Can President Trump Possibly Win in November?

If the President continues blithely and complacently running against the current crop of hopeless candidates much longer, Michele Obama will “mop the floor” with him in November. The time for unfocused speeches “preached to the choir” has ended. President Trump must tar President Obama with all his duplicity, failures, and excesses—without mentioning the name of Mrs. Obama. In essence, President Trump must win the election before 13 July 2020, when the Democrat Convention starts.

The democrats will likely nominate Michele Obama on ballot three through six. The move for an Obama Candidacy has become increasingly clear for a couple of months. The Obama Team really “amped up” its campaign during post-debate comments on January 14, 2020. Numerous commentators, as shown on Fox, all seemingly “independently” concluded in unison that, “None of these (Debate) candidates can beat President Trump.” Until the fourteenth, the Obama Team seemed focused on subtly making sure the convention deadlocked.

The early Obama effort took two forms. First, questions as to why numerous “can’t win” candidates entered the race in the first place. It seems clear that some, if not most, entered to dilute the delegate counts of the front runners. Second, many comments such as, “Why hasn’t President Obama endorsed Biden?”—comments designed to make sure that Joe Biden, at first, nor anyone else, later, could win the nomination on an early ballot. You see, for several ballots, many delegates must vote for the candidate who won their seat at the Convention.

The foregoing certainly gives a plausible answer to why Michael Bloomberg would suddenly jump into a race so late—too late to win even if he actually ever had a chance in the first place. Diluting support for the four front runners seems more plausible than a desire to ride in on a green dragon and rescue the Country. Even Bloomberg knows he could never win.

President Trump needs to hammer home that the American Economy took off when he yanked the Obama Boot off its neck. And, that any Democrat President will jam that Obama Boot right back onto “your back”, suffocate the Economy, and decimate jobs. In fact, if “you” got a job after March 2017, chances are good that you will lose that job shortly after any Democrat takes the White House in 2021. More than any other action, deregulation launched the amazing Trump Recovery—a recovery President Obama ridiculed as impossible. President Trump must make that clear; and he must do it now.

Before the Democrat Convention starts on 13 July 2020, President Trump would do well to make the “Obama Boot” a part of the American Political Lexicon. Each voter the President wants to win needs to know that their job hangs in the balance in 2020—ideally, by or before 6 July 2020. After someone puts the name Michele Obama before the Democrat convention, a gushing “media tsunami” will drown out President Trump. The opportunity to run against President Obama will have dried up.

In addition to the foregoing, President Trump obviously needs to hang the myriad other Obama failures on the shoulders of the former President: Obama Care, Israel, Benghazi, Iran Nuclear Deal, Ukraine, Defense Build Down, and on and on for another couple thousand words.

Sub themes on the Economy:

• Rolling back Obama era regulations gave businesses the confidence to expand, which in turn launched the Trump Recovery

• President Obama spewed out more job killing regulations than any President in history

•  “If you got a job after [the President’s] inauguration, you stand to lose it if any Democrat takes the White House—the Democrat way: ‘last hired; first fired’”

• After telling the American People many times that “the days of three percent growth [are] gone forever” President Obama:

• Ridiculed President Trump for saying the Economy would grow at or over three percent

• Suddenly wants to claim credit for the gone-forever-growth that blew through three percent after President Trump took office

Comments welcome

DJ

Teachers Deserve a Fighting Chance to Survive a School Shooter

During a February 25, 2018, interview on FoxNews Sunday, Chris Wallace asked Florida Governor Rick Scott about arming teachers. Governor Scott said, in effect, he was willing to sacrifice one to two classrooms full of students rather than allow teachers to carry concealed weapons on campus. Surely the Governor would take great umbrage at that conclusion. Still, what he said was that he wanted “teachers to teach” and law enforcement to handle active shooters—sentiments echoed by various teachers and others in clips preceding the interview as well as news clips across the broadcast media.

History has shown that at some point, a determined attacker can usually defeat a peripheral defense. Given the nature of our government, one can expect determined attackers to find various ways through the perimeters of “hardened schools.” Unless “law enforcement” can instantly identify, locate and confront the threat immediately, it seems likely that at least one room will suffer casualties. In all likelihood, more than one room will come under attack as law enforcement verifies the active shooter reports and moves to where they can effectively engage the perpetrator. Beyond that, we will not rehash the arguments for allowing qualified teachers to voluntarily arm themselves as long as they keep their weapons concealed. Keep in mind that Florida is a “shall issue” state, see below, so many Floridians have concealed carry permits already.

