Too Little Targeting of The Woke and The Powerful, But Hopefully Not Too Late

by Lloyd Billingsley for American Greatness 

“Okay, I’m sorry, if you’ve had two boosters and two vaccines, you can get and give COVID to another guy who’s had five vaccines and four boosters.” That was Dana Carvey in his best Fauci voice, wondering about the difference between a booster and a vaccine.

“I don’t know, it’s just more vaccine but booster sounds better. Anyway, a guy with 25 vaccines would get and give COVID to another guy with 25 vaccines. That’s why I’m introducing the daily COVID shot. Every day you get a shot. By the time you get to your car, you got no immunity, but it’s a beautiful 39 seconds.”

As host David Spade recalled, you could lose your job if not vaccinated but those coming into the country were exempt from vaccine mandates.

“This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Biden proclaimed in September of 2021. “And it’s caused by the fact that despite America having an unprecedented and successful vaccination program, despite the fact that for almost five months free vaccines have been available in 80,000 different locations, we still have nearly 80 million Americans who have failed to get the shot.”

Recall that Biden ordered “sweeping new federal vaccine requirements for as many as 100 million Americans — private-sector employees as well as health care workers and federal contractors.”

This policy came straight from Dr. Fauci, who wanted multiple vaccinations for children as young as four. Dr. Fauci wanted people to wear no mask, one mask, or even two masks, while proclaiming, “I represent science.” George Carlin would have been all over this half-pint Lysenko figure, but with Fauci comics were mostly AWOL. It’s kind of like that with Joe Biden.

True, Biden’s own antics are hard to top but satirists should accept the challenge. Biden falls down more often than Gerald Ford, a perfect target for Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live. The current White House occupant offers limitless possibilities.

Joe Biden once said that African Americans who failed to support him “ain’t black.” Imagine what Richard Pryor would have done with that. For the possibilities, check out Pryor in this scene from Silver Streak. But remember, political partisanship was not a factor.

On SNL’s “Dukakis After Dark,” Michael Dukakis (John Lovitz) tells Jimmy Carter (Dana Carvey) “I’m about to lose as bad as you did. Maybe worse. How did you deal with it afterwards?”

“I was one pissed-off cracker,” Carter says. “I had to accept the fact that I was a downer. A liberal downer. A malaise-ridden liberal downer. A free-spending malaise-ridden liberal downer, who only knew. . .”

The skit also features Ted Kennedy (Phil Hartman) hitting on Kitty Dukakis (Jan Hooks), Leroy Nieman (Kevin Nealon) painting a picture of the nuclear aircraft carrier Nimitz converted to a homeless shelter, and Joan Baez (Nora Dunn) singing:

Unilateral lateral disarmament, abortions on demand
Take everybody’s guns away, and toss them in the sand.
Free needles for the addicts, free condoms for the kids
We’ll not blame the criminal for anything he did.
For who can say what’s right or wrong, is there’s such a thing as sin?
It doesn’t really matter really matter, if wars we lose or win.

As Dukakis explains, “we represent unpopular and discredited views,” and “one thing that hurt us is the fact that Reaganomics works. It really does.” Later on, Dana Carvey’s takes on President George Bush revealed a true bipartisan approach. The great Eddie Murphy, another SNL alum, had a go at the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who ran for president in 1984 and showed a flair for what Walter Williams called “inane rhyming preachments.”

During a conversation with Washington Post reporter Milton Coleman, the Rev. Jackson referred to Jews as “Hymies,” and New York City as “Hymietown.”That caught the attention of Murphy, who worked up a song for the February 2, 1984 SNL.  As Carly Simon might say, nobody does Jesse Jackson better, and check out “White Like Me,” for Eddie’s take on racial disparities.

The Rev. Jackson apologized for “Hymietown” but refused to denounce Louis Farrakhan. The Nation of Islam leader threatened Coleman and warned Jews that “if you harm this brother, I warn you in the name of Allah, it will be the last one you harm.” So it took some guts for Eddie to step up and sing.

