In these pages, I often have noted that, if Democrats specifically, and all Leftists generally, didn’t stand for hypocrisy, they would stand for nothing at all.  There is no better example of this maxim than the recently concluded Academy Awards show.  Let me preface this by noting that I never miss the Academy Awards; I never watch them, and I never miss them.  First of all, there are far too many awards shows; Golden Globes, People’s Choice, Emmy’s, Grammy’s, Kid’s Choice, hell, there’s a country music award show almost every week.  The idiocy of constantly handing out awards was neatly summed up by Woody Allen years ago; “And the award for best Fascist dictator – Adolph Hitler.”  The sad thing is that, if Hitler came back, put on a blue ribbon, and badmouthed Trump, they probably would give him an award.  A wise man, Donald Trump, lately has voiced the dirty little truth that other politicians scrupulously avoided – The Left, which is to say, Democrats, socialists, communists, anarchists, the denizens of Hollywood (except for John Voight, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, and a few others) and the Media, all speak with one voice, firmly dedicated to the proposition that there is only one side to every issue; their side.  Want to talk about hypocrisy?  The Left is the bunch that constantly lectures us about the evils of stereotyping.  You mustn’t stereotype minorities or members of some religious group.  I agree with that.  The problem is that Leftists consider any criticism of their constituency a stereotypical attack, which they combat by stereotyping the speaker.  Thus, all conservatives are denounced as extremists, racists, etc.  But back to the Hollywood crowd.  In league with the Media, those well known purveyors of fake news, actors are portrayed as philosophers, whose profound wisdom is to be prized by the great unwashed – that’s us, folks.  Never mind that many of them are morons, ill-educated buffoons, who never expressed a thought in a complete sentence that wasn’t written down for them by some script writer.  Actors are uniquely equipped to tell us how we must work, what we must be paid, what our national immigration laws must be, and who must be elected to office.  After all, these are people who make millions of dollars for a few days of what they consider work.  Who better to understand the plight of the common man?  To hear them tell it, Hollywood knows how to fix the borders, how to fix health care, how to do everything.  Never mind that they can’t even figure out how to hand the right envelope to the moron who is announcing the next stupid award.  That screw-up was the culmination of a well-rounded night of hypocrisy.  Iranian film maker Asghar Farhadi won the award for Best Foreign Language Film.  Farhadi had boycotted the awards because of the Trump Executive Orders temporarily restricting the entry of people from 7 nations, including Iran.  He instead sent Anousheh Ansari, the first Iranian in space, to read a statement.  Now, personally, I wouldn’t mind if all Iranians were shot into space.  Il Duce Obama once told NASA its purpose was supposed to be Muslim outreach, so I say, launch them all and “Mission Accomplished.”  I digress, Farhadi said, “I’m sorry I’m not with you tonight.  My absence is out of respect for the people of my country and those of the other six nations who have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the U.S.  The hypocrisy of an Iranian lecturing us about inhumane laws apparently was lost on the Hollywood crowd, which wildly applauded the statement. Iran executes more teenagers than any other nation, hanging about two people a day.  Iran arrests and flogs kids who dare to attend mixed-gender parties.  Iran brutally oppresses all who dissent, oppresses women, and executes gay people for the crime of homosexuality.  And the U.S. is inhumane, right?  Add to this, the movie eventually awarded Best Picture – Moonlight, the story of a gay black man.  I’ll bet that picture put up great box office numbers in Tehran.  Then there was Gael García Bernal, presenting the nominees for best animated feature film.  He spoke out against “walls,” like the one Trump intends to build at the U.S. – Mexican border.  “Flesh and blood actors are migrants, we travel all over the world, we build families, we construct stories, we build life that cannot be divided.  As a Mexican, as a Latin American, as a migrant worker, as a human being, I’m against any form of walls that want to separate us.” Again, major applause.  Perhaps Senor Bernal ought to take his protest to Mexican President Nieto, who even now, is fortifying Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala to stop the flow of Guatemalans and Hondurans into Mexico.  Viva la revolucion!  And last, but certainly least, there is Best Actor winner, Casey Affleck.  The Hollywood crowd, which denounced Donald Trump as a misogynistic defiler of women, handed its greatest award to a man recently sued for sexual harassment by two different women, who complained of his “unwelcome physical advances.”  In plain English, that means he grabbed them by the … well you know.  Even more alarming, is the fact that Affleck’s name will now forever be inscribed on that prestigious award, a man whose ancestors include, dare I say it,  a slaveholder, who owned 25 slaves.  It’s true.  Affleck’s bother, Ben, actually pressured Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates into cancelling a segment in his PBS documentary series, “Finding Your Roots” to remove any mention of the slaveholding history of his family.  Gates, that noted academic, was happy to oblige the Afflecks despite their past.  Now, Yale University recently changed the name of its Calhoun College, to remove any mention of slavery supporter John C. Calhoun, but no matter, some animals are more equal than others, after all.  Personally, I think we should demand that the Academy strip Affleck of the award because of the women’s complaints and his ancestry.  They can just say it was another mistake, and give the award to Denzel Washington.  Anybody who dared to complain about that is obviously racist.

