedly referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations as "s---hole countries," or something like that.  Maybe your daughter shouldn't take that job after all.  Maybe she should just vote for Bernie Sanders and cross her fingers that her college loans will get paid by the government, and that his ludicrous "Medicare for All" will be better than the private health insurance she's getting from her new job.  

5.  You just bought your first home?  That's wonderful!  This great economy is really helping Americans make their dreams come true. Well, there is one downside: Trump said he doesn't believe Sharia law should supplant U.S. law, which is Islamophobic.  And you know how supporting the Constitution is a real drag on a person's finances.  Better to vote Trump out of office and bring in someone like Joe Biden, who will repeal Trump's tax cuts and tighten your wallet, killing your chance to own a home.

6.  You just hired five new workers for your landscaping company?  Excellent!  Sounds as though your business is booming.  Oh, but Trump did say he thinks "Islam hates us" in reference to the terrorist attacks by groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda, so you had better fire those new hires.  Better to tighten your belt in anticipation of Kamala Harris winning the election, especially when she implements the Green New Deal, which will bankrupt our economy and fundamentally transform our country forever.  As everyone knows, it's much more prudent to bankrupt our nation than speak so bluntly about terror groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda.

7.  Yes, coal production in places like Pennsylvania has stabilized, which is wonderful!  The state's coal industry even generated 17,770 jobs in 2017!  But I do have some bad news: when violence started to escalate during a white supremacy rally in Charlottesville, Va., Trump tweeted, "We condemn in the strongest most possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides."  He didn't specifically call out the evil of the white nationalists until the next day!  Elizabeth Warren would never do such a thing.  She'd kill the coal industry with her suffocating environmental regulations, sure, but she'd never wait 12 long hours before specifically calling a white nationalist "evil" after a tragedy like Charlottesville.  So forget your terrible, climate-destroying coal-mining job, and get busy voting for the senior senator from Massachusetts, the socialist who's worth millions of dollars and is 1/1,024 American Indian, to boot."  

Christopher Paslay is a Philadelphia schoolteacher who writes a blog titled "Philly Teachers For Trump" at https://phillyteachersfortrump.home.blog.

His state falling apart, California's governor Newsom focuses on keeping Trump off the ballot

Monica Showalter  "Governor Gavin Newsom of California sits in the catbird seat.  His state is falling apart — with homelessness, medieval pestilence, millions of unvetted foreigners coming to claim services, stratospheric housing costs, choking greenie regulations, faltering electrical grids, out-of-control wildfires, and soaring crime — yet in his rigged blue one-party state, he hasn't got a thing to worry about.  The state will always be blue, right?  No need to improve anything to stay in office.  They've got it rigged.

"So instead of fixing things, he's focused on what's important to him: keeping President Trump off the state's national election ballot in 2020, by signing off on a bill requiring him to release five years of tax returns, something he knows Trump is not going to do.  Here's NPR's report:

. . . CA now requires those running for POTUS & Gov to release 5 yrs of tax returns to get on our primary ballot.

. . . "This is a dirty, slimy game he's playing.  One can only hope the lawsuit is swift, the smackdown is hard, and the effect is more Republicans than ever coming out of the woodwork in the next election as a result, desperate to halt vote repression and teach this clown a lesson."

Ann Coulter: Court to the Washington Post: Don’t Try Too Hard to Get It Right

First, see how CNN reports the episode:

Are no CNN reporters sick of this propaganda channel's demagoguery?

Ann Coulter  "Last week, U.S. District Court Judge William O. Bertelsman dismissed Nick Sandmann's $250 million defamation suit against The Washington Post for its stories about a mythical racist hate-crime allegedly committed by Sandmann, a Catholic schoolboy, against fake war hero and "Indigenous Person" Nathan Phillips. 

"This is why people of sound judgment and good character despise the press, and also the courts. 

"For three days running after the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., earlier this year, the Post published vicious hit pieces -- six articles and three tweets, along with a deceptively edited 59-second video -- portraying the teenaged boy as a Goebbels-level racist, who violently smirked at a hapless Indian. 

