It’s Friday, August 3oth, 2019…but before we begin, writing at his Morning Jolt, Jim Geraghty addresses wholly-unwarranted criticism leveled at him by a representative of a “news” organization which needs to remove the log from its own collective eye before advising others to pick the speck from theirs:

“…Is looking at the bylines just too much effort? Or are there just a lot of numbskulls out there who believe that ever praising the president for anything he ever does somehow invalidates your criticism of him, and vice versa?

I never liked Trump’s character or how he sees the job on the presidency – talk-radio-caller-in-chief, don’t-bother-him-with-policy-details, demagogue-when-convenient — but I like some of the policies. I like almost all of the judicial nominations. I like tax cuts. I like rolling back federal regulations. I’m glad ISIS has been beaten to a pulp, if not completely eliminated. I like Right to Try for those facing terminal illnesses. I like the majority of the criminal-justice-reform legislation, particularly the anti-recidivism programs in federal prisons. I like getting rid of the individual mandate to purchase health insurance. I like keeping foreign aid money from paying for abortions. I want a secure border and concur with the Customs and Border Patrol that additional miles of barriers, or “bollard fence”, or whatever you prefer to call it is part of the solution (but not the entire solution). I like that the United States is now the world’s largest oil producer and a net natural-gas exporter, while our carbon emissions are declining slightly. I like blowing up Syrian air bases when Assad uses chemical weapons. I like NATO allies spending more on defense.

I also think that Trump only says variations of about six things – I am the greatest, that good thing that happened was because of me, it’s not my fault, my critics are terrible people, here’s a version of history that I just made up in my head, and look at that woman’s appearance. He’s got no business lecturing anybody else about loyalty, that he’s easily fooled by sycophantic idiots; his attacks on critics cross the line into racism (a conclusion with which we vehemently disagree!); he has indeed stoked xenophobic attitudes in this country, (again, a mischaracterization with which we take strong exception!) in part because he’s never contradicted his supporters’ belief that citizenship is conditional; he has the impulse control of a sugar-filled toddler; he constantly blames others for his own bad decisions; and he seems wildly naïve in his dealings with Kim Jong-un and certain other dictators.

I have an often-irritating president who gives me some of what I want — or who will at least sign some of what I want into law — up against a variety of options who pledge to give me almost nothing I want, and who are promising to repeal the things I like. I don’t particularly like this status quo, BUT I prefer it to a Bolshevik Revolution or turning our already-too-divided society into an endless status competition of woker-than-thou…”

Absent the qualifiers highlighted in green above, Mr. Geraghty speaks for us. (You can view Larry Elder expressing similar thoughts in a different way at our Video of the Day, accessible through link #2 immediately below our Quote of the Day at the top of the page.)

Here’s the juice: The Donald isn’t perfect; in fact, in many ways, like so many of us, he’s quite a ways…

Still, given the current crop of Communists vying for the Dimocratic nomination, what was true in 2016 is certain to remain accurate in 2020:

Turning from the often-irritating to the always-aggravating, if MSDNC management wonders why no one believes a thing their network’s talking-heads say, they should wonder no longer:

As has so often been the case of late with both MSLSD and CNN, it wasn’t, which forced O’Donnell to apologize and retract his baseless claim in the fact of threatened legal action:

Two thoughts: (1) if THIS doesn’t constitute Fake News, what on earth does?!?  Hells bells, even the WaPo recognizes this was, at best, egregiously “erroneous reporting“.  And, (2) it’s funny how such “errors in judgment” are always made in opposition to The Donald.

Oh,…and as Kim Strassel notes at the WSJ, his incredibly lame claims of vindication notwithstanding…

“Asked by the inspector general how a memo describing an official dinner between the FBI director and the president could be considered a “personal” document, Mr. Comey explains that he was also present in his capacity as a “human being.”

…Mr. Comey told the inspector general he had to do it because it was important to “the Nation,” and “I love this country.”…”

…if history is accurate, it will record Jim Comey as the… 

But then, you knew that!  As the Journal’s editors note:

“Translated from the bureaucratic prose: Mr. Comey thought he was above the rules because he wanted to save the country from Mr. Trump. No doubt J. Edgar Hoover felt a similar afflatus as he wiretapped Martin Luther King.

