U.S. politics

A review of my article on Donald J. Trump written on the eve of the 2016 U.S. election, previewing this one

I shall attempt to briefly review the article I wrote on the eve of the last U.S. presidential election in 2016, and see how my expectations of candidate Trump compare with president Trump. It was difficult to understand why I titled it "There is none that calleth upon justice, neither is there any one that judgeth truly...". However, it didn't take me long to realise that I was in the phase of titling all my articles after Bible quotes. That didn't last long, sadly, but I might well pick it up again.

The quotes seem to have been directed at the U.S. bishops, for their attempts to muddy what should have been quite a clear option between a candidate who professed a preference for very many good things and had no intrinsic evils in his campaign platform, and one who promised all sorts of intrinsic evils in her campain, with none of the goods that Trump had.

Everything I wrote about Hillary Clinton applies equally to Joe Biden, except with Biden we have the extra scandal of him being Catholic. He is, of course, not Catholic in any meaningful sense, but as he has not been excommunicated and was baptised Catholic, we have to live with the fact that he can identify as such, as indeed can Bergoglio. That is what makes both Biden's and Bergoglio's preferences for perversions and evils that much more condemnable, and damnable.

In the article was a list of top 10 reasons to vote for Donald J. Trump. He won the elections, as it turned out. I rather expected him to do it, and truth be told I am even more confident that he will win it this time, once again defying the polls which seem even more fake this time than they did the last. As little enthuasiasm as there was for Clinton, there virtually none for Biden. At least she had the novelty of being the first female presidential candidate. With Biden, all they can muster is "At least he's not Trump." I do not dismiss that those who hate Trump do it fervently, but it is difficult to see how it translates into waiting in line possibly for hours, and possibly in the rain, in order to vote for a man one more than likely finds distasteful. In just over a day or so, we shall see if the disgust for Trump among the anti-Trumper's translates into votes for creey Joe and his ghoulish running mate.

For full disclosure, I must preface this by writing that I am not a particularly big fan of Donald Trump, though I do find him amusing. I am definitely not a NeverTrumper, but nor am I an AlwaysTrumper. I am, however, a NeverBiden, and cannot fathom what would ever possess me to vote for a man as morally distasteful as Biden. In other words, I think I can offer a relatively dispassionate analysis of Trump's record.

So, what will follow is a walk-through of my 10 points with grades on how right I was compared to Donald Trump's actual record. Given Trump's erratic nature and lack of interest in details, it can be difficult to know just how much blame or credit we can give him for his record. Still, he appoints his underlings and signs off on the checks, the bombings and the priorities. His record belongs to him, and if nothing else, it allows us to see where his priorities lie, whether he has met success in his endeavours or not.

The points will be in bold text, with the score next, and the analysis below. Mind you, this is an analysis of how I predicted, or thought I understeood, candidate Trump's versus how president Trump has actually done. Of course, my analysis has do do with his campaign pledges, so it cannot be entirely divorced from what he actually pledged, but still, it is not a grade of how president Trump has succeeded versus some impeccable standard of perfection.

1. Donald Trump  is not a career politician. He is a man who has built a fortune on hard work and taking risks, and done a good job at it. In fact, he has managed doing what I would argue 99.999% of the world wants to do in a much better way than 99.999% of the world has managed. (7/10)

More of a statement of fact than anything else and hardly gradeable. I would define a career politician as someone willing to do anything and rid himself of any principle to get to the very top, regardless of whether it is good for his country or not. That would score a 0, so 7/10 means I think Trump has not behaved as a career politican would. Sadly, however, on many of the big decisions - big banking, military-industrial complex, continuing wars - he has toed the line of the political schemers.

He has still managed to incur the wrath of many of the right people, and often by being unconventional, so I'll give him a pretty high grade and conclude that I was right in claiming that he didn't behave as a career politican.

2. The man seems genuine. When he speaks, one gets the impression that he means what he says, and not that he is saying it because pollsters told him it would be good to do so. (5/10)

If Trump had not shut the country down in March, he would probably have got an 8 on this point. However, shutting down a country on account of a 'pandemic' he obviously did not believe was going around simply because he thought it more politically expedient to do so will in many ways come to become his defining moment - at least of his first term, if he should lose the re-election bid.

The one good thing about Trump is that he is not a particularly convincing liar when reading off a script. It has therefore been quite easy...

