Comparing Trump and Reagan

On October 7, 1984, President Reagan famously said to Walter Mondale, “There you go again.”  Historically, gentlemanly detractors also maligned him.  Mark Weinberg makes this same mistake in his Trump-Reagan column, “Where do we go from here”.  For Weinberg, political nostalgia has caused confusion over personality and substance regarding his subjects. 

On the basis of policies and accomplishments President Trump has proven he’s our generation’s Reagan.  What of Donald Trump's “Make America Great Again” motto: a Reaganesque message trumpeting U.S. exceptionalism?  Specifically, Trump has modeled Reaganomics by lower taxes to spur today’s 4.2 percent GDP.  In his first year, the Trump administration reduced the federal workforce by almost 13,000.  Given Reagan’s abhorrence for the size and scope of government, the Trump era rollback of 22 regulations for every new one is clearly something “The Gipper” would approve of.  Furthermore, both men value the rule of law and keeping our country safe.

Similar in substance is Trump to Reagan on the international stage.  His policy of direct engagement with foreign leaders and his “Peace through strength” doctrine mirror Reagan’s.  In the 1980s, the geopolitical foe was Gorbachev, and the “evil empire” was the Soviet Union.  Today’s villainous regime is North Korea and Kim Jong Un.  The actors have changed, but not the chairs.  Where it counts, who’s more Reagan than Trump?  

Warts and all, each man is the leader of his time.  In his smiling, affable way “The Great Communicator” fought just as tenaciously as Trump’s fighting now.  But the game has changed.  It’s unrealistic to expect a plainspoken New York billionaire to be constrained by the pearl-clutching behaviors of the past.  After all, neither political party has remained static in its orientation.  How much do outspoken, big government socialists—infesting today’s Democratic Party—have in common with the policies or demeanor of JFK?  The return to civility will only happen when the American people demand it from every representative.  Meanwhile, it’s too easy to fixate on the President.  In “Julius Caesar” the Bard counseled, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

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Whitey's Scarlet Letter: “P” For Privilege

“Discussions about race are often perceived as being only open to people of color, but I think it is just as important for white people to partake in conversations about race. No matter how accepting someone is, that doesn’t stop them from being part of a system based on centuries of inequality.” – Aileen Ida, president of the College Democrats, Elizabethtown College

In 2017, how else can adolescent angst be expressed except to tilt at imaginary windmills? Is Aileen Ida simply ignorant of this American age of near universal acceptance of differences? Indeed, concrete evidence is obvious everywhere. Until last month, did she miss the fact that a black man has been president for the last eight years? How about our tolerance for the new institution of gay marriage? Why the public self-flagellation by students at Elizabethtown College, a small liberal arts school in lily-white Lancaster County, Pennsylvania?

Beyond their ivied walls, these safe-spacers can't cope with the new reality of Trump's America. After all, their party, the Democrats, are in political purgatory: backbenchers in government, exposed as a regional party in urban centers on both coasts that don't include them! Thus, they wear cultist lapel pins—shaped like plain white puzzle pieces—to demonstrate they “don't fit in anywhere”.

Naturally, they don't comprehend the true meaning of their symbolism. They frame their attention-grabbing antics as some kind of wacky multigenerational genetic guilt. Perhaps some of their ancestors were slaveholders, but if so, so what? It's a safe bet these computer savvy know-nothings haven't checked on ancestry.com. Thus, they self-shame by pretending to be distant offspring of theoretical 19^th century white oppressors? No wonder they're progressives; that's dopey thinking of the highest order! A modern riff on thought-crime from George Orwell's totalitarian classic “1984”.

Oh, how these young Democrats yearn for Hester Prynne's America of 1850. When slavery, oppression and bigotry were real! At least when the fictional Ms. Prynne wore her Scarlet Letter, she was guilty of adultery. However, these “cultural warriors”—these champions of convoluted fairness—have very little to legitimately object to. So, the witless and coddled define themselves by false projection and historical misappropriation. A twisted millennial fantasy of a white bogeyman, seen exclusively in their dormitory mirrors.

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ObamaCare: Death or Deductible?

“I should have gone to the hospital. [But] I knew there was a big bill waiting for me if I did, and I rolled the dice.” – Dr. Ashish Jha, Harvard University employee

Remember, the entire purpose of health insurance is the ability to receive inexpensive medical attention. In 2017, not even a M.D. can afford the so-called Affordable Care Act (known colloquially as ObamaCare). This big government behemoth—which swallowed 1/6 of the U.S. economy—is so costly, it actually discourages enrollees from seeking care. In George Orwell's dystopian novel “1984”, how is real-life ObamaCare any different than Big Brother's “Ministry of Peace” that actually makes perpetual war?

