Major League Inside Politics Nears the Trade Deadline

Part Three: The Republican Waiver Wire

opinion of Thaddeus G. McCotter at American Greatness

Prior to Major League Baseball’s (MLB) August 1 trade line, we examined whether the Democrat and Republican parties are considering the trade route to improve their prospects heading into the main event of the 2024 presidential election. First, we deduced how the Democrats were going to make a late primary season trade of 2024 nominees, swapping out current President Joe Biden for California Governor Gavin Newsom (D).

Last week, we focused on the prospects of Republicans trading former President Donald Trump for a new nominee. Notably, we discerned that not only is Mr. Trump still receiving the ardent support of his supporters, he is also receiving not so covert support from unlikely quarters: the Democrats and their media cohorts. Due to Mr. Trump’s hold on his base, for the GOP the question lingered whether it could designate him assignment, and claim one of his challengers off the waiver wire to be the party’s 2024 nominee?

Though the MLB trade deadline has passed, ball clubs may still add players off the waiver wire. The process is thus: following the trade deadline, a team wanting to send a player to the minors or trade him puts him on “waivers.” (In essence, the team is “waiving” its interest in the player.) Once on waivers, another team who may want that player can pick him up for little or no consideration. It is not an exact comparison, but it is an apt one, given how the GOP currently has little interest in embracing anyone in the primary field to replace the frontrunning Mr. Trump.

But should the Democrats move too soon to trade away President Biden and replace him with Governor Newsom – or should the GOP wake up and read the writing on the wall even sooner – the Republican primary voters could decide trading out Mr. Trump makes eminent sense. This could happen if, for no other reason, that in politics as in war, history demonstrates the losing side is the one still fighting the last war.

So, who might the GOP claim off the waiver wire to replace Mr. Trump? Ah, one forgets how Republican-populism is a movement not a person. In consequence, let us explore what strengths a prospective 2024 nominee will need to merit being claimed off the GOP waiver wire and named the movement’s standard bearer.

It is best to do so by deductive reasoning: what is the key reason these candidates are presently flailing in the primary field? Bluntly, they have yet to recognize how Mr. Trump has changed the GOP; and, more importantly, how he has not.

First, it is an interesting feat that Mr. Trump has changed the GOP, because he is not a natural nor a long self-identified Republican. Indeed, he started political life more as a New York business tycoon, who well understood the transactional nature of politics and its reliance upon friendly relations with Democrats. Yet he also shared the political instincts of another populist business tycoon: H. Ross Perot. Mr. Trump used his understanding of transactional politics and Reform Party instincts to latch onto the Republican-populist movement, win the 2016 GOP primary, and capture the presidency with a minority of the popular vote.

Doing so, Mr. Trump brought new or returned voters to the GOP fold. Perhaps most importantly, for these voters and the traditional GOP voters, Mr. Trump’s leftist enemies dropped their masks and revealed themselves as power abusing autocrats. From Russia-gate on, the Democrats exhibited their lack of boundaries, weaponizing the police powers of the state to persecute not only Mr. Trump, but anyone who dissented from their leftist agenda, such as parents freely assembling to freely speak and petition government for the redress of their grievances at school board meetings. Thus, while Mr. Trump had unwitting help from the Democrats in altering the composition of the Republican Party, it is the Left’s corrupt abuses of power that facilitated the former president’s other change in the GOP: Republicans now fully realize the craven, dictatorial nature of their opponents; and will (non-violently) fight to defend and redeem their free republic from them.

Indeed, the desire to nominate a “fighter” to do battle with the Uniparty and “drain the swamp” seemingly makes Mr. Trump immune to the argument his renomination will prove a monumental disaster for the GOP. Even if one of his supporters may agree with this grim prognostication, they would still rather lose with him than win with a RINO. And thanks to Mr. Trump’s persuasive powers, presently all the other prospective 2024 GOP nominees cannot refute his claim “I will fight! The others won’t or can’t!” One can say this because, if they could fight, in the polls they would be ahead of Mr. Trump not behind him – collectively behind him.

