The DNC e-mail hacks …

If your private company gets hacked it’s doubtful our nation’s intelligence agencies will launch an all-out investigation, nor will our government retaliate against the culprits. 

The Chinese hack our companies all the time. So do a wide range of other countries, including some of our staunchest allies. Does our government do much about it?  Nope.

So why is it such a big deal when the Democrat National Committee gets hacked and someone releases e-mails between DNC staffers and supporters? 

This has baffled me from the beginning when the first leaked e-mails went public.  It’s not as if someone hacked the Department of Defense or hacked the personnel files of millions of government employees – both of which happened. Those are serious and certainly worthy of intense investigation by our intelligence community.    

But the DNC is not a Federal agency or department. Something the DNC and the Feds forget. 

There were no state secrets revealed with the DNC hack.  Just a bunch of ill-advised e-mails showing how Democrat Party officials connived to ensure Hillary got the nomination. Sure, it exposed some nasty, petty backbiting and backstabbing, yet was anyone surprised?

More importantly, the released e-mails were true.  These weren’t fabricated or falsified. Nobody at the DNC ever denied the veracity of the leaked e-mails.

Again, why do hacks of a political party’s e-mails warrant a government threat of retaliation against the supposed culprits – the Russians?   That seems way out of proportion to what happened, in my opinion, assuming the Russians were somehow involved anyway. 

Is the DNC a de facto branch of the Federal government?  Granted, Democrats have long felt entitled to run our government any way they wish, whether they have the Constitutional standing to do so or not.  They don’t care if they are in the minority in the House or Senate, if Federal law is against them, or what – they feel they have the right to the reins of government, whether they are a career bureaucrat or actually elected. 

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that government service employee unions are big supporters of Democrats; most of their members depend on Democrats continuing to build the size and scope of government while preserving and enriching if possible their pay and benefits.   

Another thing the hacked e-mails showed was the contempt Democrat Party leaders have for the public at large, not just Trump supporters, and even those who supported Bernie in the primaries.  Once again, nobody at the DNC has denied the truthfulness of the leaked e-mails. 

Maybe that’s why I’m having such a difficult time understanding the outrage by Obama and the Democrats over the DNC hack. If the e-mails weren’t true – and just made up to embarrass Democrats in the middle of an election – then the outrage would make sense. 

But the emails were true. It seems ironic that showing exactly what party officials and supporters actually wrote to each other is an attack on our values. Doesn’t the truth set you free?   

Did the e-mails cause Hillary to lose the election?  I don’t think so; at worst it may have made some Bernie supporters stay home or vote for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein instead of Hillary – but the Democrat Party only has itself to blame for that. The Democrat Party poohbahs wanted Hillary. She single-handedly lost the election all on her own.

The popular Democrat myth right now it that the Russians interfered in our election and must be punished. How dare a foreign government interfere in our elections?

That’s rich.  Especially since the Obama Administration funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to Netanyahu opponents in hopes of defeating him in the Israeli elections. And anyone who thinks our government has not tried to tamper with foreign elections – including the Russian election of Putin – is frankly too naïve at best, and disingenuous at worst, to be taken seriously.

Through the DNC hacks Democrats got caught in a web of truths. They ignored the first rule of e-mail – never put anything in an e-mail you wouldn’t want to see on a billboard.

BTW, during the campaign hackers tried to penetrate the Republican National Committee servers as well, but failed.  Just an interesting side note. 

Petty, childish crap …

It’s not unusual to be upset by an election when your candidate loses.  But I’ve never seen such childish and spiteful behavior by supposed adults after this latest one. 

It’s one thing to protest something by taking to the streets. Hell, I did that myself following the Kent State shootings when I was in college.  It would be the height of hypocrisy for me now to be against protest marches.

Still, it’s quite another to engage in what I can only describe as chickenshit stuff – petty, pointless and vindictive crap simply because you didn’t get your way.  It’s like an undisciplined brat screaming and throwing things because mom won't let them have Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs for breakfast.

You don’t expect behavior like this from adults. However, now a day doesn’t go by without a story about a jackass going ballistic and verbally – and sometimes physically – assaulting people that nutjob blames for having anything to do with Trump.

Recently Ivanka Trump, her family, and some of their cousins were boarding a JetBlue flight. Some jerk – another passenger – stood up and started publicly berating her about her father.  He did this in front of Ivanka, her husband and the kids, until he was removed from the flight.  The jerk’s husband on the same flight tweeted about it praising him for chasing down the Trump family to harass them, with the hashtag #banalityofevil. 

Yeah, that was a real act of bravery.     

Artists have sent letters to Ivanka telling her to remove their art – which she purchased and as such owns – from the walls of her home, as a sign of their displeasure with the policies of her father. One posted a note to her saying that seeing her next to his art embarrassed him.

Again, how brave.  Especially after they’ve gotten her money. 

The DC Metro System, which in the past featured the face of the incoming President on special inaugural day rail passes, this year only used a picture of the White House.  I suppose that’s to show their distaste for the incoming President.

Mind you, this is a taxpayer-funded system.   

A variety of celebrities are now publicly refusing to perform at Trump’s inauguration events. The list includes many who haven’t even been invited to perform.  And of course we also have fashion designers who say they won’t design clothes for the women in the Trump family to demonstrate their opposition to anything or anyone related to Trump. 

These are all meaningless acts.  Petty, vindictive and childish.  And to no purpose.     

The only time I can remember actions this childish was when Bill Clinton’s staffers, upset by the election of George W. Bush, intentionally damaged White House computer keyboards, removing the “W” keys on their way out so new Bush staffers couldn’t use them.

Maybe spiteful behavior is something in the liberal Democrat DNA. I don’t know. 

I can only speak for myself, but I voted less for Trump than I did to force dramatic change in government.  Trump was simply the vehicle to send the message that I wanted responsible adults in charge of things instead of pie-in-the-sky academics and perpetual apparatchiks mucking about. I wanted playtime to end, in other words, and new people – grownups with real-world business experience – in their place to make that happen. 

For far too long we’ve indulged, and as a consequence enabled, the whiners and complainers in our society and allowed them to make the rules.  We’ve created an entire class of pampered, petty tyrants who have no manners, no decency and no respect for the rights of others. The only thing they believe in is their right to do whatever they want, wherever they want, and to whomever they please with absolutely no remorse, much less shame, for their actions.

It's as if a large part of the population never grew up. Maybe they didn't. 

The solution is not to engage in a tit-for-tat with these arrested-development tyrants; that only encourages them by appearing to take them seriously. We shouldn’t do that.

The better course of action is to simply ignore them. Let them cry, let them whine, let them set up their “safe spaces” and take meaningless stands against their imaginary boogeymen until they finally realize no one who matters cares what they say or what they do.

Honestly, it’s a show we don’t have to attend. After a while, most of us won’t.  It will take a bit longer for the media to follow our lead, but they will in time. Remember Occupy Wall Street? What about Code Pink?  Even Black Lives Matter is becoming irrelevant.  I rest my case. 

At some point, it’s inevitable. Until then we just have to endure obnoxious jerks essentially threatening to hold their breath until they get their way.

That doesn’t work for kids; it won’t work for them either. 

All they want is attention. Refuse to give it to them and they’ll fade away.   

A form of mental illness?