I had thought that the allegation that Russia tried to influence the election in favor of Donald Trump was nonsense, but I now am convinced that the Russians may have done just that.  Hold on.  I haven’t gone over to the loony Left.  Hear me out.  The firestorm over the resignation of General Flynn as National Security Advisor has crystallized this issue.  Let’s take this one step at a time.  We know, because the December FBI/Homeland Security Report told us, that two groups of Russian hackers hacked into the server of the Democratic National Committee in the Fall of 2015 and April of 2016.  These hackers are known to have hacked into the computers of U.S. government agencies, corporations and universities, so this is nothing new.  Foreign governments have been probing for information and advantage for many years.  So supposedly, once into the DNC computers, they gained access to the emails of John Podesta, which then were leaked.  These leaked emails form the basis of the hysterical Democrat charge that “the Russians hacked our election.”  I don’t believe for a minute that these leaks changed the outcome of the election.  When you think about this “election hacking” charge, what the Dems really mean is that the hackers, whoever they were, released truthful information which prevented Hillary Clinton from perpetuating her continual lies on a variety of subjects.  In other words, for once, the voters were presented with the truth, which Democrats consider a threat to our democracy.  They don’t even realize that’s what they are arguing.  But, did the hackers actually gain access to Podesta’s emails by hacking into the DNC computers?  Maybe not, here’s another scenario.  You howling Democrats won’t like this, but you can place the blame right at the feet of one Hillary Clinton.  We know, because the FBI told us on November 3, 2016, that the FBI is 99% sure that Hillary’s unsecured and illegal, private email server was hacked repeatedly from 2009 to 2013 (when she was Secretary of State), by “hostile foreign actors” who gained access to the email accounts of everybody sharing emails with Hillary.  Of course, that would include people in and out of government service, including John Podesta.  According to the FBI’s November 3, 2016 report, Hillary’s illegal unsecured server was penetrated by no less than 5 groups of hackers from foreign countries.  Hillary’s illegal private server was the target of hackers 10 times in November 2010.  The Hillary server had to be shut down in January 2011 due to a hacking attempt.  In August 2011, Hillary’s server was targeted by hackers located in Russia.  In 2013 and 2014, the server was targeted by hackers in China, South Korea and Germany.  Now, Hillary Clinton, the smartest woman in the world, during all this time knew that she was about to run for President.  Despite that fact, the smartest woman in the world made no attempt to secure her illegal private server.  Instead, she continued to use the private server to disseminate highly classified information, knowing that foreign agents had penetrated the system.   Wow!  Now mind you, there are very few people in the government who want Hillary Clinton prosecuted for this activity.  They don’t want her investigated by an independent prosecutor.  Instead, the Democrats, and some Republicans, are intent on having an independent  prosecutor for an investigation (witch hunt) into Trump Administration collusion with Russian agents before and after the election.  The New York Times has reported that people connected to the Trump campaign had contact with Russian agents during the campaign.  President Trump denies this.  Here’s the important part.  What is the source for the Times’ allegation?  A Russian.  Huh?  Now, follow the illogic.  Although the FBI says it’s not sure if the Russian hackers were working for the Russian government, Trump haters swear that nothing happens in Russia unless Vladimir Putin approves it.   Hysterical Democrats, screaming for blood, have concocted an absurd narrative, in which Donald Trump made an unholy alliance with Putin, to have Putin influence the election in Trump’s favor, thus making Trump a puppet of Putin.  