"Thus, according to the Post, while waiting with his classmates at the Lincoln Memorial for their bus to arrive, Sandmann: 

-- "accost(ed)" and "physically intimidated" Phillips; 
-- blocked Phillips, refusing to let him retreat; 
-- was part of a group chanting "build that wall," "Trump2020," and "go back to Africa" at Phillips and assorted other left-wing, America-hating activists; 
-- only relented in his taunting, "when Phillips and other activists walked away.” 

"This is "true" in the sense of being the exact opposite of the truth. 

"Switch the aggressor and the prey and you've got the picture -- as proved by a one-hour, 46-minute video triumphantly posted on Facebook by the Black Hebrew Israelites the same day as the Post's first article on the incident. (They were the ones screaming at the Covington boys, calling them "incest babies," "dirty ass crackers," and "future school shooters." Sounds like a nice school trip.) 

"As the video makes clear, Sandmann was standing in the same place the whole time, minding his own business, when Phillips made a beeline to him, planted himself in front of the teenager and began banging his drum and singing loudly inches from Sandmann's face.

Democrats just purged white party staffers, and it's a bigger deal than anyone wants to admit

But according to exit poll data, whites have been increasingly abandoning the Democratic Party in the last 20 years. They voted just four points more Republican than the median voter in the 1982 midterm election, but 18 points more Republican in 2018.

Washington Examiner  "The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats’ powerful campaign arm, has just abruptly purged half a dozen staffers. Why? Because they are white.

"It appears that no one had anything against these particular staffers ... except for the color of their skin. Although roughly half the committee’s full-time staff (13 of 27) were nonwhite, this was not enough for some Democratic members of Congress. They complained DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos of Illinois had brought in too many white staffers when she won the position. And they put enough pressure on her that she sacrificed her loyal staffers to the god of diversity.

"Even if all these staffers ended up with cushy lobbying jobs as a reward for their loyalty, this is still a lot more shocking than people perhaps realize.

"There are two possible interpretations of this mass-purge at the DCCC. Either a few Democrats are making a racial issue out of a patronage question, once again knifing each other under the cover of intersectionality, or Democrats are genuinely angry that half the staff at the DCCC are white. As often happens with the Democratic Left, it is difficult to tell just where the insincerity ends and the fanaticism begins.

"But either interpretation implies that this is not a party fit to govern.

"Nobody wants to see whites take up identity politics or demand a certain quota of jobs anywhere. But that isn't what this was about. This is about an organization that fires people from their current jobs because of their skin color. The insinuation that racist influences led Bustos to choose her staff and pass over better nonwhite candidates marks a continuation of what New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez started when she absurdly accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of racism and sexism.

"This firing, and that’s what it is, not a free resignation, sends a message to everyone, and especially to young people of any race who are interested in politics. If an organization is actually willing to fire you from your job just because you’re white, do you really want to be involved with it?" . . .

Fact-Check: NYC 9/11 Top Cop Confirms Trump Was ‘Constantly’ at Ground Zero

Breitbart

"After the Islamic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President Donald Trump was “constantly” at Ground Zero “motivating” and “inspiring” first responders during their rescue efforts, confirmed Bernie Kerik — who served as New York City’s police commissioner at the time — in a Tuesday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with host Rebecca Mansour and special guest host John Hayward. 

"News media outlets such as CNN and Vox characterized Trump as mendacious following Trump’s recollection of 9/11 and its aftermath during public remarks on Monday regarding his signing into law an extension of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund.

“ 'I was sitting there when he said that,” shared Kerik of Trump’s aforementioned remarks. “I didn’t think one thing of the remarks, because I know they’re true. … I must have seen [Donald Trump] down there — I don’t know — I want to say between five and ten times walking through Ground Zero, talking to the first responders — motivating, inspiring, whatever you want to call it — and he wasn’t the only one.' ”  . . .

On Tuesday's Democrat debate

The debate that was and the debate that wasn't  . . . "The attacks gave Warren and Sanders the opportunity to double-down on their leftism, thereby firing up their supporters and sounding fierce enough to raise confidence that they can hold their own if they face Donald Trump.

"Since Warren and Sanders didn’t clash, there was no clear winner between the two. However, I give the nod to Warren because she came across as less weird than Sanders. " . . .

