“Oh God, but I do love being king!”

Some of you may recall when I discovered back in 2009 that I had powers that even NASA didn’t know about: “I believe I’ve discovered that I have the power to make my dreams come true! “

Well not always but if the sun, the moon and the stars are aligned just right, whatever I dream that night comes true. There must have been one of those rare celestial occurrences last year about this time as I came across this post when I was clearing my cache the other day. I should note that at the time I was still a committed Ted Cruz delegate, so not only do I have the power to make my dreams come true, but apparently I possess the power of clairvoyance as well.

   Originally posted Saturday, February 27, 2016:

The Lion In Winter Trumps the Sleepers

“I've given up the looking glass; quicksilver has no sense of tact.” - The Lion in Winter

For reasons beyond the obvious, Janice the Elder’s parody of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” from yesterday’s thread made me think of another great movie that I should have added to our list of “great old movies” to watch in lieu of the debates: The Lion In Winter (1968 version not the 2003 remake). It is a tale of Machiavellian political intrigue and chicanery set in the 12th century:

Christmas 1183--an aging and conniving King Henry II plans a reunion where he hopes to name his successor. He summons the following people for the holiday: his scheming but imprisoned wife, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine; his mistress, Princess Alais, whom he wishes to marry; his three sons (Richard, Geoffrey, and John), all of whom desire the throne; and the young but crafty King Philip of France (who is also Alais' brother). With the fate of Henry's empire at stake, everybody engages in their own brand of deception and treachery to stake their claim. – IMBD

Not unlike this year’s Republican presidential primary season.

Think of the GOPe leadership as the Plantagenet King Henry: after his heir apparent was killed, he organizes a gathering of his clan in an attempt to choose a successor among his 3 remaining sons, none of whom he likes all that much and one of whom he despises.

The remaining potential heirs are a bunch of plotting, double-crossing, lying, family members vying for the crown. As the holiday winds on the power shifts back and forth numerous times. In the end however everything is exactly as it was when they began: King Henry decides to throw all the bums out and start over, Eleanor is sent back to prison, the three princes are still squabbling over who shall be king, Princess Alais, Henry’s mistress, is still caught in the middle, and Henry still has no clear successor.

The movie dialog is delicious. I found myself recycling some of it for the benefit of today’s race for the crown. 

  Trump, channeling Henry II:

Henry II: Oh God, but I do love being king!

 

 Kasich, channeling Prince John:

Prince John: Poor John. Who says poor John? Don't everybody sob at once! My God, if I went up in flames there's not a living soul who'd pee on me to put the fire out!

 

Trump to Jeb!:

Henry II: Now hear me, boy... Philip II: I am a king - I am no man's "boy"! Henry II: A king? Because you put your ass on purple cushions?

On the inevitability of Trump:

Henry II: The day those stout hearts band together is the day that pigs get wings. Eleanor: There'll be pork in the treetops come morning.

On Rubio, the Robot:

Henry II: Geoffrey: There's a masterpiece. He isn't flesh: he's a device. He's wheels and gears.

Cruz to Trump: 

Prince Richard: So! The royal corkscrew finds ME twisted?

Regarding Christie:

Eleanor: Well, that's the way deals are made. We've got him if we want him. He'll sell us all, you know... but only if he thinks we think he won't.

In summary: A tale of betrayal, treachery, and a knife fight: just another day on the trail leading up to the coronation of the Republican  presidential nominee. I leave you with perhaps the best line from the entire movie, from Princess Alais. It best reflects the country’s prevailing sentiment and mood right now:

Princess Alais: Kings, queens, knights everywhere you look and I'm the only pawn. I haven't got a thing to lose - that makes me dangerous.

And that my friends is why The Donald is probably the inevitable nominee.

Epilogue, February 26, 2017: Yes, my dream came true. Not only was The Donald the inevitable nominee, he was the inevitable President. Thanks to all of us pawns who had nothing to lose and finally banded together when we realized it. So far I’d say it’s working out pretty well, so you’re welcome.

In closing the President King has just one more thing to say – to the press:

Henry II: I know your plans and expectations - you've burbled every bit of strategy you've got. I know exactly what you will do, and exactly what you won't, and I've told you exactly nothing. To these aged eyes, boy, that's what winning looks like!

Next up: the Russian Bear. And no, we’re not tired of winning yet!

Russian Tea Room's Dancing Crystal Bear: best not take your eyes off those balls

Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and BlogsLucianneLoves, and Free Republic, Thanks!

The Media Will Not Participate In The Revolution

"In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act".