If you are a teacher who “doesn’t want the responsibility to protect children,” please look over the following short exercise:

·       Presumably every teacher has a few memorable great days during their teaching career. Pick out the best of those that comes to mind and replay it in your mind. Then, scroll down to the next step; if you don’t work in education, think of your best moment in school.

              

Move through the experience to that peak moment

Then scroll down or look down

·         “Oh my God! O my God!!!” No!!”

o   You hear the voice of your friend and coffee-break-mate in the next room; rapid gunfire suddenly silences your colleague

o   You immediately report the active shooter, lock both doors, and simultaneously direct your class to perform their well-practiced “Active Shooter: Shelter in Place” procedures

·       Hearing the sound of children running and gunfire now coming from the hallway, you silently hope the shooter picks some other room

·       While trying to comfort and silence a whimpering student, you hear the rattle of the locked door at the far end of your room

·       A gunshot rings out as a bullet flies through the door followed by more rattling

·       A second gunshot sends pieces of the lock flying into the room; a couple of yanks and the door opens outwardly into the hallway

What do you do now?

You have to do something. Pick up scissors and a yardstick? Hide under the desk? Wait quietly? If you have a concealed carry permit and a handgun, the firearm sits at home—safely locked in a strong safe. Of course, if that 9 mm was concealed on your hip, you would have additional options. Certainly, absent a video feed, firing at the rattling door alone seems out of order. Once the shooter fires through the door, you know you can safely return fire. Immediately sending three or four shots back through the door seems like a good choice. Less desirably, you can wait for the shooter to burst into the room. Unarmed, you have no good choices. Armed, you at least “have a fighting chance.”

 So, you may not want the responsibility of protecting students; but, I hope you at least want to protect yourself. If the Florida PE Teacher who bravely stood between his students and the shooter had carried a 9 mm automatic, he and many of the murdered students might today be discussing their terrifying experience; the teacher might be talking about how frightened he was to stand down an M-16 with a tiny 9 mm pistol.

Shall Issue State: This term applies to states that have passed laws requiring the issuance of concealed carry permits to anyone who passes the rigorous requirements. Such states do not require the applicant to show a capriciously interpreted “good reason” for a carry permit. Most such states enjoyed markedly reduced crime rates after enacting their “shall issue" ordinances.

DJ

Nigerian Freedom Fighters

Tonight, I sent my Congressman, Brad Sherman the following letter. I urge anyone reading this to send something similar to their Representative.

Dear Congressman Sherman,

Please introduce a bill as soon as possible to arm and provide training to Nigerian Freedom Fighters resisting the butchers of Boko Haram. Images tonight showed many of these brave men, dubbed "vigilantes" by an obviously hostile press, armed only with machetes to fight heavily armed and well trained Islamist Militants! Some were "armed" with farm implements! A few had antiquated firearms, among them double-barreled big-game rifles, expensive in the U.S., used decades ago to hunt dangerous (four-footed) animals. One man fielded what looked like a cap lock muzzle-loader.

These men are fighting the same war we are. We owe it to them to provide the arms and at least rudimentary training necessary to save their lives, the lives of their families, and to help defeat OUR foes.

For Mrs. Obama to hold up a "Give back our girls” sign for a “photo-opp” is well and good; but, over the weekend, Boko Haran butchered dozens of defenseless Nigerians. For the United States to do nothing more than fly a few drones over the area and carry some protest signs is nothing short of an outrage.

The Nigerian Army refuses to engage Boko Haram. Moreover, up against a mobile guerrilla army, self-defense is the first, and often only, line of defense. Just as Americans had to defend themselves on the Frontier, these people need the arms to defend themselves against a foe that is far better organized, armed, and far more ruthless than any pioneers faced in North America.

AK-47s are cheap in nearby Somalia.

I look forward to hearing your reply.

Sincerely,

Your Faithful Correspondent

Note to GOP: To defeat Obamacare

Follow Captain Kirk, not the Tea Party

In The Corbomite Maneuver, the captain of a huge, overwhelmingly powerful alien ship gives Captain Kirk and his crew 10 minutes "to make preparations" with any deities they revere. Then, he will destroy the Enterprise—and them. Asked for options, Mr. Spock replies (short form), "checkmate." Kirk pauses, turns, and says, "Not chess, Mr. Spock. POKER!" From there, the episode follows an interesting path to a favorable ending.

If Republicans in Congress want to win the battle over Obamacare, they need to stop "tilting at windmills" and start playing poker! It might help if they realized they hold a much stronger hand than does the President.

