January 14-18, 2019

Jan 14 03:10 The flaw in Schoen's thinking
Jan 14 22:02 The Democrats' image crisis

Jan 15 09:36 This isn't responsive government

Jan 16 01:48 Democrats: the party of no
Jan 16 15:34 DC shutdown stupidity

Jan 17 01:17 The Problem Solvers Caucus

Jan 18 00:58 CNN disease infects another journalist
Jan 18 11:02 Ilhan Omar's anti-Semitism
Jan 18 11:31 The MSM's double standard

Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
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The flaw in Schoen's thinking

Doug Schoen's op-ed sounds reasonable. Unfortunately, Schoen's thinking is flawed. For instance, Schoen is wrong in saying "People are working without paychecks and key agencies have stopped functioning, all while President Trump and the Democrats remain in a standoff over his unrelenting demand for $5 billion to build a border wall. It is clear that his plan is not working. Even key Republicans are growing increasingly frustrated with his lack of will to compromise."

What's actually clear is that Speaker Pelosi isn't willing to negotiate in good faith. For that matter, freshmen Democrats who ran on the promise that they'd never vote for Pelosi or who said that both parties needed new leadership have cheerfully followed Ms. Pelosi while keeping the government shut.

What's actually happening is that President Trump has negotiated in good faith. He's the only person who has put a detailed plan on the table. Further, when President Trump asked Ms. Pelosi if she'd provide any funding if he opened the government, Ms. Pelosi emphatically said she wouldn't. That isn't the path to good-faith compromise. Ms. Pelosi's is the path to obstructionism.

Watch this video, then tell Ms. Pelosi that this isn't a manufactured crisis:
[Video no longer available]
As these Angel families get more air time, the tide will turn, if it hasn't already. People will get assaulted with facts, which changes everything. When reality collides with spin, reality wins eventually.

If you live in the district of a freshman Democrat in a swing district, call them up. Tell them to stand up to Ms. Pelosi's my-way-or-the-highway negotiating. It's time to put a stop to Ms. Pelosi's hostage-taking.

Beginning with his Oval Office address last week, President Trump and his administration have carefully orchestrated for the dialogue to be about a 'national emergency' at the southern border, thus turning the entire political conversation to immigration and the need to build a wall. Will his plan work? It seems unlikely. But then again, his election was unlikely.

Schoen is wrong about Trump's plan. The border wall will work when combined with the other changes he's included in his plan. That's because he's spoken with Border Patrol agents. (Personally, I call them experts since they're the ones working along the border.) Pelosi and Sen. Schumer are just a pair of blowhard politicians with a political axe to grind. If given the choice between trusting an expert or a blowhard politician, I'll pick the expert every time.

If Schoen wants to trust blowhard politicians more than experts, that's his problem. I won't let him make it mine.

Posted Monday, January 14, 2019 3:10 AM

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The Democrats' image crisis

Let's be blunt about something. The Democrats' image crisis just got worse this weekend. It started with Sen. Schumer and Speaker Pelosi thought that it was a good idea to offer a rebuttal to President Trump's Oval Office speech on why the nation needs a border barrier. If asked how I'd phrase how they looked that night, I'm betting that that first thing that'd pop into my mind would be that Chuck and Nancy looked 'almost lifelike'.

The next day, President Trump invited the House and Senate leadership to the White House. Democrats insisted that President Trump re-open government immediately. President Trump asked whether Speaker Pelosi would fund his wall if he re-opened the government. She emphatically said she wouldn't, at which point President Trump said that the Democrats were wasting his time before leaving the Situation Room.

The Democrats were winning the fight until Chuck and Nancy turned themselves into a skit for SNL. Then they insisted that they wouldn't negotiate in good faith. At this point, public polling still shows them winning this fight. It won't show that a month from now. That's because 30 Democrats decided to accept lobbyists' invitation to fly down to Puerto Rico.

I'm sure they worked hard while down there, though this picture suggests otherwise:



President Trump and his conservative allies are slamming some Democrats for traveling to Puerto Rico over the weekend as the longest government shutdown in U.S. history continues to drag on.

"I've been here all weekend. A lot of democrats were in Puerto Rico celebrating something," the president told reporters Monday morning before heading to New Orleans to attend the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual convention. "I don't know, maybe they're celebrating the shutdown."