Harvard heath-policy researcher, Dr. Ashish Jha's heart had raced dangerously for more than an hour. His home remedies were ineffective. Was his condition life threatening tachycardia which can lead to a heart attack? He couldn't be sure. He admitted to his wife that the solution was an emergency room visit. Yet, this doctor feared his potential demise less than the 6,000 deductible that awaited him if he sought treatment. Cowed by the economics, like so many others, he didn't go.

When Dr. Jha signed up for the “lower” premium higher out-of-pocket plan, it had been a kind of personal experiment for him. An academic's quest to better understand how a trade-off—the cost-benefit ratio—influences heath. Unfortunately, his ivory tower scenario resulted in a life and limb gamble no different than Russian roulette. With the clock ticking, what matters more: money or mortality?

Today, that's a concrete question for the Republican-controlled Congress to answer. Why do they continue to dither over repealing ObamaCare? You know, the action they pledged to take six years ago? Dr. Jha is in the same boat as at least 46 million Americans with deductibles of $1,000 a year or more. For context, patient liability has increased a whopping 67 percent in the employer market since 2010. (ObamaCare was signed into law on March 23, 2010.) Furthermore, The Health Policy Brief by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation summarizes Dr. Jha's dilemma rather clinically:

“Increasing plan deductibles has emerged as one potential solution to slowing health care cost growth by reducing use”.

Besides increased medication, Dr. Jha's cardiologist indicates a procedure will likely to cure his infirmity. Despite his health scare, Dr. Jha's decided to roll the dice for yet another year. Although he's clear on the solution, he's still stymied by the gargantuan deductible. Can one blame him if he's waiting on the Republicans' cost-effective ObamaCare replacement?

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A Bleeding Heart's 'Supreme' Sacrifice

All of me – Why not take all of me

Can't you see I'm no good without you

Take my lips I want to loose them

Take my arms I'll never use them

Your goodbye left me with eyes that cry

How can I go on dear without you...

From the movie theme of “All of Me” (1984)

Given the generally unhinged and hysterical state of today's vanquished progressives, it's singularly appropriate that a dark interpretation of the title song from a 1984 movie would suddenly come to bear. With President Trump's Supreme Court nomination of the eminently qualified Neil Gorsuch, 49, their squirrelly thoughts shift wildly to the future loss of crone Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 83. Compare the above stanza with the following disjointed rant exemplified by The Washington Post's Rachel Manteuffel:

“I’ve found myself thinking about you lately, and how things are going with you, and I just wanted you to know that I ... have some tokens of my esteem that you might enjoy. Such as blood. If you have any need for blood, you can have the eight or so units of A-positive that are right here in my body. There’s also a gently used liver in here, lobes of it just lying around if you need them.... Do you like platelets? I have excellent platelets. I have had all my shots. ... My kidneys function well. I have two. Either one is yours for the taking. Both, if need be. … I have scads of nerves that you can have. Just take them. My skin would graft onto you beautifully. Bones, stem cells, a whole eyeball I don’t need, feet of intestines, feet. Just a ridiculous amount of health, way more than should rightly belong to someone with my standing in the world.”

Ms. Manteuffel also specifies her large heart to be trimmed to fit Justice Ginsburg's diminutive size. This frankly gory element brings to mind another 'body parts' film, “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991) (released synchronistically on Valentine's Day). Specifically, how is one not graphically reminded of Jame Gumb's basement lair of kidnapped and skinned women, or Hannibal Lecter, when Manteuffel suggests:

“If you need to keep me on life support in your house, just in case, while you slice off any bits that appeal to you, that is totally fine and my loved ones will understand. … We have discussed it. ”

Ah, what would Dr. Lecter say about that conversation? In any case, notice the conspicuous absence from the rambling list of human anatomy: this scribbler's brain. Is that because Manteuffel knows Ms. Ginsburg has no use for such an inferior organ? Or does this Post employee use her gray matter so infrequently that it never occurs to her to offer it? Indeed, her opinion piece is so bizarre she should be known henceforth as Macabre Manteuffel!

“MM” would greatly benefit from reading “On Death and Dying” (1969) by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Within, the five stages of grief resulting from an unexpected loss (read: the 2016 presidential election) are detailed. Philosophically, Manteuffel is stuck at stage three, known as bargaining. Still, the ultimate goal of any grieving process is acceptance. That means intensive therapy, though not with “Hannibal the Cannibal”. This deluded ideologue will need to keep all of her body parts to get there.

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Resegregating Obama's America

“The amazing aftermath of Birmingham, the sweeping Negro Revolution, revealed to people all over the land that there are no outsiders in all these fifty states of America. … The bell of man's inhumanity to man does not toll for any one man [or student group]. It tolls for you, for me, for all of us.” – Martin Luther King, on racial discrimination

In 2016, hard-fought '50s and '60s social gains have been eroded at California State University Los Angeles. Leave it to deluded millennials—wholly ignorant of the meaning of Civil Rights struggles—to thumb their entitled noses at Brown v. Board of Education (of Topeka), 347 U.S. 483 (1954). In that historic integration decision the Supreme Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools based upon the superficiality of race unconstitutional. So, today that landmark determination is suddenly wrong? In Obama's America separate is suddenly equal—and preferential?

