Dumber than thou

If you want to figure out today's political scene, keep it simple and ask yourself: Who's better at the game?

The Democrats, having drifted en masse into Cloud Cuckoo Land, are the Stupid Party now (they claimed the title when they nominated the unelectable Hillary), so Trump's screwups, large and small, don't really hurt him.

It's not Trump as the Globetrotters vs. the Dems as the Washington Generals-more like a AA minor league baseball team vs. a high school team from Alaska. The minor league team may not be the best, but they'll beat the HS team every time.

Here are some things I really don't like

I don't mean to go all Andy Rooney on my readers (ah, the conceit that I have readers!), but it's a lot easier and more entertaining to write about things you don't like than those you do. (Right, Miriam?). Nobody wants to hear about how pretty the sunrise was, or that great dessert you had at Elaine's. (Elaine's is closed now anyway).


Nope-people want to hear why you hate Trump, or the Democrats, or kids driving around with bass blasters in their cars, or those little nasty yapper dogs, or people using their cell phones on speaker, or Jehovah's Witnesses (just tell them you didn't see the accident, as my late friend Rob used to say), or people who've had too much nip and tuck work, or people smoking pot at SEPTA stops that you're forced to ingest (the smoke, not the people, which would be even worse), or people on paleo diets, or vegans, or male white wine drinkers, or beer snobs (Can you imagine anything dumber to be a snob about? "I drink craft beer". Who cares? Beer ain't exactly upscale).....


No, I don't actually hate these people. I hope I don't literally hate anyone. But most of the people above really, really annoy me. I'm a conservative, so I believe in minimal government, but legislation directed at all of the above would have my full support.


Get cracking, McConnell.

Just a blog I like, and some thoughts on Trump

Miriam Sawyer has been blogging for many years. She's one of those very talented people that few have heard of, but whom no one would've heard of before the Internet, and blogging. So that counts for something.

She's written some very engaging stories about her crazy Jewish relatives, is a fine artist, and now offers up trenchant views on a stratified US. Here she noted that favorite hobby of rich lefties-virtue-signaling via Trump-bashing.

My own view on Trump is, I hope, a nuanced one. I take a (or "an", if you're hopelessly pedantic) historical view: Kennedy was a philanderer. LBJ was corrupt to an almost laughable degree. Obama sicced the IRS on his political opponents. Nixon was none too stable mentally. And so on.

Our presidents haven't exactly been a rogues' gallery, but they haven't all been Lincoln, either.

Trump fits right in.

Trump approval-down 5.9%

That is, Trump's current approval rating with registered/likely voters of 40.2%, according to the Real Clear Politics average of recent polls, represents a 5.9% drop from his election popular vote percentage.


That 40.2% compares unfavorably with his 42% figure the last time I checked this on September 21. Will a stronger economy and a grownup foreign policy push these numbers higher, or will Trump's hyper-ventilated reactions to all criticism continue to blot out his considerable achievements to date? I have no idea.

Links-mostly controversial

It looks like Obama spied on Trump and his campaign, as he also apparently did on reporters like Sharyl Attkisson. There should be outrage from all sides on this, but we're past the point where anything but results matters to the Left.

A fun little plaything-CodePen chord progression arpeggio generator. I've wasted hours with this.

Ray Fair, an economist famous for his election models, shows you here how fast you'll decline in chess and sports as you age. It's not pretty.


Buying the iPhone X-an exercise in irrationality. 

Want to know exactly what Bob Dylan played on his XM Satellite and Sirius XM radio shows? Now you can, or at least "the Best of".


Cardinal Dolan wants liberals to like him a little too much. Bending over backwards to avoid the dreaded label of "Islamophobia" doesn't show much spiritual leadership, but then again most of our American bishops act more like administrators than spiritual leaders.

Trump tracking-down 4.1%

In the Real Clear Politics average of RV/LV, Trump stands at 42% approval.

This is down 4.1% from his election popular vote percentage, but up from 40% last time I checked this on September 13.


I track this not only because because I'm interested in this figure, but because I track all sorts of stuff-health numbers like blood pressure and resting pulse, twitter tweets per follower, a wide variety of baseball stats, etc. I do love numbers.

Trump tracking-down 6.1%

Trump's average approval among registered/likely voters (RCP) is 40%. He got 46.1% of the vote last year.

I've been tracking this and will update it on occasion.


By the way, the full breakdown of the vote totals by David Wasserman is fascinating, at least to politics junkies like myself.

