Air India crash: Trump reacts

As the headline says:

Trump on Le Pen ban in France

He's not wrong:

Some reactions to Colorado trying to disqualify president Trump

Dave Rubin shares president Trump's reaction, Robert F. Kennedy's reaction and a bit of his own. I already shared Vivek Ramaswamy's great reaction, as well as my own thoughts that go into the why and the eventual consequences for Democrats.

A reaction video and common sense

The reaction video for Oliver Anthony is good but I'm more impressed with this young lady's common sense.

Reaction to why they aren't going after Biden

There's a theory that they aren't going after Let's Go Brandon, whom even the left doesn't like, because they are protecting someone else: Obama. What follows is a reaction to that.

More ASU reaction

I'm tired of hearing about race in America, and I'm about to contribute to it.  But when someone has a common sense lens on things, they deserve to be recognized for thoughtful consideration of issues.  Simply Jai reacts to the ASU video.  She's grounded even though this clearly upset her.

Democratic candidates' debate

I have to applaud those who sat through the clown show that was the Democratic candidates' debate in order to critique the absolute buffoonery on display; I could not make it through 10 minutes.  It was painful to watch and I just couldn't do it.  I was hoping the foolishness would be entertaining, and I'm sure in the right context it would be.  But here's the problem - too many people in the venue believe the garbage being spewed is gospel.  So too, too many people watching on TV are swallowing this tripe whole.  And what's worse, I thought a lot of the candidates do not actually believe their own hate-filled, factually deficient bile, but it seems they actually do believe their own rhetorical extremes.

Kudos to these guys for sticking it out and offering their opinions; they have stronger stomachs than I do.

I know at some point I will have to watch some of these train wrecks but I can wait until they've whittled it down to a reasonable 12 or so candidates...

A couple more Mueller statement reactions

Newt Gingrich:



Ben Shapiro (the short version):

Reactions to Mueller's statement

Mueller's statement to the press should have been redacted except for the part where he was resigning.

Here are a few reactions:

Friday Musical Interlude - Eminence Front, a reaction

One prolific reaction video channel is Tre Narcisse's Fish Out Of Water.  He reacts to easily 3 videos a day on most days, sometimes even 5 or 6.  Last August he reacted to The Who's Eminence Front.

His reactions to a song he hears for the first time and appreciates are great.

A reaction to Don Lemon's silly reaction to Kanye West and Donald Trump

An interesting, quality reaction to the Kanye West meeting with Donald Trump at the White House, and specifically CNN's Don Lemon's reaction to that meeting.

Friday Musical Interlude - First time listening reaction to Bohemian Rhapsody

Multiple reactions to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody from first time listeners.











Not a first time, but still a good reaction.

Friday Musical Interlude - Multiple reactions to Van Halen

Multiple Youtubers, hearing Van Halen for the first time. (Warning: language, in every single one.)

Lost In Vegas reaction to Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love.


Hectic reaction to Eruption:


WeeabooReacts has a reaction to the same video:


There are a number of others reacting to the same song with equal incredulity, but here's one for Unchained instead for variety.

Friday Musical Interlude - Reaction videos

As a change of pace, I thought I'd include something that I've started watching recently: people reacting to music videos for songs they have never heard before. It falls into a couple of categories from what I've seen, either people stepping outside of their own genre of musical tastes or younger people reacting to older songs they've never heard before.  It's interesting to watch, especially when they are surprised they love their discovery.

Here are two reaction videos from WeeabooReacts.  I'm starting here because his reaction videos were the first ones that made an impression on me.  I don't recall but one of his might be the first reaction video I ever saw. 

First Fleetwood Mac's Dreams and second, Van Halen's Eruption guitar solo, in a live performance.  Warning - he swears a lot, but the reactions are priceless.

A reaction to reactions on Trump speech (left and right)

Donald Trump's speech to congress last night was about as expected. The reaction was not what I'd expected though. Nevertheless, come to think of it, the reaction is not at all surprising. In fact it's informative, or more aptly, confirmational that while perceptions are not changing, tactics definitely are.

Let's start with CNN, and their relatively positive response. It's possible that CNN has been licking their wounds from the banishment from the White House press conferences, and felt obligated to ratchet down the constant negative spin. Maybe they've realized that it's costing them viewership, or credibility, or both. I don't think that's their motivation, but take a look at the result, regardless of the reason:

(CNN) President Donald Trump's first address to Congress received largely positive reviews from viewers, with 57% who tuned in saying they had a very positive reaction to the speech, according to a new CNN/ORC poll of speech-watchers.

