Trump - Don't Fall Into The Trap of Relying Upon China. Making America Better Again, Not Great Just Better.

Trump is barking up the same wrong tree of his mistaken predecessors , if he believes China is an ally vis a vis N Korea.

China has no incentive to tame N Korea, nor will it do so.  N Korea serves China's purposes in a variety of nefarious ways.  If there is no confrontation with China  then N Korea continues to make nuclear advancements and if there is a confrontation with China, N Korea's military keep our own penned down/pre-occupied etc.

If Trump is betting/relying on China he is a dangerous and mistaken fool.

A military confrontation with Iran and N Korea is inevitable, sad and dangerous as that will be, but both nations will not be deterred by words, U.N resolutions, threats etc.  They do understand power and its use against them. Our State Department never understands this because their mission is to negotiate, to prevent , to pacify, to suck eggs. Our State Department is full of Chamberlains.
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Gensert and I see eye to eye.

We pretty much knew what we were getting when we elected Trump.

If you never accept a person for who they are I doubt you would have many friends. It is important to overlook the small stuff if there is big to be found.

It is time for America to get behind Trump and allow him to accomplish his agenda and the same goes for the politicians from both aisles as long as what Trump seeks is within the framework of our constitution and is good for America.  If that occurs perhaps America could be made better again. Not great maybe, just better.(See 1 below.)

Combative but not cruel. (See 1 a below.)
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Dick
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1)  Making the Left Bleed

By William L. Gensert

I haven’t thrown a punch in anger since long before the beginning of this century. I carried a Beretta 92FC 9 mm or a Walther PPK 380 semi-automatic pistol for longer than a decade in the Bronx, back when there were around two thousand murders a year in New York City. I wrote about it here. Read it, you might find it interesting.

When I had a pizzeria for a few years, hard men would come in and ask me to fix their guns; I politely declined. 
I had an ice cream truck in the projects for most of a decade through high school and college. I had fistfights on the main drag and the only reason I survived was I won and had the truly bravest man I have ever known, my friend Joey, standing beside me as well as three of my Puerto Rican friends, one of whose funeral I recently attended (RIP David Castrillo)

I have self-trained to use an edged weapon (the internet is a wonderful thing, and I make no claims of proficiency), and fought in the 1976 Golden Gloves (again, I make no claim of proficiency). Yet, I am the least aggressive person you will ever meet. I am not a brave man, I would rather switch than fight (Are you old enough to get the reference? I am.). Unlike what you read and watch, I believe most conservatives like me are not itching for violence. I don’t believe there is any right-wing movement to violently usurp the liberal establishment.

Conservatives are not going to storm the DMV screaming, “Give me my damn ticket and call my damn number!”

Therefore, you see, I am not advocating violence against anyone. Yet, it is about time those of us on the right took the gloves off and stopped trying to be better than the left. This is a war for the soul of America. 

Donald J. Trump is on the precipice of history; he is there because he is a man who will fight. He is on the verge of greatness with what could possibly be a truly transformational presidency, unlike that of the counterfeit hero, Barack Obama whose phony dreams and aspirations exposed him as a small man a mile wide yet less than an inch deep totally possessed with delusions of grandeur.

Donald J. Trump is a man whose promise is greater than even the storied accomplishments of the greatest president of my lifetime, Ronald Reagan.

Reagan gave his life to give this nation two decades of wealth and prosperity; Donald Trump is well positioned to give America the gift of this century as another American century. The things that once made America great can make America great again (MAGA). First, we have to win the battle against the progressive dream of turning America into Venezuela.

They say Trump is a vulgar man, and maybe that is true, but there is no phony to him. He tells you what he thinks and feels without any pretense and without the restraint of political correctness. Barack Obama, the personification of progressive enlightenment and a false idol to the left, is merely the epitome of pajama-boy thought and policies.

Standing at a bar on a hot day, whom would you rather talk with? Obama, who would graciously tell you how great he is while never taking his eyes off his own reflection in the mirror behind the bar, or Donald J. Trump who would probably at least ask you your opinion and how you were? 

There are many things I would do differently than the man but at least he is not a fake like Barry. He’s lived; he’s built things; He’s accomplished things. He has a résumé, unlike Barry, who before ascending to the presidency, had achievements that up until then wouldn’t have qualified him to teach third grade in the New York City Public School System -- and we all know how good that is -- and we all know how that turned out.

One of the first pictures released from Barry’s tenure as president was of him riding a bicycle in a too-small helmet and momma jeans.

Uncharacteristically the momma jeans were noted in the hagiographic press and he never wore them again. Because to Barry, it was all about what he pretended to be. When he looked into the eyes of Americans all he ever saw was his own reflection. 

With Trump, they’ve been making fun of his suits, his tan, his hair and his ties and he doesn’t care; he is his own man. It’s about time we had that in the White House.  

Above all else, I admire that.

I would rather a man tell me I am an A**H*** than blow smoke up it

What would have forced civility gotten Trump anyway? What did it get George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney? Nothing -- they were pilloried from pillar to post anyway, and their enemies were never afraid to attack and abuse them for even the slightest of slights and to be truthful, even in the absence of slights. 

It’s telling that McCain was surprised when all the Democrat friends he thought he had in Congress, suddenly turned on him and treated him like a pariah because he dared to oppose Barack Obama.