Hillary actually called Trump Putin’s puppet during the campaign.  And Putin was successful.  How do we know?  Because the Media assured Democrats that Hillary was going to win, and she lost.  Aha, those dirty Russkies!  But here’s where the ridiculous narrative falls apart.  Donald Trump denies there was any contact with Russia; no surprise there.  However, if Putin and Trump actually had been in cahoots, and if nothing happens in Russia without Putin’s approval, how do you explain the fact that, two days after the election, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister told a Russian News Agency that “there were numerous contacts during the campaign with members of Trump’s team?”  There is one, and only one explanation for this.  Vladimir Putin is a puppeteer, but he’s not pulling Trump’s strings.  It’s much worse.  Putin understood that there was a chance that an outsider could be elected President.  Putin knew that this was an opportunity to undermine and destabilize the U.S. government.  Had an Establishment candidate been elected, our government would still be polarized, beset by deep partisan divisions.  Install outsider Donald Trump as President and those divisions are magnified.  Democrats hate and despise Trump.  They thought he was illegitimate before this latest flap.  On the other side, Trump is not “of” the Republican Party.  That swamp he wants to drain contains as many Republicans as Democrats, perhaps more.  Trump wants to cut the federal workforce by 20%.  That cuts off patronage, the lifeblood of politics.  In short, Trump is a threat to both sides, and both sides want to do him in.  Hence, the latest “scandal,” which idiot N.Y. Times reporter Thomas Friedman says is on par with 911 and Pearl Harbor.  There must be an investigation!  He’s right about that.  There must be an investigation of who is illegally leaking wiretap conversations between General Flynn and the Russian Ambassador.  That is a violation of the Espionage Act, and other laws.  It is believed that the wiretaps were initiated by Il Duce Obama during the election campaign to help Hillary.  Only a very few suspects could have leaked this classified wiretap information to the newspapers.  A Grand Jury must be empaneled to get to the bottom of this.  Meanwhile, Putin the puppeteer is laughing up his sleeve.  All he had to do was have the Deputy Foreign Minister allege that there were contacts with Trump.  Now he can sit back and watch while our government tears itself apart.  Putin might have done it, but he didn’t do it to help Trump.  If we let him get away with it, shame on us.

More than 50 years ago, Bob Dylan sang that the times they are a changing.  Well, the times surely have changed, and not for the better.  There was a time, not so very long ago, when the media, then known as “the Press,” served to keep the government honest.  They doubted, they questioned, and when they uncovered chicanery or deception, they exposed it, on the basis that sunlight is the best disinfectant.  That changed, though.  About 25 years ago, Bill Clinton succeeded in changing the word “lie” to “spin.”  The Media embraced that change.  After that, the same Media which had bemoaned LBJ’s “credibility gap,” no longer was troubled by lies by Presidents of whom they approved.  The Fourth Estate thereupon became a Fifth Column.  From that point on, the truth was supposed to be whatever the Media claimed it to be.  As bad as was that change, however, we still were able to take solace in the law.  No matter what, justice would be done.  Our judges would see to it.  The Latin phrase is Fiat justitia ruat caelum, which means “let justice be done though the heavens fall.”  But, not anymore.  Leftists today seem to like Alexander Hamilton.  Of course, that’s because they only know the Broadway play.  I wonder what the Left would think about the real Hamilton?  In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton referred to the judiciary as the least dangerous branch of government, stating that judges under the Constitution would possess “neither force nor will, but merely judgment.”  Ah, those were the days.  