George Clooney was honored with the prestigious César d’Honneur Award for his services to film (?) last night in France.

“Let me take this opportunity to bash you with this blunt instrument I’ve just been awarded.”

Like all good little actors these days he used the opportunity to bash the new American President, telling the adoring fans that “love trumps hate; courage trumps fear.” Clever, and spoken like the true college dropout intellectual and Hollywood elitist he is; a man untouched by the crippling costs of Obamacare and oblivious to the economic impact that 8 years of Obamalism* has had on the majority of his fellow Americans.

All he is certain of is that Donald Trump (MBA ‘68 Wharton School of Business) is a moron and a hater and he feels it’s his responsibility to share his views with the world.

For his part, President Trump used his appearance at CPAC to beat the press again with a really big stick:

“They shouldn’t be allowed to make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name.” 

WHAT!?! Eliminate journalism’s sacred privilege? Remove their perceived shield against having to reveal their “unnamed sources.” Heresy!

Of course all that privilege is based on the theory that journalists are there to report the truth and that protecting them from revealing their sources serves a public interest by encouraging the disclosure of newsworthy information. It’s also premised on the theory that the press will maintain it’s independence:

If journalists are, or are seen as, investigative arms of the government or private interests, then the public might lose faith in their reporting and be loath to trust them with information. – CJR

Now that “journalism” has become advocacy reporting - which encourages the use of made up facts, exaggerations and sources so anonymous they don’t actually exist - I’m with President Trump: no more undisclosed sources. It simply provides cover for lies, liars and fake news. Remove ethics from journalism and you remove your right to “journalistic privilege,” period.

What a shame really to get rid of anonymous sources; to never have another Deep Throat. Just think of all the tropes we’d have missed out on if this had been the case back in the Watergate days.

#Pizzagate, to go

In other news today: Satanic cult gathers outside Trump Tower to put a hex on the President. Nobody notices.

*I’m coining a new term, “Obamalism” – Racist Socialism.

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Seizing the Revolution

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him. – Voltaire

It is peculiar how the Left, who likes to mock God-fearing Christians as “superstitious religious Neanderthals”  and “compulsive believers,” are quick to embrace their own secular religion of politically correct ideologies:

The reason these secular, individualistic and utilitarian ideologies are unchallengeable is that they’re held to represent not a point of view but virtue itself. That’s because they are all utopian. In their different ways, they represent an idea of the perfection of the world. So, class divisions would give way to equality, the capitalist despoliation of the planet would be replaced by organic communes and all hatred, prejudice and irrationality would be excised from the human heart. - The Uprising  Against Moral Extortion h/t pbird

Today I’d like to address specifically the Left’s concern with “the capitalist despoliation of the planet.” that is addressed by their adherence to the religion of Global Warming. The tenets of this faith are simple: evil man (especially white man) has used up all of the earth’s resources for their warmth, comfort and pleasure thereby angering Gaia who in turn is punishing us with droughts/storms/heat/cold and other climactic disasters. We can only placate her by making sacrifices.

The latest negation of the Left’s Global Warming belief system, based on “science” as defined by the new illuminati, is the complete, potentially catastrophic end of California’s drought. You know, the drought that the adherents of the virtuous religion of Global Warming told us repeatedly would never end, and thus no money needed to be “wasted” on improving existing dams or constructing new ones. Everyone simply knew we were going to die of thirst not floods:

Over the past week, we here in sunny insane California have faced the prospect of a major calamity as three merciless months of near-nonstop rainfall have led to the possibility of a massive failure at the tallest dam in the U.S., in Oroville, near Sacramento. It’s a big deal; 188,000 people have been evacuated. Concerns about how the aging Oroville Dam would fare in the face of record rainfall were raised years ago, but the state and the feds ignored them.

The story has been amply reported locally and nationally. But what the press conveniently leaves out of its coverage is the underlining theory behind the dam inaction: climate-change apocalyptics had convinced the Silly Putty-brained California powers-that-be that rain was never returning to the state. Quite literally, new dams, and improvements on old ones, were rejected because a doomsday cult had convinced politicians that water was “over,” that the drought that began in 2012 was not a passing thing but an “era,” something that would last decades if not a century. And why build new dams if there’ll be no water for them to hold? Why refurbish old ones if there’s no chance they’ll ever be filled again?

From the L.A. Times, July 2015:

Dams are a relic of the Industrial Age…. They’re particularly ill-suited to the era of extremes—heat waves, floods and droughts—that climate change has brought on.

