Christopher Buskirk

The progressive left has a bullseye on J.D. Vance. Ever since he announced his run for the US Senate in Middletown, Ohio last week to replace retiring Republican Rob Portman, the media has been bashing him. The Daily Beast claims he’s 'an avatar of GOP corruption’ and is upset that he mentioned Jeffrey Epstein and John Weaver as sex predators (the author says that’s a QAnon conspiracy!), while New York magazine says Vance’s campaign 'feels doomed’ less than 24 hours after he made his announcement speech in front of a pumped-up crowd of around 500. The liberal press is joined in its opposition to Vance by the anti-Trump ex-Republicans at the Lincoln Project, which spent close to $100 million against Trump last year.

Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller concluded his investigation by exonerating President Trump of collusion with Russian forces during the 2016 election. Investigating that supposed collusion is the reason he was appointed and his final report declared that he and his team could find no evidence to support the allegation. But for more than two years, the nation has been torn apart by the claims made Democrats and their operatives in the media. They were sure – sure! – that President Trump would be forced from office in disgrace. The conspiracy theorists seethed with fundamentalist conviction, confident that Robert Mueller would lead them to the promised land. Nonetheless, many are sticking to their story. There may be no evidence, but they just know it in their bones!

When Tulsi Gabbard announced that she would seek the Democratic nomination in Hawaii’s 2nd district in 2011 she was quickly endorsed by a laundry list of liberal institutions including the Sierra Club and Emily’s List. She was asked to speak at the 2012 Democratic Convention and by 2015 she was Vice Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. National Democrats were eager to boost this rising star, but now that she is running for president they are just as eager to snuff her out. So why are Democrats giving her the cold shoulder? For starters, during the last election, Gabbard was not down with Team Clinton or the corruption that follows them.

In the history of the Republic, no president has ever been barred by the Speaker of the House from delivering the State of the Union. Until now. The conventional wisdom is that Speaker Pelosi has scored a point against the president. In fact, she has handed him a weapon. But will he use it? My proposal is simple. Trump must speak directly to the American people. He must be presidential. And he must use his constitutional power to protect the nation. The president should submit his report to Congress in writing following Jefferson’s tradition and simultaneously deliver it as a live speech to the nation on television. He should make the case that Congress has failed to fulfill its obligations.

Congress is back in session and it's enough to make one wish the government shutdown – or more accurately, the government slowdown – extended to the legislative branch too. I, for one, will only believe the government shutdown is real when Uncle Sugar stops collecting payroll taxes. Until then, it’s just a particularly degrading form of street theatre.But Democrats, now in control of the House of Representatives, are feeling their oats. In the first, holiday-shortened week of the new session, they wasted no time pursuing their long-stated priorities. Here are some of the highlights: they introduced an impeachment bill on day one sponsored by Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX).

The DC media complex is not happy with the partial shutdown of the federal government. The government shutdown drags into the New Year, they tell us! It could go on for the rest of January, they cry! ‘Promise?,’ is the only thought that readily comes to my mind. It’s actually been quite peaceful with Congress gone and the bureaucracy on furlough. But to be completely frank, while a complete shutdown of the federal government has some impish attraction both in reality and as a thought experiment, that’s not what’s happening.  Still, if the shutdown extended into say February or March or beyond, how quickly would state and local government pick up the slack? What about private enterprise and community-based organizations?

Less than two years into his administration, President Trump is in search of his third Chief of Staff. This is emblematic of the single largest problem plaguing his White House and hamstringing the implementation of his agenda: personnel. The president ran on a platform of orthodox American republicanism, but that offended the recent vintage sensibilities of the US branch of the globalized ruling class. As a result, he always had a thin bench from which to draw, at least if he restricted his search to Beltway apparatchiks as he inexplicably did. Thus did Trump kill his legislative agenda by making an ill-fated deal with Paul Ryan that brought Reince Priebus into the White House as his Chief of Staff.

Socialist know-nothing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the future of the Democrat Party. Nancy Pelosi is its past, but she’s probably its present too despite threats to deny her another Speakership. The Ocasio-Cortez contingent in the party has determined that Nancy Pelosi simply isn’t radical enough. That will be news to many on the American Right for whom she has served as a longtime bête noir and whose strident advocacy of San Francisco values provided fodder for countless Republican campaign ads and fundraising letters. For Republicans she’s a radical who favors amnesty, citizenship, and voting rights for illegal aliens, government funded abortion on demand, and impeaching the president. But in the current Democrat Party she’s a mushy moderate.

Remember that time American media was consumed with news that the deadly poison ricin – contact with the skin can be deadly – was sent to President Trump, Republican Senator Ted Cruz, Defense Secretary James Mattis, and the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral John Richardson? Remember all of the introspective opinion pieces wondering if attacks on the president had gone too far? Or if claiming that Republican policies kill people, might not be an incitement to violence? Me either. But who can remember all the way back to October 2? There are a few other differences between then and now. The target then was the president, his Secretary of Defense, a senior naval officer, and a Republican Senator.

Another woman accuses Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. A third says she was at multiple parties in the Eighties where women, including herself, were drugged and gang raped by the Supreme Court nominee and his friends. But she kept going back. And never complained until two days before an important Senate vote. And, coincidentally, Christine Blasey Ford’s attorney was her attorney in a sexual harassment suit 10 years ago. And we’re supposed to believe all this. Only the media – ever credulous when it comes to stories about Republican bad behaviour – and hardcore #Resistance types buy it. Unfortunately, even Fox misreports the story when it says that Blasey Ford has four people who will corroborate her allegations. It’s just not true.