Janet Jackson – no relation to Jesse – had tongues wagging with her famous “wardrobe malfunction,” at the 2004 Super Bowl. Janet suggested that President George W. Bush used “boobgate” to take the focus off the war in Iraq. Jay Leno feared that Jesse Jackson might hear this and proclaim, “Bush used her rack, to distract from Iraq!” But like SNL, Leno was also bipartisan.

When members of the Reagan cabinet volunteered to take drug tests, Leno suggested IQ tests would be more appropriate. And if vice president Dan Quayle were to star in a Vietnam movie, Leno said, it should be called “Full Dinner Jacket.” Celebrity journalists were also fair game, as in Gilda Radner’s take on Barbara Walters.

In this sketch, “Baba Wawa” asks Betty Ford (Jane Curtin) and Rosalynn Carter (Laraine Newman) “what has made you a gweat first wady?” Baba Wawa also interviews Henry Kissinger (John Belushi) the “cweator of shuttle dipwomacy” but also a “wegular guy.”

The SNL crew spared no one and that’s the way it should be now, when the woke and the powerful don’t want to be criticized much less mocked. Comics of the nation, arise. You have tough acts to follow, but we need you more than ever.

X22, Christian Patriot News, and more- July 17

 

Have We Forgotten the Russian Way of War? ~ VDH

by Victor Davis Hanson for American Greatness

“I think I am not exaggerating when I say that the campaign against Russia has been won in 14 days.”

General Franz Halder, June, 1941, Chief of Staff, Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres

Masters and commanders of history who have sworn that they have defeated an incompetent, disorganized, and corrupt Russian army are legion. For a time they seemed to have been correct. But there is a pattern to their encounters with the Russian army that is germane to the current Ukrainian offensive.

In 1707, Swedish King Charles XII appeared like he could successfully invade Russia in the manner that he had defeated Russian armies. But by 1709, he had wrecked the Swedish army against a numerically superior enemy that seemed to grow despite losing battles.

Napoleon won more battles than he lost in Russia, took, and burned Moscow—and destroyed his own French army in the process. The famous invasion chart of Charles Joseph Minard graphically demonstrated how his Grand Army shrunk each day it advanced further into Russia.

The 3.5 million-man Wehrmacht expeditionary force consistently crushed the Russian army for nearly two months following its invasion of June 22, 1944—killing nearly 3 million Russians. Such catastrophic losses would have broken any Western army.

But by December 1941, the Germans could no longer win the war in the east.

One might object that it is a truism that invading the vast landscape and enduring the harsh weather of Mother Russia is a prescription for disaster; yet Russian armies do poorly when they invade other countries and fight as aggressors outside of their homeland.

Yes and no.

Certainly, the preemptive Russian attack on Kyiv proved an utter disaster. Who can forget the scenes of last winter when sitting-duck, long columns of stalled Russian vehicles were picked off in shooting-gallery fashion by brave Ukrainian ad hoc units? But note saving Kyiv was the mere beginning not the end of the war.

Resilience and recovery from disasters are the historical trademarks of the Russian army.  From May to September 1939, a Russian army under the soon to be heralded General Zhukov fought a large Japanese force on the Mongolian-Manchurian border. Despite the battle hardened and military ascendant imperial Japanese military, the Russians withstood every Japanese assault, and eventually destroyed 75 percent of Japanese forces.

On September 17, 1939,  a duplicitous Soviet Russia invaded Poland from the west, under the agreements of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939.

The large Russian force hit a Polish army reeling from nearly three weeks of relentless hammering from a German invasion that had attacked from three directions. Although the belated advance of the Russian army was not especially impressive, its victory was foreordained.

The three-and-a-half month Finnish-Russian “Winter War” of 1939-40 is usually referenced as an example of the gritty heroism of the outnumbered Finnish army and the general ineptness of the invading Russian behemoth that outnumbered the heroic Finns by more than two to one. When the tattered Russian army finally ground down the Finns and forced them to negotiate, they had suffered nearly 400,000 casualties, perhaps five times Finnish losses.