The New Republic, April 2015:

The Pacific Institute’s Peter Gleick said: “Even if we built a couple of dams, we don’t have water to fill them. We’re tapped out. The traditional answer of building more reservoirs won’t solve our problems.” Building additional reservoirs does little when there’s no snow or rain to fill them.

Indeed, so certain were they of their “facts” that California Governor Moonbeam mocked those who thought the infrastructure should be shored up:

I’ve never heard of such utter ignorance. Building a dam won’t do a damn thing about fires or climate change or the absence of moisture in the air and ground of California. If they want to run for president, they had better do eighth grade science before they made such utterances.

Because their religion revealed to them that we were living in “an age of scarcity” with respect to water.

Because indeed, leftist voodoo practitioners had brainwashed the state into believing this was an “era of scarcity.” We were told that Mother Earth was punishing us for our CO2 sins by withholding her precious water, and rainfall would only return once we submitted to cap and trade and international climate-change treaties. And anyone who dared suggest that the drought was a passing thing, that weather was not permanent but fluctuating, was ridiculed for not knowing “eighth grade science.”  - Ghost Inside Your Haunted Head*

And now, back to Melanie Phillips Uprising Against Moral Extortion:

Like all ideologies, these ut’opian fantasies wrench facts and evidence to fit their governing idea. Because they purport to embody unchallengeable truths, they can permit no dissent. Independent thought thus becomes impossible. Everyone who opposes them must be bad.

Welcome to the Revolution; this time it’s ours. We are taking our morals back.

Along with our country. Be sure to follow along with President Trump’s Tweets.

*Taki Mag article by David Cole – who I know is  rather controversial – but he’s right about the Left’s religious hypocrisy, and I suppose he should know.

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Higher Education: The Higher You Go the Dumber You Get

First they came for the notebooks, and I did not speak out—
Because I did not use notebooks.

Then they came for the Post-it Notes, and I did not speak out—
Because I did not use Post-its.

Then they came for the whiteboards, and I did not speak out—
Because I did not use whiteboards.

Oh those whacky universities! They’re at it again, attempting to save the Snowflakes from themselves. I’m sorry to report that while this news comes from Michigan State University it could just as easily been from Anywhere U, even the venerable University of Michigan, political correctness being more valued than knowledge these days:

Starting this fall, Michigan State University will no longer allow students to hang whiteboards outside their dorm-room doors, saying the ubiquitous dry-erase boards have become too much of an outlet for anonymous, hateful messages.

MSU residential services spokeswoman Kat Cooper told WLNS News. “You know, once in a while, someone writes something that isn’t very nice.”

And stoopid

Cooper told the Detroit News that “in any given month, there are several incidents” of negative messages, some racial and others sexual.

Or even…Christian!

Basically, whiteboards are no longer an essential communication tool for today’s college students,” he said. “They are an attractive nuisance whose utility no longer outweighs their abuse.”

For those reasons, the university decided to remove whiteboards from the list of items allowed on dorm doors next semester, Cody said.

Though university officials said there was no single incident that led to the ban, the Lansing chapter of the NAACP hailed the decision on Facebook as a response to a recent case in which someone allegedly wrote the n-word on a whiteboard belonging to an African American honors student at MSU.

“It’s been a while but MSU Police have informed us that ALL dormatory (sic) white boards will be removed asap,” the group wrote. “Victory!!!”

Honey, if that’s your idea of victory I guess you can look forward to a whole lot of hollow WINNING! in your future.

And if whiteboard confiscation doesn’t do the trick, and haters just take to writing directly on the dorm doors, well, I think you know what to expect:

Even a few of the inmates in the asylum questioned the wisdom of their PC overlords:

“How is this a victory when every dorm resident will be punished because of one racist idiot? What does this accomplish exactly?” one Facebook user wrote in response to the NAACP chapter’s post. “It seems to me you’re giving more power to the racist. Should we have limited skyscrapers to only 10 stories after 9/11 in an effort to end terrorism? Help me to understand the reasoning and logic.”

And another brave soul ventured the observation that the school should focus more on finding the student who left the racial slur rather than:

“limiting everyones (sic) self expression and freedom of speech because one a–hole wrote the n-word.” Another person, he posited, could just as easily write something derogatory directly on the door in permanent marker. [ed. see solution, above]

But Michigan State didn’t rush into this without putting a lot of thought into it, and they’re not done yet:

Next year, the ban on whiteboards will be enforced by residence hall staff. The university is still working on a more detailed implementation plan, he said.

Seriously? A more detailed plan for taking whiteboards down? What are they going to do, hold sensitivity training on HOW to remove banned whiteboards? By replacing them with blackboards – with black chalk? So nobody will hurt themselves – or others?