…Mr. Comey also deceived the FBI he claims to revere. Even Mr. Comey’s top staff didn’t buy his claim that memos he wrote as FBI director detailing interactions with the President were his personal property and not the federal government’s. The day after he was fired, an FBI agent came to his house to retrieve FBI property. Mr. Comey didn’t tell him he had copies of four of the memos in his personal safe.

Two days later, three agents plus the FBI’s deputy associate director and chief of staff again came to the house to retrieve government material, and again he failed to tell them about the memos in his safe. Nor did he tell anyone he had emailed copies of some memos to his personal attorneys.

The FBI first learned that Mr. Comey had shared at least one of the memos with someone outside the FBI during his June 8, 2017 congressional testimony. The IG says “members of Comey’s senior leadership” team used words such as “stunned” and “disappointment” to describe their reactions to learning their former boss had leaked a memo to the press through a friend…”

Truth be told, the only thing lamer than Jim Comey’s attempt at self-vindication is Joe Biden’s latest self-serving campaign recollection.

Thus does Hairplug Joe take his rightful place alongside the other patently prevaricating Progressives looking to burnish their own courage credentials, including, but not limited to, Hillary Clinton…

…Brian “Been There/Done That” Williams…

…and current Connecticut Senator Richard Wasn’tThereathal:

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up on the last edition of August, as you are probably now aware, NRO is reporting…

Ilhan Omar’s Campaign Has Paid Over $200,000 to Her Alleged Lover for ‘Fundraising Consulting’

“Representative Ilhan Omar’s (D., Minn.) campaigns have, since 2018, disbursed roughly $230,000 to a consulting firm owned by Tim Mynett, a fundraising strategist whose wife accused him of having an affair with Omar in a recent divorce filing obtained by the New York Post.

Omar’s 2018 campaign spent $62,674 on “fundraising consulting” services provided by Mynett’s E Street Group and the spending has only increased since. The freshman Democrat’s 2020 reelection campaign has, according to FEC data, spent $160,000 on Mynett’s services thus far in 2019, despite it being an off year.

Mynett, 38, disclosed the affair to his wife in April, professing his love for Omar and rejecting his 55-year-old wife’s attempts to repair their relationship.

“The parties physically separated on or about April 7, 2019, when Defendant told Plaintiff that he was romantically involved with and in love with another woman, Ilhan Omar,” reads the divorce filing, submitted in D.C. court on Tuesday.

Omar’s reelection campaign has laid out $21,547 in travel expenditures for Mynett since April but Mynett’s wife suggests the travel was not work-related in the divorce filing. “Defendant’s more recent travel and long work hours now appear to be more related to his affair with Rep. Omar than with his actual work commitments,” the divorce filing reads.

If Mynett’s wife is correct about the purpose of the campaign-funded travel, Omar may be facing an FEC violation. It wouldn’t be the first time; Omar was hit with a $500 fine (Wow: that had to hurt!) in June for improperly using campaign funds to travel to a conference in Florida.

Omar has previously faced questions about her marital history. In 2012, a series of social media posts identified her then-husband, Ahmed Elmi, as her child’s uncle, prompting speculation that she married her brother to skirt U.S. immigration law. She has refused to address the controversy, which gained traction earlier this year after evidence emerged that she likely lied to Minnesota authorities about her knowledge of Elmi’s whereabouts in order to obtain a no-fault divorce.“

Meanwhile, perhaps in a ploy to distract attention from her marital indiscretions, her cosmic stream of stupidity continues unabated, as…

Omar calls for UN to handle migration crisis at the southern border

“Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., told a Minneapolis audience this week that the United Nations should be brought in to oversee the migration crisis (note the term: “migration crisis”, not “illegal immigration crisis”; and this is from FOX!!!) at the southern border.

“We should do what any other country does, by dealing with this situation in a serious way,” she told the audience on Tuesday. “So we have to bring in the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees – an agency that has the expertise and the training to handle massive flows of refugees humanely.” Earlier, she declared that the U.S. is “losing our moral high ground” on the question of immigration and asylum. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that she made the remarks at a town hall on immigration in south Minneapolis.