Yet, this standard is not insurmountable, for it is not real. Throughout his presidency, there were times when Mr. Trump did not fight well or at all; and, often, his political inexperience led to regrettable results for the republic, such as the COVID shutdowns and enabling Fauci, et. al. No person is perfect, though political consultants are handsomely paid to have you believe otherwise. Therefore, elementary campaigning requires Mr. Trump’s primary challengers to favorably compare and contrast their handling of similar issues with his ineptitude. Those who can have done so, but without success. Why? Because they do not like Mr. Trump. And he is not shy about baiting these challengers to make undisciplined missteps in the heat of the moment, any more than he is shy about anything. As he has done with his Democrat detractors, this trait remains Mr. Trump’s ace in the hole.

Taking offense where offense is intended is normal human behavior. Sure, candidates shake hands with each other and smile for the cameras, but people heatedly competing for anything are rarely sincere in their mutual esteem. For the GOP primary voter, who does not loathe Mr. Trump, his primary opponents’ dislike of him is palpable; and it is viewed as piling on and aiding Mr. Trump’s Democrat and Never Trump opponents. More importantly, these GOP candidates’ dislike of him breeds Republican primary voters’ suspicions: are these candidates swamp-fed RINOs doing the Uniparty’s bidding?

How, then, can a Republican primary opponent successfully contrast their proven record against Mr. Trump’s without appearing disloyal not only to him, but to the GOP grassroots who admire him? Let the lessons of history, again, be our guide as we prepare for the next war in 2024.

There was another instance of when a general earned the gratitude of his troops by teaching them how to fight. When he ran for president, it was expected his admiring former troops’ votes would put him over the top. It was not to be for former General George B. McClellan in 1864.

As Michigan historian Bruce Catton wrote in the final volume of his Army of the Potomac trilogy, A Stillness at Appomattox:

McClellan had always been the symbol…  Everything that these men had, one supposes, they would have given to be again the army McClellan had commanded and to have him again for a leader, and yet they did not try to vote the past back into existence because they were fond young men no longer. They had come of age and they gave history something new to look at, not seen before in all the record of wars and men of war – the sight, that is, of veteran soldiers who had long outlived enthusiasm and heroics walking quietly up to the ballot boxes and voting for more war to be fought by themselves instead of voting for an end to it and no more fighting. 

What happened to secure the soldiers’ votes for Lincoln, a president for whom they held no abiding affection (at the time)?

At bottom, what counted most may have been nothing more than a simple refusal to admit that they could be beaten. An officer wrote that “they were unwilling that their long fight should be set down as a failure, even though thus far it seemed so,” and that probably says it. The men were not quitters, and when it came time to vote they said so according to their understanding of the case.”

Yet, what was that case? What led men who had been fighting for years to continue marching through the charnel house of Civil War? A hardened soldier in the Army of the Potomac could understandably, if mistakenly, have viewed the Copperhead Democrat McClellan’s “armistice” as a draw, not a defeat. They did not, choosing instead to look to the future. Mr. Catton cited a contemporaneous summation by an Episcopal bishop from Atlanta: “Their idol is less the Union of the past than the sublime Union of the future, destined soon to overshadow all other nations.”

In summation, then, for a GOP primary challenger to Mr. Trump to persuade the party to replace the former president as their nominee, they first need to show the discipline necessary to admit that the GOP owes him a debt of gratitude for showing them how to fight. This will not be easy – and Mr. Trump’s insults will ensure it is as hard as possible. But emotional disciple is virtue in a national leader as, ironically, Mr. Trump’s frequent, injurious lack of impulse control demonstrates. In expressing their gratitude to Mr. Trump for showing the GOP how to fight, the primary challenger is doing something far more important: telling GOP primary voters they are respected; and they needed to win the battle for our free republic and protect America’s standing in the world.

