Trump in 2024... really?

Yesterday, President Donald J. Trump announced that he intends to run for the presidensity in 2025. "Quelle surprise!", said no-one at all. "Trump 2024" signs, flags, t-shirts, etc. had already appeared just over two years ago.

As in 2016 and 2020, his slogan will be "MAGA", although at one point in yesterday's speech he added "glorious", as in "Make America great and glorious again!" Whether this is even possible, given the low state into which the country has sunk on Brandon's watch, is debatable. But it's still a great slogan.

An even better slogan (IMHO), which has been voiced by millions of his supporters, if not directly by President Trump himself, is the one featured on the signs shown at left, now available at most Walmart stores (offer void in Philthydelphia, LA and Portland OR).

Mr Trump's speech, less bombastic than usual, offered little that was new. It was largely a mix of boasts about his record and attacks on the first two years of the Brandon presidency.

He said next to nothing about the hardships and missteps of the first years of the Covid pandemic. Nor did he talk about the events of Jan. 6th, or the fake "democracy is in danger" claims of the Democrats and their lickspittle media.

He didn't appear to have been weakened by, or indeed to have given any though to the lack of success of some of the star candidates he endorsed, who went down to defeat. Kari Lake and Dr Oz come to mind. Instead of indicating a rethink of why they might have lossed, he played to the issues which continue to be important to grassroots voters, such as immigration, crime, and Bidenflation.

As noted, the speech was low-key (by Mr Trump's standards), and there appeared to be little of the usual energy in the room. Nevertheless, his announcement drove news coverage last night, despite the attempts of President Brandon to shift the spotlight to the latest "crisis", the unexplained explosion near the Polish border with Ukraine.

Make what you will of the speech. The fact remains that President Trump has a base of loyal supporters who, even now, will turn out in their thousands just to be in The Presence.

That said, it cannot be denied that Mr Trump is no longer as popular as he was six years ago. Recent polls of Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire showed him trailing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in a head-to-head contest by double-digits.

Governor DeSantis also led in Florida by 26 points, and by 20 in Georgia. We'll see what happens to Trump-endorsed Herschel Walker in the Georgia run-off election on December 1st. If he loses, that will amount to an indirect vote of "no confidence" in President Trump.

The results of the midterms show that President Trump's words and actions in the weeks leading up to the election influenced voter behaviour... and may continue to do so well into the next election cycle. Many GOP candidates who voiced full-throated support for Mr Trump did poorly compared with others who were less vocal.  

Many Republicans are starting to say (cautiously) that Mr Trump has had his hour in the sun, that revenge is not a good plan for the future, and that it's time for a new generation to take over. They long for someone who can lead the GOP away from battles of the past, forward to victory in 2024.

The chief beneficiary of the sentiment for change is Ron DeSantis -- labelled "Ron DeSanctimonious" in last night's speech -- who trounced his opponent on November 8th, and carried most of Florida with him. (That includes a large chunk of the Hispanic vote, increasingly critical in the Sunshine State.) Mr DeSantis is 44. Mr Trump is 76. That's a hyuge generation gap! 

Among those saying that President Trump should pass the torch to Governor DeSantis is Lachlan Murdoch, the eldest son and heir apparent of Rupert Murdoch. The co-chair of News Corp. and director of the parent company of Fox News has reportedly told Mr DeSantis that the group would back him if he ran in the next election. 

"Lachlan has been keen on Ron for some time," said a source within the Murdoch group. "He's viewed within the organisation as a sanitised version of Donald." The New York Post calls him "DeFuture", and a Fox News column declares him "the new Republican party leader". Governor DeSantis has not yet declared his intention too compete for the GOP nomination. As usual, Walt sez... stay tuned!

VIDEO: Victor Davis Hanson analyses the midterms

In attempting to cover American politics, I find it's often better to read/listen to analysis from overseas. Leaving aside the Canadian legacy media, who have incurable cases of TDS, foreign commentators tend to be less biased. For that reason, I often check out videos from Sky News Australia and other reportage from the Land of Oz.