Perfect!

Then they came for my iPhone – and there was nothing left to write on.

Here’s an idea, maybe the kids should skip the whole $100k college “education experience”  and just go directly to on-the-job black board training:

Where after just a few short weeks they’ll be allowed to write on their own blackboard – with colored chalk no less!

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Just Another Old White Guy

We’ve seen up-close and personal the face of the “Not My President Day” crowd, where anti-Trump protesters took the opportunity to bitch about whatever struck their fancy:

Yeah babes, we can hardly wait

Make mine the Carmel Brownie Blizzard,

and yes, I would like fries with that order.

And I’m sure you remember the yooge impact of the stupid Day Without (Illegal) Immigrants boycott:

I know one family who sincerely wishes that Monday had been a Day Without (Illegal) Immigrants.

Meet the perp:

Three Whittier Police Department officers were responding to the scene of a traffic collision about 8 a.m. when a 26-year-old, recently paroled man driving a stolen car opened fire with a semiautomatic pistol, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Lt. John Corina.

Detectives said the alleged gunman, who is expected to survive, is also a suspect in homicide that occurred in East Los Angeles. They believe he stole a vehicle Sunday morning after killing a man, his cousin, then drove into Whittier, where he encountered the police. - LA Times

Only in America would President Donald Trump be the bad guy in this scenario. But bad guy he is, according to our MSM – and they are committed to taking him out, as linked by Drama Queen last night:

Now, in the larger picture, this is part of an effort to destroy Donald Trump. You see, the media has finally learned that Donald Trump can’t be destroyed via conventional media tactics. He has been dealing with them since the late 70s, he knows them, and he never backs down. He is a hardened target. They’ve tried frontal assaults, they’ve tried siege tactics, they tried to sneak in the back door, and nothing has worked.

This attack is the first smart thing they’ve done since the election.

But they can still isolate him by destroying all of his prominent supporters, one-by-one. The supporters are less hardened to media blitz than he is. And if his support dries up, his administration will be a fortress cut off from the countryside. They can starve his administration and regain power in 2018 and 2020. Especially, it should be noted, if they manage to drive a wedge in the right wing in the meantime. – Declination

So buckle up buttercups, we’re in for a rough ride. But don’t worry; this isn’t the first Rough Rider in the White House who had to use his Bully Stick. And the last time things turned out alright.

Meh, just another old white guy.

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In a world of Kardashians…Be a Betty

In a world full of Kardashians…

be an Ivanka:

h/t Gerard

In a world full of Jugheads:

How about I wipe that smug off your mug?

Be a Betty:

Make that a Betty Ann:

Our Betty Ann. Oh sure, she looks angelic but(t) we know better.

“I just want you all to know that I have never done anything like is in my life. I have been an arm chair patriot, blogging, snarking, and trolling from the safety of my home. I think I just crossed a line of no return. I so easily and handily ate that lady's lunch, and she was the one they put out front to handle people like me. I think I can do this. I was calm and collected. It was fun actually, and I so completely, with pointing out a few obvious in your face facts, cleaned her little clock. And friends, it is such a small clock.”

Look out boys, Betty Lou Ann’s Getting Out Tonight.

Brace yourself now
And take a deep breath
Grab a hold of something
Hold on tight
Betty Lou's gettin' out tonight

- Bob Seger

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Happy Presidents’ Day To the Elitists Who Made This All Possible

I would wish everyone a “Happy Presidents’ Day” except I don’t think it’s politically correct to celebrate it anymore – seeing as how, so far, they’ve all been old white guys. So let’s reflect instead on this tweet from wretchardthecat (aka Richard Fernandez) for a moment:

Normalizing the abnormal and denormalizing the normal: it really takes a special kind of stupid to do that.

No wonder millennials are confused.

So on this Presidents’ Day let’s just be grateful that we have a President who is unequivocally not confused; he’s going to Make America Great Again regardless of what the confused elitists think.

Excerpts from a very important essay by Sultan Knish: The Elites are Revolting

Somewhere along the way the political projects of the left ceased to be revolutionary. The left won. It took control of nations and set about dismantling them. Its social and economic agendas became law. It ruled through a vast interconnected system of the bureaucracy, media, academia, non-profits and corporations. …

The left had come to envision its victory as inevitable. Its leaders enjoyed the divine right of kings bestowed on them by historical materialism. And so they couldn't see the revolution coming.

The inevitable elites and their power were overthrown. The little people they had been stepping on stormed the castle. All their pseudoscience had failed to predict it. Suddenly the future no longer belonged to the City or to Palo Alto. And its denizens poured out into the streets to protest.

