Category Archives: Elections

The Perils Of The Female Franchise

Democrats, Elections, Feminism, Gender, Republicans

You and I know Republicans are not to be equated with freedom, smaller government or anything remotely libertarian. Ditto Democrats. It is safe to say, however, that the voting public considers a vote for a Republican to be a vote for less government and more freedom from the state. Assuming support for a Democrat is a reliable proxy for a greater proclivity for statism—we can all agree that women have been—and continue to be—a hindrance to liberty. As I once said, I’d give up my vote if all women were denied a vote.

Via CNN come the latest numbers on how the ladies lean:

Against Bush, Clinton leads 59% to 37% among women, while Bush holds an advantage among men, 51% Bush to 44% Clinton. Against Fiorina, the only woman among the major candidates for the Republican Party’s presidential nominations, women break 60% for Clinton to 39% for Fiorina, while men are about evenly divided, 48% for Fiorina, 46% for Clinton. The largest gender gap — 34 points — comes in a match-up between Clinton and Trump. Women favor Clinton by 23 points, 60% to 37%, while men break in Trump’s favor by 11 points, 53% to 42%.

Why Scott Walker Is A Two Percenter

Conservatism, Elections, Europe, Foreign Policy, IMMIGRATION, Middle East, Neoconservatism

Off the top of my head, let me share the unintelligent blather of Scott Walker, the man I call The Equal Opportunity Fencer (read why). Unlike the pundits who are ALWAYS wrong (as illustrated in 2004 ), yet keep returning to the national stage for encores—the base seems to have wizened up to neoconservatives like Walker. I’m really buoyed by the lack of support the likes of Walker and Bobby Jindal are getting from the GOP base: two and zero percent, respectively, in the latest Washington Post-ABC News Poll.

Oblivious to the poor marks his opinions have received from the public, Walker waffled to Sean Hannity about the refugees currently immobilizing life in Germany, Hungary, Austria ect.

First there were the obligatory expressions of empathy for the incomers. Not a word of sympathy was offered up by the host or his guest for the Europeans whose communities are being flooded by decree from Brussels and Berlin.

Next came Walker’s neocon, hackneyed lies about the root-causes of the migration problem (naturally, the magnet of welfare went unmentioned): Bashar Hafez al-Assad needs to be removed (Really? He was the source of stability in Syria, much like Saddam Hussein was in Iraq).

If the root causes of refugee influx into Europe is America’s lack of a more energetic involvement in Iraq and Syria—then Walker has the solution the Republican base is rejecting: back in we go.

Not for nothing is Walker a two percenter. Unless in defense of the realm, Americans are not keen on more of the same foreign-policy folly. Let us keep our military mitts to ourselves. Let us defend our own borders. That’s finally the prevailing sentiment among Republicans.

What else did Walker do to promote his brand of stupidity? For having the perspicacity to see something unique in the Trump phenomenon, GOPers have been maligned by pundits as stupid, ignorant, mere reality show watchers. Walker does not go so far. But he does dismiss the undeniable fact that Republicans are seething with good, honest rage. To the contrary, claimed Walker, singing from the same hymn sheet Republicans sang from in the last election cycle. The people are never angry. (What’s wrong with righteous anger? Nothing!). The people only want brainiacs like him to stop the gridlock and “get things done.”

Fuck off, Scott walker. As I read it, the base wants government to reverse the things it has done; to repeal laws, wars, and to do no harm.

‘I’m Owned By The People!’ Says Trump

Business, Elections, Family, Media, Republicans

In a long feature about Donald Trump, Rolling Stone’s Paul Solotaroff breathlessly declares, “What I saw was enough to make me take him dead serious. If you’re waiting for Trump to blow himself up in a Hindenburg of gaffes or hate speech, you’re in for a long, cold fall and winter. Donald Trump is here for the duration — and gaining strength and traction by the hour.”

On CNN, Solotaroff noodled on about the absence of “Republican wise man” among Trump’s political entourage. The pundits are part of the nimbus of power that is DC. As such, they refuse to comprehend that the “Silent Majority” detests them, their politcal masters and their scheming handlers. Very good that Trump’s entourage doesn’t include these Republican snake-oil salesmen.

It is unclear whether Solotaroff is showing condescension when he describes the Trump “singular family gift as seeing the future and beating everyone else to it.”

