Category Archives: Politics

UPDATE II: Cleveland Debate Stars: The Moderators And Question-Writers (Sisters For Donald)

Elections, Journalism, Media, Politics, Republicans

Joy! Text is back. TIME has the full transcript of the first primetime Republican debate, in Cleveland, Ohio.

My general impressions after last night:

Compared to previous debates overrun by Democrat journos, the quality of the journalism, courtesy of Fox News, was outstanding. I’d venture that the true stars of the debate were the ruthless, impartial, analytical Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace. Perhaps the indubitably lousy, future Democratic-debate moderators of CNN will rise to the standard set by the Fox News three? Perhaps the left’s Idiocracy will omit, from future debates, bogus questions about bogus constructs that rape reality (such as structural racism)???!!!

The opening question was a brilliant example of strategic showmanship:

Is there anyone on stage, and can I see hands, who is unwilling tonight to pledge your support to the eventual nominee of the Republican party and pledge to not run an independent campaign against that person.
Again, we’re looking for you to raise your hand now — raise your hand now if you won’t make that pledge tonight.

And Trump was magnificent in his response. Honest, too. From there on, it was downhill for Mr. Trump. He delivered the same slogans. He failed to flesh out positions and show understanding. The man is quick and engaging; but he came unprepared.

Rand Paul fell flat in his refusal to tackle the probe about his aversion to neocons. He’s a mean little man, too, although I loved his retort to Gov. Chris Christie on the latter’s eagerness to flout the Fourth Amendment and the governor’s bear hugs for Barack during the Romney campaign. Rand’s emphasis on negotiations in diplomacy was good, too.

Marco Rubio is a slick, smart, personable neocon. But if you want truly nice, then Dr. Ben Carson is lovely. A good man. Naturally, I disagree with him on almost every matter of policy. I just love the self-made, talented, clean-living, non-politician. Dr. Carson is also a beautiful-looking man.

Item: The audience was most certainly not comprised of The Republican Base. It was more establishmentarian.

Item: That buzzer noise must go. Use the opening bars to Beethoven’s Fifth, or something like it, instead.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker: Don’t ask me why, but I tune them out. It’s an automatic response. They are not that intelligent. My mind drifts when they talk. Ditto Jeb Bush. I did love his, “They called me Veto Corleone. Because I vetoed 2,500 separate line-items in the budget.”

Ted Cruz’s performance disappointed greatly—and not because he is not quick on his feet. Cruz is most certainly brilliant. His liberal professor, Alan Dershowitz, said as much. But he angered me when he did not turn the matter of providing jobs for ISIS into a principled point illustrating the role of limited, American government, which is not to lift the world out of poverty:

When I asked General Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs, what would be required militarily to destroy ISIS, he said there is no military solution. We need to change the conditions on the ground so that young men are not in poverty and susceptible to radicalization. That, with all due respect, is nonsense.
It’s the same answer the State Department gave that we need to give them jobs. What we need is a commander in chief that makes — clear, if you join ISIS, if you wage jihad on America, then you are signing your death warrant.

The bankruptcy questions to Trump were excellent; his replies were good, too. He’s the consummate businessman. We knew that.

One expects Huckaubee, who made thoughtful points on Social Security, to deliver a good turn pf phrase:

Ronald Reagan said “trust, but verify.” President Obama is “trust, but vilify.” He trusts our enemies and vilifies everyone who disagrees with him.

As for a Bush talking about the value of life. That would be funny, if it were not so sad. Allow me to quote from “It’s About Federalism, Stupid! (2006)”: “Would that Republicans fussed as much over the many fully formed human-beings dying daily in Iraq [and wherever else they choose to war], as they do over fetuses.”

The best closing lines in the evening Act were these:

HUCKABEE: “It seems like this election has been a whole lot about a person who’s very high in the polls, that doesn’t have a clue about how to govern. A person who has been filled with scandals, and who could not lead, and, of course, I’m talking about Hillary Clinton.”

CARSON: Well, I haven’t said anything about me being the only one to do anything, so let me try that. I’m the only one to separate siamese twins … The the only one to operate on babies while they were still in mother’s womb, the only one to take out half of a brain, although you would think, if you go to Washington, that someone had beat me to it.

