Dilbert: Trump is a genius when it comes to making decisions.  The libs and media believe, and want you to believe, he's a dope.

Some excerpts:

Part of the fun of watching the press cover President Trump is that they don’t have a leadership filter. Most writers and TV news people have never been leaders in super-complicated industries.

You get this same situation with almost every CEO of every large organization. In larger companies, underlings rarely think the CEO is sufficiently well-informed to make decisions. I write a comic strip about this sort of thing. It’s a universal phenomenon in large organizations.

Generally speaking, if you see a person who is a failure in life ignoring advice and eschewing knowledge, the best explanation for that situation is you are dealing with an incompetent person.

But if you hear allegations of a short attention span in someone with a multi-decade history of successfully navigating complicated industries, be open to the possibility that the messenger is pushing useless information on an executive who is good at knowing what matters and what does not.

Dilbert on Trump's Alleged Short Attention Span

From American Thinker.  A rational look at Muslim immigration.

AN ANALYSIS OF DILBERT'S PERSPECTIVE ON MUSLIM IMMIGRATION

This highlights Scott Adams's point about the motivation of an individual.  Harold Bloom has explained that "Islam is the only superorganism with a meme team – a worldview and a 'total system of life' – built for global rule by its founder. Islam's ... advantage is the eagerness of its militants to solve political disputes with violence. Violence is a potent force multiplier, especially in a world peppered with democratic societies. The chant among young Muslim jihadists is, 'We love death more than you love life.' Why? Because those who die killing unbelievers have an express ticket to fame, sex and paradise. The result: suicide bombers."

Toward the end of his blog post, Scott Adams asserts that "[i]t is nonsense to argue about whether our Muslim immigration policies are good or bad without the benefit of knowing where the tipping point is, if such a thing even exists.  My guess is that the pro-immigration people and the anti-immigration people would agree we shouldn't go past the tipping point.  But if neither side knows where the tipping point is, you can't call the opinion on either side sensible."  Thus, "[t]he so-called sensible people in the middle (including me) have opinions that are effectively nonsense because we don't know where the tipping point is."

If a destructive value system is permitted to metastasize without any counterbalancing, the question of a tipping point eventually becomes a moot point.  The sensible inquiry is not how many Muslim immigrants should be permitted to enter a country; the real question is, what is their motivation, and what values do they want to impose on the host country?

Andrew C. McCarthy notes, "How do we embrace our Islamic friends while excluding our sharia-supremacist enemies? To fashion an immigration policy that serves our vital national-security interests without violating our commitment to religious liberty, we must be able to exclude sharia supremacists while admitting Muslims who reject sharia supremacism and would be loyal to the Constitution."  

American Thinker article

This is what happens when you let generals fight a war

GEN. MATTIS: TRUMP IS ALLOWING US TO ANNIHILATE ISIS

MSN Article

The Art of the Deal.

TRUMP NEGOTIATES $350 BILLION ARMS DEAL WITH SAUDIS.  JOBS, JOBS, JOBS.

Link to CNBC Article

Some rational reporting about Trump's White House meeting with the Russians

Yes, Trump Might Have Had Good Reasons to Give the Russians Information

The basic point is, we and the Russians were talking "at the highest levels" as they say, and Trump was trying to convince the Russians that we have a mutual interest in finding and stopping ISIS. They've already had one commercial flight downed by a terrorist bomb onboard, as have we, and we've been talking about bombs concealed in laptops for weeks. (For years, really, except it wasn't laptops in 1988.)

So to convince the Russians, Trump says "Look, we've got really good intelligence with a really good source that tells us this is a real plot. You really want to get on board with this, because ISIS hates you as much as it hates us."

This information -- "we've got really good intelligence with a really good source" -- is probably code-word information. Even more so if he said "really good source within ISIS" or "on the ground in Iraq." But it's still a legitimate tactic: I think the term of art in diplomacy is "putting one's cards on the table" or "opening the kimono." You're offering something to prove you're sincere and to show the risk is real.

So let's assume that this is what really happened. What we know the mysterious anonymous source said is that Trump "revealed code-word information." And we know that General McMaster, who has pretty much always been the definition of a straight shooter, said that the release was "wholly appropriate." He also said that Trump didn't know the source, so he couldn't have revealed it. Like the "Cardinal's" real name, that's entirely plausible: he wouldn't have the need to know.

Here's the trick: all these statements can be true! Trump did reveal code-word information, and it was wholly appropriate.

The moral of this story is pretty simple: it's entirely possible that Trump did what the anonymous source said, McMaster was telling the truth, and -- pace Jim Geraghty -- that there is a perfectly valid reason why Trump wanted to do it. But if you start with the assumption that Trump is a cad, a fool, and a blackguard, you're unlikely to see that. And any news story you write is unlikely to consider that.