Republicans have always played the game with civility or perhaps they tempered their reactions because of fear. Regardless, they played checkers while the left played three-dimensional chess and the Republicans were always the pawns. Talk about bringing a knife to a gunfight -- who doesn’t love Sean Connery?

To not fight, to be gentlemen and to prosecute this battle with decorum and a sense of fairness to the Democrats is a surefire loss. They won’t play that game; they will go after friends and family and anyone ever known or loved simply to kill that person politically in an apoplectic frenzy, froth, and spittle dripping from their blood-soaked jaws as they stand above the prone carcass and explain how his death was his own fault (see the attempted assassination of Scalise).

This is not brain surgery. Doesn’t anyone read the papers anymore? The left is against anyone or anything that does not say to them, “Yes sir; anything you want sir.” There is no compromise with these people (Did I really say “these people?” OMG, I should be tweeted to death). They will destroy opponents to their worldview without any remorse or conscience.

It’s time to get your hands dirty with the blood of our enemies the enemies of this nation. Relax again, this is another metaphor… Jeez, why is it anything a conservative says is a call to violence while actual violence prosecuted by the left is not really violence at all?

“If you prick us, do we not bleed?” Why is it that the left can beat people and burn things and riot with impunity, yet if conservative brings that up, they are calling for violence?

In the scheme of things, America is a new country, but Americans were not born yesterday, they can see this as the false narrative it is. That’s why Trump was elected president.

I have faith in my fellow citizens; they will see this for what it is and they will rise up and make progressive faces bleed (again, a metaphor) with their words and votes.

Victor Davis Hanson said, “Half the country sees not so much Democrats or progressives, but rather a bankrupt class whose venom for others is used to excuse their own exemptions from the ramifications of their own ideology.”

We on the right are America and we need to stand up and fight to ensure this country remains freedom’s safest place. Donald Trump is with us. I’m in, where do you stand?

1a)

By Hugh Hewit

What does it mean to "win" in Washington, or anywhere else in the country? I've long described "progress" as the ongoing, incremental expansion of liberty and literacy in stable regimes in or aligned with the West

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By that definition, much of President Trump's administration is "winning." Still, I worry that Trump's escalating battle with the media has gone from advancing to impeding efforts to achieve that goal.
About that winning: Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt have become the domestic policy stars of the Trump administration, joining Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly and CIA Director Mike Pompeo as foreign policy counterparts off to successful starts. Each of the five brought to the task deep subject-matter expertise, strong communication skills and the discipline and passion to lead their agencies. (Full disclosure: My son works at the Environmental Protection Agency.)

The key, however, is that all five have sought and received buy-ins from the president and Vice President Pence on their policy directions and priorities - and, even more, that they pursue and defend their missions with little or no reference to the raging battle between the West Wing and the media elites.

All five have mission sets that may require communicating through the mainstream media, but they are not competing to be loved by it. They recognize that love from the media elites may be for sale but never stays bought. Better never to seek it in the first place. Accomplishments bring their own accolades.

And therein is the secret sauce: The country isn't the Beltway and Manhattan, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. Self-reinforcing opinion elites get most of their cues from the collective consciousness of these vitally important but relatively small and isolated reserves of great power, wealth and fame.

Note that I believe almost everyone in those locations are patriots and for the most part moral and ethical. I think they are consistently wrong but rarely rotten.

But they are often isolated, and Trump's sparring with them is deeply satisfying to the rest of the country - most of the time. But not after the attempted assassination of so many GOP legislators resulted in the severe wounding of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (La.) and others. The outrage directed at Kathy Griffin and other celebrities making "jokes" about violence wasn't feigned - and neither is the dismay with which most of us viewed the president's tweet of a video in which he punches out CNN.

The rest of the country doesn't mind the jousting between the president and the media - again, most of the time. They understand exactly with whom Trump is battling, and it isn't them.

The amplification and monetization of outrage via the Web, talk radio and cable news consume airtime but solve none of the country's challenges.

The five appointees mentioned are doing the latter, and here may be the genius of the president's bare-knuckle match with the media: He provides the central attraction, an all-consuming show, while the hard work of fixes gets done without much organized opposition, as the left seems incapable of organizing anything except marches against the president.

This exhausting battle is a giant diversion. But it does create space for major regulatory and agency reform and redirection. There is a limit, however, to how much good the president does by dominating media. The president reached and exceeded that limit with his escalation of this war with his tweets about Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. The tweets were wrong because they were cruel. They don't energize the base, except at its far fringes. They shrink it.

"This is the business we've chosen" is a line Hyman Roth made famous in "The Godfather : Part II ." We in the journalism business must remind ourselves of that frequently when critics become so vulgar or profane that muting is the only option. But no one signed up for personal abuse from the Oval Office.

There is, or should be, a clear distinction between combativeness and cruelty. All five of the big Cabinet-level winners in the first almost-six months of the Trump years are combative; three of them were genuine warriors. All five are scrappy and not afraid to mix it up.

Good.

The center-right in this country is tired of getting rolled and eager to do battle on the policy differences that divide the parties.

Trump secured the nomination in large part because of his authentic combativeness and willingness to break the glass and pull the alarm on so many subjects.

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