Only after this is achieved will the GOP primary voters be willing to listen to the political reality that Mr. Trump’s renomination is emotionally satisfying and politically suicidal. Much of what the GOP primary voters cherish and defend will be lost, crushed by an unchecked Leftist administrative state – not merely for a term or two, but for generations.

Yet, what will that cause loss? It cannot merely be whatever one gleans within the Mr. Trump’s nebulous, cribbed slogan of “Make America Great Again (Again).” This has always been a rather regressive and inaccurate battle cry. First, America is always great, because of her people. It is our servant government that is often abysmal.

Second, it is a call to go backwards to go forwards, and this is an unsound strategy.  This is, though, perhaps a better slogan for Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign. Well, that or “Back to the Future.”) An army or party is created to go forward, be it over the battlefield or into the voting booth. “Strategic retreats” just delay defeat.

Finally, it is a misunderstanding of conservatism and its incarnation as Republican-populism. This is not surprising, as Mr. Trump is not versed in conservatism, which has never been about the negation of the future. And this is what Mr. Trump has not changed about the Republican Party, even if he wanted to do so.

Republicans remain devoted to their founding mission of securing and expanding liberty and equality; conserving the permanent things of faith, family, community, and country; and advancing constructive change based upon a grounded understanding of immutable principles and imperfectible humanity.

The current Republican-populist movement looks to the future, and requires an aspirational vision that, in fact, delves deeper than the cribbed slogan of “Make America Great Again (Again).” Regrettably, because Mr. Trump’s challengers fail to successfully articulate such a vision only intensifies Republican voters’ belief that these pols are just red-hatted RINOs. This is understandable, since any GOP nominee who seeks to carry the banner held by individuals such as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan should not only know what this aspirational vision remains, but feel it to the very depths of their soul: namely, the American republic’s revolutionary experiment in self-government exists to inspire ourselves and the world with what a free people achieve.

To wit, a free sample for the (self-)interested: “For your stalwart efforts, Mr. Trump, we owe our admiration, but not our nomination. You have shown us we must fight. But cannot win that fight with you as our nominee. Republican-populism transcends an individual. It is a transformational movement to promote and protect liberty and equality; defend our free republic; and inspire the world with what a free people achieve.”

Should a GOP primary challenger to Mr. Trump can express their admiration for what he has done for the party and the country; demonstrate, however, that Mr. Trump’s renomination will result in electoral disaster; prove their own stalwart record and stances make them worthy of being the party’s standard bearer; and provide all voters a forward-looking aspirational vision for America, the Republican Party will claim this formidable candidate off the waiver wire.

If not, welcome to the bush leagues.

Christian Patriot News, And we Know, and more- August 6

 

Sunday throwback: More Hetty/NCIS LA videos I love 😎

 

It's a boring Sunday in August, and I haven't done any NCIS LA articles in a while. :) Soooo, here's another throwback with videos that I love! Enjoy (and be kind in the comments, I mean it!):

Who Are Democrats Kidding? Of Course Trump Indictment is Political

Trump is being punished for refusing to recant his belief that 2020 was fatally corrupted and that Biden is illegitimate

by Matthew Boose for American Greatness

Donald Trump was summoned to the capital on Thursday to face historic charges. Many people are likely under the impression that he is accused of inciting the January 6 riot, but this is not the case. The word “insurrection” appears nowhere in the indictment, a striking omission after three years of breathless hysteria about an “attempted coup.” Instead, Trump is being prosecuted for highly abstract political offenses. Jack Smith tips his hand at the top of the charging sheet, where he blames Trump for creating illegal “mistrust” in the process and giving his supporters “false hope” (this not being the first time Trump created “unsubstantiated hope”) that he would remain in power after the 2020 election.

Trump is being punished for refusing to recant his belief, a reasonable one, that the political process was fatally corrupted in 2020 and that Biden, consequently, is illegitimate. The indictment is a shot across the bow at anyone who shares Trump’s “false” unbelief in “our democracy.” Of course, when “our democracy” was perverted from its natural end, as it was during the Trump interregnum, the rules shifted dramatically. Back then, it was courageous to call the president a traitor and a usurper; it was “resistance” rather than “coup.”