The Russian invasion was poorly planned, inadequately supplied, incompetently led, and characterized by low morale. And yet the invasion was eventually mostly successful given the numerical and material advantages of Russia—and Moscow’s seeming indifference to its massive losses. Its trademark war of attrition eventually proved too costly for tiny Finland.

In the current Ukrainian war, over the last 16 months Russia has suffered unimaginable setbacks. It has lost more planes, helicopters, armored vehicles—and soldiers—than at any time since World War II. The morale in the Russian military is reportedly shot.

Westerners understandably gleefully watched the bizarre “coup’ staged by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his mercenary “Wagner Group,” in anticipation of some sort of civil war or forced abdication of Vladimir Putin. “Putin is finished” has been a mantra since February 2022.

In short, the Russian “special military operation” is a sorry Russian saga of self-inflicted wounds, abject ineptitude, and callous treatment of its own. So why then does Russia continue such wastage?

True, Russia can draw on well over three times the population as Ukraine, from a territory 30 times larger. In contrast, perhaps a quarter of Ukrainian’s prewar population has left the country, leaving a population of fewer than 30 million.

Westerners scoff at the anemic and hemorrhaging Russian economy—even before the war only half the size of California’s. Yet Russian GDP is nonetheless ten times greater than Ukraine’s.

Perhaps the key to the Russian enigma is a reductionist “Russia doesn’t care” about its massive losses that by now would have toppled any Western government that oversaw such senseless carnage.

Russian incompetent commanders certainly have wasted tens of thousands of young Russian lives. Russian medical care at the front is atrocious; becoming wounded is often synonoymous with a death sentence. Supplies of food and munitions are unreliable.

Somewhere between 150-200,000 Russian soldiers may have already died, been wounded, or captured. Russia may have lost nearly an astonishing 6,000 armored vehicles and nearly 200 aircraft.

And yet here we are with the Russian army entrenched on the borderlands, still in possession of 11 percent of Ukraine’s post-2014 territory.

In frenzied fashion, the desperate Russians have nearly finished a modern version of a Maginot Line of zigzagging interconnected trenches, reinforced concrete tank traps, minefields, artillery crossfire fields—all protected by mobile reserves and aircraft, missile, and drone support. They have awaited the vaunted “spring offensive” of Ukraine,” perhaps hoping to kill one Ukrainian for every two Russians they lose.

These ossified World-War-I-like fortifications are laughed off by Western analysts as an anachronistic multibillion-dollar blunder of static defense.

Yes, we smirk at such crude Russian obstinance. But increasingly now rare are the March and April triumphant boasts of Western generals, pundits, the media, and political officials that the long promised reckoning would unleash a Ukrainian armored Pattonesque romp through and around the blinkered Russians—and perhaps a Cannae entrapment that would swallow such calcified deployments and end the war outright.

After all, the U.S. and NATO have poured $200 billion into Ukraine’s increasingly state-of-the art war machine. Top Western advisors and intelligence officials daily advise Ukrainian generals.

Kyiv now spends more annually on defense than any other country except the U.S. and China. Its soldiers are perhaps more battle-hardened than any in NATO, its army better equipped than any Western military except the American.

Yet we still hear constant light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel escalatory revisionism.

We were once told that the U.S. should not supply Ukraine with state of the art 155mm artillery.

Likewise taboo were billion-dollar-plus Patriot antiaircraft missile batteries and the sophisticated M142 HIMARS rocket platforms. We hoarded these costly systems, and feared Russia might do something stupid once its soldiers and planes were shredded by such sophisticated American arms.

We were assured that shipping Abrams tanks would be unwise given similar fears of escalation.

F-16s? They too, we were told, were not needed, and might also earn a wild counter-response from Russia. All these munitions are now green-lighted.