A contingent of more than 30 Democratic lawmakers, the largest delegation to visit Puerto Rico, traveled to the island to discuss post-Hurricane Maria recovery efforts, unpopular austerity measures and federal investment to the territory with local officials. The delegation is also there to participate in fundraising events hosted by Bold PAC, a political committee that serves as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus' fundraising arm. Presidential hopeful and former Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary Julian Castro also traveled to the island after launching his White House bid in San Antonio Saturday.

While President Trump waits in the White House to negotiate in good faith, Democrats insist on not taking this nation's security seriously. He's made Democrats an offer. He's even offered Democrats several immigration items that they've recently called for.

At some point in the not-so-distant future, Democrats will be seen as unreasonable. That's when they polling will flip.

Posted Monday, January 14, 2019 10:02 PM

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This isn't responsive government

I first started writing about the upcoming pilot shortage in this post in 2011. Of course, Earl Potter and Steve Rosenstone 'knew' better. Potter shut the program and Rosenstone kept it shut. What a pair of idiots.

This article highlights how disastrous their decisions were when it says "Boeing, for example, is estimating that over the next 20 years, North America will need about 117,000 more pilots. With this growing need, colleges and universities are starting to ramp up their aviation programs. Most recently, Rochester Community and Technical College announced they are looking at starting an Aviation Pilot Education Program. If the program is approved, the college says it will be designed for students to get an associate's degree in aviation and then transfer to Minnesota State University, Mankato to finish their bachelor's degree."

Minnesota doesn't need another aviation program. It needs at least 2 more aviation programs at the universities. In addition to training pilots, there's room for training drone operators and aerial fire rescue programs. Let's not forget that we'll need air traffic controllers, too.



Wright Aero is the only flight school in Central Minnesota and a former partner to the SCSU aviation program. Bill Mavencamp is the owner of Wright Aero. He says they currently have four flight instructors, about 10 less than they had at their peak in 2009.

"You can see what we've gone down to, it's going to be difficult to build back up with the lack of new pilots in the industry. Especially new local pilots, it's difficult to talk to a new flight instructor, who lives in Florida, to move to Minnesota."

Dave Kleis has campaigned for a regional airline here in St. Cloud. What airline is stupid enough to move here when there's such a half-hearted effort to maintain their workforce? We can now see that answer -- none.

Posted Tuesday, January 15, 2019 9:36 AM

Comment 1 by Crimson Trace at 15-Jan-19 11:53 AM
I see Rochester Community and Technical College's program is ready for takeoff.

https://www.rctc.edu/aviation/



Meanwhile, SCSU will NOT have town hall meetings with the public and have already made up their mind to keep aviation closed. Inquiring minds want to know WHY.

Comment 2 by Nick at 17-Jan-19 07:39 AM
The Major Airlines are all short mechanics in San Francisco and to a lesser extent Los Angeles and New York City. Regionals, everywhere, since they are mostly stepping stones for mechanics to get to the Majors.

Response 2.1 by Gary Gross at 17-Jan-19 10:03 AM
It's good hearing from you again, Nick. Here's hoping your career is going well.

Democrats: the party of no

It's becoming clearer each day that Democrats aren't interested in good-faith negotiations. It's pretty clear that Democrats are 'the Party of No.' President Trump invited Democrats to the White House multiple times, including Tuesday, when they failed to show up :

Congressional Democrats on Tuesday rejected President Trump's invitation to a lunch meeting at the White House to discuss border security, in the latest sign that both sides of the government shutdown standoff remain entrenched in their positions with no compromise in sight.

A senior administration official told Fox News that the president had invited Democrats to join his lunch with members of Congress in the Roosevelt Room shortly after noon. But moments before the session, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that nobody took them up on the offer.

Shifting from offering no money to offering to spend $1 to build the barrier, which is what Speaker Pelosi did, isn't negotiating in good faith. Meanwhile, President Trump has offered Democrats several different options in exchange for barrier funding. That's the definition of good faith negotiating.
[Video no longer available]
I can't picture this lasting much longer. If Democrats stay away from the negotiating table while not making a substantive counter-offer, I'd recommend President Trump use his emergency powers. The faster the Democrats' lawsuit gets filed, the faster the Supreme Court hears the case. Imagine the Supreme Court ruling in President Trump's favor in June, 2020. That'd guarantee his re-election. It'd also an uphill fight for House Democrats to retain their majority.