Link to article

Matt Taibbi/Rolling Stone

FBI INVESTIGATION SECRECY IS DANGEROUS TO OUR DEMOCRACY

But when it comes to the collusion investigation, there are serious questions. A lot of our civil liberties protections and rules of press ethics are designed to prevent exactly this situation, in which a person lingers for extended periods of time under public suspicion without being aware of the exact nature, or origin, of the accusations.

It's why liberal thinkers have traditionally abhorred secret courts, secret surveillance and secret evidence, and in the past would have reflexively discouraged the news media from printing the unverified or unverifiable charges emanating from such secret sources. But because it's Donald Trump, no one seems to care.

We should care. The uncertainty has led to widespread public terror, mass media hysteria and excess, and possibly even panic in the White House itself, where, who knows, Trump may even have risked military confrontation with Russia in an effort to shake the collusion accusations. All of this is exacerbated by the constant stream of leaks and hints at mother lodes of evidence that are just around the corner. It's quite literally driving the country crazy.

The public deserves to know what's going on. It deserved to know before the election, it deserved to know before the inauguration, and it deserves to know now.

Link to Rolling Stone Article

Watergate's Bob Woodward: The Press Is ‘Binge-Drinking the Anti-Trump Kool-Aid’

Link to article and video

The Art of the Deal

Trump just gave China a 'sledgehammer' to smash the LNG monopoly

This is a good thing

CNBC Article and Video

No kidding

Harvard Study Reveals Huge Anti-Trump Media Bias

And Fox News?  Fair and balanced, as they claim

Link to article

The Fourth Turning?

Removing Trump Won’t Solve America’s Crisis

The elites are the problem.

America is in crisis. It is a crisis of greater magnitude than any the country has faced in its history, with the exception of the Civil War. It is a crisis long in the making—and likely to be with us long into the future. It is a crisis so thoroughly rooted in the American polity that it’s difficult to see how it can be resolved in any kind of smooth or even peaceful way. Looking to the future from this particular point in time, just about every possible course of action appears certain to deepen the crisis.

From The American Conservative

LIBERAL HARVARD LAW PROF DERSHOWITZ BLASTS STALINIST SPECIAL COUNSEL

What is the crime?

“I still sit here as a civil libertarian. I don’t want us ever to become what Stalinist Russia became when Stalin was told by Lavrentiy Beria, ‘Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.’ What is the crime?”

Link to article

Thanks to criminal, weaponized leaks from the Deep State

The Federalist: We Are Watching A Slow-Moving Coup D’etat

This coup d’etat represents not the rule of one man or even many, but by the multitude of our elites.

Link to article

From my second favorite living economist

GARY SHILLING: SIX INVESTMENT THEMES

Link to Shilling Blog

Let me know if CNN has reported this

COMEY DENIED TRUMP OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE IN SWORN CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY 5/3/17

Link to article

Dilbert

The Slow-Motion Assassination of President Trump

And the end of the Republic

Link to Dilbert Blog

Andrew McCarthy/National Review

Under the Obama Precedent, No Trump Obstruction of Justice

Up until now, veiled orders have not been thought the equivalent of obstruction.

Link to National Review article

My favorite liberal, lesbian, anti-PC, pro-Bernie, feminist

Camille Paglia: Democrats are colluding with the media to create chaos
It's the collapse of journalism.

Fresh off a spirited panel with Christina Hoff Sommers hosted by the Independent Women's Forum, the iconic feminist dissident, who serves as a professor of media studies at the University of the Arts, accused journalists of colluding with the Democratic Party in an effort to damage the Trump administration.

"Democrats are doing this in collusion with the media obviously, because they just want to create chaos," she said when asked to comment on the aforementioned stories. "They want to completely obliterate any sense that the Trump administration is making any progress on anything."

The popular author, whose latest book was released in March, pointed to early struggles experienced by previous presidential administrations to illustrate the media's bias against Trump. "Obama's administration for the first six months was chaos," Paglia recalled. "Bill Clinton's was chaos for six months. Nobody holds that against a new person."

"Those two guys had actually been politicians!" she continued, noting Trump's relative inexperience with government operations.

Paglia's assessment of media bias in the Trump era leaves little room for optimism. "I am appalled at the behavior of the media," she declared. "It's the collapse of journalism."

Source article and link to video

On this day in 1954

SUPREME COURT ISSUES DECISION IN BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION

"In a major civil rights victory, the U.S. Supreme Court hands down an unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, ruling that racial segregation in public educational facilities is unconstitutional. The historic decision, which brought an end to federal tolerance of racial segregation, specifically dealt with Linda Brown, a young African American girl who had been denied admission to her local elementary school in Topeka, Kansas, because of the color of her skin.

