U.S. Presidential election discussion thread. Part V

Posted on April 4, 2016 by | 557 Comments

by Judith Curry

Seems like interest has picked up today, so here is a new thread.

Trump and Cruz have answered some energy/climate questions.
Trump [link]
Cruz: [link]

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have not responded.

I hope to have some time for a new post or two later this week, still mired in deadlines.

 

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557 responses to “U.S. Presidential election discussion thread. Part V”

  1. Wagathon | April 4, 2016 at 10:03 pm |

    Looks like Trump at least offered an alternative to what has become today’s moribund and irrelevant Republican party and an overall dysfunctional body politic as Western civilization is headed for the financial cliff about as fast as it is capable of inflating the money supply.

    • Glenn Stehle | April 4, 2016 at 10:31 pm |

      And Putin is patiently standing by, waiting for the Anglo-American global financial order to implode.

      Putin Aide Details Russia’s Gameplan Against the Empire;
      The Empire’s debt casino is unsustainable and the ruling oligarchy sees war as the only way to salvage their hegemony

      The US is losing its hegemony: it is already producing fewer products and exporting fewer technologies than China. China is also catching up with America in the number of scientists and engineers, and many innovative Chinese technologies are capturing world markets. China’s development rate is five times that of the US. The international system of economic entities recently set up in China exemplify the new world economic order.

      The economic entities that dominate in the US, serving a financial oligarchy, have destabilized the American monetary and financial system, which defaults about twice a year. The causes of the global financial crisis of 2008 have not disappeared and the American debt bubble — financial pyramids composed of derivatives and the national debt —are still growing.

      According to systems theory, this process cannot continue indefinitely.

      http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/putins-aide-americas-business-new-world-war/ri13692

      Trump seems to be the only candidate even remotely aware of this, or at least the only one willing to buck the patriotically correct speech police and say it out loud.

      When Trump says “Make America Great Again!”, that necessarily implies that America is no longer great. This is of course a heresy of the worst order for the patriotically correct.

      http://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/trump-make-america-great-again.jpg

      • David Springer | April 5, 2016 at 12:46 am |

        I’ve been hearing about the imminent collapse of the global economy for too many decades to pay any attention to it anymore. Putin will be dead and the US will piss on his grave.

        Write that down.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 5, 2016 at 9:08 am |

        David Springer,

        The palpable, measurable indicators of relative US economic decline are everywhere, and they are not really disputable.

        Nevertheless, I do understand that, for the patriotically correct, to admit this factual reality is an impossiblity.

        I also understand that there is nothing unique or novel about this sentiment. Aaron L. Friedberg, for instance, dedicates an entire chapter to the phenomenon in The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experienc of Relative Decline:

        There has, of course, been a tremendous amount written about power and its measurement….

        What is strking about virtually all of this work is that it aims to demonstrate how power should be evaluated by detached, rational observers rather than to determine how it has been or is being weighed by residents of the real political world….

        National leaders are often assumed to think of power as a stock of one or more commodities, in much the same way as do the mathematical modelers….

        An assessment process based on calculations would presumably be uncomplicated and might, indeed, be fairly mechanical. Governments would keep track of their own critical resources and could be expected at all times to know such things as the size of their army and the capacity of their national economy. By keeping similar statistics for all other countries, a state’s leaders could be reasonably certain of knowing their relative standing at any given moment. Assessment would then be simply a matter of counting and comparison….

        The clear implication of the calculative model is that assessment of changes in relative power can, should, and therefore probably will be accompanied by appropriate adjustments in national policy….

        Writers like Morgenthau and Wolfers point out the difficulties of measuring power in practice and suggest that errors in judgment are not only possible but perhaps even likely. Such mistakes have severe consequences….

        The essence of this view is captured in a remark by the great English statesman Lord Bolingbloke:

        They who are in the sinking scale…do not easily come off from the habitual prejudices of superior wealth, or power, or skill, or courage, nor from the confidence that these prejudices inspire. They who are in the rising scale do not immediately feel their strength, nor assume that confidence in it which successful experience gives them afterwards….

        Kenneth Boulding has speculated that the citizens of a country as a whole may come to share a historical “national image” that extends “backward into a supposedly recorded or perhaps mythological past and forward into an imagined future.”….

        The literature on perceptions suggests that, however they come to be formed, the beliefs of national leaders are slow to change. Boulding argues that such adjustments occur rarely, if at all, while John Stoessinger asserts that change is possible only as the consequence of some monumental disaster….

        If assessment is a matter of images and self-images and if beliefs about relative national power are like others that have been studied, then there is good reason to expect that changes in assessments will lag behind real shifts in the distribution of power.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 5, 2016 at 9:24 am |

        David Springer,

        The Mexican politilogue Carlos Fuentes compares the situation the United States currently finds itself in to that of the Spanish empire in the late 16th and early 17th centuries:

        Spain also became the first example of an anomaly that the United States runs the risk of repeating as our own century ends: that of being a poor empire, debt-ridden, incapable of solving its internal problems while insistent on playing an imperial role overseas, but begging alms from other, surplus-wealthy nations in order to finance its expensive role as a world policeman….

        Spain at her height could do anything. She could exhaust her treasury and forget her poor, her bankrupts, her devalued currency, her incompetent economy, her overvalued currency, her recessions and depressions, her debts both internal and foreign, her deficit spending, her negative trade balance, as long as she could keep herself at the head of the mission against the infidel, the Islamic threat and the Protestant threat. But eventually reality caught up and imposed the limits that imperial folly had so easily hurdled over.

        The Spanish writer Fernando Diaz Plaja finds a provocative parallel in this situation between Spain and the United States. Both, at the height of their influence, joined military and economic force to an obsessive belief in their own moral justification… And even when the enemy ceased to be menacing, the desire to use power persisted, inebriating, addictive.

        — CARLOS FUENTES, The Buried Mirror

      • timg56 | April 5, 2016 at 3:34 pm |

        I’m with Springer on this one.

        First it was Japan, then it was going to be the EU, then China.

        Anyone recall all of the handwringing from the pundits over the US debt rating being lowered? Had one bought stock in Depends they would have made a killing. Now, anyone want to recount what actually happened after the nation’s rating was lowered?

        Money poured into Treasury bonds, and at an all time low interest rate.

      • timg56 | April 5, 2016 at 3:43 pm |

        Glenn.

        RE the US being comparable to 17th century Spain. The fact people can draw parallels between the two doesn’t make up for some intrinsic differences. Off the top of my head – debt financing. This was what allowed the English Crown – which was a pygmy in terms of wealth compared to Spain – to compete against the Spanish Empire. The kings of Spain would borrow from creditors against royal revenue streams, the biggest of which became the annual gold fleet from the New World.

      • Joshua | April 5, 2016 at 4:08 pm |

        Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to appear before your subcommittee this morning to discuss the feasibility of establishing a gold standard.

        As you know, I have introduced, and other members have cosponsored, H.R. 7874, which is a comprehensive bill to place the United States on a full gold coin standard within two years of the date of its passage.

        I believe such a standard to be not only desirable and feasible, but absolutely necessary if we aim to avoid the very real possibility of hyperinflation in the near future, and economic collapse.

        Ron Paul: February 23, 1981.

      • timg56 | April 5, 2016 at 5:18 pm |

        Josh,

        Pegging your currency to the price of gold and depending on ships carrying gold from your colonies is not equivalent.

      • edbarbar | April 5, 2016 at 5:26 pm |

        David Springer:
        “I’ve been hearing about the imminent collapse of the global economy for too many decades to pay any attention to it anymore. Putin will be dead and the US will piss on his grave.”

        I think it was pretty dicey after the sub-prime mortgage loan fiasco. And i do not think the system is that much more healthy than before. Negative interests rates is uncharted territory. Imagine, governments paying you to borrow money.

      • jim2 | April 5, 2016 at 8:34 pm |

        Yep, after pissing away trillions of dollars, the Keynesian Socialist Dimowits (and some Redimowits) have pumped up growth to almost nothing. I’m impressed with their economic wit and savvy. From the article:
        …
        t may turn out the economy did not grow at all in the first quarter.

        Trade data released Tuesday show the U.S. deficit widened more than expected to $47.1 billion in February and was a bigger drag on growth than expected. It’s the latest economic metric that chiseled away at the tracking model for first quarter growth.

        The median of economists who participate in the CNBC/Moody’s Analytics Rapid Update is now 0.5 percent for tracking GDP growth, down from 0.9 percent last week. Their average forecast for growth is 1.1 percent.

        Given the average, and substantial, revisions to government GDP data, that 0.5 percent could easily turn into a negative number, or a much higher number. That is based on a CNBC study that examined every report going back to 1990 and found an average error rate of 1.3 percentage points in either direction.
        …
        http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/05/economy-may-not-have-grown-at-all-in-first-quarter.html

      • David Springer | April 6, 2016 at 10:42 am |

        “The palpable, measurable indicators of relative US economic decline are everywhere, and they are not really disputable.”

        They most certainly are disputable. The strength of the dollar is the true measure of how the US is doing relative to other economies. It’s in great shape. Up 25% in 2015 and 2016. Thanks for asking. Better luck next time.

        http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2016/02/01/how-cash-strong-us-dollar/79520514/

        If you were holding American dollars you could afford to buy a clue right now! China can probably purchase Europe right now given how many dollars it holds and how weak the Euro. LOL

      • Glenn Stehle | April 6, 2016 at 12:38 pm |

        David Springer,

        Granted, the dollar has gained against other currencies as of late.

        But if we look at the longer trend, it tells an entirely different story.

        http://i.imgur.com/SBCWHRb.png

      • timg56 | April 6, 2016 at 12:52 pm |

        Glenn,

        As with climate science, economics is a field one can find pretty graphs to support any point you want. One reason I don’t do dueling graphs.

        When the world economy starts using the Chinese currency in place of the dollar, come talk to us.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 6, 2016 at 12:53 pm |

        David Springer,

        The stronger dollar is also a double-edged sword.

        It will make US-made products even more expensive in foreign markets, and foreign-made products cheaper in the domestic market, and make it even more difficult for US-made products to compete.

        As jim2 pointed out in his comment above, the US trade deficit is already on the rise.

        http://i.imgur.com/3WDAN9q.png

        And this is after cutting the bill for imported oil by $20 billion per month over the past four years.

        http://i.imgur.com/JfwnrgC.png

        If it weren’t for the lower bill for oil imports, the trade deficit would be back to where it was before the Great Financial Crisis.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 6, 2016 at 1:22 pm |

        timg56 said:

        “When the world economy starts using the Chinese currency in place of the dollar, come talk to us.”

        I don’t do patriotic correctness.

        Therefore, I will respond to you the same way Joseph Chamberlain did to a group of bankers in London in 1904, when the British Empire was already well in decline, but the bankers were in complete denial:

        Granted that you are the clearing-house of the world, but are you entirely beyond anxiety as to the permanence of your great position?

        Banking is not the creator of our prosperity, but is the creation of it. It is not the cause of our wealth, but it is the consequence of our our wealth; and if the industrial energy and development which has been going on for so many years in this country were to be hindered or relaxed, then finance, and all that finance means, will follow trade to the countries which are more successful than ourselves.

      • timg56 | April 6, 2016 at 5:49 pm |

        Glenn,

        Has nothing to do with patriotism.

        Note that I have said nothing regarding the strength of the US economy nor am I ignoring all of the worrisome issues. I am simply saying that we have been hearing the line about being replaced for decades. All of my adult life in fact. At that isn’t close to happening. Not because we are undeniably in better shape or stronger economically than anyone else, but because there is no alternative better than the US. That should have been driven home to even the smartest financial types following the world response to our credit rating being downgraded. Instead of the disaster predicted, we were able to sell bonds at historically low interest rates.

        And if we do want to have a discussion about relative economic strengths and weaknesses, all of our main competitors have serious problems of their own.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 6, 2016 at 7:15 pm |

        timg56 said:

        “When the world economy starts using the Chinese currency in place of the dollar, come talk to us….

        I am simply saying that we have been hearing the line about being replaced for decades. All of my adult life in fact. At that isn’t close to happening.”

        It’s not an event, but a very slow and gradual process. And I’m not so sure that it isn’t “close to happening”:

        Moscow just one-upped the Saudis in China: Russia is officially Beijing’s No. 1 crude supplier….

        As China’s been itching to move away from the dollar in favor of its own currency, some analysts attributed the change in top supplier to Russia’s willingness to play along.

        “Following Russia’s recent acceptance of the renminbi as payments for oil, we expect more record high oil imports ahead to China,” Gordon Kwan, the Hong Kong-based head of regional oil and gas research at Nomura Holdings Inc., told Bloomberg.

        “If Saudi Arabia wants to recapture its number one ranking, it needs to accept the renminbi for oil payments instead of just the dollar.”

        http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-just-one-upped-the-saudis-in-china-2015-6

        and

        As both the head of the Eurasian Economic Union (and founding member of BRICS), as well as a major energy exporter, Russia is leading the charge against the dollar. And now other nations are following suit: Iran and India announced last month that they intend to settle all outstanding crude oil payments in rupees, as part of a joint strategy to dump the dollar and trade instead in national currencies.

        The dollar is slowly losing its privileged place in international transactions. What this means for the United States is anyone’s guess.

        http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/saudi-arabia-has-lost-asia-russia-now-chinas-biggest-oil-partner/ri12611

        and

        Shareholders in the Washington-based International Monetary Fund have voted to admit the yuan, also known as the renminbi, as the fifth member of its special drawing rights (SDR) currency basket alongside the US dollar, the Japanese yen, sterling and the euro….

        Experts say a vote to include the yuan in the SDR is a big political victory for China.

        China hopes this stamp of approval will increase the yuan’s desirability as a reserve currency for investors and undermine the hegemony of the dollar as a global reserve currency.

        http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/30/qa-chinese-yuan-set-to-join-imf-currency-basket

        http://i.imgur.com/QooT72g.png

    • Turbulent Eddie | April 4, 2016 at 10:43 pm |

      “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” More H.L. Menchen

      • Glenn Stehle | April 4, 2016 at 11:16 pm |

        H.L. Mencken?

        What a pompous, arrogant ass.

        Granted, his sort of condescending attitude toward the great unwashed gained prominence during the Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties.

        But during the Great Depression it rapidly lost popularity amongst even the beautiful people of high society.

        As Frederick Lewis Allen explains in Since Yesterday, many in attendance “at a litterary party in New York” by the middle of the depression were

        passionately ready to join hands, in proletarian comradeship, with the factory hand or sharecropper whom a few years before he had scorned as a member of Mencken’s “booboisie”….

        How completely the focus of public attention had become political, economic, and social, and how fully the rebelliousness of the rebellious had turned into these channels, may be suggested by the fact that H. L. Mencken, whose American Mercury magazine had been the darling of the young intellecutals of the ‘twenties, lost ground as it became evident that Mr. Mencken, though liberal in matters of literature and morals, was a tory in matters of politics and economics — until by 1933, when he resigned his editorship, the new highbrows were dismissing him airly as a back number…. They had turned to fresh woods and pastures new.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 4, 2016 at 11:38 pm |

        Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones – review

        [T]his book…argues that class hatred is the last acceptable prejudice….

        Middle-class hatred of working-class people – or, rather, a particular image of working-class people which some hold in their minds – [says] more about the way in which the education system, especially, is structured to prevent most privileged students from ever having to confront their own averageness.

        http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jun/08/chavs-demonization-owen-jones-review

      • bigterguy | April 5, 2016 at 9:39 am |

        H.L. Mencken?

        What a pompous, arrogant, BRILLIANT ass.

        FIFY

        His observations are timeless encapsulations of human nature at work in the political sphere.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 5, 2016 at 10:48 am |

        bigterguy said:

        [Mencken’s] observations are timeless encapsulations of human nature at work in the political sphere.

        Well I suppose if one is an elitist, domineering, authoritarian snob, that is a true statement.

    • omanuel | April 4, 2016 at 11:44 pm |

      Are any candidates aware of the dangerous crossroads society may now face?

      A senior European geo-ethicist has privately warned me leaders of the UN and the scientific community may prefer “an irrational international incident” to admitting abuse of government science for the past seventy years (1946-2016).

      • Glenn Stehle | April 5, 2016 at 12:10 am |

        But does perverse government debauch science, or perverse science debauch government?

        Leo Alexander, in his 1949 article “Medical Science Under Dictatorship” (NEJM), suggested that, “Science under dictatorship becomes subordinated to the guiding philosophy of the dictatorship (28)⇓.”

        I am proposing the inverse, that Politics under Science becomes subordinated to the guiding philosophy of that Science.

        This article also touches on a potentially dangerous relationship between science and society that we tend not to recognize. As Ludwick Fleck noted in 1935 in Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, “This social character inherent in the very nature of scientific activity is not without its substantive consequences. Words which formerly were simple terms become slogans; sentences which once were simple statements become calls to battle. This completely alters their socio-cognitive value. They no longer influence the mind through their logical meaning—indeed, they often act against it—but rather they acquire a magical power and exert a mental influence simply by being used (29)⇓.”

        German science and black racism—roots of the Nazi Holocaust
        http://www.fasebj.org/content/22/2/332.full

    • James Cross | April 5, 2016 at 2:27 pm |

      In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism.

  2. Turbulent Eddie | April 4, 2016 at 10:27 pm |

    I’m guessing this already made the rounds, but for anyone needing a voting guide:
    http://www.i-am-bored.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/who-should-i-vote-for-flowchart.jpg

    • jim2 | April 4, 2016 at 10:35 pm |

      Kinda funny, but sad. Completely misses the real issues.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 4, 2016 at 11:59 pm |

        jim2,

        Surely you will acknowledge that there’s an element, and not a small one, of dog whistle politics to Trump’s campaign.

        But there’s much, much more to it than that.

        Establishment stalwarts, however, are a lost cause. They will never see it. Their highly blinkered, grotesquely reductionist, and narrowly self-interested view of the world blinds them to what is going on around them.

      • jim2 | April 5, 2016 at 8:23 pm |

        No, Glenn, Trump has hit on some hot button issues that I and a whole lot of other people care about.

        Cruz would be my second choice, but I’m not all that fond of the evangelical bit. I like government and religion to be separate, especially when it comes to Obummers Muslim buddies whom he can’t just pack in enough of over here in spite of the obvious fact they are causing Europe to melt down.

    • nickels | April 4, 2016 at 11:02 pm |

      Nor bad.

    • Arch Stanton | April 5, 2016 at 8:34 am |

      I am going to go with the better than 3 in 720,000 chance of 6/11-13/2016 being the date. I am not calling it, I am just watching for our Hope to show… Calendars are fun.

    • edbarbar | April 5, 2016 at 8:58 am |

      The graph makes a mistake on the “Are women people” node. Kasich thinks women are people, but Hillary does not.

      Hillary was asked to defend an alleged child rapist. In this audio, she confesses she thinks the guy was lying when he said he was innocent and laughs about it. https://youtu.be/e2f13f2awK4

      She got the guy off on a technicality.

      Clinton submitted to the court she had been told the 12 year old girl “sought older male attention.” Some might say this is blaming the victim.

      While clinton was relatively young when she took the case, her laughing and bragging about her ability to get the rapist off was some ten years later was not when she was young.

      http://freebeacon.com/politics/the-hillary-tapes/

      In any event, it would be interesting to hear from the “I love Hillary” crowd how this is not disqualifying. Not that anything with Hillary ever is, but this is particularly egregious (odd how the anti-Trump people say Trump fans are willing to accept any action by Trump, when in fact we aren’t going to let the press destroy Trump the way they viciously destroyed Sarah Palin).

      As with Monica Lewinsky, Juanita Broaddrick (I believe you Juanita), and the “Bimbos” Hillary is willing to throw women under the bus or to ignore the accusations of the evil her man has wrought on women. All because of her lust for power.

      The graph is wrong, and Hillary supporters should face up to it. Or they should admit they are no better than Trump supporters in their blind devotion to a candidate.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 5, 2016 at 10:36 am |

        edbarbar said:

        The graph makes a mistake on the “Are women people” node. Kasich thinks women are people, but Hillary does not.

        I agree that Hillary does not think women are people, though for perhaps different reasons than you do.

        For Hillary, women are nothing more than a commodity.

        Hillary follows the long-established formulas of identity politics, putting women — along with other demographic groups (e.g., blacks, hispanics, LGBTs, etc.) — into their tidy little boxes and telling them how to think, to feel, and to believe.

        But as Richard Bernstein notes in Dictatorship of Virtue, “It is, quite simply, an attack on freedom and autonomy for people to be pressured, or required, to attend chapel and told what it is proper to think, to feel, and to believe.”

        It was perhpas Ralph Ellison who objected most stridently and eloquently to the dehumanizing practice of identity politics:

        Finally, why is it that so many of those who would tell us the meaning of Negro life never bother to learn how varied it really is?…

        [This question is] aroused by “Black Boys and Native Sons,” an essay by Irving Howe, the well-known critic and editor of Dissent, in the Autumn 1963 issue of that magazine….

        Evidently Howe feels that unrelieved suffering is the only “real” Negro experience, and that the true Negro writer must be ferocious.

        But there is also an American Negro tradition which teaches one to deflect racial provocation and to master and contain pain. It is a tradition which abhors as obscene any trading on one’s own anguish for gain or sympathy; which springs not from a desire to deny the harshness of existence but from a will to deal with it as men at their best have always done….

        To deny in the interest of revolutionary posture that such possibilities of human richness exist for others, even in Mississippi, is not only to deny us our humanity but to betray the critic’s commitment to social reality. Critics who do so should abandon literature for politics….

        In his loyalty to Richard Wright, Howe considers Ellison and Baldwin guilty of filial betrayal because, in their own words, they have rejected the path laid down by Native Son, phonies because, while actually “black boys,” they pretend to be mere American writers trying to react to something of the pluralism of their predicament….

        In Native Son Wright began with the ideological proposition that what whites think of the Negro’s reality is more important than what Negroes themselves know it to be….

        How awful that Wright found the facile answers of Marxism before he learned to use literature as a means for discovering the forms of American Negro humanity….

        In his effort to resuscitate Wright, Irving Howe would designate the role which Negro writers are to play more rigidly than any Southern politician — and for the best of reasons….

        Many of those who write of Negro life today seem to assume that as long as their hearts are in the right place they can be as arbitrary as they wish in their formulations… They have made of the no-man’s land created by segregation a territory for infantile self-expression and intellectual anarchy. They write as though Negro life exists only in light of their belated regard, and they publish interpretations of Negro experience which would not hold true for their own or any other form of human life.

        Here the basic unity of human experience that assures us of some possiblity of empathic and symbolic identification with those of other backgrounds is blasted in the interest of specious political and philosophical conceits. Prefabricated Negroes are sketched on sheets of paper and superimposed upon the Negro community; then when someone thrusts his head through the page and yells, “Watch out there, Jack, there’re people living under here,” they are shocked and indignant.

        — RALPH ELLISON, The World and the Jug

      • Turbulent Eddie | April 5, 2016 at 10:48 am |

        Yes, Kasich is probably the only grown-up of the lot of them, and gets short shrift on gender.

        But it is, though poignant, a joke.

      • beththeserf | April 10, 2016 at 8:17 pm |

        The dehumanizing practice of identity politics, the
        long march through the institutions, including the arts:

        ‘Post -dramatic plays differ from representative theatre
        by offering actors and audiences experiences that are
        not tied to the vicissitudes of either character or plot
        but seek to investigate broader issues, free of drama’s
        limitations.’

        Shakespeare and individual decision making are o-u-t.

        http://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/genres/post-dramatic-theatre-iid-2516

  3. Rob Bradley | April 4, 2016 at 10:28 pm |

    Trump and Cruz have answered some energy/climate questions.
    Trump: https://www.masterresource.org/free-market-energy-overview/trump-energy/
    Cruz: https://www.masterresource.org/cruz-ted/cruz-energy-climate/

    Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have not responded.

    • Danny Thomas | April 5, 2016 at 12:00 am |

      Rob,

      Not sure if you’re awaiting Clinton and Bernie’s responses to this specific questionaire, but their platforms are out there: https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/climate/
      https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/factsheets/2016/02/02/advanced-buildings/

      (two replys due to number of links, and will do a 3rd for Kasich)

    • Danny Thomas | April 5, 2016 at 12:06 am |

      Rob,
      Kasich you have to dig a bit for, but scroll down to the blue highlighted segment towards the bottom and he does discuss ‘energy’.

      https://www.johnkasich.com/resultsnow/

      Of course there’s a bunch more stuff out there but who knows…………

    • curryja | April 5, 2016 at 10:00 am |

      thx, i’ll add these links to the main post

      • climatereason | April 5, 2016 at 10:28 am |

        Good Grief! Is the Presidential election STILL going on?

        tonyb

      • Danny Thomas | April 5, 2016 at 10:48 am |

        TonyB,
        Elections are big business over here. Visualize a circle and it’s how the cycle works. And some say perpetual motion machines don’t exist.

      • Arch Stanton | April 5, 2016 at 10:32 am |

        We need to go through an election to see whom they have already, selected.

      • opluso | April 5, 2016 at 10:59 am |

        tonyb:

        It’s a good thing we take a long time to make up our minds. Otherwise, Trump would already be president.

      • cerescokid | April 5, 2016 at 11:54 am |

        Tony
        Millions of Americans are sharing your sentiments. The day after this election they will start talking about the mid-terms. And the next day, speculation on 2020 Presidential election kicks off.

        Add to that the 24 hour news networks, makes it almost too much to handle.

    • David L. Hagen | April 5, 2016 at 10:17 am |

      Common Sense by Cruz on Climate

      8) Do you support a carbon tax? Do you support the Obama administration’s use of the social cost of carbon in rulemakings?

      A: I do not support a carbon tax or using the social cost of carbon in rulemakings. The observed temperature evidence does not support the claims that carbon dioxide is dangerous. . . .
      10) Will your administration review the Obama administration’s finding that carbon dioxide endangers public health and welfare, also known as the “endangerment finding”?

      A: Yes, the observed temperature evidence does not support the claims that carbon dioxide is dangerous. More recent scientific developments indicate that a review of the endangerment finding is needed.

      • edbarbar | April 5, 2016 at 11:07 pm |

        Glenn,

        Hillary says these colosally stupid and fact-free things for the same reason that Donald Trump says colosally stupid and fact-free things: to appeal to highly motivated minority constituencies during the primary season, when these minority’s votes count the most.

        Trump has been fairly consistent on some issues. For instance our paying for the defense of the world and his issues with “Free” trade.

        Here is an Oprah Interview from a while ago, 1988.

        His view on the southern border is consistent with these nationalist thoughts too.

        And these are his big button items. My conclusion is that he believes these things, and wants to take care of this country. You can disagree with his positions, but your characterization of Trump as a demagogue is, in my view, wrong.

        Now, let’s see whether new information changes your opinion!

        Here is a link to the “Most Wanted” List of criminals in my town. When I moved here 21 years ago, it was a paradise with kids playing soccer and baseball on the many fields in the spring, had a very low crime rate and almost never a murder. Now there are murders and rapes, including one that received national attention, the purported murder of Sierra Lamar. There was a body burned on the side of the road up the street from where I live. Note, the town is a bedroom community for silicon valley, has a high median income of more than $90,000, and 38% of inhabitants have a bachelor’s degree.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZpMJeynBeg
        http://www.morganhilltimes.com/news/morganhills_most_wanted

      • Glenn Stehle | April 6, 2016 at 4:09 pm |

        edbarbar said:

        My conclusion is that [Trump] believes these things, and wants to take care of this country.

        This is the same thing Milo Yiannopoulos says of Trump, and I have no reason to doubt that Trump is sincere in this.

        Trump has been accused of nationalism in the press. But I am not one of these people who considers nationalism to necessarily be a bad thing, nor do I equate nationalism with Fascism and Nazism.

        Again, this is where I think Trump might be favorably compared to Teddy Roosevelt.

        http://nteb.mudflowermedia.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/teddy-roosevelt-immigration-quotes-speak-softly-big-stick-933×445.jpg

      • Glenn Stehle | April 6, 2016 at 5:35 pm |

        edbarbar said:

        Now, let’s see whether new information changes your opinion!

        Here is a link to the “Most Wanted” List of criminals in my town. When I moved here 21 years ago, it was a paradise with kids playing soccer and baseball on the many fields in the spring, had a very low crime rate and almost never a murder. Now there are murders and rapes, including one that received national attention, the purported murder of Sierra Lamar.

        http://www.morganhilltimes.com/news/morganhills_most_wanted

        I followed you link, and what I see is a page titled “Morgan Hill’s Most Wanted” and below it photos of what looks like:

        • 11 Hispanics
        • 2 Blacks
        • 1 Arab
        • 0 Anglos

        So what are you trying to say?

        That Hispanics proportionately commit more crimes?

        If so, there is some empircal evidence that this is so in the Department of Justice’s data bases.

        As to the causes of why this is so, that’s another matter.

        http://i.imgur.com/30bNimg.png

        As to your assertion that crime rates in Morgan Hills have increased over the last 21 years, empirical evidence from the FBI’s Table 8 of the Crime in the United States reports show the very opposite to have occurred.

        Violent crime rate for Morgan Hills is down 51% since 1995.

        The murder rate is unchanged from 1995.

        Property crime rate is down 69% from 1995.

        http://i.imgur.com/S86sypx.png

      • Glenn Stehle | April 6, 2016 at 6:09 pm |

        edbarbar,

        Perceptions of crime frequently do not reflect reality.

        Here, for instance, is a study of youth, race and crime that shows just how far perceptions can depart from factual reality :

        Despite sharp declines in youth crime, the public expresses great fear of its own young people.

        Although violent crime by youth in 1998 was at its lowest point in the 25-year history of the National Crime Victimization Survey, 62% of poll respondents felt that juvenile crime was on the increase.

        In a 1996 California poll, 60% of respondents reported believing that juveniles were responsible for most violent crime, when youths were actually responsible for about 13% of violent crime that year.

        In an environment in which fear of youth crime and actual crime are so out of sync, policies affecting young people are bound to be influenced.

        Since 1992, 47 states have made their juvenile justice systems more punitive by eroding confidentiality protections or making it easier to try
        juveniles as adults.

        For example, crime by youth fell more during the 1980’s and 1990’s than adult crime in California, yet California voters overwhelmingly passed proposition 21 in 2000, requiring that youth as young as age 14 be automatically tried as adults for certain offenses.

        In one estimate, more than 200,000 youths were prosecuted in adult court in America in 1998.

        http://cclp.org/documents/BBY/offbalance.pdf

      • edbarbar | April 6, 2016 at 10:50 pm |

        Glenn,

        The reporting you present sure looks like not as bad. But, when I first moved to Morgan Hill, there had been 1 murder in 7 years.

        Over a four year span, here are the reports of murder:

        2011: Tara Romero, murdered.

        3/16/2012: No one has heard from Sierra LaMar since March 16, 2012, when she left her home in unincorporated Morgan Hill in the morning and missed her bus for school (suspect is charged with murder, and I think with good reason).

        9/5/2014: On Aug. 28, a person driving on Oak Glen Avenue near Uvas Road and the Chesbro Reservoir saw a person on fire and called 911. Flames were burning just off the roadway in brush.

        5/20/2015: MORGAN HILL (KRON) — A 32-year-old man has been arrested, accused of killed another man outside a tavern in Morgan Hill early Wednesday morning.

        6/3/2015: MORGAN HILL — Two men were arrested on suspicion of murder in the fatal stabbing of a man on Sunday, authorities said.

        Or more than 7 times as many murders as when I moved here, and it seems to be accelerating. There are now gangs here in Morgan Hill.

        Regarding the other statistics, I’m not so sure what those mean anymore. As an example, here is this glowing report:

        On Feb. 15, 2012, 11 days before Martin’s death, the Miami-Dade County Public Schools put out a press release boasting of a 60 percent decline in school-based arrests, the largest decline by far in the state.