Nearly 7-in-10 who watched said the President's proposed policies would move the country in the right direction and almost two-thirds said the president has the right priorities for the country. Overall, about 7-in-10 said the speech made them feel more optimistic about the direction of the country.

There's no negative spin there. The negative spin would have been not to share the poll results, because that's pretty good for president Trump. And then there was this from their semi-permanent panelist and socialist darling Van Jones:

Clearly CNN is cutting back on the vitriolic attacks and admitting, yes, Trump is president. He's a president to be disagreed with on issues, but still president. They are not alone though. And that's why I don't think this is about access rights, or ratings. It's about a different tack on the liberal agenda. Maybe the smart Democrats are finally being heard. 

The Washington Post, in addition to highlighting the van Jones piece above in an opinion piece, also had this story about liberal actress Jennifer Garner as an unlikely Trump ally:

Jennifer Garner has not given up on Donald Trump’s Washington.

The 44-year-old actress spent the weekend lobbying the town’s pillars of power to support early education for poor rural children. She spent Friday on Capitol Hill meeting dozens of top staff members. On Saturday, she delivered the keynote address before the annual National Governors Association winter meeting here. A potential sit-down with Ivanka Trump, who is advocating for more funding for child care, fell apart because of scheduling conflicts, but Garner remained optimistic about a face-to-face discussion soon.

And Politico;

Voters seem to agree, regardless of how they feel about Trump's priorities. A new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows that 56 percent of 2,000 registered voters polled Feb. 24 through Feb. 26 say that Trump is staying true to his 2016 campaign message, and 66 percent say Trump has accomplished what was expected of him — or more. Overall, half of voters approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 45 percent disapprove.

There's more but three pillars of liberal punditry all saying Trump was presidential last night, he hit the right notes (politically) etc., is enough to make the point. Democrat elites have started saying the impeachment talk has to stop. They get it apparently; they have only been hurting themselves with the never ending drumbeat of hate. That's too bad for conservatives, because it was definitely working in our favor. That said, it doesn't mean that liberals will be able to fight on policy. They haven't tried that approach for decades, so I'd expect some rust. Furthermore, who is to say they can sustain a logic-based counter-argument long enough not to fall back into angry Social Justice Warrior space? The new approach is both refreshing and annoying at the same time, but it isn't likely to be significantly more or less effective than the riot-in-the-streets approach. What matters now is results, and the results are going to be driven, or not driven by president Trump. In other words, the Republicans have the ball; they're on offense. Democrats seem to finally understand that they are on defense and do not get act, only react. If president Trump is successful, how they oppose him won't matter. But if he fails to deliver, how they oppose does matter. That's where the policy driven opposition over the impeachment type arguments will matter.

Interestingly at the other end of the spectrum, libertarian John Zeigler believes Trump has killed conservatism.

...we would not have massive increases in government spending and power instituted under a ‘Republican’ president, thus ending, for all time, any chance that we ever return to Reagan-like principles of smaller government before we inevitably suffer a financial implosion under the weight of massive debt.

For the first time since taking office, Trump was, for him, remarkably disciplined and, yes, really rather ‘presidential.’ Ironically, that was mostly because he stuck strictly to the very same teleprompter which he has roundly mocked Barack Obama for relying on too much.

While he is no Obama when it comes to his mastery of reading skills, he benefits from such incredibly low expectations that him simply not having a Ron Burgundy-like Anchorman meltdown makes him seem like Brian Williams in his prime. There were no moments of extreme egotism (at least by his standards), no attacks on the media or even Hillary, and no overtly apparent bald-faced lies. He didn’t even say anything nice about his BFF Vladimir Putin.

He hit on all the major points that got him elected (even while shifting his positions on some of them) and laid out a populist agenda, which had to sound real good to a lot of ‘regular’ people who haven’t already completely written him off.

Maybe the left has, pardon the phrase Moved On, but it appears many of those who are/were/identify with the Never Trump crowd on the right, still might not have managed to do so. That's a pity. Donald Trump may have recognized before many on the right, that conservatism of the Reagan era is not possible in this era of demographics and coalitions of overlapping interests. Reagan era conservatism is not forever gone. The road back to it however, is more than a single step. President Trump's delivery on jobs will make further steps back possible. The path back to real conservatism in America might not be the straight line conservatives would hope for, but it is a path. And considering how far along the progressive socialist path America has travelled since the 1980's, any path back should be welcome. It's a bad sign that more elites on the left seem to get that Trump's populism presents an opportunity than those elites on the right seem to realize. They may better recognize Trump as transitory to something else. That's the real danger to the future of conservatism, not that Trump wants to spend a trillion on infrastructure and won't get it, or will only get a portion of it.

