The Morning Rant

--The first principle of 'Trumpism' is this: The number one priority of the country's chief executive is the security and prosperity of the American people.

--Corollary: The number one priority of the country's chief executive is NOT the subordination of American interests to some transnational, borderless global world order where we have to foot the bill for every stupid socialist experiment advanced by corrupt European bureaucrats.

--Oh, and by the way: America is the greatest country in history and has been the hope of oppressed and misgoverned people all over the world for many years. That is something to be proud of. She does not need to shuffle across the world stage in sackcloth and ashes begging forgiveness for her sins. Whatever sins America has committed are dwarfed by her achievements.

--Unfriendly countries and bad actors on the world stage whose actions harm America or her people (one and the same, really) can expect to pay a price for their misdeeds.

--Currently, the chief threat outside our national borders is China. Not the Chinese people, but China insofar as it is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

--Currently, our chief threat *inside* our national borders is a tossup between the Democratic Party and agents acting on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. And there is some overlap between the two.

--We don't sending our young men and women to die in pointless wars in far-off places.

--We need to encourage America-based energy production and energy independence from foreign sources so we will have one less reason to send our young men and women to die in pointless wars in far-off places.

--Illegal immigration is a bad thing and should be minimized.

--Legal immigration should not be so great so as to disemploy our own citizens.

This is not an exhaustive list. I probably forgot a point or two. Feel free to suggest improvements in the comments.

Note that this is not an 'isolationist' political philosophy. It is certainly legitimate to make international trade deals, but we need to do so from a position of strength, so that the deal is to the advantage of the American people, and not to some far-off global bureaucracy.

The big weakness that I see is the debt problem. The national debt has not been much of a topic of national conversation for the last twenty years. The last time we passed a balanced budget was when a Republican congress forced President Bill Clinton to sign one. Time was when budgets were always balanced and if we ran up debt (which happened during war years), we paid it off afterwards. We don't do that now, though, we just run continually increasing deficits. This is obviously not sustainable, no matter what Paul Krugman may tell you. Sooner or later, it's going to have to be paid, or something is going to go crash. Trump never got around to addressing this problem, and I don't know if he ever intended to. Trump's greatest weakness was that he is not a doctrinaire conservative. But it's also his greatest strength.

UNiTy:

RIP:

Joe Signs His EOs:

Now This Looks More The The Future We Were Promised:

(click for larger view)

Who Dis:

For the 'Ettes:

Friday Who Dis: Of course I chose Cloris Leachman last time since she recently passed after a very long and successful career, mostly in television. But back in 1955, she had a small part in the film adaptation of Mickey Spillane's noir classic Kiss Me Deadly. Mike Hammer was played by Ralph Meeker, an alum of Northwestern, as was Charlton Heston and Patricia Neal.

Today's Edition Of The Morning Rant Is Brought To You By Spicy Korean Pork Belly:

posted by OregonMuse at 11:16 AM

| Access Comments