Rumors abound about Trump congressional address

Apparently president Trump is going to be calling for a $50 billion hike in defense spending and a 37% cut in the NSA budget. Or so rumor has it.  Tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern Time, he will address congress, and it will be televised.  

Speculation without a real credible leak (something the mainstream media has been struggling to create an image of themselves having), is pointless. What president Trump has to say, he will say tonight. I'm sure many people will be watching and hear for themselves, unfiltered, what his unofficial State of the Union will contain.

Back when Fox was banned by Obama

A good call-back to when then president Obama trying to cull Fox News from the media herd.  Now CNN is being treated the same way by the Trump administration. It's not exactly a tit-for-tat response, but the hypocrisy of the faux (or real) outrage, is cast in a truer light when you have all of the facts at hand.

Democrats Terminated?

Yesterday I was writing about how three stories showed how the liberal media was empowering president Trump to further victories, the day before, Brandon J. Weichert had a piece that took the view that the Democrats are facing permanent doom one step further;

Truth is, notwithstanding the “days of rage” the Left has been living out since Trump’s election, it’s been clear that the Democratic Party’s leadership grasped it could not maintain its high dudgeon for another two years (especially not with 25 Democrat-controlled Senate seats up for grabs in the 2018 midterms). After nearly four months of protests, public vitriol, and personal attacks directed against Republicans, the Democratic leadership has chosen a run-of-the-mill Democrat to lead them.

Perez is no moderate. He is a conventional liberal. So, while it is unlikely that one will get a Scoop Jackson-type of Democrat to moderate the influences of the manic Leftist base, one can expect a more programmatic, less populist version of Leftism on display. The Democrats are shaping up to nominate a Joe Biden-type in 2020 (possibly with Elizabeth Warren as the running mate, in order to satisfy the base).

But, barring some catastrophic event in the Trump presidency, this tactic will not work. Elements of the Left recognize that populism has taken hold in the country. However, they cannot bring themselves to understand that the explosion of populism is far more likely to benefit the Right than the Left.

He's not wrong and as a conservative, I'd say it's definitely a feel-good read. He argues that the Democrats in large have not understood the populism shift (in a larger view, the need to fix a system that has stopped working properly). He argues that they are left without labor (whom Trump has co-opted) and by selecting an insider they've cast aside their new core of socialists and are left with nothing. He may be right as far as 2018 and 2020 are concerned. To whom do Democrats have appeal left? Racial groups? Women? That didn't work in 2016.

But it's too easy to suggest that Democrats are done forever, especially because of a DNC leadership selection. While the new leader matters directionally, and it indicates that Democrats are sticking with the insider party elite, it doesn't follow, ipso facto to permanent minority status for Democrats. Five years ago people were saying that about Republicans but like Terminators, we knew that wasn't going to be the case. Insider elites can raise a lot of money. And while it didn't work for Hillary Clinton, that doesn't mean it can't ever work again. Money is still power, but it requires a voice that resonates. Someday Democrats will have that again. I hope it takes decades. In fact a successful Trump presidency means it could take many decades just like the FDR new deal is still the paradigm that governs government. I like what Brandon J. Weichert has to say. I just am skeptical. A decade in the wilderness will do that to you.

Good reads, tied together

There's a good article in the Princeton Alumni Weekly about Trump's electoral victory in 2016, that is free from bias and looks at the reasons behind his win - without vitriol or victorious glee.  It's definitely worth a read, and one of three articles today that actually tie together in a visceral way.

...He was an affable Muslim immigrant from Pakistan who appeared to be in his 50s. He’d been in America for nearly 30 years, raised his family here, and told a heart-wrenching story about being ostracized by his factory co-workers after Sept. 11 because of his religion. He moved on and started his own company and was now facing anxiety over a recently diagnosed medical condition.

“So who are you going to vote for?” I asked as a courtesy, convinced that I already knew the answer.

“Donald J. Trump,” he responded, to my surprise.

Some details on the Obama-media cabal in an interesting article at the less-than-pro-Trump Weekly Standard.

