Tag: politics

Cruz snaking Trump delegates

Keep this in mind when you hear Republicans pontificate about democracy and the will of the people:

Sen. Ted Cruz is out-hustling Donald Trump and looks set to ensure many Arizona delegates will defect to him in a convention floor fight. The Texas senator, who ever since Iowa has played a stealthy ground game in contrast to Trump’s chaotic populism, is taking steps to snatch the Republican presidential nomination from The Donald at the convention in July.

The New York businessman easily won last month’s Arizona primary taking 47 percent to Cruz’s 25 percent, scooping up all 58 of the state’s delegates. That’s nearly 5 percent of the 1,237 Trump needs for the nomination, and they’re tied are to him on the first ballot.

But Cruz, exploiting deep opposition to Trump among grassroots Republicans, has been far more active in Arizona than Trump, insiders say. He’s recruiting candidates for the available 55 delegate slots, that along with the other three delegate positions filled by party leaders, would be allowed to vote for him in a multi-ballot contested convention.

“Cruz, out of all the campaigns, has the most folks on the
ground and has been the most organized,” Michael Noble, a Republican
consultant in Arizona who is neutral, told the Washington Examiner on Friday. “Trump has no real organization in Arizona,” added GOP
strategist Sean Noble (no relation) in an email exchange. “Cruz will get
most/all Arizona delegates on second ballot.”

This is all according to the rules. The problem is that it is indicative of structural and institutional corruption, not that this comes as any surprise. Legality is not morality. Of course, if the Republican establishment doesn’t like the Trump wind, they really won’t enjoy reaping the nationalist whirlwind that is beginning to swirl even now.

What is alarming about this to me is the way it reveals the elite political establishment to be extraordinarily short-sighted. No wonder the Republicans have conserved nothing. Unlike the die-hard Left, they have no long-term strategy, only short-term tactics.

Feminist faux-cons drink the Kool-aid

You will probably note that NONE of these women have ever been featured on this blog, with the exception of Dana Loesch, aka Mamalogues, who once played the part of a punching bag when she took umbrage concerning my lack of respect for mommyblogging. That’s because none of them are anything but feminists of one wave or another who are attempting to make media careers out of the female imperative.

Female Media Members ask Trump Campaign to Fire Core Lewandowski

The press is to have an adversarial, yet civil approach to those in, or running, for elected office. Never in this line of work is it acceptable to respond to reasonable and legitimate questioning with use of physical force. The photographs, audio, videos, and witness accounts documenting the treatment of Michelle Fields by Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, are inexcusable and unprofessional. Donald Trump should immediately remove Lewandowski from his campaign. However unlike the Trump campaign, we believe in making a statement on the record to clearly highlight the difference between right and wrong,” it concludes.

Signed.

Dana Loesch (Radio America, Blaze TV)
Katie Pavlich, (Townhall, Fox News)
Meghan McCain, (America Now Radio, Cosmopolitan, Fox News)
S.E. Cupp, ( New York Daily News, Glamour, CNN)
Mary Katharine Ham, (CNN, The Federalist)
Christine Rosen, (New Atlantis, Commentary)
Christina Hoff Sommers, (American Enterprise Institute)
Bethany Mandel, (The Federalist, Acculturated)
Emily Zanotti, (American Spectator)
Elisha Krauss, (Ben Shapiro’s radio co-host)
Karol Markowicz, (New York Post)
Kristen Soltis Anderson, (Washington Examiner)
Mona Charen, (Ethics and Public Policy Center, Creators Syndicate)
Sarah Rumpf, (freelance)
Brooke Rogers, (National Review)
Mary Chastain, (Breitbart)

Now notice who is not on it. Ann Coulter. Helen Smith. Ilana Mercer. Camille Paglia. Even Michelle Malkin, who was my original model for a conservative media whore, had more sense than to sign on to this collective conservative career suicide note. If I were a right-wing publisher, I would no sooner rely upon any of them to contribute than the average Jezebelle.

The only real disappointment is Christina Hoff Sommers, but this demonstrates that no woman who calls herself a feminist of ANY kind should be trusted to reliably stand up to the Sisterhood.

