It’s Friday, February 3rd, 2017…but before we begin, we trust you’ll join us in commemorating two momentous events.  First, please join us in wishing our darling daughter-in-law Liz…

…the happiest of birthdays!  Like his father and grandfather before him, our eldest son married WAY over his head!

Second, we mark the retirement of the most brilliant creator of biting political satire we’ve ever had the honor to know and call a friend…and one of the two greatest we’ve ever had the pleasure to read:

Naming the greatest Hope ‘n Change cartoon is like having to choose our favorite Far Side…but here goes:

Stilt, to borrow a phrase from the immortal Ralph Kramden…

Your pictures and prose have been a continual source of inspiration and mirth; you’ll be sorely missed.

Now, here’s The Gouge!

We lead off the initial edition of February with Kyle Olson’s latest offering at The American Mirror, as he details Progressives’ accelerated descent into post-election insanity:

Passengers cheer as woman berating Trump supporter is kicked off plane

 

What you smell is the odor…

…of utter hypocrisy.

In a related item, courtesy of Townhall.com, the great Victor Davis Hanson reveals the source of the stench:

When Normalcy Is Revolution

 

“…For all the hysteria over the bluntness of the mercurial Trump, his agenda marks a return to what used to be seen as fairly normal, as the U.S. goes from hard left back to the populist center. Trump promises not just to reverse almost immediately all of Obama’s policies, but to do so in a pragmatic fashion that does not seem to be guided by any orthodox or consistently conservative ideology.

In normal times, Trumpism — again, the agenda as opposed to Trump the person — might be old hat. But after the last eight years, his correction has enraged millions.

Yet securing national borders seems pretty orthodox. In an age of anti-Western terrorism, placing temporary holds on would-be immigrants from war-torn zones until they can be vetted is hardly radical. Expecting “sanctuary cities” to follow federal laws rather than embrace the nullification strategies of the secessionist Old Confederacy is a return to the laws of the Constitution. Using the term “radical Islamic terror” in place of “workplace violence” or “man-caused disasters” is sensible, not subversive.

Insisting that NATO members meet their long-ignored defense-spending obligations is not provocative but overdue. Assuming that both the European Union and the United Nations are imploding is empirical, not unhinged. Questioning the secret side agreements of the Iran deal or failed Russian reset is facing reality. Making the Environmental Protection Agency follow laws rather than make laws is the way it always was supposed to be.

Unapologetically siding with Israel, the only free and democratic country in the Middle East, used to be standard U.S. policy until Obama was elected. Issuing executive orders has not been seen as revolutionary for the past few years — until now. Expecting the media to report the news rather than massage it to fit progressive agendas makes sense. In the past, proclaiming the Obama a “sort of god” or the smartest man ever to enter the presidency was not normal journalistic practice. (Though falsely impugning the intelligence of Republican Presidents and Vice-Presidents was!) Freezing federal hiring, clamping down on lobbyists and auditing big bureaucracies — after the Obama-era IRS, VA, GSA, EPA, State Department and Secret Service scandals — are overdue.

In sum, Trump seems a revolutionary, but that is only because he is loudly undoing a revolution.

Still, the WSJ‘s Dan Henninger offers a timely note of caution Trump and his world-beater-wannabes would do well to heed:

Trumpian Shock and Awe

Too many political forces are coming to life against the Trump presidency.

 

““Shock and awe,” a term of art from U.S. war doctrine, has been deployed by advocates of Donald Trump to describe the pace of executive actions the past two weeks. The military originators of this concept, which is famously associated with the Iraq invasion in 2003, said shock and awe was a “doctrine of rapid dominance” whose goal was to affect the will of an adversary “to fight or respond to our strategic policy.” That is the theory, and it fits the Trump strategic model: Put political actions in motion and force the world to adjust.

The Trump White House believed it was important for the president to fulfill his campaign commitments immediately, whether the border wall or the immigrant ban. Problems or objections could be dealt with later as the details got worked out.

So far, the White House’s shock and awe of executive orders mainly has effected a popular uprising, and not just in the streets.

…It may be true that the forces arrayed against Mr. Trump now are predictable—Democrats, career progressives and the media. But the half-done visa order has politicized people the administration didn’t need among the disaffected.

That includes the management and employees of the entire tech industry and of many other American companies. It includes some Republicans and important staff in Congress, numerous U.S. universities and research scientists, ambivalent pro-Trump voters, and foreign leaders such as Theresa May, Angela Merkel and Enrique Peña Nieto. Not to mention the men and women now rethinking offers to take subcabinet positions after watching the public humiliation of an unprepared federal attorney in a Brooklyn courtroom Saturday.

One can minimize the importance of any of these alone. But allowing networks of disaffection to form and spread could start tipping the political scales away from the Trump government’s goals.

The Democrats, dead in the water before Inauguration Day, have been given new energy. The fundraising and organizing spigots, always dependent on free publicity, are opening for 2018. On Monday the Democratic campaign committee published a target list of 33 GOP House seats in districts Hillary Clinton won or lost narrowly.

It is early days for Mr. Trump. This storm may pass. But Lyndon Johnson, the most deft of politicians, was never able to get control of similar forces, which undid his presidency when the antiwar movement of the 1960s took on a life of its own. This White House should not want an anti-Trump psychology, inflamed by the limitless gasoline of social media, to compete with and weaken the president’s support.

The White House could argue that clarifying battle lines in the public mind is important, and doing what’s right will win. But you had better be sure the correlation of forces stays in your favor. The graveyards are filled with generals who thought they had the right idea, before they were overrun.

Here’s hoping someone in the White House is listening!

Next up, a much-needed ray of sunshine for those still committed to the Founding Fathers’ version of Freedom of Speech:

Ben Shapiro Crushes Clock Boy in Court

 

On Thursday afternoon a Texas Judge dismissed a lawsuit filed against Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro by Mohammed Mohammed, the father of “clock boy” Ahmed Mohammed.

Claiming defamation, Mohammed filed the lawsuit in October 2015 after Shapiro made an appearance on The Kelly File questioning Ahmed’s story and motives surrounding a clock he brought to school that looked like a bomb. Ahmed was detained by police for the “clock” and was suspended. His family, who has ties to foreign regimes sponsoring terrorism, and CAIR promptly accused the school of Islamophobia and racial profiling.

Today, they were defeated in their quest to silence those who exposed them as activists, terror sympathizers and politically motivated. “Ben Shapiro has always been a steadfast advocate of the First Amendment and there was never any doubt he was going to stand up for his right to speak freely,” Shapiro’s attorney Kurt Schlichter of Schlichter & Shonack LLP in Los Angeles tells Townhall. “I’m very grateful that the state of Texas takes the First Amendment seriously, I only wish my own state of California would do the same, especially after the fiasco at Berkeley yesterday.”

According to the ruling, Shapiro is entitled to attorneys fees, court costs and other expenses from Mohammed. Payment must made within 14 days.

Yeah…

We’d hazard to guess there’s a greater chance of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei taking communion during Mass tomorrow at the Vatican.

Meanwhile, on The Lighter Side

Finally, meet…

…Glum and Glummer!  As long-time reader Larry Hoffman noted, we don’t care how many people attended Trump’s inauguration; we only care how many attended Hillary’s!!!

Magoo



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