        What they don’t tell you is the reason for the decline was not charging offenders:

        In each case, the case file on Martin was fudged to make the crime less serious than it was. As one detective told IA, the arrest statistics coming out of Martin’s school, Michael Krop Senior, had been “quite high,” and the detectives “needed to find some way to lower the stats.” This directive allegedly came from Hurley.

        http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/police-buried-trayvons-criminal-history/

    • David L. Hagen | April 5, 2016 at 10:24 am |

      Clinton: Waste $ on inefficient energy
      Hillary Clinton’s Vision for Renewable Power – Briefing Fact Sheet

      1) The United States will have more than half a billion solar panels installed across the country by the end of Hillary Clinton’s first term.
      2) The United States will generate enough clean renewable energy to power every home in America within ten years of Hillary Clinton taking office.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 5, 2016 at 11:05 am |

        Hillary says these colosally stupid and fact-free things for the same reason that Donald Trump says colosally stupid and fact-free things: to appeal to highly motivated minority constituencies during the primary season, when these minority’s votes count the most.

        In the general, however, it’s a little bit different game.

      • Danny Thomas | April 5, 2016 at 11:52 am |

        Hmm. Then gotta wonder what Mexico might do to stop flow of funds the other direction: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ford-mexico-investment-idUSKCN0X21VA

      • Glenn Stehle | April 5, 2016 at 12:43 pm |

        Danny,

        Well maybe so.

        But I think Trump’s going to run up against a juggernaut of economic interests and sunk investment equivalent to what Hillary and Bernie will if they attempt to ban fracking.

        Take the automotive industry, for instance. Ford is not the only one that has, and continues, to move plants from the U.S. to Mexico:

        The 192,000-square-meter (2.1-million-square-foot) Nissan Motor Corp. plant is one of half a dozen that have sprung up or been announced for central Mexico’s industrial belt in the past five years, contributing to a nationwide $20 billion investment by global automakers eager to establish ready access to the U.S. market.

        Mexican vehicle exports are expected to rise to a record 2.9 million in 2015, with more than 70 percent of the cars and light trucks headed to the U.S., according to the Mexican Automobile Industry Association.

        December exports alone were up 21 percent over the previous year, to 195,091….

        The boom in Mexican manufacturing is anchored by auto production, which increased 10 percent last year over 2013, according to the AMIA, and is projected to reach 5 million vehicles by 2020. On the Aguascalientes Nissan site, construction is about to start on another plant, a joint venture between Nissan and Germany’s Daimler AG that will make both Infiniti and Mercedes- Benz luxury vehicles.

        Another maker of luxury cars, Audi AG, also has plans to produce in Mexico starting in 2016, joining its parent company, Volkswagen AG, which makes more than 475,000 cars, including Beetles, Golfs and Jettas, in the country every year.

        In December, General Motors, which made 678,388 automobiles last year in Mexico, announced it would spend $3.6 billion through 2018 to modernize its four Mexican plants.

        http://www.autonews.com/article/20150206/OEM01/302069972/mexico-auto-exports-forecast-to-hit-record-in-2015

        http://i.imgur.com/L1yJETy.png

        http://i.imgur.com/F1K9fjT.png

      • Glenn Stehle | April 5, 2016 at 2:54 pm |

        Danny,

        The Bob Woodward interview which is part of the Washinton Post article is outstanding.

        Thanks for the link.

        The article makes the following empirical claim:

        The Mexican central bank reported that money sent home by Mexicans overseas hit nearly $24.8 billion last year, overtaking oil revenues for the first time as a source of foreign income. Cutting off those transfers would therefore represent a significant blow to the Mexican economy.

        Later the article says:

        The billionaire businessman has estimated his proposed wall would cost between $10 billion and $12 billion, and has argued that it would protect the country from illegal border crossings as well as halting drug shipment.

        Drug shipments are a much greater source of income for Mexico than either the remesas that millions of Mexicans working in the US send home or oil exports.

        The National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) estimates that Mexican and Colombian DTOs generate, remove, and launder as much as $39 billion in wholesale drug proceeds annually.

        https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/testimonies/witnesses/attachments/03/31/11/03-31-11-dea-harrigan-testimony-re-us-homeland-security-role-in-the-mexican-war-against-drug-cartels.pdf

        I’ve heard more recent estimates that put this figure much higher, maybe $75 to $100 billion per year income to the Mexican drug cartels.

        From what I can glean from various published interviews of narocs and ex-U.S. officials, building the wall would have almost no effect on the flow of drugs to the United States, as most of the drugs move north under the aegis of corrupt U.S. officials and the US deep state.

        For instance, this is an interview of one of the operatives from La Familia Michiocana. He says they pay the US border guards $5,000 per car to let the cars loaded with drugs though, and typically they let through several at a time.

        http://www.periodismo.org.mx/assets/cronica_pnp2011.pdf

        Fifty to $100,000 a day is not a bad day’s pay for a U.S. border guard whose annual salary is probably less than that.

        Héctor Berrellez, the DEA agent who was in charge of the investigation into the murder of DEA agent Kike Camarena, claimed in an interview after his retirement that it was the CIA that ordered the hit on Camarena. The CIA was in partnership with the Guadalajara Cartel and was using its drug smuggling profits to finance its illegal operations in other parts of the world. Camarena found out about this arrangement and was going to spill the beans, so the CIA ordered Rafael Caro Quintero to kill him.

        http://eleconomista.com.mx/sociedad/2015/07/09/cia-traiciono-enrique-camarena

        So I think Trump is just blowing smoke. The US’s relationship with Mexico is far more complex than he lets on.

        And of course all good patriotically correct Americans know that there are no drug kingpins and no police corruption in the United States.

        As this graph shows, the value of a kilo of cocaine goes from $2,000 to $120,000 as it moves from Peru or Colombia to the United States. The profits from the drug trade are astronomical, so there’s plenty of money to spread the wealth.

        http://i.imgur.com/Vtcc16g.png

      • Danny Thomas | April 5, 2016 at 3:47 pm |

        Glenn,

        You’re welcome. It’s a pleasure to read the varying viewpoints and thank you for yours. The whole wall discussion is just a talking point. The reference to the great wall of China was entertaining.
        Physical barriers are in place where appropriate, are challenging to install on water, and can be overcome in numerous ways.

        As you suggested, should the flow of ‘product’ (people and drugs) be restricted then alternative routes will be developed. Technology and manpower seem to be a better approach.

  4. jim2 | April 4, 2016 at 10:32 pm |

    The US is going down a Socialist Rat Hole. The good works and conservative/libertarian concepts of of Milton Friedman, Hayek, von Mises, and others – all down the drain with it. From the article:
    …
    Why has Donald Trump’s cult-of-personality candidacy—which so many professionals and pundits at first dismissed as a branding exercise—become a fever of sorts?
    …
    Consider first the sharp decline in economic growth in the era of globalization.
    …
    According to a recent McClatchy poll, 71 percent of Americans think that the country is on the wrong track.
    …
    The controversial bailouts that followed the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 only expanded under President Obama, the most divisive president since Richard Nixon.
    …
    In truth, there has been no such thing as a “mainstream” press since 2008, when, in a manifestation of the country’s political polarization, much of the media enlisted in the Obama campaign. The presidents of CBS and NBC have siblings on Obama’s national security staff who helped orchestrate the catastrophe at Benghazi. Key members of the White House staff are married to prominent national reporters for ABC and CNN.
    …
    The winners in Obama’s America, where the stock market has doubled even as wages have stagnated, have been the big guys—big business, big labor, big government. Unelected bureaucrats have never had it so good.
    …
    The federal government’s reach has become so vast that it suffocates informed debate and political accountability. No one in the Obama administration has been held accountable—as Richard Nixon’s operatives were—for using the IRS as a mechanism to punish dissenters
    …
    http://www.city-journal.org/html/donald-trump-and-americas-post-constitutional-politics-14322.html

    • Glenn Stehle | April 5, 2016 at 11:55 am |

      Here are the passages from the article which are most salient for me:

      “We have not seen such sustained dissatisfaction,” explains electoral analyst Jay Cost, “since public opinion polling began.”

      In fact, we’d have to travel back to the 1890s to discover so prolonged a bout of electoral distemper.”

      A quarter-century after the Soviet Union crumbled under the crush of U.S. power and an increasingly high-tech and international economy, politically correct America is suffering from global competition that has helped produce serious fractures. America’s bicoastal elites thrive, while the middle class labors under stagnating or declining incomes.

      The controversial bailouts that followed the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 only expanded under President Obama…

      Obama poses as a champion of economic justice, even as the country suffers from the lowest percentage of people employed in 40 years. The president bemoans growing inequality while campaigning regularly among Hollywood celebrities and Silicon Valley and Wall Street billionaires. When Obama railed against inequality at the home of the aptly named Rich Richman, he should have been ridiculed; instead, he was treated with kid gloves by an adoring press anxious to join him on “the right side of history.”….

      The winners in Obama’s America, where the stock market has doubled even as wages have stagnated, have been the big guys—big business, big labor, big government. Unelected bureaucrats have never had it so good….

      Washington, D.C. recently passed Silicon Valley as the richest region in the U.S.: seven of the nation’s ten wealthiest counties are in the D.C metro area. Not incidentally, Washington now has the highest rate of fine-wine consumption in the United States….

      In an October 2015 Fairleigh Dickinson University poll, 68 percent agreed with the proposition that “a big problem this country has is being politically correct.” The sentiment was shared broadly across the political spectrum—by 62 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of independents, and 81 percent of Republicans. Among whites, 72 percent said they felt that way, but so did 61 percent of nonwhites….

      Leaving Trump’s incoherence aside, James Kalb, writing in Chronicles, was right to argue that “political correctness is a genuine threat to any tolerable way of life. . . . domination of public life by p.c. elites has thus made it impossible for ordinary people to assert their complaints publicly in an acceptable way, so their objections can be shrugged off as the outbursts of ignorant bigots who will, in any event, soon become demographically irrelevant.”….

      The American Left is composed of academia, media, and cultural elites, who, for decades, have tried to act as the arbiters of acceptable public debate and shut down any political expression with which they disagree. “To understand Trump’s seemingly effortless seizure of the public spotlight,” Nicols continues, “forget about programs, and instead zero in on the one complaint that seems to unite all of the disparate angry factions gravitating to him: political correctness.”….

      It may be true, given the candidate’s stumbles of late, that Trump is finally imploding. But his success up to now, as one supporter puts it, has come from barking when most pols are whispering.

      Washington, and Obama especially, has ushered in a cast of courtesans which cater so exclusively to the whims of the elites that it would make even Alexander Hamilton blush.

      But if there is a modicum of democracy left in America, surely the lords of capital will get their comeuppance. As Kevin Phillips writes in Wealth and Democracy:

      Hamilton’s use of government banking and debt to reward a wealthy elite trespassed on the Revolutionary credo, as did the excise taxes so anathemous to farmers….

      When the elections of 1880 gave Jefferson twenty of the two states’ combined twenty-seven electoral votes, the Virginian beat John Adams, and no Federalist ever again held the presidency.

  5. Turbulent Eddie | April 4, 2016 at 10:41 pm |

    Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
    H. L. Mencken

    • Turbulent Eddie | April 4, 2016 at 10:54 pm |

      Also, a favorite wrt global warmin’: “Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.

      And always apt for elections:
      The fact is that the average man’s love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth. He is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty — and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies.

      And one for Trump:
      When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost… All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

      And one for Obama’s denier club:
      Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies, and every one knows it who has ever given any sober reflection to the matter. A democratic state may profess to venerate the name, and even pass laws making it officially sacred, but it simply cannot tolerate the thing. In order to keep any coherence in the governmental process, to prevent the wildest anarchy in thought and act, the government must put limits upon the free play of opinion. In part, it can reach that end by mere propaganda, by the bald force of its authority — that is, by making certain doctrines officially infamous. But in part it must resort to force, i.e., to law. One of the main purposes of laws in a democratic society is to put burdens upon intelligence and reduce it to impotence. Ostensibly, their aim is to penalize anti-social acts; actually their aim is to penalize heretical opinions. At least ninety-five Americans out of every 100 believe that this process is honest and even laudable; it is practically impossible to convince them that there is anything evil in it. In other words, they cannot grasp the concept of liberty. Always they condition it with the doctrine that the state, i.e., the majority, has a sort of right of eminent domain in acts, and even in ideas — that it is perfectly free, whenever it is so disposed, to forbid a man to say what he honestly believes. Whenever his notions show signs of becoming “dangerous,” ie, of being heard and attended to, it exercises that prerogative. And the overwhelming majority of citizens believe in supporting it in the outrage. Including especially the Liberals, who pretend — and often quite honestly believe — that they are hot for liberty. They never really are. Deep down in their hearts they know, as good democrats, that liberty would be fatal to democracy — that a government based upon shifting and irrational opinion must keep it within bounds or run a constant risk of disaster. They themselves, as a practical matter, advocate only certain narrow kinds of liberty — liberty, that is, for the persons they happen to favor. The rights of other persons do not seem to interest them. If a law were passed tomorrow taking away the property of a large group of presumably well-to-do persons — say, bondholders of the railroads — without compensation and without even colorable reason, they would not oppose it; they would be in favor of it. The liberty to have and hold property is not one they recognize. They believe only in the liberty to envy, hate and loot the man who has it.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 5, 2016 at 3:01 am |

        Mencken’s thinking was highly elitist, and was typical of how leaders thought during his day and time. It was at the very tail end of what Stephen Toulmin called “High Modernity.”

        Mencken’s thinking mirrors that of George Creel and Harold Laswell.

        Creel was chosen by President Wilson in 1917 to lead the infamous Committee of Public Information, which Laswell said was “the equivalent of appointing a separate cabinet minister for propaganda.” The committee perpetrated any number of extremely violent and highly illegal crimes (by today’s standards) against U.S. citizens, all in order “to penalize heretical opinions,” as Mencken put it.

        “[S]uccessful social and political management often depends on proper coordination of propaganda with coercion, violent or non-violent,” Laswell theorized..

        “He emphasized employing persuasive media and selectively using assasinations, violence, and other coercion as means of ‘communicating’ with and managing disenfranchised people,” Christopher Simpson explains in Science of Coercion. “U.S.-style consumer democracy was simply a relatively benign system for engineering mass consent for the elites’ authority; it could be dispensed with when ordinary people reached the ‘wrong’ conclusion.”

        Laswell wrote that,

        A propagandist’s regard for men rests on no democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interests The modern propagandist, like the modern psychologist, recognizes that men are often poor judges of their own interests.

        Mencken’s, Creel’s, and Laswell’s theories of “communication-as-domination,” however, would meet there Waterloo during the Vietnam War. As Hannah Arendt explains in Lying in Politics:

        The only limitation to what the public relations man does comes when he discovers that the same people who perhaps can be “manipulated” to buy a certain kind of soap cannot be manipulated…to “buy” opinions and political views. Therefore, the psychological premise of human manipulability has become one of the chief wares that are sold on the market of common and learned opinion.

        But such doctrines do not change the way peope form opinions or prevent them from acting acording to their own lights. The only method short of terror to have real influence on their conduct is still the old carrot-and-stick approach….

        It is not surprising that the recent generation of intellectuals…should almost automatically fall back on the older adages of carrot and stick whenever the situaiton becomes too serious for “theory.”

        To them, the greatest disappointment in the Vietnam adventure should have been the discovery that there are people with whom carrot-and-stick methods do not work either.

    • beththeserf | April 4, 2016 at 11:48 pm |

      :) … :(

  6. Wagathon | April 4, 2016 at 10:49 pm |

    In as much as AGW about politics, not science, it’s much like the consensus science of global warming… which is a lot like menudo soup. Literally, menudo is beef tripe and hominy in a seasoned broth of boiled bones. Metaphorically and figuratively, menudo may conjure up notions of something offal and nasty in the opinion of some– but, their prejudice is not the reality of all–e.g., for others, menudo is steeped in cultural significance.

  7. Glenn Stehle | April 4, 2016 at 11:00 pm |

    I just recently stumbled onto this guy from a link from the RealClear Politics site.

    He’s a flaming queen who writes for Breitbart News Network, but in spite of his reckless nelliness, or maybe because of it, I very much agree with much of what he has to say.

    He’s cut out of the same cloth as a Camile Paglia or Robert Hughes — irreverent and even outrageous at times — with a dash of 1960s and 70s high gay camp thrown in to spice things up a bit. It resonates of the iconic performances of the gay liberation movement, like John Waters (Divine) in Female Trouble and Rita Moreno in The Ritz.

    Milo Yiannopoulos Loves Donald Trump

    What Trump offers is “the promise of a better America.”

    A candidate like Trump who is going to give the present estalbishment, journalists and politicians alike, the most collossal bloody nose, and they deserve it, they have it coming, they really deserve this, then I am fully behind it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fely6gd2Q-k

    • Glenn Stehle | April 4, 2016 at 11:05 pm |

      Milo Yiannopoulos on Censorship, Twitter, and Free Speech

      Yiannopoulos was banned by Twitter, who he says will not allow any commentary which veers too much from the politically correct.

    • John Gladin (@LTCjRet) | April 5, 2016 at 2:48 am |

      [I]A candidate like Trump who is going to give the present estalbishment, journalists and politicians alike, the most collossal bloody nose, and they deserve it, they have it coming, they really deserve this, then I am fully behind it.[/I]

      Once you pull the pin, Mr. Hand Grenade is no longer your friend.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 5, 2016 at 3:37 am |

        John Gladin,

        Your comment reminded me of the heart wrenching hand grenade scene from Napola.

        Nevertheless, do you know of any way that a hand grenade can be used without pulling the pin?

        These weapons, after all, were created with the intent of blowing the enemy up, not oneself.

        Here’s the scene from Napola:

      • timg56 | April 5, 2016 at 3:59 pm |

        John,

        “The Mk 67 fragmentation grenade – for when F — You just isn’t getting the point across.”

      • LTCjRet | April 6, 2016 at 1:41 am |

        Glenn, timg +1 ea

  8. opluso | April 4, 2016 at 11:09 pm |

    Ted Cruz is an excellent lawyer and debater. Against accusations that he has frequented prostitutes in the past, he declared “I have always been faithful to my wife.”

    Dean Man Walking.

    • Wagathon | April 4, 2016 at 11:50 pm |

      With those credentials, Ted Cruz may cross over from the ‘Jerry Falwell’ wing of the party to become the leader of the ‘Jimmy Swaggart’ wing.

  9. RiHo08 | April 4, 2016 at 11:15 pm |

    What seems to me at least as relevant, is that verbal tantrums from Trump enthralls the media; hence, give him momentum. This of course reminds me of the journalistic paradigm: If it bleeds, it leads.” And so, we have a media driven Presidential campaign in the hands of the very media who espouse as irrelevant, skeptical climate folk, and these same media folk find singularly dismissive of important and uncertainty details of climate science and its prognostications.

    So, it is no wonder that main stream media latch onto Trump’s utterances and broadcast these widely. In my ever convoluted mind’s thinking, I wonder if the media is playing up Trump so that Clinton will appear as the most secure and plausible candidate. Of course, I could be paranoid, as usual.

    I do find many in the main stream media, who castigate climate skeptics as the source of mis-representing Trump’s positions and or analyzing what he has said unto the absurd. “This means that…” seems to be a usual and customarily diatribe I have had to turn a deaf ear to. NYT and WaPo are but examples of poorly regulated mouthpieces of negative campaigns. I struggle to find editorial analysis that has any meaning to myself. I of course recognize that truth in politics as in war, are its first casualty.

    We can hope, nay, pray, that the Presidential campaign will drag out so wearily, that people will vote a prejudicial viewpoint, in the aggregate, will select a mediocre candidate who will not rock the boat.

  11. David Springer | April 5, 2016 at 1:04 am |

    Trump’s campaign for president is in big trouble. He needs to win a majority of delegates in Wisconsin today and he probably won’t get even close to that. A brokered convention is in the cards. Thank you God.

    • ordvic | April 5, 2016 at 1:06 pm |

      Yes, I agree. By the most promising account I have Trump with around 1100 delegates on the first ballot and by the most promising account I have Cruz at about 760. The question now is that how does, whoever gets the nomination, appease or even motivate the eventual losers voters to vote for them? Also what if Trump and/or Sanders decides on a third party candidacy, how will that effect the election?

      • ordvic | April 5, 2016 at 1:30 pm |

        I started Cruz at 436 but he’s now at 475 that brings his most promising total to 799. Without giving Kasich another delegate that would be something like 1100+799+143+171= 2213. That leaves 159 so called uncommitted on the first ballot unless Rubio’s flock leaves it’s leader for greener pastures.

  12. Scottish Sceptic | April 5, 2016 at 4:04 am |

    Apparently there is an election in Scotland – I guess it will be May.
    As a demo of how exciting it is, a few days ago I found out the leader of the opposition is a woman, probably gay as most of the party leaders in Scotland are gay (with surveys indicating 1-3% of people are gay – what’s the chances of that?) and likewise the election is so devoid of any interest that even ex government ministers are avoiding the embarrassment of standing.

  13. omanuel | April 5, 2016 at 7:31 am |

    It does not matter who we elect, if the US Nationsl Academy of Sciences uses its control over budget review of federal research agencies to control United States policies, as Eisenhower warned might happen on 17 JAN 1961:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GOLld5PR4ts

  14. rebelronin | April 5, 2016 at 12:55 pm |

    Being a denier, I guess it goes without saying that I am a bad person.
    I hope that The Donald carries Wisconsin.
    It would so much fun to watch the political and press establishment loose it.

  15. nickels | April 5, 2016 at 1:23 pm |

    If Trump doesn’t get WI I’m all for a Sanders ticket. Utter in pure socialism, total government control.
    With an election cycle or two well get our Christian Facist, with total government control already set up for them. Won’t be fun but at least it won’t be Indo/European genocide like the track we’re currently on.

    • nickels | April 5, 2016 at 1:24 pm |

      ‘Usher in pure socialism’

    • JCH | April 5, 2016 at 1:28 pm |

      About the only change he could institute, would be universal healthcare, which would mean the repeal of Obamacare. There are now a lot of conservatives who are for universal healthcare because of its low cost.

      And, well, the end of conservative judicial activism on the Supreme Court.

      • nickels | April 5, 2016 at 1:31 pm |

        Socialism is generally the stepping stone for facism, as in Germany and Italy. That’s sort of the line I was thinking along.
        It would be the speeding up of the destructiveness leading to an earlier awakening that would lead me to support a hard core leftist.

      • ordvic | April 5, 2016 at 1:49 pm |

        Nickels, I take it you’re not for fascism so does speeding up mean you’re for some form of communism?

      • Arch Stanton | April 5, 2016 at 2:00 pm |

        The Bible, has already indicated that the world will the under the control of unbelievers,… well you know when. Not that this seems to mean much to people today. Everything here already had been given a name so it will be what it is. Pale & Sickly, were some names out of the past.

      • JCH | April 5, 2016 at 2:05 pm |

        An example of a European fascist is Franco in Spain. The American battalion that opposed him numbered some 2800 men. he did have support from corporate America.

        There is widespread socialism in all of Western Europe, and has been for a long time.

      • nickels | April 5, 2016 at 2:18 pm |

        Ordvic:
        I guess what I’m saying is that if things are going to communism or facism I’d rather it happen sponer than later, and preferably facism, although socialism is usually a bump in that road.
        This mild despotism thing is going to get everyone killed.

      • JCH | April 5, 2016 at 2:33 pm |

        Things are not going to either one.

      • ordvic | April 5, 2016 at 2:53 pm |

        Yes, I consider myself somewhat conservative but I don’t see health care as an enterprise. I see it as a public need. After all producing healthy citizens is not really a product. Obamacare has failed: http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/healthcare/7-obamacare-failures-that-have-hurt-americans/ar-BBqS4ih?ocid=spartanntp
        I think it was meant to, to bring on national health care. I believe Doctors should be trained free of charge and paid a state wage. As for drugs, that I don’t have an answer for. Drugs are products and I think the state would fail trying to be an enterprise. However that seems to be the big cost and since it would have only one market, the government, it wouldn’t really be a free market. The government does buy things like tanks, airplanes, aircraft carriers etc and often loses control of costs, but I think if they want decent products they have to get from companies.

      • timg56 | April 5, 2016 at 4:05 pm |

        Brigade JCH

        As in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

      • climatereason | April 5, 2016 at 5:31 pm |

        Jch

        Surely, by many criteria, America is as socialist as many European countries?

        https://mises.org/blog/bernie-sanders-right-us-already-socialist-country

        However, some of the denizens here seem to believe differently.

        Tonyb

      • nickels | April 5, 2016 at 5:58 pm |

        Yes, CR, America is well on its way to socialism, I would agree.

      • jim2 | April 5, 2016 at 8:25 pm |

        CR @climatereason | April 5, 2016 at 5:31 pm |

        The socialism aspect is exactly why I want immigration controlled and the illegals booted out of the country and not made legal. The US is already far down the socialist road, converting millions of illegals to citizens is a bad idea because 60% of them vote Dimowit/Socialist.

      • LTCjRet | April 6, 2016 at 1:50 am |

        Per commentary one isle over:

        Ironic that the presidential candidate whose policies are closest to the teachings of Jesus is the atheist Sanders.

        Indeed. I’m reminded in particular of where He entreated the Roman Centurion to secure alms from the Disciples and redistribute them to the poor… thus instituting single payer charity and securing their votes for Caesar for the next hundred years.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 6, 2016 at 8:43 am |

        climatereason,

        Bernie Sanders and Ryan McMaken, who wrote the Mises article, are correct. By 1915, “socialism” would pretty much reign supreme throughout the Occident. Here’s how Jacques Barzun put it in From Dawn to Decadence:

        What Shaw and all the other publicists who agitated the social question helped to precipitate was the onset of the Great Switch.

        It was the pressure of Socialist ideas, and mainly the Reformed groups in parliaments and the Fabian outside, that brought it about.

        By Great Switch I mean the reversal of Liberalism into its opposite.

        It began quitely in the 1880s in Germany after Bismark “stole the Socialists’ thunder’ — as observers put it — by enacting old-age pensions and other social legislation. By the turn of the century Liberal opinion generally had come to see the necessity on all counts, economic, social, and political, to pass laws in aid of the many — old or sick or unemployed — who could no longer provide for themselves. Ten years into the century, the Lloyd George budget started England on the road to the Welfare State.

        Liberalism triumphed on the principle that the best government is that which governs least; now for all the western nations political wisdom has recast this deal of liberty into liberality. The shift has thrown the vocabulary into disorder.

        In the United States, where Liberals are people who favor regulation, entitlements, and every kind of protection, the Republican party, who call themselves Conservatives, campaign for less government like the old Liberals reared on Adam Smith; they oppose as many social programs as they dare.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 6, 2016 at 9:57 am |

        I don’t understand those who believe they have found their champion of anti-socialism in Donald Trump.

        When it comes to the social issue, the differences between the Republican and Democratic parties were never as black and white as many current partisans of both parties would have us believe.

        Trump is cut from much the same cloth as Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt — “the first president to grapple with the exesses of the Gilded Age,” as Kevin Phillips described him. The modern Republican Party has never been the exclusive enclave of Hamiltonians. It was, after all, the Republican Party that ushered in the Progressive movement, not the Democratic Party. As Phillips explains in Wealth and Democracy:

        The Republican Party has its own Western ex-Populist wing as well as a more elite eastern urban reform contingent…

        Republican governors like California’s Hiram Johnson, New York’s Charles Evans Hughes, and Wisconsin’s Robert La Follette took Progressive positions — La Follette, moving to the U.S. Senate in 1906, was an especially fierce advocate — and Roosevelt also could frequently count on the reformist wing of the Democratic Party.

        The U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, the Hepburn Act of 1906, and the Pure Food and Drug Act were all Republican initiatives.

        Roosevelt railed against those who “wore the diamond stickpins of economic man,” the “malefactors of great wealth” and the “criminal rich.”

        “Every man,” Roosevelt said, “holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.”

        William Allen White, the Kansas editor, aptly remarked that Progressive Republican leaders “caught the Populists in swimming and stole all of their clothing except the frayed underdrawers of free silver.”

        Thus one can see the mendaciousness of the mainstream media’s drive to cast Trump as a populist. It’s just more distortions, half-truths and outright lies from the MSM.

        And when it comes to the social question, I don’t see much in Trump’s policy proposals that are anti-socialist.

        Trump Wants to Make Government Huge Again

        The Republican front-runner is tapping the resentments of white working-class voters—and promising to use federal power to address them.

        Donald Trump is running on a platform that calls for a more active role for government in nearly every sector of American life. And they’re for it.

        “The Trump voter wants action,” one supporter recently wrote to The New York Times. And that’s precisely what their man promises. Trump does things. Big things. Impressive things. And now, he wants to do them for America….

        The contrast between Trump and his three remaining rivals was on stark display at the Republican debate on Thursday night. “I will fight anyone who wants to expand government,” Marco Rubio vowed. In Ohio, “We shrunk the government,” John Kasich boasted. “Government is the problem!” insisted Ted Cruz. “Here’s my philosophy. The less government, the more freedom. The fewer bureaucrats, the more prosperity.”….

        But on issue after issue, Trump vows to use government as a tool to improve the lot of his supporters, and address their anxieties. He’d interfere in free markets, imposing tariffs to punish companies that move factories offshore, and countries with abusive trade practices. He’s pledged to preserve Social Security. He’s proposed, at various times, registering Muslims and banning them from entering the country.

        There’s a common theme dividing the government initiatives Trump supports from the ones he opposes. He’s speaking to his core supporters: working-class whites who identify not by ethnicity, but simply as American. And he’s promising to defend their interests. He’ll protect their jobs from spotted owls and immigrants and offshoring; he’ll keep them safe by keeping terrorists abroad, and troops at home; he’ll buffer them against shifting economic fortunes with robust social-insurance programs.

        It seems unlikely that Trump has read the political-science tract, Us Against Them: The Ethnocentric Foundations of American Opinion, but his campaign sometimes seems devoted to proving its authors correct. They used extensive polling data to argue that white, ethnocentric voters vigorously oppose means-tested programs they believe directly transfer wealth to racial minorities—food stamps, welfare, TANF. On the other hand, those same voters are also more likely to support universal social-insurance programs like Social Security and Medicare.

        These are Trump’s voters. Some once were Democrats, but left the party for Nixon in 1972, or for Reagan in 1980—in search of a leader who would put the interests of the white working classes first. For decades, both their legitimate grievances and their racial resentments found outlet in the Republican program of smaller government. But it’s always been, at best, an alliance of convenience, and not just on obvious flashpoints like immigration. Libertarians and business conservatives share little of their affection for robust social-insurance programs, and none of their hostility to free trade.

        Now, Trump promises to unite the two halves of their agenda—attacking government programs that threaten the interests of the white working class, as conservative Republicans have long promised, but also vigorously expanding those that favor them, as liberal Democrats have advocated. Even in the remarkably crowded Republican field that began this race, there was no candidate with a program remotely like his. His rivals kept trying to stop him by proving that he’s not a true conservative, just a big-government liberal in disguise. Their attacks, though, only strengthened Trump’s hand: His supporters didn’t want a true conservative—they wanted a champion. And they appear delighted that someone is promising to use government to address their resentments, and serve their interests.

        http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/trump-government-ethnocentrism/473538/

        So here’s a proposition I’d like people to think about:

        Donald Trump ≠ Alexander Hamilton

        Donald Trump ≠ William Jennings Bryan

        Donald Trump = Teddy Roosevelt

      • jim2 | April 6, 2016 at 11:54 am |

        So, Glenn, you’ve trotted out another Trump hit piece. Why do you think I use the terms Dimowit and Redimowit? The parties ARE too similar.

        This guy criticizes Trump for reassurances on Social Security? Really? What successful politician advocates for dumping it? None. And of course, your hit piece also insinuates the racism, when really it is just race baiting.

        And of course, it ignores what Trump actually wants to do. The wall is not expensive compared to other Federal spending. This is not racist.

        He wants to dismantle Dept. of Ed. and EPA. This is a shrikage of government, not an expansion. This is not racist.

        He wants to simplify the tax code – less government intrusion, not more. Smaller government and is not racist.

        He wants to eliminate mandatory health insurance payments, give tax breaks for medical bills, and increase transparency and competition for health insurance and drugs. Smaller government and is not racist..

        He wants to level the tariff and regulatory playing field with China, simplify and lower corporate taxes, and attempt to stop intellectual property theft by them. This is not racist and doesn’t affect the size of government AFAICT.

