The Politics of Fatigue

Summer is half over and I haven’t played enough — almost not at all, but I’ve begun to make some changes to allow it. Yes, I have to finish a book proposal and send it out, but I hate doing it and have to force myself to work at it every day for a little while at least. I have to get outside more and clear my head between sessions. I also have to stop reading obsessively about political goings-on. I’m staying away even though it's especially hard to do when so much is happening. It's been a nice break to avoid politics and write about other things, but here are some political “reflections on the passing scene” as the great columnist Thomas Sowell used to pen occasionally before he retired.

*After seven years of promising to repeal Obama care and passing countless bills to do so knowing they’d be vetoed by Obama, Republicans in Congress can’t do it with a Republican president who would sign it. Meanwhile, Obamacare is collapsing as predicted. Thanks Democrats. Thanks Republicans. You’re both pathetic. If members of Congress and everyone else who works for our way-too-big federal government were forced to be under Obamacare along with the rest of us, it would never have passed in the first place, or would surely be fixed now.

 *Seventy years ago, Congress passed Amendment 22 which limited a president to two terms. It’s time for Amendment 28 to limit senators and congressmen to a total of twelve years each, after which they must be banned from lobbying for an additional ten years. Think of all the obnoxious senators and congressmen we wouldn’t have to listen to if Congress’s terms had been limited seventy years ago too? Think of where we’d be today instead of where we are.

*Finally, finally, we have some actual evidence of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. It’s very thin — not evidence of actual collusion, but only an email indicating that Donald Trump, Jr. was open to hearing about possible help from a Russian back in June, 2016. Over a year of investigation, and that’s all we’ve got. Will another year of even more investigation yield anything else? Don’t hold your breath. The investigation is having the desired effect however. It’s driving Donald Trump crazy, much crazier than he otherwise might be.

*Meanwhile, I’m kicking myself for not working harder against Donald Trump during the primaries. I should have trusted my first instinct that any guy in his seventies who would pay that much attention to his hair has personality problems. When I think that we had sixteen alternatives, any of which would have been so much better, including Scott Walker, Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz, or anyone else except John Kasich. Okay, maybe even him.

*President Trump’s antics are so embarrassing I can hardly stand it, but Hillary Clinton? I could never have brought myself to put a check next to that name. If I could go back to that voting booth last November, I believe I’d do the same thing. In the meantime, I’d like the president’s sterling cabinet to get together and prepare an ultimatum for their boss: Fire the Mooch, stop tweeting, do what General Kelly tells you, use the speechwriters you had for the Middle East and Poland speeches, and use the teleprompter exclusively when speaking in public — or we resign, en masse, right now. Maybe that would smarten him up.

The Mooch was fired the day after I wrote this on Sunday. Hooray for General Kelly!

*Yeah, Trump’s approval ratings are very low, but guess whose ratings are even lower — the media’s. Trump deserves his ratings and media have certainly earned theirs as well. Can there be any more doubt about left-wing mainstream media bias? Yeah, Fox is biased right, but nearly every other television media outlet is biased left — and most newspapers too. I’ve spent years on both sides of the spectrum and it’s patently obvious to me. Are we all ready to admit this now?

*Trump’s worst mistake would be to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions. It would be worse than firing Mueller, which would only make the left — in media and in government — go even more crazy than they are now. But how much crazier can they get? They’re already cutting Trump’s head off in effigy and one leftist wing-nut opened fire on Republicans at a baseball practice, nearly killing Congressman Scalise and wounding several others. But to fire Jeff Sessions would sink Trump with conservatives who are already annoyed with his tweets. His support would dry up almost entirely.

*Maybe a third party will emerge of disaffected Democrats and Republicans who would shrink the federal government and return power to the states. We could call it the Tenth Amendment Party. 

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. (Amendment 10)