Why The Right Should Choose Trump Over DeSantis

Donald Trump may be an embattled man, but he is still the best of what the Republicans have.

opinion by Paul Ingrassia at American Greatness

Donald Trump is the kingmaker of the Republican Party, and for that reason alone, he remains the best choice for 2024 despite the firestorm of negative media coverage, censorship, and the looming threat of indictment, which have haunted him since being forced out of office in January 2021. In the time since Trump has been gone, Americans have watched their economy tank, their freedoms attacked, and we are now disconcertingly close to an out-and-out ground war with nuclear Russia. Meanwhile, Democrats plan to do irreparable damage to institutions (like the Supreme Court) that have checked the worst excesses of liberal hegemony. The military industrial complex, having been subdued in the Trump years, is now back with a vengeance not seen since the Bush-Cheney years. For their part, the Republicans have reverted to their preferred disposition: that of lovable losers. 

The concerted efforts of many Republican establishment types to elevate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over Trump is in keeping with that disposition. It would be a grave mistake for many reasons. At the top of the list is DeSantis’ failure to outcompete Trump from the Right on any meaningful issue. This was revealed early in the pandemic when DeSantis imposed some of the strictest lockdowns in the country, only to roll them back months after it became obvious that, for most people, COVID-19 was no worse than a severe flu. To his credit, DeSantis learned from his mistake and now presides over one of the freest states in the country, all things considered; a feat made even more impressive by Florida’s size as the third largest in the union. That said, DeSantis’ stardom has also benefited from a number of serendipitous circumstances: as liberal states shut down one by one, DeSantis didn’t have to do much to make Sunny Florida an especially attractive place for expats. That, combined with a red-hot real estate market and the desire to rechristen Miami as the decentralized technology alternative to Silicon Valley briefly advanced Florida as a beacon of freedom in contrast to a world that had gone dark under Biden.

DeSantis’ ascendancy, however, may have reached its peak—or the very least, the favorable conditions which gave rise to his national stardom on the Right may soon buckle under the pressures of a weakening economy and the upcoming midterms, which feature candidates many MAGA candidates who could steal a bit of DeSantis’ thunder. The bottom line is that DeSantis distinguished himself on a rather weak playing field: His closest gubernatorial competitors, Kristi Noam and Greg Abbott, are distant seconds in levels of competence and political aptitude—themselves unable to break decisively from the Republican establishment on transgender issues and immigration.

Moreover, DeSantis’ flaws reveal themselves upon deeper inspection. I recently attended the National Conservatism Conference and listened to his keynote speech articulating how Florida should be a model for the rest of America. DeSantis devoted over an hour to brandishing his achievements, including “bucking the ruling class on COVID” and preventing wokeism from permeating Florida’s borders through legislation. While overall admirable, DeSantis’s speech demonstrated quite noticeably how his political success, so far, has not been so much as a trendsetter, but as a follower of extant trends. 

When it becomes safe to take a position on a once controversial issue (i.e., wokeism), only then will DeSantis latch on. Compare this with Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign rhetoric about locking up illegals; forcing Mexico to pay for the wall; locking up Hillary Clinton for her corruption; implementing a complete and total shutdown of all Muslim immigration until we figure out what the hell is going on. These statements were powerful, and memorable, because the ideas behind them were not circulating until the words flowed from Trump’s lips. He alone was responsible for moving the Overton Window on these questions. In the rare moments where DeSantis appears to become the subject of controversy by getting out in front of an issue, such as in his recent comments on slavery, they have largely been downstream of an existing intellectual movement, like the 1776 Project; in other words, it is responsive to a broader movement with institutions already in place, and not a first mover. 