President Obama's clearly unconstitutional postponement of the Act’s "Employer Mandate" evidences the stronger Republican hand. Fearing the electoral backlash from the economic horrors his "ivory tower" brainchild would unleash, President Obama conveniently "postponed" the Employer Mandate until safely after the 2014 election. If Republicans can get close enough to overturning that delay, the President will soon enter into "fruitful negotiations" that (will ultimately lead to) "useful improvements" in the Affordable Care Act—improvements the President no doubt “always expected to make”; and for which he will probably attempt to take credit.

To bring the President to the bargaining table, the GOP should push the following "chips" into “the middle of the table”:
1. Have a group, ideally made up of democrats, independents, and as few republicans as necessary, file suit to enjoin the President from delaying the Employer Mandate. It would be nice to have former supporters of the Act lead the suit. Examples might include James Hoffa, Junior, Warren Buffet and a few suddenly concerned former and current Democrat Senators and Representatives who actually voted for the Bill.
2. Pass ten to twenty individual House bills—no riders, no pork, and no side issues—implementing the best of the myriad GOP healthcare reform proposals.
3. Tell the American People why the House passed the new, substantive improvements; and why their proposals are better than the Act.

The day any court grants, or looks ready to grant, an injunction requiring implementation of the employer mandate, President Obama will find himself facing an electoral tsunami. (Why else did he postpone the Mandate?) That possibility would almost surely lead to the President quickly scrambling for a deal.

If you agree with the ideas expressed here, I hope you will share them with your legislative representatives, your friends, and even your relatives. For consistency, let’s just tell the Republicans to perform, “The Obamanite Maneuver!”


DJ



Addendum
You might wonder what I meant by, “clearly unconstitutional postponement of the ‘Employer Mandate’".
1. The postponement violates the Separation of Powers, a key foundation of our Constitution, our Government, and a pillar of our freedom:   o Changing such a key provision of the Act amounts to legislating; President Obama has no authority to legislate.
   o To this observer’s knowledge, nothing in the act allowed any President to postpone or unilaterally change any key parts of the Act; if any did, future Republican presidents could, in effect, nullify the Act via an executive order or a regulation.
   o The Supreme Court found the Act Constitutional under the taxing authority of Congress. Postponing the Employer Mandate amounts to the President unilaterally changing tax law; imagine if George W. Bush had changed the tax rates in 2001 via regulation rather than a vote of Congress.
2. One could argue that treating one class of tax payers—businesses—more favorably than another class—individuals—violates the “Equal Protection Clause” of the Fourteenth Amendment. While perhaps a stretch, that clause all too often seems to resemble the proverbial “rubber man” at a circus.

Benghazi-gate, Occam's Razor and Napoleon

They all come together here!

  

Occam's razor? Napoleon? What do they have to do with Benghazi-gate? In a few minutes, you will know. First a few preliminaries. In case you missed it, the much-ballyhooed demonstration, riot, or other disturbance outside our Benghazi Consulate on 9/11/2012 never happened; and the President knew it that very day. In reality, a group of terrorists launched a well-planned, well-executed military assault; they were equipped with heavy weapons, including a mortar. Earlier on the same day, a mob in Cairo had stormed our embassy in reaction to a video insulting Muhammad.

  

The Obama Administration tried to cover up what really happened in Benghazi with a blatant lie--the demonstration cover story--the idea presumably spawned by the Cairo riots. The Administration repeated and compounded the demonstration cover story for many days--until, and even after, the "inconvenient truth" gradually began leaking out. Those leaks have now burst forth and have ignited a cascade of controversy.

  

Pundits ranging from Rush Limbaugh to the relatively obscure have suggested myriad answers to the question, "What was the administration covering up and why?" Most hypotheses seem esoteric or the very complex. Some would require intricate conspiracies. Today, October 29, 2012, yours truly read an assertion that administration involvement in some kind of gunrunning scheme was "the only explanation" for Benghazi-gate. That signaled this observer that Occam's Razor had to enter the fray.

 

 
Occam's Razor:
 

 

". . . often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae, translating to law of parsimony, law of economy or law of succinctness, is a principle which generally recommends selecting the competing hypothesis that makes the fewest new assumptions, when the hypotheses are equal in other respects . . . .” (From Wikipedia; retrieved 10/29/2012):

  

Rather than reaching hither and yon for elaborate explanations of a presumed Benghazi Cover-up, consider a relatively simple hypothesis, simple in the sense of Occam, and a few related facts.

  

Hypothesis: While watching live video of the Benghazi attack over a six-hour period, President Obama simply waffled; that is, he could not decide whether or not to send help.

  

This rather simple hypothesis seems to fit into the constraints set down by Occam's razor better than other explanations your faithful correspondent has heard to date.

