The Boy Who Held Back the Sea, and Other Musings

First, thanks to those who take the time to read my sometimes random and oft verbose thoughts.  The last post's views were the most since the Curmudgeon returned.

The title of tonight's post is a reference to the children's book of the same name, which recounted the story of the little Dutch boy who stuck his finger in the dike and saved Holland.

President Trump needs his own little Dutch boy.

The leaks by staffers of the various intelligence agencies that are either holdovers from The Golfing President's administration, or leftist sympathizers, or both, are insidious, and the President needs to plug them post-haste.

The left likely views the leakers' acts as heroic.  In fact, they are treasonous.  When there's a new sheriff in Washington, D.C., like him (or her) or not, those who work in government are bound by duty to serve him as they did the predecessor.  If they don't like it, they should do the honorable thing and quit, and try to get a job in the real world.  But if they work to undermine the government just because they disagree with the outcome of the election, they should be fired without severance at a minimum, and perhaps prosecuted.

That's a little extreme, my left-leaning friends might say.  Well, if a staffer leaks the transcript of a phone conversation between the nominee for Security Advisor and a foreign diplomat, or between the President and a foreign head of state, how far will they go?  What if there's a plan to take out a terror cell, but said staffer disagrees with it, so he or she leaks the details of the plan, and the terrorists are never caught - or worse yet, accelerate the attack they'd been planning?

Leaking confidential information is a slippery slope, and it can end in a justifiable treason charge.  So why not nip it in the bud?  (This will be misconstrued as fear-mongering - more on that in a musing below regarding the Executive Order on travel.)

Either way, President Trump may need to clean house.

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Having said the above, I'm glad Flynn's gone, because he screwed up.  He lied to a superior, and as a former general, he ought to know better.  Firing him was the responsible thing to do.

Tim Geithner was found to have cheated on his taxes, but President Obama supported him anyway, and he wound up being (a disastrous) Treasury Secretary.  Loretta Lynch met with Bill Clinton in an airplane during an investigation of Mrs. Clinton (then a POTUS candidate) for leaking classified information, and she didn't even get a wrist slap.  Mrs. Clinton herself used an unsecure private email server, and her former boss called it "a mistake."

It's refreshing to see a President to whom the word "accountability" has meaning.

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Regarding the travel EO, the left likes to make a big deal of the fact that there has never been a terror attack on U.S. soil by a refugee from any of the countries on the list.

True.  However:

1.  Given that, why did President Obama come up with the list to begin with, and where was the fake outrage from the left when he did?

2.  It's not about being reactive, it's about being proactive.  Refugees have committed acts of terror in Europe, and ISIS has threatened to infiltrate refugee programs to commit acts of terror in the U.S.  It's about prevention - should Americans have to die before we act to protect our citizens from threats?

My house has never caught fire, but I have a fire extinguisher.  I've never been personally sued, but I have an umbrella policy.  I've never been robbed, but I lock my doors at night and have an alarm system.

Do I do those things because I'm scared?  No.

I do those things because I'm not stupid.  And I have a home, a family and assets to protect.

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On to the infamous 77-minute presser.  I have to admit I cringed at times while watching it.

But I laughed more than I cringed.

Sure, the President said some things that were cringe-worthy.  But he also had his way with the media, in a way I haven't seen since Ali played rope-a-dope with George Foreman.

Actually, rope-a-dope is an apt analogy when speaking of the media.

I've been waiting for a President to take on the press like that for decades.  Today's media is nothing more than a leftist propaganda machine (okay, Fox News is a right-wing propaganda machine), and they don't deserve straight answers, because their questions - and their reporting of the answers - are about as straight as a West Virginia road.

Besides, the questions are intolerably vapid.  What are the qualifications to be a "journalist" these days?  Graduating at the bottom of your class?  Flunking every civics, economics, logic and English course you take?

Trump was having a field day with the press, enjoying every bit of it, and even predicting (accurately, it turns out) what they'd report the next day.  And it was very good theater.

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More protests.  But let's just call them what they are: tantrums.  Just like those thrown by toddlers who don't get the toy they wanted, and have to settle for a toy that their siblings chose.

Now, I fully support the right of every American to tantrum (tanter?  tant?  If we're going to make "tantrum" a verb to replace "protest," someone will need to help me conjugate it).

But - do these people have jobs?  Is it the same several hundred unemployed migrant tanters who turn out for every tantrum?  Or has the entire left given up their jobs for tanting?

Again, it's fine with me - until it becomes, or borders on, a criminal act.  For example, the tanters who prevented Betsy DeVos from visiting a school - basically keeping a government official from doing her job - should have been jailed.  As should those who destroy property or injure people.

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Now, about the ICE raids.  Let's start with the facts:

1.  They were planned during the Obama presidency, but the left still idolizes him.

2.  In fact, under Obama, ICE carried out numerous such raids, and on a much larger scale.  He deported more illegal immigrants than any POTUS in history.  Yet, the left still idolizes him.

3.  Those deported had committed illegal acts AFTER the illegal act of crossing the border - well, illegally.  Had Americans crossed into Mexico illegally, and committed crimes once there, they'd have been jailed and deported as well.

But the left were conjuring up images of jack-booted brownshirts - something they didn't do when their beloved Golfing President did. the. same. thing.

However, these are the same people who cry "fear-mongering!" when anyone supports the EO on travel, yet they monger fear when ICE does its job, at least under a Republican President.

Mr. Pot, Mr. Kettle is on line one.

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A final note: if one supports Trump in any way, shape or form, one is subjected to ridicule, hatred, and even death threats.

It happened to the electors.  It even happened to a celebrity who dared show up at an awards show (which have become nothing more than another venue for tanting) wearing a pro-Trump gown.

Her album sales, by the way, have soared.

One reader even asked whether I was concerned.  I'm not.

First, those on the left are anti-gun, so there needn't be any worry about being shot.  Second, they're pretty much all show and no go.  Remember, these are the same people who threatened to move to Canada if Trump was elected.

They're still here.

So what are they going to do to those they threaten: drown them in their tears?  Scald them to death with hot cocoa?  Smother them with those giant Vermont teddy bears?  Send them sailing into the stratosphere with the breeze from their flailing (and often misspelled) signs?

The only people who need fear the left are future Democrat candidates.  Because the left is increasingly turning off the rest of America with their extremist, nuclear rancor, to the point that everyone else is fed up, and may never vote for a Democrat again.