Trump remains the only candidate who does not frame himself in reaction to an existing agenda, but proactively sets the agenda himself. For all his fame, DeSantis is still but an offspring of the MAGA movement. If DeSantis were truly a kingmaker, he would have launched an attack on the Republican establishment, deeming Biden part of an illegitimate establishment, and explicitly called on both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to step down to pave the way for better leaders. Figuring himself a would-be presidential candidate, DeSantis would break ranks with his party and attack the national security state head-on, calling for a negotiated settlement with Vladimir Putin. He would expel from state borders any federal agents who willfully circumvent due process and raid the homes of political adversaries with impunity. DeSantis would also recognize the gravity of the political moment, if he were worthy of the title, and make sure that his and President Trump’s interests were perfectly in line. Deference to Trump should be expected out of respect for what DeSantis owes to him and out of recognition that the state of the country depends on these two men operating in sync.

Donald Trump may be an embattled man, but he is still the best of what the Republicans have. The Grand Old Party would have gone the way of the Whigs had Trump not risen to the occasion in 2015 and taken that ride down the escalator. It is only proper now that Republicans, DeSantis included, put to one side any reservations they harbor about Trump, and in humility support the only man who made American Greatness the center of his movement.

And we Know, On the Fringe, and more- Oct 7

 

For those who might be concerned as to why I haven't brought NCIS LA up in the last few days, look. Yes, there have been interviews this week, but they've all been with 1 cast member, and they kind of repeat themselves in mostly being pointless. Other then finding out that that 'Callen admits he wants Hetty back to his fiancee' scene that I want to see won't air until next month, nothing useful to me.

Well, there was this nice bit from an interview with Looper:

I'll never get tired of hearing of any cast member saying nice things about Linda, and Hetty.

Here's tonight's news:

The United States Needs To Change Course Right Now in Ukraine

We can only hope the American people speak up and begin to rein in our sordid, war-hungry ruling class at the ballot box next month.

posted by Josh Hammer at American Greatness

We are now more than seven months removed from Vladimir Putin’s regrettable incursion into eastern Ukraine and Crimea. But despite that elapsed time and all the various developments since then, the United States’ formal position on the conflict has changed markedly little. That over-simplified and Manichaean position, in short, is one of Ukrainian maximalism: Putin is evil, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is noble, and—here is the big logical leap—the United States will thus support the Ukrainian effort to retake every square inch of territory in the Donbass and Crimea from its nuclear-armed adversary, seemingly no matter the cost to the U.S. taxpayer.

The formal White House “readout” of  Joe Biden’s Tuesday call with Zelenskyy aptly summarizes the United States’ position: “President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., joined by Vice President Kamala Harris, spoke today with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to underscore that the United States will never recognizeRussia’s purported annexation of Ukrainian territory. President Biden pledged to continue supporting Ukraine as it defends itself from Russian aggression for  as long as it takes  . . . ” (Emphases added.) Translation: We will defend your war to retake every square inch of historically contested and ethnically mixed territory no matter what the people living there say they want, no matter the cost, and despite the fact that the fate of Zelenskyy’s regime in Kyiv is secure.

At this stage in the war, virtually all of this pablum is asinine and counterproductive to the actual U.S. national interest in these contested areas. Our national interest in the Ukrainian theater is not coterminous with Zelenskyy’s absolutist stance; our interest is for de-escalation, detente and peace. But if we want to achieve those ends—especially as the threat of nuclear warfare is bursting out into the open, many in the West recklessly continue their calls for Ukraine’s ascension to NATO, and the war-hungry Zelenskyy is himself calling for a NATO-led “preemptive strike” against Russia—Biden needs to recognize reality and change strategic course immediately.

From day one of Russia’s incursion, this column has argued that 1) Ukraine, like Russia, is a deeply corrupt and oligarchic country, and Zelenskyy is a highly flawed leader; but 2) despite his myriad flaws and status as a pawn of the Davos/NGO globalist class, Zelenskyy remaining in power in Kyiv is preferable to the obvious alternative of a Belarusian/Alexander Lukashenko-style Moscow puppet state. But Russia, with the exception of few nearby flare-ups here and there, retreated from Kyiv and its surrounding areas all the way back in May. Put another way, it is clear beyond any reasonable doubt, at this point, that Zelenskyy isn’t going anywhere; he and his government are here to stay. The fate of Kyiv is secure.

