It’s Wednesday, July 18th, 2018…but before we begin, here’s a video inspired by a query from the great Mark Tapscott:

Yet another example of life imitating art.

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, as regards The Donald’s dreadfully poor performance in Helsinki, his [dis]continued defense of the indefensible notwithstanding, we’re with Jim Geraghty writing at his Morning Jolt:

If All of Your Trusted Friends Say You’re Wrong…Maybe You’re Wrong

Here’s the juice: the truth, while not reflecting well on The Donald, is far closer to Rand Paul’s overly-optimistic opinion than John Brennan’s brazen bias.  As for the unreasoned rantings of Brennan and many others claiming Trump is a traitor, we offer this simple playground response: it takes one to know one.

As the Editorial Board of the WSJ opined…

“…Mr. Trump marched through Europe with more swagger than strategy. His diplomacy is personal, rooted in instinct and impulse, and he treats other leaders above all on how much they praise Donald J. Trump. He says what pops into his head to shock but then disavows it if there’s a backlash. He criticizes institutions and policies to grab headlines but then claims victory no matter the outcome.

The world hasn’t seen a U.S. President like this in modern times, and as ever in Trump World everyone else will have to adapt…”

And, as the Journal so accurately observed, when push came to pushback, The Donald reverted to form:

President Trump Says he Misspoke With Putin: I Have Full Faith In America’s Intelligence Agencies

Funny, after years of said agencies being led by the likes of these…

…we don’t!!!  In fact, given the infestation of adamantly anti-Trump deep-staters inhabiting the FBI and DOJ, we don’t trust America’s intelligence agencies any farther than we can throw Rosie O’Donnell! 

Fortunately, there’s undeniable, photographic evidence Trump gained the upper-hand on one foreign leader:

More fortunately, as Kurt Schlichter details at Townhall.com…

It’s Undeniable: Trump Is Blessed With Really Stupid Enemies

“Donald Trump goes to Europe, scandalizes the Euroweenies, libs, and cruise-shilling grifters of Never Trump, and comes back victorious. (Editor’s note: Schlichter wrote this column prior to Trump’s Helsinki capitulation.) He’s about to get his second SCOTUS justice confirmed – all they have on Brett Kavanaugh is that he likes beer and is named “Brett.” In Congress, the Democrats decided to go all in on abolishing ICE because Americans love open borders and welcome MS-13 or something. In the Mueller farce, the Dems decided that the smart play was to publicly run interference for creepy weirdo Peter Strzok when he went on national TV doing his impression of Lotion Boy from Silence of the Lambs.

Hey Pete, what DO those Trump voters smell like? Smells like a red wave to me, you insipid weirdo.

How did Trump luck out by getting such hopeless geebos for opponents? It can’t just be chance. At every turn, these dummies choose to lock themselves into the most implausible and indefensible positions imaginable, then push all their chips into the center of the table. It’s almost supernatural – maybe Trump won the intervention of some ancient demon by heading over to the offices of the Weekly Standard and snatching away one of its Never Trump scribblers to use as a virgin sacrifice.

Look, I was not a Trump fan at the beginning – I was anti-Trump but never Never Trump, both because I was Never Hillary and because I wasn’t a Beltway squishboy who would take his white paper and go home when my guy Ted Cruz lost. (As were we!) I just had no idea what to make of Trump at first because he didn’t look like any mainstream Republican I had seen in the last few decades. But then, I soon realized that he didn’t look like any mainstream Republican I had seen in the last few decades because he wasn’t a hapless loser. He was the anti-Jeb!

I recount my conversion (hilariously, according to such blurb writers as Nick Searcy and David Limbaugh) from being anti-Trump to Trump-curious to pro-Trump in my upcoming book Militant Normals: How Regular Americans Are Rebelling Against the Elite to Reclaim Our Democracy, except I give a lot more detail and use a lot more swears in there. Suffice it to say that my conversion (and that of many others) was based on the undeniable fact that Trump kept his promises and sided with America in a way we haven’t seen from a Republican since Reagan was owning the libs back in the eighties.