Today I want to share a lengthy interview posted on John Anderson's blogsite. Mr Anderson was leader of Australia's National Party from 1999 to 2005, and  served as the 11th Deputy Prime Minister of Australia. On November 10th he was joined by Victor Davis Hanson, whose commentaries have been featured on WWW.

Mr Davis (for those who don't know him) is an American farmer (!) who also happens to be a classicist, military historian, and columnist. He has written for the National Review and Washington Times, and is currently the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. In this interview, he considers what the results of the 2022 midterm elections mean for the major parties, the 2024 elections, and the American people. 

 

Note from Ed.: Readers should appreciate that at the time of the interview, the likely outcome -- which party should control Congress -- was much in doubt. As of dawn today (Saturday), it remains so. Mr Hanson's comments, summarized below, may not be his final thoughts.

Despite the policy blunders of the Biden administration, including overseeing rising inflation, illegal immigration and the spread of radical gender ideology, Mr Hanson points to the underlying malaise in American political culture that divides citizens into 'Red' and 'Blue' States as the greater threat to national stability. 

He argues that the failure of some candidates endorsed by President Trump, significantly higher election funding for the Democrats and the fracturing of the Republican party, are all contributed to the "red wave" becoming a mere ripple. 

Mr Hanson speaks with cautious optimism about promising new Republican leaders like Governor Ron DeSantis, who could unify the party and win upcoming presidential elections. Walt suggests it's time for die-hard Trumpers, as well as all conservatives, to give that suggestion serious thought.

VIDEO: Michael Matt: How to make America great again

In The Remnant Underground videos, Michael Matt, editor of The Remnant newspaper, usually talks chiefly about the crisis in the Roman Catholic Church. Lately though, Mr Matt is focusing on American politics. That's because recent elections, particularly the upcoming mid-terms, are contests between good and evil. Seriously! 

In spite of the Democrats' attempts to demonize President Trump and all his works, the fight is not so much between good people and bad people, but about whether America shall be ruled by people who espouse the morally evil policies of the left. Like abortion. 

President Brandon says that if the Democrats retain control of Congress, the first thing he will do is send them a bill to codify Roe v. Wade. He wants to make abortion on demand -- the killing of babies -- the law of the land. That's evil. Seriously!

Mr Matt says such policies, and those who promote them, must be resisted. How? Florida governor Ron DeSantis says we must "put on the full armor of God" and "stand firm against the Left's schemes." 

As Mr Matt says, it's good to hear Governor DeSantis and other politicians, such as Kari Lake, running for the governorship of Arizona, bring God into the debate. Watch this.... 

Mr Matt asserts, and Walt agrees, that there are rights and wrongs here, and we must stand up, speak up, and vote for what's right! The way to make America great again is to make America Christian again!

Further viewing: Click here to see the full episode (41:45) of The Remnant Underground, on Remnant TV.

Reparations for Wally!

In the past I have used the term "reparations shopping" to descreibe the shoplifting, theft and looting for which "mostly people protesters" and others are forgiven by guilt-ridden liberals, on the grounds that they (the looters) are "entitled" to some compensation for wrongs done to their ancestors in the distant past.

I mentioned the concept of reparations again last week in "National Be-nice-to-an-Indian Day", WWW 30/9/22. "All right-thinking, progressive (and White) Canucks -- and Americans too -- know that the indigenous peoples of North America were treated badly by the settlers who came across the big waters in their big canoes. Mistakes were made. Apologies have been tendered again and again. All that's needed now is... errr... reparations."

Scott Adams, whose excellent Dilbert comic strip has been dropped by 77 newspapers because he dared to make fun of racial and sexual identities, picked up on the theme in today's strip, in which Attorney Dogbert demands reparations for his client Wally. Walt (no relation to Wally, although there's a certain resemblance) hopes Mr Adams won't mind our reposting it.

If you're having trouble reading this, or want to see more Dilbert strips, or want to follow Dilbert, click here.