At this juncture, the fighting—and in Russia’s case, the recent (likely sham) annexations—is taking place in four far-eastern subregions of Ukraine, and, to a lesser extent, Crimea. Those are the disputed lands that the Biden administration, and “liberal Western democracy” types more broadly, have deemed to be so existentially important to Ukraine and the integrity of “the West” that reconquering them is worth seemingly any military, economic and humanitarian cost—up to, and very much including, the harrowing specter of open nuclear warfare between NATO and Russia.

Even worse, when it comes to the disputed lands themselves, reputable Gallup polling from 2014—the year Putin first marched into Crimea—showed that 73.9 percent of Crimeans thought becoming a part of Russia would improve their lives and their families’ lives (only 5.5 percent disagreed). As for the various enclaves of the Donbass, such as Luhansk and Donetsk, they are very much divided between ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians; Luhansk, for instance, has a nearly even, 50-50 demographic split.

Let’s be as clear as possible: The median American citizen does not, and should not, care whether an ethnically divided, strategically unimportant, historically contested Slavic subregion or two in eastern Ukraine ultimately takes orders from Kyiv or Moscow. Elon Musk, in a much-criticized tweet earlier this week, had the right idea: “Ukraine-Russia Peace,” he argued, can best be achieved by “Redo(ing) elections of annexed regions (such as Luhansk and Donetsk) under UN supervision,” and “Russia leaves if that is will of the people”; “Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake)”; “Water supply to Crimea assured”; and “Ukraine remains neutral (between Russia and NATO).”

One can certainly quibble with Musk’s details—the United Nations, for instance, cannot be a trusted, neutral arbiter or supervisor of anything. But this is certainly the right idea for what the United States, and by extension the West, should be doing and should be aiming toward. The Biden Administration, if it had any common sense, would use any and all leverage to get Zelenskyy and Putin to the negotiating table as soon as possible, thus unequivocally taking the threat of nuclear catastrophe off the table and extricating the United States and NATO from the harrowing prospect of something no Cold War-era president would have ever countenanced: open and direct military confrontation with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. That certainly involves disavowing the possibility of NATO membership for Ukraine.

That our present ruling class demonstrates no interest in common sense de-escalation, and instead demonstrates a seemingly interminable interest in escalation and Ukrainian territorial maximalism, speaks volumes about how out of touch that ruling class is. If nothing else, we should hope the American people speak up and begin to rein in our sordid, war-hungry ruling class at the ballot box next month.

If Peacefully Protesting Abortion Is Criminal But Firebombing Pregnancy Centers Is Not, There Is No Rule Of Law

The arrest of peaceful pro-lifers but not of violent pro-abortionists confirms Biden’s DOJ does not equally apply the law.

Jordan Boyd reporting for The Federalist

Less than one month after armed FBI agents handcuffed and dragged Mark Houck, a pro-life activist and father, out of his home in front of his wife and children, the FBI raided another pro-life activist for his involvement in a peaceful protest outside a Tennessee abortion facility.

FBI agents, with weapons drawn, swarmed Chet Gallagher’s home on Wednesday, LifeNews.com reported, for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a law designed to keep people concerned with protecting unborn life away from abortion facilities. Gallagher was not home at the time of the raid so the FBI “demanded his whereabouts from Gallagher’s family” and his neighbors.

Gallagher is one of 11 activists devoted to defending unborn life who were federally indicted by the Department of Justice this week for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act by standing in a hallway outside the Carafem abortion facility in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, in March 2021. Gallagher and six others were also charged with civil rights conspiracy.

You wouldn’t know it from the DOJ’s press release, which claims the 11 individuals “aided and abetted by one another, used force and physical obstruction to injure, intimidate and interfere with employees of the clinic and a patient who was seeking reproductive health services,” but the Christian pro-lifers spent most of their time peacefully praying, singing, and crying in the hallway leading to the abortion facility. Footage of the gathering eventually shows local police escorting several handcuffed members of the group out of the building and into a police van.