Bill Whittle reacts to Trump win

Bill Whittle - so right on so many things:

It's Over: Obama loses Europe.

TKO.  Explained below.

This past weekend Tim Geithner made some unsolicited remarks about European debt. President Obama has followed suit. Both remarks have not been well received.  In fact, they've been harsh. Admittedly, that is deservedly so.  The president's White House is casting about for a villain, any villain, that it can use as a shield against criticism on it's woefully bad attempts at economic recovery.  If the Republican's won't do, blame Europe, if that doesn't catch on, maybe it reverts back to blame Bush.

Obama's Reaction To China's Reaction To Obama

My latest post on China's reaction to the latest U.S. arms deal with Taiwan and the economic implications, only has a couple of ways it can play out. China's further actions depend on President Obama's reactions to their threats. And Obama's reactions, depend as always, on what makes sense for him politically, and also what fits his agenda.

The choices for Obama are pretty simple. Obama can relent to China's threats, or he can press on with the sale of arms to Taiwan.

The case for relenting is straight forward. The U.S. economy would not be subjected to an unquantifiable dollar devaluation shock and possible plunge back into a recession as a result of increased interest rates and further savings and reduced spending that would result. Chinese relations would be less strained simply because China would get what they wanted - a weakened Taiwan and a facing down of the other Superpower. That said, it avoids the dollar correction that is needed to combat the ever-present trade imbalance.

Nevertheless, the economic shock isn't the biggest deal for the President. He's said in the past he wouldn't care if the price of gasoline went to $5 per gallon, but he'd wished it went more gradually and wasn't such a shock to consumers. So, he's indicated he's not in favor of shocks to the system per se, but that corrections are okay. What his real drivers are his agenda. He wants to spend that money. He's got social programs to foist upon the unwilling unwashed mases, like health care. He wants that debt to have money to spend. He doesn't even see the point in getting "savings" from Medicare to pay for Health Care is not real. When you cut Medicare all you are doing is reducing the debt you are going to incur over time. But he sees that "savings" as money he can spend on his health care plans. All he's doing is changing the name of the debt. What's driving him is that urge to spend.

How does that relate to Obama's Taiwan deal? Well, arms sales do represent revenue, a small amount. And they do represent geo-political obligations that must be addressed, since the U.S. doesn't have the resources to defend Taiwan from China.

But really the implications come from China's threat. How does the President react? Backing down is bad geo-politically in the Asian theater. It emboldens China and leaves not only Taiwan, but South Korea, and Japan feeling a bit stranded. There are domestic implications too. A further sign of weakness would hurt Obama's job approval in the national security area. The right already sees him as soft, but no one, save the far left, would see backing down as a cause for celebration. It's a sign of weakness and Americans would recognize it for just that.

The case for not relenting is almost the mirror image. The dollar would not be safe. But it would curb the appetite for imports. Taiwan, South Korea and Japan would all be thankful. But domestically the president would certainly score points for having some backbone with China. It would be a welcome change. But would China then carry through on it's threat? It would almost have to do so, or it would be weakened in the eyes of itself and it's neighbors. And if China starts undercutting the dollar by flooding the market with U.S. debt, you'll see interest rates rise, spending decline and the recession return. The President would face a November with unemployment at 12%. That's just not feasible.

So it would seem the logical course for President Obama is to back down. That is unless he believes China is bluffing. After all, it was a military suggestion to try using economic activity to stifle a military issue for them. It didn't come from the ruling Communist Party directly. Not yet. So it could be merely posturing. President Obama finds himself in a poker game here, with the weaker hand and no easy way out. The best he can hope for is the opportunity to do nothing as the situation blows over on it's own. If it's not on his agenda list, that seems to be his favorite approach (like voting present on bills, like going with the flow). I don't know if that can work here, unless Chinese officials first come out and denounce their military's opinion. But don't hold your breath. As the Chinese military has just brazenly pointed out - geo-politics is just as economic as it is martial. And China isn't looking to get saddled with another trillion dollars in U.S. debt.