I like this Donald Trump YouTube most. In it, the vintage old Trump promises to “terminate” or nullify laws passed through executive orders. It’s doable. But why do I no longer believe him? Trump has not thrown the liberty community a single liberty minded candidate. We want Ron Paul and yes, even little Rand in some official capacity, supervised by dad, will ameliorate statism.
The Trump act that’s hard to get beyond is his cruelty to Chris Christie. “Get on the pane and go Home. It’s over there. Go.” However self-serving Christie was being in endorsing Trump, Trump still owed him a deb of gratitude for exposing The Marcobot so brilliantly. Face it, Trump is not quick that way.
It’s hard to understand the joy the media took in this ugly open mic moment—and it’s not that I’m a fan of Christie’s; the opposite. Irrespective of the kind of person Christie is (and I’ve written mostly negatively about him); this cruelty reflects badly on Trump. But I’m too soft. I know.
There’s a difference between (small r) republican principles and the Republican Party’s rules of procedure. But National Review neoconservative Jonah Goldberg doesn’t see it.
Or, maybe Goldberg is using America’s founding, governing principles to piggyback the Republican Party’s oft revised and rigged rules to respectability.
Conservatives who harbor the quaint expectation that voters, not party operatives, would choose the nominee stand accused by Goldberg of fetishizing unfiltered democracy.
“America is a republic not a simple democracy,” says Goldberg, in motivating for Grand Old Party chicanery.
Goldberg’s argument is a cunning but poor one. It confuses bureaucratic rules with higher principles: the republicanism of America’s Constitution makers.
Through a Bill of Rights and a scheme that divides authority between autonomous states and a national government, American federalism aimed to secure the rights of the individual by imposing strict limits on the power of thumping majorities and a central government.
The Goldberg variations on republicanism won’t wash. The Republican Party’s arbitrary rules relate to the Founding Founders’ republicanism as the Romney Rule relates to veracity.
The Romney initiated Rule 40(b) is a recent addition to the Republican Party rule book. It stipulates that in order to win the nomination, a candidate must demonstrate he has earned a majority of delegates from at least eight different states. Rule 40 (b) was passed post-haste to thwart libertarian candidate Ron Paul.
Party crooks and their lawyers now find themselves in a pickle, because Governor John Kasich, candidate for the establishment (including the New York Times and the Huffington Post), has yet to meet the Republican rule du jour.
So, what do The Rulers do? They plan to change the rules. Again.
Pledged delegates are not supposed to act as autonomous agents. Their voting has to be tethered to the candidate whom voters have overwhelmingly chosen. But not when The Party parts company with The Voters. Then, delegates might find themselves unmoored from representing the voters.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has hinted at allowing pledged delegates the freedom to betray their pledge. …
If Donald J. Trump wishes to lessen the impact of his disappointing second in the Iowa caucuses and walk back the tack he’s taken with Ted Cruz—he must begin to think big and talk big.
Loud in not necessarily big.
Call it triangulation, a concept associated with Bill Clinton’s successful strategies, or call it “the art of the deal”: It’s time for Trump to DO IT.
To this end, Trump must quit the “we don’t win anymore” formulaic rhapsody, and start fleshing out substantive positions. A pragmatist does so by introducing the people he’ll be recruiting to “Make America Great Again.”
To Cruz belongs the Trump Department of Justice portfolio. Offering Justice to Cruz allows Trump to both put Ted in his place as unsuited to the presidency; while simultaneously making him part of Team Trump and repairing that relationship.
Ted is too soft to be US president in these troubled times. But he’d make a spectacular attorney general in charge of DOJ.
There’s a reason George W. Bush hates Ted Cruz. In 2008, Cruz gave America reason to cue the mariachi band and celebrate the death of detritus José Medellín.
As part of a gangbanger initiation rite, Medellín had raped (in every way possible), strangled, slashed, and stomped two young Texan girls to death.
“In Texas,” to quote another Ron from the Lone Star State, “we have the death penalty and we use it. If you come to Texas and kill somebody, we will kill you back.”
Bush 43 would wrestle a crocodile for a criminal alien. Backed by Bush—and on behalf of Medellín and other killer compadres awaiting a similar fate—Mexico promptly sued the US over procedural technicalities in the International Court of Justice. The president ordered Texas to halt the execution of murderer and rapist Medellín.
Texas’ heroic solicitor general said no.
Cruz took the case to the Supreme Court. There, he bested Bush and his lickspittles. As the Conservative Review gloated, Cruz “won the case, 6-to-3.” He had sought justice for Americans against a president who subjugated them to international courts. Ted, moreover, was forever gracious about Bush; Bush and his bambino bro routinely slime Ted. (In trashing Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Trump is in bad company.) …