In 2020, Democrats censored a major scandal about Biden and imposed sweeping administrative changes that resulted in an abnormally messy, delayed, and opaque vote count. But it’s Trump who caused “mistrust.”

Now, Democrats say it’s crazy to speculate that there is anything political about the prosecution of a presidential candidate in an upcoming national election. Come on, do you really think Jack Smith would arrest the chief political enemy of his boss if he didn’t have a good reason? Hold on a moment: his boss? Jack Smith is independent! He doesn’t work for Joe Biden. Stop spreading lies. He works for….well, who exactly?

The Trump indictment is politics at its purest. Machiavelli would have no trouble understanding it. But Democrats would have everyone believe the “rule of law” magically enforces itself. In the pollyannaish world of “our democracy,” the corrupt motives that have driven political elites throughout history to faction, intrigue, conspiracy, assassination, slander, bribery, and the like do not exist. There are two kinds of people: the good guys, people like Jack Smith, and the bad guys, like Trump.

It is easy to see why tyrants find this childish, facile reality appealing: it turns political will into law. In this imaginary world where “no one is above the law,” it’s incomprehensible that Biden is targeting his political enemy, because Trump is the bad guy, and anything bad that happens to him, or his supporters, must be the impartial administration of justice. If it seems like things aren’t quite fair, and the only ones being held “accountable” belong to one political party, that’s just a coincidence, or rather, a consequence of natural law.

Among Democrats, Smith is an archangel sent from above, like Robert Mueller before him, to slay the Orange devil and finally end the unwelcome convulsions he brings to the established order. Of course, Smith not actually being a supernatural being, it is more likely that he is what he appears to be to the adults: a dirty Star Chamber prosecutor dispatched to do the bidding of his masters. Like his predecessors, he is a jaundiced character with the capability to see a conspiracy wherever needed. One imagines he would charge the sun if he could, as it shines its kind beams on Mar-A-Lago, too.

It is perfectly logical that Democrats, being in power, should want to deny the people the right to think of politics as political. But when speculation about the conspiracies of elites in the capital is no longer permitted (and why speculate, when the rulers are so benevolent?), there is no longer self-rule. Smith enters the halls of infamy with the extraordinary imprudence, arrogance, and pettiness of his enterprise, at once historic and incredibly stupid, which would destroy the Lockean basis of the United States, the consent of the governed, and replace it with a more primitive kind of authority. In most times and places, people have been ruled by despots. Trump is now all that remains standing in their way.

Weird – DeSantis Promises to “Go After These Third World Countries That Have Become Hotbeds of Antisemitism”

Sundance reporting for Conservative Treehouse 

This is a very odd line inside an extended response to an audience question in New Hampshire (full context video below).

Candidate Ron DeSantis was responding to a question from a Jewish audience member about antisemitism in Florida and her concerns that her Jewish family were unsafe. As Ron DeSantis walks through the exceptionally pro-Israel policies he supports, particularly as the leading AIPAC candidate in 2024, the Florida governor is highlighting a series of Israel-first policies he implemented in the state, when suddenly he makes this weird statement:

…“We’re going to go after these third world countries that have become hotbeds of antisemitism.”

Obviously, DeSantis is trying to position himself as the most pro-Israel candidate in the race; that part is not uncommon.  Pulling Mark Levin away from President Trump would serve multiple interests around his candidacy.  However, this specific line about going after third-world countries just seems a little strange.

What countries is he talking about, and how exactly would “we go after” them?

Perhaps the guiding hands of the 2018 congressional exit are starting to surface.

DeSantis Lays out How He'll Respond to Attacks by Trump During Debates at New Hampshire Town Hall

Becca Lower reporting for RedState 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is making the rounds of the early primary states, in between pushing back at adversarial reporting on his state’s history curriculum, agreeing to debate California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and setting the record straight on the nontroversy over the Orlando Magic campaign donation to the DeSantis Super PAC.

