Top 10 Lowlights of 2018

Last year at this time, I presented a list of the top 10 lowlights of 2017.  2018 has presented another year of ups and downs.  Let’s start with the downs.  Take a look at the list of the top 10 lowlights of 2018:

 

1.      The Kavanaugh Confirmation Fiasco.  I promised to include this at the very top of my list during an appearance on the “Conservative Underground” podcast earlier this year. Even before the decades-old sexual assault allegations surfaced against President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, Democratic Senators had already promised to do everything in their power to derail the Kavanaugh nomination.  Democratic Senators postured for the camera, with Cory Booker having his infamous “Spartacus” moment.  After the confirmation hearings concluded, the press got wind of a letter detailing decades-old, vague sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh. In an effort to appear sympathetic, Senate Republicans gave the accuser, Christine Blasey Ford an opportunity to tell her story and answer questions from an outside prosecutor.  Unfortunately for her ultra-liberal lawyers, the Senate Judiciary Committee did not grant her un-American request to have Kavanaugh testify first followed by Ford, effectively depriving him of the right to refute his accuser’s claims.  The Senate Democrats, especially the women, immediately jumped into hysteria mode as soon as the American public heard the name “Christine Blasey Ford” for the first time.  In a perfect demonstration of circular reasoning, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said that she believed Ford because “she is telling the truth.” Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono prophesized that “men need to shut up and step up” and “do the right thing for a change.”  After the Ford allegation surfaced, two even more ridiculous allegations emerged from the vault, concluding with completely bonkers accusations by Julie Swetnick that Kavanaugh participated in a series of gang rapes at parties during his high school years.  Swetnick’s allegations, buoyed by press from “Creepy Porn Lawyer” Michael Avenatti, completely fell apart and may have finally led Republicans to the fact that these allegations have nothing to do with “protecting women” and everything to do with derailing the confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee who did not get down on his knees and thank God for Roe v. Wade every night.

2.      The 2018 Midterm Elections.  Believe it or not, I have decided to include the 2018 midterm elections on both the list of the top 10 lowlights of 2018 as well as the top 10 highlights of 2018.  Republicans’ performance in the House races accounts for the midterm elections’ presence on the list of the top 10 lowlights. Republicans ended up losing more than 40 seats in this year’s midterm elections.  While the total loss of seats does not quite add up to the losses that Presidents Clinton and Obama suffered in their first midterms, the number of losses definitely exceeded expectations. Going into Election Day, Five Thirty-Eight predicted that the Democrats would pick up between 30 and 40 seats, as did Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball.  The biggest surprise losses came in New York’s 11^th Congressional District, Oklahoma’s 5^th Congressional District, and South Carolina’s 1^st Congressional District.  While most people predicted that David Valadao would hold onto his Clinton-won district in California, he ended up losing.  Considering the fact that Clinton won his district with 55 percent of the vote, his loss should not have come as that much of a surprise.  In addition to losing House seats, Republicans ended up losing six gubernatorial races, including in the two pivotal swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin.  Republicans had not lost that many governorships in one cycle since the last example of a blue wave; 2006. Republicans also ended up losing control of state legislative chambers in Colorado, Maine, and New Hampshire.  Republicans did not do that well at the state level this year but they did not hemorrhage nearly as much state legislative seats as the Democrats did following President Obama’s first midterm.

3.      The Developments in the Special Counsel investigation. The Special Counsel Robert Mueller has indicted several members of President Trump’s inner circle before and during his Presidential campaign for crimes involving matters other than Russian collusion.  Anytime the Special Counsel indicts anyone, the media always fantasizes about the impending end of the Trump administration while most Americans react to any news about the Special Counsel investigation this way.   

4.      The Caravans. Nothing proved the ineffectiveness of our immigration system and our asylum laws like the arrival of two caravans filled with economic migrants on our southern border.  The first caravan arrived in June.  While it would seem that the politicians in the Swamp would have wanted to do everything in their power to stop further caravans from arriving on the southern border and forcing officials at the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services to basically turn themselves into social workers and nannies, the Democrats remained equally dismissive as another caravan made its way through Mexico.  President Obama mocked Republicans for obsessing over a caravan that was thousands of miles away.  Before long, the caravan ended up at our borders.  Americans might have more sympathy for these “refugees” and “asylum seekers” if they did not wave the Honduran flag as they busted through a fence on the Guatemala-Mexico border.  The caravan provides concrete evidence of the failure of politicians over the past thirty years to secure the southern border.  