Now we are to ship controversial cluster bombs. Again, all these weapons were demanded by Ukraine as the final tools that would supposedly help crack the clunky Russian army.

The latest once verboten escalation is the call up of U.S. reservists, “just in case” they are needed in Europe to ensure the supply and training of Ukrainians—or, alternatively, in theory to be ready to supplant U.S. combat troops that would be sent into Ukraine.

The recent agreement to ship cluster bombs, designed to shower entrenched Russian conscripts with “steel rain” jumped the proverbial shark.

Western leftists, previously known for their moral outrage over using such macabre weapons used on the modern battlefield—often by Western units fighting for their lives in the Middle East—were among the most vocal clamoring for such shipments, the most recent necessary antidote to the supposedly neanderthal Russian concrete and steel barriers. Will we soon see upscale houses in liberal communities with new lawn signs, “In this house, we believe in cluster bombs?”

Yes, the Ukrainians have far better equipment than does Russia. They have moral right on their side, and they continue to fight doggedly and heroically, despite mounting and ultimately unsustainable losses.

Yes, the Russian economy is in tatters.

Yes, Putin’s grip on power is in danger, given that his foolhardy invasion is destroying the reputation of the Russian military, solidifying NATO, and destroying a generation of Russian youth.

And yes, there is also a long Russian way of war.

Historically the Russian military is not preemptive but reactionary and sluggish. It was historically plagued by Czarist, Soviet, and oligarchic bureaucratic incompetence. It treats its soldiers as cannon fodder, and relies on sticks rather than carrots to mobilize its youth.

Yet the resilient Russian army is also dogged as it bends but rarely breaks—even if its tactics of pouring men and fire against the enemy are scripted and predictable. We laugh at the unimaginative Russian entrenchments, but we also accept that to breach them will require a cost in blood and treasure that Ukraine and its Western benefactors may not wish to pay, although Russia itself may well gladly pay that tab and more still.

Given Russian military history, it is stunning how confident Western military analysts have been in predicting not only that smaller Ukraine would expel neighboring Russians from what they grabbed in 2022, but also go on to recapture the borderlands and Crimea.

Their predictions assumed that catastrophic Russian losses, the dividends of Moscow’s stupidity and indifference, the amorality of the invasion, the evil of Putin, and the nobility of the new united NATO would all ensure Russian defeat.

Yet history would differ. It would answer that to win a war, proverbially long-suffering Russia must first almost lose it.

Unfortunately, this Verdun-like war is a long way from over.

💗 New movies are back on GAF this August

 

Source: https://itsawonderfulmovie.blogspot.com/2023/07/great-american-family-august-summer-movies-schedule-2023.html

Great American Family has a New Movie Premiere coming EVERY Saturday in August! Furthermore, some additional movies may be added to the schedule, so you'll want to stay tuned for those potential updates.

See all the details below...

Great American Family's 

☀️

 Great American  Summer 

☀️

Tim Ross, Susie Abromeit and director Colin Budds on the set of Romance at the Vineyard.
Photo by David Fell.

Romance at the Vineyard

Starring: Susie Abromeit and Tim Ross

Premieres: Saturday, August 5, 2023

Storyline: When it looks as though Allee’s family vineyard, Merado, is at stake, she is forced to pair with a new friend in an effort to avoid selling the property. What she doesn’t know is that her newfound partner works for the corporate wine chain aiming to buy the property.



****************************

Joshua Sasse, director Jo-Anne Brechin and Merritt Patterson.
Photo by Vince Valitutti.

One Perfect Match

Starring: Merritt Patterson and Joshua Sasse

Premieres: this Summer

Storyline: A professional matchmaker must choose between her job and her heart when she falls for a client.


****************************

Dream Wedding

Starring: Rebecca Dalton and Jesse Hutch

Premieres: this Summer

Storyline: When sisters Kate and Megan attend a local wedding fair they jokingly enter a dream wedding package raffle even though they are not getting married. The sisters win and are surprised that they must put on a show for the magazine who sponsored the raffle.