“We are treating people like criminals when they have not committed a crime,” she said. “It doesn’t make any sense for us to be committing these kinds of human rights violations, to have these policies in the way we interact with migrants and asylum seekers if we want to continue to be the kind of country that condemns countries in Africa, in Asia or Latin American countries for its treatment of refugees and asylum seekers,” she said…”

Only a Socialist would suggest surrendering national sovereignty to the only body more inefficient and corrupt than the federal government.

Since we’re on the subject of endemic bureaucratic corruption at the highest levels, the WSJ notes the existence of…

The Federal Reserve Resistance

A recent official urges the central bank to help defeat Donald Trump.

“Perhaps you’ve seen former Chairs of the Federal Reserve defending the central bank’s independence and foreswearing all political intentions. Fair enough. But then what are we to make of former Fed monetary Vice Chair William Dudley’s marker that the Fed should help defeat President Trump in 2020? That’s the extraordinary message from the former, and perhaps future, Fed grandee in Bloomberg.

“Officials could state explicitly that the central bank won’t bail out an administration that keeps making bad choices on trade policy, making it abundantly clear that Trump will own the consequences of his actions,” Mr. Dudley asserts. We also think monetary policy should focus on prices rather than trade. But Mr. Dudley seems to be saying the Fed should do nothing to assist the economy even if it heads into recession. Then he goes further and essentially says the Fed should join The Resistance.

“There’s even an argument that the election itself falls within the Fed’s purview,” Mr. Dudley writes. “After all, Trump’s reelection arguably presents a threat to the U.S. and global economy, to the Fed’s independence and its ability to achieve its employment and inflation objectives. If the goal of monetary policy is to achieve the best long-term economic outcome, then Fed officials should consider how their decisions will affect the political outcome in 2020.”

Wow. Talk about stripping the veil. These columns wondered if Mr. Dudley was politically motivated while he was at the Fed, favoring bond buying to finance Barack Obama ’s deficit spending, urging the Fed to intervene in markets to boost housing, and keeping interest rates low for as long as possible. And now here Mr. Dudley is confirming that he views the Fed as an agent of the Democratic Party…”

Again, just like Jim Comey!  Amazing how all these Deep-Staters think and act the same.

And in the EnvironMental Moment, as Townhall.com‘s Beth Baumann informs us…

CNN Schedules 7-hour Climate Change Forum

“The debate, scheduled for Sept. 4th will be seven hours long. Yes, seven hours. The reason? The network wants to give each of the 10 candidates ample time to respond to questions during this “unprecedented prime-time event.”

Each of the 10 candidates will be given 40 minutes to discuss their plans to address climate change. Hosts Wolf Blitzer, Erin Burnett, Anderson Cooper, Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon will act as moderators.

…According to previous CNN polls, 96 percent of Democratic voters want “aggressive” action taken to address climate change.“

Which is why Washington governor Jay “Climate Change is My Signature Issue” Inslee is surging in the polls.  Oh,…never mind: he dropped out.

Plan on seven hours of sheer boredom punctuated by tens of seconds of pure bewilderment…

…when someone finally gets around to asking Hairplug Joe why, if he really believes sea levels are rising, did he purchase a multi-million dollar ocean-front property in Delaware!?!

Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:

Then there’s these five funnies from Ed Hickey:

Finally, we’ll call it a month with the Sports Section, beginning with this film clip from a contest between Texas and Cleveland back on May 29, 1974 courtesy of our old and bestest buddy Chris Wilson.  Rangers Lenny Randle is at bat when Indians pitcher Bob Johnson throws behind him.  The rest, as they say, is history:

And although such donnybrooks are hardly unknown in baseball, this particular bench-clearer gave us a better understanding of what occurred five days later in Cleveland, as recorded in one of our favorite installments from The History Guy: 

Sorry, but unlimited 10-cent beer and anything are a recipe for mayhem at worst, disaster at best.

Enjoy the long weekend…sans any 10-cent beer!

Magoo