The abortion misstep

Trump mishandles a media ambush on abortion:

  • Host Chris Matthews presses Trump on anti-abortion position, repeatedly asking him, “Should abortion be punished? This is not something you can dodge”
    • “Look, people in certain parts of the Republican Party, conservative Republicans, would say, ‘Yes, it should,’” Trump answers
    • “How about you?” Matthews asks
    • “I would say it’s a very serious problem and it’s a problem we have to decide on. Are you going to send them to jail?” Trump says
    • “I’m asking you,” Matthews says
    • “I am pro-life,” Trump says
    • “How do you actually ban abortion?” Matthews asks
    • “Well, you go back to a position like they had where they would perhaps go to illegal places but we have to ban it,” Trump says
  • Matthews then presses Trump on if he believes there should be punishment for abortion if it were illegal
    • “There has to be some form of punishment,” Trump says
    • “For the woman?” Matthews says; “Yeah,” Trump says, nodding
    • Trump says punishment would “have to be determined”
    • “They’ve
      set the law and frankly the judges, you’re going to have a very big
      election coming up for that reason because you have judges where it’s a
      real tipping point and with the loss of Scalia, who was a very strong
      conservative, this presidential election is going to be very important,”
      Trump says
    • “When you say what’s the law, nobody knows what the law is going to be. It depends on who gets elected,” Trump says

Obviously, this was “gotcha” journalism on Matthews’ part (once he established that he was referring to illegal
abortions he knew he could pin Trump between having to either say women
should be punished or that women could break the law with impunity),
and as we saw last year with the whole Kurds/Quds Hugh Hewitt debacle,
Trump is susceptible to badgering. The other problem here is that it
isn’t clear that Trump truly believes some of the things he’s forced to
say as a Republican candidate, which leads to exchanges like that
recounted above. “Don’t overthink it: Trump doesn’t understand the
pro-life position because he’s not pro-life,” a Cruz aid tweeted. Here’s
Politico with a bit of context:

Trump’s policy idea is a departure from most state abortion
restrictions, which don’t impose penalties on the women who get
abortions. Typically, any penalties are imposed on the physician who
does the procedure.

The anti-abortion movement in recent decades has shied
away from the perception that it is “punishing” women for getting
abortions. Instead, it has focused on penalties for the
physicians who provide them, such as imposing medical or legal
restrictions on their practice. In some rare situations, women have
faced charges associated with abortions they have attempted on their
own.

Having realized this had become a PR fiasco, Trump promptly walked back his comments.

This is a statement released just moments ago, in which the
billionaire revises his statement, calling the women “victims”, and
stating it is doctors who should be held legally responsible for
performing the illegal act:

If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and
the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted
to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other
person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be legally
responsible, not the woman. The woman is a victim in this case as is the
life in her womb. My position has not changed – like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions.

That’s one of the risks of being outspoken and unafraid. People will lay traps for you, and from time to time, you will step in them. Trump made an initial mistake by hemming and hawing, thereby letting Matthews know that he didn’t have an effective position staked out and encouraging him to press on it. Then, he made the mistake of answering the dilemma posed instead of falling back on the trusty old “I’ve got people for that” evasion.

And finally, he compounded his error by backing down. The correct thing would have been to stand by his correct position in the abstract – women absolutely SHOULD be punished for murdering children  – while providing a practical temporization of it by observing that the primary goal is to save children, and politically, it will be impossible to stop legal abortion in a female-majority democracy if women are punished for having abortions.

In other words, he should have said that while he believes women are responsible for their criminal actions, and ideally should be held responsible for them, in this particular case, the interests of the unborn children should be prioritized and the punishments focused on the abortion providers.

We are the spectre

Allum Bokhari thoughtfully provides establishment conservatives with a Guide to the Alt Right:

A specter is haunting the dinner parties, fundraisers and think-tanks of the Establishment: the specter of the “alternative right.” Young, creative and eager to commit secular heresies, they have become public enemy number one to beltway conservatives — more hated, even, than Democrats or loopy progressives.

The alternative right, more commonly known as the alt-right, is an amorphous movement. Some — mostly Establishment types — insist it’s little more than a vehicle for the worst dregs of human society: anti-Semites, white supremacists, and other members of the Stormfront set. They’re wrong.

Previously an obscure subculture, the alt-right burst onto the national political scene in 2015. Although initially small in number, the alt-right has a youthful energy and jarring, taboo-defying rhetoric that have boosted its membership and made it impossible to ignore.