Furthermore, in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1968—which guarantees equal housing opportunities regardless of race, color, creed or national origin—“guilty” school officials have capitulated to requests by the CSLA Black Student Union to provide race-exclusive housing (at the Halisi Scholars Black Living-Learning Community). Only in the city known for liberal nutcases could an educational institution claim “... learning experiences that are inclusive and non-discriminatory” while simultaneously promoting a blatantly exclusionary policy. Is this George “1984” Orwell's dystopian Ministry of Inclusion at work?

Will this topsy-turvy generation also come to believe that retro black-only water fountains or lunch counters are good ideas? You know, the same “white-only” facilities that their grandparents risked life and limb to undo 60 years ago? In any case, how is black-focused housing not just a variation of theme: racial discrimination to everyone else? The very inhumanity—a hurtful skin-deep consideration—that MLK railed against?

It's a little spoken of 21^st century conceit that black people can never be racists, only victims as such. This faulty assumption stems from our country's unfortunate involvement with slavery that ended in the 19^th century. Of course, given the passage of time—and the natural evolution of social attitudes—only antiquated propaganda is promoted, not causal connections. Specifically, these false narratives are built around urban myths. One primary example is Michael Brown's 'hands up, don't shoot' which never happened. In turn, the social unrest fomented—based upon big MSM lies—has spread like wildfire to the coasts (fueled by George Soros' funding of Black Lives Matter anarchy). Related specifically to CSLA, how can Los Angeles—one of the most proudly multicultural and cosmopolitan U.S. cities—also be a hotbed for armies of racially motivated “microaggressors”?

Are these malcontents afraid of their own shadows on sunny days? Such perceptions defy reality—and common sense. One reasonably assumes these aggrieved CSLA students would see racism in a bowl of cornflakes and chocolate milk. In the real world, these coddled “safe spacers” fool no one with their politically correct demands. Ironically, while they claim nebulous slights, these isolationists do actual damage that is both thoughtless and intentional. Is it right to arbitrarily demonize the rest of the collegiate community?

In truth, regardless of skin color, any person who negatively evaluates another on the basis of race is, by definition, that. One does not overcome racism by promoting the same lifestyle and mind-set that is so despised in others. Beyond introductory courses in U.S. history and law, these jaded and time warped youngsters need a serious reality check. Rare “microaggressions” notwithstanding, 21^st century America is so widely tolerant, it's quietly integrated. For additional proof, one need only consider the ethnicity of the current commander-in-chief. What of the collective character demonstrated by their faithful countrymen—in two elections—who made Mr. Obama's presidency a fact? These “sheltered” CSLA students should embrace these disregarded millions they hide from in their black-only housing.

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Democrats' “Duck” Parade

“Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” – George Orwell (1946)

The political landscape of Obama's America in 2016 looks daily like Mr. Orwell's dystopian “1984.” With the rise of progressives' political correctness and moral relativism, truth no longer matters. What remains is attacking, partisan narratives by ego-driven, childish and irresponsible “leaders” who would give Machiavelli pause.

A prime example is shameless Hillary Clinton. She blithely ignored FBI Director James Comey's public dressing down related to her Server-gate scandal. Outrageously to this day, Mrs. Clinton still denies that she sent or received highly classified information in violation of federal law (on her likely hacked private servers). Despite clear evidentiary findings, charges were not pursued by Obama's Justice Department. On ABC's “This Week” last Sunday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said, “I've prosecuted cases like that in my years at the Justice Department. Hillary Clinton skated because she's running for president. She clearly violated the law.” So, criminal wrongdoing and political corruption are somehow not that when it comes to any politician with the surname Clinton. Quack, but no duck?

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated scenario. Little reported last January—and seemingly out of thin air—Barack Obama conjures up a $400 million dollar “payment” (read: payoff) to Iran. (Once again, with his trusty pen and phone, he demonstrates: who needs Congress to make or approve appropriations?) With the nation's debt exceeding $19 trillion, the Imams naturally wouldn't accept a check? Joking aside, as U.S. law prohibits the use of U.S. dollars, foreign currencies like euros and Swiss francs were airlifted in on an industrial sized wooden pallet. The result was the very convenient sudden release of four American hostages.

