Is Trump Already A Lame Duck?

Lem's Levity: A few of the commentators over at Lem's seems overly concerned...

They need to grow a set. Seriously, do they just listen to the mainstream media all day and get frothed into a lather?  Or maybe a few of them really are covert lefties who are pretending to be 'principled conservatives'?  Or maybe a couple of them have personality conflicts with a few other folks over there and just want to say "I told you so" more out of saying "I told you so" than anything else?  

Sorry, but some of you folks need to cowboy up and stop acting like you should be bloated water retaining moderators over at RedState.  Maybe some of these folks want to be staffers or supporters for Evan McMullin? Trump has a great speech earlier this month in front of Congress, and a few weeks later everything is a crap sandwich.  Amartel gives a great response to these nattering naysayers.  

The Gorsuch nomination is Yuge (in a very good way).  Of course there are no guarantees with any of this. I doubt Gorsuch when he gets on the bench is going to be the next Clarence Thomas, but I suspect he will be way better than John Roberts. Given the alternatives, I consider that a very big win. Now in the remote chance somehow Schumer manages to block this next Friday or Senate GOPe turn around and stab Trump in the back, fair enough.  

But don't limit it to Gorsuch, Trump did something else that helps make America great again.  Trump's roll back of Obama's unconstitutional climate change rules is also a huge win for the economy and Midwest States. Win!  As Don Surber noted, Trump realizes CO2 is a nutrient. 

We have a full on frontal assault by the media on Trump.  Why not call them out on it?  Ted Koppel's hair is worse than the Donald's.  

The Democrats, while potentially dangerous, are weak and losers. The DNC is in shambles.  Schumer screaming at a Trump supporter at a restaurant is not the behavior of a strong leader, it shows what a weak shrill little bitch he actually is.  And if he filibusters Gorsuch...oh well!

Now granted there is risk out there to Trump. The GOPe could screw this all up.  The GOPe is blocking wall funding. The health care thing was messed up, but it is hardly over yet. So while things might not turn out exactly as we like, I still know what could have been.

Wombat: American Power: Ford Investing $1.2 Billion In U.S. Plants As Trump Touts Jobs – #MAGA!, Don Surber: Trump Realizes CO2 Is A Nutrient, The Jawa Report: Three Refugees Arrested, Lied On Visa Applications, and Twitchy: Did Former Obama Appointee Evelyn Farkas Just Admit Trump’s Staff Was Spied On?

Legal Insurrection: You go to war with the President you got,  Dem base not even woke to coming tsunami of Trump lower court nominations Or as you might like to say: Boom!

Rush Limbaugh: Wrong target Mr. President: It was not the Freedom Caucus who is to blame, The failure of the Obamacare repeal gives the GOP the opportunity to do it better and HBO's Big Little Lies puts miserable liberal lives on display

Instapundit: Maybe the problem is Ryan, The big fail is the media, How Obama weaponized the media against Trump, Folks, this is fun. I am having the time of my life..., If he has to leverage, why the Freedom Caucus? Why not the GOPe?

Don Surber: The Art of the Health Deal and We will still Trump Obamacare

Powerline: Will Democrats Die on Mount Gorsuch?

Roger Simon: Democrat Anger Management

Small Dead Animals: Winning

Daily Caller: Of course, you realize, this means war!

AoSHQ: 2020 Race for the White House

Doug Ross: Mr. President, don't make us choose

Don Surber: Media completely miss the real story behind the Trump Administration

Daily Mail:  President Trump calls Chuck Todd "Sleepy-Eyed" in response to his claims Trump is Lame Duck

Ivanka Trump

Ivanka has breakfast and dinner with her kids

Ivana Trump in vintage Got Milk ad

Trooper York likes to think about Ivanka so this post is for him...

Rule 5 and FMJRA

Instapundit: NRA Endorses Trump and Paglia notes juvenile hit piece backfires on Times

Pope Francis comments about Palestinian Leader Mahmoud Abbas may have been taken out of context…

My good friend Trooper York is troubled (and I share his concerns on how Israel is treated), 

yet perhaps we should take media reports with a grain of salt?