Judges were to say what the law is, and not make policy.  This is because judicial review requires the judge to determine not whether the law leads to good or bad results, but whether the law violates the Constitution.  The Constitution separated the powers of the government into three parts.  The Congress makes the laws, the President enforces the laws, and the courts ensure that the laws do not run afoul of the Constitution.  This separation was essential, the Founders knew.  James Madison wrote that “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”  There has been conflict among the branches in our history, mostly between the Legislative and the Executive, but now, the Judiciary, Hamilton’s “least dangerous branch,” is disposed to tyranny.  President Trump issued Executive Orders suspending the entry of aliens from 7 nations which present a terrorist threat to America.  The President has plenary (complete) power when it comes to national security.  Congress is empowered to control immigration, but has given the President statutory authority to limit the entry of any aliens he finds to be a danger, and to do this by proclamation.  That is what President Trump did.  The Trump Orders  were virtually identical to Orders issued by Il Duce Obama in 2012 and 2016, and which involved some of the same countries covered by the Trump Orders.  The 9th Circuit Court continued the restraining order against the Trump Orders issued by the District Court in Seattle.  The Court did this without mention of the President’s constitutional authority, and without mention of the statute (8 U.S.C. 1182) that gives him the express and unambiguous authority to issue his Orders.   Instead, the Court said it disagreed with the policy, which is not the job of that Court or any court.  The District Court Judge in Seattle ruled that the government had not presented sufficient evidence to prove the 7 countries in the Orders to be a threat.  Apparently this “so-called” judge does not watch the news.  In so doing, the “so-called” judge was not a judge at all, but rather a partisan, advancing his own agenda.  The “so-called” judge actually quizzed the government’s attorney about how many persons from the affected countries had been arrested for terrorist acts, and concluded that he already knew that there had been no arrests.  Apart from being factually incorrect, evidence as to arrests also was irrelevant.  The government attorney took heat from ignorant critics suggesting that she was unprepared.  She wasn’t unprepared.  She had no information about arrests for two good reasons.  First of all, neither the attorney  nor the judge should be privy to national security information about ongoing threats from people in the 7 affected nations.  And secondly, proof of the existence of such threats was not required to uphold the Orders.  The “so-called” judge decided that he, and not the President of the United States, should be responsible to determine whether national security required a temporary suspension of entry of persons from the specified countries.  As noted above, the Congress has wisely vested this authority in the President.  Moreover, even absent this statutory authority, a President’s inherent constitutional powers, as Commander in Chief, vest decisions of this kind solely in the Executive.   Without expressly saying so, the “so-called” judge in Seattle has ruled unconstitutional both the President’s Executive Orders and the statute explicitly granting such authority to the President.  That would be bad enough, but in doing what he did, the “so-called” judge adopted a standard by which a President may not stop terrorists from entering the United States until or unless a court is satisfied that we already have been victimized by terrorist acts.  The notion that we should not be permitted to close the barn door until after the cow has burned down the barn is a dangerous and absurd view of the Constitution, the law and role of the judiciary.  Simply put, the “so-called” judge in Seattle either is ignorant of his proper role or has ceased to be a judge and now fancies himself a tyrant.  Either way, he should not be sitting on the bench.  He ought to be impeached.

