Posts Tagged ‘donald trump’

The Case for Trump Allowing Independent Journalists in the White House Briefing Room in Two Videos:

Posted: November 26, 2024 by datechguy in dablog, elections, media, politics
Tags: , , ,

One of the reasons why this blog is going to end as a business at the end of this year has been the various reverses and collapses that took place after things started to get big around here, plus I’m now kinda old to be chasing around the country in the hope that someone will fund it and maybe slip a few extra buck to keep the lights on at home.

But I had my share of big moments, reporting from the middle of an Antifa riots in Denver, My 2010 road trip with Stacy McCain. Multiple CPACS including my final one with my sons when I first reported on Trump making gains with the black community, Scott Brown’s victory party of course, credentialed press at the Romney “victory” party but likely the biggest one in terms of relevance was covering Donald Trump’s first NH rally and it’s the one that makes the point concerning letting alternative media into the press room at the White House.

https://twitter.com/PU28453638/status/1861242898429235617

Let me tell you my story.

When I got to that event in Derry I noticed right away that these weren’t the normal activists turning up or being bussed in that I had seen over and over when covering events in NH. These were regular people. I did a bunch of interviews talking to anyone willing to talk to me to find out why they came and was quickly convinced those regular people showing up WAS the story (Stacy McCain will tell you about my call to him on that matter). As you may or may not know I carried three cameras with me at the time because I didn’t have a ton of extra batteries. I was on my 2nd camera when Trump had his press conference where I was standing in the back. Here is my recording of same.

You might notice two things when watching.

  1. I repeatedly attempted to get my question in and failed
  2. The media questions were all basicially
    • Why does the GOP suck?
    • Why do you, your campaign & your ideas suck?
    • What are you going to do about the fact that you, your campaign, your ideas and the GOP suck?

My recording stopped 18 min in because at that point camera 2’s battery gave out and I have to resort to camera #3 which due to a problem did not allow me to zoom in so I had a wide shot when finally I got to ask Donald Trump my question:

Two things you might notice about my question:

  1. Notice the surprise from Trump getting an actual relevant question.
  2. Notice the media looking back to find out: “Hey, whose not with the program?”

It wasn’t a question of trying to give Trump an easy question. I had decided that those regular folks WERE the story and the question I asked was consistent with what I thought the most important thing was.

Any one of those media people there could have done those interview or asked that question but nobody bothered because they weren’t there to cover a story in the hopes of making a buck, they were there to advance an agenda because that’s how they made their bucks. And that simple act of asking that question in Derry is why he recognized me and called on me in Worcester months later again on what I considered the real story, the lack of protestors when people had been calling for them in the 2nd biggest city in New England which has 10 Colleges in it.

Although in fairness wearing a 12 ft long Dr. Who scarf and a fedora likely helped a bit for him remember me.

I suspect that if you open things up to bloggers like myself or influencers or the alternative media you will get a better set of questions and actually inform the public.

And why would you want to reward a press corps that hates you anyways?

So Donald Trump JR. I strongly suggest you go ahead and let guys like me in, even though by the time you do so I won’t be doing it anymore.

Closing thought: However I would love to get a 20 min on camera interview with the president election before the end of the year and post that as the final act of DaBlog as a business. Might as well go out in style.

If you’re willing let me know.

Update: I mentioned my call to Stacy McCain in this post completely unaware that he mentioned the same in a post today:

 After going all-in on the 2012 campaign (“Doomed Beyond All Hope of Redemption”), I’d decided to avoid the 2016 campaign and was more or less neutral about the GOP primary. But then in September 2015, I got a call from Pete Da Tech Guy, who was covering a Trump rally in New Hampshire. “Stacy, this Trump thing is for real,” Pete told me. “You wouldn’t believe the size of this crowd.”

There was a real grassroots surge of support for Trump, and so the attitude of the Professional Conservative Pundit crowd turned from ridicule to hatred. Whereas they had originally treated Trump as a joke, now he was seen as threat.

Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency is a good start but so much more needs to be done

Posted: November 21, 2024 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

The internet has been buzzing with news and analysis of President Trump’s proposal to cut 2 trillion dollars from the federal budget.  This Townhall article contains the best analysis I have yet found: The DOGE Initiative Is Clearly Needed but It Is Not Enough

President-Elect Trump recently announced his intention to create a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that will be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. This will be an external initiative to identify ways to improve the economy, efficiency, and hopefully the effectiveness of the federal government from an organizational and operational perspective. Stated differently, it seems to be an expedited and expanded Grace Commission type effort with a reporting date of July 4, 2026, which is America’s 250th birthday. 

This initiative is much needed and long overdue. In fact, I called for a Government Transformation Initiative over twelve years ago. An initiative designed to streamline and simplify the organization of the federal government, attack fraud and waste, devolve certain functions and activities to the states, leverage technology, and implement modern planning and management practices, including human capital practices. 

The DOGE can help to shed light, create heat, and make recommendations to improve federal government operations. Its recommendations will need to be sent to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and designation regarding, which can be done through an Executive Order, which would require legislation, and which would require a Constitutional Amendment. 

The last paragraph of the quote highlights the main limitations of the DOGE.  It lacks teeth, requiring many improbable actions before significant cuts can be made.

Restoring fiscal sanity and sustainability will also require a comprehensive review and reassessment of current mandatory and discretionary spending programs as well as tax policy. Attempting to perform this type of review and reassessment cannot be done on a piecemeal basis through the regular order. Congress cannot even pass the annual appropriations bills on time! 