As a part of that tour, DeSantis took part in a town hall event, “Conversation with the Candidate,” in New Hampshire on Friday, and one question in particular addressed something that many people have been hoping to hear the answer to.

The host of the town hall asks DeSantis about sharing the debate stage with former President Donald Trump, and a potential situation arising of Trump “belittling” him. He asks how the governor will respond to that kind of attack.

DeSantis says:

So, here’s the thing. These insults are so phoney. These insults are juvenile. That is not the way a great nation should be conducting itself. That is not the way the President of the United States should be conducting himself.

I enjoy the debate. The people of New Hampshire have been great. They’re opinionated. Let’s have those debates about the issues. I’m not going to insult somebody. Somebody’s looks, somebody’s dress, or something like that. I wouldn’t teach my kids to treat someone like that—we have a six-, five-, and three-year-old. We teach our kids to treat someone the way you would want to be treated yourself.

So, we will have differences on issues, and you know, one of the things I think about the former president—and I appreciate that he did a lot of great things, and I was a big supporter—but he’s running in 2024 on the things he promised to do in 2016 and didn’t do.

After listing several areas where Trump didn’t follow through during his presidency, including retaining Dr. Anthony Fauci, DeSantis continues:

Don’t worry about how he does his hair and this stuff. We’ve got to stop with that. And here’s the thing: as Republicans,that will cause us to lose, if we behave that way. There are millions of voters out there who do not like what Biden is doing to this country….

But they are not going to sign up for a candidate who is behaving like that. So, let’s be better, looking higher, and let’s set a good standard for our children to follow.

The full event is below, courtesy of WMUR-TV:

Behind Bars or in the White House: Where Will Trump Land in 2024?

posted by Jeff Charles at RedState 

As the indictments against former President Donald Trump continue piling up, there has been more speculation about how it could affect his chances of securing the GOP nomination and winning the presidency. Ever since the politically-motivated effort to bury the former president in legal troubles began with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Trump’s polling numbers have been climbing.

But a new poll suggests what several people, including myself, have surmised about Trump’s legal troubles and how they might help him win the primary, but could also significantly impede his ability to defeat President Joe Biden in the general election:

The two-day Reuters/Ipsos poll, which closed before Trump’s late-afternoon court appearance, asked respondents if they would vote for Trump for president next year if he were “convicted of a felony crime by a jury.” Among Republicans, 45% said they would not vote for him, more than the 35% who said they would. The rest said they didn’t know.

Asked if they would vote for Trump if he were “currently serving time in prison,” 52% of Republicans said they would not, compared to 28% who said they would.

To put it simply, if Trump somehow winds up getting convicted of a felony, his support among the Republican base could decline significantly if the results of the survey are accurate. The situation becomes even more dire if he spends time behind bars.

The poll’s findings seem to contradict prior surveys:

Opinion polls show Republican support for Trump surging since the first of three indictments was issued in March. He is far and away the front-runner, leading second-place Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, by close to 30 percentage points.

As much as people have been speculating about the impact of the numerous indictments against Trump would affect his chances of winning the nomination, it has also sparked conversation regarding what Democrats are hoping to achieve by weaponizing the justice system against him. Are they banking on the possibility that the indictments will help Trump in the primary and cripple him in the general election? The results of these surveys seem to suggest this strategy could bear fruit for them in 2024.

It is also worth noting that a felony conviction could also harm Trump’s chances to win the primary as well. If he is jailed during primary season, it is realistic that conservative voters might choose one of the other contenders who won’t have to worry about prison. However, this raises a question: Could any of these indictments result in a felony conviction before the primary season ends? I would surmise that if Democrats wanted a guilty verdict before then, they can—and will—make it happen.

If none of these indictments come to fruition before the conclusion of the primaries, then it seems obvious that the Democrats’ strategy was to boost Trump against his Republican opponents and harm him in the general election. It’s a plan that could work, especially if nothing significant happens to damage Biden’s campaign in the meantime.