When someone continually refuses to accept reality – and prefers to live in a fantasy world of their own creation, no matter how often that world is proven false, they have a serious problem. When they become violent in defense of their fantasy, we as a society have a problem.  

The past couple of weeks have made me rethink something I’ve only said as a joke for years: being a radical progressive liberal may be a form of mental illness. 

Now I certainly don’t mean to make light of people suffering with devastating mental issues that require medical treatment. I’ve had friends and co-workers with bipolar disorders as well as friends whose parents were clinically schizophrenic, which made their lives a living Hell. I have enormous sympathy for them and what they've gone through, and in many cases still have to endure.

Serious mental illness is not a joking matter.

But for the life of me, I can’t find another explanation for the actions of so many on the left – and even prominent Democrat politicians – in recent weeks.

It was clear by 2AM in the morning following the close of polls that Hillary lost to Donald Trump. She simply didn’t win enough states and their Electoral College votes. Her “blue wall” evaporated and one by one the states she and her supporters thought she had in the bag went to Trump. She won big majorities of the popular vote in California and New York – as expected – but that wasn’t enough, or even relevant, given the states she lost elsewhere.

And it wasn’t just her.  Republicans held onto the House and Senate, plus increased the number of governorships and control of state legislatures to historic levels. 

But her supporters – as well as others opposed to Trump – refused to accept reality.

Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, launched a costly campaign to force recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania based on an unfounded charge of Russian hacking of voting machines. Why?  Nobody is really sure, since there was no evidence of any hacking of voting machines anywhere and state voting officials said there was no evidence of voter fraud, either. 

Clinton campaign staffers supported the recount effort, nonetheless, even though they knew full well the recounts would change nothing.     

Predictably, the recounts failed. 

Then the radical left started a campaign to convince Electoral College Electors to change their votes. This, despite the fact that Electors are selected by Party loyalists – which would mean the Republican Electors were selected because they pledged to support the Republican candidate – Donald Trump, in this case. The probability of switching enough Trump Electors was between slim and none. 

But that didn’t stop an onslaught of letters, threats, a Hollywood celebrity video, and even personalized videos from Martin Sheen sent to some Electors urging them to change their votes.

Some Republican Electors reported receiving tens of thousands of emails and letters. In the end, that failed as well. Only two Republican Electors didn’t cast their ballots for Trump; more Democrat Electors defected from Hillary than that. Democrat Electors in Washington State, carried by Hillary in the general election, cast three votes for Colin Powell and one vote for Faith Spotted Owl instead of for Hillary.

Still the left keeps fighting on. I guess they hope the Republican-majority Congress will not certify the results of the election. I keep seeing items that Joe Biden will be presiding over the certification, as if Plugs McKenzie can somehow stop the inevitable. 

Not going to happen. 

I’m starting to see more articles online that the next phase of opposition will be a series of lawsuits compelling Trump to divest all his holdings or be impeached on the grounds of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Or the start of impeachment proceedings for “treason” because he wants better relations with Russia.

Seriously?  The guy hasn’t even taken office yet. 

I think this is insane. I’m starting to believe that there’s been an outbreak of mass hysteria on the left, and signs of group insanity as well.  Trump hasn’t done a single thing as President so far because – news flash – he isn’t the President until he’s inaugurated on January 20. And the left is already planning for his impeachment before he takes office? 

Forget for a moment that the ravings are coming from people who clearly don’t understand the Constitution, the purpose and function of the Electoral College, the rule of law, or the orderly and peaceful transition of one administration to another that’s been the hallmark of our American political system for centuries.   

Instead, consider what they really want – to overturn, by threats and intimidation, a completely legal and fair election won entirely by the established rules.

That’s what’s really frightening. They don’t see anything wrong in any of this. They refuse to give up their fantasy that somehow Clinton actually won but was unfairly denied the Presidency because of the Russians, James Comey, racism, sexism, a centuries’ old antiquated artifact created by dead white males, or something else.

Clinton didn’t win. Trump did.  He did it by winning more Electoral College votes. That’s how the game is played, and has been for over 200 years. And once again the Electoral College did what it was intended to do – ensure that a few highly populated states didn’t determine every election. 

We live in the United States of America; not the United States of California and New York, and for all the obvious reasons. All the states matter.         

The left also can’t comprehend that the unreasoning hatred and bigotry – and often violence – they exhibit toward anyone who voted for Trump, or even now accepts the outcome of the election however grudgingly, are the very same traits they said they despised in Trump supporters.  

The very same traits their chosen candidate – Hillary – disparaged as belonging to Trump’s “basket of deplorables.”  They don’t recognize these in themselves. 

I’m not sure where this all ends. I’m fairly certain that the longer the radicals on the left keep pursuing their same course, the more they’ll convince other Americans how off-kilter and out-of-touch the whole progressive movement is.  If they step up the vehemence and violence even more, as many in their camp have promised, they’ll face an even greater political backlash in elections to come.

They’ll be relegated to being no more than a lunatic fringe.

And I chose those words carefully.  

Lessons from the playground …

Somewhere along the line it became a bad thing to have winners and losers.

I don’t know when this happened. But make no mistake, it did. Now we have generations of people who don’t know what it is to lose.  Or how to handle losing. If they do lose they think it must be a mistake. There must be some other reason why they failed to win. There must be some technicality – some loophole they can exploit – they can use to reverse what to them is obviously not the right result. 

It makes no difference whether it’s fighting a traffic ticket, not being picked to be prom queen or king, being passed over for a job, or even losing an election. People who don’t know how to lose often claim whatever happened was unfair – not incorrect based on the rules, but unfair. They almost always claim the rules shouldn’t apply to them. 

What do we expect from people raised to believe that if you complain enough you’ll eventually get your way, regardless of the established rules?  Or that they always deserve to be a winner? 

Competitive sports we played as kids once taught us there were rules to every game Fairness came from everyone adhering to the same rules. The rules didn’t change mid game just because somebody didn’t like the way the game was going.

As kids we all played for fun, but also to win within agreed-upon rules set in advance. 

There were always rules; it didn’t matter if we were playing in a vacant lot, somebody’s backyard, or on a playground. Kids who didn’t abide by the rules were cheaters; kids who tried to change the rules when they were losing were whiners. There was no honor in winning by cheating or trying to win by whining.

We also learned over time – especially when some of us moved on to more organized sports – that you didn’t always get what you want. Sometimes you didn’t even make the team, and if you did, you got stuck in a position where coaches thought you could do the least damage.

Like deep center field. 

Or on the offensive line as center, as I did for many years. 

Or at least I did until the 9^th grade when in my first game I faced off as a 160-pound center opposite a 242-pound kid on defense who predictably beat the Hell out of me on every play. Now I wasn’t bad at my position, but he was much better – and bigger – at his. It wasn’t his “fault” or “unfair” he pounded me all game; it was my fault alone for not being up to the task.

I realized it wasn’t just him. Everybody on his team, and most of the players on mine, were also much bigger than me and would probably get even bigger the next year.  I probably wouldn’t.  

After that game – a valuable wake-up call to me – I quit the team and switched to marching band where the probability of long-term brain damage was significantly less.   

Lesson learned.   

In short, our sports taught us that not everybody was actually equal – maybe under the law, but not on the field.  There were superior athletes and inferior athletes.  And “heart” would only take you so far.  Sometimes you’d lose no matter how hard you tried, or how much you wanted to win. Sometimes your opponents were just bigger, better, stronger, faster, more talented, whatever.