It has already triggered a string of fearful op-eds and hit pieces from both Left and Right: Lefties dismiss it as racist, while the conservative press, always desperate to avoid charges of bigotry from the Left, has thrown these young readers and voters to the wolves as well.

National Review attacked them as bitter members of the white working-class who worship “father-Führer” Donald Trump. Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast attacked Rush Limbaugh for sympathising with the “white supremacist alt-right.” BuzzFeed begrudgingly acknowledged that the movement has a “great feel for how the internet works,” while simultaneously accusing them of targeting “blacks, Jews, women, Latinos and Muslims.”

The amount of column inches generated by the alt-right is a testament to their cultural punch. But so far, no one has really been able to explain the movement’s appeal and reach without desperate caveats and virtue-signalling to readers.

Part of this is down to the alt-right’s addiction to provocation. The alt-right is a movement born out of the youthful, subversive, underground edges of the internet. 4chan and 8chan are hubs of alt-right activity. For years, members of these forums – political and non-political – have delighted in attention-grabbing, juvenile pranks. Long before the alt-right, 4channers turned trolling the national media into an in-house sport.

I leave it to you to decide whether we belong with:

  • The intellectuals
  • The natural conservatives
  • The meme team
  • The 1488ers 

Regardless of their merits and demerits, all of these alt-righters are to be preferred to the cuckservatives and the GOPe sellouts.  I’ve been called “an alt-right figurehead” and I am perfectly fine with that.

And if you’re going to call me a nationalist, that’s fine. Just make sure that you get it right and call me a “red nationalist”.

Michelle Fields quadruples down

Keep this in mind when you’re dealing with a woman. They NEVER stop doubling down, because they simply can’t believe that they’ll have to deal with the consequences. Michelle Fields is actually pressing charges against Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski.

“Mr. Lewandowski was issued a Notice to Appear and given a court date. He was not arrested. Mr. Lewandowski is absolutely innocent of this charge,” Hicks said. “He will enter a plea of not guilty and looks forward to his day in court. He is completely confident that he will be exonerated. Mr. Lewandowski is represented by Scott Richardson of The Law Office of Scott N. Richardson, P.A. in West Palm Beach, and Kendall Coffey of Coffey Burlington in Miami.Inquiries are to be directed to Mr. Richardson’s office.”

Setting aside the fact that she claimed to have been grabbed on the UPPER arm and the bruises she showed were on the lower arm, there are still some significant doubts concerning who touched her in the first place.

As some have suggested, Trump’s response should be to require all members of the media to sit in a pen, for their own protection.

Relativity and the ideological spectrum

I’ve designed a nine-point ideological scale for reasons that will be readily apparent soon, and I’m in need of some clarifying examples. Here is what I have so far, but I feel as if there could be better examples. Ideally, the more famous the individual, the better; accuracy is far less important than familiarity.

One is extreme left, nine is extreme right. The goal is to clarify, not obscure or start arguments, so leave Hitler and anyone else likely to spark debate out of it.

  1. Vladimir Lenin
  2. Karl Marx
  3. Angela Merkel
  4. Bill Clinton
  5. John F. Kennedy
  6. George W. Bush
  7. Ronald Reagan
  8. Thomas Jefferson
  9. Ayn Rand

Another idea would be to provide multiple examples from different fields, from economics, from politics, and from philosophy. I’m entirely open to suggestion here, with one caveat: I am not at all open to suggestions of multiple axes or anything more complicated than a single 9-point scale.

And if you know what this is concerning, please resist the urge to demonstrate as much. When I want to make an announcement, I will make an announcement. In the meantime, keep an eye on your emails tomorrow.

Sanders sweeps Saturday caucuses

Hillary’s meltdown continues:

Bernie Sanders swept all three Democratic caucuses Saturday — scoring
victories in Hawaii, Alaska and delegate-rich Washington state.

While the underdog’s West Coast wins are not nearly enough to trip up
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s path to the nomination, his
wide margin of victory provides his campaign with a burst of momentum
heading into a 10-day break before the next primary contest. The Vermont
senator’s big victories are also typically followed by a considerable
fundraising bump.