The protests are taking place in the name of oppressed minorities, but like any dot com logo, that's branding. They are actually an angry reaction by an overthrown elite to a people's revolution…

President Trump said, "A nation without borders is not a nation." And that's exactly what the left wanted. No borders and no nations….

People need meaning. It is meaning that gives them a sense of worth. The angry leftist reactionaries find meaning in their post-everything world. The shattering of this world has driven them into the streets. And yet they can't grasp that it was the shattering of their world that drove so many working people to vote for Brexit or Trump. They refuse to comprehend that nations have meaning to more people than their post-national world order of interchangeable multicultural megacities does or that most people want something tangible to hold on to even if it requires labor and sacrifice.

It was a war between Davos, Conde Nast, GQ, Soros, MSNBC, Hollywood, Facebook and America. And America won. 

The "resistance" is a collection of elites, from actors at award shows to fashion magazines to tech billionaires, decrying a popular revolt against their rule. They are not the resistance. They are dictators in exile. They had their chance to impose their vision on the people. And they lost. The revolution will not be brought to you by BMW, by a Davos conference, by $100 cologne that smells like nothing or by Facebook lobbying. It will be brought to you by the comeback of America. - Read the whole thing

So from a most decidedly post-normal world I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you, elitists, for making all this not just possible, but inevitable:

Happy Presidents’ Day, Mr President!

Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and BlogsLucianneLoves, and Free Republic, Thanks!

Musings From Dad’s Diner

Dad’s Diner: in continuous operation from1921-2017

I received an email from RobinH on Friday advising me that she had forwarded a very generous memorial in honor of Raj’s Dad from the good people of the MOTI. There is simply no way that I can tell you how touched -  and honored - we are by your care, concern and overwhelming generosity. To all who contributed, please accept our sincere thanks for such a fine tribute for such a fine man.

We will split the donation between Dad’s parish church, Queen of the Miraculous Medal, and Lumen Christi High School, home of the Titans – his favorite athletic teams of all time. Unless he was under the weather or out of town he attended virtually every one of the school’s football, basketball and hockey games, watching first his children and later his grandchildren play. He was such an avid fan that he was granted honorary team staff status which came with free season tickets for all sports. You would have thought he won the lottery. He continued to attend their games until his hip replacement finally sidelined him at age 91.

He was also a life long fan of the Detroit Lions, Pistons and Red Wings. And while the Pistons and Red Wings had their days in the sun, sadly Dad went to meet his maker before the Lions could overcome  “The Curse of Bobby Layne.” It’s possible his great grandchildren will still be waiting for a Super Bowl win by the Lions.

Like many of the Greatest Generation, he was the child of immigrants; his parents being from Germany. He was the youngest of 6 children and grew up on a truck farm. He enlisted in the Navy after the outbreak of WWII and as a  cadet was sent to the University of Southern California where he received accelerated math, trigonometry and aeronautics classes in preparation for pilot school.

Dad completed training and earned his wings to fly the Vought OS2U Kingfisher.

To his eternal dismay by the time he earned his wings, the Navy had too many scout observation pilots and he was among the recruits who were washed out and sent to navigator school where he earned his navigator wings and was assigned to the flight crew of a Consolidated PB-2Y-2s Coronado stationed in the Pacific:

They were awesome beasts that really didn’t look like they should fly at all, let alone take off from the water. His last mission was flying troops and supplies into Tokyo Bay for the post-surrender occupation.

After the war Dad returned to the family farm where he took care of his mother, became the unofficial “Mayor of Woodville”  - a title he retained for life – and met and married the love of his life, Virginia Jean.

“You’ll always be the one I love.”

He fathered nine children and started a furniture and flooring business with his wife that continues in operation to this day in the hands of four of his children. And now he’s left this earth, just days shy of his 96th birthday, leaving behind  9 children, 15 grandchildren, 2 great grandchildren and a prosperous business.

While Dad’s absence leaves a terrible void in the warp and woof of our lives, and though he will be missed terribly, I can’t help but think that perhaps he looked around and determined that his work here was finally done…

that he felt he was leaving things in good hands.

“OK, take it from here, you young whippersnapper.”

After all, even the Greatest Generation were young whippersnappers at one time.

Again, our sincere thanks to the bestest blog family in the entire blogosphere. You can never know how much your prayers, thoughts, messages and wonderful memorial for Raj’s Dad have meant to us. You would have loved him, and I know he would have loved all of you.

P.S. Special thanks to Robin for handling all the administrative duties associated with your kindness.

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