You simply learned to deal with it. 

That was life then, and still is today. There are inevitably winners and losers for all sorts of reasons.  Enforcing artificial “fairness” to pretend everyone is and will forever be a winner no matter what sends the wrong message to anyone who expects to survive in the real world. 

Plus there are always rules to obey.  Fairness is not defined by individual circumstance, or need, but by the rules being applied equally to all.  Rules applied to some but not all are unfair.   

The latest generations seem to have missed that valuable lesson.  Maybe it’s because we’ve experienced a President who has made up rules as he went along, ignored some entirely, and applied others unequally to suit his political ends, making the concept of “fairness” a bad joke.

Maybe it’s because they were brought up on T-Ball where every game ends in a tie, or played sports with built in “mercy rules” to call games when one side’s getting the crap beat out of them.

Or maybe because someone, somewhere decided it was harmful to kids’ psyches to lose. 

Whatever.  Now we live in an era when kids on winning teams get rewarded with the same trophies as kids on the teams they beat. Everyone’s a winner.  

That’s a terrible message to send. 

That means you can get a trophy for just showing up. That’s sufficient.  And that’s the lesson taught to our latest generations: you don’t have to actually put in the time and effort required to succeed; you just have to show up.  Do that and the world is your oyster.  

I’m certain a lot of otherwise highly educated folks in the latest generations truly believe that. It’s probably one of the reasons why so many of them are unable to find anything but a minimum wage job where showing up is good enough. They are emotionally unprepared to compete for a better job. They aren’t ready to handle a tough job interview. They get flustered easily. They panic when someone asks them to explain exactly why they should be hired rather than someone else. 

“I get along well with others” while it might be true simply doesn’t cut it. The basements of middle-aged parents across the country are filled with their unemployed or underemployed offspring who “get along well with others,” but can’t make a decent living on their own.      

Are there exceptions? Of course.  I’ve engaged with some who are working their butts off to get ahead; they are smart and determined and give me hope. 

However, for every one of them, I see way, way too many who are completely and utterly clueless. Like those protesting the recent election, even though they themselves didn’t bother to vote; the truly sad – and revealing part – is they don’t think that should matter.

Huh?  That’s like expecting a trophy even when you don’t show up.

Then there are those who want to change the rules mid-stream, especially in the Electoral College, using threats and intimidation to bully their way to a different outcome. 

There won’t be a different outcome. The rules are the rules.  You win or lose by the rules, and the rules are only fair if applied equally to all. 

When anyone loses they can whine, complain and wallow in self-pity, which accomplishes nothing. Or they can pick themselves up, learn from their loss, figure out what they need to improve, and make the necessary changes to increase the odds of winning the next time.

Or entirely rethink what they’re doing and choose to do something completely different; something they may be better suited for. That can be positive, too.     

Many in my generation learned that on the playground or playing competitive sports where there were inevitably winners and losers. Losing sucks when it happens, but also teaches how to get over it and move on.  And maybe, just maybe, work harder to succeed the next time.       

I’m sorry so many young people today apparently were protected from that valuable lesson. Those who protected them from this reality should be ashamed of the disservice they've done, however well intentioned at the time.   

What happens when there’s no monster in the closet …

One of the more disappointing aspects of modern American politics is the demonization of others with opposing views.

Now, I’m not so naïve to think this is something brand new. It’s not. But it’s reached a level where powerful invectives like Nazi, fascist, dictator, racist, bigot, homophobe, xenophobe, white supremacist, and woman hater are used way too often.

So often, in fact, they lose potency. Plus, they create another problem: what do you do when your monster doesn’t turn out to be such a monster after all?

When Reagan was elected the left described him as a trigger-happy idiot who would cause World War III.  He would turn back decades of civil rights progress, ban abortions, and let poor people starve.  He was going to be anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-immigrant and worse. His proposed tax cuts would make the rich richer and plunge the country into an even deeper recession. 

Many on the left predicted he would destroy America.   

So Reagan was their monster. Then he wasn’t. None of the left’s or the liberal-leaning media’s dire predictions came true. 

In reality there was no basis for what they hurled at Reagan – no evidence that Reagan would ever become the monster they envisioned.  That didn’t stop them, however. It was just the result of where political discourse had devolved. 

There was then – and still is now – no room for moderation. No giving the benefit of the doubt. The powers that be on left and the right believe they can only rally their respective bases by making the other side absolutely evil.  

Nothing less will do. Every contest must be the ultimate battle between good and evil. 

It’s the very essence of political fundraising efforts. The left accuses those on the right of being soulless, hate-filled, bigoted monsters with no human decency; the right accuses those on the left of being the same. The pleas from the left are always based on fears that the right will take away everyone’s rights; the pleas from the right are based on fears that the left will do the same.    

The public has given up trying to discern who is right or wrong.  The public doesn’t care who follows traditional “Republican values” or “Democrat values.” Or even who rigorously adheres to the “principles” of the left or the right, whatever those are.

And the public doesn’t respond to the demonization by either side as much anymore.  Or the hyperbolic accusations of the far left or far right.  That’s because the “monsters” both sides routinely warned of have failed to materialize. As such, Americans have decided not to believe in supposed monsters trucked out every election cycle.     

That’s how you get a President Trump.  Enough people crossed party lines to elect a guy who is neither a traditional Republican nor a traditional Democrat; someone who is neither on the far left or the far right, but somewhere in between.    

This is devastating to both the far left and the far right, and in general to both the Republican and Democrat parties.  An important campaign tool has been lost, although they and the media don’t realize it quite yet.  So the dire predictions keep coming. 

They’ve yet to realize that playing the monster card to demonize your opponent so often simply doesn’t have the same impact now. You can only falsely cry wolf so many times before people stop believing you.  Nobody but the crazies, and some holdouts in the media, gives any credence to what the monster mongers in both extremes have to say.

Trump is becoming a near-perfect example of that so far. 

It was never likely Trump would be the monster portrayed by those still frustrated and angry he was elected. He’s not going to be a white supremacist. He’s not going to persecute law-abiding Muslims, gays, African Americans, women, Hispanics and other minorities. He’s not going to overturn decades of civil rights progress.  He’s not going to ban same-sex marriage. He’s not going to break down doors to grab up and kick out every illegal immigrant.

And he’s not going to send women to prison for getting an abortion. Nor is he going to stack the Supreme Court with far right loons and religious fanatics. Or give a free hand to corporations to pollute the air and water and poison the environment.

Or start a war just because someone got under his skin. 

Despite how he was portrayed by his opponents in the primaries and by Democrats, as President he’s not going to do any of these things.  I don’t believe he ever wanted to.  

Still, it’s Trump’s turn to be the monster. The left and many in the mainstream media are describing what they expect in the same terms they used to deride Reagan. And more. 

Trump’s not Reagan, by any stretch.  In fact, he’s unlike any other President in modern American history; there’s no other President with whom to compare him. No other person running for President in my memory has withstood such relentlessly vicious and personal attacks from both opponents and the media and won the Presidency anyway.   

Right now his popularity is almost at 50% -- up from the low to mid 30s – and he hasn’t even taken office yet.  This is in spite of the ferocious attacks and public handwringing by Democrats and many in the media over the people he’s chosen to nominate to his cabinet and to head up key government departments.  