        He wants to reform the VA. Not racist, but might expand that part of government.

        He wants to simplify the tax code in a revenue neutral manner. Not racist and means smaller, less intrusive government.

        He wants to do more than build a wall in his immigration reform proposals. It should help US citizen workers, no matter what race.

        Your link is to a hit piece.

      • nickels | April 6, 2016 at 12:17 pm |

        Glenn,
        Thaks for the Barzun quote. I’ve got the book in the queue.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 6, 2016 at 3:46 pm |

        jim2,

        A “Trump hit piece”?

        Oh well, I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

        If someone is cut out of the same cloth as a Grover Norquist, Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, then I suppose it could be viewed as a “Trump hit peice.”

        But I doubt most people would consider being favorably compared to Teddy Roosevelt to be a “hit piece.”

      • jim2 | April 6, 2016 at 3:54 pm |

        I could also characterize it as just plain wrong. I took the talking points in my response came from Trump’s home page. Your man just pulled a bunch of crap out of his nether region supported by very, very few facts. I’m not sure why you think it’s so profound. It isn’t.

      • Joshua | April 6, 2016 at 4:43 pm |

        They used extensive polling data to argue that white, ethnocentric voters vigorously oppose means-tested programs they believe directly transfer wealth to racial minorities—food stamps, welfare, TANF.

        –snip–

        There is a wide partisan division among American voters on the statement, “The government has gone too far in assisting minority groups.” Agreement is 45 percent among all voters, 72 percent among all Republicans and 18 percent among Democrats. Agreement is highest among Trump backers, 80 percent.

        –snip–

        http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2340

  16. jim2 | April 5, 2016 at 9:14 pm |

    From the article:
    …
    A June report from the Instituto Cervantes, a group created to promote the Spanish language, documented how four decades of mass immigration to the United States has made America the world’s second-largest Spanish-speaking country.

    But a petition from the womens’ group Equality Now reveals that immigration has put the United States on a list that will be much more difficult for progressive immigration enthusiasts to cheer. A massive influx of immigrants from Muslim-populated countries in Africa and the Middle East has led the group to conclude that more than half a million girls in the U.S. are in danger of having their exposed sexual organs skinned from their bodies.
    …
    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/08/02/muslim-immigration-puts-half-a-million-u-s-girls-at-risk-of-genital-mutilation/

    • David Springer | April 5, 2016 at 11:14 pm |

      Circumcision for girls.

      Why is it okay on boys but not girls?

      Can you say double standard?

      • jim2 | April 5, 2016 at 11:24 pm |

        Apples and bananas, David. I’m OK with male circumcision. A female POV would be good for the other.

      • David Springer | April 6, 2016 at 11:12 am |

        Of course you’re okay with male circumcision. It’s a cultural norm in the US. The point stands there’s a double standard.

        I’m not saying circumcision on girls should be a parental choice. I’m saying it shouldn’t be a parental choice for boys. If someone wants to be circumcised, male or female, they can make that decision when they are an adult.

        Suggest you try asking intact adult human males how much they want their foreskin lopped off. It’s an odd brutal thing to do to a baby in my opinion and most of the world shares my opinion. LOL

      • timg56 | April 6, 2016 at 12:45 pm |

        You might start with the justification used for each David.

      • David Springer | April 7, 2016 at 1:12 am |

        I guess you probably didn’t ask any intact men if they wanted an adult circumcision. LOL

        http://www.medicinenet.com/circumcision_the_medical_pros_and_cons/article.htm

        “There is still no absolute medical indication for routine circumcision of the newborn.”

        “The issue of circumcision is as controversial as it ever has been. There are well-known religious, social, and medical reasons to recommend circumcision; however, most major medical societies have taken an “impartial” view of the procedure, neither recommending nor renouncing the practice.”

        Worldwide it’s most prevalent only Muslims. For most of the rest of the world it’s less than 20%. US, Canada, and Australia are notable exceptions at 20% – 80%.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_circumcision#/media/File:United_States_Neonatal_Circumcision_Rate_by_Region.svg

  17. David Springer | April 5, 2016 at 9:21 pm |

    Wisconsin Exit Poll:

    Muslim ban

    As has been the case throughout the GOP primaries this year, there’s broad support in these preliminary Wisconsin results (seven in 10) for Trump’s proposal to ban non-U.S. Muslims from entering the country. Trump’s won 47 percent of these voters in previous states, vs. Cruz’s 28 percent, but Cruz was much closer to Trump among these voters in some recent contests, notably in North Carolina and Missouri.

    How do you know if a person is a Muslim or not since that’s a personal belief not something that’s on a passport?

  18. David Springer | April 5, 2016 at 9:32 pm |

    Fox just called Wisconsin for Cruz with 3% reporting.

  19. jim2 | April 5, 2016 at 10:13 pm |

    China is planning a cloning facility. They want to produce 1 million cow clones every month. (Of course, they’ll break after a couple of weeks. :)

    https://science.slashdot.org/story/16/04/05/1617216/scientists-to-open-mass-cloning-factory-in-china-this-year-to-clone-cows-pets-humans

  20. jim2 | April 5, 2016 at 10:19 pm |

    I guess someone has posted this already. Another good reason to simplify and rationalize the tax code. From the article:
    …
    The Panama Papers are an unprecedented leak of 11.5m files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The records were obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The ICIJ then shared them with a large network of international partners, including the Guardian and the BBC.

    What do they reveal?
    The documents show the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes. Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens.
    …
    http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-panama-papers

  21. jim2 | April 5, 2016 at 10:27 pm |

    Wisconsin delegate rules:
    …
    At-large delegates: 15. Winner-take all. Whichever candidate gets the most votes statewide gets all 15 at-large delegates, plus the three RNC delegates. They do not need to get a majority of the votes.

    Congressional district delegates: 24. Wisconsin has eight congressional districts. Each district gets three delegates. Whichever candidate receives the most votes in each district gets all of that district’s three delegates. They do not need to get a majority of the votes.
    …
    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/guide-to-wisconsins-delegate-rules/article/2587580

  22. jim2 | April 5, 2016 at 10:41 pm |

    Cruz got the vote numbers, but check out the county count. Trump got more area, just not more votes.

    http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/wisconsin

    • David Springer | April 6, 2016 at 12:40 am |

      Seriously? One congressional district covers the entire northern half of the state. It’s the only one Trump won so far. There are 8 districts. Cruz won five districts so far.

      Of 42 delegates Cruz has 33, Trump 3, and Kasich 0 with 6 yet to be awarded.

    • David Springer | April 6, 2016 at 1:19 am |

      Trump won the dairy farming regions.

      It makes sense. Where people are accustomed to bullsh*t they like Trump.

      • jim2 | April 6, 2016 at 7:25 am |

        Nice, David. You insult the people who feed you.

      • David Springer | April 6, 2016 at 11:36 am |

        I grew up in a dairy farming region in western New York very near the great lakes. I know and love diary farmers. Biblically in my youth before I married a big city girl from California. They’re simple honest country folk and Trump was able to con them. It’s no fault of their own. He’s a big city con artist and they have no experience with that.

        Those farmer’s daughters jokes that you heard, by the way, are all true.

  23. Jim D | April 5, 2016 at 11:18 pm |

    Trump Thumped will be the headline. Projected to lose by 10%, lost by nearer 20%.

    • David Springer | April 6, 2016 at 1:26 am |

      Actually he won by 13% which is nearer 10 than 20.

      • Jim D | April 6, 2016 at 1:30 am |

        Yes, it was 20% in the early count, but he clawed some back with the late returns. Still worse than the polls indicated.

      • David Springer | April 6, 2016 at 12:23 pm |

        Arguably it’s not noticeably worse. Before Rubio dropped out Trump had a 10 point lead over Cruz. The heretofore best performing poll for Wisconsin (Marquette) went from Cruz -10 to Cruz +10. A 20 point shift predicted and a 23 point shift observed.

        The salient point was where the Rubio voters went. Looks like every last one, and then some, went to Cruz. This shouldn’t be surprising since Rubio endorsed Cruz.

        If the same holds true through June 7th Trump is going to get thumped in California which goes district by district (3 delegates each for a total of 159), then only 10 at-large for the winner of the state and 3
        pre-determined party members: State Chair, National Committeewoman, National Committeeman.

        Cruz could even pull ahead of Trump in delegates before this is over with neither of them having a majority of delegates on the first bound vote. This gives Trump a graceful way lose since he himself called for whoever gets the most delegates to be made the winner.

      • jim2 | April 6, 2016 at 12:39 pm |

        Wisconsin has a strong, popular governor who endorsed Cruz. The conservative radio hosts who apparently have a lot of sway, were for Cruz. This wasn’t surprising. The polls were right about this. Let’s see what the polls are saying about future contests:

        Wednesday, April 6
        Pennsylvania Republican Presidential Primary Quinnipiac Trump 39, Cruz 30, Kasich 24 Trump +9
        Tuesday, April 5
        California Republican Presidential Primary SurveyUSA Trump 40, Cruz 32, Kasich 17 Trump +8

      • David Springer | April 7, 2016 at 1:28 am |

        http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/primary-forecast/california-republican/

        Polls+ forecast 59% chance of Cruz winning California, 37% Trump.

        Nate Silver is the best in the business at this. The polls+ forecast uses state polls, national polls, and endorsements which has proven to be much more accurate than state polls only.

  24. max1ok | April 6, 2016 at 12:07 am |

    Wisconsin wins by Sanders and Cruz give hope to progressives and conservatives. IMO, both guys are long-shots, but anything could happen.

    Elsewhere in the news:

    Putin approved law authorizes jail time for atheists

    Bible may become official state book in Tennessee

    North Carolin’s transgender restroom law kills jobs

    California enacts $15 an hour minimum wage

    Wildfires flare again in Oklahoma, threaten town

    Sarah Palin denies saying blacks enjoyed being slaves

    Ford to invest $1.6 billion in new plant in Mexico

    Mexico City Smog Alert Forces 40 Pct of Cars off the Road

    The Rockefeller Family Fund will divest from all fossil fuel holdings

    ExxonMobile accuses Rockefeller Family Fund of conspiring agains it

  25. David Springer | April 6, 2016 at 1:03 am |

    Now we know who got the former Rubio voters. :-)

  26. David Springer | April 6, 2016 at 1:31 am |

    Cruz now projected to have 60% chance of winning California with Trump at 37%.

    http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/primary-forecast/california-republican/

  27. jim2 | April 6, 2016 at 7:38 am |

    From the article:
    …
    Newly discovered audio recordings of Hillary Clinton from the early 1980s include the former first lady’s frank and detailed assessment of the most significant criminal case of her legal career: defending a man accused of raping a 12-year-old girl.

    In 1975, the same year she married Bill, Hillary Clinton agreed to serve as the court-appointed attorney for Thomas Alfred Taylor, a 41-year-old accused of raping the child after luring her into a car.

    The recordings, which date from 1983-1987 and have never before been reported, include Clinton’s suggestion that she knew Taylor was guilty at the time. She says she used a legal technicality to plead her client, who faced 30 years to life in prison, down to a lesser charge. The recording and transcript, along with court documents pertaining to the case, are embedded below.
    …
    http://freebeacon.com/politics/the-hillary-tapes/

  29. Glenn Stehle | April 6, 2016 at 10:41 am |

    Attention now turns to New York and California

    http://i.imgur.com/ov6gozt.png

    http://i.imgur.com/axwzkjE.png

  31. George Turner | April 6, 2016 at 6:27 pm |

    I’ve been frustrated for months because the establishment won’t mention that Cruz is ineligible for the office. Whenever it’s brought up it’s dismissed as “birtherism”, but birtherism wouldn’t exist unless foreign-born people were ineligible.

    So they don’t consult Black’s law dictionary, Blackstone’s Commentaries (1765) chapter 10, George Tucker’s Commentaries (1803), James Kent’s Commentaries (1830), or the many Supreme Court and state court rulings that discuss natural born citizenship, such as US v Wong Kim Ark (1898). They don’t even look at old newspaper column from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, when transatlantic tourism became common enough for people to ask about their children born abroad on vacation. Heck,they don’t even consult Wikipedia or their old civics book.

    It’s like mass delusion.

    Of course the reason Kasich is staying in the race is that he knows they can’t nominate Cruz or they risk everything in court. When it gets to the Supreme Court, he’ll probably win the support of the evangelical justices (0), and half the protestant justices (0), but lose with the strict constructionist Catholic and Jewish justices, and of course lose with the “living document” liberal justices who despise him.

    • jim2 | April 6, 2016 at 7:07 pm |

      He doesn’t have to be a “natural born” citizen. From the article:
      …
      This language made both national and state citizenship a matter of federal, rather than state, law. More importantly, the 14th Amendment explicitly states precisely what was only implied in the original document – there are only two classes of citizenship, birthright citizens and naturalized citizens. Those “born … in the United States” are constitutionally citizens of the United States, while those who were born elsewhere derive their citizenship from federal law, rather than the Constitution. The authority to pass such laws, including the laws that made Ted Cruz, George Romney or John McCain automatically citizens of the United States, derives from the naturalization power set forth in Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution.
      …
      http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-01-27/ted-cruz-is-not-a-natural-born-citizen-according-to-the-constitution

      • George Turner | April 6, 2016 at 8:32 pm |

        I’m not sure what you’re arguing with that.

        From Article II, the President must be a natural born citizen, ie. one not made a citizen by an act of legislation.

        From one of the very early legal theorists comes this thought. While Congress can make naturalized citizens, natural born citizens made the Congress. They’re the “We” in “We the People” who broke from England – natives of the US.

      • David Springer | April 6, 2016 at 10:37 pm |

        Cruz is a natural born citizen. He was a citizen at birth who required no naturalization.

      • George Turner | April 7, 2016 at 11:17 pm |

        That would mean he was born on US soil, because everyone except the children of diplomats born abroad are naturalized. It’s the only way they can become citizens.

        Under the English common law, which became US common law, there are only two types of citizens, natural born citizens, born on home soil, and aliens. (See Blackstone, chapter 10, on citizenship). Congress was given the power to write uniform rules for the naturalization of aliens, and not given any other power over citizenship. It is under that power that children born abroad are made US citizens at birth.

        Do not confuse “naturalization” with the naturalization process, where a person spends years on a waiting list, pays money, and takes a test. Many people are naturalized automatically, such as foreign children adopted by US parents.

        The 14th Amendment reiterated this understanding, saying that US citizens are those who were either born on US soil or naturalized on US soil. There is no third option. Those not born here are naturalized. And indeed, the first laws that granted citizenship at birth to children born to US citizens abroad were the Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798, and 1802. About those, Tucker (1803) said they made such people the same as natural born citizens in all ways but one, they could never be President.

        I’ve been arguing this a lot lately, not that there are any real arguments in response. It’s mostly just “Birther!”

        Here’s an amicus brief filed by a Harvard Law professor reiterating many of the points I’ve been making elsewhere.

      • David Springer | April 8, 2016 at 11:46 am |

        George you’re the one who is confused. Native born is someone born on US soil. Natural born is someone who is a citizen at birth. POTUS must be natural born. Native born is not a requirement.

        There are two common law precedents where citizenship is established at birth – one is by soil (born on native soil) and one is by blood (born to a citizen parent).

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_sanguinis

        Both of these are encompassed by “natural born”. Cruz can be POTUS.

        Suggest you give it a rest. You won’t gain any traction with this it just makes you look like a knuckle dragging birther.

      • George Turner | April 8, 2016 at 1:01 pm |

        The Supreme Court says that “natural” means “native”, and just last year cited Samuel Johnson’s dictionary of 1768, which the Founders most certainly had. under “Nature” he says:

        Natural f 1. A native; An original inhabitant; inhabitant; Raleigh

        Naturalization f (from naturalize). The act of investing aliens with the privileges of native subjects. Bacon

        So “natural born” means “native born”, which is why the Supreme Court uses the terms synonymously in their opinions. This is entirely consistent the Blackstone, who says, right in the opening of chapter 10 on citizens:

        THE first and most obvious division of the people is into aliens and natural-born subjects. Natural-born subjects are such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England, that is, within the ligeance, or as it is generally called, the allegiance of the king; and aliens, such as are born out of it.

        What you’re talking about is a “born citizen”. That was Alexander Hamilton’s first idea for a Presidential requirement at the Constitutional convention (Hamilton’s wording “No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States.”), but upon reading a letter from John Jay the Founders decided that “born citizen” wasn’t restrictive enough against the meddling of foreign nations. So they went with the term from common law, “natural born citizen”.

        To illustrate that “natural” means “native”, and is used synonymously by the Supreme Court, look at Schneider v Rusk (1964): “We start from the premise that the rights of citizenship of the native born and of the naturalized person are of the same dignity, and are coextensive. The only difference drawn by the Constitution is that only the ‘natural born’ citizen is eligible to be president. (Article II, Section 1)”

        Note that they don’t bother to put “native born” in quotes because it’s a standard vernacular term, while “natural born” has fallen out of use as a term of art, though it means exactly the same thing. Also note that, as I said previously, there are only two kinds of citizens, native born and naturalized. Children born abroad to US parents are made citizens via a naturalization law, as are children adopted abroad by US parents.

        Or look at any old civics book on the qualifications for President. To make things plain for the students, the books say “Must be at least 35 years old, lived here 14 years, and born on US soil.” Everybody knows it, but now some kind of crowd effect is convincing people that they don’t know what they know because it would be inconvenient.

      • David Springer | April 9, 2016 at 12:42 pm |

        The constitution says natural born. If they’d meant native born they would have written native born.

        Your opinions to the contrary are just that and it’s a minority opinion among modern legal scholars and almost certainly will be a minority opinion of SCOTUS if it ever rises that far. It’s unlikely to ever rise that far. If birthers couldn’t get it done with Obama they won’t get it done at all.

      • Danny Thomas | April 9, 2016 at 12:51 pm |

        “If birthers couldn’t get it done with Obama they won’t get it done at all.”

        Eh. Why not give it a try? Turnabout is fair play in ‘politics’ and it would have great entertainment value for whatever the duration.

      • David Springer | April 9, 2016 at 12:56 pm |

        “Why not give it a try?”

        Wasted effort. That’s why.

      • Danny Thomas | April 9, 2016 at 1:02 pm |

        So was Batman vs. Superman, but assume they did it under the guise of ‘entertainment value’.

      • George Turner | April 9, 2016 at 8:27 pm |

        David Springer said:

        The constitution says natural born. If they’d meant native born they would have written native born.

        “Native born” would likely exclude the children of US diplomats who are born abroad. Blackstone devoted an entire chapter to the subject, going into all the common law details behind “natural born”, its history, the reasoning behind it. He starts out with the simplest case, saying:

        Natural-born subjects are such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England, that is, within the ligeance, or as it is generally called, the allegiance of the king; and aliens, such as are born out of it.

        From there he gets into details. People born in England but under foreign occupation are not natural born English subjects, but natural born subjects of the occupying power. The US meaning is the same. The Supreme Court had a case of a town in Maine that was under British occupation during the War of 1812. A whole raft of English and colonial case law comes with choosing to say “natural born”, and the Framers couldn’t have used it by accident.

        To believe otherwise is to go to court arguing that the Founding Fathers had no idea what they were talking about and didn’t understand the words they used. That’s not a good bet.

      • stevenreincarnated | April 9, 2016 at 9:01 pm |

        The founders probably used natural born the same way the English used it which would have included those born abroad to fathers with English citizenship.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clause

        Look under antecedents in England. I suppose you could exclude mothers from the definition but the thought of having angry women beating me mercilessly everywhere I go doesn’t appeal to me.

      • George Turner | April 10, 2016 at 12:58 am |

        Those are English naturalization acts. One thing that’s been confusing people is that those acts, along with the US 1790 Naturalization Act, use similar wording, saying that such people “shall be considered” as natural born citizens for all purposes. But neither the English acts nor the US 1790 act says such people are natural born citizens, just that they shall have the same legal standing.

        If the common law, and common understanding, had ever considered such people “natural born English subjects” then none of those acts would even exist, just as the US doesn’t have a law declaring children born in Kansas to be US citizens. People born in Indiana and other states are in charge of US naturalization law, not the subjects of it.

        This was especially important because under both early US and English law, aliens couldn’t inherit real estate. Inheritance was of course a very important subject when it came to estates, the loyalty of whose inhabitants would’ve been to their feudal lord (an alien). Those estates often included castles and forts – aka military bases. So of course Frenchmen weren’t allowed to inherit English defensive positions no matter how those ended up in the family (perhaps won in a game of chance, or to pay off a debt).

        But there were people born to Englishmen noblemen abroad (generals often campaigned with their wives), who obviously weren’t natural born English subjects, and who should be allowed to inherit their father’s estates. So Parliament passed various naturalization acts to handle those cases, allowing the family lineage and titles to continue though a member was born abroad as an alien.

        You’ll see such relics elsewhere in the Constitution, such as Article I section 9, which includes “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.“. Perhaps Cruz would argue that a Bill of Attainder is how much you’re charged for attaining level 6. Just make sure you get a receipt, because it is an English practice to strip a nobleman’s family of his lands and titles. They used that a lot to keep people in line.

        And other English naturalization acts make it clear that just declaring that someone “be considered” as a natural born subject is a conferring of rights, not a recognition of a reality. People keep screaming that the children of US parents abroad are “natural born” because of these linguistic constructions, but the British used the same kind of language to grant “natural born subject” rights to any alien who served on a British warship for three years, or served on British whaling boat.

        The US could easily have adopted the same wording, perhaps saying “All people who serve on an American whaling boat shall be considered as natural born citizens.” It would probably have pissed off Greenpeace to this day, but it would illustrate that Congress was in no way implying that such scalawags were actual, natural born US citizens. And of course the law would be titled something like the “Ahab Naturalization Act of 1805.”

        Once you understand that “natural born” means “native born” with some extra tweaks explained by Blackstone, all the early laws, court opinions, and legal writings will make perfect sense. This is important when reading lots of early legal writings, which often are on topics so long ago decided that it seems bizarre they were ever topics at all. In the early 1800’s it was debated whether natural born citizens could actually emigrate without government approval. If their parents had accepted the change in leadership during the Revolution, then the children were bound to us and had obligations and duties. They couldn’t just pack up and move to another country. They were needed here!

      • stevenreincarnated | April 10, 2016 at 8:05 am |

        ” so that all children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception; unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain.”

        This is from Blackstone description of the law. It says they are natural-born. It doesn’t say they are aliens with the rights of the natural-born. These laws were the adjusting of the British Empire to the increasing travel of its citizens.

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 8:58 am |

        Native born is a subset of natural born. It’s arguable that it shouldn’t be. Under the birther definition Adolph Hitler could have gotten Eva Braun pregnant and secretly sent her to the United States with a fake passport to have the baby. His child would then be an American citizen. That’s nutty but then again so are birthers and anchor babies.

      • George Turner | April 10, 2016 at 3:12 pm |

        Read the excerpt from Blackstone again to get to the meaning of what he says.

        … so that all children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception; unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain.”

        If we’d followed that syntax with the 14th Amendment, it might read … so that all black people are now white people, to all intents and purposes, without any exception

        And if you go back and read the acts he’s referencing, they’re all acts for the naturalization of aliens. An act for the naturalization of aliens only applies to aliens. Note that nowhere in Blackstone, Tucker, Kent, or any Supreme Court opinion do they ever say that such people are natural born citizens. It’s always qualified with clauses such as the one above “to all intents and purposes” or “shall be considered as”. That’s because it’s an absurdity to declare something that is obviously not X to actually be X. You might say that Y is equal to X in all ways (as above), but Y is not X and so they never phrase it that way. That’s because both the author and his audience knew the meaning of the term they were discussing.

        It’s very simple. The acts are granting people who aren’t native born Englishmen the rights of native born Englishmen. Natural born is not something that can be bestowed by a legislature because it’s a fact of nature, a circumstance of birth. A cow born in Texas is a natural born Texas cow.

        If the police find a newborn baby and the charred and unidentifiable corpses of the parents, they may never figure out who the parents were but they definitely know that the child is a natural born inhabitant of the state that had sovereignty over the murder scene.

        We even have a law to cover that. If we find a child under 5 wandering around and the child reaches age 21 without any adult proving the child was foreign born, the child is assumed to be a natural born citizen. That’s why Superman laid low until he was an adult.

        And all this is why every civics book told kids that the requirements for the office of President were “at least 35 years old, lived here 14 years, and born on US soil.” It’s why birtherism has existed for well over a century.

        It’s why the newspapers in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s would explain to readers that their children born while on vacation in France can’t be President. And that was asked a lot. Here’s one from 1891.

        ********
        To the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle
        My wife and I are Americans and go to London on a pleasure trip. While in London my wife has a child, a boy. Can he become the President of the United States and what nation does he claim? Signed L.G.M.

        Answer – Your boy, born in London, would be an American citizen, because a law enacted by congress makes him one, but he is not eligible to the presidency of the United States. The constitution of the United States provides that eligibility to the presidency makes it necessary for the person to have been a “natural born citizen.”

        ********

        It’s common knowledge, until very recently known to all. Now everybody seems to be afflicted with mass amnesia. But a hundred years ago newspaper would sometimes whip out the +3 Hammer of Legal Knowledge and quote Blackstone, Bates, Kent, Madison, Story, and other key figures just to drive the point home.

      • stevenreincarnated | April 10, 2016 at 3:55 pm |

        They wanted to make sure that nobody could try and make exceptions to the rights of the natural born citizens that happened to be born overseas so they specified there couldn’t be any. Before they passed those laws you would have been right but there was a reason the laws were passed and that was because it had become an issue. People were being born to citizens overseas and so laws were passed to protect their status. Highlighting to all intents and purposes after they stated they were natural born citizens doesn’t do much to bolster your argument and a letter to the editor of a newspaper? I suppose in the vacuum of any other evidence that might be something but we aren’t in that vacuum.

      • George Turner | April 10, 2016 at 6:41 pm |

        The didn’t try to protect the rights of natural born people who were born overseas because that set includes only the children of diplomats and other such government officials, and of course for the US, Hawaiians because it’s both overseas and US soil.

        That’s because, as of 2015, the Supreme Court holds that “natural born” means “native born”. In Zivotofsky v Kerry (2015) the Court discusses the case of a child born in Jerusalem to two US parents. The opinions spend half the time discussing the Presidents power over foreign relations, and half the time discussing Congressional power over naturalization. That’s because a child born abroad to two US parents is naturalized.

        Here’s a same from Justice Thomas:

        Thus, although registration is no longer required to maintain birthright citizenship, the consular report of birth abroad remains the primary means by which children born abroad may obtain official acknowledgement of their citizenship. See 22 CFR §51.43. Once acknowledged as U. S. citizens, they need not pursue the naturalization
        process to obtain the rights and privileges of citizenship in this country. Regulation of the report is thus “appropriate” and “plainly adapted” to the exercise of the naturalization power. See Comstock, 560 U. S., at 161 (THOMAS, J., dissenting).

        [em. mine]

        Congress can’t make a person natural born because they can’t make a person native born. That’s up to mom. Going back to Zivotofsky, Scalia says:

        Before turning to Presidential power under Article II, I think it well to establish the statute’s basis in congressional power under Article I. Congress’s power to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” Art. I, §8, cl. 4, enables it to grant American citizenship to someone born abroad. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 702–703 (1898). The naturalization power also enables Congress to furnish the people it makes citizens with papers verifying their citizenship—say a consular report of birth abroad (which certifies citizenship of an American born outside the United States) or a passport (which certifies citizenship for purposes of international travel).

        Zivotofsky was granted US citizenship through an act of legislation, and just like Cruz, he has a Consular Report of Birth Abroad provided through Congressional power over naturalization. Congress has no such power over natural born citizens, as Congress derives its very existence from natural born citizens. If it did, McConnell would just declare that Democrats are no longer citizens and thus can’t vote.

      • stevenreincarnated | April 10, 2016 at 8:26 pm |

        Yes, they don’t have to follow the naturalization process because they are natural born citizens. How they are identified as citizens when born in a foreign nation is a paperwork process and not of particular interest. What would be of interest is the legislation that declared those born on foreign soil as now being citizens. Can you show where that became a law from congress? If it doesn’t exist then the only logical explanation is that they have always been considered citizens. Considering English law at the time having defined natural born in several statutes as including those born on foreign soil to citizens as natural born, I doubt any such law was needed as it would have been understood in that context.

      • George Turner | April 10, 2016 at 9:26 pm |

        They don’t go through the naturalization process because they’re babies. Asking them to define the three branches of government isn’t going to get anywhere.

        Children born abroad to US parents were made citizens by the:
        Naturalization Act of 1790, the Naturalization Act of 1795 – which repealed the 1790 act, the Naturalization Act of 1798, the Naturalization Law of 1802, the Naturalization Act of 1870, and on and on an on. There are almost three dozen I’d have to check. We even have laws for the naturalization of foreign bastards (8 USC 1409 – Children Born out of Wedlock). If to a US father, foreign bastards are only made citizens at birth if the father signs a raft of documents, swears oaths, and vows that he will provide all financial support until the child turns 18.

        And again, keep in mind that “natural born” means “native born”. Any other reading leaves period writings nonsensical. Here’s a passage from George Tucker (1803)

        “Prior to the adoption of the constitution, the people inhabiting the different states might be divided into two classes: natural born citizens, or those born within the state, and aliens, or such as were born out of it. The first, by their birth-right, became entitled to all the privileges of citizens; the second, were entitled to none, but such as were held out and given by the laws of the respective states prior to their emigration. In the states of Kentucky and Virginia, the privileges of alien friends depended upon the constitution of each state, the acts of their respective legislatures, and the common law; by these they were considered, according to the time of their residence, and their having complied with certain requisitions pointed out by these laws, either as denizens, or naturalized citizens. As denizens, they were placed in a kind of middle state between aliens and natural born citizens; by naturalization, they were put exactly in the same condition that they would have been, if they had been born within the state, except so far as was specially excepted by the laws of each state. The common law has affixed such distinct and appropriate ideas to the terms denization, and naturalization, that they can not be confounded together, or mistaken for each other in any legal transaction whatever. They are so absolutely distinct in their natures, that in England the rights they convey, can not both be given by the same power; the king can make denizens, by his grant, or letters patent, but nothing but an act of parliament can make a naturalized subject.

        Note that neither the king nor parliament could make a natural born citizen. Only a mom can do that by giving birth within the domains of the king. Also note that the term “natural born” also applies to the states. If you were a natural born citizen in Indiana, you could not be a natural born citizen in any other state, only a naturalized citizen, or an alien, or a denizen. If a guy from Ohio marries a girl from Florida, and they move to Hollywood and have a child, the child is a natural born citizen of Californian, and not a natural born citizen of either Ohio or Florida, states the child might not ever even visit in his entire life. No state reserves a high office to only natural born citizens of the state, or people would be more aware of the term’s meaning.

        Denization, by the way, is probably the closest common law concept to winking and nodding at illegal aliens and giving them driver’s licenses. Their rights are contingent on state law, and they exist in a half-way realm between aliens and citizens. Tucker goes on to explain that since the states didn’t surrender the right of denization in the Constitution, then under the 10th Amendment they retain that right. Perhaps some enterprising state attorney general will use that as the basis to either grant illegal aliens more privileges than they should have under federal law, or to block federal moves to create what are, in effect, denizens, as that power was reserved to the states.

        Anyway, the point is that children born abroad to US citizens are not natural born citizens, because under that reading no opinion of the Supreme court or in US law makes a lick of sense. Once you understand “natural born” everything they wrote makes perfect sense.

        Blackstone, book 1, chapter 10. It’s less than 3,300 words. Please read it to understand what was behind the Founder’s mental universe on the subject.