5.      The harassment of conservatives and Trump administration officials. In many ways, this directly correlates with the caravan since the Metro DC chapter of the Socialists of America harassed Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen as she had the “f***ing gall” to eat at a Mexican restaurant, chanting “kids don’t eat  in peace, you don’t eat in peace!”  Left-wing mobs also showed up at the DC-area homes of Nielsen and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.  Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not face the wrath of a mob but the owner of the Red Hen Restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, asked her to leave because her staff did not want to serve someone associated with the “evil” Trump administration. Unfortunately, her family had to deal with a mob as they attempted to enjoy dinner at a restaurant across the street following their ouster from the Red Hen. Congresswoman Maxine Waters encouraged #TheResistance to harass Trump supporters and the confrontations of conservative or Republican lawmakers by angry left-wing mobs reached new heights as the Kavanaugh confirmation battle unfolded on Capitol Hill.  A mob confronted Senator Ted Cruz as he attempted to enjoy a romantic dinner with his wife and they later harassed moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins after she announced her decision to support Kavanaugh.  Even Democrat Joe Manchin could not escape the wrath of the liberal mob after he announced his support for Kavanaugh.

6.      Natural (and manmade) disasters. 2017 had its share of natural and manmade disasters that made their way onto my list of the top 10 lowlights of 2017.  Not surprisingly, 2018 brought with it a series of natural disasters, mass shootings, and terror attacks that caused many people to lose their lives and/or lose everything they own.  Hurricanes Florence and Michael cost billions of dollars in damage and displaced many people in the southeastern United States.  Wildfires in California caused almost complete damage to the town of Paradise in northern California while even the rich and famous in Malibu could not escape the ravenous wildfires.  At the very least, natural disasters allow for a pause in partisan bickering.  Actor James Woods, an outspoken Trump supporter, offered to help actress Alyssa Milano, an outspoken feminist whose house (and animals) found itself in the path of a wildfire.  The most recent natural disaster of the year took place in Alaska, where a magnitude 7.0 earthquake caused $30 million but fortunately did not result in any casualties.  As for manmade disasters, at least four mass shootings come to mind; beginning with a school shooting in Parkland, arguably a consequence of the Obama administration-backed politically correct discipline policy and the incompetence of the School Resource Officer assigned to the school and the Broward County Sheriff’s office as a whole.  Three more mass shootings caused loss of life within about two weeks’ time, a shooting at a temple in Pittsburgh, at a fitness center in Tallahassee, and a bar in Thousand Oaks.     

7.      The publication and promotion of anti-Trump propaganda.  Not even a week into 2018, Michael Wolff came out with a book called Fire and Fury, which painted a very unflattering picture of the Trump White House.  The press absolutely ate up Michael Wolff.  The press reacted the same way when the almost universally hated Omarosa Manigault Newman went on a media blitz promoting her book that painted President Trump as a racist.  In addition, former FBI Director James Comey appears to have a strange new respect from the left following the publication of his book, A Higher Loyalty, and his pleas with the American people to vote Democratic in 2020.

8.      Joy Behar (and Omarosa’s) Religious Bigotry: In 2017, I included Dianne Feinstein’s religious bigotry on the list of the top 10 lowlights of the year.  This year, Joy Behar takes the cake; with her comments on Vice President Mike Pence, ridiculing him as mentally ill for saying that Jesus talks to him.  Behar made the comment in response to a claim made by Omarosa Manigault Newman as a contestant on “Celebrity Big Brother,” as she basically tried to warn her castmates that Pence would make an even worse President than Trump. 

9.      Crimes committed at the hands of illegal immigrants: While many more illegal immigrants may have committed crimes this year, the murder of California police officer Ronil Singh, a legal immigrant, at the hands of an illegal immigrant with a long criminal history remains fresh in the minds of the American people. Thanks to California’s insane sanctuary state policy that serves as a black mark on the soul of the Golden State as well as Congress’s failure to put a wall on the border and pass Kate’s law, Singh’s five-month old son will never have the opportunity to get to know his father.

 

10.     The never-ending flow of anti-Trump propaganda from the mainstream media.  The Founding fathers obviously believed in a free press, otherwise they would not have included a provision protecting the freedom of the press in the First Amendment.  However, all aspects of the press, from the traditional news outlets and late night “comedy” shows have united in their devotion to round the clock Trump bashing.  For detailed examples of media bias at its worst, check out Newsbusters; which has put together compilation videos highlighting the most egregious examples of media bias on The View and CNN, in addition to highlighting the most idiotic analysis of 2018, the worst exhibitions of Trump Derangement Syndrome, the nastiest attacks on conservatives, and the worst examples of media fawning over liberals. 

Check back Monday for the top 10 highlights of 2018, as I attempt to end the year on a high note.