The markets are way up – even though his critics predicted markets would crash if he got elected – and quite a few companies are rethinking moving operations offshore. Most telling is the surge in the value of small-company stocks because investors now believe cutting regulations on small businesses will increase their profitability and boost employment.

It’s not looking good for the Trump-as-monster mongers so far. They’ve been working day and night to find any cloud in the silver lining and they are still coming up short.  

This is what happens when your monsters don’t materialize as planned.

You look like a fool. And no one trusts you as much anymore.  

The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!

 Oh wait.  According to CNN and others the Russians are already here. Online. 

And guess what – the Russians are still working day and night – posting fake news – to fuel distrust of the mainstream media by many Americans. 

Wow.  As if the mainstream media here need any help in losing credibility. Our own mainstream media have done an excellent job of that without outside assistance.

But to listen to staff members of Clinton’s failed campaign and outraged reporters from several major media outlets, those crafty, evil Russians are really responsible. They believe the Russians routinely planted fake news that brought Hillary down and caused Americans to doubt the integrity of many major U.S. media outlets. 

One of the examples used by CNN was a news report, attributed to the Russians, claiming there was a pedophile ring run by Hillary Clinton and John Podesta operating out of a DC pizza shop.

That alone probably cost Hillary the election. Right.

I suppose it could have, if there are that many Americans who are complete morons.  Like those who believe there’s a simple miracle diet that trims belly fat, reverses male pattern baldness, and cures cancer at the same time.  Or rely solely on the Weekly World News or National Enquirer for their news.  Or respond to letters from a Nigerian prince. 

Seriously, what’s next? Blaming the loss of media credibility – and Hillary’s loss – on bogus Facebook posts supposedly by Russians that Hillary was part of a Satanic cult? That big-money contributors to her campaign partied at a Clinton-Foundation-run Orgy Island?  That Hillary had a campaign staff member killed because he was going to reveal she was secretly a reptilian alien? And that Chelsea Clinton married the son of a convicted swindler sent to Federal prison?

Oops.  That last item is actually true.    

Now, does anyone with even half a brain think outlandish stories posted on the Internet by whomever had any effect on the recent election?

Of course not.  It’s a joke.  Like a great Facebook posting I loved:  A photo of Abraham Lincoln and a supposed quote from him – “You can’t trust everything you read on the Internet.”

So let’s contrast those with actual reporting of “real news” by our mainstream media.

What about the stories that Trump tacitly accepted endorsements from David Duke and white supremacists? That he mocked people with disabilities?  Or that Trump sexually assaulted an underage girl and dozens of other women?  Or that Trump might be a cocaine user? Or that the violence at Trump rallies resulted entirely from his hateful rhetoric?  Or that his supporters held racist signs at his rallies?  

Or now, that the Russians were working behind the scenes to get Trump elected? 

I don’t know about you, but are any of those stories any less preposterous? 

The media are still trying figure out why so many ordinary Americans have lost faith in them. 

I’ll help them: it’s because the media either made up stuff or didn’t bother to check the facts – or both – and reported their own fake news.  And they got caught.

It’s not like this hasn’t happened before. 

Remember Brian Williams’ fake war stories.  Remember Dan Rather’s “exposé” on the military record of G.W. Bush.  Remember how they promoted the story that the Benghazi attacks were caused by an online video. Remember the fake news about the alleged rape of a black woman by white members of the Duke Lacrosse team.  Or the Rolling Stone feature about a rape at UVa that never happened either. Or that Trayvon Martin was just walking home from a store when he was shot and killed for no reason except he was black by a trigger-happy white wannabe-cop. Or that Michael Brown said “hands up … don’t shoot” before he was shot and killed by a white cop.   

These weren't mistakes. These were published with a clear intent.     

Then there were the sins of omission too numerous to recount – times when “objectivity” and “journalistic integrity” went out the window by members of the media consciously withholding information that would have contradicted the point they were trying to make.

These are the same people who still refuse to accept that Trump won the election despite their best efforts to defeat him with innuendo, half-truths and at times bald-faced lies. The same people who quoted one of their own as calling the election results a “whitelash” against people of color. The same people now reporting a spike in “hate crimes” and racist vandalism, without verifying if any of this is real, or the work of disgruntled Hillary or Bernie supporters to pin on Trump.   

After decades of shamelessly putting out a steady stream of misinformation, most often to advance a political narrative, our media wonder why Americans don’t trust them anymore.

It’s the Russians’ fault. Sure.    

Donald – Please stop with the tweets …

Yes, Jill Stein is a jerk.  Yes, her recounts are not going to change anything. Yes, Hillary chastised you in a debate for not agreeing to accept whatever outcome from the election.  Yes, Hillary’s people are now supporting Stein’s request for recounts, despite Hillary already conceding the election.

So what?

You’re on the path to being sworn in as President in January. They aren’t. 

All you have to do is keep on keepin’ on. A wonderful Arab saying to keep in mind is this:  As the caravan passes, the dogs bark. 

Right now the dogs are barking. The left-leaners in the media are desperate to keep the recent election on the front burner – not the part where they slavishly promoted Hillary as the second coming, but the continuing attack on your fitness and temperament to be President.  They are grasping at anything, anything they can use against you. 

And you appear ready to give them the ammunition with your tweets. 

There’s a time to respond to unfair stuff, but there’s also a time to STFU.  In case you haven’t gotten the message, it’s STFU time. 

Keep on filling your cabinet and going forward with the transition. Ignore the small stuff.  The press is never going to give you a fair shake no matter what you do.  So surround yourself with good, competent people and do the job without the drama. 

After all the trashing you’ve already taken from the media and political pundits, the bar for you is practically on the floor.  If you don’t start a nuclear war, set up concentration camps, or nominate David Duke for the Supreme Court, you’re pretty much home free. 

You see, that’s been the problem the left and the media have created.  In their efforts to paint you as a complete monster – the ultimate boogeyman – almost anything you do that doesn’t involve drowning puppies and kittens for fun, breaking down doors to grab up illegal immigrants, legalizing rape, and restoring slavery will be anti-climactic.

You have a golden opportunity.  If you act even moderately responsible, if you stop losing it over every little affront, if you just tone it down a tad, you’ll look like a champ. When our media has been telling everyone you’ll be a dictator, with racist and sexist tendencies, and it turns out you actually aren’t they won’t ever admit they were wrong, but the public will know.   

The public – not the media – elected you. Don’t ever forget that.

Will the media eventually warm up to you? Nope. Will the Eurocrats stop looking down their collective noses at you? Nope again.  But that doesn’t mean you need to feed them.

You won because people wanted change. You won by bypassing the media, the major parties, and the political establishment to talk directly to the public. 

Once you’re inaugurated you’ll have more opportunities to address the public directly again, but as President of the most powerful nation on Earth.

Then you can propose a national identity card which will solve most of the issues associated with illegal immigration, voter fraud, and entitlements fraud in one fell swoop.

Be cool, Donald. You’re almost there

They still don’t get it …

The election’s been over for a couple of weeks.  Trump won. 

That result seems to be lost on many people.  Nobody they know, nobody they hold in high esteem, voted for him. So how could he have possibly won?  

The mayors and newspapers of the major cities were all against him.  Celebrities such as Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Jay-Z and Beyoncé came out against him.  So did actors such as Robert De Niro. Civil rights groups opposed him. Immigrant-rights groups opposed him.  President Obama and Michelle campaigned against him, repeatedly calling him unfit.   