        Perhaps the problem people are having is this. When they read the British acts (or the 1790 Naturalization Act), they see it as a statement akin to “All birds are dinosaurs”, as if they’re expressing a fundamental truth. But that’s not what they were doing. Think of it this way: Suppose England had a ton of laws about dogs, and what special rights and privileges dogs had. Then people discover cats, and to avoid revisiting centuries of case law, Parliament just declares “Cats shall be considered dogs for all purposes whatsoever.” They’re not saying that cats are dogs, they’re saying that cats will have the same legal status as dogs (adoption, ownership) but most definitively, cats are not really dogs. Dogs are really dogs, but there wouldn’t be any law passed by Parliament declaring “All beagles are to be considered dogs” because as everyone knows, beagles are dogs. Parliament doesn’t waste their time writing obvious truths for second graders. Thus, children born abroad can’t have been considered natural born citizens or nobody would’ve bothered to write any law about it, just as not a single US law declares children born in Virginia to be natural born citizens.

      • stevenreincarnated | April 10, 2016 at 9:33 pm |

        The naturalization act of 1790, the very first after the constitution was written, called those born in foreign lands from US citizens natural born citizens. Just like English law and just as the founders intended.

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 9:39 pm |

        So eloquent.

        I think it also says in teh founding documents that the judicial branch shall decide things like this.

        Stupid birther. You’ve been overruled.

      • George Turner | April 10, 2016 at 10:31 pm |

        You, .like so many others every since it was passed, misunderstand the wording of the 1790 Act, which is why Madison completely rewrote it in 1795.

        Even granting that your reading was correct, it would mean that children born abroad between 1790 and 1795 were natural born citizens, but no children born abroad since then are.

        You might pause to consider why it was called the Naturalization Act of 1790. As the Supreme Court said in 2015, Naturalization is the act of granting aliens the same rights as natural citizens. Note the recurrence of the root word “natural” in all this. It’s key to your misunderstanding. Without it we’d be talking about “born citizens”, just as Hamilton suggested in his draft Constitution. Ted Cruz is a “born citizen”, but not a “natural born” one. As was established in Marbury v Madison, no word in the Constitution can be read as surplusage. If your definition of “natural born citizen” is the same as your definition of “born citizen” then you’re reading it wrong. That’s an actually legal principal of Constitutional law.

      • stevenreincarnated | April 10, 2016 at 10:43 pm |

        Laws written before and after the constitution indicate the sentiment of that age was that children born overseas to citizens were considered to be natural born citizens. If you wish to struggle with the wording in order to try and convince yourself that what is clearly the intent actually isn’t then by all means carry on.

      • George Turner | April 10, 2016 at 11:09 pm |

        No, they most certainly don’t. They don’t even make sense if you read them that way. “Natural born” are those born within the domains of the king of England. Aliens are all those born out of it.

        Natural is defined during the period as meaning “Native; native inhabitant”. They are using the term almost exactly to mean native, and the Supreme Court has continued that practice until today (or at least through 2015), indeed citing the 1700’s definition of “natural” as “native” for the purposes of understanding US citizenship.

        The 14th Amendment didn’t change this formula, saying “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” This means there are only two kinds of citizens. Those born in the United States, and those naturalized in the United States. If you weren’t born in the United States, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, you’re either a naturalized citizen or not a citizen at all.

        Note that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” comes straight from the concepts in English common law regarding natural born subjects (which you’d understand if you’d read Blackstone, Tucker, Kent, or other sources). Not all people born in England were natural born subjects. Some were not subject to English jurisdiction, and thus not made citizens. Correspondingly, children born abroad under complete English sovereignty (jurisdiction) were natural born subjects. The Founding Fathers were natural born British subjects. To this day the US follows the same policy regarding natural born citizenship.

        How to tell? If you are living in the place where you were born and your parents get dragged into court, the flag hanging behind the judge tells you what country you’re a natural born citizen of. It it was a Canadian flag, you’re a natural born Canadian. If it was a US flag, you’re a natural born US citizen – or possibly a US national if you live on a small island. Diplomatic immunity guarantees that the flag will be that of the country the parents represent, not the country they’re working in.

        And again, in the case of Zevikofsky v Kerry, about a child born to two US parents in Jerusalem, the Supreme Court delved into naturalization powers to determine whether the executive or legislative branches held power over what is put on the passport. Scalia dissented, by the way, but the case re-establishes, as has been established for centuries, that children born abroad, who aren’t the children of diplomats and other officials, are naturalized citizens and made citizens through an act of legislation. You may call them “citizens at birth”, but that goes back to Hamilton’s “born citizen”, not Madison’s “natural born citizen”. “Born citizen” was rejected as not restrictive enough, so you’re interpretation of “natural born citizen” cannot be the correct one because it’s no more restrictive that the term that was rejected.

        Going back to the 14th Amendment, and it’s division of citizens into two kinds, you can see that all those not covered as born in the United States must fall under those naturalized in the United States. And as the Supreme Court noted, naturalization is the process of making an alien like a natural, or native citizen.

        Perhaps next you’ll argue that the age requirement for the Presidency is in dog years. You would have a better case for that because nowhere does the Constitution or English common law say that a year is measured in man years.

      • David Springer | April 11, 2016 at 4:18 am |

        George stupidly writes about Texas cows. How it’s only a Texas cow if it’s born in Texas. Funny. I had a Siamese cat born in New York, a German Shepherd born in Texas, and so forth. How’s that work, dopey?

      • stevenreincarnated | April 11, 2016 at 6:15 am |

        A child born overseas has always been referred to as a natural born citizen or a citizen. They have never been referred to as a naturalized citizen. The only one claiming doggy years here is you as you see the word naturalized everywhere where there is no description. The 14th amendment? Not many slaves were born of US citizens overseas so I doubt the wording of the amendment was concerned about how to define their freedoms. Again you take things having nothing to do with the topic at hand and read things in to words that aren’t there.

      • George Turner | April 11, 2016 at 1:13 pm |

        I see the problem is your reading comprehension. Let’s try again.

        All person born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. – 14th Amendment.

        There are only two options. There isn’t a clause there that says “or born outside the United States to a US parent.”

        From US v Wong Kim Ark the Supreme Court said:

        It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.

        III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.

        English common law still prevails. It then goes on to say:

        In the early case of The Charming Betsy, (1804) it appears to have been assumed by this court that all persons born in the United States were citizens of the United States, Chief Justice Marshall saying:

        Whether a person born within the United States, or becoming a citizen according to the established laws of the country, can divest himself absolutely of [p659] that character otherwise than in such manner as may be prescribed by law is a question which it is not necessary at present to decide.

        “becoming a citizen according to the established law of the country” refers to naturalization, because the only laws that Congress has the power to pass are under it’s powers to write uniform rules for the naturalization of aliens. The same applied to the British parliament, which wrote naturalization acts to make children born abroad to British parents naturalized British subjects, with all the rights of natural born British subjects.

        This is important, because to the Framers, almost every person would be a natural born subject of one, and only one country. Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen of Canada.

        From George Tucker (1803): on citizenship

        “It is a principle of universal law, that the natural born subject of one prince cannot by any act of his own, no, not by swearing allegiance to another, put off, or discharge his natural allegiance to the former.” Blacks. Com. Vol. I. p. 369.

        Blacks Com. is of course a reference to Blackstone’s Commentaries.

        According to Blackstone and Tucker, it is a principal of universal law that no matter what Cruz does, he cannot discharge (get rid of) his natural allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II. Although he can become a naturalized citizen of the United States under our immigration laws, he can never be President because he wasn’t born on US soil, subject to the laws thereof, or more accurately he was not born under the complete sovereignty of the United States.

        And all conclude by noting that all the law is on my side, as are all the rulings of the Supreme Court up through 2015.

        As they say, if the law is on your side, argue the law. If it’s not, pound the table. I’m arguing the law. You’re banging your sippy cups. When Cruz’s case finds itself before the Supreme Court, which justices do you think will support him, and which others will uphold the Constitution?

      • David Springer | April 11, 2016 at 4:28 pm |

        If Adolf Hitler got Eva Braun pregnant and she came to the United States with a fake passport and had the child here then Aldolf Hitler’s child would be eligible to be president of the United States.

        Comments, Glen?

      • David Springer | April 11, 2016 at 4:34 pm |

        “When Cruz’s case finds itself before the Supreme Court, which justices do you think will support him, and which others will uphold the Constitution?”

        If hell freezes over which former SCOTUS justices do you think will need to put on a jacket?

      • stevenreincarnated | April 11, 2016 at 5:27 pm |

        My reading comprehension is so poor I thought there was a difference between all and only. I have no idea where I got that idea but I can say I’m tired of your arrogant ignorance and thus ends our conversation.

      • George Turner | April 11, 2016 at 8:46 pm |

        If Adolf Hitler got Eva Braun pregnant and she came to the United States with a fake passport and had the child here then Aldolf Hitler’s child would be eligible to be president of the United States.

        She would have been classified as an enemy alien under proclamation 2526. Given that she would also almost certainly be considered a diplomatic agent of a foreign government, her child would not be a natural born citizen of the United States, but of Germany.

        Just being an alien enemy is probably not sufficient to deny the child natural born citizenship, unless the alien enemy is a POW, or the child is born in occupied territory. This is discussed in US v Wong Kim Ark:

        It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.

        III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.

        Blackstone, Tucker, and other scholars on the common law deal a lot with the rights of aliens, denizens, and naturalized citizens during time of war, because that subject came up a lot. Tucker, in particular, goes into the various laws passed during and after the American Revolution regarding citizenship, which was quite complicated because citizenship had changed right under everyone’s feet, and some people were aliens to both Great Britain and America. So he discusses who were aliens by birth and who were aliens by election, etc.

        And here’s some more Blackstone, just to reiterate that children born abroad have to be naturalized:

        WHEN I say, that an alien is one who is born out of the king’s dominions, or allegiance, this also must be understood with some restrictions. The common law indeed stood absolutely so; with only a very few exceptions: so that a particular act of parliament became necessary after the restoration, for the naturalization of children of his majesty’s English subjects, born in foreign countries during the late troubles. And this maxim of the law proceeded upon a general principle, that every man owes natural allegiance where he is born, and cannot owe two such allegiances, or serve two masters, at once. Yet the children of the king’s ambassadors born abroad were always held to be natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom he is sent; so, with regard to the son also, he was held (by a kind of postliminium [a restoration of rights upon return to one’s country]) to be born under the king of England’s allegiance, represented by his father, the ambassador. To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. St. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king, and the mother had passed the seas by her husband’s consent, might inherit as if born in England: and accordingly it has been so adjudged in behalf of merchants.

        Or, as the Supreme Court quoted in US v Wong Kim Ark:

        By the common law of England, every person born within the dominions of the Crown, no matter whether of English or of foreign parents, and, in the latter case, whether the parents were settled or merely temporarily sojourning, in the country, was an English subject, save only the children of foreign ambassadors (who were excepted because their fathers carried their own nationality with them), or a child born to a foreigner during the hostile occupation of any part of the territories of England. No effect appears to have been given to descent as a source of nationality.

        You could say that the various US states follow this entirely regarding citizenship, in which descent plays no part. You are not a citizen of Ohio just because one of your parents was born in Ohio. At one time this was a real topic of discussion. States passed legislation about the naturalization of people coming in from other states. Just about the only elements remaining are the residency requirements for voting and for holding certain offices.

        And to reiterate that not all children born to US parents are citizens, here’s the stance of the US military in 1946.

        “Girls who are expecting a child fathered by an American soldier will be provided with no assistance by the American Army… If the soldier denies paternity, no further action will be undertaken other than to merely inform the woman of this fact. She is to be advised to seek help from a German or Austrian welfare organization. If the soldier is already in the United States, his address is not to be communicated to the woman in question, the soldier may be honorably discharged from the army and his demobilization will in no way be delayed. Claims for child support from unmarried German and Austrian mothers will not be recognized. If the soldier voluntarily acknowledges paternity, he is to provide for the woman in an appropriate manner

        US citizens? Not hardly. There were about 36,000 such children born to German mothers. We sent millions of soldiers to Europe, but we didn’t want millions of bastards coming back.

      • George Turner | April 8, 2016 at 1:16 pm |

        Judge Pelligirini made the same mistake concerning the meaning of the 1790 Naturalization Act that Cruz’s Harvard Law Review colleagues did. It trips up most people who don’t think very logically and clearly. The Naturalization Act of 1790 (note that it’s called a naturalization act, not a natural born citizen act) echoes the wording of many British naturalization acts, granting aliens the same rights as natural born citizens. The act doesn’t say they are natural born citizens, it says they have the same rights as natural born citizens. But as George Tucker (1803) noted, those rights did not include holding the office of President.

        The British acts similarly did not allow people so considered to hold certain high offices, such as sitting on the Privy Council.

        The act is worded just as we might word a law to grant adopted children the same rights as a woman’s natural born children. We would say something like “Adopted children shall be considered as a mother’s natural born children for all legal purposes, including inheritance.” We would never say something absurd like “Adopted children are a mother’s natural born children.” It would be equally absurd to read such a law and conclude that adopted children are a mother’s natural born children, which is what Pelligrini did, in effect.

        But the 1790 Act did too commonly create that confusion, so in the 1795 Naturalization Act James Madison dropped the “natural born citizen” phrase entirely, instead just calling them “citizens”. It was noted that such children couldn’t really be like natural born citizens or their citizenship couldn’t come with conditions whereby their citizenship could be voided or be conditioned upon other requirements in legislation.

        And almost all these suits are being dismissed because the Constitution neglects to give anyone the power to enforce the eligibility requirements. It doesn’t rest with either Congress or the Electoral College. So nobody has standing until an ineligible candidate assumes the office and tries to exercise power. Then the fun begins, because the Constitution (including the 20th Amendment) and is also silent on the remedy. State laws on the removal of an ineligible candidate vary. In some cases the office is given to the candidate who came in second in the election, and in some cases it passes to whoever is next in line in succession, as if the office holder had died in office. The decision will rest entirely with the people in black robes.

      • David Springer | April 9, 2016 at 12:53 pm |

        Birtherism is SO 2008… LOL

      • David Springer | April 9, 2016 at 1:05 pm |

        P.S. This suit wasn’t lost due to lack of standing. It was lost due to lack of merit.

        Write that down.

      • George Turner | April 9, 2016 at 8:43 pm |

        Birtherism is the assertion that a presidential candidate wasn’t born on US soil, which would disqualify them from holding the office. The first birther was a New York attorney who claimed that Chester A. Arthur was born in London, and then claimed Arthur was born in Canada during one of his speaking forays from Vermont. Arthur, by the way, was born several years before James Madison died. Nobody claimed that he could be President if he was born in Canada, because he couldn’t. They showed he was born in Vermont.

        It came up again with Goldwater, born in the territory of Arizona, and John McCain, born in the Canal Zone and probably eligible due to 8 USC 1403 regarding the citizenship status of children born in the Canal Zone to US parents. We’ve never passed such a law for Alberta.

        It came up with Obama, with claims he was actually born in Kenya, not Hawaii, because that would make him ineligible.

        Nobody saying Cruz was secretly born in Canada and is lying about it. They’re saying Cruz was openly born in Canada and is lying about the Constitution.

  32. jim2 | April 6, 2016 at 7:08 pm |

    From the article:
    …
    FLOOR ACTION
    GOP senator chides Reid over Supreme Court…
    05:59pm
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    FAA panel unveils proposals for flying…
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    Overnight Defense: Trump spurs NATO debate
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    Kerry sets record as most-traveled…
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    IN THE KNOW
    ‘SNL’ mocks GOP woes with ‘The…
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    CYBERSECURITY
    White House staying out of encryption bill…
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    Dems tweak Trump for ‘tantrum’
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    Ensuring access to the promising Alzheimer…
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    Overnight Tech: WhatsApp encryption…
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    HOME | BLOGS | BALLOT BOX | PRESIDENTIAL RACES

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    April 06, 2016, 01:00 pm
    Trump breaks 50 percent mark in New York; Cruz in third place
    By Jonathan Easley
    3.9K4

    Trump breaks 50 percent mark in New York; Cruz in third place
    TheHill.com

    00:00 / 00:39
    Donald Trump has a more than two-to-one lead over his closest rival, John Kasich, in the Republican presidential front-runner’s home state of New York, a new poll finds.

    A Monmouth University survey released Wednesday shows Trump taking 52 percent support, followed by Kasich at 25 percent. Ted Cruz has 17 percent.
    The April 19 primary in New York will go a long way toward determining whether Trump can reach the 1,237 delegates he needs to win the GOP nomination outright and avoid a contested convention.

    At Trump’s current level of support, he’s on pace to take a strong majority of the state’s 95 delegates, and it appears that he may run the board.

    “If this result holds in every single congressional district, Trump will walk away with nearly all of New York State’s delegates,” said Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray.
    …
    http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/275350-trump-tops-50-percent-in-new-york-cruz-in-third-place

  33. jim2 | April 6, 2016 at 7:10 pm |

    Trump is spot on to target China for trade regulations. They are sucking jobs from just about everywhere, and we are bailing them out from their situation created by their bad decisions. We shouldn’t have to bail out the Communists! From the article:
    …
    The government is trying to shift the whole economy from its dependence on manufacturing, and it has already said that millions of people in some of these industries are going to be laid off in the next few years.

    But China can’t just shutter these companies overnight, because they still need to pay back the banks holding their debt and it would be an unmitigated disaster for employment.

    So these products have to go somewhere, and that means they’re going to be exported to the world. There are a bunch of industries that need this treatment too.

    China’s crude steel, aluminum, shipbuilding, chemicals, cement, refinery products, flat glass, and paper will all have to be unloaded on the world, whether the world needs them or not. (Mostly not.)
    …
    http://www.businessinsider.com/china-unloads-overcapacity-on-the-world-2016-4

  34. jim2 | April 6, 2016 at 10:03 pm |

    From the article:
    …
    Dnald Trump has spent much of his campaign deriding NATO allies for “ripping off” the American taxpayer and failing to contribute to the world’s most powerful military alliance. But on Wednesday, his fellow Republicans joined the chorus during a closed-door meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Capitol Hill, according to sources inside the room.

    For under an hour, senators grilled Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway, about why only five members of the 28-nation club spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, the official amount NATO recommends each nation set aside. Some expressed particular dissatisfaction with Germany, the fourth largest economy in the world, which does not meet the 2 percent threshold.
    …
    http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/06/senators-slam-nato-free-riders-in-closed-door-meeting-with-secretary-general/

  35. jim2 | April 6, 2016 at 10:05 pm |

    Trump will simplify the tax system and if he can stoke the economy, this will be mitigated. From the article:
    …
    A tax advocacy group on Wednesday revealed that Americans spend more on taxes than their whole budget for food, clothing and housing.

    The Tax Foundation, in its annual report on when the nation as a whole has earned enough to pay its taxes, announced the date as April 24.

    “Tax Freedom Day gives us a vivid representation of how much federal, state, and local tax revenue is collected each year to pay for government goods and services,” said Tax Foundation Analyst Scott Greenberg. “Arguments can be made that the tax bill is too high or too low, but in order to have an honest discussion, it’s important for taxpayers to understand the cost of government. Tax Freedom Day helps people relate to that cost.”

    The report’s key findings include:
    …
    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/americans-spend-more-on-taxes-than-food-clothing-housing-combined/article/2587799

  36. Danny Thomas | April 6, 2016 at 10:18 pm |

    Dang. Thought “That’s what Dimowit-Lefty-Socialists do” would have been directed at Tim.

    Not big on HUMAN rights? “Perps” must lose their human-ness and can’t become ‘victims’. BP can do what ever they wish? (Did ya read the article{s}?)

    “If illegals don’t cross the border, there will be no story.”
    Shooting at ’em thru the fence is a-okay?
    Sending ’em back w/o ID and their possessions is a-okay?
    After all, they’re illegals.

    • jim2 | April 6, 2016 at 10:37 pm |

      Danny, if they weren’t breaking the law and crossing the border, there would be no repercussions. They are here ILLEGALLY. What about that do you not get. We don’t have to violate their human rights, we just have to compel them to go back to whatever country they came from. And at this point in time, I believe only about 1/3 are from Mexico. Obummer is endangering us all by his refusal to enforce the law. Terrorist can move across the border as a drug mule.

      • Danny Thomas | April 6, 2016 at 11:02 pm |

        Jim2,
        Selective memory? I’ve sent you resources to no end that this issue has been an issue since the mid 70’s. NO ADMINISTRATION has been able to address the illegal immigration. There was unfulfilled bi-partisan legislation under Reagan. Under Obama, more have been deported so it’s not like he’s doing nothing. And this congress for Obama’s full administration is just as much at fault. You’ve been made aware and if you chose to turn a blind eye this says more about you than Obama. Since you probably won’t read it won’t bother to post the graph but it’s in here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/16/the-numbers-ted-cruz-cited-on-past-deportations-during-the-cnn-debate-were-way-off/

        Yes, terrorists can move across just like a drug mule can. I’d rather have information on those here illegally seeking amnesty than those here illegally who know they cannot seek communication with our government. At least then, many would be more likely ruled out. But even then, LEGAL aliens can also come across and be terrorists as well as ‘natural born’ citizens. Assume you’re aware of this possibility.

        So much fluff and zero substance Jim. You surprise me more every day.

      • David Springer | April 6, 2016 at 11:19 pm |

        Nah. The drug cartels profile their mules. No Muslims allowed.

        I had no idea there were so many terrorized little tinkerbells in the US. I guess that means the terrorists won. Isn’t that just precious?

  37. Glenn Stehle | April 6, 2016 at 10:20 pm |

    Do the Milwaukee County results mean Hillary’s vaunted firewall in the black community has cracked more than the media admits?

    Milwaukee County is almost 27% African-American and 14.2% hispanic, according to the US Census, but Hillary only beat Bernie in that county by about 3.5%.

    In New York state, 17.6% of residents report themselves as African-American and 18.6% as hispanic.

    Pennsylvania is 11.6% black and 6.6% hispanic, with New Jersey 14.8% African American and 19.3% hispanic.

    Predominantly white counties went Bernie by wide margins. Milwaukee County, which is very conservative, must make the Clinton camp at least a little nervous….

    • opluso | April 7, 2016 at 6:52 am |

      Like most potential swing states, Wisconsin is sharply divided. Bernie Sanders actually got the most votes of any individual candidate but slightly more Republicans turned out than Democrats.

      Turnout will be key in November (as always) but will disaffected Trump supporters show up again (assuming he is not the GOP nominee)? Counter question is whether the youth vote will show up for Democrats?

  38. Glenn Stehle | April 7, 2016 at 7:26 am |

    Ford facing criticism amid planned move to Mexico
    APRIL 6, 2016, 6:38 PM|Starting this summer, production of smaller Fords will move from the Wayne, Michigan, plant to Mexico

    http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/ford-facing-criticism-amid-planned-move-to-mexico/

    • David Springer | April 7, 2016 at 7:56 am |

      What’s that sound I hear? Could it be the giant sucking sound generated by NAFTA that Ross Perot made famous in his 1992 third party presidential run? Why yes, I believe it is!

    • David Springer | April 7, 2016 at 8:01 am |

      Trump supporters should be happy. Those FoMoCo jobs in Mexico will keep a lot of undesirable brown people south of the border where they belong instead of wandering into the states seeking employment.

      There’s just no making some people happy!

  39. omanuel | April 7, 2016 at 7:32 am |

    The ABSENCE of checks and balances on the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) control of annual review of budgets of federal research agencies (NSF, DOE, NASA, NIST, EPA, NOAA, etc) for Congress allowed the . . .

    GEOPHYSICS SECTION of NAS to take totalitarian control of geo-engineering of planet Earth and operate the program as “consensus science” through the AMERICAL GEOPHYSICAL UNION (AGU)

  40. Glenn Stehle | April 7, 2016 at 8:30 am |

    This is the sort of white on Hispanic incident that ignites racial tensions.

    Video of San Antonio middle school officer slamming female student on concrete sparks investigation
    http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Video-of-SAISD-officer-slamming-12-year-old-7232217.php#photo-9760679

    The police officer can be seen body slamming the 12 year-old girl, Janissa Valdez, to the cement sidewalk.

    San Antonio is extremely segregated, and the incident occurred on San Antonio’s predominately Hispanic “West Side.”

    The officer, Joshua Kehm, is an airforce veteran, so the video reminded me of this scene from The Great Santini.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INCGjFPMKKA

    I don’t doubt the need for warrior types, but I question the wisdom of putting them to work in domestic policing.

    The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385, original at 20 Stat. 152) signed on June 18, 1878 by President Rutherford B. Hayes. The purpose of the act is to limit the powers of the federal government in using federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies within the United States.

    There’s been a great deal of controversy recently over the militarization of domestic policing in the United States:

    The Militarization of U.S. Domestic Policing

    Our analysis focuses on the United States, where a series of laws has attempted, at least in spirit, to draw a clear distinction between domestic policing and the military functions of government.

    This tradition is grounded in the fundamental differences between these two functions. State and local law enforcement are charged with upholding domestic laws that protect the rights of citizens. Although they “combat” crime within their jurisdictions, their goal is not to physically annihilate criminals, but to maintain public order and “keep the peace.” They are to protect the rights of the citizenry, both victims and criminals alike. In the realm of domestic policing, the police are, in principle, trained to resort to violence only as matter of last resort.

    Military forces, in contrast, are trained to engage in combat with the goal of destroying an external enemy deemed a threat to the rights of domestic citizens (U.S. Department of the Army 1962, 1). Typically operating in hostile environments, soldiers are trained to kill an adversary. The fundamental difference between policing and military functions is perhaps best highlighted by comparing the well-known Los Angeles Police Department motto, “To protect and serve [citizens],” with the U.S. Soldier’s Creed, “I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat” (qtd. in Rizer and Hartman 2011).

    Despite historical efforts to make laws that enforce this distinction, during the past four decades domestic policing in the United States has become increasingly militarized. Domestic law enforcement has taken on the characteristics of the armed forces by engaging in military-style training, acquiring military weapons, and utilizing military tactics in everyday operations….

    [T]he convergence of the U.S. government’s military and domestic police functions will likely continue.

    Higgs (1987) emphasizes that at the end of crises government shrinks, but not back to its previous size. What happens, however, if there is a perpetual crisis with no clear enemy and no clear end?

    In general, the growth of government will continue. Our analysis indicates more narrowly that the militarization of domestic policing will continue into the future as the U.S. government continues its unremitting “wars” on drugs and terrorism. These crises have created a set of conditions in which the blurring of police and military activities is self-enforcing and self-extending.

    https://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_17_04_01_hall.pdf

    • Arch Stanton | April 7, 2016 at 12:15 pm |

      What would you do with egg-head types and do you think they should be allowed to continue their activism?

      • Arch Stanton | April 7, 2016 at 12:25 pm |

        The Logan Act is still being ignored, what’s up with that? Tri-Lat-Comm (TLC), says its the future so why not get there now and we will all have some skin in this game.

  41. Glenn Stehle | April 7, 2016 at 8:58 am |

    Year Of The Outsider: Why Bernie Sanders’ Democratic Rebellion Is So Significant

    https://www.socialeurope.eu/2016/04/year-outsider-bernie-sanders-democratic-rebellion-significant/

    2016 was supposed to have been the year of Jeb Bush versus Hillary Clinton: the year when the established Bush dynasty confronted the upstart rival Clinton Dynasty. But the year of the insider has turned into the year of the outsider. On both sides, voters have unexpectedly given vent to thirty years of accumulated anger with neoliberalism which has downsized their incomes and hopes….

    However, absent the darkest of outcomes, the Republican rebellion is of less lasting political significance for two reasons.

    First, it does not fundamentally challenge the neoliberal economic model that is the root cause of popular anger on all sides. Nationalism, racism, evangelism, and cultural atavism scratch the scapegoat itch, but they do not challenge Corporate America’s and Wall Street’s domination which sustains neoliberalism.

    Second, and more importantly, the Republican rebellion does not change the party’s pre-existing political trajectory and relies on electoral forces that are peaking out.

    That contrasts with Sanders’ Democratic rebellion which explicitly challenges the neoliberal economic model, and is also about defining the political character of the coming Democratic electoral majority.

    Viewed in this light, the Republican rebellion is an eruption from an angry electoral base whose political power is waning, whereas the Democratic rebellion is an eruption from a rising base whose political agenda awaits definition.

  42. Glenn Stehle | April 7, 2016 at 9:23 am |

    Why the Establishment Hates Trump

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/05/why-the-establishment-hates-trump/

    While Trump’s narrative is that the American Dream seeks recovery again, the dominant media and political elite relentlessly denounce him as an implicit fascist and disastrous fake. Something deeper is afoot.

    An untapped historic resentment is boiling up from underneath which has long been unspeakable on the political stage. Trump has mined it and proposed a concrete solution always denied of his candidacy.

    From his promise to halve the Pentagon’s budget to getting the Congress off corporate-donation payrolls, the public money that the big corporate lobbies stand to lose from a Trump presidency are off the charts. But his attackers dare not recognize these explosive issues because they are all part of the problem….

    Eventually people may ask why the establishment unanimously abhors Trump across party divisions which are otherwise unbridgeable.

    Even if he is a caricature of American privilege and self-promotion, who else could fight the corrupt corporate-state and media establishment? Who else could ever get public support from dispossessed masses and from inside the Republican Party base itself? Who else could take on the supra-dominant corporate interests of the war state, drug monopoly, health insurance racket, lobby-run foreign policy, off-shore tax evasion, and global trade with only corporate rights to profit taking jobs in the tens of millions from home workers, and still hold a large and right-wing voter base onside?

    Conversely, what else than Trump’s threat to the corporate-state establishment can explain the unity of voice and venom against an American paragon of wealth and chupzpah? What else could motivate a cross-party and corporate media hate campaign where there is nothing else in common across the condemning voices?

    Only those citizens depending on the deep system corruptions he promises to reverse are really threatened by Trump’s candidacy….

    Trump represents a threat to these gargantuan public-trough interests that even the super clean and informed Ralph Nader candidacy for president never did….

    He can’t be shut up. Personal stigmatization and attack without let-up are the only way to gag his policies and turn the tide against him at the same time. Maybe it will work in the end. It’s how disastrous and bankrupting foreign aggressions and wars have been sold whatever the ruinous costs to the public paying for them.

    When you join the dots to Trump also preaching a policy revolt against the insatiable corporate jaws feeding on trillions of dollars of public budgets in Washington, the meaning becomes clear. But that connected meaning is blacked out. In its place, the corporate media and politicians present an egomaniac blowhard bordering on fascism who preaches hate, racism and sexism.,,,

    Trump rejects the whole misnamed “free trade” global system because it has “hollowed out the lives of American workers” with rights to corporations to move anywhere to get cheaper labour and import back into the US tariff-free. But again the connected meaning is repressed.

    That Trump also wants to get the US out of foreign wars at the same time, the other great pillar of corporate globalization, is the real danger to the transnational corporate state he has set in motion.

    All these policies threaten only the ruling money interests of America that depend on the superpower public purse to extend their transnational monopolies and multiply their wealth.

    This is the real establishment interest that has so far evaded the glare of publicity and critique of the Donald Trump phenomenon, bigger now with Bernie Sanders than any political challenge to the US system since the 1960’s.

    Trump has initiated a long overdue recognition of parasite capitalism eating out the life capacities of the US itself.

    • Joshua | April 7, 2016 at 10:30 am |

      ==> Even if he is a caricature of American privilege and self-promotion, who else could fight the corrupt corporate-state and media establishment?

      The notion of Trump as a fighter against corporate-state and media establishment is absolutely hilarious.

      No doubt, there are members of the “establishment” who abhor Trump because at some level, he suggests an altering of the status quo…but it isn’t only the privileged “establishment” that reacts so strongly against Trump. The simple truth remains that as of yet, he there’s a pretty solid ceiling in his support, as strong as it is within that limited cohort. And his unfavorability ratings are extremely high despite that he has gotten wall-to-wall coverage in what amounts to an enormously valuable free publicity.

  43. Glenn Stehle | April 7, 2016 at 9:47 am |

    Andrew Bacevich points out the dangers of permanet war.

    How the United States Became a Prisoner of War and Congress Went MIA

    http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176124/

    Let’s face it: in times of war, the Constitution tends to take a beating.

    With the safety or survival of the nation said to be at risk, the basic law of the land — otherwise considered sacrosanct — becomes nonbinding, subject to being waived at the whim of government authorities who are impatient, scared, panicky, or just plain pissed off.

    The examples are legion.