Compare this footage to pictures and videos of pro-abortion vandals’ damage to dozens of life-saving pregnancy centers and churches. A mysterious anarchist-connected group called Jane’s Revenge took responsibility for some of these attacks and threatened to “adopt increasingly extreme tactics to maintain freedom over our own bodies.”

Yet, it took more than a month and a half after the Dobbs v. Jackson decision leak and days after it refused to comment on the vandalism and destruction for the FBI to tell The Federalist that it would investigate the attacks. Now, nearly six months later, the FBI and DOJ have yet to publicize any indictments for the criminals who wreaked havoc on the institutions providing life-saving services to women and children in need.

That’s no accident. Attorney General Merrick Garland likes to pretend that the rule of law grants no exceptions, but Americans know that’s not the case.

The same corrupt DOJ that is targeting men, women, and children mourning the deaths of unborn babies dropped nearly half of its cases against the rioters who ravaged Portland for 100 consecutive days during the 2020 summer of rage. The DOJ wants you to somehow believe that standing in a hallway is worse than the violence that shook cities such as Minneapolis, Portland, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, to their core.

The same corrupt FBI that flocked to Talladega Superspeedway over hate crime allegations that a garage pull cord was a noose designed to target NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace ignored the open calls for violence against Supreme Court justices, up to the point of an assassination attempt against Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of Garland’s former colleagues. They want you to somehow believe that hoaxes warrant more of their attention than actual death threats.

The same DOJ and FBI that are guilty of approving falsified FISA warrants, misleading Congress and the former president, executing political witch hunts against Democrats’ political opponents, and bringing a faulty case against Houck and his legal team at Thomas More Society want you to believe that they are equally applying justice.

The dramatic arrests of more than a dozen peaceful pro-lifers while violent pro-abortionists live without fear of punishment for the destruction they have caused confirm they are not.

North Korea Continues to Saber Rattle as the US Navy Moves Into the Sea of Japan

Susie Moore reporting for RedState 

North Korea is continuing to launch missiles, as the US moves a carrier strike group into the neighborhood. On Tuesday, we reported on the launch over Japan, which prompted warnings to Japanese citizens:

North Korea, which according to Vice President Kamala Harris is our ally, apparently has grown weary of Ukraine and Russia getting all the international attention as of late. In response, Kim Jong-un and the Pyongyang party crew have upped their oversized fireworks ante over the past several days to remind everyone they’re still here. Thus far, the highlight is a missile launch on Tuesday, October 4th over Japan’s northeastern region before landing in the Pacific Ocean east of Japan. The launch prompted a warning from the Japanese Prime Minister’s office to citizens in the missile’s flight path, urging them to take cover.

Early on Thursday came word of additional launches. Per CNN:

South Korea’s National Security Council (NSC) held an emergency meeting on Thursday after North Korea launched two more short-range ballistic missiles, the sixth such launch in 12 days, the country’s Presidential Office said in a statement.

In response, to North Korea’s aggression, a US Navy aircraft carrier strike group is moving into the East Sea, off the Korean Peninsula.

The NSC warned that North Korea’s provocation will face a stronger response, as demonstrated by the redeployment of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group into the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan, following Pyongyang’s launch on Tuesday of an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) that flew over Japan.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff also said on Wednesday that the US carrier strike group would be redeployed to the waterway, in what it characterized as a “very unusual” move meant “to demonstrate the resolute will of the SK-US alliance to respond decisively to any provocation or threat from North Korea.”

White House Spokesman John Kirby characterized Tuesday’s launch as “destabilizing.”

“We’re going to keep discussing and consulting with allies and partners about the best way forward,” he told MSNBC, noting recent military exercises with Japan and South Korea and reiterating Washington’s willingness to hold talks with Pyongyang without preconditions. “But this is obviously destabilizing.”

These latest launches can fairly be read as a test of Joe Biden.

It’s a pattern that has repeated many times over the years, and, as in the past, there are plenty of signs in the latest cycle that point to North Korea eventually testing a nuclear bomb.