How on Earth could he get elected?  Every right-thinking person was against him.  It wasn’t just Democrats – the Bush family opposed him, as did Mitt Romney, John McCain and a wide range of other prominent members of the Republican establishment. 

And now that Trump will be President, they fear that all the progress their country’s made over the past decade could be wiped out. 

Let me share something they clearly don’t get:  very few Americans outside their cultural bubble give a rat’s ass what they think. In fact, it’s the “progress” liberals think they’ve made that drove so many Americans to vote for Trump – they wanted that “progress” to stop.  To most voting Americans outside of the major cities, liberals had gone way too far at their expense.

While liberals railed against the rich and said they felt for the working man and woman, the reality on the ground was much different. Liberal policies in recent years actually made the rich richer, illegal immigrants more emboldened, and the poor so gifted with entitlements there was now a disincentive for many to get a job and lose those benefits.

To many Trump voters the country had gone from a hard-working nation that manufactured things to a food-stamp nation that instead manufactured more benefits for people who chose not to work, or didn’t have any legal right to be here.  

Democrat and Republican establishment politicians, instead of focusing on rewarding work, bringing back jobs, and creating new good-paying jobs, fought over things Trump voters didn’t care about one way or another.  Like same-sex marriage.  Funding Planned Parenthood.  Transgender rights.  Climate change. Hate speech and safe zones.  Protecting illegal immigrants from deportation.    

None of these things really mattered as much to many Americans as rebuilding the economy.  Only the chattering class and the media talking heads thought these did. But because our news media are concentrated in major cities – where political correctness is created and worshipped – ordinary folks outside those cities were fed a steady diet of what mattered more to the media and politicians than to people worried about keeping or getting a job to feed their families.   

Trump voters saw America as a house on fire. Putting the fire out was the only thing that mattered.  All the rest was simply background noise – solutions to problems that didn’t matter nearly as much. Wasting time on whether some business could refuse to make a wedding cake for someone, or if some church should be required to provide birth control, or taking down the 10 Commandments from government property seemed a luxury the country could ill afford when it had more pressing problems like terrorist attacks, joblessness, declining incomes, and skyrocketing deficits.  

They wanted their government to do something – something real, not just symbolic. They had been trying to send this message for at least three election cycles.  They elected Obama because he promised change.  When that didn’t happen – and instead they got ObamaCare – they elected a Republican majority in the House and Senate.  Still nothing changed with either party, so they voted for Trump in the primaries – against the wishes of the Republican establishment and to the horror of Democrats – and then voted Trump into the Oval Office.    

Frankly, voters were tired of being told what to do, what to think, and what to believe shoved down their throats by people apparently more focused on which bathroom kids should use than whether those same kids could read and write.  Or whether gun violence was caused by guns or the people using those guns.  Or whether “undocumented” was the politically correct way to describe people who have entered our country illegally. 

The people in power and the media obsessed over these things and couldn’t see what was really happening outside their narrow frame of reference.  Finally, enough people were pissed enough to come out and vote to overturn the status quo.  They never saw it coming. 

Voters rebelled against policies and endless regulations that cost them jobs, reduced their incomes, and raised their healthcare costs. They saw what liberals believed was “progress” as a continuing erosion of the values they held dear – mainly having a steady job, minding your own business, paying your bills, and being responsible for yourself and your family. 

More to the point, they rebelled against being ignored and taken for granted.

After all the hand-wringing by the media and Democrats over the election, and the protests and riots by disgruntled activists, and the blame game over who was really responsible for such an unexpected outcome, the media and the left still don’t get it.

That’s how out of touch they were, and sadly still are. 

Trump won the Electoral College vote by a wide margin.  Republicans increased their seats in the House, retained their majority in the Senate, and increased the number of Republican-held governorships and state houses.  That’s what’s known as a change election, not a fluke. 

The left, cultural elites and the media apparently can’t fathom that. They still think they can call the shots because they have the real power in America.  They don’t.  And they don’t realize that whatever power and influence they thought they had was in truth only with each other.   

They cheered when VP-Elect Mike Pence recently went to a Broadway show and many audience members booed him. At the end of the same show one of the actors came out and lectured Pence on what the cast expected Pence and Trump to do for them.  The media was enthralled.  Then the New York media breathlessly reported that New York fashion designers were refusing to design clothes for Melania Trump, as if that was a real blow to the Trumps.

Seriously? 

What planet are these people on? 

Their arrogance and condescension cost them this election. They still don’t get it.  

Let the fun begin …

The last time the Democrats had control of the Senate they passed ObamaCare without a single Republican vote. They also used a parliamentary trick to enact the “nuclear option” so they could push through appointments to Federal courts with a simple majority vote. 

When the Republicans then regained control of the Senate, Democrats were quick to demand that Republicans needed to reach across the aisle to Democrats. This from the same people who never even considered what Republicans wanted when Democrats held the Senate.  And lest we forget, these were the same Democrats who gleefully declared every proposal from the Republican House DOA when Democrats controlled the Senate.    

Then when faced with a Republican-controlled House and Senate, Obama didn’t even bother trying to “reach across the aisle.”  Instead, he used a series of Executive Orders to enact new regulations bypassing Congress entirely on a variety of issues.

Some legal scholars warned that Obama and the Democrats were setting dangerous – and often Constitutionally questionable – precedents they might one day regret.

That day has arrived. 

I guess they never expected Republicans to win control of the House, Senate and White House at the same time ever again. It simply wasn’t possible. 

The Republican Party establishment was equally delusional. Despite their best efforts, the ultimate Republican nominee – against their wishes – won the White House. 

Party poohbahs and traditional donors had put their money and resources on the type of candidates they traditionally field.  When these were crushed one-by-one in the primaries they joined together to mount a fierce battle to defeat the one candidate they all hated – Donald Trump. Mitt Romney even did commercials telling Republicans not to vote for Trump.   

John Kasich, who I voted for in the primaries, refused to go to the Republican Convention, even though it was in Ohio where he was the governor. The Bush family also refused to go, as did Mitt Romney, John McCain and a host of other Republican “leaders.”  Most of the Republican contenders who during the debates pledged to support whoever the Republican nominee was broke their pledges, with some going on record as opposing Trump up until the election. 

Trump won anyway.

Trump destroyed two political dynasties – the Bushes and the Clintons – as well as the Republican and Democrat Parties, and gravely wounded the mainstream media that night. 

Trump won. They lost. Elections have consequences.   

That’s why I find it fascinating that the losers think they are somehow entitled to have a say in what Trump does now.

Democrats are telling Republicans and Trump they have an obligation to support the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.  At the same time they are telling Trump they intend to block the nominations of just about anyone he suggests.

Democrats are also demanding he pledge to the American people he won’t fulfill many of his campaign promises. They want him to publicly pledge not to overturn Obama’s Executive Orders.  They want him to renounce building a wall on our southern border, pulling Federal funding from sanctuary cities, and opposing the climate change treaty, among other things. 

Disgruntled supporters of Hillary or Bernie are rioting in the streets, vandalizing property, looting and attacking police as well as bystanders, which many celebrities and Democrats are urging on. 

But Pelosi and other Democrats are calling on Trump to tell his supporters to stop harassing Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, the LGBTQ community, and others – of which there’s scant evidence his supporters are involved.  If anything, it appears that most of the reported incidents of harassment by “Trump supporters” have been manufactured by those opposed to Trump; in contrast, virtually all the violence and mayhem after the election is from Trump-haters. 