Posted Wednesday, January 16, 2019 1:48 AM

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DC shutdown stupidity

For days, I've heard pundits opine that the word 'wall' is what's preventing the shutdown from getting solved. It isn't. What's preventing it from getting solved is a single person -- Nancy Pelosi. It's her position to demolish the Trump Presidency. That's what it's always been. That's why this shutdown will end in one of 2 ways.

This shutdown will either end when President Trump declares a national emergency or when Republicans and Democrats put together legislation that funds the wall and that fixes other immigration problems, then 218 (or more) Republicans and Democrats in the House file a discharge petition to force that vote.

Members of the Problem Solvers Caucus met with President Trump today. Dean Phillips was one of those attending. While he's a member of the Caucus, he isn't in it wholeheartedly. During the campaign, he said that both parties needed new leadership. Then his first 2 votes were for Nancy Pelosi to be speaker. If that's his idea of new leadership, then he isn't a problem-solver.

Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Warner put his foot in his mouth during this interview:
[Video no longer available]
About a minute into the video, Sen. Warner said that we should listen to the experts. That' what I've been advocating for 2 weeks. If Democrats listened to Art del Queto, Thomas Homan, Bryan Dean Wright and Brandon Judd, this shutdown wouldn't have happened. Instead, Democrats have parroted Ms. Pelosi's line that walls are expensive and ineffective. These experts said the exact opposite.

Personally, I'll trust the experts over a windbag politician like Ms. Pelosi anytime.

Posted Wednesday, January 16, 2019 3:34 PM

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The Problem Solvers Caucus

Wednesday, President Trump invited members of the Problem Solvers Caucus to the White House to figure out a way to secure the border and re-open the federal government. After the meeting, all attending said all the right things: the meeting was productive, etc. I don't know if it actually was productive but that's what they said.

The bigger point that's been lost since the creation of the Problem Solvers Caucus is that everyone in the House, Senate and the White House are there to solve problems. That's what the American people expect of them. Why haven't the American people criticized Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Schumer mercilessly for playing political games? They've both voted for a barrier between the US and Mexico.

That means that this shutdown is about denying President Trump a political victory. But I digress.

Pelosi and Schumer are at the top of the Democrats' leadership hierarchy. Instead of providing leadership, they're acting like children. That's the definition of acting like a juvenile. They should both be thrown out as leaders for not providing pro-American leadership. (It doesn't help that partisan idiots like Peter Beinart write articles with titles like Nancy Pelosi is winning . What, exactly, is she supposedly winning? There's no proof that she's winning over hearts and minds. There's no proof that Republican voters are switching allegiances to the Democrats. She certainly isn't winning over Angel families:
[Video no longer available]
Check out the video about 3 minutes in. Nancy Pelosi hid in her office. Pelosi had her office staffers tell a significant gathering of Angel moms that she wasn't in the office. Then they found out she was in that office.

How can you negotiate with a lying witch like that? Obviously, you can't. As for the Problem Solvers Caucus, there's no reason to trust them. They're Democrats and ideologues first, representatives of their constituents last.

Republicans should highlight the Democrats' dishonesty each day. They should highlight that walls aren't immoral. Republicans should highlight that Democrats are highly immoral. Finally, Republicans should highlight the fact that the Democrats in the Problem Solvers Caucus can't be trusted until their actions prove that they're interested in solving problems.

Posted Thursday, January 17, 2019 1:17 AM

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CNN disease infects another journalist

Kirsten Powers was once a level-headed journalist/pundit. Then she went over to CNN. The rest is history. She's now just another wild voice of the left. This article is mostly about Gillette's ad on toxic masculinity:
[Video no longer available]
Powers' article starts by saying "The razor maker Gillette is taking on toxic masculinity. Based on the furious reaction to this effort in some quarters, the message is more needed than perhaps we even realized." At the risk of getting criticized, that's a pile of BS. The Urban Dictionary defines toxic masculinity this way:

Any male action that doesn't conform to liberal ideals of what a man SHOULD be in today's society. If he isn't sensitive, emotional and docile, he is accused of toxic masculinity.

That sounds like the definition of a sissy to me but that's another matter. Here's the heart of Powers' argument:

Gutfeld asserted that Gillette failed to recognize that "most men" condemn bad behavior "whenever they see it." How anyone can even utter a thought like this in light of the Catholic Church's ongoing sex abuse crisis is a mystery. In society at large, we have story after story, case after case, of women who were sexually harassed and even assaulted and who were completely ignored and often demonized when they complained. The legal system turned a deaf ear to them or re-traumatized them when they filed complaints.