Speaking of a similar U.S. hostage situation—and another terrible Obama “deal”—Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl comes readily to mind. In that exchange, one likely treasonous deserter was swapped for five high level Afghani Taliban terrorists (who returned with much fanfare to the battlefield). Both cases are windfalls for the enemy. This one is simply economic. At $100,000 a head to the largest state sponsor of radical Islamic terrorism, who says crime doesn't pay? Yet, given America's military efforts since the last Bush Administration to combat militant groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS, how is this latest farce by Democrats not direct de facto funding of this worldwide death cult? Quack, quack, but still no duck?

Speaking of Mr. Orwell's warning concerning sanitizing murder, we arrive at an intriguing murder mystery. I refer to last month's killing of one Seth Rich, 27, tragically gunned down from the back while walking along a Washington, D.C. street. Despite the fact that neither the victim's watch nor his wallet were stolen, police are calling the incident a “botched robbery.” Beyond a real-life Agatha Christie whodunit, one wonders why WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is offering a $20,000 reward for information related to this man's death. While he steadfastly refuses to disclose any specific source, he cryptically told Dutch television on Tuesday, “Whistle-blowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks.” Given the context of recent exposure of leaked internal DNC documents by the selfsame WikiLeaks, one is left to wonder what Mr. Assange's interest could possibly be in an obscure DNC staffer—other than the blatantly apparent. Quack, quack, quack.

Every little child knows that any waddling, quacking bird that looks like a duck is unmistakably that. That's true for anyone with a lick of common sense. This is precisely what Democrats lack. Indeed, the Obama years have been largely defined by the pathological and habitual refusal to appropriately label circumstances what they clearly are. Therefore, Democrats duck reality as readily as the mindless lemmings who support them.

Mr. Obama's progression (read: fundamental transformation) for America is no child's game of duck, duck, goose. After almost eight disastrous years, America's been a lame duck domestically and worse, a dead one abroad. Where does the goose fit in? A third Obama term under lying Hillary—and America's goose is cooked.

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Blathering “badder” Ginsburg

“I can’t imagine what the country would be with Donald Trump as our president. For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be—I don’t even want to contemplate that. Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand.”

“He is a faker; he has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He [as she] really has an ego.”

— “Objective” Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

It's no surprise an egotistical crone supports a lying witch. (Still, as every American citizen, jurist Ginsburg is entitled to her personal opinions, warped as they obviously are.) As she was appointed to the high court by Hill's philandering hubby Bill, it would be somewhat understandable if her stated reason for support of the coronated Democrat was misguided nepotism. But it's not. This veteran of the Supreme Court is just another partisan; an unapologetic ideologue wearing a black justice's robe. How can a person charged with faithfully interpreting the Constitution—an ultimate arbiter of our laws—support a plainly immoral, lawless creature for U.S. president?

The mind frankly boggles at Ms. Ginsburg's shameless audacity. In what alternative universe does one as she publicly excuse the candidate constantly under threat of multiple federal indictments, but criticize the populist outsider who isn't? This “great legal mind” is so pickled she can't imagine a Donald Trump presidency? Obviously insulated by her lofty perch, she is so far removed from reality she feels threatened by the pro-Constitution Republican (pledged to make America great again)? Does this Big Sister timeshare in “The Twilight Zone” or just perpetually reside in George Orwell's “1984”?

Barack Obama's fascist “fundamental transformation of America” has completely mangled Ronald Reagan's First World beacon of liberty. Now, America is an unrecognizable ultra-constitutional husk, no better than a Third World banana republic. Indeed, the wrongdoing of Obama's imperial “leadership from behind” has seeped like sludge into every major aspects of the executive branch: the White House, the weaponized IRS, the incompetent EPA, the blind Justice Department—and the hobbled FBI. Even the politically cowed do-nothing Republican Congress is not immune. Further, with the tragic passing of conservative icon Antonin Scalia, even the Supreme Court hangs in the most precarious balance: philosophically stalemated 4 to 4. This razor's edge is borne out by Ms. Ginsburg's fellow travelers on the bench. Specifically, I refer to the high court's “Leona Helmsley,” the coddled Sonia Sotomayer. One more rotten apple such as these (the next president may chose as many as three replacements) will doom the country to unimaginable leftist ruin for decades to come.

It's no laughing matter. Even given millennials' misbelief that TV's “Judge Judy” (Sheindlin) is a member of Ruth Ginsburg's elitist country club. (Much as one wishes she is, she's not. Yet, Ms. Sheindlin's no-nonsense adherence to law makes the future New Zealand bound Ms. Ginsburg the real faker here). A simple truth: a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for Judge Judy's America.

As a cautionary tale, see the untold collateral damage of electing Democrats/progressives. That specifically means all politicians surnamed Clinton—and their bad judicial appointees like the appropriately nicknamed “Notorious RBG.”