Yes, this is part of North Korea’s dogged march toward building a viable arsenal of nuclear-tipped missiles able to target any city on the U.S. mainland. But the nation’s extraordinary run of missile tests this year — its most ever — is also meant to grab the attention of an important, and decidedly distracted, audience of one: Joe Biden.

Washington has responded to the missiles with tough statements and weapons launches of its own in military drills with ally Seoul.

So far, however, there’s been little indication that the Biden administration will — or even can — pursue the messy, politically dangerous diplomacy needed to peacefully solve a problem that has bedeviled U.S. presidents for decades.

To hear Joe Biden tell it, “No one f—s with a Biden.” Between Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats and Kim Jong-un’s latest saber missile rattling, we may all be on the verge of finding out.

Sounds About Right: McDonald's Debuts Happy Meals for Adults

Alex Parker reporting for RedState 

Even for adults, happiness is key. And as they say, you are what you eat.

Perhaps due to that idea, McDonald’s has announced an all-new treat for those long in the tooth but short on digestive joy. Now you can make like a Partridge Family member and get happy with the fast food phenomenon’s Happy Meals for adults.

For the endeavor, Mickey D’s has partnered with a streetwear brand. And in case you’re wondering, yes — you’ll be scoring a toy.

Per the New York Post,

The giant burger chain’s new “Happy Meal for the adults” — designed by Cactus Plant Flea Market, which has also done projects with the likes of Kanye West and Pharrell Williams — will feature a choice of food items as well as toy surprises.

On offer are Big Mac and 10-piece Chicken McNuggets iterations. And as always, fries and a drink will complete the combo.

As for the toys you and your pals can trade, they’ll be figurines of either Hamburglar, Grimace, Birdie, or limited-time character Cactus Buddy.

Business Insider reports that the new knickknacks are sort of, well, psycho:

The box features McDonald’s iconic bright yellow and red color scheme, as well as pops of other bold colors. Alongside the four mascots available as toys, drawings on the box include other famous McDonald’s characters such as Ronald McDonald, Mayor McCheese, Captain Crook, and Officer Big Mac — all inexplicably with two sets of eyes.

The meals debuted Monday, and they’ll be available for the remainder of the month. But as relayed on MSN, McDonald’s employees are ready for the promotion to be kaput:

[Staff] are reporting the hyper-popular promotion has brought about chaos and misery as they struggle to fulfill an avalanche of orders. “Bro, please don’t order those adult McDonald’s Happy Meals, bro, I’m begging,” wrote one [worker] on TikTok.

They’re ranting on Reddit, too:

Under the title “New Adult Happy Meals Are Killing Me,” one anonymous worker posted to Reddit…“We literally just came off the ‘Buy One, Get One for a Dollar’ (promotion), and we were swamped with Big Mac meals. Now with this, we have to literally stockpile them to survive a rush. I hate it.” …

“The most difficult aspect of this promo for the crew is the sheer volume of these meals that we are selling,” one worker told Kotaku via Reddit DMs. “Most stores I have seen have sold out of either the special boxes, Big Mac buns, or toys. (At) some places, it’s more than one of these.”

One problem is the packaging:

The issue appears to be that in order to buy one of the adult Happy Meals, customers need to pick up a Big Mac or a box of 10 chicken nuggets — significantly bigger and more complex orders than go into a traditional child’s Happy Meal box.

Beyond that, whereas children are limited in their purchase power, “Adults can just buy stuff whenever they like. And they are. In crazy numbers. And it doesn’t help that, apparently, the boxes haven’t even been designed to stack — something that puts additional strain on the staff who have to juggle the endless orders.”

Regarding grown-ups getting toy-augmented meals, that seems culturally appropriate. They say 40 is the new 30, but it may be the new 13: These days, parents buy game systems for themselves rather than their children. Amid our first-world frolicking, we’ve reverted to our childhoods as never before.

Not long ago, people past their 20s were old fogeys in unstylish duds with penchants for perusing the newspaper and McCall’s magazine. These days, mothers and fathers slip on skinny jeans; dad is rocking while mom is TikToking.

