[Editor’s Note: We had problems with our email notification system both Friday and Saturday, so we’ve only now been able to get the word out on last Friday’s edition.  Enjoy!  We’ll be back with a new edition on Tuesday.  Magoo]

It’s Friday, November 18th, 2016…but before we begin, Townhall.com‘s Matt Vespa highlights the hypocrisy of this MSM headline:

As Trump Leaves Press Behind for Steak Dinner, Incoming Admin Already Showing Lack of Transparency

Trump hasn’t even taken the oath of office; and all he wanted was a quiet dinner with his family.  Coming as it does from a “news” organization which still can’t give us the whereabouts of our Commander-in-Chief and his Secretary of State while four Americans were murdered in Benghazi, such sanctimoniousness requires a total lack of any principles or sense of equivalence.

So what else in new?!?

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, as Bruce Thornton writes at Front Page via Victor Davis Hanson’s website…

This Is No Time to Go Wobbly, Donald

Trump must continue to refuse to play the game.

“Trump-haters of both parties are using the president elect’s conciliatory meeting with Obama to suggest he dial back on his campaign promises and govern like the typical politicians he ran against. The old mantras of “healing the divisions” and “bipartisanship” are being chanted once again, with the usual mythic anecdotes about Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill yukking it up over drinks. These are the same sirens whose seductive songs of comity and cooperation and coming together to “solve the country’s problems” have lured many a Republican onto the rocks of policy disasters like Comprehensive Immigration Reform and the confirmation of Obama minion Loretta Lynch as Attorney General.

There are already a few signs that Trump is being influenced by such chatter. He told the Wall Street Journal that he might keep Obamacare’s disastrous mandate that insurance companies insure those with preexisting conditions. On 60 Minutes he walked back his promise to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary’s pay-for-play foundation. This might just be conciliatory rhetoric designed to tamp down the anger of Democrats. Let’s hope that’s all it is, for such accommodation is seldom if ever reciprocated by Democrats. (More on this point follows.)

On the contrary, Democrats have repeatedly proven that bipartisanship to them means that Republicans roll over for whatever Democrats want. If not, Republicans are tarred as obstructionists, racists, or whatever other epithet du jour. That’s because progressives are cultists hungry for more power so they can impose their ideological vision by any means necessary. Like Goldfinger, they don’t want Republicans to talk, they want them to die. Assured of their political righteousness, they have one standard for themselves, the elect, and another for their enemies, the damned. The two terms of Barack Obama are a textbook case of progressive campaign duplicity followed by a refusal to respect competing ideas and negotiate in good faith. Exhibit number one is Obamacare, passed without a single Republican vote, and rammed through Congress with legislative legerdemain and big barrels of pork.

Inquiring minds really want to know!

Then there’s Obama’s bypassing of Congress all together once it was taken over by Republicans. He made it clear he felt no compunction about trashing the Constitution’s separation of powers and limited executive whose primary purpose is “to see that laws are faithfully executed.” Like progressive godfather Woodrow Wilson, he wanted the power to make “good” laws, not just to veto bad ones. “If Congress won’t act, I will” and “I have a pen and a phone,” he threatened. As for “healing divisions” and “bipartisanship,” he dismissed all that by saying, “Elections have consequences,” brushing aside bipartisanship with an arrogant “I won,” and advising his partisans to “punish our enemies.” His philosophy of governing has been the “Chicago way”: “If they bring a knife to a fight, we bring a gun.” Nor was he punished for behavior Republicans keep warning is political suicide. He beat light-red super-nice-guy Mitt Romney by five million votes.

But now Republicans––in control of Congress and the presidency, and poised to transform the Supreme Court––are supposed to be magnanimous, forget that history, and play nice. In other words, revert to their usual role of the political battered wife, cringingly accepting an abusive double standard. And all those angry, fed up, neglected, scorned, and smeared voters who made it all possible? Is Trump just supposed to forget all the promises he made them? How is Trump going to be the transformational president, the one who stopped the progressive locomotive from “fundamentally transforming” our country into Tocqueville’s soft despotism, if he practices the old politics of well-mannered appeasement?