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Democrats Play Misty For Me

From a political perspective, Bruce (Caitlyn) Jenner's true bravery was coming out publicly as Republican, not transgender. In Hollywood (a cliche of hypocritical limousine liberals like Angelina Jolie) being Republican is equivalent to a 21st century Underground Railroad. Something hidden and said in whispers: "to the right, to freedom!" When making such a public pronouncement, one either has to be untouchable—an industry titan like Clint Eastwood—or suffer Stacey Dash's fate of being blackballed, and fired by her representation (CESD, secured only last September). Ms. Dash said, “I just lost my agent because of my political beliefs.” As a modern day virtual Harriet Tubman, might our country be better served by putting Ms. Dash's face on that 20 dollar bill?

That's something America's first black president would never advocate. Why not? Because everything progressive Barack Obama does is literally a skin-deep political calculation. Therefore, as Ms. Dash is conservative, her views don't fit his fascist worldview. For example, Mr. Obama's “conversion” to gay marriage proponent wasn't about equal rights, it was about pumping a dwindling funding source. (And everybody knows: Mr. Obama is all about fundraising. Similarly, corrupt Hillary Clinton is all about the Benjamins in “Clinton Cash”.)

To Democrats, what the almighty dollar buys—political power—is their god. They care nothing for the rule of law unless it dovetails with their “1984” style hard left agenda. Likewise, they care nothing for the lives of their supporters (read: the death toll in Chicago). Minorities are simply pawns on a chess board to be manipulated—and sacrificed. Speaking of pawns, the Democrat Party is running two transgender candidates, both coincidentally named Misty. Is it just me or does Misty Snow (Utah) and Misty Plowright (Colorado) sound like the stage names for adult entertainers rather than serious political contenders? In any case, they both have a porn star's shot at success. Even the Democrats acknowledge that amounts to zero in November.

Recall that Utah has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate during Misty Snow's 30 years of life. As Democrats are all about political power, bet your bottom dollar they would field a more traditional candidate if they had any possibility of winning. Since they don't, they very happily make empty political gestures that cost them nothing:

“We're going to lose anyway; we might as well make a statement about inclusion,” gay state Sen. Jim Dabakis (D-UT) told the Associated Press.

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Punishing Pop-Tart Gun Kid

Apparently the mass hysteria gripping school officials has swayed a presiding judge—three years later—to also confuse a Pop-Tart as a “dangerous” weapon.

Back in March of 2013, then 7-year-old Josh Welsh ran afoul of school bureaucrats when he supposedly chewed his strawberry breakfast pastry into a “gun” and allegedly wielded it saying, “Bang, bang,” to a fellow student. This “boys being boys” behavior earned the second-grader a two-day school suspension from Baltimore's Park Elementary School. Today, this ludicrous decision has been upheld by Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Ronald A. Silkworth. (Or is that Silkworm?) This authoritarian Wonderland Queen of liberal bleeding hearts wrote: “[A] suspension was appropriately used as a corrective tool to address this disruption, based on the student’s past history of escalating behavioral issues.” How is this lily-livered judge not obviously drunk with a fascist's power? Did he cower behind his bench when ruling against the now ten year old?

In America, “land of the free, home of the brave,” this pronouncement is anti-American madness. During the original incident, Josh's father said, “I would almost call it insanity. I mean with all the potential issues that could be dealt with at school, real threats, bullies, whatever the real issue is, it’s a pastry.” Even the Florida legislature added to the lunacy by passing a bill that “protects” against the act of “brandishing a partially consumed pastry or other food item to simulate a firearm or weapon.” If these radical responses aren't “1984” style thought-crime—punishing children for their imaginations—what is?

The real issue here is the systematic emasculation of boys by progressive statists: it's fascism run amok in the public school system. Last time I checked, the purpose of educators is to enlighten, not to engage in radical beyond-the-scope hard left social engineering. This situation exactly depicts the irrational intention to punish typical, masculine “tough guy” behavior in favor of that of the wussy, subservient pajama boy: an archetype that has defined the disastrous Obama years.

As the Sandy Hook massacre tragically and definitively demonstrated, schools as gun-free zones facilitate danger while promising the illusion of safety. The zero tolerance policy should not be directed at boys' and their pretend “weapons of war,” it should censure kangaroo court judges for punishing them for normal “manly” conduct.

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Orlando killer: “victim” needing mind control?

Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy is correct that “a mind-set is as perilous as a gun.” Unfortunately, his thinking is as convoluted as batty Omar Mateen's; the perpetrator of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Is Mr. Milloy suffering from a personal, phantom style Stockholm syndrome? (By osmosis, a politically correct writer—rather than traumatized victims—robotically defends a mass murder? Perhaps this “journalist” should be evaluated by the psychiatrist his column cites.) According to him, this executioner of 49 (who injured an equivalent number) at a Orlando gay club (ironically named Pulse), is also a victim. Specifically, he claims Mateen suffers from “pseudocommandoism”:

“The pseudocommando often kills indiscriminately in public during the daytime [dance clubs however, are crowded at night], but may also kill family members [Mateen didn't] and a ‘pseudo-community’ he believes has mistreated him,” James L. Knoll IV, a forensic psychiatrist, wrote in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law in 2010. “He comes prepared with a powerful arsenal of weapons. . . . He has no escape planned and expects to be killed during the incident.”

