Category Archives: Elections

UPDATE II: If Allowed, The Rubio Snake Will Charm Trump Into Defeat (Giuliani?)

Donald Trump, Elections, Neoconservatism

The establishment might just get its way and see Donald Trump defeated by a nobody like Barack Obama (who was invented as a presidential candidate by Queen of kitsch Oprah). If Trump continues to hammer at the wrong man, the talented Ted Cruz, and ignore the Marco Rubio menace; the front-runner could come short.

CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: All right. Let’s talk about Marco Rubio and his fitness to be president.

TRUMP: Well, he’s a talented guy. He’s a good guy. I like him. We’re going to have to see what happens.

You know, I start off liking everybody. Then, all of a sudden, they become mortal enemies. So, we’ll see what happens. But he’s been very respectful, very nice. I hope to beat him.

Neoconservative Sen. Marco Rubio was once the deserving object of Sen. Rand Paul’s scorn. Now that Paul and Chris Christie are gone; this charming empty suit seems poised to slither into Donald Trump’s good graces. Trump appears to refrain from attacking individuals if they’re nice to him. This would suggest that so long as they’re nice to him; anyone could become Trump’s running mate or cabinet member.

You’re supposed to deconstruct an opponent’s positions and like or dislike only those.

The foreign policy forays of Rubio—and of John Kasich; I can’t tell with Cruz—will be of a piece with those of Genghis Bush.

Where Trump truly loses credibility to me in is in the way he’s treating Cruz. Trump and Rubio say Cruz is a liar and a bit loopy. This is not immediately obvious from the “evidence” they muster. Cruz’s resume belies it.

UPDATE I (2/22): Crooked prosecutor Rudy Giuliani is Trump’s “campaign consigliere,” reports the New York Post. Is Trump showing his true colors? As I wrote, 03.04.07:

to mention Giuliani without speaking of how he Nifonged Michael Milken is to fail as a libertarian, an individualist, or as an individual who cares for liberty and justice. (I like the verb I’ve just coined: Nifonged.)

Read “American Prosecutors Deserve Count Of Monte Cristo.”

UPDATE II (2/24):

Smash The Spoils System, Baby: South Carolina Brings It

Donald Trump, Elections, Private Property, Republicans

The menagerie of morons that is American media—these crooked, scripted, bought-and-paid-for insiders—are finally, but not quite, grasping Donald’s appeal to average folks. The gaffes and impolitic statements are the hallmark of a man who tells the truth as he see it, without dressing it up in the raiment of politically enforced propriety. Most ordinary people would do the same if they’d live to tell the tale:

Via The New York Times’ Frank Bruni:

… people voting for [Trump] aren’t evaluating him through any usual ideological lens. They’re not asking what kind of Republican he is. They’re not troubling themselves with whether the position he’s selling today matches the position he was selling yesterday or even what that old position was.

They want to try something utterly different—utterly disruptive, to use the locution du jour—and that leaves them, on the Republican side, with the options of Trump and Ben Carson. Trump has the fire.

Who said so in June in “A Candidate To ‘Kick The Crap Out Of All The Politicians’”? (Watch this space for my forthcoming book.)

… Trump didn’t just win South Carolina, and he didn’t just win it by a margin of 10 points. He won it despite what looked, over recent days, like a concerted effort to lose it. He won it after what appeared to be one of the worst weeks that a candidate could have.

It began at the most recent debate, where he trashed the last Republican president, George W. Bush, and accused him of lying to the American people as he led them into war in Iraq. He sounded like a liberal Democrat. Republican primary voters, especially those in the South, aren’t typically receptive to that.

Over the next days, Trump sounded even more like a liberal Democrat, at least as described by Ted Cruz, who went after him relentlessly, armed with Trump’s own past statements in support of abortion rights and Planned Parenthood. [We libertarians are accused of so sounding, too, because we know you cannot compel free individuals not to do certain things with their private property—their bodies—however, you can defund a thing that ought not to be funded in the first place, because there is no constitutional warrant for it.]

The week got messier from there. Trump picked a fight with the Pope. Trump picked a fight with Apple. It became evident that no personage or brand, no matter how beloved, was safe from his wrath.

TWEETS

The George Bush Rehabilitation Industry: A President’s Day Reminder

BAB's A List, Bush, Democrats, Donald Trump, Elections, Republicans, War, Welfare

Originally published on February 7, 2014, here is a Barely-A-Blog golden oldie:

BY MYRON PAULI

On President’s Day, I will say that I am not enamored with our current White House occupant, or with his recent predecessors. Barack Obama is a boring windbag egomaniac, mouthing a lot of leftist rhetorical garbage. However, in spite of the adulation of his supporters or the detraction of his political enemies, he is not some good or evil demigod, but rather just symbolic of the bloated corrupt corporate-socialist government.