That's a wimpy argument, mathematically speaking. According to Wikipedia , the number of Catholic priests has remained the same:

Worldwide, the number of priests in 1970 was 419,728.[2] In 2012, there were a total of 414,313 priests.[2] While the total number of priests worldwide has therefore remained about the same since 1970, the Catholic population has nearly doubled, growing from 653.6 million in 1970 to 1.229 billion in 2012.[2] In 2012 the global number of candidates for the priesthood also showed its first decline in recent years.[3] The number of parishes with no resident priest pastor has grown from 39,431 in 1970 to 49,153 in 2012.[2] The number of parishes without a priest does not include the thousands of parishes that have closed or merged for lack of priests.

In other words, the number of priests per parishioner has decreased dramatically. How can a person insist that Gutfeld's argument lacks merit? The numbers state the opposite.

The ad is mostly about virtue-signaling. It's also giving Gillette's rivals the upper hand in the marketplace. Once men leave Gillette, they won't return.

Posted Friday, January 18, 2019 12:58 AM

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Ilhan Omar's anti-Semitism

Ilhan Omar isn't skilled at hiding her anti-Semitism. In 2012, she tweeted this:


This week, Rep. Omar appeared on CNN to 'explain' that statement. She said "Those unfortunate words were the only words I could think about expressing at that moment. What is really important to me is that people recognize that there is a difference between criticizing a military action by a government that has exercised really oppressive policies, and being offensive or attacking to particular people of faith."

What's frightening is that Rep. Omar is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, though there's no record of that on her website .

Further, Rep. Omar said that Sen. Lindsey Graham was compromised without giving an explanation on why he's compromised:

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) struggled to defend a tweet accusing Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) of being "compromised" on Thursday, saying the proof was in how he was acting but giving no evidence and eventually saying it was just her opinion. CNN anchor Jim Sciutto, prefacing his question by saying "we need to ask you about this," read out her tweet and asked her to explain what she meant. Graham has been accused by some progressives of being blackmailed by the White House over being gay; Graham is a lifelong bachelor who is straight. The former fierce critic of President Donald Trump has aligned himself with the White House on some issues, he has also blasted Trump over his foreign policy.

It's difficult for me to believe I'm saying this but it's possible that Rep. Omar is a step down from Keith Ellison. Whether she's a step up or down from Ellison, she's unfit to be in Congress.
[Video no longer available]

Posted Friday, January 18, 2019 11:02 AM

Comment 1 by Chad Q at 19-Jan-19 11:20 AM
This is what happens when you have open borders for those seeking refugee/asylum status. We have enough hate in America without having to import more of it.

The MSM's double standard

It isn't news that the MSM has double standards in covering Republicans and Democrats. That's as old as the Hatfields and McCoys. Still, it's fun from time-to-time to look at the coverage. This article does a nice job of highlighting the MSM's hypocrisy:

The mainstream media widely praised House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she requested that President Trump delay his annual State of the Union address, but Trump's move to stop a Pelosi-led overseas trip amid the government shutdown was mostly frowned upon - showcasing the media's double standard.

But on Thursday, Trump abruptly denied military aircraft for a Democrat-delegation foreign trip just minutes before Pelosi and the congressional delegation was set to depart. One White House official claimed the aircraft decision was not a "response" to Pelosi's letter - but the same media that praised the House Speaker's genius condemned the president's decision.

Trump actually supplied a legitimate reason for postponing Pelosi's trip. Pelosi's reason was actually a bald-faced lie. Trump wanted Pelosi in town to negotiate the end of the shutdown, though that's unlikely because Pelosi insists that walls don't work. Pelosi told Trump that the Secret Service couldn't secure the event. That's despite the fact that the Speaker's office never contacted the Secret Service.

Simply put, Pelosi doesn't care about the furloughed government workers. She isn't interested in re-opening the government, either. She's just a cold-hearted bitch playing politics.

By comparison, President Trump is trying to fix a crisis. Despite the Democrats' claims to the contrary, walls work. Just ask Israel. For that matter, ask Steny Hoyer:
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The Agenda Media's double standard is sickening.

Posted Friday, January 18, 2019 11:32 AM

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