So a temporary Happy Meal for adults? It might make sense as a mainstay.

But since the opportunity’s merely momentary, race to McDonald’s and get your four-eyed collector’s editions while you can. I’ll get one, too. We can all brag about it to our friends this evening when we play Fortnite.

Kanye’s Artsy ‘White Lives Matter’ Display Invites People To Reject Groupthink, And The Left Hates It

The deranged responses to Ye’s fashion show mean his powerful artistic statement prompted deep thought, and the left hates it.

Evita Duffy reporting for The Federalist

Kanye West, Candace Owens, and several models, including Selah Marley, the granddaughter of reggae icon Bob Marley, wore long-sleeve shirts featuring the words “White Lives Matter” during Kanye’s Yeezy Season 9 event at Paris Fashion Week on Monday. The front of the shirts featured Pope John Paul II and the words “Seguiremos Tu Ejemplo,” which means, “We Will Follow Your Example.” Predictably, the left went berserk.

Droves of journalists, actors, musicians, politicians, activists, and “anti-hate” organizations decried the shirts, describing them as “dangerous,” “white supremacist,” “racist,” “disgusting,” and “irresponsible” thanks to the apparel’s sporting of the phrase “White Lives Matter.”

This phrase, of course, is usually used as a response to the famous line “Black Lives Matter,” which is both the name of and the slogan for the Marxist organization that orchestrated violent, destructive race rioting during the summer of 2020 and beyond. That’s one of the reasons BLM has nothing to do with valuing black lives. In its name, rioters mercilessly torched and looted black neighborhoods and businesses. Instead, the organization serves to enrich its corrupt, Marxist leaders and totally transform our Democratic system into a racially “equitable” communist regime.

So Kanye was correct when he said after the show that “Everyone knows that Black Lives Matter is a scam.” There is also truth in his recent Instagram statement: “Here’s my latest response when people ask me why I made a tee that says white lives matter… THEY DO.” The regime, however, did not take kindly to such frank and accurate remarks from Kanye. 

Vogue contributing editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, who attended Kanye’s show, went on an Instagram story rant afterward, writing that Kanye’s “White Lives Matter” shirt was “indefensible behavior,” “pure violence,” and that there was “no art here.”

Kanye responded to Karefa-Johnson’s comments in kind, making fun of the fashion editor’s sense of style and sharing a photo of her with the caption “this is not a fashion person,” and another photo zooming in on her laced knee-high boots with a caption about how Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue, would hate them. 

Despite Karefa-Johnson firing the first shot, the media labeled Kanye’s response to Karefa-Johnson as an “indefensible bullying campaign.” Fashion icon Gigi Hadid also inserted herself, calling West “a bully and a joke.” 

Selah Marley wasn’t immune to the crazed attacks either, with people saying she “disgraced the name and memory of her grandfather Bob Marley.” Marley responded by writing, “The past 24 hours has allowed me to realize that most of y’all are stuck in a hive mind mentality.”

“You do what the group tells you to do & think what the group tells you to think,” she added. “Witnessing someone break free from ‘the agenda’ sends you all into such a panic that you will do whatever it takes to force them back into the box that you feel they should exist in.”

Nothing Scares the Regime More than Art

Kanye’s “White Lives Matter” fashion moment provoked extreme volatility not because it was “racist” or “dangerous,” but because it possessed a unique power to pull people out of the “hive mind mentality” Marley described. And the reason his fashion show is powerful, irrespective of whatever Karefa-Johnson says, is that it is art. 

According to professor and author Jordan Peterson, artists “mov[e] the culture forward into the unknown … by translating what is as of yet unimaginable.” Artists are known to push boundaries. Consider the laid-back and flowy fashion aesthetic of 1960s hippies or the abstract and geometric patterns in cubism. Both these movements subverted the norm in fashion and art, respectively. 