The hypocrisy doesn’t stop there.      

Lindsey Graham and other Republicans who demonized Trump right up until election day – even some who publicly stated that they would either not vote, or would vote for Hillary – are telling Trump who he should appoint to his cabinet and who they want to see in key positions in his administration. Some of these people are putting forth Ted Cruz – a never-Trump guy almost up to the very end – for the Supreme Court vacancy.

In a way, all this is sad.  In another way it’s downright silly.

It seems everyone wants to force Trump into their expectation of a traditional politician. They want him to forgive and forget and become one of them. They seem intent on browbeating him into submission – which, by now, they should realize isn’t that likely.

All they have to do is review the recent election.  

Democrats need to take a hard look at what they and Obama have done, the precedents they’ve set, over the past seven and a half years.  Establishment Republicans need to take an equally hard look at why a flawed outsider, with no political experience at all and little actual campaign spending, was able to defeat their hand-picked candidates.   

I don’t know exactly what Trump is going to do. I doubt he does either. 

But it’s going to be fun to watch.

He won. They lost. Elections have consequences. 

That Pauline Kael moment …

When Nixon won in 1972, Pauline Kael of the New Yorker famously said she couldn’t understand how he won since virtually nobody she knew voted for him. 

If you now wonder how the media, the pollsters, the pundits and the Democrats could have been so wrong on this election, remember Pauline Kael. She summed up back then why so many in the political and media establishments didn’t see the Trump victory coming.

Nobody they know – nobody they associate with – was voting for Trump. Or at least acknowledged that they were voting for Trump. People they polled who were actually planning to vote for Trump either blew them off and refused to answer, or lied to them.  

So everybody was sure Hillary had this in the bag. All their friends were for her.  All their colleagues were in her camp.  The people who eagerly answered their polling questions said they were for her. The political establishment knew Hillary had the big money, big stars, big ground game, big campaign consultants and the Obama Coalition which in their world were all certain precursors of a win.

Plus, she’d take millennials, the African-Americans, Latinos and of course women.   

Some predicted she might win in a landslide, maybe even over 300 Electoral College votes.  They cast this as a result of the shifting demographics of a changing nation – where increases in the numbers of the young and Hispanics, and the gender gap, all favored Hillary. 

They forgot to really talk to people outside their insular world.

Like the working class men and women of all races and ethnicity many of whom had lost their jobs and incomes through jobs moving to other countries.  They forgot to listen to the small business owners and their employees getting hammered by ObamaCare’s skyrocketing premiums and exorbitant deductibles. They forgot the middle class men and women who dropped out of the workforce, were underemployed, or whose wages hadn’t increased in a decade.  They forgot those whose household income had actually declined over that time. 

Sure, the media and political elites saw the numbers, but hey … they themselves were doing very well.  Big salaries, nice vacations, dinners at fine restaurants, hobnobbing with the rich and famous, first-class travel and treatment wherever they went.  

In a world like that – their world, with private schools, economically segregated neighborhoods, nannies and housekeepers, first-class train and plane tickets – there’s little chance of mixing with people outside their social or economic circles.  

And they didn’t.    

Since they never really talked to – much less tried to understand – the millions of people already increasingly angry about the direction of the country politically, economically and culturally, they believed everything was just fine. None of the people they knew had these concerns. 

When they saw the Trump rallies, they laughed at the people there.  When they saw signs protesting illegal immigration, they dismissed the holders as bigots and racists.  When they saw people waving American flags they snickered. 

When their New York-based TV shows mocked Trump and his supporters as bozos, rubes, and ignorant hicks, they laughed and laughed and laughed. 

They never realized there was a whole world – another America – outside of the world they knew.  In that other world, people were actually offended by the antics of the cultural and political elites.  The people the elites mocked didn’t find the jokes at their expense to be funny at all, especially when they were constantly portrayed as know-nothing clowns. 

The arrogance of the cultural and political elites cost them the election.  The other America – the one they laughed at – came out and voted. 

And stunned the powers that be.  Or now, were. 

Clinton promised another four years of Obama policies. Her friends in the media and the financial and entertainment industries couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to continue forward with more of the same; everybody they knew agreed.

The people they didn’t know didn’t agree. 

On Tuesday, the people they didn’t know upset the world they thought they knew. 

I was struck by the maps on election night showing which counties voted for Trump or for Clinton.  In state after state, if became clear that most states were almost entirely red (for Trump) with only a few blue spots (for Clinton) concentrated almost exclusively in the big cities. 

Obama promised to transform America.  Clinton promised to continue and increase that transformation even more.  People in most states – enough to win the Electoral College vote by a wide margin – decided to put a stop to it. So they did. That’s democracy in action.   

Liberals and mainstream media talking heads are still aghast at what happened.  Precious little snowflakes on college campuses across the country are having meltdowns. They simply cannot understand how this could happen.      

Remember Pauline Kael.  

Giving the finger to the establishment …

Yep. I’m that guy. The one Tucker Carlson described.

The one who is fed up with the political games in Washington. The one who doesn’t trust the media to tell the truth. The one who believes our government operates to protect its own first, the rich and the powerful next, and treats the rest of us as cattle to be milked. 

I’m tired of special interests deciding who gets what. I’m sick of the out-of-control spending on useless projects and programs to appease one group or another. 

And I’m disheartened to realize that our nation founded on such lofty principles has devolved into a selfish, self-centered society where celebrity trumps competence and gaming the system gives you greater status than working hard to earn an honest living.

Even more disturbing is how we’ve allowed our country to go from nation of laws, not man, to one where who you are and who you know changes how the law is applied. 

It’s been said the wheels of justice grind exceedingly slow, but exceedingly fine. Now, it appears, that depends entirely on who is doing the grinding. If it’s the Justice Department, or even the FBI, and you’re a high-ranking government appointee, or perhaps just a lower-level bureaucrat, you could commit any number of crimes and skate while retaining your full pension.  At worst you might have to resign – but again you’ll retain your full pension.  But if you’re a regular citizen – or perhaps a soldier or a general in our military – you face fines and imprisonment for doing far less. 

How does that comport with “equal justice under the law” you might ask. 

It’s also been said that justice delayed is justice denied; however, more and more it seems that justice delayed means justice may never be rendered. 

How else can you explain why illegal immigrants – and yes, they have crossed our borders illegally which by any definition makes them criminals – are treated so differently from other criminals.

If a bank robber held up a sign bragging about a crime they just committed they’d be arrested. But if an illegal immigrant holds up a sign bragging about their illegal status they are treated as heroes.  If those same immigrants brought their children here illegally those children are not considered “fruit of the poisonous tree” – derivative of an illegal act – but “dreamers” entitled to special treatment and consideration according to many politicians.   

This is just nuts. Even more nuts is the idea that if you evade ICE long enough you might just get amnesty, bypassing all those other wannabe citizens trying to immigrate here legally. When did that become acceptable? 

I’d like to blame Congress.  But Congress is just a reflection of the people who elect them.  Enough self-centered, selfish people have elected people just like them.      