Sanders was victorious in Washington state’s caucuses 72.7 percent
to Clinton’s 27.1 percent and won Alaska’s caucuses by a landslide,
defeating Clinton 81.6 percent to 18.4 percent. At 4 a.m. Sunday, with
87.8 percent of precincts reporting, Sanders was declared the winner in
Hawaii, leading Clinton 70.6 percent to 29.2 percent.

I will be surprised if Hillary Clinton doesn’t withdraw from the race for health reasons before the DNC. She quite clearly is not well and she won’t want to endure the humiliation of losing to such an obvious no-hoper as Sanders.

Disney, Marvel, oppose religious liberty

Two prominent purveyors of cultural dysgenics join the NFL in threatening democracy in the State of Georgia:

The Walt Disney Co. and Marvel Studios indicated opposition to a Georgia religious liberty bill pending before Gov. Nathan Deal, saying that they will take their business elsewhere “should any legislation allowing discriminatory practices be signed into state law.”

With generous tax incentives, Georgia has become a production hub, with Marvel currently shooting “Guardians of the Galaxy 2” at Pinewood Studios outside Atlanta. “Captain America: Civil War” shot there last summer.

“Disney and Marvel are inclusive companies, and although we have had great experiences filming in Georgia, we will plan to take our business elsewhere should any legislation allowing discriminatory practices be signed into state law,” a Disney spokesman said on Wednesday.

It doesn’t speak well for Christians that they are so less willing to back up their beliefs with action than those whose objective is the dismantling and destruction of Christianity and Western civilization. I already refuse to use Disney products; it appears I will have to extend that policy to Marvel Studios as well. (I’m not going to bother changing the RP 2016 recommendations at this point, as Marvel’s actions thus far remain hypothetical.)

One hopes the governor does not give in to this corporate attempt to influence the political process. And if he does, I expect he will experience the consequences of putting corporate politics ahead of the clearly expressed will of the people.

The Ted Cruz affair crisis

The National Enquirer has run a story about “The 5 Romps that will destroy Ted Cruz”, complete with pictures of the five women with whom he has supposedly had affairs.

Oh dear, the National Enquirer has come out with a story claiming evidence of multiple sexual trysts by presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz.

Worse yet for the Cruz camp, the framework within the article is structurally very concerning:The National Enquirer is indeed a tabloid – and as such there are various grains of salt that should be applied when reviewing anything they present.

However, that said, they have been unfortunately accurate for more
than a few presidential hopefuls:  Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson and John
Edwards to name a few of the more infamous examples. Beyond the story itself there’s a few presenting elements which point
to a high degree of confidence, and as a consequence ‘legal
avoidance’, on the publishers’ part.

Firstly, they post pictures of the collective mistresses.  NE would never legally “go there” if they did not hold a very reasonable certainty the outlined players were factually part of the story.

Despite being partially-obscured, three of the five women alleged to have been involved with Cruz have already been identified: Katrina Pierson, Sarah Isgur Flores and Amanda Carpenter. This story was already in the works at Breitbart, as Allum Bokhari had it back in February but was not permitted to run with it. The current timing strikes me as intriguing given the fact that Donald Trump already warned the Cruz campaign that there would be reprisals for their advertised attack on his wife Melania.

It also looks as if the Rubio campaign had the dirt on Cruz, but sat on it in order to keep him viable against Donald Trump.

They had their chance

Glenn Reynolds explains how David Brooks and company created The Trumpening:

Brooks is, of course, horrified at Trump and his supporters, whom he finds childish,
thuggish and contemptuous of the things that David Brooks likes about
today’s America. It’s clear that he’d like a social/political revolution
that was more refined, better-mannered, more focused on the
Constitution and, well, more bourgeois as opposed to in-your-face and
working class.

The thing is, we had that movement. It was the Tea Party movement….
Yet the tea party movement was smeared as racist, denounced as fascist, harassed with impunity by the IRS and generally treated with contempt by the political establishment — and by pundits like Brooks, who declared “I’m not a fan of this movement.” After handing the GOP big legislative victories in 2010 and 2014, it
was largely betrayed by the Republicans in Congress, who broke their
promises to shrink government and block Obama’s initiatives.

And now they call Trump supporters fascists and Nazis. So, guess what comes next if David Brooks and company are successful in keeping Donald Trump out of power?