Still, anything can happen, right? Perhaps each of these indictments will fall short of resulting in a conviction. It stands to reason that this is a possibility considering that each of them is 100 percent motivated by a desire to influence the outcome of the 2024 election. While some of the charges could be made to stick, most of them are about as compelling as a PowerPoint presentation about drying paint.

The legal process is not always predictable and can be quite complex. But the only thing that is clear is that however this plays out, it will have a tremendous impact on the American political landscape.

California Democrats Play Affirmative Action Games Over Feinstein Senate Seat

Tristan Justice reporting for The Federalist

Race-based preferences are taking over the competition for Dianne Feinstein’s California Senate seat.

On Thursday, The New York Times revealed Feinstein surrendered power of attorney to her daughter in a report on the 90-year-old senator’s failing health. The longtime legacy lawmaker is unable to make legal decisions of her own while making major legal decisions for the country.

Last week, an episode at a Senate appropriation hearing amplified concerns about Feinstein’s cognitive decline. During a markup of a defense appropriations bill, a confused Feinstein started to deliver a speech on the legislation when committee members were merely voting.

“I would like to support a ‘yes’ vote on this,” Feinstein began before Washington Democrat Sen. Patty Murray, the chair of the committee, interrupted and coached her California colleague to “just say ‘aye.'”

The hearing was just the latest in a string of events escalating calls for Feinstein, an institution in California politics, to relinquish her seat in the upper chamber. Questions surrounding the senator’s age and aptitude to serve have been around since at least 2020 when The New Yorker published an article quoting anonymous aides highlighting concerns about Feinstein’s memory.

“They say her short-term memory has grown so poor that she often forgets she has been briefed on a topic, accusing her staff of failing to do so just after they have,” the magazine reported. “They describe Feinstein as forgetting what she has said and getting upset when she can’t keep up.”

Similar reports followed in the Times and San Francisco Chronicle last year. In February, Feinstein announced she would not seek re-election in 2024. Before she turned 90, Feinstein took a months-long hiatus from the Senate to undergo treatment for shingles. In May, the Times reported she suffered more complications from the virus than were publicly disclosed, “but she remains unwilling to entertain discussions about leaving the Senate.”

Feinstein’s defiance hasn’t slowed down calls from some California Democrats demanding Feinstein’s retirement so they may influence who will be her replacement. If she resigns, Gov. Gavin Newsom has already pledged to appoint a black woman to the seat. Newsom made the commitment in 2021 after upsetting Democrats by appointing then-Secretary of State Alex Padilla, California’s first Latino senator, to replace Kamala Harris after her election to vice president.

It’s no coincidence, then, the most vocal supporters of Feinstein’s resignation, such as California Rep. Ro Khanna, have endorsed Rep. Barbara Lee in the crowded Senate primary. In fact, Khanna, who co-chairs Lee’s campaign, was the first member of Congress to request Feinstein step down, according to The Hill.

“I’m hopeful that people who are close to her can talk to her and just say, ‘Look, end your service with dignity. Step aside, let the governor appoint someone,” Khanna said.

Lee said in April she would gladly accept the appointment from Newsom.

A Feinstein resignation, however, could spoil the chances of rival candidates to run for an open Senate seat. California Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff has raised nearly $30 million for the campaign, followed by Rep. Katie Porter with more than $10 million, according to the Associated Press. If Feinstein refuses to step down and maintains her seat through 2024, that opens the door for Schiff, a straight white man, to capture the vacancy.

Driving, the Younger Generation, and the Glorious Freedom of Mobility

posted by Ward Clark at RedStateVIP 

For us Baby Boomers (well, for me and my friends at least), we couldn’t wait until our 16th birthday. That red-letter date would see us standing in line at the DMV to get our first driver’s licenses, which in those days were a paper form filled out in pen and ink by a clerk after we had produced proof of birth and a certificate that we had completed the required Driver’s Education course. Then it was, literally, off to the races.