Our Congress doesn’t represent the rest of us as much as themselves. Most spend the majority of their time in office trying to raise money for their re-election by doing favors – at our expanse – for deep-pocketed campaign contributors. When they aren’t doing that, they busy themselves fighting with each other over ridiculous stuff for political advantage, or getting the government – and our money – involved in things they have absolutely no business being a part of. 

Federal money shouldn’t be funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, get-out-the-vote programs, Planned Parenthood, after-school basketball programs, school lunches, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, or any of the other thousands of sacred cows now ensconced in our Federal budget.

The worst of these – government-funded get-out-the-vote programs – shouldn’t even exist. Why should we pay people to convince other people to register and vote?  If they don’t care enough to get off their asses and register and vote on their own then they shouldn’t.

And if you don’t know these are programs largely designed to get more Democrats elected you shouldn’t be allowed to vote, either. You’re too stupid.  

Planned Parenthood should be funded entirely by private contributions. However meritorious their services may or may not be, the idea of government outsourcing healthcare and contraception to a quasi-private organization with armies of lobbyists is just wrong. When an organization needs hired lobbyists to keep the Federal funding flowing, something’s amiss.

The school lunch programs should be handled entirely by the states. The after-school basketball programs wouldn’t be needed if parents did their jobs. 

The Department of Energy and the Department of Education are entirely unnecessary.  The former is a garbage pit of half-assed ideas run by zealots continually trying to defy the immutable laws of supply and demand; the latter is a shill for the teachers’ unions.  Both are self-serving entities that spend our money on promoting hare-brained theories that sound great in a college classroom but fail miserably in the real world.        

Billions are wasted every day on these and too many commissions, bureaus and boards for this, that and the other – such as the Export Import Bank, the African Development Foundation, Agricultural Marketing Service, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, and countless hundreds of other mini and major bureaucracies. 

Honestly, we don’t need all this crap.

Let’s be candid here: most government programs and bureaucracies are a waste of money. The only thing they accomplish is padding the government payroll and kissing the butts of one special interest group or another.

Worse yet, there’s almost no way to get rid of them. Elected politicians can be voted out of office – and, sadly, too rarely are – but bureaucrats are virtually bulletproof. 

Remember Lois Lerner.  John Koskinen.  The heads of the Veterans Administration. The list goes on and on, and there’s nothing anyone seems to be able to do about these weasels.    

The Department of Justice has become a bad joke.  When the Attorney General – an appointee of a Obama – meets privately with Bill Clinton while his wife Hillary is under FBI investigation you don’t need to be a genius to realize what’s happening. When Lynch claims they were only talking about golf and grandkids for 30 minutes on a private plane parked on an airport tarmac without any other witnesses present, it’s insulting to anyone with half a brain.

So when a madman like Trump – and at times he seems one – says he wants to drain the swamp Washington has become, stop illegal immigration and deport illegal immigrants, push for term limits, and yes, put investigating corruption at all levels of our political system on the front burner, well, guess what: I’m willing to put up with all his other baggage to get those things.

The fact that the media hate him, the Republican establishment hates him, liberals hate him, Hollywood types hate him, and government bureaucrats hate him just makes him more attractive to people like me. And I believe there are a lot more of us than most imagine.

I fervently hope he wins if for no other reason than to just to send a message.   

As Michael Moore said recently: electing Trump would be the biggest “fuck you” to the political establishment in American history.

I’m okay with that. It’s long overdue.  

Paid disrupters at Trump rallies – are you surprised?

I’m not, in the least. 

The far left has many faults but chief among these is not knowing – or caring – where the line is between right and wrong.

Inciting violence is always wrong, regardless of the “righteousness” of your cause. Intentionally manufacturing violence through paid provocateurs is even worse. When someone is paid to throw a punch, or a rock, or to get in someone’s face so they’ll react violently, the righteousness of whatever cause you think you’re supporting evaporates.

You become part of a criminal enterprise, paying thugs to do your dirty work. 

And that is what Democrat operatives have done. They recruited and paid homeless people to start fights at Trump rallies.  Then the media, always looking for video gold, would make the case for them that Trump supporters, and Trump’s words, inevitably spawn violence.   

The predictable storyline was that violent, hateful, racist, sexist bigots support Trump.

Just look at that Trump supporter get into it with someone waving a Mexican flag – just don’t show the part right before when that flag waver was screaming profanities at the Trump supporter and his wife. Look at that Trump supporter knocking down a protester – but edit out the part where the same protester was jabbing his finger into the Trump supporter’s chest, nose to nose and yelling in his face.  By all means, don’t show that clip of the protesters chasing down and beating the Trump supporter trying to get to his car after a rally.  Or when one of them sucker-punched a guy leaving a Trump rally and then dancing away laughing. 

Nope. Like it never happened.

Now we know that a lot of the violence the media showed was staged. There’s video of Democrat operatives describing how they did it. They even bragged how easy it was to find the homeless people, dress them up, and pay them to start fights at the rallies. The going rate was maybe $1500 and a smart phone or tablet and they were good to go. 

Dirty tricks have been a part of politics since the founding of our country.  But in my 50+ years of following politics I can’t remember anything like this. Of this magnitude.  Or the brazenness of the perpetrators to take credit for it. 

Moreover, I can’t think of any attempt by anyone to incite violence at Hillary or Sanders rallies. So there’s no tit-for-tat here, or any grounds for saying every campaign does this.    

Democrat leaders now say they knew nothing about all this. Bullshit. This isn’t just frat house pranks gone awry – people got hurt, some seriously, and their personal property was attacked.  They knew full well what would happen, because they engineered it. And paid for it to happen.    

When Trump says the system is corrupt he’s just scratching the surface.  The political establishment is corrupt.  Both political parties are corrupt. Government is corrupt.

You can’t always get the ideal person to lead a revolution.  But I’m okay with Trump. 

It’s a start.  

Get over “the vapors …”

I can’t condone what Donald Trump said over a decade ago.  It was coarse, rude and offensive. If anything, it showed Trump as an arrogant jerk trying to be “one of the boys.”

But that’s not news. He’s always been like that. He has no filters.  

However, and it’s a big however, I’m really tired of the media and others spinning this as so hurtful to women that it automatically disqualifies him to be President. 

It’s astonishingly hypocritical. 

In case anyone’s been asleep for the last 50 years or so, here’s a newsflash: Modern women are not delicate flowers prone to “the vapors” and so sensitive that they break down in tears if anyone says something mean about them or comments on their sexual attractiveness. 

American women are flying combat missions overseas, for God’s sake, where our enemies are trying to kill them. For decades we’ve had women negotiating face-to-face with world leaders.  Women are running billion-dollar businesses. Most of my client contacts have almost always been women.  Women compete with men all the time in the workplace; some can be every bit as ruthless and conniving as the worst men they fight with for position, power and money.  

And I can tell you from firsthand experience that given the right circumstances – such as when they think they are talking only among themselves – women can be as raunchy if not raunchier than their male counterparts.  They’ll ogle someone’s ass, speculate on someone’s sexual attributes, and discuss with each other who they’d like to sleep with and why. Just like men.    

This is no big secret to many women. What might be a secret to them is how well their voices travel through the thin walls of bathrooms in bars, restaurants and many businesses. 

But what about our innocent and impressionable young women? 

Well, we now live in a world where celebrated female performers like Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, Katy Perry, and Madonna – all idolized by millions of young women – openly flaunt their sexuality on stage or appear in sexually provocative videos. Some female celebrities have released homemade sex tapes to advance their careers. 