And maybe Pope Pius XII should get a break too (or at least the benefit of some doubt)?  Obviously given the horrors of the Holocaust, not enough was done. We can't ignore that and G_d forbid Islamist forces ever took control of Israel.  

I agree we need to pay attention to what is going on.  This was a good thing today.

Update: EBL: Ramadi falls and Instapundit: Has the Church of Rome fallen to the left? 

Christians (especially in the Muslim world) are under tremendous pressure and persecution, so any overt support of Israel is feared to increase that persecution. That is part of the reason for the Church reaching out to Muslim leaders. Hence Abbas is looked at the lesser evil to Hamas/ISIS/Muslim Brotherhood/Boko Haram. I would suggest that is a losing dhimmi game, the only way to support Christians in the middle east (and the Muslim world) is to support them. Trying to appease thugs will only encourage more thuggery.  

Pope Francis it's time for you to do more to protect your flock…

Trooper York is right.  It is time for Pope Francis to do more to protect his flock.  

Instapundit: Good you spoke out on the Armenian Genocide, and stood up to Turkish opposition, but ISIS is already in Europe. 

The same factors leading to the Armenian Genocide and Jihad 100 years ago are being repeated again now.  Not just Europe, ISIS threatens the United States.

Swedes are getting more than they bargained for with Muslim immigrants
Barcelona's would be be headers

When blog traffic drops...pop goes the weasel

Stir up comments. Unleash the Weasel

Trooper York

Thinking of you...

It is also his 57th birthday.
Lem's Place sends good wishes too...

Mole Men

Who are they?  And why do they use an espresso machine for a codpiece?

It makes me feel so powerful!

The saga of Old House

The Queen in one of her forms...

Then Queen said, “The outcry against my commentators is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down to the Old House comments and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”

The other senior commentators turned away and left, but Righteous Lem remained standing before the Queen. Then Lem approached her and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the Old House comments? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

The Queen said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the Old House comments, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Then Lem spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the queen, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the comments for lack of five people?”

“If I find forty-five there,” She said, “I will not destroy it.”

Once again Lem spoke to her, “What if only forty are found there?”

She said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.”

Then he said, “May my Queen not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?”

She answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”

Lem said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to my Queen, what if only twenty can be found there?”

She said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.”

Then Lem said, “May the Queen not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”

She answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”

When the Queen had finished speaking with Lem, She left, and Lem returned home.

The Queen then finished a big draught of tasty box wine, looked at the falling Amazon report numbers and said, "They are not deserving, screw cruel neutrality, and I have never been good at math and counting anyway except when someone owes me money, let's destroy it."  

The wrath of the Queen against her commentators 

And when Lem saw what she had done he blamed himself.  

The Scorpion and the Frog

The scorpion and the frog set out across the stream.

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too." The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. 

The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp "Why?" 

Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature..."

A Sample Guy Fieri Menu?

This is a parody but it (almost) could be his menu.  

Madison Downfall Ann Althouse Closes Her Comments

Update:

I didn't get small, the commentators did...

Ann Althouse responds: 

I know there are some people who would love to discourage me, but that's irrelevant. Those who buy nothing through the Amazon portal make no impression — whether they hate me or have never heard of me. Those who do buy are saying: I care about this blog, and I want it to continue to be there every day, as it has been for nearly 10 years (without a single missed day). I hear you.

h/t to Trooper York for the Norma Desmond reference!   I think she is ready for her close up...

Never admit you are wrong!

Separated at Birth: Ann Althouse and...?

A lot of similarities with these two... 

Ann Althouse and...

Charles Johnson

Ann Althouse responds to Glenn Reynolds...

Well the thoughts that Ann's most recent meltdown were sparked by her recent interactions with Glenn Reynolds (and not her commentators) are mostly confirmed: "I could say: I guess [Reynolds] doesn't get it. But I suspect — as my linked post insinuates repeatedly — that he knows I'm right, and he doesn't want to have to say it."

Well that is some hardcore circular reasoning! That comment by Ann reminds me of someone...

But she does give sound advice on her commentators starting their own blogs.  

Hey...

Update:
Here is some advice back to Ann...