One way to avoid that betrayal is to fulfill his promise to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Clinton Family Foundation and its abuses, particularly the trading of State Department access for contributions to the foundation and lucre to Bill Clinton. This isn’t about vengeance; it is about justice. It is about restoring faith in the fundamental principle of equality before the law, the bedrock principle that neither money, nor power, nor connections, nor status gives one a pass on violating the law. It will send a signal that everyone is accountable and will be punished if found guilty. In the case of government officials, it is particularly important that those who violate their oath of office to the highest law of the land, the Constitution, by corrupting their office and debauching government agencies will pay the price. It will show that government officials entrusted with the power of the people must tell the truth, respect the rules, and be true to their word…”

Truer words were never written.  We were particularly struck by Thornton’s…

…depiction of the Dimocrats’ refusal to ever reciprocate an accommodation, as it reminded us of an excerpt from Alan Clark’s brilliant work Barbarossa, in which the the head of the U.S. military mission to Moscow, Major General John R. Deane, writing to General George Marshall in December of 1944 observed of the Soviet style of negotiation:

“We never make a request or proposal to the Soviets that is not viewed with suspicion.  They simply cannot understand giving without taking, and, as a result, even our giving is viewed with suspicion.  Gratitude cannot be banked on in the Soviet Union.  Each transaction is complete in itself, without regard to past favours.”

Clark quoted Deane in describing the inexplicable…indeed, highly suspicious…naiveté Roosevelt displayed towards Stalin’s true post-war intentions.  The same can be said of many Republicans with regard to their incredible credulity concerning the aims of Stalin’s domestic heirs.

Speaking of dissimulating Socialists, consider the lies Jonathan Gruber continues to spout concerning the demonstrable failure of Obamacare:

He’s like the fetid rush of air…

…bursting from Rosie O’Donnell’s blow hole!  Then again, since Gruber’s true intention was the complete destruction of the greatest health care system on the planet, resulting in the introduction of Socialized medicine for the masses, perhaps he’s right in maintaining The Unaffordable Care Act’s working…at least from his perspective!

Since we’re on the subject of despicable Dimocrats (see “Ginsburg, Ruth Vader”, Clintons”, Obamas”, “evil incarnate”) who cannot suffer a death too agonizing too soon enough to suit us:

Soros bands with donors to resist Trump, ‘take back power‘

Major liberal funders huddle behind closed doors with Pelosi, Warren, Ellison, and union bosses to lick wounds, retrench.

Though if the WSJ‘s Kimberly Strassel is correct, Soros may well be throwing good ill-gotten money after bad:

The Democrats Double Down

The lesson the party is learning from its loss is that it didn’t spend and regulate enough.

“We teach our children that what matters isn’t how we handle success, but how we handle defeat. Tell that to the collapsing Democratic Party.

Here’s what Democrats know: They got thumped last week. Donald Trump cleaned their clocks, despite his disorganization, controversies and lack of money. Senate Democrats blew at least seven competitive races, and they remain in the minority. House Democrats blew even more, and they remain in the minority. Democratic governors got thumped. Democratic state legislators got thumped. Democratic dog catchers—if there were any on the ballot—got thumped.

What Democrats should realize, because everyone else does, is that voters rejected both their policies (which have undermined middle- and low-income families) and their governance (which has fueled rage at a power-hungry federal government). Hillary Clinton proposed more of the same. Coal workers said no. Blue-collar union workers said no. Suburban moms said no. Small businessmen, drowning under Dodd-Frank and ObamaCare, said no.

Instead Democrats think last week was an accident. Mrs. Clinton tells donors that she only lost because of FBI Director Jim Comey. Barack Obama faults Hillary’s tactics—she didn’t spend enough time in the right states. Michael Dukakis says Democrats only lost because of the Electoral College. Rachel Maddow blames third-party candidates.

All this denial has cleared the field for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the leading voice now calling on the party to recognize it has erred and needs change. She is telling the masses, however, that Democrats lost because they didn’t go big enough. They didn’t spend enough. Didn’t regulate enough. Didn’t socialize health care enough. Her prescription: Double down…”

Yeah…on a pair of twos when the dealer’s showing ten.  But the Dims’ hand is only a loser if The Donald performs as promised.

Which brings us to a compelling two-part commentary from the brilliant Thomas Sowell, as he attempts to answer what inquiring minds really want to know:

What Now?

“A Hillary Clinton victory would have meant a third consecutive administration dedicated to dismantling the institutions that have kept America free, and imposing instead the social vision of the smug elites. That could have been the ultimate catastrophe — not just for our time, but for generations yet unborn.

In one sense, Donald Trump’s victory was a unique American event. But, in a larger sense, it represents the biggest backlash among many elsewhere, against smug elites in Western nations, where increasing numbers of ordinary people are showing their anger at where those elites are leading their countries.

There, as here, mindlessly flinging the doors open to peoples from societies whose fundamental values clash with those of the countries they enter, has been a hallmark of arrogant blindness and disregard of negative consequences suffered by ordinary people — consequences from which the elites themselves are insulated.

