RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/president-can-legally-regulate-foreign-commerce-says-congress/

Foreign policy via Twitter is obviously unwise, but Congress has given the president wide latitude to regulate foreign commerce.

Lots of high dudgeon after the president’s manic tweeting on Friday.

As to some of it, rightfully so. It was contemptible for the president to equate the dictator of Communist China to the chairman of the Federal Reserve, a patriotic American who apparently disagrees with Donald Trump on policy — and who is more attuned than the president to the need to avoid the appearance that Fed policy is susceptible to political tantrums.

Still, the righteous blasts by Trump critics in defense of Chairman Jerome Powell turned out to be so much throat-clearing. Soon followed indignant howls over what was framed as the president’s constitutional illiteracy in purporting to “order” American companies “to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing . . . your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.” Trump also said he was “ordering all carriers, including Fed Ex, Amazon, UPS and the Post Office, to SEARCH FOR & REFUSE . . . all deliveries of Fentanyl from China (or anywhere else!).”

Preliminarily, let’s stipulate that there is uncertainty, to say the least, about exactly what the president may “order” anyone to do via Twitter, even the people who work for him.

After being dazed by the tweets in the first few weeks of the Trump presidency, I’ve come to regard them as political performance art. I imagine most of us have. I tune most of it out. Other times, I chuckle . . . or gasp . . . or envision Trump rubbing his hands together in anticipation of making his critics’ heads explode. Mostly, I wonder if the president is too self-absorbed to grasp how wearying all this is — how he could easily lose a winnable reelection because he is exhausting, or because the tweets help his critics argue that he is unstable, or at least too feral for the office.

Foreign policy via Twitter is obviously unwise, but Congress has given the president wide latitude to regulate foreign commerce.

Lots of high dudgeon after the president’s manic tweeting on Friday.

As to some of it, rightfully so. It was contemptible for the president to equate the dictator of Communist China to the chairman of the Federal Reserve, a patriotic American who apparently disagrees with Donald Trump on policy — and who is more attuned than the president to the need to avoid the appearance that Fed policy is susceptible to political tantrums.

Still, the righteous blasts by Trump critics in defense of Chairman Jerome Powell turned out to be so much throat-clearing. Soon followed indignant howls over what was framed as the president’s constitutional illiteracy in purporting to “order” American companies “to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing . . . your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.” Trump also said he was “ordering all carriers, including Fed Ex, Amazon, UPS and the Post Office, to SEARCH FOR & REFUSE . . . all deliveries of Fentanyl from China (or anywhere else!).”

Preliminarily, let’s stipulate that there is uncertainty, to say the least, about exactly what the president may “order” anyone to do via Twitter, even the people who work for him.

After being dazed by the tweets in the first few weeks of the Trump presidency, I’ve come to regard them as political performance art. I imagine most of us have. I tune most of it out. Other times, I chuckle . . . or gasp . . . or envision Trump rubbing his hands together in anticipation of making his critics’ heads explode. Mostly, I wonder if the president is too self-absorbed to grasp how wearying all this is — how he could easily lose a winnable reelection because he is exhausting, or because the tweets help his critics argue that he is unstable, or at least too feral for the office.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/aug/22/cultural-marxist-attack-western-society/

Have you ever heard of Antonio Gramsci? How about Herbert Marcuse? Or the Frankfurt School?

These names are probably meaningless to all but a small minority of scholars academics and political theorists throughout the world. Yet, Americans — and indeed all those who treasure the religion, culture and history of Western Civilization — should become acquainted with these names if they are to understand the forces that are currently tearing society apart. 

Marxism appeared on the scene in Europe in the mid-19th century. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels posited a thesis that capitalist society was doomed to  demise as the “proletariat” — the working class — rose up to overthrow their oppressors, the “bourgeoisie” — the middle class of property owners. Marx and Engels saw world history through the prism of a perpetual class struggle between these two implacable enemies. Marx predicted that socialist revolutions would spring up throughout the West as the proletariat overthrew the bourgeoisie and established dictatorships in the name of the “people.” 

Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for Marx, his prediction fell short.  The socialist revolutions largely failed to materialize in Europe or America. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 arrived in Russia — vanguard of the East — and had as much to do with the tragic casualties and deprivations of World War I as anything to do with the wealth of the propertied classes. Subsequent communist revolutions that attempted to replicate what Lenin achieved in Russia — be they in  postwar Hungary under Bela Kun or Germany under Rosa Luxemburg were either  short-lived or failed altogether. 

amgreatness.com/2019/08/25/the-mythical-trump-hydra/

Many are the hissing heads of the polycephalic Donald Trump—at least according to the progressive Left and the NeverTrump Right, who see the president of the United States as some sort of mythical nightmare. Here are a few of his supposedly monstrous manifestations.
Trump, the Profiteer 

Candidate Trump never really wanted to be president. His entire amateurish and buffoonish candidacy was designed only to enhance his brand. Once he was unexpectedly elected, Trump was more shocked than anyone, and quickly sought to maximize his profits from the Oval Office. Thus, followed the constant progressive evocation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution to prevent chronic Trump profiteering.

In reality, the Trump empire reportedly has declined by nearly $1 billion in net value, aside from the tens of millions of his own money that Trump spent on the 2016 campaign. Trump’s business interests are the most thoroughly investigated of any recent president in memory. Obama and the Clintons made millions from their presidencies; Trump may well end up losing billions.

Trump, the Liberal 

NeverTrumpers insisted that the politically polymorphous Trump was lying about his hard conservative agendas during the 2016 primaries. In truth, they warned, Trump was a Manhattan liberal wolf in right-wing fleece clothing. 

If ever elected, Trump would adopt progressive abortion policies, become another radical environmentalist in the fashion of a squishy Arnold Schwarzenegger, select liberal justices like his moderate federal justice sister, ignore evangelicals, and in general defer to the liberal foreign policy establishment. In sum, Trump would keep none of his conservative promises and govern to the left of the McCain wing of the Republican Party