In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate but equal” accommodations in railroad cars conformed to the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. That ruling was used to justify segregating all public facilities, including elementary schools. However, in the case of Linda Brown, the white school she attempted to attend was far superior to her black alternative and miles closer to her home. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) took up Linda’s cause, and in 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka reached the Supreme Court. African American lawyer (and future Supreme Court justice) Thurgood Marshall led Brown’s legal team, and on May 17, 1954, the high court handed down its decision.

In an opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the nation’s highest court ruled that not only was the “separate but equal” doctrine unconstitutional in Linda’s case, it was unconstitutional in all cases because educational segregation stamped an inherent badge of inferiority on African American students. A year later, after hearing arguments on the implementation of their ruling, the Supreme Court published guidelines requiring public school systems to integrate “with all deliberate speed.”

The Brown v. Board of Education decision served to greatly motivate the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and ultimately led to the abolishment of racial segregation in all public facilities and accommodations."

Source Article

Wikipedia article

On this day in 1973

WATERGATE HEARINGS BEGIN

Link to Wikipedia Summary

Retired Law Prof Ann Althouse

Comey Allegation About Trump's Flynn Conversation Is Not Obstruction of Justice

But let's assume the memo exists and says what you read quoted in the post title. How bad is it to say Flynn is a "good guy" and to express "hope" about the outcome? The headline has a pretty aggressive paraphrase of the quote. It reads: "Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him to End Flynn Investigation."

The asking is at most only implicit in what is a declarative statement: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go." That's just Trump revealing what he hopes for. There's no question at all, let alone any pressure or threat. And "see your way clear" is a delicate phrase. That's not saying do it my way. Go your way. And if your path is clear and it gets you to the outcome I hope for, then I will get what I want, but I'm assuming you will go where you see it clear. 

Link to Althouse

Dilbert evaluates President Trump's performance

A QUICK LOOK AT PRESIDENT TRUMP AND THE BIG PICTURE

Scott Adams' Blog

An Inspirational Life in the Law - Judge Ronald Gould

Judge Gould was in my class at U Mich Law and is on the 9th Cir panel hearing the Hawaii travel ban case today.  I didn’t know him well because he was editor-in-chief of the law review and I was in the remedial classes ;) A friend of my daughter, Amy, clerked for him and told me recently he had MS and had lost the use of his arms and legs.  Here is a three minute video about him put out by the 9th Circuit.  It’s worth your time.

Link to three minute video

Dilbert on Climate "Science"

We need to do something radical.
American Carnage.

Alison’s story: How $750,000 in drug ‘treatment’ destroyed her life

When she enrolled in a South Florida drug treatment program in 2015, Alison Flory had high hopes of getting her life in order and starting anew.

But instead of receiving life-saving health care, the 23-year-old from a Chicago suburb found herself being recruited from one recovery residence to another as a string of shady drug treatment facilities systematically overcharged her mother’s health insurance policy for expensive, unnecessary procedures and tests.

By October 2016, Alison was dead.

This is the story of how two troublesome national trends – booming drug addiction rates and widespread fraud in the health care industry – conspired to destroy a young woman’s life.

The US is in the midst of an epidemic of drug addiction and fatal overdoses with more than 52,000 deaths in 2015 – and the numbers are rising. The carnage is fueled in part by the widespread legal distribution of opiates to medical patients, easy availability of cheap heroin, as well as an ever-expanding lineup of other types of prescription drugs and synthetic intoxicants ripe for abuse.

The crisis is creating a broad new spectrum of Americans struggling with addiction – from suburban high school students, to young adults, to white-collar office workers, to grandmothers on Medicare.

At the same time, America is facing an epidemic of fraud in the health-care industry. Experts estimate that the government and private insurance companies lose $100 billion each year to health care scams and fraudulent claims. (That is more than the entire GDP of 131 of the world’s 195 countries. It would place 24th on the Fortune 500 list of largest US corporations, ahead of Boeing, Microsoft, and Bank of America.)

Link to Christian Science Monitor Article

40,000 new mining jobs since the election

STEPHEN MOORE: LIBERALS WERE WRONG - COAL IS BACK!

Link to Moore Article

We need to do something radical

Opioid addiction crisis spurs brutal candor in obituaries

Link to article

As a Harvard Law Student, Barack Obama Said Becoming Donald Trump Was The American Dream

Link to article

On this day in 1948

ISRAEL DECLARES ITSELF A STATE

President Truman Recognizes Israel Over Deep State's Opposition

Source Article I

Source Article ii

My favorite liberal, lesbian, anti-PC, pro-Bernie, feminist

CAMILLE PAGLIA: FREE MEN, FREE WOMEN

Link to 11 Minute Interview