• It requires only one new hypothesis: President Obama waffled.
• Fact: the President is in the midst of a close reelection campaign. Nothing new there.
• Fact: Foreign Policy has given President Obama his one consistent advantage over Governor Romney. Nothing new there.
• Fact: the Obama Campaign has repeatedly trumpeted the courage and decisiveness exhibited by ordering the bin Laden killing as evidence of the President's foreign-policy superiority. Nothing new there.
• Fact: evidence to date strongly suggests a Benghazi cover-up. Not universally accepted; not as widely known as one might expect.  

If the voters suddenly learned, before election day, that the President had waffled on Benghazi--if indeed he did--it would bring the President's basic qualifications to serve as Commander-in-Chief into question and largely sink the President's reelection bid. If anything could trigger a cover-up--if there is a cover-up--a waffling story surely could.

 

Speculating about the unknown, and speculating about motives in particular, almost always lands one on rather thin ice. Still, if the Obama administration launched a cover-up, the "waffling hypothesis" would seem to fit the circumstances as well as, if not better than, most notions offered to date. The suggestion, for example, that Benghazi was a false kidnapping to enable "trading" Ambassador Stevens for the now imprisoned "Blind Sheik" seems, by comparison, a bit deep.

  

Many would argue against any intimation of a Benghazi cover-up. They might ask, "Would a rational group of people really attempt a cover-up in light of the Watergate experience?" They probably would conclude that the idea is, at best, fanciful speculation. (One would presume then that the "well documented" complicity of the Bush Administration in the original 9/11 attacks simply proves the irrationality--not too mention the craftiness-- of the Bush Cabal.)

Enter the Emperor Napoleon

 

Napoleon receives credit for many insightful and memorable quotations. Few come up very often in the day-to-day lives of most people. While, "An army travels on its stomach," I get to work in a car. A relatively lesser-known quotation attributed to Napoleon does seem to fit the circumstances of Benghazi and provide an answer to the objections of any who might strongly doubt a cover-up:

 

"Never assume malice when incompetence is a possibility."

 

One might add that, despite the lessons of Watergate, incompetence plus arrogance could easily lead one to devise a "perfect and undetectable" cover-up.

Alternate Hypotheses:

 

Two similar ideas could fit the facts outlined above and still account simply, in Occam's sense, for a cover-up. Perhaps the President:

 

• For whatever reason, decided to let those people die
• Bungled the operation; by, for example:

            o Failing to make sure any help that he ordered sent arrived in time.

 

            o Having one or more subordinates who felt at liberty to blithely overrule a presidential                decision.

 

As with the hypothesis that the President "waffled", each of the alternates requires only one new hypothesis; either: President Obama didn't care; or, President Obama was incompetent.

  

Your thoughts and comments are welcome.

  

DJ

Who Built That? Who Built America?

To date, your faithful correspondent has not yet heard of anyone making the most obvious response to President Obama's controversial "You didn't build that" speech. Here then, is that seemingly obvious response.

Mr. President, everyone had everything you cited in your outrageous remarks.

Everyone had access to the courts and could purchase eyeglasses; only one person invented bifocals.

Everyone knew about lightning; only one person invented the lighting rod.

Everyone had access to boats, roads and waterways; only one person invented the first commercially viable steam boat.

Everyone had patent protection; only one person invented interchangeable parts.

Everyone had access to roads, rivers, sickles and scythes; only one person invented the reaper and revolutionized grain production.

Everyone knew about electricity; only one person perfected the electric light, founded the General Electric Company, electrified the world, and almost single-handedly launched the modern era.

Everyone had access to roads, courts, and public schools; only one person invented the Model-T and instituted the first moving assembly line.

Everyone had music and "teachers who helped them along the way;" only one person invented the phonograph. Come to think of it, at age seven, three months after that person entered school, his teachers called him "addled" (or, depending on the source, "retarded"). He didn't have teachers "helping him along!" His mother home schooled him. Think about that Barbara Streisand; a home schooled capitalist made your success possible.

Everyone had access to all that went before them; only two people launched Apple Computer.

Mr. President, America has flourished and led the world in inventions and commerce for over two centuries by celebrating, fostering, and rewarding success. America did not get here by demonizing the successful.

The peers of these American inventors had everything they had, including everything President Obama cited in his controversial "You didn't build that" speech. Yet, only these few created what they did. For the most part their success flowed from hard work--often with a touch of genius tossed in. The same is true of the vast majority of successful entrepreneurs.

Perhaps if President Obama understood what built America, he would recognize that businesses principally spring forth and succeed through the motivated efforts of entrepreneurs, not through underhanded scheming, and "exploiting downtrodden workers." Perhaps if the President understood free market economics, he would have come up with a recovery plan that worked.