How did this guy win, and in doing so crush the avatar of the establishment, the smartest woman in the world, Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit? One of his secrets to success is really no secret at all. It is to embrace the obvious. Unlike our exhausted establishment, Trump rarely holds to bizarre, indefensible positions. (See the comments of the WSJ Editorial Board above.) You would think that would be an instinctive thing for politicians of both parties – “I know! I’ll adopt stands on issues that won’t make my constituents ask ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’” – but it isn’t. Instead, the establishment has somehow talked itself into taking positions that are so clearly ridiculous that Normals scratch their heads, baffled at what they are being told by their betters via the lapdog liberal media.

…One of the secrets of Trump’s success is having really, really stupid enemies, enemies who are so tone-deaf and out-of-touch that they simply cannot adopt commonsense positions that resonate among normal Americans. The establishment instead insists on telling Americans that up is down, black is white, and girls can have penises. Nope. No wonder the Normals have gotten militant, and no wonder a leader like Donald Trump came along with the vision to exploit the opening the establishment left for an outsider to rise and prevail by embracing the obvious.“

And unusually and increasingly stupid enemies at that!

Speaking of opponents America’s blessed to have, here’s one who, if not the most ignorant, is certainly the most uninformed:

Ocasio-Cortez starts controversy with comments on Israeli ‘occupation,’ admits she’s ‘not the expert‘

“…During an interview on PBS’s “Firing Line” on Friday the congressional candidate raised eyebrows when she said, “I also think that what people are starting to see — at least in the occupation of Palestine — is just an increasing crisis of humanitarian condition and that to me is just where I tend to come from on this issue.”

When pressed on what she meant she struggled to give an answer and then admitted she does not know what she is talking about.

When asked to expand on her comment, Ocasio-Cortez hesitated for a moment before explaining how “Palestinians are experiencing difficulty in access to their housing and homes. Oh, I think — what I meant is that the settlements that are increasing in some of these areas and places where Palestinians are experiencing difficulty in access to their housing and homes…”

Ocasio-Cortez was then asked to further clarify her comments, in which she acknowledged that she is not familiar with the ins and outs of the ongoing clash in the Middle East. “I am not the expert at geopolitics on this issue,” she said with a laugh. “I am a firm believer in finding a two-state solution on this issue, and I’m happy to sit down with leaders on both of these — for me, I just look at things through a human-rights lens, and I may not use the right words. I know this is a very intense issue…”

But that is apparently all she knows.  As an editorial in the Washington Examiner noted…

“In the end, she showed the world that although she might be good at parroting progressive buzzwords, she doesn’t have a clue on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.“

Or anything else.  If ignorance is bliss, this Puerto Rican Princess inhabits Nirvana.

Turning from the blissfully ignorant to the deliberately deceitful…

Obama Warns ‘Strongman Politics’ on Rise: ‘Those In Power Seek to Undermine Every Institution‘

Barry means the ones he overlooked.

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

Then there’s this series of memes forwarded by Balls Cotton:

Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with two reminders why night carrier operations are NOT for the faint of heart…

…nor those who are low and slow at the ramp.

We remember as if it were yesterday a Navy recruiting ad which ran when we were still in high school.  It began with a mist-shrouded carrier deck preparing for early morning flight ops, similar to the opening sequence of Top Gun (arguably the greatest in cinematic history!), except the Yellow Shirts were moving F-4s rather than F-14s.  No words were spoken until after a Phantom had been launched and was climbing through a low cloud layer into the rose-colored hues of a new dawn, and the narrator intoned these words: “In all the world, only a few thousand men have mastered the skies from the deck of a ship. And every one of them is Navy trained.“

Thus were we committed to a fate, which to this day, we cannot believe we were paid to experience.  And one other thing: boy, was the F-14 one BIG ASS AIRCRAFT!!!

Here’s wishing fair winds, following seas and “OK” three-wires to those who carry on the tradition in the service of their country. 

Magoo