It’s now three weeks into the Trump presidency, and our new President has politicians on both sides of aisle tied in knots.  The Establishment is frantically trying to keep up with this President.  Excuse the vulgarity, but Trump has them so flustered they don”t know whether to shit or wind their wristwatches.  Donald Trump simply runs at a different speed than Washington is used to.  Call it the speed of Trump.  In Einstein’s famous relativity equation, E=MC2, C stands for the speed of light.  Maybe we need a new equation for this President’s speed.  How about CT=FAST, where the speed of Trump equals Fearless; Active; Stubborn; and Tough.   Donald Trump was the only candidate in 2016 who understood what the voters wanted.   The electorate was fed up with Washington business as usual.  It wanted a change.  Simply put, the voters were longing for a President who would blow the whole place up.  Enter Donald Trump.  A political neophyte, who rejected the status quo.  He refused to play the game.  He refused to tailor his speech to the bland and meaningless drivel that is the norm for politicians.  He rolled over 16 more experienced Republicans.  Then, stunningly, he beat the dreaded Clinton machine, even though it wasn’t necessary for the Clintons to make up embarrassing charges against him.  There was plenty of real dirt, which would have done in any ordinary, mealy-mouthed politician.  But not Trump.  The Clintons didn’t get it.  The media didn’t get it.  I didn’t get it.  Donald Trump and his supporters got it, and he was able to become the first candidate in 100 years to be elected President despite losing his own State.  President Trump has been a whirlwind of activity.  Once again, the ordinary politicians are shocked, most of all because they have encountered the rarest of  all beasts, an elected official who actually intends to do exactly what he promised to do.  What’s worse, he intends to do all the things he promised to do right now.  What’s even worse for the Establishment is that President Trump only sleeps about four hours a day, so he has lots a time to do those things.  The Democrats have dealt with the Trump tornado by adopting the Groucho Marx response, “Whatever it is, I’m against it.”  As for the Republicans, the Trump phenomenon even has energized Senate Republicans.  Democrat delay tactics prompted Orin Hatch, a Mormon, to repeatedly call the Democrats’ dilatory conduct “crap.”  Mitch McConnell even grew a pair this week, employing Senate rules to silence a personal attack on our new Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth “Fauxcahontas” Warren.  Trump opponents are so confused, they can’t decide whether to complain that things are moving too fast or too slow.  On the one hand, they say Trump is moving too fast.  The border wall is being designed right now – not so fast, they warn.  They are in court over the temporary travel suspensions from 7 Mideast countries.  Again, they say, not so fast.  On those Executive Orders, by the way, what Democrats claim is a “ban on Muslims,” leaves 85% of the world’s Muslims free to enter the U.S., so it’s not a ban.  What’s more, if the (so-called) judges pay attention to the law, then Trump shouldn’t lose.  (They didn’t even mention the law, so he lost). The applicable law is set forth in 8 U.S.C. 1182, which deals with Inadmissible Aliens.  The pertinent portion of that statute reads, “Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”  Any judge who values his or her duty to impartially interpret the laws enacted by the Legislature should have no difficulty understanding that plain language.  On the other hand, Trump critics also complain that he’s moving too slow.  Trump promised to lower taxes, but it’s been 3 weeks, so where is the tax cut?  Not for nothing, but Il Duce Obama declared in his January 26, 2011 State of the Union speech that he favored a corporate tax rate cut.  Six years later, and the Obama tax cut never happened.  The Establishment didn’t complain about a 6 year delay, but 3 weeks is too long?  Then there’s the Unaffordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.  Why hasn’t it been repealed and replaced yet?  It took Democrats 100 years to get it passed.  After it was passed, Obama unlawfully amended and delayed its implementation on numerous occasions, for fear that voters would discover that what the Republicans had told us was true; it didn’t work.  These two items require the Congress to get up off its collective ass and do something.  With the Chief Executive moving at the speed of Trump, I have no doubt these things are coming.  Anyhow, the Democrats are in no hurry on these, as they are going to vote against and delay them any way they can, no matter when they come.  It’s not surprising that the Establishment doesn’t understand the Speed of Trump.  In Washington, any movement at all is surprising.