...Paired with that of her former officemate, Ned Price, Ahmed's story pushes the message that Trump is so bad that gifted public servants are resigning from their positions. The Washington Post story from late January incorrectly reporting that the mass exodus of senior officials from the State Department was unique to the Trump White House, rather than the normal bureaucratic turnover that greets every new administration, touched on the same narrative. In this case, it seems that Ahmed applied for a post only in order to resign from it, after collecting a paycheck for four days. Thus, U.S. taxpayers covered research expenses for an Atlantic story.

...But this is no longer simply about bias. Large parts of the press have willingly become instruments in a campaign of political warfare. This, as Rhodes told the New York Times Magazine, was the purpose of the echo chamber. "I'd prefer a sober, reasoned public debate, after which members of Congress reflect and take a vote," Rhodes explained. "But that's impossible."

The damage that the echo chamber has done to the public sphere is part of Obama's legacy—and, many contend, part of the reason for Trump's success. Payback is why the Trump White House banned the Times, CNN and several other major news organizations from a press briefing Friday.

Even American Spectator is talking about how president Trump gets it and how the liberal media cabal is shooting itself in the foot while handing president Trump his next victory in 2020.

President Trump’s fearless, effective handling of the liberal media redounds to his benefit in a manner never seen before in Republican politics.

He’s the first Republican president who responds immediately to biased reporting and doesn’t let a single charge go by unrefuted. He is totally unafraid of being combative and confrontational. He has empowered and emboldened his advisors and spokespeople, like Sean Spicer, Kellyanne Conway and Reince Priebus -- to act likewise, with effective results. For the first time, conservatives are not shouting at the TV out of frustration, “You should have said....” Now, the Trump administration says it.

President Trump makes liberal reporters with their all-too-obvious gotcha agendas look ridiculous. He shines the light of illegitimacy and bias on them for the entire world to see. “Fake News” is now part of the national lexicon. The more the liberal MSM try to deny it, the more they implicate themselves.

Taken alone each of these articles provide insight, but taken together, they provide a narrative that's pretty easy to follow.  Donald Trump won the presidency despite the media constantly vilifying him.  He won because people understand that the system needs fixing and he promised to fix it for the benefit of Americans.  The media are the same insiders from Democrat (and to a lesser extent, Republican) party elites.  They are mutually invested in the status quo and are engaged in an effort to maintain it by discrediting Trump.  It continues not to work for them and in fact is having the opposite effect of what they seek.  Despite Trump's lower than expected honeymoon period approval ratings, he has set himself up for success with the core issue of draining the swamp, eliminating the waste and putting American workers ahead of a (either perceived or real) globalist agenda. I previously stated Trump's presidency is not a day-to-day scoreboard.  As long as smart Democrats don't get heard, Trump's temporary lower approval will change dramatically over the next four years, in his favor.

Trump budget, delivering on what matters

I haven't seen any of president Trump's budget being sent to congress but from the sound of it, it's big on defense spending and big on cuts in other departments.  If so it will be delivered as promised.

...What matters to voters outside that bubble is substance — the actual policies, and the reality of having a president who works to keep campaign promises.

Team Trump understands that better than the media and Beltway do, at least in these first few weeks. The process stories need to get under better control to keep from presenting too much of a distraction, but the substance will overshadow process if Trump can deliver on it. That’s why CPAC turned into a love fest this past week — not because conservatives have surrendered to Trumpism, but because Trump is delivering substantively on the conservative agenda.

If Trump delivers jobs, a solid economy, and quality GDP growth it's not going to stop the protests, the media bashing or liberal opinion. But those things will matter far, far less than they already do, as fewer and fewer people listen to a militant few.

Oscar flub was political

Before I start on this, in case you didn't see it, here's some coverage of what happened.

Obviously it was a flub, right?  Well, probably.  But it also could have been a perverse political statement about equal rights (a film about an African American won after last year's blow up about the Academy Awards being too white), and more importantly, the idea that it's okay to have a do-over.  You make your mistake, you fix it, and you move on.  Like they want to do for president Trump.  It's no secret that 97% of Hollywood detests president Trump.  So could it have been a political statement? Yes.  And even if it wasn't, wait for some 'genius' in Hollywood to come up with the notion that everyone deserves a do-over, even America. And maybe in a way, Hollywood was also asking African Americans if they can have a do over for being too white.

On the other hand, many people watching it are going to think, "if Hollywood can't even get their own 12th pat on the back award show of the season correct, why would we care about anything that they have to say"?