Nor is this the only issue on which the blindness of elites has set the stage for a political backlash. The anti-law enforcement fetish among the insulated elites has even more tragically sacrificed the safety of the general public. This too has been common on both sides of the Atlantic.

…Nor is the election of Donald Trump likely to lead the elites to having second thoughts about the prevailing dogmas of their groupthink. (First Strassel, now Sowell: great minds do indeed think alike!) On the morning after Mr. Trump’s upset victory over Mrs. Clinton, a newswoman at CNN mentioned the disappointment of some women that “the glass ceiling” was not shattered as expected.

What an insult to everyone’s intelligence is that catch phrase, “glass ceiling.” What does “glass” mean, if not that you cannot see the ceiling, but somehow you just know that it is there? And how do you know? Because it has been repeated so often.

It is like the fable of the emperor’s new clothes, but a fable for adults…”

What Now?: Part II

“…As the post-election shock of some, and the euphoria of others, both begin to wear off, the country and the new administration will have some very serious problems to face, at home and abroad. How those problems are faced — or evaded — will tell us a lot about the next four years, and about the longer-run future as well.

…But there is one other thing that they will need, and which they have seldom had in the past. That is some well thought out, and clearly articulated, explanation to the American public as to what they are doing and why.

What was called “the Reagan revolution” of the 1980s took place without President Reagan’s ever having had Republican control of both Houses of Congress, and despite a hostile media. What Reagan had instead was a rare ability to persuasively articulate to the public what he was doing and why. When President Reagan got the voters on his side, even Congressional Democrats knew that it was politically risky to try to block what he had convinced the public needed to be done.

Without effective articulation to the public, control of both Houses of Congress can lead to futility and the collapse of political support by frustrated voters who feel betrayed. That has been the recent history of Republicans.

Articulation is not just a gift of nature. It takes hard work, work that Ronald Reagan had done for years before he ever got to Washington. More fundamentally, effective articulation requires a recognition of the great importance of articulation, so that it gets all the time and effort it requires…”

A requirement which, unfortunately, puts Trump squarely…

As for those wishing ill on America…

…we can only hope The Donald’s policies results in them exhibiting behavior similar to Boone’s in this scene from Animal House…

Moving on, the brilliant Victor Davis Hanson lends his amazing analytical skills to the reasons…

Why Trump Won

In other words, she ran a rigged game…and STILL lost!

“…What was forgotten in all this hysteria was that Trump had brought to the race unique advantages, some of his own making, some from finessing naturally occurring phenomena. His advocacy for fair rather than free trade, his insistence on enforcement of federal immigration law, and promises to bring back jobs to the United States brought back formerly disaffected Reagan Democrats, white working-class union members, and blue-dog Democrats—the “missing Romney voters”—into the party. Because of that, the formidable wall of rich electoral blue states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and North Carolina crumbled.

Beyond that, even Trump’s admitted crudity was seen by many as evidence of a street-fighting spirit sorely lacking in Republican candidates that had lost too magnanimously in 1992, 2008, and 2016 to vicious Democratic hit machines. Whatever Trump was, he would not lose nobly, but perhaps pull down the rotten walls of the Philistines with him. That Hillary Clinton never got beyond her email scandals, the pay-for-play Clinton Foundation wrongdoing, and the Wikileaks and Guccifer hackings reminded the electorate that whatever Trump was or had done, he at least had not brazenly broken federal law as a public servant, or colluded with the media and the Republican National Committee to undermine the integrity of the primaries and sabotage his Republican rivals.

Finally, the more Clinton Inc. talked about the Latino vote, the black vote, the gay vote, the woman vote, the more Americans (ordinary, tax-paying Americans!) tired of the same old identity politics pandering. What if minority bloc voters who had turned out for Obama might not be as sympathetic to a middle-aged, multimillionaire white woman? And what if the working white classes might flock to the politically incorrect populist Trump in a way that they would not to a leftist elitist like Hillary Clinton? In other words, the more Clinton played the identity politics card, the more she earned fewer returns for herself and more voters for Trump…”

For more on the nature of the message some 50,000,000 Americans sent the “elites”, we highly recommend Daniel Greenfield’s “American Uprising“, courtesy of Balls Cotton.

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

Finally, courtesy of an ignorant young protestor in Canada, we present our Kick of the Week:

We only wish ole’ Murney had clocked this delicate little flower squarely in the jaw; at least then there’d have been a chance she’d have gotten some sense knocked into her!

Magoo

P.S.  Please join us in wishing our brother-in-law and fellow hard-dick F-14 driver Dale…

…a very happy birthday.  Go Bearcats!!!