Continuing to prove that Il Duce Obama wasted his 8 years in office, President Trump last weekend continued his flurry of activity when he issued his long-promised Executive Order instituting a 90 to 120 day suspension of entry to the United States from 7 countries (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Sudan and Somalia).  This action came as a surprise to the Left, which had to mobilize its rent-a-mobs on short notice for protests at airports.  I bet they had to pay time and a half on the weekend.  The Executive Order should not have been a surprise, as Donald Trump has been talking about such action since he began his presidential campaign long, long ago.  The promised action was a temporary suspension of entry by people from the specified countries to permit a review and overhaul of the vetting system, in order to ensure that we are not permitting into America terrorists who are likely to do us harm.  After all, as a wise public servant once said, “For an immigration policy to make sense, it is necessary to make distinctions between those who obey the law and those who violate it.”  No, the speaker wasn’t Donald Trump, it was the late Democratic Congresswoman, Barbara Jordan.  Yes children, once upon a time, there were some Democrats who were reasonable.  The Trump Executive Order is designed to keep Americans safe in their homes and on the streets, which is the first duty of government.  Now, an action designed to enhance national security, so as to save the lives of Americans shouldn’t be controversial, right?  Wrong.  The Leftists went nuts, which is to say, they acted normally, because they are nuts.  There were immediate calls for impeachment, because the Order was unconstitutional.  No, it wasn’t.  In fact, the 7 countries on the exclusion list were the same 7 dangerous nations singled out by Il Duce Obama in legislation he signed in 2015.  That doesn’t matter.  Then again, Obama issued Executive Orders suspending entry by Syrians and Iranians in 2012, and by Libyans in 2016.  Nobody complained.  Nobody claimed that was unconstitutional.  It wasn’t.  President Trump’s Order was labelled a “ban on Muslims.”  Now, I understand that liberals don’t like to be burdened by the facts, but there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and Trump’s Order doesn’t limit entry from countries with over 1 billion Muslims, so if the Order was supposed to be a Muslim ban, it’s a damn poor ban.  An Executive Order affecting entry to the United States is not a novelty.  In 1930, Herbert Hoover ordered that no immigrant was to be admitted unless he could support himself.  In the depths of the Depression, the Order slashed immigration by 90%.  Apparently, restricting entry for financial reasons is legal, but restrictions for national security is not.  Democrats are nuts, see above.  Jimmy Carter suspended entry of Iranians in 1979, after the Iranians imprisoned our diplomats.  Nobody thought that was illegal.  The Left is protesting the Trump Order for two reasons.  First, Trump is an existential threat to Democrats, so they will complain about everything he does.  Secondly, we are in that transitional period between the Obama world, where there were no borders, and we had a President who didn’t acknowledge the threat of Islamic terrorism, and the Trump world, where we actually intend to enforce our laws and secure our borders.  How novel, and how controversial?  The truth is, we actually have a long history of restrictions on immigration, for you see, the regulation of immigration is one of the very few constitutional responsibilities granted to the federal government.  The history of such regulation highlights the contrast between what government once was and what it has become.  In 1875, we  prohibited the entry of convicts and prostitutes.  Today, Democrats oppose a President who wants to expel immigrants who have committed crimes in this country, and our elected officials are whores.  In 1882, we prohibited lunatics, idiots, and persons likely to become public charges.  Today, lunatics and idiots populate Hollywood and New York City, and we just got rid of a President who actively solicited the entry of immigrants guaranteed to become public charges.  In 1903, we prohibited political radicals.  Today, we call them Democrats.  In 1906, we required immigrants to have knowledge of English.  Today, Ingles?  Que es Ingles?  The next year, we excluded those with tuberculosis.  Today, there is a tuberculosis epidemic on the southern border, courtesy of the hundreds of thousands of illegals admitted by Obama.  And, since no one was looking, the illegals also brought with them chicken pox, measles and whooping cough.  Thank you Il Duce.  The Executive Order issued by President Trump should not have been controversial, but today’s Democrats have declared total war on this President.  They actually have announced a “scorched Earth” policy when it comes to anything proposed by Republicans.  As I write this, about 10 Cabinet appointees have yet to be voted on in the Senate.  The hateful (and teary eyed) Chuck Schumer has vowed to further delay those votes.  Protests of the Trump Order have ranged from the vitriolic to the nonsensical.  We even have been treated to the ridiculous argument that the Trump Order somehow offends the Statue of Liberty.  They cited the famous poem, The New Colossus, by Emma Lazarus, i.e., “bring us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” etc.  As the Great One, Mark Levin, recently noted, it’s the Statue of Liberty, not the Statue of Immigration, and she’s holding a torch, not a Molotov cocktail.  What’s more, the Statue is holding a book of law, not a welfare application, or an ISIS proclamation announcing a fatwa.  What President Trump has done was both necessary and reasonable, and it was long overdue.  For the record, after 8 years of Obama, it’s Americans who are tired, poorer, and yearning to breathe free.  The Trump Executive Order was a breath of fresh air, and the Left had better understand that Donald Trump is the New Colossus.