At their best, artists don’t push boundaries solely to push boundaries, they do it to feed our imagination and invite us to consider problems or unknowns in society. That’s why art movements tend to be counter-cultural. “[Artists are] problem solvers,” said Peterson, “They’re problem detectors and problem solvers. That’s what true artists do.” And that’s what Kanye did. While his fashion show may not be on the level of the Sistine Chapel or the Mona Lisa, his shirt is an artistic expression of a truth currently un-sayable in today’s America.

Indeed, his fashion statement holds a power far greater than an activist merely tweeting “White Lives Matter” could ever dream of. Kanye doesn’t need to go through the laundry list of instances of anti-white racism or BLM corruption. He simply creates and people start talking. 

Leftism has become a full-fledged religion, with its own zealous followers and unquestionable orthodoxy. Yet it is the left’s insistence on obedience and its desire for total control, without grace, that is igniting rebellion. Indeed, while Christianity as a whole is on the decline, young people are increasingly attracted to traditional Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. 

That’s why I also think it’s no coincidence that Pope John Paul II is on the front of Kanye’s shirt. The current pope, Pope Francis, is a socialist who is more outspoken about the environment than abortion. One of his most insidious moves to date has been his crusade to expel the Traditional Latin Mass from the Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II, by contrast, was famously conservative, tolerant of the Latin rite, and anti-communist. John Paul II and “White Lives Matter” on one shirt couldn’t be more counter-cultural.  

Art has always been the best communicator of politics and philosophy. It has the power to convey tricky ideas and emotions that are less effective when expressed via conventional methods. Kanye is pushing people outside their comfort zone or “box,” as Marley says, and inviting them to think. Both his identity as a wacky yet introspective and moving musician and his use of fashion instead of traditional political statements draw people in. He’s not a Twitter troll or a journalist or a politician; he’s Kanye.

Nothing could threaten the left more, which is why they have responded with such volatility. Shirts cannot be “irresponsible” and “dangerous.” These deranged responses mean Kanye made a powerful artistic statement that prompts further thought, and the left hates it.

No One? Are you sure about that, Grandpa?

This guy has the self-awareness of a mollusk.

posted by Dianny at Patriot Retort

Wednesday, Grandpa Joe went down to Florida where the decrepit, senile old man once again played the tough guy, telling the Mayor of Fort Myers, “No one fucks with a Biden.”

Yeah, really.

No one, huh?

Oddly enough, just hours before Joe made this boast, OPEC shrugged off his plaintive pleas to pump more oil, choosing instead to cut oil production by 2 billion barrels.

No one?

This is the guy who lost a battle with the steps to Air Force One, for Pete’s sake.

Good grief, even his dog got the better of him and broke his foot.

Didn’t I just the other day point out that he’s the guy who, to use Joe’s potty-mouth phraseology, got fucked by the Taliban?

And here we are, yet again, watching this old doofus play the tough guy whom “no one fucks with” like we don’t have countless examples of Joe Biden getting fucked so often, he could open a Biden family brothel.

Seriously, this guy has the self-awareness of a mollusk.

As Jesse Kelly put it yesterday on Twitter:

“From fake stories fighting off razor gangs by the pool to telling everyone who makes him mad to ‘stop being a wise guy,’ it will never stop being funny that the 40 year politician thinks he’s Tony Spilotro.”

“No one fucks with a Biden.”

At this point, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Joe Biden has never had an accurate picture of himself. Never.

This isn’t senility. He’s always been an arrogant, puffed-up blowhard.

That’s not to say Biden’s senility doesn’t play an eensy part in this. He may not even remember getting fucked by Putin, OPEC, the Taliban, or even his dog. Sure, the OPEC thing happened just hours earlier. But with that soup-for-brains, that’s no guarantee that he remembered it.

Actually, he may not even be aware of what OPEC did. Who the hell knows what his handlers tell him at this point?

And that’s the other thing.

President “No one fucks with a Biden” gets fucked on a daily basis by the people who are actually in charge of his administration.

The only way Joe’s ridiculous boast would have been remotely true is if he said, “No one fucks with a Biden nearly as hard as the people in my administration.”