****************************

Key to Love

Starring: Alicia Dea Josipovic & Corey Sevier

Premieres: this Summer

Storyline: A bookstore owner starts an antagonistic relationship with a book cover model until an antique key found in a false book unlocks their romance.


****************************


I am so delighted to see all of these wonderful movies coming to GAF this Summer and beyond!

Please stay tuned to *It's a Wonderful Movie* for more details on the NEW Movies airing in August and this Summer on Great American Family.

President Trump Interview with Maria Bartiromo – Full Video

posted by Sundance at Conservative Treehouse 

President Trump appeared with Maria Bartiromo for a lengthy discussion about the current state of politics. {Direct Rumble Link} Within the interview both domestic and foreign policy issues are discussed as well as Trump’s perspectives on the candidates contesting to win the GOP nomination.

It is an interesting interview on many fronts as we look at the republican primary and the candidates who are situated on behalf of institutional and financial interests that oppose President Trump.  WATCH:

The war in Ukraine ends the moment Trump is elected. Russia keeps the eastern part where the U.S. was provoking unrest.  The U.S. stops trying to use Ukraine as a proxy provocation against Russia.  Ukraine stops doing stupid stuff, becomes independent of the USA, and takes care of its own people.  And with Trump’s assurance to Russia – Ukraine will not join NATO. Everything stops. Done.

Michelle Obama for President? Not Only No But...

posted by Ward Clark at RedStateVIP 

President Michelle Obama: File this under “things that should keep you awake at night.”

We’ve all seen President Joe Biden’s ongoing mental and physical decline. My RedState colleague Jeff Charles just gave us some food for thought about Kamala Harris rising to the top spot. Sooner or later, one suspects, someone is going to have to bell the cat, pull a Barry Goldwater, walk in, and tell old Joe, “Enough is enough. It’s time for you to pack it in.”

But the American Spectator’s Pat Nolan thinks that there may be an alternative to Kamala Harris.

Michelle Obama. Yes, really. Here’s how Mr. Nolan thinks this could happen.

The Democratic establishment is laying the groundwork to dump Joe Biden. When the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Axios, and the Atlantic desert a liberal president, you know the knives are out. Which raises two questions: when will they stick the shiv into Biden? And how do they plan to deal with the “Kamala problem”?

To all but her most ardent fans, it is obvious that having Kamala on the 2024 ticket would be a disaster for the Democrats. Her 2020 campaign collapsed before a single vote was cast. Biden made her his running mate, not because she was a good candidate, but solely because he had backed himself into a corner when he promised he would choose a black woman as his running mate.

In other words, as I think we all know, Kamala Harris was a diversity hire of the first water. But she’s also in the #2 chair already. How, presuming the Democrats want to run someone else, do they deal with this?

The most vexing dilemma facing the Democrats is how to justify sidelining Harris who would make history as the first black woman president. Political insiders know that there is zero possibility that it could happen. However, many black voters are holding on to the hope that it might happen. Given the dependence of the Democrats on overwhelming support from blacks, this would be very tricky. Sidelining Kamala could lead to black voters sitting out the next presidential election. That would doom the ticket.

However, there is one path the Democrats could take which would immediately dispel any notion of betrayal. If Michelle Obama announced she is running for president, any resentment among black voters about Harris’ treatment would evaporate. While some may think this is farfetched, a Michelle Obama candidacy makes sense for many reasons. Michelle is very popular with the Democrats’ base and is far more popular than Kamala. Michelle has recently raised her profile, speaking out on issues important to the Dems’ base. This is a striking shift from the low-profile Michelle has kept since she and Barack left the White House.

Here’s why this isn’t a likely scenario.

First: Look at the lifestyle the Obamas have now, from their multiple waterfront mansions to their Greek vacations with Tom Hanks. They have to do very little to ensure their continued lifestyle of the rich and famous, and it’s difficult to believe they’d give up the fast and easy road to riches available to ex-politicians. And things like speaking fees may be a little shady, but they are technically legal.