Footnote: Breitbart News reports that Governor Ron DeSantis (R) has warned "reparations shoppers" that Florida is a 2nd Amendment state!

What if everyone in Florida had had electric vehicles?

Agent 6, a sometime resident of Florida, e-mailed us to say that his residence on the Gulf side was not severely damaged by Hurricane Ian. A fence around the swimming pool was blown down, and some palm trees were damaged. After a hurricane (he writes) palm trees can look like someone took a torch to the leaves. The high wind actually burns the leaves turning them brown. I didn't know that.

6 sends along some food for thought, from an article by Thomas Lifson in American Thinker, 29/9/22. We trust they won't mind our reposting it, with verb tenses (only) changed as necessary.    

Large swaths of Florida’s heavily populated Gulf Coast were ordered evacuated. At least 300,000 people from the Tampa Bay area had to leave.

It is fortunate that as of the current moment, electric vehicles constitute only about 100,000, out of nearly 8 million vehicles registered to drive on Florida’s roads. What if they all were electric, the (impractical) dream dream of greenies?

Depending on how heavily loaded they were, even assuming everyone had a full battery charge, cars from southern Florida would start running out of juice after 100 – 250 miles. They would then have to spend hours at recharging stations, which would rapidly be clogged with other cars and trucks waiting their turn, since an electricity “fill up” can easily take an hour or more, as compared to a couple of minutes for gasoline. Cars waiting to be charged would spill onto the highways, potentially blocking traffic.

Those cars that ran out of juice on the highway would block traffic. Even assuming that emergency service vehicles could get to them (unlikely if the entire fleet were electric cars), towing a portable generator (powered by fossil fuels, of course) and recharging the stalled vehicles would take plenty of time, as well, further blocking traffic. The stranded cars would, of course, have no air conditioning, no wipers, no GPS.

In all likelihood, the highways would become vast parking lots, trapping their passengers wherever they happened to be stalled, waiting for the storm and flood waters to reach them, unable to get to safety.

It is a nightmare scenario, and it is perfectly predictable. California and other states have already mandated a conversion to an all-electric vehicle fleet. When natural disaster strikes and the fleet is electric vehicles, the disaster will be compounded if this mad scheme is carried through.

Footnote: Breitbart News reports that Governor Ron DeSantis (R) has warned looters that Florida is a 2nd Amendment state!

First ever Wally Award for Egregious Hypocrisy goes to...

Earlier today I complained... OK, I remarked... that things had been quiet on the political front. Too quiet! Although this November's mid-term elections could be the most important in decades, the Excited States of America seems to be slouching towards the voting polls.

There was, however, one story which made the lamestream press sit up and take notice, because it cut too close to the bone to suit the propagandists for President Brandon's Dumbocrats. They've been trying hard to toe the party line that there is no crisis at the southern border. Sure, a few [thousand] "folks" are entering the USA without proper immigrant status. It's OK (they say) because America needs immigrants. And they will be welcome in the "sanctuary cities" where liberal, right-thinking Americans -- unlike those racist Republicans -- will be glad to look after them.

This week, Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R) put that claim to the test by shipping 50 (count `em, 50) illegals to the very Democratic island of Martha's Vineyard, the playground of the rich and famous, notably former President Barack Hussein Obama II. The residents were not amused, nor were they compassionate. 

The undocumented migrants (to use the PC term) were shipped by bus and ferry to Cape Cod last Friday morning. It should have been easy to find places to put them up. According to the National Association of Realtors, about 55.5% of the homes on Martha's Vineyard are vacation homes, mostly vacant now that summer's over. 

According to the New York Post, one local resident even urged former President Barack Obama to offer up his $12 million Vineyard vacation manse for shelter. The Post didn't say if the resident had  his tongue in his cheek when he said that.

Apparently none of the vacation homeowners were willing to step up to the plate. Instead, they labelled the arrival of the unexpected visitorsus a "humanitarian crisis", providing care and shelter for them for two (count `em, 2) nights before putting them on a ferry back to the mainland, where they will now be looked after by... wait for it.... the Massachusetts National Guard.  