Five Of The Craziest Moments From The CNN Tuesday Night Democratic Debate (VIDEOS)

"Bernie got louder and louder as the night went on and Tim Ryan commented on it."

Pete Buttigieg:  When the subject of the minimum wage came up, Pete Buttigieg, who frequently implies that he is more Christian than anyone else, suggested that you are not a decent Christian if you don’t support raising the minimum wage. 

Don Lemon: CNN host Don Lemon was included as a moderator in this debate for some reason. He is not a journalist, he is an opinion guy and he absolutely hates Trump. He made that crystal clear with this question. Note the wording:  

Marianne Williamson Wins Drudge Poll After Breakout Debate Performance . . . "An early count shows Williamson garnered nearly 48 percent of the vote, while former Rep. John Delaney (D-MD) came in second place with 11 percent. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) came in third and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) placed fourth with roughly 6 percent each.

"Williamson stole the show with several breakout moments. The author received raucous applause when she said it is no surprise Americans think politicians are all “yada, yada, yada,” for taking donations from corporate America." . . .

Delaney goes for broke at Dem debate as truth-teller  . . . "John Delaney had what many consider the best moment of the debate, telling Bernie Sanders why his Medicare for All program would seriously degrade the quality of health care (via Grabien):"

NR: John Delaney, We Hardly Knew Ye  "When he fails to qualify for the next debate, his voice of reason will be missed. "

For One Night, the Democrats Put the Woke Olympics on Hold
. . . "Americans of all political stripes should not be wishing for the irresponsibility or extremism of their opponents, even if they perceive that opposing extremism increases their own chances for victory. In a closely divided country, extremists can win, and their victory will further fracture a nation that’s already in the grips of a spirit of rage and fear." . . .

Dare we hope the next season of "Blue Bloods" will deal with this?

Tony Branco

Hands Off the Babylon Bee: Snopes just can’t stop ‘fact-checking’ a conservative satire site.

From the Babylon Bee: Snopes Issues Pre-Approval Of All Statements Made During Tonight's Democratic Debate

David French at National Review  . . . "I used to love the website Snopes. It was one-stop shopping for fact-checking and debunking urban legends old and new.

"For years — to take one example — I had lamented the tragic death of Little Mikey of Life cereal fame. According to everyone in my school, he died when he mixed Pop Rocks candy with Coca-Cola. The resulting chemical reaction caused a grisly stomach explosion, and Mikey passed into the Great Beyond.

"But after decades of grief, Snopes lifted my heart. Mikey lived, his real name was John Gilchrist, and as of 2012 he was the director of media sales at the MSG network. For good measure, in that very same article, Snopes revealed that my favorite gum from childhood did not, in fact, contain spider eggs.

"Snopes, however, was not content with performing its vital public service of debunking crazy rumors and easing childhood fears. It had pretensions to be something more. It took the cultural goodwill built up over years of truth-telling and decided to make a real difference. It kept fact-checking urban legends (Is the “zombie chicken” video real? Click here to find out), but it also began fact-checking politicians and news sites, and conducting its own investigative reports. For a time it entered into a relationship with Facebook to help combat “fake news.” Thanks to this pivot, Snopes is — and has long been — one of the most powerful and influential fact-checkers on the Internet.

"And that brings me to one of my favorite websites, the Babylon Bee. It’s distinctly conservative, it’s distinctly Christian, it’s very, very funny (especially if you’ve grown up as an Evangelical Christian), and it’s obviously, clearly satire. Click on the site, and the banner advertisement describes it as “fake news you can trust.” By contrast, the well-known secular satire site The Onion calls itself “America’s finest news source.' ” . . .

Snopes may want to fact-check all this:

• California Considering Tax On Breathing
• Chick-Fil-A Employee Seen In Cranky Mood
• CDC: People With Dirt On Clintons Have 843% Greater Risk Of Suicide
• Marianne Williamson Not Sure What She's Doing Up Here With All These Crazy People

Don Lemon Tries to Convince Viewers CNN is Not Biased, Does Not Hate Trump

Accuracy in Media  "Don Lemon has begun a campaign to convince viewers CNN does not hate Trump, love the Democrats or engage in biased reporting.
"Earlier this month, speaking at the Financial Time Future of News event, Lemon said flatly the network is “not liberal,”  which set off a storm of reaction from conservatives in the media.