Today's hip-hop culture produces music and videos that are far more demeaning to women in general, in even more graphic terms, and there’s little push back. In fact, Michelle Obama – who has been out on the campaign trail saying how hurtful Trump’s comments were – has invited some of the most misogynistic and vulgar rappers to the White House and praised their “work.” 

The net effect is that our popular culture now encourages young women to dress like strippers, act like sluts, and post online and/or sext sexually explicit images and videos of themselves. Why do you think Snapchat is so popular with young women – especially millennials?  Hint: It’s because Snapchat messages expire after a time and disappear leaving no trace. 

Slightly older women in sultry poses are promoting Viagra for their boyfriends in TV commercials shown in prime time.  The idea is that now these women can have their boyfriends get single-pack Viagra just in time for that cruise or other vacation. When commercials have women promoting products to help their sex partners maintain an erection I’d say times have changed. 

So spare me the manufactured outrage from celebrities and the media about what Trump said as insulting and objectifying women. They need to take a look in the mirror. 

That said, is it unfair to criticize Trump for being a pig and a lout?  No.  Yet to me it’s unfair to imply that because he at times fantasizes about sex and uses awful language he’s a dangerous sexual predator.  If that were the case you’d have to lock up practically every American male – straight or gay – over the age of 12 and a helluva lot of American women, too. 

Certainly he’s exhibited bad judgement by allowing himself to be recorded saying stupid and insensitive stuff.  But you have to give him credit for saying what he really thinks – dumb or not – instead of prevaricating on such things as “it depends on what the meaning of ‘is,’ is …”  

Unlike Trump I’m not going to make a moral equivalency of what he’s said – or even done – to the actions of others so revered by the media and the Democrats.

A pig is a pig is a pig. Regardless of party affiliation. However, if you are a Democrat pig you are much more likely to get a pass from the media. 

There’s a lot to dislike about Trump personally. He’s not a great role model. Neither is Hillary. I don’t think anyone with the good sense God gave a sweet potato wants their son or daughter to grow up like either of them. They are both truly awful human beings.

But does that actually have anything to do with whether they would be a good President? 

We’ve had good Presidents who were loathsome people.  We’ve also had admirable people with stellar values and integrity who were mediocre if not downright awful Presidents.  We’ve had openly corrupt Presidents who used the office to enrich themselves and their friends.

We’ve survived them all.   

Rarely – and extremely rarely – we’ve had great Presidents who kept their decency and integrity intact and served us well. 

Unfortunately, those rare exceptions seem to be in our distant past.  Even those remarkable Presidents and their legacies are under constant attack by a media and popular culture that want to tear them down with out-of-context “facts” and innuendo; it’s an ongoing attempt to “prove” that nobody is perfect, and there really are no heroes. Everybody has flaws. 

Which is true, because we’re all human.

Hillary’s made a big deal about Trump calling some women pigs and slobs. She’s running commercials showing young women looking in mirrors hurt by such words. She’s tried to make the case that Trump’s statements have led to increased bullying and great emotional distress to women everywhere. I’m not sure either is true.

If anything, I’d suggest that the hypersensitivity many women have about their self-image is far more a creation of the media and the popular culture than anything Trump has ever said. 

Also, what Trump said in other statements may be hurtful to some and in bad taste to articulate openly, but perhaps true.  Some women and men as well are pigs and slobs. Trump himself is fat. So is Hillary. For some reason it would be okay to call Trump fat – which some in the media have – but way out of bounds and immensely hurtful to state the same about her. 

And that’s my point.  There can’t be acceptable and unacceptable versions of the truth at the same time, based solely on gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. 

Some things simply are, or are not. It may be insensitive or crass depending on the context and the audience, but it never depends on what the meaning of the word is, is. 

Take the dustup over the winner of the Miss Universe pageant – a beauty contest, not a “scholarship pageant.” She did put on a lot of weight after winning the title and that was inconsistent to what the people running the Miss Universe pageant expected or wanted.  Then she got involved in a lot of unseemly low-life behavior that also drew unwanted attention to her, including a boyfriend accused of kidnapping, reports that she threatened the life of a judge, and apparently having filmed sex with another contestant on a foreign version of Big Brother. 

If she were a man she’d be the object of ridicule and on the front page of every tabloid rag as a loser who blew their shot at fame and fortune by being a venal dirt bag. She’d be covered in the same way as the male lottery winner who was robbed of over $140 thousand he had in his pickup truck while he was in a strip club in the middle of the day.

When Hillary trotted her out as someone besmirched and hurt by statements Trump made about her appearance, lack of integrity, and questionable behavior  – which given all the facts now seem justified in many ways – Hillary picked the wrong horse to ride.  But it made no difference to the media who dutifully reported everything Trump said, but not the reality. 

Look, I understand why some women are offended by what Trump said on a hot mic more than a decade ago.  He showed bad taste is saying it; someone else showed a lack of ethics by holding on to a tape of a private conversation for over a decade and then releasing it in the middle of a Presidential campaign. Still, it was stupid on his part. He should have known better.   

Will it cost him the woman vote? I believe that ship sailed long ago, well before this.

As sad as it is, in this era of “the first” fascination, Hillary will get a lot of votes simply because she’s the first female candidate for President from a major party.  Just as I believe a lot of people voted for Obama for much the same reason – the first black candidate from a major party – I think a certain percentage of the voters will do the same for Hillary. They want to be a part of history. 

And, as has been widely reported, a significant portion of the female voting population, especially young unmarried women, are expected to vote for Hillary simply because she is a woman and because many feel it's "her turn."  I doubt many male voters are voting for Trump simply because he's a man and Hillary is a woman.       

Trump’s support comes from a far different slice of the electorate:  people – many quite angry – who are fed up with political correctness, corruption in government by special interests, and the way the political establishment and media seemingly cooperate to maintain the status quo. 

As Tucker Carlson put it so aptly recently: if you’re the type of person who wants to give the finger to the establishment, Trump’s your guy; if you like the way things are, you’re for Hillary.

The release of the tape won’t significantly change anything. People who hate Trump got more ammunition; people who love Trump will brush it off as nothing more than a tempest in a teapot. Trump’s adversaries can release all the other off-color stuff Trump has said over the years and it really won’t change how his supporters feel about him.

As evidence, Trump’s poll numbers haven’t cratered amidst all the media coverage over his statements about women. That surprises me, to be honest. Still if just about any other Republican were running against Hillary they’d be crushing her – Trump’s the best thing that ever happened for Hillary’s campaign, that's for sure.       

  

I also believe many of the women now claiming to be offended are saying that because they’ve been told they should be offended, not because it actually affects them directly.  And when the media brings out women who claim Trump touched them inappropriately 30 years ago, that’s a tad long to be holding a grudge and not saying anything in my opinion – it doesn’t seem all that believable.  I suspect many are just looking for their 15 minutes of fame.

That’s not to say it didn’t happen.  Or that it’s acceptable. 

At this point it doesn’t make much difference either way. 

As some Brit politician wisely said: We’re electing a President; not a Pope. 

For myself, I’ll take a sexist pig like Trump I can trust – character flaws and all – over a political prostitute like Hillary who has shown time and again she will do anything for money, including selling all the rest of us, and our national security, down the river for the right price. 

If the prospect of Hillary as President doesn’t scare you then what Trump said shouldn’t either.