As to child rearing, Donald Trump was no sissy boy and he has been tough on his own spawn. “If the nation’s mothers and fathers want fabulous kids like Donald Trump’s, they ought to try conducting themselves this way with their stroppy offspring” (From: “Megyn, Jorge, and a Reaganesque Trump”)

… Though Fred [Donald’s father] lived and died a very rich man, he made his kids work like peasants. The three boys spent summers pulling weeds and pouring cement, learning the building trade from the subfloor up, while the two girls toiled in his real estate office in the bowels of Coney Island. Trump tells the story of being dragged by the nose to join Fred on his rounds collecting rents. “We’d go on jobs where you needed tough guys to knock on doors,” he says. “You’d see ’em ring the bell and stand way over here. I’d say, ‘Why’re you over there?’ and he’d say, ‘?’Cause these motherfuckers shoot! They shoot right through the door!'”

Trump has raised his own kids in comparable fashion, disabusing them of any notions of unearned grandeur. “I was a dock attendant for a couple of summers, then went into landscaping,” says Don Jr., a company vice president running international projects, with an office directly below his father’s. “My brother and I are probably the only sons of billionaires who can operate a D-10 Caterpillar.” “I did less-than-glamorous internships in sweltering New York — the South of France wasn’t an option,” says Ivanka in her immaculate office next door to Don Jr. Together with Eric, the third of Trump’s kids by his first wife, Ivana Trump (he has two younger children by subsequent wives), his three grown offspring handle his vast portfolio of luxury hotels and resorts. Polished and restrained where their father is flamboyant, they’ve nonetheless paid him the highest praise by enlisting in the family trade. No less telling, none of them are train wrecks like so many children of billionaires. “We grew up with a lot of those kids and know them well,” says Don Jr. “But I guess we were pushed and motivated differently.”

When all is said and done, the contempt this reporter has for the Trump crazies is palpable:

… As we stand there, hundreds of feet above New York, gazing on the Lilliputian tourists, it occurs to me to wonder: How on Earth, from this vantage, did Trump see into the hearts of underemployed white folk? How did he know that they stewed and simmered over free trade, immigrants and fat-cat Republicans who’d sold them down the river for decades? How did he guess that they’d conflated those things to explain the flight of factory jobs, and that all they really cared about, besides the return of those jobs, was that someone beat the hell out of the party hacks — the Jeb Bushes and Scott Walkers and Karl Roves? …

MORE.

‘Tis The Season For Duplicitous & Dopey Republican Pledges

Democrats, Elections, Politics, Republicans, Taxation

Government taxes you indirectly, through spending, borrowing and inflating the money supply. The upshot is that your money’s purchasing power is drastically reduced overtime. That you can take to the bank.

Every Bill the overlords pass, moreover, “requires” more hirees and more salaries in perpetuity, that is if you take into account the generous overtime payments, pensions and other benefits the oink sector awards itself. Government is a tax-increasing scheme. This is why when the Republican presidential hopefuls make a song and a dance out of pledging to Americans for Tax Reform not to raise taxes on the American people; they do so with impunity. They are, nevertheless, full of it. Besides, didn’t they make similar pledges during the previous election cycle? Or was it the midterm prior?

Chris Christie Wednesday became the latest Republican to sign a pledge to “oppose and veto any and all efforts to increase taxes.”

Americans for Tax Reform has been urging presidential candidates to sign the pledge. In 2012, all Republicans except one, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, did.

Christie, the governor of New Jersey, is the ninth of the 17 prominent 2016 Republican candidates to agree to no tax increases. Also making the commitment are Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rick Perry, former governor of Texas, former business executive Carly Fiorina, former Sen. Rick Santorum, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas.

Christie’s fiscal record has also come in for criticism from some conservatives. The Club for Growth Tuesday didn’t list Christie as one of its acceptable 2016 candidates.

“The Club for Growth praised the governor for winning concessions from public employee unions and withdrawing from a multistate compact designed to curb emissions contributing to climate change,” reported NJ.com. But, the group added, “there are enough warning signs in Christie’s record to give fiscal conservatives pause,” such as his decision to expand Medicaid coverage as part of the Affordable Care Act.

Optics, that’s all this is.

Speaking of the season for dopey pledges, I agree with Rachel Maddow, for once, that Trump signing the GOP pledge not to run as a third-party candidate is “a giant screwup.” Trump may have lost “a lot of leverage.” Bernie Sanders, who serves as an independent in U.S. Congress, but caucuses with the Democratic Party—he has not felt the need to sign any pledge to adhere to the Democratic Party’s do’s and don’ts.