    During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln arbitrarily suspended the writ of habeas corpus and ignored court orders that took issue with his authority to do so.

    After U.S. entry into World War I, the administration of Woodrow Wilson mounted a comprehensive effort to crush dissent, shutting down anti-war publications in complete disregard of the First Amendment.

    Amid the hysteria triggered by Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order consigning to concentration camps more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans, many of them native-born citizens. Asked in 1944 to review this gross violation of due process, the Supreme Court endorsed the government’s action by a 6-3 vote….

    During the presidency of George W. Bush, the United States embraced torture as an instrument of policy in clear violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.

    Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, ordered the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen, a death by drone that was visibly in disregard of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

    Both administrations — Bush’s with gusto, Obama’s with evident regret — imprisoned individuals for years on end without charge and without anything remotely approximating the “speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury” guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment….

    In the summer of 1950, when President Harry Truman decided that a U.N. Security Council resolution provided sufficient warrant for him to order U.S. forces to fight in Korea, congressional war powers took a hit from which they would never recover….

    To leap almost four decades ahead, think of the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) that was passed by Congress in the immediate aftermath of 9/11… In plain language: here’s a blank check; feel free to fill it in any way you like….

    Forever War

    Yet nearly 15 years later, the AUMF remains operative and has become the basis for military actions against innumerable individuals, organizations, and nations with no involvement whatsoever in the murderous events of September 11, 2001…

    In this regard, Republicans are especially egregious offenders. On matters where President Obama is clearly acting in accordance with the Constitution — for example, in nominating someone to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court — they spare no effort to thwart him, concocting bizarre arguments nowhere found in the Constitution to justify their obstructionism. Yet when this same president cites the 2001 AUMF as the basis for initiating hostilities hither and yon, something that is on the face of it not legal but ludicrous, they passively assent….

    Remember Barack Obama campaigning back in 2008 and solemnly pledging to end the Iraq War? What he neglected to mention at the time was that he was retaining the prerogative to plunge the country into another Iraq War on his own ticket. So has he now done, with members of Congress passively assenting and the country essentially a prisoner of war.

    By now, through its inaction, the legislative branch has, in fact, surrendered the final remnant of authority it retained on matters relating to whether, when, against whom, and for what purpose the United States should go to war. Nothing now remains but to pay the bills, which Congress routinely does, citing a solemn obligation to “support the troops.” In this way does the performance of lesser duties provide an excuse for shirking far greater ones.

    In military circles, there is a term to describe this type of behavior. It’s called cowardice.

  45. jim2 | April 7, 2016 at 8:06 pm |

    From the article:
    …
    “These projections go to 200, 300 percent, and even higher of debt held by the public as a percent of gross domestic product,” said Dodaro. “We’re going to owe more than our entire economy is producing and by definition this is not sustainable.”

    Additionally, the audit found fault with the number of improper payments that should not have been made or were the incorrect amount. The audit found that in fiscal year 2015 there were $136.7 billion improper payments, which was up by $12 billion from the year prior.

    The audit also called into question the reliability of the government’s financial statements. According to the report, if a federal entity purchases a good or service, that cost should match the revenue recorded by the federal entity that sold the good or service. The report found that this was not always the case and found hundreds of billions of dollars in differences between transactions between federal entities.

    “The government-wide financial statements that the GAO audits tell us what came into the government’s coffers and what went out, what the government owns and what it owes, and if the operations are financially sustainable,” said Sen. Mike Enzi (R., Wyo.). “But can we trust the information in the statements?”

    “GAO’s audit calls into question the reliability of the underlying financial data,” he said. “The sketchiness is such that GAO remains unable to even issue an audit opinion on the government’s books.”
    …
    http://freebeacon.com/issues/government-owe-money-entire-economy/

  46. jim2 | April 7, 2016 at 8:08 pm |

    There have been a few occasions I’ve agreed with Bubba. This is one of them. From the article:
    …
    The protesters shouted that “black youth are not super predators,” taking issue with a phrase then-first lady Hillary Clinton used in a 1996 speech about violent crime committed by young people. They heckled Bill Clinton for the 1994 crime bill he signed into law as president that cracked down on gangs but also put more non-violent offenders in prison for longer stays.

    “You are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter,” the former president told protesters.
    …
    “I talked to a lot of African-American groups. They thought black lives mattered; they said take this bill because our kids are being shot in the street by gangs. We had 13-year-old kids planning their own funerals,” Clinton said.
    …

  47. jim2 | April 7, 2016 at 8:10 pm |

    (Everyone on US soil is an immigrant. Just sayin’) From the article:
    …
    She calculated the trajectory of man’s first trip to the moon, and was such an accurate mathematician that John Glenn asked her to double-check NASA’s computers. To top it off, she did it all as a black woman in the 1950s and ’60s, when women at NASA were not even invited to meetings.

    And you’ve probably never heard of her.

    Meet Katherine Johnson, the African-American woman who earned the nickname “the human computer” at NASA during its space race golden age.
    …
    http://www.thedailybeast.com/videos/2016/04/07/the-human-computer-behind-the-moon-landing-was-a-black-woman.html

  50. Glenn Stehle | April 7, 2016 at 8:52 pm |

    The story about the policeman slamming the 12 year-old girl into the cement has gone national.

    Video shows Texas officer throwing 12-year-old girl
    APRIL 7, 2016, 7:32 AM|A Texas police officer accused of using excessive force on a sixth grader is under investigation

    http://i.imgur.com/Xk4ztm4.png

  51. jim2 | April 7, 2016 at 10:01 pm |

    Individual freedom is a concept totally alien to Obummer. The government can’t even protect itself from hackers, much less me or the kids. From the article:
    …
    He pointed out that citizens expected the government to protect them from hackers and terrorists, but refused to allow the government to have some sort of access to their information.

    He characterized the problematic attitude as “protect me from hackers, protect me for terrorists, protect me from et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but I don’t want you to know any of your business and I don’t even want you to have the ability to investigate some of that business when it happens because of its broader implications and we’re worried about Big Brother.”
    …
    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/04/07/obama-let-big-brother-want-online-protection/

    • Jim D | April 7, 2016 at 10:19 pm |

      It’s a no-win situation for the government. Either they will be blamed for an attack that takes place when access to contact records could have prevented it, or they are criticized for having too much information about which people in the US contact each other and people outside.

      • jim2 | April 7, 2016 at 10:53 pm |

        Personally, I would rather take my chances on an attack than have all US citizens spied on 24/7. Instead, we protect ourselves by profiling the group known not to fit in with Western values to the point it wants to kill us. That’s what the Israelis do and that’s what works. Also, we can take Trump’s advice and stop them moving here. That’s such a no-brainer and yet lefties insist importing people who want to kill us or convert us to their way of life is the “American Way.” BS! We protect ourselves by first identifying the enemy. No more PC BS when it comes to our security.

      • Jim D | April 7, 2016 at 11:15 pm |

        Stark and unrealistic choice there, jim2. All US people spied on 24/7 or just having their contact records saved somewhere in case needed by people with some level of security clearance and a court-permitted reason. I vote for the latter. It is a middle road that does allow tracking terrorist networks, and I believe it is the current status.

      • Danny Thomas | April 7, 2016 at 11:44 pm |

        Jim2,

        And OF COURSE you blame Obama for this too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act

        And are willing to state this: “Personally, I would rather take my chances on an attack than have all US citizens spied on 24/7. ”

        How about blaming those who committed the crimes which caused this to be passed, or blame those who actually passed it?

      • Jim D | April 7, 2016 at 11:36 pm |

        Also, jim2, do you agree with the idea that they just spy on any people they consider anti-government, putting race aside?

      • Jim D | April 7, 2016 at 11:56 pm |

        Here’s an aspect of the Patriot Act where you can choose to side with Bush-Cheney or liberals like San Francisco Public Library and Bernie Sanders.
        http://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=2000060501

      • jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 8:23 am |

        No, Jim D – they DON’T “SPY” ON ANYONE!!!

        They get rid of the FISA court and if they need to, the get permission from a court to monitor someone’s cell phone (and ONLY that one) or do whatever it is they need. That’s the way it has been done in the past and it makes sense. Mass surveillance truly is NOT WHO WE ARE!!!

      • Jim D | April 8, 2016 at 9:13 pm |

        Yes, court-ordered and limited to access by people with clearance. That is what I said. Security cameras in most public areas, like Israel and many European countries and increasingly in American cities, phone records, all this helps track culprits and their networks, but not what you want, clearly. You want to tie the hands of law enforcement, but then will still blame them when things go wrong with your system.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 8, 2016 at 9:32 am |

        jim2 said:

        [W]e protect ourselves by profiling the group known not to fit in with Western values to the point it wants to kill us. That’s what the Israelis do and that’s what works.

        I’m not so sure about your notion of what “Western values” means, not to mention your notion of what “what works” means.

        http://i.imgur.com/EkbVKsj.png

      • jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 9:56 am |

        You have a point, Glenn. This is what I had in mind when I wrote that:
        …
        In the wake of deadly terrorist attacks at Zaventem Airport and Maelbeek metro station in Brussels yesterday that killed 34 people and injured about 200 others, law-enforcement agencies in Europe’s major cities are scrambling to beef up security at airports and transport hubs.

        This latest horrific incident – and the revelation that the Islamist suicide bombers were known to police and yet still managed to access the airport’s departure hall — has intensified speculation that European countries will get serious about adopting tough Israeli screening methodologies long considered the world’s best practices.
        …

        http://www.israel21c.org/is-europe-ready-to-adopt-israels-approach-to-security/

      • Glenn Stehle | April 8, 2016 at 11:23 am |

        jim2,

        https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/21/70/c9/2170c9b6f7d541689727cadf491a3cce.jpg

        I don’t buy into all the arm waving that emanates from the neocon faithful, folks like Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton.

        I mark the neocon fear mongering up under the same column as I do the CAGW fearmongering that emanates from the climatariat.

        So I reject your entire underlying premise. Terrorism just isn’t as big a problem as the-sky-is-falling neocons would have us believe. And it certainly is not a big enough threat to flush our civil liberties down the toilet.

        https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/8b/87/a5/8b87a5eef8aa6fac8fe5bdf4955a063d.jpg

        Even Israel’s terrorism problem, if moved to the United States, pales in comparison to other problems the United States has.

        So mark me up in the realist column. I don’t subscribe to either the neocon’s or climatariat’s fear mongering.

        http://i.imgur.com/mW6EF4J.png

      • Glenn Stehle | April 8, 2016 at 11:52 am |

        jim2,

        http://www.quotehd.com/imagequotes/authors4/james-madison-president-quote-perhaps-it-is-a-universal-truth-that.jpg

        Here’s how John J. Mearsheimer, one of the leading realist thinkers in the United States, describes the neocon fear mongering:

        The story is this: America’s national security elites act on the assumption that every nook and cranny of the globe is of great strategic significance and that there are threats to U.S. interests everywhere.

        Not surprisingly, they live in a constant state of fear.

        This fearful outlook is reflected in the comments of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, before Congress in February 2012: “I can’t impress upon you that in my personal military judgment, formed over thirty-eight years, we are living in the most dangerous time in my lifetime, right now.”

        In February 2013, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that Americans “live in very complex and dangerous times,” and the following month Senator James Inhofe said, “I don’t remember a time in my life where the world has been more dangerous and the threats more diverse.”

        These are not anomalous views. A 2009 survey done by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 69 percent of the Council on Foreign Relations’ members believed the world was more dangerous than—or at least as dangerous as—it was during the Cold War….

        This grim situation means the United States has a lot of social engineering to carry out, leaving it no choice but to pursue an interventionist foreign policy.

        In other words, it must pursue a policy of global domination if it hopes to make the world safe for America.

        This perspective is influential, widespread—and wrong.

        Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the United States is a remarkably secure country. No great power in world history comes close to enjoying the security it does today….

        America’s interventionist policies are the main cause of its terrorism problem. Nevertheless, terrorism is a minor threat, which is why Washington is free to continue pursuing the policies that helped cause the problem in the first place….

        The United States is an exceptionally secure great power, contrary to the folderol one frequently hears emanating from America’s national-security community. A good way to illustrate this point is to reflect on isolationism, a grand strategy with a rich but controversial history….

        At the heart of the isolationists’ worldview is a simple geographical fact: the American homeland is separated from Asia and Europe by two giant moats.

        No great power can mount an amphibious operation across the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans, and thus no outside power, whether it was Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan, could directly threaten the survival of the United States.

        If the case for isolationism was powerful before Pearl Harbor, it is even more compelling today.

        For starters, the United States has thousands of nuclear weapons, which are the ultimate deterrent and go a long way toward guaranteeing a state’s survival. No adversary is going to invade America and threaten its survival, because that opponent would almost certainly end up getting vaporized.

        In essence, two giant oceans and thousands of nuclear weapons today shield the United States. Moreover, it faces no serious threats in its own neighborhood, as it remains a regional hegemon in the Western Hemisphere….

        All of this is to say that the United States, which is the most secure great power in world history, has been safer over the past twenty-five years than at any other time in its history. General Dempsey’s [and Hillary Clinton’s] assertion that the present marks the most dangerous era in his lifetime is completely wrong….

        Am I overlooking the obvious threat that strikes fear into the hearts of so many Americans, which is terrorism?

        Not at all.

        Sure, the United States has a terrorism problem. But it is a minor threat. There is no question we fell victim to a spectacular attack on September 11, but it did not cripple the United States in any meaningful way and another attack of that magnitude is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future.

        America Unhinged
        http://nationalinterest.org/files/digital-edition/1388435556/129%20Digital%20Edition.pdf

        The bottom line is this: terrorism is not a threat to the life of the nation, unless we allow the neocons to use it to destroy the United States from within.

        http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Benjamin-FranklinGiveUpEssentialLiberty.jpg

      • Glenn Stehle | April 8, 2016 at 12:33 pm |

        jim2 said:

        [W]e protect ourselves by profiling the group known not to fit in with Western values to the point it wants to kill us. That’s what the Israelis do and that’s what works.

        So you advocate that we conflate values with overt criminal acts? That seems to be quite the slippery slope.

        There is a difference between values and overt criminal acts. As David LIttle writes in Religion and Civil Virtue in America:

        Jefferson clearly had this distinction in mind when he wrote in the statute: “[I]t is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order.”

        Is the government to beome the value police?

      • Danny Thomas | April 8, 2016 at 1:03 pm |

        Glenn,
        “Is the government to become the value police?”

        It seems this is frequently acceptable as long as it’s “MY” values. (Whomever “MY” is.)

      • jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 12:39 pm |

        Glenn, it appears you and I agree that we shouldn’t lose our rights and liberties due to terrorism. I am against mass surveillance. I am for protecting the citizens against terrorism, however. I’m more of a libertarian and I don’t really give a flyin’ f what neocons think.

      • Danny Thomas | April 8, 2016 at 12:43 pm |

        And yet you still wish to take MY MONEY, though it’s now where I prefer to spend it, and use it to build a wall.

        Interesting.

      • jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 1:20 pm |

        Glenn and Danny. Yes, I wish to preserve our national character. Because it has been economically successful, brought prosperity to a vast majority of its citizens, and kept us safe. That is now deteriorating. I don’t want to see that happen for the sake of my children.

      • Danny Thomas | April 8, 2016 at 1:58 pm |

        Jim2,
        “Yes, I wish to preserve our national character.” While I can understand and respect this thought, didn’t you just chide me for ‘living in the past’?

        Which ‘national character’?

        “The poem talks about the millions of immigrants who came to the United States (many of them through Ellis Island at the port of New York)” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Colossus

        Liberty———>Libertarian?

        Again, which version? “A number of present-day libertarians argue for open borders or for radically expanded and liberalized immigration drawing on primarily libertarian arguments.”

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_perspectives_on_immigration

        Libertarianism is broad, thick, and varying: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism

        All the more showing the need for a reasonable level of specificity.

        And after all this, I still think that you and I (as representative) could find sufficient middle ground to reach acceptable policy. But I’m admitted polyanna.

      • jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 2:10 pm |

        Danny, on these pages you’ve seen me advocate for the legalization of recreational drugs, prostitution, and gambling. You’ve seen me advocate for closed borders and LEGAL immigration – which include many ways for foreigners to work and study in the US. I’m not going to waste my time with your niggling.

        We once had a country that worked in many ways – both nationally and for the individual. Times have changed, but the principles that made us great need to be brought back to the fore. Hint: it isn’t centralized government. There are some socialist programs that will probably never be eliminated, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t attempt to roll socialism back where we can, and advance individual liberty in the process.

      • Danny Thomas | April 8, 2016 at 2:19 pm |

        Jim2,
        While I respect your views (and agree with many), please forgive if my niggling had nothing to do with you. My argument is that I cannot get the specifics from Trump (or you as his advocate).

      • Danny Thomas | April 8, 2016 at 2:24 pm |

        Jim2,
        And yet another question. Since you’re advocating for the ‘socialized’ wall, do I get a choice for a different ‘socialism’ and does everyone else if they chose?

      • jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 2:34 pm |

        Danny, my definition of socialism is centralized control of citizens by the government. Note that Federal is more centralized than State, etc. So, the wall that allows us to control immigration isn’t socialism in my view. Yes, it would use some of your money, can’t argue with that unless Trump really was able to make Mexico pay for it and I doubt he could make them pay for all of it.

        At any rate, I don’t agree with everything Trump wants. But when I look at the State of the Union – the Dimowits and Redimowits got us here. I’m willing to give Trump a chance to lie to me. The others already have, and I won’t let them fool me twice.

  52. jim2 | April 7, 2016 at 10:18 pm |

    From the article:
    …
    After a conference call with agents from several sectors representing every state on the Southwest border, they seemed to zero in on certain conclusions:

    — Whether you call it a wall, or a fence, agents say they work.
    …
    Agents call the strategy “defense in depth.” What it means is a fence provides a primary barrier. It is backed up by ground sensors and cameras and radar mounted on tall poles that detect movement. That information is picked up in operation centers, which relay it to field agents who can then locate and arrest the perpetrators.

    “It is a layered approach,” says Yuma Sector Chief Anthony Porvaznik. “The fence gives us time. The fence protects the agents. It lowers the risk and gives us time to respond to illegal activity. It slows people down. The cameras give a situational awareness so agents know what they’re about to encounter before they do.”
    …
    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/04/07/how-feasible-is-trumps-proposed-wall.html?intcmp=hpbt2

    • Danny Thomas | April 7, 2016 at 11:39 pm |

      Then this went no where: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Immigration_Reform_Act_of_2007

      2008/2009 and Obama got nothing done: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/obama-immigration-broken-promises-2008_n_1510908.html

      2010 this, and no action other than introduction: http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/just-facts/comprehensive-immigration-reform-act-2010-summary

      then 2011: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/s1258

      2013: the gang of 8 bipartisan bill passed senate died in house.

      2014: Obama began his executive orders.

      Good friggin luck Trump. It’s been a problem since 1975 and no administration has fixed it, nor has a dem or rep led congress or bipartisan effort either.

      Trump thinks he can get it done via his method of making friends?

    • Danny Thomas | April 7, 2016 at 11:40 pm |

      This should be above that, but didn’t post:

      Well then Jim, I suppose you stopped looking there.

      You do realize we have a ‘barrier’ across much of the border, correct?
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_barrier

      This was tried in 2005 but died in a republican led senate in 2006: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Protection,_Anti-terrorism_and_Illegal_Immigration_Control

    • jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 8:20 am |

      Danny, you are stuck in the past and times have changed. Let’s focus on the future – a better one.

      • Danny Thomas | April 8, 2016 at 10:20 am |

        Jim2,
        Let’s do just that. Specifically, please tell me how it will be done.

        I guess we can look at the empirical evidence using what has happened, or alternatively we can create some model based scenarios pointing towards a desired outcome.

      • jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 10:46 am |

        Try to shake off the negative funk of the past, Danny.

        Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein
        Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins133991.html

      • Danny Thomas | April 8, 2016 at 11:23 am |

        Jim2,
        Trying to live in the future with ya Jim:
        Specific.
        clearly and exactly presented or stated : precise or exact,
        free from ambiguity

        Vs.,
        Pie in the sky.
        something good that is unlikely to happen,
        if an idea or plan is pie in the sky, it seems good but is not likely to be achieved.

        Model it for me. Looking forward to it!

      • jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 12:42 pm |

        Freedom from ambiguity exists only as a concept. The corollary is that there is no way to anticipate in advance all the possible consequences of a policy. The most we can hope for is to conduct ourselves withing the bounds of some general guidelines, such as the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Rule of Law. Currently, we are failing miserably at that.

      • Danny Thomas | April 8, 2016 at 12:56 pm |

        On much of this we agree. However, we can use evidence from actual occurrence and apply logic as an indicator of future response. No, this would not anticipate ALL future possible consequences, but would suggest what has worked and what has not leading to better decisions looking forward.

        Trump is offering pie in the sky “wall” building as a solution. We have barriers, we need serious technology and manpower including enforcement of interior laws. Even China’s great wall, a longstanding and enormous undertaking would hold little value vs. an opponent of today.

        The most rudimentary constructs such as tunnels, ladders, drones, boats, etc. all overcome a wall.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 8, 2016 at 1:19 pm |

        jim2 said:

        Danny, you are stuck in the past and times have changed. Let’s focus on the future – a better one.

        Spoken like a true neocon.

        The scientificality of totalitarian propaganda is characterized by its almost exclusive insistence on scientific prophecy as distinguished from the more old-fashioned appeal to the past….

        Totalitarian propaganda raised ideological scientificality and its technique of making statements in the form of predictions to a height of efficiency of method and absurdity of content because, demagogically speaking, there is hardly a better way to avoid discussion than by releasing an argument from the control of the present and by saying that only the future can reveal its merits.

        — HANNAH ARENDT, The Origins of Totalitarianism

      • jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 1:27 pm |

        Cheap (and weak) shot, Glenn.

      • Joshua | April 8, 2016 at 1:47 pm |

        Danny –

        ==> Trump is offering pie in the sky “wall” building as a solution.

        FWIW, I see it more as fear-mongering for self-advantage.

      • Danny Thomas | April 8, 2016 at 3:38 pm |

        J,

        Could be, but lacking a track record couldn’t say for sure so giving benefit of the doubt. Just repeating his ‘solution’. Trying hardest to deal with the substance and not imposed impressions.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 8, 2016 at 2:09 pm |

        jim2,

        It’s not “crap,” nor is it “weak.”

        It is merely calling into question the severity of the threat being posed by the “brown menace,” whether that menace be of the Mexican variety or the Muslim variety.

        And there’s nothing novel here. We’ve seen this movie before.

        As Hannah Arendt wrote in Eichmann in Jerusalem:

        During the war the lie most effective with the whole German people was the slogan of “the battle of destiny for the German people,” [der Schicksalskampf des deutschen Voltes], coined by Hitler or by Goebbels, which made self-deception easier…: it suggested…that it was a matter of life and death for the Germans, who must annihilate their enemies or be annihilated.

        And not only is the threat posed by the “brown menace” largely imaginary, but the measures proposed to deal with the imaginary threat — like Trump’s proposed wall — are equally as imaginary and quixotic.

        My question is this: If having some sort of dumb-assed policy based on fact-free fear mongering is inevitable, is Trump’s wall more benign than Clinton’s and her fellow neocon’s permanent war?

        If I come to believe that Trump is sincere in elminating the neocon’s permanent war, I think I’ll go with Trump.

      • jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 2:13 pm |

        Glenn, I’m not going to do your work for you, but you can easily see the Muslim threat by googling muslims and Europe. You can deny it all you want, but you are still wrong.

        From my POV, we need to stop this insane flow of ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS , no matter what their skin color. You just can’t stop using racism as a sledge hammer can you? My problem with them is that it will push us further to the left. For reasons I have made evident on this post, I don’t want that.

        It’s not complicated and it’s not racism.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 8, 2016 at 2:48 pm |

        jim2 said:

        [Y]ou can easily see the Muslim threat by googling muslims and Europe. You can deny it all you want, but you are still wrong.

        So the United States is now Europe?

        Aren’t you omitting a little factual detail there? As John Mearshemier put it in the article I linked:

        At the heart of the isolationists’ worldview is a simple geographical fact: the American homeland is separated from Asia and Europe by two giant moats.

        And sure, Europe has a terrorism problem. But empirically speaking, how significant is it? I’d say it pales in comparison to Israel’s terrorism problem.

        http://i.imgur.com/mW6EF4J.png

        Fear, jim2. Irrational fear. It is the number one weapon used by the enemies of freedom and democracy.

        jim2 said:

        From my POV, we need to stop this insane flow of ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS , no matter what their skin color. You just can’t stop using racism as a sledge hammer can you? My problem with them is that it will push us further to the left. For reasons I have made evident on this post, I don’t want that.

        It’s not complicated and it’s not racism.

        So you want the government to be the ideology police, and only let in people who share your ideology?

      • jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 2:53 pm |

        I want our country have a robust economy and a strong military. Socialism won’t get us there. Plus, I want to have my rights, privacy, and individual freedoms. I’ve made my case.

        I’ve been up front about my political goals. What about you? It seems to me you want the US to go full bore socialist, in the sense the Federal government had defacto control of business through regulation and have their jack boot heel firmly on my back.

      • Danny Thomas | April 8, 2016 at 3:31 pm |

        Jim2,
        Thank you for asking.
        Illegal immigration must be confronted with technology, interior enforcement of laws, but this will be on the backs of our society. The trade off being higher costs borne directly instead of indirectly (subsidized on the backs of immigrants). We’re fooling ourselves if we think there will be no cost to enforcement.
        Universal medical with single payer.
        Social Security as I’ve contributed and deserve the ability to make use since funds were taken ‘by force’ leaving me a lack of choice. Draw a line in the sand and transition with sufficient time to allow for alternative planning for those younger than I.
        Strong military. This is a deterrent and a technological seed bed.
        Modification of welfare from a hand out to a leg up with transition over some time scale to requiring public work for continuation (maybe 2 years with variables) then schooling in order to receive further payments (medical exceptions).
        Repeal of the Patriot Act.
        Recreational drugs okay for those over 21 (not teens). Immediate freeing of those in prison for associated criminalization (minor), especially young black males.
        LGBT treated same as all. And if a business is public, public includes all.
        Free trade. Capitalism is capitalism. We can compete anywhere.
        Environmental oversight is a must as I recall the days when one state would use another’s water resource (rivers) as their dump station (one example). And I support the ISS (world socialization?) and space exploration.

        I’m admittedly about 1/3 democratic socialist especially with social issues. I’m a fiscal moderate and prefer those who receive must participate & contribute back (my conservatism). I’m a-okay with your choices as long as you don’t hurt me or others (my libertarianism). I’m a declared independent.

        There are things states should have reserved, but states don’t always play fair so courts and congress can/should have oversite. Once a state doesn’t play fair that right is revocable. Requires good decision making.

        And I still say I’ll bet you and I could find middle ground. This is too long already, fodder for your cannons as it stands, and how a conversation begins.

        I don’t know if I can support Trump as I don’t know what he stands for. For me, the evil you know vs. the one you don’t. For various reasons, not the same for each, there are 3 others ahead of him (maybe 2, but it’s close).

      • Glenn Stehle | April 8, 2016 at 3:32 pm |

        Scientific American reported in 2011:

        John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University, and Mark Stewart, a civil engineer and authority on risk assessment at University of Newcastle in Australia … contended, “a great deal of money appears to have been misspent and would have been far more productive—saved far more lives—if it had been expended in other ways [than on the war on terrorism].”

        http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/did-the-u-s-overreact-to-the-911-attacks-undoubtedly/

        http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/files/2011/09/risk.chart_2.jpg

      • jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 3:54 pm |

        Danny, one of my heroes, Hayek, advocated for social programs. I want to help the disadvantaged. It’s all a question of how. A negative income tax would be a start. And government hospitals for the poor would be another. But for the rest of us, the previous health care scheme could be improved by more transparency and competition, a la Trump.

        Immigrants won’t bear the burden of anything, they just have to apply for citizenship legally or a work permit legally. Farmers would still have their slave labor. Why is this so difficult?

  53. jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 8:38 am |

    Cronyism is one big reason we need Trump as President. Obama speaks from his Cronyism Party. …
    No word if Obama and Iger discussed the Disney succession issue tonight but in a pretty standard fundraiser speech, the President took a whack at GOP contender Donald Trump in his remarks. “I recognize there’s a deep obsession right now about Mr. Trump,” Obama said, according the pool report. “One of you pulled me aside and squeezed me hard and said, ‘tell me that Mr. Trump is not succeeding.’ And I said, ‘Mr Trump isn’t succeeding.”
    …
    http://deadline.com/2016/04/barack-obama-hollywood-fundraisers-trafficobamageddon-alan-horn-disney-1201733149/

  54. jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 8:41 am |

    From the article:
    …
    Man up, woman!

    Rising to the A-list from the middle of the pack requires extreme cunning, good hair and laser-focused determination.

    Or, if you’re Megyn Kelly, all you need to fixate the world’s attention on your brains or your boobs and butt — the kind of fame-whoredom practiced by dames from Hillary Clinton to Kim Kardashian — is to metaphorically crush the naughty bits of Donald Trump.

    At the first Republican candidates’ debate in August, Kelly staged a microaggression, driving The Donald to seek a safe space. The Fox News Channel blonde, a debate co-moderator, unloaded on the GOP front-runner with a “question’’ that amounted to an oral spanking.
    …
    http://nypost.com/2016/04/08/megyn-kelly-is-no-different-than-kim-kardashian/

    • David Springer | April 9, 2016 at 2:27 pm |

      Trump doesn’t like Megyn Kelly because when the two of are together in a room there are three boobs competing for attention and Kelly’s two are the winners.

  55. jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 8:51 am |

    From the article:
    …
    Art Del Cueto, a Border Patrol agent and Vice President of the National Border Patrol Council, which has endorsed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, and National Border Patrol Council Spokesman and Border Patrol agent Shawn Moran stated that illegal immigrants who are not given notices to appear “walk out the front door” and “We don’t know who we’re releasing” in a report broadcast on Thursday’s “O’Reilly Factor” on the Fox News Channel.

    During the report, Fox News Channel Senior Correspondent Eric Shawn stated that “agents are under orders from the agency headquarters in Washington to release illegals by not giving them what’s called NTAs, notice to appear summonses, that should send them straight to a deportation judge.”

    In response to a question on what happens to those who don’t receive NTAs, Del Cueto said, “They get released back into the United States. They walk out the front door.”

    Moran added, “We don’t know who we’re releasing, and we don’t know what they’re capable of.” Del Cueto added that while they can ask people who they apprehend if they’ve committed crimes in Mexico, “no one’s going to tell you.” He added, “You can’t find out they’ve murdered. You can’t find out if they’ve molested minors. You can’t find out if they’ve raped.”
    …
    http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/04/07/border-patrol-agents-illegal-aliens-walking-out-the-front-door-we-dont-know-who-were-releasing/

    • James Cross | April 8, 2016 at 10:46 am |

      From NY Times:

      “Despite the union’s apocalyptic warnings, the border is more militarized than ever, and arrests there are at historic lows. Illegal immigration has been falling for years. More Mexicans are leaving the country than entering. President Obama, far from abandoning immigration enforcement, has deported more people — more than two million — more quickly than his predecessors.”

      • jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 10:52 am |

        This isn’t ONLY about Mexicans. At this time, I believe I recall this correctly, only about 1/3 of incoming immigrants are from Mexico. That being said, many are from other countries in South America. Most of these countries have a very high level of socialism or dictatorial governments and these people will expect the government to take care of them here. In fact, Obummer is making moves to give Social Security and what he terms “earned” benefits to illegals. Non-citizens should not be getting ANY benefits conferred upon citizens.

      • James Cross | April 8, 2016 at 2:12 pm |

        About half of illegals come in on a Visa and overstay. Asians are the group growing the most.

        Obviously you don’t know anything about Latin America because the governments there don’t do anything for their people

        “U.S. Social Security Administration estimated that in 2013 undocumented immigrants—and their employers—paid $13 billion in payroll taxes alone for benefits they will never get. They can receive schooling and emergency medical care, but not welfare or food stamps.”

        http://www.tolerance.org/immigration-myths

      • jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 2:14 pm |

        Obama is working to make it possible for illegals to get some benefits. They usually work off the books, so they aren’t paying for any of it.

      • jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 2:16 pm |

        From the article:
        …
        Just because illegal aliens are not legally entitled to these benefits does not mean they do not apply for them. Yes. It is true that illegal aliens have received grants, professional accreditations, loans, WIC, disability, public housing, college educations, food stamps, unemployment benefits, and tax credits from state and federal agencies.
        According to the U.S. Census Bureau, at least one third of foreign born citizens in the United States are illegal aliens. Since children born in the United States are considered U.S. Citizens, it becomes complicated when illegal aliens then bear children who are U.S. Citizens.
        If the U.S. government sent the parents of these children away, we would be separating families. Now that these families have given birth to U.S. citizens, the families are eligible for benefits such as WIC and food stamps. Benefits such as these are for low income families. Illegal aliens often work in low paying jobs so they now qualify for benefits.
        Illegal immigrants enter the country by overstaying their visa. Officers of the law do not make it a habit to stop people and ask to see their papers. What this means is that if a person overstays their visa, they can find ways to work and receive benefits.
        …
        http://thelawdictionary.org/article/why-is-it-that-illegal-aliens-get-free-food-stamps-health-insurance-and-pay-no-taxes/

      • Danny Thomas | April 8, 2016 at 2:22 pm |

        Jim2,
        Two questions.

        Is it a lack of laws or enforcement which leads to “they can find ways to work and receive benefits.”, and what mechanism does Trump employ to correct?

        How would a wall make a difference here?

    • David Springer | April 8, 2016 at 6:02 pm |

      “You can’t find out they’ve murdered. You can’t find out if they’ve molested minors. You can’t find out if they’ve raped.”

      That information doesn’t appear on passports either. We grant visas to passport holders from most other countries on the planet and it’s reciprocal in most cases. Most certainly with Mexico and Canada.

      Weak tea.

  56. jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 9:04 am |

    Bernie Sanders: “I attacked Hillary Clinton because she attacked me”

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-sanders-i-attacked-hillary-clinton-because-she-attacked-me/

  57. jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 10:46 am |

    From the article:
    …
    Seven years on, the size of the Obamacare disaster is only beginning to emerge. Fixing it won’t be as easy as some of the candidates for president seem to think it will be. The Congressional Budget Office estimated last week that over the next decade Obamacare will add $1.4 trillion to the nation’s debt.

    Many of the so-called cures are utterly unrealistic. Hillary Clinton, for example, after proposing new and expensive additions to Obamacare, now suggests a solution concocted of one part fantasy and two parts nonsense. She would impose a 4 percent tax on millionaires to pay for increased costs. But her tax would yield only $150 billion over 10 years, a fraction of what her plan would require. Even millionaires are not what they used to be.
    …

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/31/editorial-the-emerging-disaster-of-obamacare/

  58. jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 1:27 pm |

    Rule of Law? The elites and plutocrats are out of control. From the article:
    …
    Jürgen Mossack, co-founder of the firm at the center of the Panama Papers, didn’t know that associates of top politicians from around the world were using his company to help hide money, he told CNBC in a Friday interview.
    Mossack Fonseca, the Panamian law firm under intense scrutiny because of the release of four decades of documents detailing the establishment of offshore companies for the global elite, has always sought to follow the laws in its jurisdiction, Mossack said. And, he added, if the firm had ever discovered its clients were tied to individuals like Russian President Vladimir Putin, it would’ve immediately stopped those dealings.
    …
    http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/08/panama-papers-firm-co-founder-we-didnt-know.html

  61. jim2 | April 8, 2016 at 10:31 pm |

    Danny, maybe you will like this idea. We go back to the way insurance was except we implement Trump’s plan – transparency and competition. For those who can’t afford insurance, government-run hospitals are provided. Staff them with immigrants with work permits who work at about 25% of the going rate, no benefits just like farm workers. (Maybe they get free health care?) So, a win for the poor, a win for the foreign workers, a win for taxpayers.

    • Danny Thomas | April 9, 2016 at 1:22 am |

      Jim2,
      I’m all for a higher level of competition for health care.

      Issues w/r/t transparency I’ve personally advocated to the point of wanting to create a cost comparison internet based resource for consumers. The problem is health records are private and providers are not required to provide their charges.

      “The mystery surrounding health-care pricing stems partly from the fact that hospitals and other providers generally don’t publicize how much they’re paid for services, which varies depending on who’s footing the bill. Insurers, which often contract to receive lower prices for their customers, also have traditionally not revealed these negotiated amounts.”

      An example:
      “Consumers also can’t rely on their health plan’s contracts to always deliver the lowest price, because the same insurer might pay widely varying amounts to different care providers. In Maine, one insurer’s preferred-provider organization has paid between $559 and $4,526 for a colonoscopy in a given year, including the portion due from patients, according to data compiled by the state.”
      http://guides.wsj.com/health/health-costs/how-to-research-health-care-prices/

      so legislation would be required to either force providers to offer pricing or allow pricing information be made available via other sources. This goes against tradition and would lead to a higher level of government intervention/regulation. For some philosophically, this is a serious issue.

      Presuming the balance of your response to be facetious.

      Trumps HSA plan would need to be enforced to be broad enough to be beneficial. Most folks do not even accept a ‘raise’ in wage via participation in employer retirement plans so an HSA would be seen as additional burden. The balance of his plan would require substantial governmental oversight.
      https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/healthcare-reform

      Single payer provides a resource: http://www.pnhp.org/facts/quality.pdf

      Hospitals appreciate ACA in part due to fewer unreimbursed expenses: http://kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/how-are-hospitals-faring-under-the-affordable-care-act-early-experiences-from-ascension-health/

      Also: “I’m not the only person to call attention to this. Jonathan Cohn, writing in the New Republic, points out that “The most egregious insurance company abuses—rescinding policies for people who get sick, failing to pay for services that beneficiaries assumed were covered—usually come from the non-group market.”

      So the next time you hear about someone whose individual coverage is being canceled because of the new health care law, consider that the new law is making this market work better for the vast majority of people who are either already in it or need to be in it because they have no other place to get covered.” http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/11/health-insurance-before-obamacare/index.htm

      and the above referenced New Republic article (worth a read and yes, a liberal rag): https://newrepublic.com/article/115625/obamacare-policy-cancellations-media-mythology-republican-spin

      Is there work to be done? Sure. Is ObamaRomneycare worthy of modification? You bet. Is it beneficial as it stands? Unquestionably.

      Jim, I’ll say it again. You and I could get there with an open honest conversation. Let’s deal with substance and not propaganda. The dump Obamacare (ACA) talking point is just selling and we should recognize as such. Employers were dropping sponsorship of health care due to expense even though deductible as Trump advocates, prior to ACA enactment. And we both know pre-existing wasn’t even a consideration for insurers prior to.

      • jim2 | April 9, 2016 at 4:58 pm |

        Forcing insurance companies and healthcare providers to publish prices will not violate patients privacy.

        I see no evidence that Obamacare is working for more people, in fact, I read that about a third of those who signed up dropped out in California. The problem is we have to depend on the government to tell us the truth about enrollment and dropouts. And then there’s this:
        …
        More, the Obama administration hasn’t yet told us how many people dropped their coverage since March 31st. Health plans are telling me that their Obamacare enrollment, like last year, melts at the rate of about 2% each month.

        I will suggest that it is important for these reporters to ask the administration how many more have dropped their coverage during the same period people used the Special Enrollment Period.

        Here’s the bottom line. The Obamacare insurance exchanges aren’t enrolling anywhere near the number of people they were supposed to. And, there is no proof Obamacare has grown since the close of open enrollment. In fact the anecdotal and historical evidence would suggest it is now shrinking.
        …
        http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlaszewski2/2015/08/17/has-obamacare-really-reduced-the-uninsured-by-16-million-and-continued-to-show-strong-growth/#3b31d57d5cb4

        .

      • Danny Thomas | April 9, 2016 at 5:23 pm |

        Jim2,
        “Forcing insurance companies and healthcare providers to publish prices will not violate patients privacy.”
        You missed the point, then stated it yourself. Forcing=government regulation.

        That folks drop coverage is not the correct metric. Why did they drop it? How many dropped auto insurance (a regulatory requirement)? Why? It’s not that simple.

        Jim, Obamacare is imperfect. It certainly needs work. But HSA’s (http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/hsas-health-savings-accounts.aspx) have been available since 2003 with tax benefits. And they are also imperfect:
        “No charges have been filed against Canopy executives related to the missing HSA money. Charges have been brought in a related investment fraud case. Canopy co-founder Jeremy Blackburn is free on $1 million bail.”
        “This case has prompted some tough questions about HSAs. How could this money just disappear? Who was monitoring Canopy Financial? Some people are saying more government regulation is needed.”
        “We set up a whole financial industry without the commensurate regulation,”

        and this out of order:
        “Meantime the Nestruds are left wondering if they’ll ever see their HSA money again. And they’re not alone. Nearly 14,000 customers of Maryland-based Coventry Health Care also are affected. An attorney for the company, Neal Colton, says $17 million is missing. Coventry has replaced that money for its customers and will try to recover as much as it can in the bankruptcy.”http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123274765

  62. jim2 | April 9, 2016 at 2:40 pm |

    From the article:
    …
    Donald Trump explains how he would persuade Mexico to pay for the wall on the southwest border: As President, he says he would tax the $25 billion in cash remittances going to Mexico annually, most of it sent by illegal aliens, according to a congressional report.

    This is not a new idea, but it is a very good idea. Who opposes it? The usual suspects– those who profit from illegal immigration.
    …
    By a weird but provident coincidence, Western Union was owned at that time by a company called First Data Corporation, which had its headquarters in my district. The chairman of the company threatened to move the headquarters operation and its hundreds of employees out of Colorado if Tom Tancredo was re-elected to Congress that November. He wrote editorials, held community meetings and for weeks campaigned to “teach Tancredo a lesson.”

    It all came to nothing after opponents discovered that the large majority of voters in Colorado liked the idea of taxing the remittances, which at that time amounted to more than $50 million leaving the Colorado economy each year.
    …
    The billions of dollars in cash going to millions of individuals in a hundred foreign nations ought to be a concern for another reason as well. There is a strong likelihood that millions of those dollars are helping finance Islamist terror groups.
    …
    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/04/09/stop-remittances-to-reduce-illegal-immigration-improve-national-security/

  63. David Springer | April 9, 2016 at 9:42 pm |

    So… Cruz just shut out Trump in Colorado.

    Stick a fork in Trump he’s done.

  64. Danny Thomas | April 9, 2016 at 10:34 pm |

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/boston-globe-prints-fake-front-page-satirizing-trump/2016/04/09/76ac2e66-febc-11e5-813a-90ab563f0dde_story.html

    BOSTON — The editorial board of The Boston Globe is using a satirical front page to express its uneasiness with a potential Donald Trump presidency.

  65. Joseph | April 9, 2016 at 11:26 pm |

    I saw these two articles which relates to genesis of an important faction in the Republican party and how Trump is trying to tap into it.

    http://time.com/secret-origins-of-the-tea-party/

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-teaparty-idUSKCN0WH133

  66. jim2 | April 9, 2016 at 11:35 pm |

    From the article:
    …
    (Reuters) – Celebrity real estate developer Donald Trump has extended his lead nationally over Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)97%
    of Texas and Ohio Governor John Kasich for the Republican presidential nomination, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll.

    The national online poll from April 4-8 showed that 42 percent of Republicans support Trump, compared with 32 percent for Cruz and 20 percent for Kasich.
    …
    http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/04/09/poll-donald-trump-extends-national-lead-ted-cruz-john-kasich/

  67. David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 9:19 am |

    http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/cruz-sweeps-colorado-trump-campaign-issues-error-filled-ballots-n553586

    Cruz Sweeps Colorado as Trump Campaign Issues Error-Filled Ballots

    Colorado Springs, CO — Sen. Ted Cruz finished Colorado’s delegate fight the way he started it: With overwhelming victory.

    Donald Trump finished it the way he started as well: With a disorganized and frustrated campaign plagued by mistakes.

    Cruz took all 13 of the delegates up for grabs on Saturday to complete a clean sweep of the state. Delegates endorsed by his campaign swept all seven Congressional District conventions held over the last week as well, which added another 21 delegates. Another three slots are reserved for state party officials.

    “Today was another resounding victory for conservatives, Republicans, and Americans who care about the future of our country,” the Cruz campaign said in a statement Saturday night.

  68. David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 9:21 am |

    http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/cruz-nabs-delegate-backers-virginia-district-trump-won-n553641

    Wytheville, VA — Despite Donald Trump winning Virginia on Super Tuesday, two of three delegates elected in the first district convention here are supporters of rival Ted Cruz — which could matter if a second ballot were to take place at the national convention.

    In the 9th congressional district, Donald Trump took over 47 percent of the votes on Super Tuesday. In Virginia’s primary for this district, Ted Cruz won only about 19 percent of the votes.

    GOP delegates from Virginia are required to vote as allocated by voters in the primary in the first ballot at the national convention, but are able to vote for whoever they choose in successive ballots.

    In Virginia’s primary, Trump received 17 delegates, whereas Cruz had only received eight.

    “I want to vote for a conservative and that’s what I know I’m getting with Ted Cruz. And with Donald Trump, it’s a question mark,” delegate Kyle Kilgore of Gate City told NBC News.

    • Glenn Stehle | April 10, 2016 at 9:42 am |

      Just one more tell-tale sign of the United States’ broken and dysfuncitonal polity, and its sham democracy:

      Let us also remember that the «primaries» are not organised by the political parties, as in Europe, but by the states – under the responsibility of the governors and each according to his own system.

      The primaries are designed so that, in fine, the major parties each present a candidate for the Presidential function who is compatible with the interests of the governors. They are therefore organised on the Soviet model of «democratic centralism» in order to eliminate any individual with an original thought, or simply anyone who may risk questioning the system, to the profit of a «consensual» personality.

      In the case where the participating citizens are unable to nominate a candidate, or particularly if they manage to nominate one who is incompatible with the system, the party Convention which follows will decide, if necessary, by overturning the citizens’ vote.

      The US primaries are therefore not a «democratic moment», but on the contrary, a process which, on the one hand, allows the citizens to express themselves, while on the other, directs them to give up their own interests and line up behind a candidacy which conforms to the system.

      In 2002, Robert A. Dahle, professor of Constitutional Law at Yale university, published a study of the way in which the Constitution had been written, in 1787, in order to ensure that the United States would never become a true democracy [1].

      More recently, in 2014, two professors of Political Science, Martin Gilens at Princeton and Benjamin I. Page at Northwestern, demonstrated that the system has evolved in such a way that all laws are now voted at the demand and under the control of an economic elite, without ever taking into account the opinions of the population [2]….

      There would not be any great difference between the policies followed by the evangelist Ted Cruz, the feminist Hillary Clinton or the Marxist Bernie Sanders. All three would have to walk in the footsteps already left by George W. Bush and Barack Obama….

      Only the election of Donald Trump could mark a change in the system….

      At this stage, it is impossible to predict who will be the next President, or even if that would have any importance. But for ineluctable demographic reasons, the present system will collapse in the next few years, when Anglo-Saxons become the minority.

      http://www.voltairenet.org/article191090.html

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 10:15 am |

        Drama queen.

        Anyone can run for POTUS in any state in the union which renders the quoted diatribe false in its principle conjecture. Political parties are private organizations not governmental entities of any kind. The notion that state governors control them is nonsense on the face of it. Ross Perot is a recent example of “anyone”.

        The United States is not and never was a true democracy. It’s a constitutional republic.

        Long live the republic.

        As always, write that down!

      • Glenn Stehle | April 10, 2016 at 11:00 am |

        David,

        I believe most political scientists and philosophers, as well as most people, would beg to disagree:

        Be that as it may, neither the people in general nor the political scientists in particular have left much doubt that the parties, because of their monopoly of nomination, cannot be regarded as popular organs, but that they are, on the contrary, the very efficient instruments though which the power of the people is curtailed and controlled.

        — HANNAH ARENDT, On Revolution

  69. David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 10:58 am |

    Andrew Breitbart spinning in his grave.

    http://www.mediaite.com/tv/andrew-breitbart-in-2011-donald-trump-is-not-a-conservative/

    Andrew Breitbart in 2011: ‘Donald Trump Is Not a Conservative’
    by Alex Griswold | 11:18 am, August 10th, 2015

    In light of the recent allegation that conservative website Breitbart was paid to write positive stories about Donald Trump (an allegation the site’s writers strongly deny), it’s worth remembering that founder Andrew Breitbart was anything but a Trump supporter.

    “Of course he’s not a conservative. He was for Nancy Pelosi before he was against Nancy Pelosi,” Breitbart joked during a 2011 appearance on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor.

    The conservative icon (who died in 2012 of heart failure) went on to presciently warn that a “celebrity candidate” could win the nomination if conservatives weren’t careful. “Celebrity is everything in this country,” he said. “And if these guys don’t learn how to play the media the way that Barack Obama played the media last election cycle and the way that Donald Trump is playing the election cycle, we’re going to probably get a celebrity candidate.”

    Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld actually pointed out that Breitbart didn’t like Trump in his recent column for Breitbart. When rating the candidate’s performance in the most recent debate, Gutfeld gave Trump less than an F- and linked to the above video.

  70. David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 11:05 am |

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/04/05/trump-is-playing-gop-voters-for-chumps-and-they-love-every-bit-of-it/

    Trump is playing GOP voters for chumps. And they love every bit of it.
    By Greg Sargent April 5

    THE MORNING PLUM:

    The big news of the morning is that Donald Trump has finally revealed how he’ll force Mexico to pay for the Great Trumpian Wall that he would erect along our southern border. In a memo to the Post, Trump said he’d threaten to cut off “remittances” sent home from Mexicans abroad (meaning those in the U.S.) as leverage to force a $5-10 billion payment for that wall. Experts doubt the legal and practical viability of this scheme.

    But the details don’t matter in the least. What really matters is the story Trump is telling, which is that economically struggling Americans are getting fleeced by illegals and the elites who are gaming the system in their favor (and on behalf of other various villains); that only Trump is politically incorrect enough to say so; and that only Trump is tough enough to do something about it.

    A new Quinnipiac poll helps shed more light on this dynamic: It finds that an enormous majority of Trump supporters think “the government has gone too far in assisting minority groups.” Click to enlarge:

    http://snag.gy/zAsUa.jpg

    A total of 80 percent of Trump supporters strongly or somewhat agree with this. Only supporters of Ted Cruz come close, at 76 percent; keep in mind that Cruz has edged towards Trump on immigration by ruling out legalization for the 11 million forever. Seventy two percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents also believe it, but John Kasich supporters are evenly split.

    Now, “minority groups” is a pretty loose term. But it seems reasonable to speculate that for a lot of Trump supporters (and for a lot of GOP voters) undocumented Latino immigrants constitute one of those groups. Indeed, this idea is perhaps bolstered by other polling: A recent Post survey found that 54 percent of Trump supporters believe that whites losing out to Hispanics and blacks is a bigger problem than the other way around.

    Anecdotal evidence has suggested that Trump supporters are resentful of government benefits that go to undocumented immigrants. Meanwhile, polls have shown that GOP voters and Trump supporters also support his call for mass deportations.

    Today’s Quinnipiac poll also finds that 78 percent of Trump supporters say they are “falling farther and farther behind economically,” a larger percentage than any other candidate. Meanwhile, 85 percent of Trump supporters say that “America has lost its identity.” This suggests the possibility that the “economic anxiety” often described as the source of Trump’s success does matter, but it’s one side of the coin, while the resonance of Trump’s suggestion that he’d turn back the demographic tide through sheer force of will is the other. As Wonkblog’s analysis of recent polling data concluded, Trump supporters tend to believe their “losses are being caused by other group’s gains.”

    Trump is a very good storyteller. When he told the tale that thousands and thousands of American Muslims celebrated the fall of the Twin Towers, the objections from pointy-headed fact checkers didn’t matter. When Trump vowed to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the U.S., the scheme’s impracticality and affront to American values didn’t matter. The broader story — that there is an insidious force within, that “something is happening” here, and we’d better show the “toughness” necessary to get a handle on it quick, or else — is what mattered, and his supporters thrilled to it.

    Trump’s immigration story — which he has told consistently for at least eight months — is that one of the primary causes of American workers’ suffering is that corrupt elites are doing all they can to help undocumented immigrants eat out of their lunch-buckets. He’d deport and wall off that threat. He’ll make America great again for those who are currently losing out due to the government’s coddling of “minority groups.” The details don’t matter. The intent and emotional content do.

    • Glenn Stehle | April 10, 2016 at 11:44 am |

      From the Washington Post article:

      What really matters is the story Trump is telling, which is that economically struggling Americans are getting fleeced by illegals and the elites who are gaming the system in their favor (and on behalf of other various villains); that only Trump is politically incorrect enough to say so; and that only Trump is tough enough to do something about it.

      A new Quinnipiac poll helps shed more light on this dynamic: It finds that an enormous majority of Trump supporters think “the government has gone too far in assisting minority groups.”

      I’m gobsmacked by the ease with which persons like yourself can throw the opinions, attitudes, beliefs and values of the vast majority of Repblicans under the bus, in favor of those of some bastion of identity politics like the Washington Post, if it means the defeat of Donald Trump.

      Is there noting you consider to be inviolate, other than the defeat of Donald Trump?

      http://i.imgur.com/KiPjrSX.png

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 12:35 pm |

        The only part of conservative that can be said about Trump is the first syllable. Trump is a con man. Cruz is a conservative who respects the constitution, small government, states rights, etc.

        The US remains a constitutional republic with democratically elected representatives in two of its three branches of gov’t. Our constitutional republic was expressly designed to protect the rights of minorities from what is known as “tyranny of the majority”. What you’re seeing in the Trump primary campaign and amongst its supporters doesn’t quite rise to tyranny of a majority it’s an attempt at tyranny of a plurality.

        So when did you become a supporter of mob mentality, Glen? Is this recent, born that way, or what?

      • Glenn Stehle | April 10, 2016 at 1:29 pm |

        David,

        What you are advocating is what is known as polyarchy. And polyarchy has nothing to do with combating the tyranny of the majority.

        First, here’s a description of polyarchy:

        This concept of polyarchy is an outgrowth of elitism theories that developed in the early 20th century to counter the classic definition of democracy as the power or rule (kratos) of the people (demos).

        It builds on earlier elitism theories that argued for an enlightened elite to rule on behalf of the ignorant and unpredictable masses.

        U.S. policy makers and their organic intellectuals in academia, in redefining democracy away from the power of the people and toward competition among elites, often cite (and simplify) Joseph Schumpeter’s classic 1942 study, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. Schumpeter argued for “another theory” of democracy as an institutional arrangement for elites to acquire power by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote. “Democracy,” he said, “means only that the people have the opportunity of accepting or refusing the men who are to rule them.”2

        https://nacla.org/article/democracy-or-polyarchy

        The way polyarch works in practice is that the sheeple are given a choice to vote for two candidates — both candidates having been pre-selected and pre-screened in a highly undemocratic primary process — in our two-party system.

        Second, the shoddy form of democracy which poloyarch entails, and which we practice in the United States, has nothing to do with combating the tyranny of the majority.

        The mechanism the writers of the constitution devised to impede the tyranny of the majority is the separation of powers. How would allowing for a more democratic election of our representatives undermine the separation of powers?

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 1:54 pm |

        “What you are advocating is what is known as polyarchy.”

        No, I’m not. That’ s a straw man.

        Weak tea.

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 2:15 pm |

        “The way polyarch works in practice is that the sheeple are given a choice to vote for two candidates”

        The number of poltical parties in the US is legion. I voted Libertarian the last two presidential election cycles..

        You are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. What you meant to say is two parties have risen to dominance. That’s a tribute to the leadership of those two parties and rebuke of same on the others.

        And again, I will make note of Ross Perot who ran as an independent in 1992 and received 19% of the popular vote, mostly siphoning off votes that would have gone to George HW Bush instead thus handing the White House over to Bill Clinton as well as both houses of congress to the democrats.

        Pragmatism is the biggest factor that keeps two parties the dominant players. There’s a very widespread feeling amongst voters that voting for one of the other parties is a wasted vote. A protest vote. Despite that I protested with my vote. Maybe if more people were like me there would be more than two viable parties. If Trump is the Republican nominee then it will become three consecutive elections the Libertarian party gets my vote. Trump is a potential disaster. He’s a narcissistic bull in a China shop. I refuse to choose between him and Clinton. Ted Cruz is a tea party favorite amongst the actual conservatives in the party which also has a major faction of ignorant bigots looking for scapegoats to blame for lack of success that’s their own doing.

      • climatereason | April 10, 2016 at 2:57 pm |

        David

        Over here, when people do not like a candidate they either do not turn out or spoil their vote.

        Personally i would like to see a positive affirmation that you are discontented with the candidates on offer by being able to vote for ‘none of the above’ and for the numbers who do so to be recorded in the same way as they are for a candidate. Do you have that option over there?

        tonyb

      • Glenn Stehle | April 10, 2016 at 3:07 pm |

        David,

        Either the one who gets the most votes wins the nomination, or the delegates appoint the nominee in a highly elitist and anti-democratic fashion.

        One either favors democracy and the will of electorate, or they don’t.

        There really are not other options, despite the legalistic smoke screen.

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 5:14 pm |

        The Republican Party committee is a private group. If you think they’re elitist and anti-democracy then don’t join. It’s just that simple. I disagree with your assessment wrt to elitist and anti-democracy. They have a duty to do what’s best for the party and don’t have to kowtow to a minority whipped into a passion by a celebrity con man.

        We live in a free country you can form your own party instead of hijacking mine with a plurality. Got it?

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 5:16 pm |

        Tony, no we don’t get a “none of the above” choice.

  71. David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 11:13 am |

    Mob tactics from Trump camp.

    http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trumps-convention-strategy-the-fix-is-in

    Trump’s Convention Strategy: “The Fix Is In”
    BY EVAN OSNOS

    More than three months before any ballots have been cast at the Republican convention, Roger Stone, Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again consigliere, has delivered the campaign equivalent of a severed horse head to delegates who might consider denying Trump the nomination. Trump’s supporters will find you in your sleep, he merrily informed them this week. He did not mean it metaphorically.

    “We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal,” Stone said Monday, on Freedomain Radio. “If you’re from Pennsylvania, we’ll tell you who the culprits are. We urge you to visit their hotel and find them. You have a right to discuss this, if you voted in the Pennsylvania primary, for example, and your votes are being disallowed,” Stone said.

    Over the years, I’ve covered elections in Iraq, Iran, and Burma. Stone’s taunt is every bit as threatening as anything I heard in those places, which have far less experience than America with democracy. Such is the moment we currently inhabit.

    By now, we know most of the chapters in Trump’s political playbook: the epithets for “low-energy” Jeb and Lyin’ Ted and Little Marco, and the bombshell provocations—about, say, a nuclear strike in Europe—as a way to draw attention away from unfavorable news and missteps. And, throughout, of course, the mockery of women. But as we approach the growing prospect of a contested convention, in which delegates can make game-time choices about whom they will support, it’s becoming clearer that Trump may seek to shape the outcome by using his most unwieldy weapon of all: the latent power of usually peaceful people.

    It’s easy to mock Trump for his thin-skinned fixation on the size of his audiences, but that misses a deeper point: you can’t have a riot without a mob. Even before he was a candidate, Trump displayed a rare gift for cultivating the dark power of a crowd. In his role as the primary advocate of the “birther” fiction, he proved himself to be a maestro of the mob mentality, capable of conducting his fans through crescendos of rage and self-pity and suspicion. Speaking to the Times editorial board, in January, he said, “You know, if it gets a little boring, if I see people starting to sort of, maybe, thinking about leaving, I can sort of tell the audience, I just say, ‘We will build the wall!,’ and they go nuts.”

    The symbiotic exchange between a leader and his mob can thrive on what social psychologists call “emotional contagion,” a hot-blooded feedback loop that the science writer Maggie Koerth-Baker describes as “our tendency to unconsciously mimic the outward expression of other people’s emotions (smiles, furrowed brows, leaning forward, etc.) until, inevitably, we begin to feel what they’re feeling.”

    When we are exposed to the right energy, even those of us who are not inclined to cross the boundaries from politics to force will do things that we would ordinarily consider reprehensible. Stephen David Reicher, a sociologist and psychologist at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, who has studied soccer mobs and race riots, told Wired last month, “People don’t lose control, but they begin to act with collective values.” Recently, he has turned his attention to studying Trump’s crowds. “It’s not your individual fate that becomes important but the fate of the group.”

    And therein lies the key to Trump’s ability to introduce menace into the convention: he does not need to call upon his supporters to do anything but protect their newfound sense of identity and purpose. Stone, the political operative and self-described practitioner of “dirty tricks”—a man who (again, no metaphor) has a tattoo of Nixon on his back—has mapped out the fantasy that they will offer to their people, to explain what happens if Trump falls short of the twelve hundred and thirty-seven delegates he needs to secure the nomination. “Either Trump will have twelve hundred and thirty-seven votes, in which case the party will try to throw out some of those delegates in a naked attempt to try to steal this from Donald Trump, or he will be just short of twelve hundred and thirty-seven, in which case many of his own delegates, or, I should say, people in his delegate seats, will abandon him on the second ballot,” Stone said Monday. The convention, he has already told Trump voters, is rigged against them.

    “So the fix is in,” Stone said on Monday. “If Trump does not run the table on the rest of the primaries and the caucuses, we’re looking at a very, very narrow path in which the kingmakers go all out to cheat, to steal, and to snatch this nomination from the candidate who was overwhelmingly selected by the voters, which is why I have urged Trump supporters: come to Cleveland, march on Cleveland, join us in the Forest City.”

    • Glenn Stehle | April 10, 2016 at 12:13 pm |

      David,

      Again, I must ask you, is there anything you consider to be inviolate other than defeating Donald Trump?

      Legitimate democracy?

      The opinions, attitutdes, beliefs and values of the vast majority of rank and file Republicans?

      Maintaining one’s distance from the identity politics and political spin of left-wing bastions like The New Yorker or the Washington Post?

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 12:18 pm |

        So you don’t think the United States is a constitutional republic?

        Amazing. Are you a product of public education? It sure looks like child got left behind in your case.

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 12:24 pm |

        I think the Republican party is a private organization. I consider their right to operate as a private organization inviolate. Happy now?

        You evidently disagree and think they should be compelled to operate within some imagined set of public rights which gives anyone who walk in off the street a binding vote on their operating rules, officer elections, and nominees for public office.

        Very interesting. Please do go on.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 10, 2016 at 12:42 pm |

        David,

        I am certainly aware of the anti-democratic measures written into our constitution over two centuries ago, and the reasons they were placed there.

        But that’s now what I’m asking.

        What I’m asking is, do you believe it is right and just for these legalisms to be used to overrule and subvert the electoral process?

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 1:19 pm |

        Your contention that the electoral process is being subverted is false. The electoral process is proceeding according to the law.

        You can rest assured that if any laws are being broken that Donald Trump will be the first in line at the courthouse to sue somebody.

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 1:26 pm |

        I believe in the rule of law. I believe in due process to change the law. I don’t believe in mobs contravening the rule of law. If there are riots by Trump supporters at the convention I believe in rubber bullets, tear gas, paddy wagons, and jail sentences. I believe in non-violent protest, freedom of speech, freedom of press, and freedom of religion. I believe in the bill of rights and individual liberty. I believe in freedom to break the law as well as accepting the sometimes harsh consequence of breaking the law.

        Let me know which, if any, of those beliefs you hold.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 10, 2016 at 2:35 pm |

        David,

        The more you write the more you sound like Richard Nixon, that great defender of the rule of law. And of course we all know what a paragon of law and order Nixon was, especially when it came to his own shining conduct.

        Nixon argued that “the deterioration [of respect for the rule of law] can be traced directly to the spread of the corrosive doctrine that every citizen possesses an inherent right to decide for himself which laws to obey and when to disobey them.”