Well, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! Let's put a fancy horse harness on a donkey—and excuse it as a stallion! As all good morally flexible dolts, Courtland Milloy fashions a foggy narrative intended to mitigate Omar Mateen's obvious barbarity. Why? Because he's spinning a supportive, corresponding narrative to Mr. Obama's fanatical gun blame game. What's the underlying, unifying theme? That this person wielding the guns—the architect of the massacre—is not truly responsible. Same as another “trustworthy” source with an agenda—the father, Seddique Mateen—none of these jokers want this mass murder rightfully pegged as a radical Islamic terrorist.

That's the reason for all of this psychological gobbledygook. It implies sickness—rather than politically inconvenient criminality. Indeed, the “riddle” that is Omar Mateen is straightforward and simple: any adult individual is responsible for his own actions. That truism trumps any secondary consideration.

That basic accountability isn't even a blip—a consideration—on Courtland Milloy's radar speaks volumes about his mind-set. In essence, he isn't covering a story so much as he's covering up for one. Instead of speaking to this fundamental issue, this columnist offers a kitchen sink of excuses for the “victim” who pulled the trigger. For starters, Mr. Milloy blames the school system for not putting an end to childhood teasing Omar received for being overweight. Later, in adulthood, the abused ex-wife is demonized for not involving the police in their domestic struggles. (Third, the police—who were never notified—are made theoretically responsible to put an end to Mateen's violence.) Fourth, the cherry on the pie of this layered absurdity, is that Mateen targeted the gay community because he was rejected by them:

“It has been reported that Mateen frequented Pulse many times before staging his attack. He also had reached out to several men through a gay dating app. But, by most accounts, he could not make lasting friendships and usually ended up sitting alone getting drunk.”

Does Mr. Milloy believe that dating apps exist for the humanitarian purpose of group counseling rather than hook ups? Further, who doesn't drink at a bar, or experience rejection? In any case, that doesn't justify Omar Mateen's shoot out at an Orlando dance club like it's the Wild Wild West's O.K. Corral.

Speaking of guns, to his credit, even this enabling fop doesn't wholeheartedly subscribe to the president's malarkey of blaming inanimate objects. Speaking of another troubling mind-set is petulant Mr. Obama's. In truth, he's a liberal fascist who conveniently exploits tragedy to promote his hard left anti-American agenda: anti-Second Amendment gun restriction. Indeed, legal guns in virtuous hands is not the same thing as weapons used by wrongdoing criminals and terrorists. Mr. Obama makes this exact, nebulous straw man argument. It is blatant political misrepresentation to the American people by a fundamentally dishonest politician. As a member of the press, Courtland Milloy has a journalistic duty to expose such manipulations, not be a collaborating cheerleader for them.

For the record, lecturing Obama and this columnist sound like ivy tower academics. Specifically, Mr. Milloy's obtuse advice is to do nothing while a killer's deep-seated psychosis is further studied:

“Better to find out more about where the killer mentality comes from and what can be done to change the mind.”

Exactly how does an external person change someone else's thoughts? Well, good luck with that. Mr. Milloy's suggestion is either completely impractical or worse, subtly Orwellian. (Does this lover of progressives want some kind of unspecified mind control for the murderous?) What else could the article's subheading, 'The mind-set of a killer is a danger to society that is worth neutralizing' mean? (Calling Kurt Vonnegut's fictional character “Harrison Bergeron.” Tell him his buzzing handicap—a hat to bring its wearer to state-mandated average intelligence—is ready!) Even Barack Obama is not this unhinged. The president only wants more ultra-constitutional authority to further undermine legal gun ownership. In the final analysis, Mr. Milloy's non-solution is just as nonsensical as Mr. Obama's refusal to say the “magic” words 'radical Islamic terrorism.' In both cases, if one intentionally never gets to the heart of a problem (by correctly naming it), one can never hope to achieve its resolution.

Words, as labels, matter. So do social mores of appropriate conduct. While cultural norms and laws often rightfully shape human behavior, one should certainly be free to think whatever one wants. To that end, one wishes Courtland Milloy would keep his thoughts—and his “1984” style dystopian fantasies—to himself.