Ann invited this:  "Feel free to photoshop using this picture of mine"

This is an email Ann Althouse put up in her post.  Has Ann completely lost it?  Yeah, this is a great way to maintain a relationship with Glenn Reynolds and his wife Dr. Helen:

FROM THE EMAIL: Reader A.A. writes:

Sorry you guys had to shut down the playroom. I don't blame you.

I'm no doctrinaire conservative; I'm a libertarian, and share the Professor's views on some of the hot-button issues. But what really rankled me in the last kerfuffle was the tone of misogyny and hatefulness on the part of the usual suspects.

Stuff like:

Women are not essentially honest.

I say this is proof of the superiority of men. We're just better humans, and we vote with our brains.

Do we really expect people who routinely fake orgasms and then brag about it to be honest?

And so on ... and that was just picking out a frew from the first couple screens of the first post about the Slate piece. Things got progressively more vile (and shockingly personal, with attacks on both Meade and Althouse and their first marriages and children).

In all honesty, though I enjoy reading Instapundit, his wife's blog has become a haven for disaffected and angry men, and her book has become a kind of bloody shirt for them to wave. That kind of attitude was what hijacked the commentariat. That viciousness, against women in general and the hosts in particular, kept me away from Althouse until today, and I just wanted to say how very sorry I am that this happened.

This email Ann Althouse posted is very selective and gives a very slanted view of what really occurred.  As this comment in response shows:

The Macho Response responds...

Mikado: I've got a little list...

Update:  The Macho Response:  No Comment!  

You do not want to be on my list!

Kitchen Nightmares: Amy's Baking Company

A complete and classic meltdown:

Prior EBL posts:
You have to hit rock bottom before you can recover...
Flashbacks to past meltdowns...

Separated at Birth...

BSC News...

Had to shut off access to comments on the blog today, because some commenters stank up the joint http://t.co/1iBIrtne9s
— Ann Althouse (@annalthouse) July 7, 2013

Meade suffers from the same character flaws of his spouse:

Lem is on a roll:  Althouse Street and the corner of the Arab Spring...
Crack is on a roll too...and Ann...

The Macho Response: No Comment!

Flashbacks to past Ann Althouse meltdowns...

Ann does not like being challenged: It has been going on for a while...

...When she was backed into a corner, she lashed out, suggesting that people who disagreed with her feelings were racists. Eventually, she was so upset that she began crying. Of course, at that point the possibility of civil intellectual discourse completely evaporated 

I was also astonished by the poise with which my tablemates handled Althouse. Our companions did not raise their voices nor dismiss her (as I would have), but tried to calm her down. In fact, Althouse made the situation even more personal by yelling repeatedly at one of my dinner companions (who is also a colleague) that she was an "intellectual lightweight" and an "embarrassment to women everywhere." In fact, in my opinion, with that statement Althouse had actually identified herself. Before Althouse stalked away, I asked her to apologize for that insult, but she refused. 

I sure hope that Ann Althouse's behavior at the Liberty Fund colloquium is not example how "intellectual discourse" is conducted in her law school classes in Madison, Wisconsin. In her bloggingheads.tv discussion with my friend Jonah Goldberg (who was a participant in the Meyer colloquium) she keeps telling him that he shouldn't be her enemy. I may not be her enemy, but given her outrageous behavior and completely baseless insinuations about intelligent humane people, I sure don't want to be her friend. As she said, "I need to be more vigilant."

Update:
Althouse Unfiltered (not affiliated with the Althouse blog, just about it).
The Macho Response:  Althouse: Grovel or I will never call you names again...
Lem's Learning Levity:  Why Blog Crashes Have Become More Mundane...nice one!
Meade suffers from the same character flaws of his spouse:

Lem is on a roll:  Althouse Street and the corner of the Arab Spring...

Crack Emcee/The Macho Response responds to the Reason article:

This guy, Ronald Bailey, Reason's science correspondent (you can't make this stuff up) even nails her classic debating style - from all the way back in 2006:

"...Because she didn't want to appear to be hypocrite, she refused to answer and kept asking more and more abstract questions about their example. When she was backed into a corner, she lashed out, suggesting that people who disagreed with her feelings were racists. Eventually, she was so upset that she began crying. Of course, at that point the possibility of civil intellectual discourse completely evaporated. 