It was freedom, certified and signed off, and even though most of us had been operating farm equipment for years and driving around the county roads and byways without that sanction for at least a year or two (I was already on my second car), now we could do it legal. No more worries about something as trivial as an unnoticed taillight failure bringing us to the attention of the local constabulary, which would result in a stern talking-to by both the cops and our Dads, and undoubtedly a fine that our parents expected us to pay out of our own pockets.

Henceforth, we would only have to pay fines for speeding and other moving violations. Not that I’m admitting to any such thing.

Which makes it all the more baffling that today, young people just don’t seem too anxious to get behind the wheel.

There has been a lot of chatter on social media about the number of teenagers today who are simply uninterested in earning their driver’s licenses. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2019 that while nearly half of 16-year-olds were driving in the 1980s, just a quarter were by 2017. Data from the Federal Highway Administration present a similar trend showing that 46 percent of eligible 16-year-olds in 1983 earned their licenses. By 2018, that figure dropped to 26 percent. The data on teen driving is not entirely consistent across sources, but there is a clear decline.

While numerous possible explanations have been offered for this change, what needs to be highlighted are the consequences of not driving, like the fact that teens today are losing agency and serendipity in their lives by not driving themselves.

I think they are losing more than that, but losing agency and serendipity is bad enough.

One of the key things I remember from my long-lost youth was the craving for adventure, the urge to see new places, try new things, meet new people (especially girls.) Of course I worked, all my friends worked; our freedom was a three-legged stool, with a driver’s license making up one leg, a job to put money in our pockets another, and our parent’s forbearance another. But many happy, free days were spent on the road, sometimes kicking up dust on the white gravel roads of northeast Iowa, southeast Minnesota, and western Wisconsin, looking for whatever adventure might come about, or sometimes on the highways, off to some new, unknown destination.

The author’s high school Freedom Iron, 1978. Credit: Ward Clark.

We were always in our cars, and there was always something new over the next hill or down some previously-unknown side road. Now I’m in my early 60s, and I still have this craving, and these days, my wife and I spend a lot of happy summer days in our big, comfortable, carbon-spewing SUV, exploring the vast expanses of the Great Land.

Does the younger generation lack this craving for adventure? Are they satisfying the craving some other way, perhaps by employing the fake adventure of computer games, instead of the real adventure of open windows, roaring motors, and the sunshine streaming through the windshield? Or of a Saturday with no place to go and all day to get there? Why are today’s teens seemingly so passive?

It’s easy to blame the rise of social media for this. Easy, but I doubt it’s the whole picture. Sure, young people today increasingly interact online, and the ill-advised COVID lockdowns drove that trend harder. When we wanted to get together with friends, we’d get on the landline phone and say, “Hey, I’ll meet you at Falls Access at seven,” hop in the car, and off we’d go. Or sometimes we’d just hop in the car and take off, to see who was hanging out at, say, the Tastee-Freeze in Decorah—someone always was. Now, all a teen has to do is use a video app on their cell phone.

Of course, my experiences are of a small town/farm country kid from Iowa. When I joined the Army and first started meeting people from the nation’s major cities, I was surprised to find out my squad-mate from New York City had never been in a privately owned automobile, only taxis and buses. And it seems those cities these days intend to make it harder to drive anywhere, and not just for teenagers. That’s certainly part of the problem, too. Some of these jurisdictions don’t cotton to the idea of people being too independent, and if there’s anything that makes us independent, it’s the privately owned automobile.

Still, and this is just a personal observation, I see again the growing difference between rural and urban in the United States. We have a fair number of local teenagers, and in the small community we live in now, we know a lot of them. And we see them, especially on weekends, piloting battered old pickups down the side roads with a bunch of fishing gear in the back, or rolling up and down the local trails on their ATVs, and realize that some kids still have that urge for fun. That gives me hope.