Second: Michelle Obama has never faced serious opposition for anything in her adult life. Not in her patronage job as “Vice President for Community and External Affairs” (whatever that is) at the University of Chicago Hospitals, to her tenure as First Lady, to… whatever it is she does now. Even if the Democrats ran a no-opposition coronation for her through their primary process, at some point she would have to stand up and debate someone like Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis, and she is in no way prepared or capable of taking that on.

Third and finally: She’s not remotely qualified, and even the Democrats have to know this. The only thing she brings to the table is a name that is hers by marriage, a Brobdingnagian sense of entitlement, and the approved skin color and plumbing to replace Kamala Harris.

That’s not to say that the Democrats might not attempt this anyway if they can convince Mrs. Obama to go along with it. Michelle Obama may be a slightly darker Hillary Clinton, but if one would play devil’s advocate for a moment, one need but point out how narrow was Donald Trump’s 2016 victory over the Dowager Empress of Chappaqua – a few thousand votes in a few key states would have yielded very different results. And it’s true, Michelle Obama would appeal to a lot of voters who are nostalgic for the Obama Presidency, hate the GOP, and want to check off one more “historic first.”

It’s a possibility the Republicans would have to take seriously, were it to happen. But it seems unlikely. The Obamas are now far too entrenched in their jet-setting, massive-carbon-footprint lifestyle to want to dive back into the swamp.

Then again, predictions are notoriously hard to make — especially when they’re about the future.

Tucker Takes Down Chris Christie, Long Distance, Even Without an Interview

Nick Arama reporting for RedState 

Tucker Carlson has been on fire over the past couple of days. First, it was with the Republican candidates at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa. We reported on his interviews with former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, and former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Tucker also did an interview with Glenn Beck with a few more remarks about the candidates. Then Carlson went to the Turning Point Action Conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, and had some great fun during his remarks there, particularly savaging former Vice President Mike Pence and roasting the White House over the cocaine found in the West Wing.

Carlson also made this great point about the importance of free speech for the health of our nation, noting that it was being stifled and that people were not allowed to raise questions about the 2020 election without facing a possible ban on social media.

One of the people who wasn’t there in Iowa — and so did not get the Tucker Carlson grilling — was former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Christie instead went on ABC and attacked Tucker Carlson as “wrong” on his position about the U.S. support for Ukraine.

“I would have said, you’ve always been wrong about this, Tucker, and you’re still wrong,” Christie declared.

Carlson responded with the voice of one who is unrestricted in what he might say. He said that he thought that merited a longer conversation and invited Christie to interview with him, like the interviews he did with the other candidates in Iowa, to explain his views on Ukraine. But Christie refused.

Carlson was not shy about shooting back. “You hate to think that Chris Christie is a blustery coward who plays the tough guy with sycophants at ABC but won’t answer real questions, but who knows?” he said. “We hope he reconsiders.”

I think that Carlson might have just achieved something unique; he nuked Chris Christie long distance without even having to interview him.

If Christie truly believes Carlson is wrong, why not go on with him and defend his point? Yes, it would likely be a barn burner, but if he believes in his points, stand by them. If he doesn’t, he’s saying he only wants to go on safe liberal media that agrees with him and wouldn’t question what he has to say. That isn’t going to get him more votes in a GOP primary.

But if that wasn’t enough, Christie also came to the defense of FBI Director Christopher Wray, saying he thought he has done a “very good job.”

How to do yourself in (if you ever even had a chance) — that’s it, right there. But then, while he went to bat for Wray, he was also trying to draft off DeSantis, telling DeSantis, “Welcome to the party” with the Die Hard meme, for saying he wanted to deal with the swamp, even as he, Christie is praising a member of it. And if you’re supporting Wray while he dissembles and doesn’t give proper answers about censorship, you’re not truly supporting that free speech that Carlson noted is so important for the health of our society.