I was also astonished by the poise with which my tablemates handled Althouse. Our companions did not raise their voices nor dismiss her (as I would have), but tried to calm her down. In fact, Althouse made the situation even more personal by yelling repeatedly at one of my dinner companions (who is also a colleague) that she was an 'intellectual lightweight' and an 'embarrassment to women everywhere.' In fact, in my opinion, with that statement Althouse had actually identified herself. Before Althouse stalked away, I asked her to apologize for that insult, but she refused."

The Macho Response: No Comment!

You have to hit rock bottom before you can recover...

No commentators, but they can hear voices...

The meltdown...
Ann Althouse's blog is coming apart...

And Trooper predicts it and I concur:  She will have comments within the week.  She needs commentary.

And if perchance she goes cold turkey and sticks with it, good for her.  But I would not bet on it.

Update:

As predicted, of course it would help if Ann and Meade showed some good faith,
and less narcissism...

More from The Macho Response on Ann and Meade's meltdown here and here...
Macho Response: Althouse: Grovel or I will never call you names again...
Althouse Unfiltered (not affiliated with the Althouse blog, just about it).   

An interesting exchange between Inga (Allie Oop) and Darcy:

And I am pretty sure Trooper York is not President Mom Jeans either.  

Lem's Learning Levity:  Why Blog Crashes Have Become More Mundane...nice one!
Meade suffers from the same character flaws of his spounse:

Lem is on a roll:  Althouse Street and the corner of the Arab Spring...
Crack is on a roll too...and Ann...

The Macho Response: No Comment!

What?

Portlandia - TV Shows That Titus Likes (Season II premier)

Titus* recommends we watch Portlandia on IFC.  So I did.

It was okay, but I did not think it was as funny as Season I.  It is starting to feel more and more like Saturday Night Live (and that is not a good thing).  If you liked the first season you will probably still like it (just not quite as much).  Portland, Oregon does have a Madison, Wisconsin feel to it...just with less snow.

Spoiler Alert:  WSJ Blog Recap of Portlandia, Season II, Episode 1

                        Maureen Ryan at Huffington Post makes an interesting note about society!

* Titus is a regular commentator at Althouse and Trooper York..

Why Ann Never Deleted J...Cruel Neutrality! (2011 in review)

It is good to know anti-semitism is not the "dominant" ideology at Althouse

It's Witchcraft!

 Ann Althouse said...
Reasons why we didn't delete J in the past:
1. Strong aversion to any deletion, especially from someone purporting to push back the dominant ideology in the comments.
2. His personal style that involved some craftsmanship (in constructing ugliness).
3. Recognizing the style immediately and skimming over the comments, so that the stuff with actual threats was not noticed.
4. Other commenters around his who were also being insulting, making it hard to see who was the real problem and not wanting to have to delete whole long discussions, especially when they contained some good material.
5. Email from J, whining about how everyone was attacking him and claiming he was defending himself, leveraging that claim off of his being in the minority in terms of the political ideology of the commenters.
6. Not being impressed by complaints that came from people who were being part of the problem.
7. Not getting specific complaints that pointed to the actual worst of his comments.
All that taken together accounts for our tolerance.
12/22/11 4:16 PM

Hmmmm.  Yeah J was a bad actor, but it is all someone else's fault.  The smug self righteousness of that post is gagging.  The continuing saga over at the Althouse comment thread goes on...tell us Ann, how did that work out for you?

I know I should not care about this.  That nasty piece of work shat over all of Ann's commentators (and Ann too) and Ann took it out against her long time commentators.  In the end the predictable revolt is sort of like cutting the turkey before Ann showed up (because she was late in dealing with this mess).  And she is never going to forgive those who called her on it.  So despite the fact the evidence is overwhelming how toxic J was, Ann has an excuse why it took so long to act.  And Ann does have a thing about turkeys.  Sort of explains why J was around so long.

But what do I know, I am just a cow (and her twin).  Now some  criticize Ann over differences over political ideology or other stranger reasons.  I am not in that camp.  I support her site.  I want you to go there.   I assume she does not think all that deeply about politics (nothing wrong with that) and just wants to blog along.  Don't we all?   I want my twin to be happy.  But in her mind I must be evil...or acting in bad faith, because if I am not then the alternative is...

Update:  Trooper is right.  It is time to move on.