THE END.

UPDATE I: COME AGAIN, T. CRUZ.

CRUZ: President Obama has talked about fundamentally transforming this country. There’s 7 billion people across the face of the globe, many of whom want to come to this country. If they come legally, great. But if they come illegally and they get amnesty, that is how we fundamentally change this country, and it really is striking.
A majority of the candidates on this stage have supported amnesty. I have never supported amnesty, and I led the fight against Chuck Schumer’s gang of eight amnesty legislation in the Senate.

Did Cruz really mean to imply that if Hillary ascends to the throne, and a good portion of 7 billion people are granted permission to come to the US legally, that would be OK? That’s the inference from what he said. Crazy.

UPDATE II (8/10): All your fav Republican females with short skirts are feminists. What did you expect from Megyn Kelly? A good wake up for her fans. Still, it’s better that Kelly ask crappy fem-oriented questions of The Donald than the Dem moderators. It neutralizes the latter.

Here are the two fabulous Sisters for Donald Trump. Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson unleash on Megyn Kelly or “Kelly Megyn, whatever you’re name is”: “Go back to reporting news for Sesame Street,” they recommend.

Trump Should Triangulate

Business, Economy, Elections, Free Markets, Government, Politics

“Trump Should Triangulate” is the current column, now on The Unz Review, America’s smartest webzine. An excerpt:

Working people warm to Donald Trump. He appeals to a good segment of real Americans. The circle jerk of power brokers that is American media, however, lacks the depth and understanding to grasp the fellow-feeling Trump engenders in his fans.

THE MEDIA STRUMPETS

Amid sneers about Trump’s “crazy, entertaining, simplistic talk,” the none-too bright Joan Walsh, Salon editor-in-chief, proclaimed (MSNBC): “I look at those people and I feel sad. That is really such a low common denominator. They’re all Republicans … they really don’t have a firm grasp on reality.”

For failing to foresee Trump’s staying power, smarmy Michael Smerconish (CNN) scolded himself adoringly. He was what “Mr. Trump would call ‘a loser.’” Smerconish’s admission was a way of copping to his superiority. From such vertiginous intellectual heights, Smerconish was incapable of fathoming the atavistic instincts elicited by the candidate. Nevertheless, the broadcaster “quadrupled down.” The country would be delivered from Donald by Mexican drug lord El Chapo, who’d scare Trump away.

Campbell Brown, another banal bloviator, ventured that Trump resonates with a fringe and was fast approaching a time when he would, like Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann, “max-out the craziness” quotient.

Trump supporters were simply enamored of his vibe, said a dismissive Ellis Henican.

As derisive, another Fox News commentator spoke about the “meat and potatoes” for which Trump cheerleaders hanker. I suspect he meant “red meat.”

National Journal’s Ronald Brownstein divined his own taxonomy of the Republican Beast: the “upscale Republicans and the blue-collar Republicans.” The group of toothless rube-hicks Brownstein places in Trump’s camp.

Pollster Frank Luntz provides his own brand of asphyxiating agitprop: The little people want to elect someone they’d have a beer with.

A British late night anchor—a CNN hire!—offered this non sequitur: Trump painting himself as anti-establishment and, at the same time, owning hotels: this was a contradiction. In the mind of this asinine liberal, only a Smelly Rally like “Occupy Wall Street” instantiates the stuff of rebellion and individualism. (Never mind that the Occupy Crowds were walking ads for the bounty business provides. The clothes they wore, the devices they used to transmit their sub-intelligent message; the food they bought cheaply at the corner stand to sustain their efforts—these were all produced, or brought to market by the invisible hand of the despised John Galts and the derided working people.)

I know not what exactly the oracular Krauthammer said to anger Trump, but it was worth it: “Charles Krauthammer is a totally overrated person … I’ve never met him … He’s a totally overrated guy, doesn’t know what he’s doing. He was totally in favor of the war in Iraq. He wanted to go into Iraq and he wanted to stay there forever. These are totally overrated people.”