"Then, on Tuesday, in a segment to promote Jim Acosta’s new book, “Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time To Tell The Truth in America,” Lemon doubled down. 

“ 'For all those people who say oh, the the the press … CNN hates Trump and CNN is, you know, loves the Democrats,” Lemon began .

“ 'I watched Manu Raju with Nancy Pelosi who clearly did not want to answer Manu’s questions today, even in her body language. And you know what? He persisted, and he asked her the tough questions anyway. So anyone, a Democrat, a Republican, regardless of who it is, if you hold a position of power, we the journalists at CNN are going to question you about it whether you like it or not.”

"Acosta responded : “That’s right. We’re here to hold their feet to the fire. And just because we’re pro-truth doesn’t mean that we’re anti-Trump and, as I write throughout this book and I try to close it out on a hopeful note, we are not the enemy of the people. We are defenders of the people, and we want to defend the people because we’re devoted to the people.

“ 'You and I Don, our families, our parents, our kids, our loved ones … we all think about all those folks when we come into the office and do this job on a daily basis. We’re not here to spin things or color things a certain way. We’re here to get the people reliable, accurate information on a daily basis. That’s why we all come in to work every day. We get a high out of it. And I just want to make sure we can keep this going as a country.”

"Others got a high out of assembling – or re-assembling – lists of instances of bias by Lemon and others on CNN." . . .  Like this Lemon soon-to-be classic

CNN Debate Moderator Don Lemon to Candidates: Hey, What About Trump's Bigotry?!  . . . This truly is shocking. Everybody already knew that Lemon is a fake journalist, but with this question, he truly takes his liberal hackery to a whole new level. He isn't even asking the Democratic candidates whether Trump is a bigot in their eyes. Oh no, his bigotry is apparently a fact. And so the question is: how do you convince voters that his bigotry is a bigger issue than the economy?
"I've seldom seen such an obvious case of framing. This is extreme, even for the liberal mainstream media.

Deviant Art

"Of course, the Democratic candidates were happy to play along. This is exactly what they want voters to believe about President Trump: that he is a disgusting bigot. A racist. A hater of all minorities, be they Hispanics, gays, or African Americans.
"How pathetic is it that CNN still presents Lemon as some kind of journalist? He isn't. He's a partisan hack. That's fine -- he's allowed to be a liberal propagandist -- but CNN and he should be honest about it. Instead, they lie and deceive the public by pretending that he is a neutral and objective journalist who just reports the facts.
"Thank God that increasingly more people are switching off CNN."

After Gilroy: Mass shootings a white thing? Oh, hell, no. "Colin Flaherty explodes the myth yet again."

Colin Flaherty  "Even before the final butcher's bill was presented for the Sunday-night mass shooting in Gilroy, the blue checkers and talking heads were filling their platforms with fairy tales that most mass shooters are white.
"But in the two-week run-up to Gilroy, there were 36 other mass shootings from coast to coast — and 34 of those shooters were black.  One was white and one Hispanic.  These results echo a New York Times story from 2016 that stated, much to the surprise and chagrin of the reporters, that whenever there are three or more victims of gunfire, 75 percent of  shooters in America are black.
"Today, that number looks a bit generous to black sensibilities.
"But numbers from the New York Times and ten stories from good ol' Colin this year documenting hundreds of black mass shootings did not do much to remove the blinders of those who insist mass shootings are a white thing. 
" 'Here's a fact that republicans are too stupid to grasp," said Mark K (@MarkRK47) on Twitter.  "Every mass shooting in the US is carried out by a white supremacist.  Every.  Single.  One."
"Sibel Edmonds (@SibelEdmonds) chimed in to at least admit the possibility that not all mass shooters are white: "One hard hitting fact: In the chronic USA mass shooting incidents, in 99+% of the cases, the perpetrators: White, Anglo-Saxon, Christian, Americans."
"Salon, the Daily Beast, Mother Jones, and other staples of the mass media cannot spread these fairy tales fast enough.  The facts tell a different story — the opposite story.
"Anyone up for a magical mystery tour of mass shootings over the last two weeks where black people shot three or more people?  (You can follow along on my video; just click here.