Trump steals black baby as trophy of TX trip, plans to make her White House mascot

As often as Trump says or does something beyond ridiculous, our "dispassionate" media will always out-Trump him. The two sides-the media, and Trump the media manipulator-truly deserve each other. They're basically Mo and Larry of the Three Stooges, poking each other in the eye on a daily basis. Enjoy the next three and a half years!

In any case, the above headline is a fake-I think. The difference between the National Enquirer and the New York Times is now more what schools the reporters went to than content.


We got Trump for a lot of nasty reasons, all of which are too unpleasant to detail, and he is no real antidote to any of that, but yes, Hillary would've been worse. That's what we're reduced to.

I didn't vote for him. I voted for Evan McMullin. The Mormon Roundhead.

Embarrassing.

Links-controversial and otherwise

Democrats' smears of GOP as racists, misogynists long predate Trump.

In fact, the Left's inability to make an argument for their position instead of libeling their opponents along these lines goes all the way back to Harry Truman.


Many people, Right and Left, now decry "mass incarceration". But unpleasant though it is, it means less crime. 

The New Atheists made the mistake of slamming Islam as well as Christianity, and have been bodily removed from the lefty funhouse. 


A "map of the soul": Michael Egnor, Professor of Neurological Surgery at Stony Brook University, says neuroscience confirms Aquinas' notion of will and intellect as immaterial things. 

List of the oldest living people. Violet Brown of Jamaica is the winner, at 117 years, 177 days. My Grandmother on my mother's side, who lived to 102, was a piker compared to these women (not many men in the bunch).

Miriam on the perils of the art business. 


Whose voices are you listening to? The search for worthy role models. I note, in pondering the conclusion reached here, that GK Chesterton was quite hefty.


Several of the links above come from this article by philosopher Edward Feser.

A few good links

Some worthwhile reads:

Lynn on enjoying the eclipse, and also enjoying things that we see every day. Which makes me think of this: click it! (TY Dustbury.)

Ann Althouse on the outrageous Trump. 


Terry Teachout names his favorite big band tracks. Well, there are no tracks by Maynard Ferguson, Don Ellis, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Buddy Rich, or Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, but it's still a nice grouping.

Edward Feser and Joe Bessette present the Catholic case for capital punishment. It's impossible to argue, from a Catholic perspective, that CP is intrinsically wrong, like abortion or euthanasia.


Megan McArdle-"As a woman in tech, I realized these are not my people". Reflections on the Google memo.

Cartoons can be useful. 

"God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another"-Hamlet. The Bard might wonder at some current lunacies, like presto-chango sexes.


Father Mitch Pacwa, no longer SJ, is tossed out of the Jesuits after being caught with a Catechism.



538 has the Dodgers getting to 114 wins, two shy of the record.

We must not question

To foster social harmony, the results of elections must be accepted unquestioningly by all parties, each and every time the Democrats win.

Thanks a hell of a lot, Trump voters!

Those of us who are pro-life, those of us who are conservatives on most issues-we're not crazy about the Trump takeover of our party, which for all its flaws, did provide a real ideological contrast to the contemporary version of liberalism, which is merely authoritarianism in a Brooks Brothers suit.

So, what to do? Well, I only have one vote, so it doesn't matter much in the larger scheme of things-but I won't be a party to setting back the pro-life cause. No Bleeping Way. So Hillary's out. Next: Is  Trump's pro-life "conversion" sincere? Is anything about Trump sincere? Could we assume, as so many do, that Trump would at least appoint better judges, ones more likely to not be avowedly pro-abortion, than Mrs. Clinton? Who knows? There are many Trumps, all of them unsavory.


And so it seems to me, at least at the moment, that Clintonism-rather than Hillary-is the real threat. As I implied above, I'm not at all sure Hillary would be a worse President on a whole host of issues, since A), Trump's history & instincts aren't right wing on much of anything; and B), a Trump win would eviscerate the conservatives in Congress and elsewhere-he'll owe them absolutely nothing.

By Clintonism I mean the rampant lawlessness and endless ethical quagmires Bill and Hillary drag themselves, and their supporters and friends, and all of us, into. Much more is yet to come on the server, the Foundation, etc. I have decided I will vote for neither, but will focus my vast influence (heh-I do have 6400 followers on twitter) on defeating Hillary. I want Hillary to lose but don't want Trump to win.

Hey, I voted for Cruz. I don't like being put in this position.