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog

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Gender Agenda Masks Failed Leadership

“The Democrats have created gender confusion... [In New York City], you can be fined for not calling people 'ze' or 'hir' if that's the pronoun they demand to use... It's speech crimes and thought crimes... This is... Mr. Orwell (knock, knock), Mr. Orwell, you're breakfast is ready.” - WMAL's conservative encyclopedia Chris Plante

“And it's all to keep you excited, keep you watching, like you watch a... a car wreck or a... wrestling match. That's just what it's like—professional wrestling. It's staged and it's fake and it doesn't mean anything.” Florida governor Fred Picker played by Larry Hagman in “Primary Colors” (1998)

Can all not agree that 2016 is shaping up as the pettiest, most small-ball and juvenile, presidential contest in modern times? Voter's must-see TV, like mindless cotton candy entertainment: sugar, some color and spin with little substance—and no worth. Thankfully, we are beyond the undercard, the freak show phase of Donald Trump's orange spray tan and Marco Rubio's small hands. Now, we're rapidly progressing to the red meat in the contest: Hillary's bold-faced lies and obvious corruption (read: Charity-gate and Server-gate). However, Hillary's “damn emails” is not something socialist Bernie Sanders will ever address. (Rest assured, Mr. Trump will not be so reticent.) Meanwhile, the real shocker here is not the unconventional Republican nomination of Donald Trump, it is the disappointment hoodwinked “feel the Bern” millennial supporters will experience when their aged Bolshevik anti-hero meekly withdraws from the race. Then, two truths will be painfully apparent to them. First, he was just in the race to promote his hard leftist, anti-American agenda. Second, he was only a stooge to make inevitable front-runner Hillary appear to be more mainstream (read: more palatable to the electorate.) Unfortunately, Mrs. Clinton has neither her husband's good ol' boy roguish charm nor Mr. Obama's superficial shiny, fresh-faced newness to carry her to victory.

Yet, Mrs. Clinton, same as Mr. Obama, can always depend on the propagandist Fourth Estate. Indeed, facts and/or reality are never an impediment to the habitual Kool-Aid drinking MSM which is always at the ready to spread disjointed political spin. One prime example is the pure fiction of America's economic “recovery” under Mr. Obama. Still, he'll keep claiming illusory successes (read: the bureaucratic waste that is Obamacare; the “deal” soon to make Iran a nuclear state; his worldwide, bowing “apology tour” etc.). For their part, the sycophantic press will dutifully, and unquestioningly, transmit The White House's talking points, as dictated. The actuality that this de facto emperor has no clothes doesn't seem to matter to this small circle fest (read: Obama advisor Ben Rhodes's brother, David is CBS News President) of elitist powers-brokers. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama runs out the clock on his presidential term as a Tiger Woods wannabe. From his caustic fundamental transformation, what remains of our culture is so much the better.

With chaotic cities like Ferguson and Baltimore periodically erupting in mob violence and Black Lives Matter anarchy; with 93 million Americans out of work; with our nation in the mire of 19 trillion dollar debt; and establishment politicians of both parties not heeding the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, our society is literally falling apart by its seams. Why then the progressive myopic obsession with the trivial, the politics of gender and sexuality? Specifically, why the sudden urgency in the Obama years for gay marriage? Or its latest iteration, unisex locker and shower rooms, and gender-neutral bathrooms? Why do those now “in charge” go so far as not only to punish free speech, but also to promote a new set of pronouns that appropriate—and neuter—the English language itself?

This formula of semantic control is quite elegant in its simplicity: those who mold, modify, and impose themselves on the language of others determine the political discourse that shapes the country. In retrospect, word-burning political correctness makes certain communication (and their related thoughts) taboo. As an example, Facebook's ever-expanding list of progressive gender options, now at 71, is a case and point. Keep the oblivious masses distracted from the big picture: lawless, anti-American crazies, at every level of government, running the country literally into the ground. As evidence to any clear-thinking person, their soup to nuts failures at home and abroad. How is this feat accomplished? By the MSM's relentless focus on minutia like gender-bending labels or who uses which bathroom stalls. And worse in New York City, a new set of unnecessary pronouns to decode and master under threat of civil penalty. It's all the metaphorical equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on Titanic: America with Big Government, word-obscuring fascists at her helm. Mr. Orwell's dystopian “1984” nightmare realized with entitled Big Sister Hillary waiting impatiently in the wings. Yet, the scramble on the Mr. Orwell's breakfast plate isn't an omelet, it's the heaping mess of America mangled unrecognizable from within.

Trump's tonic is truth-telling. A quality most essential to our 45^th commander-in-chief.

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog

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Covering eyes to radicals

Petula Dvorak's political commentary is as illuminating three blind men holding parts of a metaphorical elephant, each claiming the rump, leg or trunk is the whole animal. In this post-911 world, she objects to the sensible Department of Homeland Security motto: “If you see something [suspicious], say something [to law enforcement].” As our free society is geographically vast—and no one would want to live in a “1984” style police state—it makes sense that everyday citizens' eyeballs be enlisted. This is no different from the inherent value of any neighborhood watch.