They were transferred to Joint Base Cape Cod, a former Air Force base known locally as Otis Air Base. Plans call for Governor Charlie Baker (D) to "activate up to 125 members of the Massachusetts National Guard as part of this relief effort." According to a statement from the governor, "The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) is coordinating efforts among state and local officials to ensure access to food, shelter and essential services for these men, women and children."

Walt is pleased indeed to award the residents of Dukes Country, which encompasses all six municipalities on Martha's Vineyard, our first ever Wally Award for Egregious Hypocrisy. Other "sanctuary cities" will surely follow your precedent as they plan their own compassionate response to the humanitarian crisis caused by [We regret that limitations of space do not allow us to publish the end of this sentence. Ed.]

VIDEO: Michael Matt: The Great Reset is failing, and other good news

Just when you thought the world was going to hell in the proverbial bucket, Michael Matt, editor of The Remnant newspaper, weighs in with a compedium of good news. "With mask mandates collapsing all over the country, and Blue state governors losing in court, there's an opportunity to push back against the COVID Stupid."

Mr Matt explains how even France is slowly loosening restrictions, while little Ireland brings up the rear. In fact, post-Catholic Ireland is almost as tyrannical as post-Catholic Canada -- two countries run by little men as maniacal as Joe Stalin but now with the technology to make the Orwell happen.

By the way, he says, "Justin Trudeau est un petit homme extrêmement ennuyeux." Walt knows, personally, scores of Canucks who agree that Mr Socks is a "little snivelling brown-noser" and are much more than annoyed.

The really good news -- "Covid's massive silver lining" -- is that modernist, liberal, progressive Christianity -- especially in the Catholic Church -- has been exposed for the sham that it is, and "is now on life support", while traditionalists are gaining strength and numbers all over the world. 

Mr Matt closes with a truly amazing sign of hope out of Poland, where the Sign the Cross transforms one of the children of darkness into a child of light... all caught on video. Check it out.

   

The Cross of Christ will save the world. 

The Cross of Christ will save you. 

The Cross of Christ will save me. 

The Cross of Christ is the Answer.

UPDATED: Pensacola shooter was Saudi airman! 6 others detained

Cazart!!!

The gunman who opened fire inside a classroom at the US Naval Air Station at Pensacola FL this morning, killing three people and injuring seven others, was reportedly a Saudi aviation student. The suspect has not yet been identified by authorities, nor will they admit that the mass murder was an act of Islamist terrorism. But according to the Clinton News Network (!), the shooter was a member of the Saudi military who was in the United States for training.

The suspect fired a handgun in the attack, which played out over two floors in a classroom building at a base whose main function is training. The FBI has taken over investigation into the shooting. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national attending training at the base as part of a long-standing Navy program open to US allies, of which the medieval Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one, apparently.

The motive for the violence was still under investigation. With his usual facility for ignoring the obvious, the Gov told the meeja, "There is obviously going to be a lot of questions about this individual being a foreign national, being a part of the Saudi Air Force and then to be here training on our soil. The government of Saudi Arabia needs to make things better for these victims. They are going to owe a debt here, given that this was one of their individuals."

Innocent question: Wasn't Pensacola "the cradle of aviation", where the 9/11 attackers (most of whom were Saudis) learned to fly planes into big buildings? Yet more of them are being allowed into the Paranoid States of America to learn the same things... for the same purpose??? Just askin'....

UPDATE ADDED 7/12/19: Late yesterday, Fox News reported that six (count `em, 6) Saudi nationals were detained for questioning Friday near the naval air station which was the site of the shootings. The FBI, which is leading the investigation into the shooting declined to reveal the identity of the shooter in the early stages of the investigation, but an unnamed US official told Fox News the gunman was an aviation student from Saudi Arabia named Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani. Ah yes, another "Mohammed" but of course his religion -- Muslims used to be called "Mohammedans" -- has nothing to do with his motives.