Even media mogul Rupert Murdoch moved in on Trump, calling him an embarrassment to his friends and to the country.

Inadvertently, one media strumpet came close to coming clean about the serial failures of analysis among her kind. Wonkette, or Wonkette Emerita, aka Ana Marie Cox, spoke of “the superfluousness of the media’s predictions and its inability to perform the service of making sense of events.” Like Smerconish, Cox is hoping against hope that the little people are having fun at her expense and “are in some way in on the joke” that is Trump. …

… Read the rest. “Trump Should Triangulate” is now on The Unz Review, America’s smartest webzine.

‘What Would Beau [Biden] Do?’ Who? And Who Cares!

Democrats, Elections, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Politics

“Never let a serious crisis go to waste,” said Rahm Emanuel. In this case, the death of a political son has prompted one of the worst columnists in this country—nevertheless, Maureen Dowd sits atop a lucrative perch at the New York Times—to launch yet another Joe Biden run for president by weaving a soppy, cloyingly saccharine yarn (I’ve copied and pasted it; you read it. It’s too disgusting for words):

… As a little boy, Beau helped get his father through the tragedy of losing his beautiful first wife and 13-month-old daughter in the car crash that injured Beau and his brother, Hunter.

When Beau realized he was not going to make it, he asked his father if he had a minute to sit down and talk.

“Of course, honey,” the vice president replied.

At the table, Beau told his dad he was worried about him.

My kid’s dying, an anguished Joe Biden thought to himself, and he’s making sure I’m O.K.

“Dad, I know you don’t give a damn about money,” Beau told him, dismissing the idea that his father would take some sort of cushy job after the vice presidency to cash in.

Beau was losing his nouns and the right side of his face was partially paralyzed. But he had a mission: He tried to make his father promise to run, arguing that the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.

Hunter also pushed his father, telling him, “Dad, it’s who you are.”

It could be awkward for President Obama, who detoured from the usual route — supporting your vice president — and basically passed the torch to Hillary. Some in Obama’s circle do not understand why he laid out the red carpet for his former rivals. “He has no idea how much the Clintons dislike him,” said one former top White House official.

But the president has been so tender and supportive to his vice president ever since learning that Beau was sick, it’s hard to say how he will react. Since the funeral, Obama has often kept a hand on Biden’s back, as if to give him strength.

When Beau was dying, the family got rubber bracelets in blue — his favorite color — that said “WWBD,” What Would Beau Do, honoring the fact that Beau was a stickler for doing the right thing.

To borrow from Camille Paglia (who was once interesting, but no longer), Maureen Dowd is a “catty, third-rate, wannabe sorority queen; empty vessel. One pleasure of reading online is that one never has to see anything written by people like Maureen Dowd [Kathleen Parker, Eugene Robinson, Thomas Friedman, Cynthia Tucker, on and on]. I ignore their hypertext like spam for penis extenders.”

Ditto, but Dowd is, nevertheless, powerful.

Politically, White Lives Don’t Matter

Democrats, Politics, Race, Racism

White lives are unworthy of being compared in their sanctity to black lives. That’s the political position to adopt if one is a good Democrat politician, unwilling to alienate his liberal base. Martin O’Malley, Democrat for president, furnished an example of just how sickening the politcal mindset is—and why Donald Trump, who is unfreighted by such a mindset, appeals.

Activists at the Netroots Nation conference, in Pheonix, chanted at O’Malley, “Black lives matter, black lives matter.” O’Malley responded appropriately: “Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter.” He repeated this catchy phrase, the reaction to which prompted an O’Malley apology:

The demonstrators, who were mostly black, responded by booing him and shouting him down.

Later that day, O’Malley apologized for using the phrase in that context if it was perceived that he was minimizing the importance of blacks killed by police.
Meet the progressives who want Hillary to 'feel the Bern'

“I meant no disrespect,” O’Malley said in an interview on This Week in Blackness, a digital show. “That was a mistake on my part and I meant no disrespect. I did not mean to be insensitive in any way or communicate that I did not understand the tremendous passion, commitment and feeling and depth of feeling that all of us should be attaching to this issue.”