Hers is a philosophical objection, tortured reasoning that assumes the worst of profiling. As any beat cop will explain such observations are a highly effective method to deter wrongdoing. Indeed, logically, who is likely to commit crime or terrorism? Should the focus be on aged, gray haired grandfathers? How about young mothers and their broods? Or is a better bet the flood of law-violating migrant gangbangers from the U.S.-Mexico border with no prospects and no allegiance to our country? Just because such judgments are stereotypes doesn't mean there aren't kernels of truth worth consideration especially when innocent lives hang in the balance.

Ms. Dvorak's knee-jerk reaction is a political third rail: assumed Islamophobia by police and/or the public regarding swarthy-looking individuals who speak in unrecognized, foreign tongues. Her example is a University of California, Berkeley student Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, 26, who made an innocent last minute phone call in Arabic. It was a personal call to an uncle before takeoff, but a fellow passenger sitting nearby became afraid. As a result, Mr. Makhzoomi was booted off a recent Southwest Airlines flight and questioned by authorities. It was a mistake—and no doubt a hassle—but the needs of the many in this situation must outweigh the needs of the one. Naturally, Ms. Dvorak is intentionally oblivious to 21^st century realities that radical Islam confers. She assumes the worst of authorities, a groundless 1960s style discrimination, brown skin rather than black. However, in today's world issues are more complicated than the civil rights time warp between her ears. It's more than simple cultural misunderstandings or skin-deep prejudices she misconstrues in her divisive column.

In her superficiality, Ms. Dvorak could not resist the temptation to revisit the subject of teen hoaxer Ahmed Mohammad (better known by his internet nickname “clock boy”), now a resident of totalitarian Qatar. Then 14, in Irving, Texas, the middle school student took it “upon himself” to bring a dissembled, wires-exposed clock to school. Closer to the truth one suspects his media-seeking Imam Sudanese father likely put him up to this little stunt of virtual terror. As evidence, well beyond his tender years (and as skillfully as any progressive politician), Ahmed shifted blame from his wrongdoing. He used his 15 minutes of fame to also claim victimization and Islamophobia.

Using the Dvorak crystal ball, this half-wit nonsensically wants something said only when something is “sure,” but by definition, nothing in the real world is ever certain before it is investigated.

Consider the alternative if nothing had been reported or investigated by those wrongly cowed by political correctness. Imagine the public outrage if Ahmed's clock had been a bomb that caused another Sandy Hook? What of the potential grieving families if the plane crashed and Mr. Makhzoomi had been a terrorist collaborator? Unfortunately, scenarios of this type are not purely hypothetical. On November 5, 2009, in central Texas at Fort Hood, a homegrown U.S. Army officer Major Nidal Hasan went on a shooting rampage. He murdered 13 and wounding more than 30 others—most of them unarmed fellow soldiers. Also shocking, he's a medical doctor (specifically a psychiatrist), duty bound by profession to preserve life not take it. Instead, at a processing center armed with a semi-automatic pistol, he shouted “Allahu Akbar” (Arabic for “God is great”) and opened fire. The massacre lasted 10 minutes before he was subdued by civilian police. This is precisely what happens when people close their eyes to latent trouble.

Per a Congressional review, Major Hasan's superiors were concerned about his pattern of erratic behavior. Further, they suspected he had become radicalized. However, these legitimate suspicions did not prevent him from being transferred and promoted. His bosses feared being labeled Islamophobes. They saw many “somethings.” If they did say anything, it was not forceful enough. Their lack of vigilance cost lives in historically the worst mass murder at a U.S. military installation. As patriot Ben Franklin said: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” (The scribbler Dvorak should heed such sage advice.) In any case, related to Mr. Makhzoomi and “clock boy,” both observers and law enforcement made the right call: public safety must always trump individual inconvenience that zealousness causes.

While the occasional nutcase is a Christian zealot like Dylann Roof, the lion's share of worldwide mass murders are Islamic from the falling of the twin towers to more recently Paris and Brussels. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said, “We find ourselves in a new phase in the global terrorist threat, which requires a new . . . type of response,” in the Detroit Free Press. In practical terms, that logically translates into greater attention paid to certain segments of our society rather than others. Therefore, Muslims (same as non-Muslims targeted by radical Islam) should understand the necessity for additional scrutiny. It's not personal, it's simply “the way of the world.” Yet, tellingly, where are the marches protesting the violence committed in the name of their “peaceful” religion? Where are the leaders of Islam publicly disavowing radicalization?

The reality is that the American people need to use their peepers because we don't hear a “peep” out of peace-loving Muslims. Just because they turn a collective blind eye to the butchery committed by their fellows doesn't mean Westerners should make the same choice. In this regard, progressives who criticize those who act in good faith to curtail potential terrorist acts should be disregarded as the psychological cowards and immoral dupes they are.

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog
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