        The laws Nixon was defending were the ones that, for instance, required Blacks and Hispanics to ride at the back of the bus, to use separate private and public facilities as whites, and prevented Blacks and Hispanics from voting.

        https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/95/83/71/95837148a5eb90f2331ec0daa1891f14.jpg

        http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/commonlaw/files/2015/06/Whites.jpg

        http://i.imgur.com/CJdLnkC.png

        Nixon was responding to the arguments of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who in “Love, Law and Civil Disobedience” wrote:

        Well, I think one would have to see the whole meaning of this movement at this point by seeing that the students recognize there are two types of laws. There are just laws and there are unjust laws….

        I would go on to say in more concrete terms that an unjust law is a code that one group inflicts on another group that is not binding on itself. So that this becomes difference made legal.

        Another thing that we can say is that an unjust law is a code…that the legislative bodies that made these laws were not democratically elected….

        We could come up to our own day and we see it in many instances. We must never forget that everything that Hitler did in Germany was “legal.”

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 5:21 pm |

        Yeah and you remind me of the mob that took over Germany in the 1930’s. I’d rather be like Nixon.

    • jim2 | April 10, 2016 at 5:20 pm |

      This is exactly why I want Trump as President. He plays to win and he knows a good deal when he sees it. He is absolutely right that other countries should pay for a goodly portion of their own defense. He is right that all immigrants should only be here legally. He is right with the idea to get rid of Dept. of Ed. He is right that we need more equitable trade deals. He is right to simplify taxes. He is right to try to get corporations back to this country. He is right on so many things. A billion times better than Obummer.

      • David Springer | April 11, 2016 at 4:09 am |

        He’s a con man with no viable plans for getting anything done pitching to imbeciles who don’t care how they’re just in love with the ideas.

        Trump will start trade wars that wreck our economy, abandon military bases and wreck our ability to project power, make the imported products produced with cheap foreign labor we buy every day more expensive, cause a humanitarian crisis rounding up more Mexicans to ship back on trains after stripping them of everything except the clothes on their back than I-Iitler rounded up Jewz, and other boneheaded catastrophes brought on by ignorance of how the world outside of Trump Enterprises and filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy when you screw up really operates.

        He’s a huge walking ignorant boob whose only proven ability is conning lower class whites into thinking that a playboy billionaire who never wanted for anything feels their pain and will help them “regain” a country that was never theirs in the first place. No wonder you’re struggling on the lower rungs of the ladder just above illegal migrant farm workers and worried if they get papers you won’t be able to compete with them.

  72. David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 12:16 pm |

    Cruz’ Colorado delegate sweep knocked Trump down another percentage point to 92% on track for clinching the nomination.

    As they say, there’s only one way to eat an elephant… one bite at a time.

    http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-targets/

  74. jim2 | April 10, 2016 at 5:27 pm |

    Tony B. It’s not only the Redimowit Party that allows voters no choice, it is also the Dimowits. From the article:
    …
    Bernie Sanders won again Saturday — and still lost.

    The Vermont senator took ­Wyoming by an impressive 12 percentage-point margin in statewide caucuses, beating Clinton 56-44 percent.

    But under the Democratic party’s oddball delegate system, Sanders’ winning streak — he has won seven out of the past eight contests — counts for little.

    In fact, despite his win, he splits the Wyoming’s 14 pledged delegates 7 to 7 under the caucus calculus.

    Clinton, meanwhile, also gets the state’s four superdelegates — who already pledged their allegiance to her in January. So despite “losing,” she triumphs 11-7 in the delegate tally.
    …
    http://nypost.com/2016/04/09/bernie-sanders-wins-democratic-caucuses-in-wyoming/

  75. jim2 | April 10, 2016 at 5:55 pm |

    From the article:
    …
    New York Republican Presidential Primary FOX News Trump 54, Kasich 22, Cruz 15 Trump +32
    Pennsylvania Republican Presidential Primary FOX News Trump 48, Cruz 20, Kasich 22 Trump +26
    Pennsylvania Republican Presidential Primary Morning Call Trump 37, Cruz 29, Kasich 28 Trump +8
    New York Republican Presidential Primary Emerson Trump 56, Kasich 17, Cruz 22 Trump +34
    …
    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/

    • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 6:55 pm |

      How novel. Trump actually (barely) getting 50% of the vote in a state for the very first time. Projected of course. Shouldn’t count chickens before they hatch.

      Remains to be seen how the delegates shake out. If you’re from upstate or western New York State then you generally consider the New York City metroplex to be a pox on the state. The NYC metroplex is half the state population and half the congressional districts. NYC native Trump is likely to score far more than 50% in those districts and come in second or third place in the other half of the state. NY rules are 2 votes per district for who gets the most votes and one vote for runnerup. Statewide winner only gets 14 votes.

      I’m a native western New Yorker, by the way,near the Ohio and Pennsylvania borders. And yes, I speak for them. Almost all of them. Just ask around.

  76. David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 6:06 pm |

    In Trump-world Mexicans are the new “useless eaters”. He proposes to take 11 million men, women, and children living in America, rounding them up like chattel, stripping them of their possessions, and packing them up onto trains headed south. The uneducated redneck bigots making up his supporters, who decry the “elite” in the Republican party, are themselves the new elite being do superior to illegal aliens by no more than the virtue of where their inbred mothers whelped them.

    I am sickened by this mob of pigs clothing themselves in an American flag.

    • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 6:20 pm |

      Tell Pat Buchanan to put that in his pipe and smoke it.

    • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 6:40 pm |

      The party of Lincoln is undergoing a coup attempt by uneducated angry white bigots predominantly in the deep south.

      That sound you hear is Lincoln spinning in his grave.

    • Glenn Stehle | April 10, 2016 at 6:55 pm |

      David,

      You might want to dismount that moral high horse, unless you want to look like a total hypocrite, since Cruz is no great champion of human rights either.

      In fact, Cruz’s proposal for dealing with the “Mexican menace” is indistinguishable from Trump’s:

      Ted Cruz toughens immigration stance, says he’d deport all illegals
      http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/22/ted-cruz-says-hed-deport-all-illegal-immigrants-us/

      Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas noticeably toughened his stance on immigration Monday night, saying in an interview that the U.S. should deport all 12 million illegal immigrants now here.

      In an interview with Fox News, host Bill O’Reilly asked Mr. Cruz whether he would “round up all 12 million illegal aliens here, and if so, how?”

      Mr. Cruz replied, “yes, we should deport them. We should build a wall, we should triple the Border Patrol. Federal law requires that anyone here illegally that’s apprehended should be deported.”

      When Mr. O’Reilly pressed him how this would happen and whether a President Cruz would tell federal law-enforcement to actively seek out illegals, the Texan didn’t back away.

      “Look, Bill, of course you would. That’s what ICE exists for. We have law enforcement that looks for people who are violating the laws, that apprehends them and deports them,” Mr. Cruz said.

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 7:07 pm |

        I don’t want Cruz either. Thanks for not asking.

        I’m rooting for Kasich purely on the basis of who polls the best against Hillary and who will be the best standard bearer for the Republican majority members in the house, senate, and gubernatorial seats. Those majorities are more important than the bigot branch of the Tea Party leaving the fold.

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 7:09 pm |

        Cruz is on record offering a compromise on illegals in actual senate practice. A “forever green card” that can be used to remain in the country but never enables the holder to become a citizen. Current green cards entitle the holders to become naturalized citizens after five years.

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 10:17 pm |

        http://www.factcheck.org/2015/12/did-cruz-support-legalization/

        Cruz offered an amendment to a Senate bill that legalized illegals but didn’t give them a path to citizenship. This is called compromise and it’s how things get done. Reagan defended compromise by famously saying “If you are offered half a loaf what do you do? The answer is you take it and then go back for more.” In Trump-world I think they call it making a deal.

    • Arch Stanton | April 10, 2016 at 7:14 pm |

      David, according to your scale you redefine ‘new useless eaters’ leaving out who the old useless eaters were. At least we now know that bigotry is color blind. We could just send them all to West Virginia, if you think that would help.

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 9:54 pm |

        I didn’t think useless eaters needed to be defined. The term is self-explanatory. They are people who are a burden on society. Consume more than they produce.

        Ironically the Trump followers mostly fall into that 47% made famous by the last Republican brain fart, Mitt Romney. He claimed 47% of Americans pay no federal taxes. Yet they all use services provided by the federal government. Useless eaters.

        Romney was the second time I voted Libertarian. Dole and Palin were the first time. I mean WTF? I’m getting to the point of pragmatism. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Go Hillary!

      • David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 9:56 pm |

        Sorry. McCain and Palin not Dole. All the losers start to blend together after a while.

  77. Joseph | April 10, 2016 at 7:41 pm |

    Trump’s New Right-Hand Man Accuses Cruz Campaign of ‘Gestapo Tactics’

    http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/trump-s-new-right-hand-man-accuses-cruz-campaign-gestapo-n553721

    And unspecified ‘tactics’ to boot..

  78. jim2 | April 10, 2016 at 8:12 pm |

    From the article:
    …
    The wedge of the culture wars still cuts deep, but for Republicans, it’s been turned inward. Moreover, Donald Trump has risen to the top of this year’s GOP presidential candidate heap without placing any emphasis on the kind of culture-war issues that excite evangelicals. His recent floundering on abortion makes clear he’s barely given the issue any thought.
    …
    Nor is the Republican universe limited to the increasingly warring factions of business and evangelicals. Trump has brought into Republican ranks a new third camp — secular working-class whites, many of them apparently open to racist and xenophobic appeals but largely unconcerned with the sex-centered issues that so vex the evangelicals, who have flocked instead to Senator Ted Cruz’s banner.

    The extraordinary 2016 presidential election process has already revealed the massive disenchantment of working-class Republicans with what the party establishment has long viewed as Ronald Reagan’s holy writ: tax cuts for the rich, scaling back entitlements, overseas interventions and free trade. Now, the GOP’s evangelical base has run smack dab up against the party’s financial base — corporate America.

    Beset by both a class war and a fierce culture war, Republicans are reeling. No longer merely a party in search of electable candidates, they have become a party in search of an identity.
    …
    http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2016/04/08/reaping-as-they-sowed-how-the-culture-wars-are-smiting-the-gop/

  79. David Springer | April 10, 2016 at 9:58 pm |

    No the republicans have an identity. They’re trying to ditch the Palin rednecks making them look bad.

  80. Glenn Stehle | April 11, 2016 at 11:16 am |

    Trump: The system is rigged, it’s crooked

  81. Glenn Stehle | April 11, 2016 at 11:28 am |

    Anti-Trumpism
    http://iwallerstein.com/anti-trumpism/

    I have been as appalled as anyone at the style and content of Donald Trump’s search for the U.S. presidency. I have at no point been tempted in any way to support him. I do not intend to vote for him.

    But there is something happening that needs to be explained. It is not Trumpism, but Anti-Trumpism….

    What is not discussed very much is the phenomenon of what I shall call Anti-Trumpism. It is of course normal that there are those who oppose the choice of a particular candidate.

    What is unusual and needs a closer look is why the opposition seems to take on an almost hysterical tone, in which there is a suggestion that the election of Trump would transform the world (or at least the United States) fundamentally and permanently….

    Why then the hysteria? I think it is clearly that Donald Trump is truly a candidate who is not under the control of the so-called Establishment, which does not know what he would really do, were he the president….

    Look at all the hints he has thrown out about his actual agenda. He does not intend to send troops on the ground anywhere. He does not intend to support so-called free trade treaties. He does not intend to revoke the diplomatic opening to Cuba or the agreement with Iran. He is for a bi-state solution in Israel/Palestine. He will not change Social Security. He is not terribly concerned about issues like abortion. His latest outrage about punishing those who have abortions, and the swiftness with which he recanted when he saw the negative reaction his remarks evoked is actually further evidence about how little he cares about the subject. And perhaps most important of all, he is open to increasing taxes on the truly wealthy….

    But is a Trump candidacy an irrevocable catastrophe for the United States and/or for the Republican Party? This seems to me a great exaggeration, however you feel about Trump.

  82. Danny Thomas | April 11, 2016 at 11:28 am |

    Or, it could maybe possibly might just be missing a grasp of the rules?https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/11/donald-trumps-sloppy-voter-outreach-extends-even-to-his-own-children/

    If one can’t organize a state oriented campaign (or even a home) might one question the ability to organize a larger administration well?

    • Glenn Stehle | April 11, 2016 at 12:20 pm |

      From the Washington Post article:

      It was Trump’s campaign that wasn’t prepared for the process.

      But it is the process that is completely vitiated and anti-democratic, and was designed from the very get-go to be that way.

      But of course the establishment apologists wouldn’t understand morality, because they don’t seem to have any:

      [M]oral acts affirm or express a commitment… Therefore, they are intrinsically motivated and not subject to means-end analysis (Dyke, 1981, p. 11)….

      In purely moral situations, the means end scheme does not apply…

      Moral acts often concern intentions and processes, not outcomes. Unlike pleasure, which is a matter of achieving the desired end-state, moral commitments can be expressed by taking the proper steps (choosing the morally sanctified course) even when the sought-after result is not attained.

      — AMITAI ETZIONI, The Moral Dimension

      As Etzioni goes on to explain, the establishment apologists have “labored long and hard to show that practically all behavior is driven by pleasure and self-interest.”

      The campaigns of Sanders and Trump are putting the establishment doctrine to the test.

      • Danny Thomas | April 11, 2016 at 12:29 pm |

        Glenn,

        “This story was first published on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2015 at 2:06 p.m.”http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28700919/colorado-republicans-cancel-2016-presidential-caucus-vote

        “The Colorado system often favors anti-establishment candidates……….”
        (So I guess it was okay before, when that was the leaning?)

        “”If there’s the potential for a brokered convention in any way, the unaffiliated delegates become extremely important,” said Joy Hoffman, the Arapahoe County GOP chairwoman who attended the party meeting. “If there is someone who becomes a front-runner, … then nobody’s important. So I think the view became that if we were not bound, it’s not the worse thing that could happen.”

        Sorry, but this just comes across as whining because it didn’t seem to go a certain way. Had it gone that way, think we would have heard a cross word? I don’t.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 11, 2016 at 1:40 pm |

        Danny,

        So you’re joining hands with David Springer in the anti-democracy camp?

        Oh well, I suppose we’re seeing another real-life demonstration of the ancient proverb, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

        The critiques of the placebo we call “democracy” in the United States (and, for that matter, througout the West) date from well before the 2016 presidential primary campaigns.

        So no, the shoddy knockoff of democracy we practice was not “okay before.”

        What, pray tell, do you believe the following have in common, other than that they all call for a more participatory and direct democracy, centered in the citizens more than in the state and the political elites?

        • Tea Party in the United States
        • Occupy movement in the United States and UK
        • Indignados in Spain
        • #YoSoy132 in Mexico
        • Geração Rasca in Portugal
        • Place de la République in France

        Hannah Arendt wrote her critique (cited above) in 1963:

        Be that as it may, neither the people in general nor the political scientists in particular have left much doubt that the parties, because of their monopoly of nomination, cannot be regarded as popular organs, but that they are, on the contrary, the very efficient instruments though which the power of the people is curtailed and controlled.

        — HANNAH ARENDT, On Revolution

        The studies from the article by Thierry Meyssan I cited also predate the 2016 presidential primaries.

        In 2002, Robert A. Dahle, professor of Constitutional Law at Yale university, published a study of the way in which the Constitution had been written, in 1787, in order to ensure that the United States would never become a true democracy [1]. More recently, in 2014, two professors of Political Science, Martin Gilens at Princeton and Benjamin I. Page at Northwestern, demonstrated that the system has evolved in such a way that all laws are now voted at the demand and under the control of an economic elite, without ever taking into account the opinions of the population [2].

        And who do you expect to raise objections to the corrupt and rigged process, other than a wronged party?

        In legal parlance, that’s called having “standing”:

        Standing is the ability of a party to bring a lawsuit in court based upon their stake in the outcome. A party seeking to demonstrate standing must be able to show the court sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged. Otherwise, the court will rule that you “lack standing” to bring the suit and dismiss your case.

        http://definitions.uslegal.com/s/standing/

        This case will be tried in the courtroom of public opinion. We’ll see how it goes.

        But even if the establishment wins the battle, I don’t think I’d take that victory lap just yet. This is a war, and the longue durée applies.

      • Danny Thomas | April 11, 2016 at 5:14 pm |

        Glenn,
        Rest assured I’m no enemy of yours, David’s or democracy. Trump knew (or should have known) the rules of the game prior to entry. And poking a stick at a bear comes with ramifications.
        Time for him to put on his ‘big boy pant’s’ and stop whining.

        Politics is a contact sport. Don’t whine if ya get dinged up after play has started.k

      • Glenn Stehle | April 11, 2016 at 2:34 pm |

        Danny Thomas said:

        This story was first published on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2015 at 2:06 p.m.

        http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28700919/colorado-republicans-cancel-2016-presidential-caucus-vote

        “The Colorado system often favors anti-establishment candidates……….”

        It’s not lost on me the way in which you so carefully selected your quote to make your case. When we look at the whole quote, it conveys a very different meaning. Here’s the full quote from the article:

        The Colorado system often favors anti-establishment candidates who draw a dedicated following among activists — as evidenced by Rick Santorum’s victory in 2012 caucus. So the party’s move may hurt GOP contenders such as Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Rand Paul, who would have received a boost if they won the state.

        So the author of the article acknowledged back on August 25, 2015 that the process “may hurt” Trump, who he considered not to be amongst the ranks of “anit-establishment candidates..” (Go figure.)

      • Danny Thomas | April 11, 2016 at 4:13 pm |

        Glenn,
        I thought it was quite clear that the excerpt was intended to indicate that the change would NOT benefit Trump but yet that he was aware (or should have been) at least last August.

        Had the intention been to mislead the link would not have been provided. And I would not have commented regarding how it had previously leaned Trumps (the so called anti-establishment candidate) direction. Were that the case (that it lean his way) do you really think he’d complain about how the process was skewed?

        I suggest again, it’s just convenient whining.

      • Danny Thomas | April 11, 2016 at 11:41 pm |

        Glenn,

        Ran across this one and it’s saying better than I could: ” If Trump can’t anticipate his opponents’ moves in a straightforward game like this, where the rules are written down and publicly available, how’s he going to do with foreign policy?”

        and kinda like David Springer suggested: “And one more thing. Why doesn’t Trump ever talk about the ways in which the system has been “rigged” to benefit him? (Politics make strange bedfellows when I’m supporting Mr. Springer. After all, he considers me a m0ron.)

        Trump now leads the Republican field with 756 delegates — or 45 percent of all delegates awarded to date. Yet he has won about 37 percent of all votes in the primaries, according to the NBC analysis, meaning Trump’s delegate support is greater than his actual support from voters.”

        “If you’re an advocate of strict, straightforward democracy, where every vote counts the same, then Trump’s lead is bigger than it “should be” and the size of his delegate lead is “unfair” to Cruz.” (In part, why I asked the question about Gore)

        The game, is after all, the game.

        Think you’ll find this an interesting read: http://hotair.com/archives/2016/04/11/trump-i-was-cheated-in-colorado-by-failing-to-follow-rules-that-were-clear-to-everyone-months-ago/

      • Danny Thomas | April 11, 2016 at 11:56 pm |

        Glenn,
        Yet another commentary covering the same ground that Donald “the art of the deal” Trump may have just simply been out ‘dealt’.

        “”It also might be the central element of his undoing. He didn’t need real organizations to win. So he didn’t build them. And now that he needs them, he doesn’t have them.”

        If you’ve paid attention to Donald Trump’s Twitter feed today, you probably have the sense that this weekend didn’t break his way. In Colorado, in Indiana, in Iowa, his supporters were solidly outmaneuvered by the Cruz team. In Virginia, he failed to pick up all the delegates available to him under the race’s results. ” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/paloma/the-daily-trail/2016/04/11/the-daily-trail-how-fixable-is-donald-trump-s-delegate-problem/570bf6af981b92a22dedbc71/

        (Went looking for info on Virginia and found this: http://wjla.com/news/local/trump-won-va-primary-in-march-but-cruz-backers-plan-to-win-more-delegates)

      • David Springer | April 11, 2016 at 5:05 pm |

        I don’t understand why you believe private political parties should operate by mob rule.

        Again, if you believe that, start your own party and make your own rules.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 12, 2016 at 9:20 am |

        Danny Thomas,

        The author of the Hot Air article certainly isn’t as confused as the author of the first article you linked from the Denver Post, who labors under the falsehood that Trump is an establishment candidate. Nevertheless, this new gunner seems to be every bit as immoral as the first.

        Our new gunner, ALLAHPUNDIT, for instance says that:

        When the rules were altered last August, decoupling the caucus from the process of awarding delegates, it was done with the intent of preventing another victory by an outsider — not just Trump but Cruz, Rand Paul, Ben Carson, and so on. The hope, I’m sure, was that an establishment champion would emerge this year and would, by dint of his greater campaign resources and “insider” support,” be able to out-organize all of the insurgent candidates in electing delegates directly. Trump’s not wrong, in other words, to believe that the system was “rigged,” but it was rigged to try to hurt Cruz as much as to hurt him.

        So, after the rules were altered last August, the delegates still end up getting selected through smoke-filled back room deal making, and not by an open and transparent electoral process. (This smoke-filled back room wheeling and dealing is the very thing Trump claims he swore off of when he decided to enter public life.)

        But ALLAHPUNDIT glibly sees nothing wrong with this corrupt process. No need of reform here!

        Instead, ALLAHPUNDIT comes to this conclusion: The process is corrupt and biased, but just get over it and learn to play dirty, because that’s the only way you’re going to win in this corrupt system.

        “Cruz adapted and Trump didn’t,” ALLAHPUNDIT tells us, and Trump has demonstrated an “inability to fight for delegates properly,” charges Ben Shapiro.

        ALLAHPUNDIT adds,

        If anything, in fact, the delegate-wrangling process should be a godsend for Trump. It moves the race out of the ballot box, where he’s vulnerable to a surge of #NeverTrump votes as the primaries near their conclusion, to the backroom, where he can work his fatcat dealmaking magic….

        The billionaire who wrote “The Art of the Deal,” who’s bragged for months about how shrewd he was in buying influence with pols like Hillary Clinton by cutting them big checks for donations, is now whining that it’s unfair to dangle goodies in front of political actors to get them to do your bidding.

        Lordy, lordy!

        If you want to see where the sort of sociopathic thinking that ALLAHPUNDIT AND Shapiro advocate leads, just come to Mexico and live for a while. You’ll see where the road to perdition ends.

        Things in the United States may not be as good as they could be, but let me assure you, they don’t have to improve. They can get much, much worse.

        And when it comes to the race to the bottom when it comes to ethics and morality, it doesn’t get much worse than ALLAHPUNDIT and Ben Shapiro.

      • David Springer | April 12, 2016 at 11:02 am |

        Dear Glen,

        You don’t like the Republican party rules for selecting nominees. You want different rules.

        Duly noted!!!

        Ding!

        Next!

  84. Glenn Stehle | April 11, 2016 at 2:58 pm |

    Former First Lady Laura Bush hints she would vote for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump

    http://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/former-first-lady-laura-bush-hints-she-would-vote-for-hillary-clinton-over-donald-trump/

    Should we act surprised?

    The goings on between the establishment Republicans and Democrats may make for good entertainment. But like professional wrestling, one should never mistake it for a real contest.

    • David Springer | April 11, 2016 at 4:13 pm |

      She’s a lady, he’s a pig. No surprise.

    • Joshua | April 11, 2016 at 4:26 pm |

      Glenn –

      Has it occurred to you that people find Trump to be obnoxious, abhorrent, narcissistic, fraudulent, and a con man? Perhaps not all of his high unfavorables isn’t because he’s threatening “the establishment.” Consider that Clinton has high unfavorables also.

      I suggest that you walk back of the ledge a bit. Certainly, our the wealthy have disproportionate power in our society, and leverage the political system to maintain that status quo, but there’s no need to go all binary and view our society as going to he|| and a place where the people have no voice. Looking at the larger trajectory, the arc is definitely towards more people having more influence on our society by huge margins.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 11, 2016 at 9:49 pm |

        Joshua,

        What has occurred to me is that:

        1) Establishment elites of very diverse political persuasions have come together to put forth a united front against Trump,

        2) As Wallerstein correctly noted, the opposition to Trump is irrational and borders on the hysterical,

        3) The only thing uniting these highly diverse individuals, and the only thing they have in common, is their anti-Trumpism, and

        4) All the irrationality and histrionics are for naught, because Trump just keeps on taking names and kicking ass.

      • David Springer | April 12, 2016 at 4:12 am |

        The expression is “kicking ass and taking names”, doofus.

      • Joshua | April 12, 2016 at 10:26 pm |

        Glenn –

        Your evaluation is highly subjective, yet you present it as established fact. That is problematic. For example:

        ==> 2) As Wallerstein correctly noted, the opposition to Trump is irrational and borders on the hysterical,

        Obviously, your determination of “irrational” is highly subjective. It isn’t irrational to oppose him strongly because he’s a narcissistic, self-serving, demagogue who deliberately seeks to exploit fear-mongering for personal gain. You may not agree that having him as president would cause a serious decline in the status of our country and the lives of many of our citizens, but you aren’t in a position to judge such views as “irrational.”

        Similar with your pronouncement of “hysterical.”

        ==> 3) The only thing uniting these highly diverse individuals, and the only thing they have in common, is their anti-Trumpism, and

        You have the direction of causality wrong. It isn’t anit-Trumpism that unites them. In fact, vast quantities of those who are anti-Trump are far, far from “united.”

        They are aligned in being anti-Trump because they share some of the views that I described of him above. It isn’t anit-Trumpism that “unites’ them, it is their determination that he represents a harmful path forward that aligns their views.

      • Joshua | April 12, 2016 at 10:30 pm |

        And once again, you have formed a weak conclusion that the opposition to anti-Trump only derives from him representing an “anti-establishment” threat.

        1) He isn’t “anti-establishment.” He is, in fact, the epitome of an establishment insider who has leveraged the mechanisms that the wealthy use to maintain the status quo to further consolidate his power.

        2) There are many reasons to be “anti-Trump” that have nothing to do with whether he is “anti-establishment” or not. For example, many are anti-Trump because they see him as an obnoxious demagogue who deliberate exploits fear by proposing unrealistic situations to problems for the purpose of his personal gain.

  85. Glenn Stehle | April 11, 2016 at 3:05 pm |

    And if any more evidence was needed that the Clintons and the Bushes are batting for the same team, there’s this from Ben Jealous:

    The Great Recession is the defining economic experience of millennials, just as the Great Depression was for their grandparents and great grandparents.

    They understand that President Cilnton’s decision to weaken Glass-Steagall made the Great Recession possible. It allowed banks to operate in ways that had been banned ever since FDR championed Glass-Steagall a half century earlier.

    Furthermore, virtually every American between 18 and 24 is paying a price for mass incarceration.

    This is because state after state has cut their higher education budget to pay for higher incarceration. As a result, public university tuition and student default rates have soared. Our youngest voters find themselves most likely to either be in prison, indentured by student loan debt or afraid to even apply to college.

    President Clinton was misleading when he suggested his 1994 crime bill was only responsible for 10 percent of America’s mass incarceration crisis because that bill only applied to the federal system. Since at least the 1970s, when incarceration rates began rising in America, the states have quickly replicated federal changes in sentencing laws.

    Indeed, most Black Lives Matter activists have paid a steep price for President Clinton’s policies.

    However, they also understand what President Clinton has often ignored: while the percentages are higher in the black community, an equal or larger number of our white sisters and brothers have been impacted by the sky-high incarceration, poverty, and student debt default rates spurred by the very policies he touted.

    https://medium.com/@BenJealous/statement-by-ben-jealous-on-president-clinton-s-recent-remarks-df05d11109ee#.cyn5ls2bg

  86. David Springer | April 11, 2016 at 4:21 pm |

    Trump complaining about “unfair” delegate allocation process. Here’s the unfair bit:

    Trump has 37% of the popular vote in primaries and 45% of the delegates
    Cruz has 28% of the popular vote and 32% of the delegates.

    Can you do the math to figure out who’s getting the sh*tty end of the delegate allocation stick?

    In other news Trump is crowing at his rallies that he has “millions and millions” more votes than Cruz.

    Here’s the reality:

    Trump 8.2 million votes
    Cruz 6.3 million votes

    Someone has a problem telling the truth and it isn’t “Lyin'” Ted.

    http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/despite-complaints-delegate-system-has-given-trump-22-percent-bonus-n553801

    • Glenn Stehle | April 11, 2016 at 8:04 pm |

      David,

      This from the article says it all:

      Trump’s emphasis on democratic fairness may prove compelling. According to polls, Republican voters believe the nomination should go to the candidate with the most votes.

      The electorate should decide the nominee?

      What a novel concept!

      Who would have ever thunk it?

      http://cdn2.btrstatic.com/pics/showpics/large/115862_T03MSyc8.png

      • Danny Thomas | April 11, 2016 at 8:19 pm |

        Glenn,
        Do you think Gore should have won?

      • David Springer | April 11, 2016 at 8:23 pm |

        The Republican party has never, ever worked that way in selecting their nominees.

        If those people want to change it they are free to work hard, advance within the party to leadership positions, get on the rule-making committee, and change the rules. Or go off and form their own party.

        People walking in off the street don’t get to make the rules or take over the party. I can’t think of any private organization that works that way. People have to work up to leadership positions. The Republican party IS NOT a government body. It is not an organization ruled by non-paying members. It is not a democracy. It’s a club. They ought to start charging dues to limit the white trash coming in and making demands.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 11, 2016 at 9:19 pm |

        Danny Thomas,

        These are the facts as I understand them:

        1. The Supreme Court cut the recount process short by judicial fiat, and

        2. If the Supreme Court would not have intervened and stopped the recount process, the recount would have revealed that Gore received more votes in Florida than Bush.

        So if those are the factual realities, then yes, by all means, Gore should have won.

      • Danny Thomas | April 11, 2016 at 10:29 pm |

        Glenn,

        Thank you for an honest answer. I truly respect that.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 11, 2016 at 9:36 pm |

        David Springer said:

        The Republican party has never, ever worked that way in selecting their nominees.

        Well yes. That’s correct.

        But your argument has a logical fallacy:

        http://i.imgur.com/zC7zMvj.jpg

        If everyone commited that same logical fallacy, we’d still be stuck back in the dark ages.

      • David Springer | April 12, 2016 at 4:50 am |

        You are appealing to democracy which is also a tradition.

        Physician, heal thyself.

  87. Glenn Stehle | April 11, 2016 at 7:24 pm |

    Sanders attacks Clinton on fracking, calls for nationwide ban

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sanders-attacks-clinton-on-fracking-calls-for-nationwide-ban/

    ALABANY — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has opened up a new front in his battle with Hillary Clinton: fracking, the chemical drilling technique loathed by environmentalists.

    With the New York primary just over a week away, Sanders is localizing his upstate pitch by putting fracking front and center. Campaigning here on Monday, he called for a nationwide ban on fracking and lauded New Yorkers who successfully pressured Gov. Andrew Cuomo to outlaw the practice.

    Sanders also hit Clinton for promoting fracking when she was Secretary of State.

    “I want to congratulate the people of New York state for having the guts, for having the guts to tell the Governor and the fossil fuel industry you will not accept the poisoning of your water,” Sanders said to a crowd in Albany on Monday afternoon.

    The statement echoed ones he had made earlier in the day at an event in Binghamton.

    “What may have been considered unrealistic or pie in the sky just a few years ago has now been achieved in New York because you made it happen,” Sanders said. “The growing body of evidence tells us that fracking is a danger to our water supply, our most precious resource. It is a danger to the air we breathe. It has resulted in more earthquakes. It is highly explosive. And it is contributing to climate change.”

    He labeled it as one of the issues where he and Clinton have “very significant differences.”

    “Secretary Clinton’s role in fracking when she was secretary of state is not a good record,” Mr. Sanders said. “Secretary Clinton and her State Department worked to export fracking throughout the world.”

    • David Springer | April 11, 2016 at 8:35 pm |

      Yet Trump is the beneficiary of the delegate selection process. Trump has garnered 37% of the popular vote and been awarded 45% of the delegates. Cruz meanwhile has 28% of the popular vote and 32% of the delegates.