Let us pray for Dr. Ron Paul - Possibly the only principled political figure left

On weekday early evenings I usually turn on the TV to watch the Ron Paul Liberty Report. The eminent Dr. Ron Paul has his daily  weekday show and from Monday to Thursday he normally hosts it with Daniel McAdams. On Fridays it is mainly about economics and I sometimes tune in only for the first few minutes beucase much of the time it's about the Federal Reserve. While critiquing the Federal Reserve is a worthwile endeavour, it's certainly nothing as informative as the normal weekday shows, so I usually skip most if not all of it.

Nonetheless, I do take note of when the show arrives as I have the YouTube channel subscribed.

Last Friday it didn't show up and I thought maybe they had skipped it. The videos are released somewhat irregularly, at varying times over a span of about 3 hours so sometimes they will come quite late. There had been some storm in Texas over the past week - with one of the episodes being audio only as opposed to being shot in-studio - so I thought that maybe they had skipped an episode on account of this.

Then not long after I saw a bulletin of sorts from FoxNews regarding Ron Paul. He had been admitted to the hospital. They did not say for what reason, but they did state that he was hopeful of making a full recovery.

For full disclosure I don't watch Fox News much. The only thing I watch regularly from them are clips from the Tucker Carlson show, because he is at least much more independent-minded than the rest. Laura Ingraham is okay much of the time but not as interesting. For the most part Fox News - at least with regards to international news - is fake news.

One could argue that MSNBC is fake news for the left, whereas CNN tries to be fake news for everyone - although it is obviously a leftist rag at this point whereas Fox News is fake news for the right. None of them are reliable news outlets but if I must watch some U.S. mainstream television channel then it is only Fox News I can stand as they don't saddle me with sodomy propaganda for the most part anyway. 

Anyway, the news saddened and grieved me. Not long afterwards I saw a headline on Gloria.tv titled "Video shows Ron Paul suffering what looks to be a stroke during a live interview." That was really alarming. He had suffered a stroke during the broadcast of the Friday version of the Ron Paul Liberty Report and there was a clip of it.  Fortunately, one of the comments had a picture of him at the hospitcal with a thumbs-up sign. I was slightly relieved but still concerened, naturally.

Over the weekend I browsed through the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity website to see if there was any information on his health. There was nothing.

Then Monday came and I wondered if Daniel McAdams would host the show on his own, or if they would skip it altogether. At about 8:30 P.M., I noticed that there was indeed a new episode of the Ron Paul Liberty Report but I didn't view it until some time after.

Finally I dared to click, and guess what: He was there introducing the show as usual! I have never been as relieved or joyful to see a familiar face on the television!

He even started with a little joke: After introducing Daniel McAdams he asked him "Good to see you Daniel, How are you doing?" to which he responded that he was doing a whole lot better than a few days ago and Ron Paul responded "You're recovering too!". Then he moved on, looking even younger than he did before, talking about how when doctros are left alone they usually do a good job, then moved forward to the topic which has  mostlyoccupied them since February, namely exposing the coronavirus hoax.

Without a doubt Ron Paul is the most principled and greatest figure in American politics over the last 3 generations, I can confidently claim. He is an independent man whose utterances are guided by principle and not self-interest and his main cause is that of liberty.

Naturally, with him not being a Catholic much less a traditionalist, there are points of disagreement. However, if a fellow traditionalist like Daniel McAdams can give up what would otherwise have been a lucrative career elsewhere to stand by his side and fight for liberty, we can rest assured that there is much good in Ron Raul's platform and I would urge anyone who hasn't tuned in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report to make its viewing a regular occurrence.

Indeed, Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams are one of very few people who have come out of this Covid-19 fiasco with any credit, and in their case, with much greater credit than they even had before. They have not only been proven entirely right acout the Covid-19 hoax, but even more importantly, they have always been opposed from the very beginning to the notion that the governemnt has any sort of right to interfere in people's lives and to commandeer them and their livelihoods due to a medical emergency, real or imagined.

We should indeed pray for Dr. Ron Paul, even if he has recovered fully. We should first and foremost pray for him that he may have convert to the one Holy and Apostolic Catholic Church, not withstanding the fact that more wisdom comes out of Ron Paul than from practically all our episcopate in its entirety.  We should also pray that he can continue his campaign for liberty, because in these darkened times we sorely need his towering voice and tireless fight for freedom - the very freedom we need to serve God.

For now though, suffice it to say that I am extremly joyful to see him back to full strength and I...

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