While we need to adopt more pro-growth-oriented policies which can help to ease our burdens, our fiscal gap is too great, and our financial hole is too deep to simply grow our way out of this challenge. Tough fiscal choices are needed sooner versus later. 

Republicans in both Houses of Congress need to put on their big boy pants start doing what should have been done many decades.  They need to eliminate each and every federal bureau, agency, and department that is not directly by the Constitution.  The entire administrative state must be eliminated.  This will require legislation which RINOS will balk at.

Gaetz, Gabbard and Hegseth Oh My!

Posted: November 14, 2024 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, politics
Tags:

Get ’em skeered and keep the skeer on ’em

General Nathan Bedford Forest CSA

President Elect Donald Trump has come out of the gate with a bunch of nominations for various positions in the government.

A few have not been all that surprising but the three above have given the left the vapors.

And while all kinds of people are suggesting that these folks (particularly Gaetz) are not good picks and even some republicans in the Senate are (not on the record of course) suggesting they would not be approved let me point out one key thing.

The left/media are going absolutely apoplectic over them.

So if you are having doubts about Trumps picks (particularly the pick for AG) let me remind you of the wise words of the man who four years ago returned the talent he had on loan from God.

Rush Limbaugh: The left will always tell you who they fear!

And so does the deep state.

We get one shot to dismantle this stuff. In two years there will be another presidential campaign and Donald Trump will not be running. Cripes he’s old enough that he might not even last the four years until that comes. (yes I know he’s in excellent shape but I’ve outlived a bunch of my peers who were in far better shape than me) This being the case I suggest not quibbling over choices that he apparently has given a lot of thought to since he was ready to roll with them in less than a week and put all our energies into supporting those choices and letting them run wild.

Fear makes your enemies sloppy, fear makes your enemies careless. Fear makes your enemies try to make deals in your favor.

Let’s keep them afraid.

America’s big cities, the GOP’s next frontier

Posted: November 10, 2024 by John Ruberry in election 2024, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

By John Ruberry

Last’s week’s convincing victory by Donald J. Trump over Kamala Harris offers a plan for the future of the Republican Party.

Let’s begin with this development. America is in a new political era. The Sixth Party System, which covers the shift of the Democratic Solid South to the Republican Party, is over. While Georgia is still a swing state, the GOP still owns the South. 

The shift of the working class, regardless of race, to the Republican side is in motion. The Seventh Party System is here. The Democrats are now the party of the wealthy metropolitan elites and people collecting public assistance. Good luck trying to create functional policy out of those odd lots. This, as Trump would say, is yuge. Sure, there are some unfriendly ripples in the Red Wave, women favor the Democrats and the tiny blocs with permanent grievances, such as the trans lobby and the Green Luddites, will always favor the left.

In politics the game is never over. Envision the GOP as a football team with a 27-14 lead over the Dems–and Trump, as quarterback, has the ball, with a skilled backup ready when he’s needed in JD Vance.

QB Trump needs to pass the ball into the cities for the long-term victory.

Because I live just outside of Chicago, I’m going to focus on that city, which hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1931. But the story is similar in other big cities, particularly New York.

Trump collected 12 percent of the vote in Chicago in 2016, he improved to 16 percent four years later. This year he took 22 percent; it was the GOP’s best presidential Chicago performance since 1992. Trump won a Chicago ward, the 41st, and that hasn’t happened since that same year. The now president-elect came close in several other wards, mostly ones where many Chicago police officers and firefighters live, but Trump was also in shouting distance in the 50th Ward, which has many Orthodox Jewish residents. 

Trump made massive gains among Chicago’s Hispanic voters. To be fair, the black vote and the haughty white know-it-all vote on the North Side continued past patterns

Yes, 22 percent in an election is a long way from a majority. But there much room for growth.

Elsewhere, after Election Day some urban leftist pols are now out of a job. They include three woke prosecutors, California’s George Gascón and Pamela Price (who was recalled), and Deborah Gonzalez in Georgia. Two other California leftist mayors are now cleaning out their desks, London Breed lost her reelection race in San Francisco and Oakland’s Sheng Thao was recalled.

Voters nationwide are fed up with leftist public officials and there doesn’t seem to be too many moderate Democrats, particularly in big cities. Chicago’s woke mayor, Brandon Johnson, who was elected in a low turnout election just last year, now has an approval rating of just 14 percent.

The GOP, even in cities like Chicago that have nominally non-partisan elections, needs to start recruiting candidates now for the next few election cycles, not just for municipal races, but for state legislature and congressional contests.

In many cities, such as Chicago, “Republican” is still toxic in many circles. To counter that, conservative candidates can run as an independent. Gascón’s opponent, Nathan Hochman, a Republican, did just that in California.

Never forget, the Democrats are the party many unpopular political positions.

Including:

  • Sanctuary cities and open borders.
  • DEI.
  • Featherbedding government worker payrolls.
  • No-cash bail laws.
  • Lax prosecution of criminals.
  • Defunding the police or cutting the number of law enforcement officers.
  • Transgenderism–including supporting boys playing in girls’ sports.
  • Forcing expensive electric cars on us.
  • Banning natural gas stoves and ovens.
  • Burdensome regulations.
  • Opposing fossil fuels.
  • Red-light and speed cameras.
  • High taxes.
  • Hostility to school choice and private school vouchers.

And so much more.

Yes, party identity is a tough nut to crack, but progress has already been made by the GOP.

Big cities are the rotten apples on the dying Democratic tree.

Conservatives offer a better way. Say it now and say it loud.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Older Entries
Newer Entries