His main opponents, Republicans (most but not all) might have one believe that on 19 January 2009, this government was a small peaceful government running a surplus and respectful of civil liberties presided over by James Monroe – until (eeek eeek) Obama the Space Alien took over. Bush and his legacies of leaving no children behind, warring in Iraq and Afghanistan, the TSA, the Patriot Act, prescription drug plans, and the bailouts – has been lost in the memory hole of amnesia. I find myself not necessarily “defending Obama,” but rather disgusted at the amnesiac hypocrisy of the Republican detractors.

So suppose that in 2016 some Republican wins – Christie, Jeb Bush, Ryan, or one of the so-called “Tea Party” Republicans. Do I expect the budget to be balanced? Do I think they will repeal previous Republican legacies like OSHA, EPA, TSA, DEA, HEW, Student Loans, Americans with Disabilities Act, Patriot Act, Leave No Child Behind, Prescription Drug Plan, and Drone Warfare? What was Reagan’s domestic legacy – repealing CETA and Nixon’s 55 mph speed limit?

Take the most important issue of world history – homosexuality…. Democrats would compel Boy Scouts to take gays and make Christians photograph and cater to gay weddings. Republicans in Virginia passed this: “This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage” – thus my will and medical directive might be invalid. Whatever happened to the right of people to create contracts? Democrats want to shove “Heather Has Two Mommies” in the school curricula while Republicans want to shove “Abstinence Education”. And where in this Kultur-Jihad is freedom of association, freedom of contract, and the authority of parents?

Another good example is health care. Democrats would have everyone compelled to pay for such wonderful medical procedures as drilling holes in developing babies, in utero, and to even require certain trained slaves called “health care providers” to partake in these procedures whether they want to or not. Republicans would have the taxpayers pay millions of dollars to resurrect a dead pregnant woman and keep her on machines for months for the 0.001% chance of creating a baby. Both parties believe they can play G-d with voters choosing between Dr. Mengele and Dr. Frankenstein.

Can we expect better in foreign policy, where our attitude towards foreign nations is either to bribe a country, bomb a country, overthrow a country, or occupy a country? Will either party stop bribing crowds to demonstrate in Kiev or dropping drones on weddings in Yemen? Republicans obsess about 4 dead in Benghazi while ignoring the hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq, forgetting the 242 marines in Beirut, and upset that American forces left Indochina after our interference in a civil war wound up with over 4 million dead.

Do we expect better for civil liberties when Republicans are upset when individual states do not want to jail dope smokers? Do we expect Republicans who shout “kill Snowden” to be any better reforming the NSA, CIA, TSA, no knock SWAT team raids, or the Patriot Act (especially with the last two being their own creations?).

Will either party eliminate agribusiness farm subsidies, ethanol mandates, quantitative easing, Sallie Mae, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, BATF, either DoE, HuD, mission to Mars, the F-35, troops in Italy, Ex-Im bank, trade ban with Cuba, DEA, Amtrak, federal student loans,…?????? Surely you jest! The irony of King Obama is that the expression that his opponents resemble the “pot calling the kettle black” is both figurative AND literal.

The rhetoric will change and the hot, putrid air will blow in the opposite direction.

******
Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism. Click on the “BAB’s A List” category to access the Pauli archive.

UPDATE (6/23): Bernie Promises Executive Orders On Citizenship For 11 Million, If Necessary

Barack Obama, Democrats, Elections, IMMIGRATION, Law

My South African relatives Bernie Sanders would, no doubt, deport should they attempt to remain in the US. But “The parents of DREAMers and others” will get to live here at my expense. And YOURS.

Moreover, the little Barack Obama has done to enforce immigration law—Sanders abhors and has promised to reverse. What a piece of work!

“We’ve got 11 million undocumented people in this country. I have talked to some of the young kids with tears rolling down their cheeks, are scared to death that today they may or their parents may be deported.
“I believe that we have got to pass comprehensive immigration reform, something that I strongly supported. I believe that we have got to move toward a path toward citizenship. I agree with President Obama who used executive orders to protect families because the Congress, the House was unable or refused to act. And in fact I would go further….
“Somebody who is very fond of the president, agrees with him most of the time, I disagree with his recent deportation policies. And I would not support those. Bottom line is a path towards citizenship for 11 million undocumented people, if Congress doesn’t do the right thing, we use the executive orders of the president.”

MORE.

UPDATE II (6/23): Supreme Court blocks Obama immigration plan.

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