Driving and adventure are two things that are quintessentially American. I hope we aren’t losing those. I suspect that, at least out in the boonies, like the places I grew up and live in today, we aren’t.

Did Obama Refuse To Condemn Antisemitism And Black Nationalism? Resurfaced Biography Says Yes

Shawn Fleetwood reporting for The Federalist

A resurfaced biography on Barack Obama details how the former president allegedly refused to condemn antisemitism and black nationalism during an argument with his then-girlfriend.

On Thursday, Tablet Magazine’s David Samuels published a lengthy expose based on a question-and-answer interview with David Garrow, a longtime civil rights historian who authored a biography on Obama in 2017 titled Rising Star. (Garrow has also penned a biography on civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr). While largely overshadowed due to legacy media’s obsession with covering the Trump presidency, Garrow’s book contains insight into an exchange Obama had with his then-girlfriend in which he purportedly refused to condemn antisemitism and black nationalism.

According to Samuels, the argument in question involving Obama and his longtime Chicago girlfriend, Sheila Miyoshi Jager, was allegedly sparked after the couple visited “an exhibit at Chicago’s Spertus Institute about the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann,” a Nazi who played a major role in perpetuating the Holocaust. It was during this time, according to Samuels, that Chicago politics was engulfed in controversy after Steve Cokely, a black mayoral aide, “accused Jewish doctors in Chicago of infecting Black babies with AIDS as part of a genocidal plot against African Americans.”

The incident occurred while Cokely was speaking at a lecture series organized by Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam.

“In Jager’s recollection, what set off the quarrel that precipitated the end of the couple’s relationship was Obama’s stubborn refusal, after seeing the exhibit, and in the swirl of this Cokely affair, to condemn Black racism,” Samuels wrote. “While acknowledging that Obama’s embrace of a Black identity had created some degree of distance between the couple, she insisted that what upset her that day was Obama’s inability to condemn Cokely’s comments.”

“It was not Obama’s Blackness that bothered her, but that he would not condemn antisemitism,” Samuels added.

In his 2007 memoir, Dreams from My Father, Obama painted the couple’s argument in a different light. According to Samuels, Obama’s version of events insists “he was the particularist, embracing a personal meaning for the Black experience that Jager,” the “white-identified liberal” universalist, “refused to grant.” The argument is said to have preceded the couple’s split. It’s worth mentioning that Obama had reportedly proposed to Jager at least twice before they separated.

While it’s unclear whose version of events is true, it is a documented fact that Obama has fraternized with notable antisemites such as Farrakhan. A few years ago, a photo surfaced showing Obama and Farrakhan — the latter of whom has claimed Judaism is a “gutter religion” and that Adolf Hitler “was a very great man” — smiling together during a 2005 Congressional Black Caucus meeting.

Journalist Askia Muhammad, who took the original photo, later admitted he “gave the picture up at the time and basically swore secrecy” because he thought it “absolutely would have made a difference” to Obama’s political career, specifically his 2008 presidential campaign.

“But after the nomination was secured and all the way up until the inauguration; then for eight years after he was President, it was kept under cover,” Muhammad said. As National Review noted, Farrakhan endorsed Obama during the 2008 Democrat presidential primary and later claimed he met with Obama before the latter launched his campaign.

Of course, any attempts to dig into Obama’s past as a community organizer has been met with attacks from America’s propaganda press. As conservative radio host Larry Elder noted shortly after the Obama-Farrakhan photo was released, “Obama’s longtime association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ would likely have derailed his candidacy had media pounced on this as they did the Trump ‘Access Hollywood’ tape.”

Wright, who once claimed “them Jews” were keeping him from seeing Obama during his time as president, is Obama’s former pastor.

“But for Fox News’ coverage of Wright and the videotapes of his fiery sermons, the other major media would have avoided or downplayed Obama’s 20-year association with a pastor who gave fiery sermons critical of America and who had a longtime friendship with Farrakhan,” Elder wrote.

Read the rest of Samuels’ expose on America’s 44th president here.