As the picture shows, the late Mohammed was a student in a US Navy training program for foreign military personnel. That program is aimed at "immersing international students in our US Navy training and culture" to help "build partnership capacity for both the present and for the years ahead," Commander Bill Gibson, the officer in charge, said in 2017. "These relationships are truly a win-win for everyone involved." Well, maybe not for those who were killed by Mohammed yesterday.

Florida, the new Zimbabwe

Regular readers of WWW [as oppoed to "irregular" border-crossers. Ed.] will know that Walt has an abiding interest in Zimbabwe, the failing African state whose name has become a metaphor for incompetence and corruption -- two nouns which have been much in use since November 8th as journalists and pundits struggle to describe the gubernatorial and senate elections in the Not-so-great State of Florida.

The ZANU-PF party has ruled the Land of Bambazonke since independence, thanks to its expertise in the rigging ["running", shurely! Ed.] of elections. For instance, when their candidate is trailing in the vote count, they simply stop counting! That's what happened in 2013 when weeks after polling day it was announced that President Mugabe had received the most votes, but not enough to prevent a run-off. The opposition candidate then withdrew from the race, leaving Comrade Bob to win in a landslide. See "'Incidences' from the Zimbabwean election", WWW 2/8/13.

They didn't risk having to compete in a run-off this year. All the results of July's polls were announced within 48 hours, except for that of the contest for the presidensity. After a couple of days of "They're coming just now," the government-appointed Zimbabwe Electoral Commision announced that Bob's successor, Comrade ED [No relation! Ed.] had won 50.8% of the vote, just enough to avoid a runoff. See "ED wins Zimbabwe presidential election - quelle surprise!" WWW 2/8/18.

Does this remind you of any election in any place you've been hearing about lately? How about Florida? In particular, how about Broward and Palm Beach Counties? I have no bias against those counties -- used to live there myself -- but can't help but notice that the stench of electoral corruption is worse than usual this year.

"Preliminary results" announced in the wee hours of Wednesday showed Republican Governor Rick Scott leading incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson in the contest for a US Senate seat, and Republican Ron DeSantis ahead of Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum in the race for the state house.

To nobody's surprise, the lamestream media refused to "project" a winner, saying it was too close to call, absentee ballots hadn't been counted, a recount was possible, and so on. Why? Because the election machinery was in the control of "non-partisan" officials such as Broward County's Supervisor of Elections, Brenda Snipes, who President Trump said "has had a horrible history..."

Here, from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, is what POTUS was talking about.

• In 2004, approximately 58,000 mail-in ballots were not delivered to voters.
• In 2012, nearly 1,000 uncounted ballots were discovered a week after the election.
• Election results in the 2016 primary were posted on the election office's website before the polls closed.
• A court ruled Snipes had broken election law when she destroyed ballots from the 2016 election 12 months after it, instead of the 22 months required by federal law.

Republicans blamed problems in Broward County on the design of the ballot there. “The ballot was laid out in an incompetent fashion by the incompetent supervisor of elections,” said Mr Scott's attorney, Bill Scherer, apparently referring to Mrs Snipes.

The analysts at FiveThirtyEight questioned whether the position of the Senate race on the Broward County ballot (at the bottom left-hand corner of Page 1) meant some voters skipped over the race. In Broward, some 26,060 fewer people casts voted in the Senate race compared with the governor’s race, a difference of 3.7%.

Mr Nelson's attorney, however, said he believes the problem was with the machine counters -- nothing to do with Mrs Snipes. "I am pretty confident what you are going to see are markings that were not picked up by the machines or a calibration issue that was not registering that part of the ballot," he said.

Reports that Brenda Snipes received her training in public administration in Zimbabwe are untrue. She comes from that hotbed of democracy, Talladega County AL. It's just a coincidence that the start of a statewide recount, which began Sunday morning, has been delayed by a series of technical glitches with the counting machines... in Broward County.

Stay tuned for the revised and improved results, due at 1500 EST on Thursday. Or call Mrs Snipes' office for the official figures. If you can't wait, call anytime!

Further reading: "What can we expect from Florida recount — 2018 edition?" by Brendan Swisher, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 10/11/18.