      The system is obviously biased already in Trump’s favor and he’s complaining about Cruz successfully working within the rules to reduce Trump’s unfair advantage by a small degree.

      Of course no one ever accused Trump of having any integrity, class, or respect for the truth. Par for the course for The Donald Pig.

  90. Glenn Stehle | April 11, 2016 at 7:51 pm |

    What an abomination and mockery of democracy.

    If Trump and Sanders achieve nothing else during this election cycle, at least they are shining a spotlight on our sham democracy.

    GOP delegate system likely to result in convention battle

    http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/gop-delegate-system-likely-to-result-in-convention-battle/

    • jim2 | April 11, 2016 at 7:57 pm |

      The US form of government is a Democratic Republic, not a democracy. The founders were right in not giving voter citizens the right to vote on everything. Otherwise, they just continually vote themselves benefits courtesy of other peoples money. Likewise, they were correct to divide the power of government between Congress, the Administration, the Courts, and the States. What they didn’t foresee is the power of the ultra-rich and big business. There needs to be a better balance with the rich and big business getting less power, and the citizens getting a bit more. But it’s difficult for me to see how it would happen short of rebellion (as allowed for in the Constitution.)

      • Glenn Stehle | April 11, 2016 at 9:03 pm |

        °°°°jim2 said:

        The founders were right in not giving voter citizens the right to vote on everything. Otherwise, they just continually vote themselves benefits courtesy of other peoples money.

        That was the fear that dominated the minds of the men who wrote the U.S. Constitution.

        Whenever “a majority are united by a common interest or passion,” Madison concluded, “the rights of the minority are in danger.” And two minorities Madison frequently mentioned in his writings and speeches were creditors and the rich.

        As David Little goes on to explain in Madison, the Statute of Religious Freedom, and Republican Convictions, Madison was not alone:

        Much of the American elite shared Madison’s alarm with the “abuses of republican liberty practised in the states.” Many, maybe most, defined the problem as a classic crisis of relationships between the many and the few, creditors and debtors, rich and poor: a crisis generated by what Elbridge Gerry called “an excess of democracy.”

        °°°°Jim2 said:

        What they didn’t foresee is the power of the ultra-rich and big business.

        I think that’s right. And I personally believe it was an honest misjudgment, at least when it comes to Madison (but certainly not Hamilton or Livingston). Much of the power that the estalbishment wields, after all, is subtle and not at all overt.

        Here’s how Reinhold Niebuhr explains it:

        The moralist seeks peace by the extension of reason and conscience.

        He affirms that the only lasting peace is one which proceeds from a rational and voluntary adjustment of interest to interest and right to right….

        He points to the fact that conflict generates animosities which prevent the mutual adjustment of interests, and that coercion can be used as easily to perpetuate injustice as to eliminate it…

        Yet the moralist may be as dangerous a guide as the political realist. He ususally fails to recognize the elements of injustice and coercion which are present in any contemporary social peace.

        The coercive elements are covert, because dominat groups are able to avail themselves of the use of economic power, propaganda, the traditional processes of government, and other types of non-violent power….

        Even the most rational moralist underestimates them, if he does not acutally suffer them. A too critical glorification of co-operation and mutality therefore results in the acceptance of traditional injustices and the preference of the subtler types of coercion to the more overt types.

        — REINHOLD NIEBUHR, Moral Man and Immoral Society

      • David Springer | April 11, 2016 at 9:58 pm |

        Yet this imperfect system produced the greatest nation in the history of civilization by almost any metric of freedom, opportunity, wealth, influence, technology, industrial, financial, and military power. A global super-power unlike any other. A shining city on a hill.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 12, 2016 at 2:28 pm |

        Sure David, you’ve joined the choir along with Obama and the rest of the Republicrat establishment telling us how great we’ve got it.

        http://www.realclearpolitics.com/cartoons/images/2016/04/05/michael_ramirez_michael_ramirez_for_apr_05_2016_5_.jpg

    • David Springer | April 11, 2016 at 8:30 pm |

      Please go form your own party if you don’t like any of the existing parties. You are free to govern it by direct vote on all matters large and small.

      Good luck with that. You might start by asking yourself how you’ll decide what questions go on the ballot that all the members then vote on.

      You’re an imbecile, Glenn. Just a posturing fool with a shallow mind.

  91. jim2 | April 11, 2016 at 7:53 pm |

    From the article:
    …
    “Having been a veteran of the 1968 campaign, I understand that any violence in Cleveland would be detrimental to Donald Trump’s chances in the general election,” Stone stated, adding that he’s “very disappointed in both CNN and Megyn Kelly for taking comments I made about our plans to march and have a peaceful protests, not violent protest. They truncate my remarks to imply I advocated violence.”

    I can tell you in 1976, going to the delegate hotels, finding the individual delegates and buttonholing them, looking to covert [the] uncommitted, looking to shame those who are sitting in Trump delegate slots, but voting against Trump – those are all legitimate activities. They were done for Reagan and they should be done for Trump. But the allegation that I have called for mob violence by this foaming at the mouth Katie Pavlich, please read my entire interview, the entire interview. Don’t take a little bite out of it that gives a false impression.

    Stone also responded to Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell, a Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)97%
    supporter – praising the media for taking Stone off the air.

    “Very irresponsible of CNN to fold to political pressure in terms of whom and who should not be interviewed,” Stone said about being banned from appearing on CNN. “This seems to me to be dumping on the First Amendment.”
    …
    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/04/11/roger-stone-blasts-cnn-megyn-kelly-katie-pavlich-brent-bozell-for-folding-to-political-pressure/

  92. Danny Thomas | April 11, 2016 at 10:33 pm |

    J*shua,
    Please let it go. These presidential threads have been free-for-alls. Read Springer and you might learn something as he offers an interesting perspective (and the same applies to others who chose to participate here, plus make note of many who do not).

  93. David Springer | April 12, 2016 at 4:36 am |

    Trump the draft dodger. After a several student deferments he finally gets a medical disqualification. Probably for fingers too small to operate a rifle.

    http://snag.gy/iPWSJ.jpg

    • David Springer | April 12, 2016 at 5:02 am |

      Well, this explains the tiny hands.

      Read the “Entries From Remarks Column” – it says “YXX” and given “4F” – Trump may actually have Klinefelter’s syndrome, which is the set of symptoms resulting from additional X genetic material in males. Also known as 47,XXY or XXY, is a genetic disorder in which there is at least one extra X chromosome to a standard human male karyotype. Affected males do not produce as much testosterone as other males, they have a less muscular body, less facial and body hair, and broader hips. Adults tend to have a lanky, youthful build and facial appearance, or a rounded body type with some degree of gynecomastia.

  94. Glenn Stehle | April 12, 2016 at 10:20 am |

    Donald Trump rages against the machine
    http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/12/politics/donald-trump-rages-against-the-machine/index.html

    Donald Trump is issuing a dire warning to his supporters: You’re getting ripped off.

    “The system, folks, is rigged,” Trump told supporters at a rally Monday night in Albany, New York. “It’s a rigged, disgusting, dirty system.”….

    Julia Digioacchino said ahead of Trump’s rally Monday night in Albany that she feels GOP party officials are acting “like they know better” than voters like her.

    “Here is the Republican Party, instead of listening to its constituents — to the majority of America — who are saying this is what we want, they’re not backing him up. Instead they’re rallying against him, which in turn, they’re rallying against us,” said the 37-year-old from Saratoga, New York.

    Amy Almy, a 48-year-old hairdresser who also attended Trump’s rally Monday, said she now feels “naïve” for not realizing that “everything was so fixed.”….

    “You see what’s happening to me and Bernie Sanders,” Trump said Sunday in Rochester, New York. “It’s a corrupt deal going on.”

    Six in 10 Republican voters said in a recent CNN/ORC poll that if no major candidate earns a majority of the delegates headed into the convention, those delegates should nominate the candidate who entered with the largest pool of delegates. That candidate would most almost certainly be Trump.

    And the rage against the machine appears to be playing well in Peoria, as Trump’s “bad week” that all the establishment propagandists were hyperventilating over ad nauseaum seems to have legs similar to what all the CAGW hysteria does:

    http://i.imgur.com/iN0z8Ke.png

    http://i.imgur.com/OUEgCXp.png

    http://i.imgur.com/e41j89X.png

  95. Glenn Stehle | April 12, 2016 at 10:53 am |

    Another one of the real “winners” the estalbishment has trotted out to blast Trump on the mainstream media:

    Krauthammer: If Trump Can’t Handle Colorado Delegate Selection Process, How Can He Handle “Nefarious” China?

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/04/12/krauthammer_if_trump_cant_handle_the_colorado_delegate_selection_process_how_can_he_handle_china.html

    We have to remember, however, who Krauthammer is:

    Charles Krauthammer and the neocons: Are they delusional, deceptive or both?

    But when it comes to those left-wingers masquerading as “neo” conservatives, the past they choose not to remember is their own statements from just a few years ago.

    That’s not a mere memory lapse. That’s a lie, plain and simple.

    And none is a worse liar than Charles Krauthammer. He got everything wrong about every intervention in the Mideast, yet when those interventions went bad he simply claimed he never supported them in the first place….

    I got the clip from the website of Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent who actually understands the world. Here’s what he has to say about Krauthammer and the neocons:

    I have not forgotten the role that people like Charles Krauthammer played in beating the war drums and trumping up a case for invading Iraq using the bloody shirt of 9-11.

    I remember well a conference at the Nixon Center in December 2002. There were about 25 of us. The group included James Schlesinger, Krauthammer, Ambassador Joe Wilson,

    Pat Lang and myself. Wilson, Lang and I voiced doubts about the case for war in Iraq. We were puzzled by the stridency of intelligent folks like Schlesinger and Krauthammer. But their emotions and blind faith superseded any thinking.

    I am fascinated by how these same clowns now try to insist that everything was fine in Iraq until Obama pulled U.S. troops out. How f-ing delusional can someone be? The timetable for the withdrawal was the work of George W. Bush, not Barack Obama. Of course, typical Obama took credit for it even though it was not his plan nor his idea. When it was popular he seized it as his own.

    Gross ignorance on the part of our leaders – Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet and Bremer – just to mention some of the All-Stars of Stupidity – removed Saddam Hussein without a clear plan for succession and then turned the country over to Shia politicians who had close ties to Iran.

    This move did not start in 2010. It started in the summer of 2003. But no one wanted to listen to the facts about the gulf separating Sunnis and Shias. None of the Bush Administration decision makers gave a damn about understanding the long simmering, deep-seated ethnic/sectarian divisions in Iraq. I tried to get Jerry Bremer to meet with and consult with Pat Lang, who knew more about Iraq and its people than any other American diplomat, intelligence official or military officer. But Bremer told me, “I don’t need to talk to him.”

    So Jerry took off to Baghdad surrounded by a coterie of close pals from his days as Coordinator for Counter Terrorism-Clay McManaway and Jessica LeCroix, just to mention two. Nice people, but none with expertise on Iraq and the Sunni/Shia split.

    We saw the results. And the NeoCons? They are back. They are in the campaign of Jeb Bush and, like Krauthammer, they are on the air. They are speaking their noxious propaganda and once again agitating for new wars against Iran.

    I’m glad Kirsten called Krauthammer on his b.s..

    Pat Lang is of course a former Vietnam Green Beret who later became one of the leading experts on the Mideast during his many years serving in places like Iraq.

    Lang is the sort of hard-headed realist that we conservatives rely on for analysis. Go to this collection of my old columns about the Mideast to see how accurate these guys were in their predictions as opposed to the endless cheerleading of the armchair generals called neocons.

    That’s been evident for a decade yet the boobs still listen to talk radio and swallow the Trotskyite nonsense of radio talkers like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, while mistaking it for the true right-wing conservatism of commentators like Pat Buchanan.

    As for Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, John Bolton and the rest of the neocons, only inside the Beltway could such characters be considered intellectuals. Anywhere else on the planet they’d be laughed out of the room as total boobs and bumblers.

    http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/04/when_youre_right_youre_right_part_three_charles_kr.html

  99. Canman | April 12, 2016 at 3:58 pm |

    All right, what happened to Don Monfort? Did he show up for his meet in Detroit and get ambushed?

  100. Glenn Stehle | April 12, 2016 at 7:33 pm |

    Barrage of Attack Ads Threatens to Undermine Donald Trump
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/12/us/politics/donald-trump-negative-ads.html?_r=0

    More than half of the record spending on negative advertising during the 2016 presidential primary has been directed at a single candidate, Donald J. Trump, a barrage that threatens to undermine his candidacy even as he continues to march toward the Republican nomination.

    Of the more than $132 million spent on negative ads by candidates and the groups supporting them, nearly $70 million has gone to commercials assailing Mr. Trump, according to a New York Times analysis of data provided by Kantar Media/CMAG. The sharp focus on a single candidate is especially surprising given the exceptional size of the initial Republican field.

    “What is unusual and unprecedented is the array of advertisers who are out there flogging Trump on the air,” said Elizabeth Wilner, a senior vice president at Kantar Media/CMAG. “You have general election foes attacking him, you have his primary foes attacking him, and you have specific groups whose whole focus in life is just to make sure that he’s not the nominee.”

    But despite claims that campaign advertising has lost its potency, there is growing evidence that negative ads still work — and that they are beginning to take their toll on Mr. Trump.

    Steve Murphy, a veteran Democratic ad maker, said that Mr. Trump should view the primaries as a mere taste of what is to come.

    “Ask Donald Trump if he thinks negative ads hurt him in Wisconsin,” Mr. Murphy said. “Then tell him the Democrats have another half a billion dollars’ worth ready to go in the general.”

  101. jim2 | April 12, 2016 at 7:59 pm |

    It’s time for impeachment of the President and a bunch of jail time for a bunch of IRS managers. From the article:
    …
    “What we learned is that … the IRS continues to process tax returns with false W-2 information and issue refunds as if they were routine tax returns, and say that’s not really our job,” Coats said. “We also learned the IRS ignores notifications from the Social Security Administration that a name does not match a Social Security number, and you use your own system to determine whether a number is valid.”

    Asked to explain those practices, Koskinen replied, “What happens in these situations is someone is using a Social Security number to get a job, but they’re filing their tax return with their [taxpayer identification number].” What that means, he said, is that “they are undocumented aliens … . They’re paying taxes. It’s in everybody’s interest to have them pay the taxes they owe.”

    As long as the information is being used only to fraudulently obtain jobs, Koskinen said, rather than to claim false tax returns, the agency has an interest in helping them. “The question is whether the Social Security number they’re using to get the job has been stolen. It’s not the normal identity theft situation,” he said.
    …
    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/agency-encourages-illegal-immigrant-theft-of-ssns-irs-chief/article/2588288

  102. jim2 | April 12, 2016 at 8:04 pm |

    This is exactly where the US is headed. Trump is right! From the article:
    …
    In that respect, Denmark has company: Across Europe, a once-tender embrace of those fleeing conflicts on the continent’s doorstep has evolved into an uncompromising rejection.

    [He escaped the Holocaust because of the kindness of strangers. Now he’s watching Europe turn refugees like him away.]

    Last week, authorities in Greece began sending new arrivals back across the sea to Turkey, as part of a policy intended to permanently close the path via which more than 1 million people sought sanctuary last year.

    But as Europe walls itself off, the continent is left to reckon with what’s become of its long-
    cherished humanitarian beliefs. And to many in Denmark, the chasm between reputation and reality looks particularly gaping.

    “We’re losing respect for the values upon which we built our country and our European Union,” said Andreas Kamm, secretary general of the Danish Refugee Council. “It’s becoming very hard to defend human rights.”
    …
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/denmark-a-social-welfare-utopia-takes-a-nasty-turn-on-refugees/2016/04/11/a652e298-f5d1-11e5-958d-d038dac6e718_story.html

  103. Glenn Stehle | April 12, 2016 at 8:09 pm |

    https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YCVlWgJL4nk/VwwcbKbRzAI/AAAAAAAACtw/Sd5f2jNbvEoU4ltZBSwaO67-7wRyvzvSg/s1600/Blankfein_Cfs0ag0UYAE26qw.jpg

    Voters abandon Democratic and Republican parties like Rats from a Sinking Ship
    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/04/gaius-publius-a-look-ahead-neither-party-can-win-without-winning-independents.html

    http://i.imgur.com/rKMDmOZ.png

    But in the main and with a few important exceptions — women’s health and rights, racial justice, gun violence — both parties have agreed and cooperated on broad policy goals.

    https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5Uzc8ik6z0Q/Vvm7fMlh8GI/AAAAAAAACpo/ZEPXfflyAuQyvnn2CiC3ixMukfKb9VGqw/s1600/20-24yo_income_since-1979.PNG

    Leaders of both parties, for example, broadly believe in the current military style of policing. Both believe in a justice system that coerces defendants into plea bargains, guilty or innocent. Both believe in the “importance of Wall Street to the economy” and that big financial institutions should be defended, not broken up. Both parties have offered and enacted a long and strong diet of lower taxes, spending austerity, war and more war. We’ve had these policies, delivered in a fully bipartisan way, for decades.

    Partisans and leaders of both parties believe, in the main, that the status quo needs a tweak, but should be kept in place. Today’s independents, in contrast, are done with that.

    • jim2 | April 12, 2016 at 8:41 pm |

      An independent Trump/Cruz ticket would work!! :) It might happen. Trump and Cruz are more like each other that any of the Redimowits. What better method to pave the way for more politicians who actually care about their country and countrymen more than illegal immigrants and the rich.

      • Jim D | April 12, 2016 at 8:55 pm |

        I don’t think he will take back Lyin’ Ted, so that one is unlikely. Palin, on the other hand has the kind of experience he needs, and he hasn’t said a bad thing about her yet (even as part of that loser 2008 ticket). Those two were made for each other.

      • jim2 | April 12, 2016 at 9:24 pm |

        It was amazing how quickly Dr. Carson and The Donald smoothed things over. Cruz and Trump have more in common than Trump and Carson. I see it happening. The Redimowit establishment is planning to throw both under the bus, a Cruz/Trump dynamic duo could smash the establishmen WHAM!!!! BAM!!!! BAAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

      • Jim D | April 12, 2016 at 9:52 pm |

        What – don’t you like Palin? If not, why?

    • David Springer | April 13, 2016 at 6:39 pm |

      An independent party.

      Yeah that’s it. That’s the ticket!

      • Arch Stanton | April 14, 2016 at 8:00 am |

        Even though “Rush” will be proven right in the end, he does not waste his time voting like the rest of us and he says the same kind of things. So you are not alone.

    • David Springer | April 14, 2016 at 6:18 am |

      Approximately 1% per decade according to the chart have left each of the two major political parties since the 1980’s.

      That hardly seems to qualify as “Rats Deserting a Sinking Ship” which is a race for the exits rather than a small steady erosion.

      But our little drama queen Glenna Stehle isn’t one to let the truth stand in the way of hyperbole. Ain’t that right, Glenna?

  104. David Springer | April 12, 2016 at 9:37 pm |

    http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/04/11/on_the_third_ballot_cruz_will_find_out_what_it_s_like_to_be_trump

    Good informational read. I don’t usually read or listen to Limbaugh.

  105. Glenn Stehle | April 12, 2016 at 10:21 pm |

    Paul Ryan Rules Out Run for President

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/us/politics/paul-ryan-to-ruleout-run-for-president-aide-says.html

    WASHINGTON — After a month of speculation and pleas ranging from comic to mildly desperate, Speaker Paul D. Ryan held an unusually formal news conference Tuesday afternoon to rule out what he has always said he would not do: serve as the Republican nominee for president in 2016.

    “Let me be clear,” Mr. Ryan said, addressing reporters at the Republican National Committee’s headquarters. “I do not want, nor will I accept, the nomination of our party.”

    He then offered a strong opinion to convention delegates about how they should proceed in the case of a contested nomination: “If no candidate has the majority on the first ballot, I believe you should only turn to a person who has participated in the primary. Count me out.”

    By coming down so firmly against drafting a new candidate in Cleveland — the most coveted white knight denouncing the very idea — Mr. Ryan made it less likely that the party would risk the backlash from supporters of Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz that would come from such a maneuver.

    But if Mr. Ryan was emphatic that Republicans should not attempt to find a new candidate — or at least one who did not run for the presidency this election season — he also again made clear that he hoped to thwart many of Mr. Trump’s ideas, if stopping short of actually opposing him on a ballot.

    Mr. Trump struck a wary note about Mr. Ryan’s announcement, pointing out during an appearance in Rome, N.Y., that Mr. Ryan had insisted last year that he did not want the speaker’s job, only to eventually accept his party’s entreaties. “We’ll see,” Mr. Trump said. “I take him at his word. But we’ll have to watch, see what happens.”

    Mr. Ryan could have easily reiterated his oft-stated denials through a clearly worded news release. But by choosing to appear before the cameras and in front of four American flags at the Republican National Committee, the speaker purposefully used the moment to call for a different, sunnier brand of conservatism than the grievance-oriented politics that have propelled Mr. Trump to the top of the Republican race.

    “I believe we can once again be that optimistic party that is defined by a belief in the limitless possibility of our people,” he said.

  108. Glenn Stehle | April 12, 2016 at 10:38 pm |

    Trump: The RNC Should Be “Ashamed,” “They Took The Votes Away From The People Of Colorado”

  109. jim2 | April 12, 2016 at 10:41 pm |

    Well, hey, look’s like Obummer agrees with Trump. Trump is right! From the article:
    …
    A major game changer came forward about a month and a half ago when the Obama administration attempted to stop the flood of cheap Chinese steel. In early February, Congress passed the new customs and trade enforcement bill, which gave the president authority to take action against China’s dumping of state-subsidized goods.

    On March 1, the commerce department announced it would add import duties on cold-rolled steel from seven countries, including China.

    “Call that protectionist if you want to, I say it is smart policy and one of the most pro-business things President Obama has done since taking office,” Cramer said.
    …
    http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/12/cramer-obama-just-changed-the-game-for-steel.html

    • David Springer | April 13, 2016 at 9:01 am |

      Dumping is condemned by the World Trade Organization and should be stopped when found by them to be happening. OPEC is the biggest regular offender IMO and they are never charged with it. It is often difficult to determine what constitutes predatory pricing. Ostensibly it is when goods are sold for export at a cost lower than it is sold domestically and/or when goods are sold for export at a price lower than the cost of production.

      Note the practice is not illegal per se and may be part of non-predatory pricing such as using loss leaders. Trump is a bull in a China shop and appears to have no expertise in international trade. Obama undoubtedly relies on real experts to advise him. Trump doesn’t take advice well and would be a proverbial loose canon.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)

    • David Springer | April 14, 2016 at 6:09 am |

      If imported raw steel becomes more expensive in the US won’t that make US-made cars more expensive compared to those made in other countries without the high tariff on steel? Won’t it make construction of everything from bridges to private homes more expensive when the cost of re-bar goes up?

      Answers aren’t as simple as Simpletons for Trump seem the believe.

      • Arch Stanton | April 14, 2016 at 8:18 am |

        You do the math.

        http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/business/global/26bridge.html?_r=0

        The Chinese did not ship it FedEx; so they were the low bid.

      • AK | April 14, 2016 at 9:25 am |

        It isn’t going to get more expensive, it just won’t get cheaper in proportion.

        As for the bridge, it isn’t just Chinese steel, it’s also their pioneering modular construction and hi-tech, hi-productivity methods.

        American firms are too mired in labor-inspired regulation to make the effort to keep ahead worthwhile. Construction methods in America (especially the US) are obsolescent and so 20th century.

      • AK | April 14, 2016 at 9:30 am |

        Not to mention increased pressure to move to composites in place of steel. The steel industry itself is headed for obsolescence. What is there that can’t be done better with more modern materials, most of them composites? The latter may be more expensive today, but the price is dropping fast with synergy, learning curve, and economies of scale.

      • Arch Stanton | April 14, 2016 at 10:45 am |

        That’s a lot of math Doc.

      • Arch Stanton | April 14, 2016 at 11:00 am |

        The welds that were done inside the voids are now suspect. Drainage and corrosion have become major long term problems. What do you think the maintenance costs will be per decade for the next one-hundred years? It doesn’t sound good to me.

      • AK | April 14, 2016 at 3:12 pm |

        The welds that were done inside the voids are now suspect.

        Senator to push Attorney General to launch criminal probe on Bay Bridge construction August 5, 2014 8:41 PM

        The hearing followed a Senate report released last week that said Caltrans “gagged and banished” several quality managers on the new $6.5 billion structure after they tried to correct substandard work by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry Co. Ltd., or ZPMC, the Chinese firm that built much of the suspension span roadway and tower.

        Keith Devonport, a contract fabrication manager in Shanghai, said bridge managers, including Peter Siegenthaler, the top manager in China for most of the job, approved production over the objections of other top managers who believed weld cracks were being overlooked. He said Caltrans managers also blocked a specialized use of high-frequency sound waves that found “transverse” cracks – ones that run across welds – missed by other test methods.

        Devonport, who testified via Skype from his home in England, said the bridge project’s chief executive, Tony Anziano, showed “willful blindness” about the problems. Anziano removed him from the job for his complaints about quality, Devonport said. His comments echoed the report by an investigator for the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee, which said that Anziano quashed dissent on the project.

        […]

        During the hearing, DeSaulnier told Caltrans executives, “you’re in denial” about the challenges in the department’s culture that have consistently resulted in employees being rebuffed by superiors when they raise safety and construction complaints.

        “I resent the writing off of people who have come forward” with such concerns, DeSaulnier said. He cited Caltrans engineering geologist Michael Morgan, who was thwarted in his attempts to have serious problems in the Caltrans foundation testing unit addressed. DeSaulnier said Morgan showed integrity by providing bridge testing data to The Bee. The documents led to a Bee investigation of concerns about the reliability of bridge foundations across the state, including the Bay Bridge, and led to reforms in the Caltrans testing process.

        […]

        Lindell – who was dismissed by ABF after complaining about quality issues – validated claims by another top quality contractor, Jim Merrill, that Caltrans managers said to ignore cracks in welds where stiffeners were attached under the roadway deck. “The rules were changed, and I question why,” Lindell said. “Why change the code? Why change the specifications? Why not allow the same requirements as if an American fabricator was to fabricate this in the States?”

  110. Glenn Stehle | April 12, 2016 at 10:50 pm |

    Donald Trump blows away his Republican competitors in Connecticut

    http://www.courant.com/politics/capitol-watch/hc-emerson-poll-connecticut-story.html

    Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are in a tight race on the Democratic side while Donald Trump blows away his Republican competitors, according to the first public presidential primary poll in Connecticut in five months.

    The survey, released Tuesday by Emerson College in Boston, shows the billionaire businessman getting half the vote in Connecticut. Ohio Gov. John Kasich comes in second at 26 percent with Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas finishing third with 17 percent. Clinton’s lead over Sanders is 49 percent to 43 percent.

  111. jim2 | April 13, 2016 at 7:51 am |

    If you judge Trump by his family, he is a Triple Crown winner.

    http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/12/politics/donald-trump-family-town-hall/index.html#

    • Glenn Stehle | April 13, 2016 at 9:06 am |

      Here’s the rebuttal to Trump’s lovely family:

      Trump: Lovely family, ugly campaign
      http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/13/opinions/cnn-trump-town-hall-reyes/index.html

      • But while this was an interesting hour that certainly humanized the bombastic Trump, having much of the family onstage meant that from early on Trump himself faced few tough questions.

      • But his daughter, Ivanka — who has been the face of the Trump get-out-the-vote effort in several states — was unconvincing in explaining why she did not change her registration (from independent to Republican) in time to vote for her father in Tuesday’s New York primary. She said it was because the deadline to change registration was “close to a year ago.” The deadline was October 9.

      • Either way, as she has done before, Ivanka sidestepped any discussion of her father’s sexist comments and misogynistic behavior. She called politics a “vicious industry.”

      • Melania Trump came across well, although inadvertently, she also provided the most ironic moment of the hour. While discussing how she is raising her young son, she cited the threat of bullying on social media. Meanwhile, America’s No.1 bully — her husband, who has called women “dogs” and “fat pigs” — sat right beside her.

      • There was nothing really offensive about this “up close and personal” chat with the Trump family — unless we consider the broader context of the whole Trump phenomenon. It is wonderful that Trump seems to have such a close, loving relationship with his children. But there are millions of wonderful American Muslim families, Latino families, and immigrant families who face harassment and hate speech as a direct consequence of Trump’s rise to political prominence. As Trump brings his family into the limelight at this type of event, it glosses over the very real ugliness of his campaign.

      • It would have been fascinating to ask the Trump sons how they would feel if a presidential candidate were threatening to separate their families, or how Ivanka might feel if she were targeted and harassed because of her religion. True, the Trump children are not running for office, but if they continue to put themselves in the public eye, they deserve to be questioned about their father’s positions too.

      • And there are a few other questions that Trump should be called to account on. For example, why does Trump think it is appropriate to hold a fundraiser in Patchogue, Long Island, on Thursday, the site of an ugly immigrant hate crime in 2008? Why does Ivanka, a successful businessperson like her father, also make so many of her products in China, despite the criticism Trump has leveled at the country? (Some of her scarves were recently recalled as posing a burn risk). And why does Donald Trump have such a reportedly poor record of charitable giving from his own pocket? We still don’t know.

      • On the positive side, Ivanka Trump came across as warm, poised, and thoughtful. She could very well prove to be a tremendous asset to her father in the general election. In fact, she made such an overall positive impression that one takeaway from Tuesday’s town hall is that the wrong Trump is running for president.

      • jim2 | April 13, 2016 at 9:33 am |

        Insisting on legal immigration isn’t “ugly.” Feeble attempt, Glenn.

        The entire family can go back to Mexico. No separation required. Nice straw man, Glenn.

        You have a few more straw men in there, they are obvious and non-persuasive.

      • David Springer | April 13, 2016 at 10:40 am |

        Mexicans were here first, Jim. I’m thinking you ought to leave.

      • Glenn Stehle | April 13, 2016 at 10:53 am |

        jim2,

        If rounding up 12 million unauthorized Mexicans living in the United States and sending them back to Mexico is your #1 issue, then I think Cruz, not Trump, is your preferred horse in this race:

        Who Is More Hardline On Immigration: Ted Cruz Or Donald Trump?

        Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/09/who-is-more-hardline-on-immigration-ted-cruz-or-donald-trump/#ixzz45ibIVXWR

        As Donald Trump is presenting himself as the presumptive Republican nominee for president, he has described his position on immigration as “flexible.” This now has Ted Cruz positioned as the Republican candidate with the most hardline position on immigration.

        NumbersUSA, a prominent immigration restriction group, keeps an ongoing scorecard on 2016 presidential candidates and since updated on March 4, Ted Cruz has an “A” and Trump a “B+”.

      • jim2 | April 13, 2016 at 2:22 pm |

        I’m part American Indian, so one of Mexican origin’s got nothing on me. I am also a natural born citizen. Really, unless you are a Dimowit, David, which you certainly appear to be, illegal immigrants no matter the country of origin need to leave. There are plenty of legal ways they can come to the US to study, work, or vacation. They can use those.

  112. Glenn Stehle | April 13, 2016 at 9:46 am |

    •••• The generational and race gaps are quite striking.

    CLINTON’S LEAD OVER SANDERS DECLINES TO SIX POINTS IN CALIFORNIA’S DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY. BIG DIFFERENCES IN PREFERENCES ACROSS SUBGROUPS OF THE LIKELY VOTER POPULATION.

    http://www.field.com/fieldpollonline/subscribers/Rls2531.pdf

    With just two months remaining before California voters will be casting their ballots in the state’s Democratic primary for President, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s once commanding lead over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has declined to just six points.

    The poll finds huge differences in preferences across demographic subgroups of the likely Democratic primary electorate.

    http://i.imgur.com/yTO5L2Y.png

  113. Glenn Stehle | April 13, 2016 at 9:58 am |

    •••••• Identify politics gets so tediuous.

    Anger Boils at Jews-for-Bernie Event
    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/u-s-election-2016/1.713988

    Bernie Sanders is the first Jew