Common Sense!
===
This from a very long time friend and fellow memo reader.
"Since all volunteer their thoughts on the matter, here's mine --
I have never voted for a democrat for president since I campaigned in '64 for Goldwater. This year, if Trump is the nominee and if there's no conservative third party alternative, I will vote for Hillary. I cannot vote for a person who knows nothing about economics, who declares George Bush (under whom I served in Iraq) a war criminal and worthy of impeachment, who calls Mexicans "rapists" without cause and simply to inflame, who declares in public his not-too-secret wish to "date" (wink, wink) his daughter, and who plays the narcissistic psychopath too well to be faking it. (Just for starters.)
The country has survived any number of Democrats. But I fear neither the country nor the party can survive Mr. Trump. I am not willing to find out.
I don't mean this to be an effort to convince your Trump supporters to change their minds. A decision that was arrived at emotionally cannot be changed by any number of arguments. J---"
Sowell raises same issues! He sees Cruz as the most obvious alternative to Trump, unlike my friend who might still go with Hillarious because his is a rational not emotional decision, or so he self acclaims. (See 1 below.)
My friend attacks Trump by name but then states he will vote for Hillary because even though a Democrat we have survived Democrats but Trump. in large measure, is the consequence of the policies of Democrats and the impact it has had on what remains of America's frustrated middle class etc.
My friend attacks Trump by name but then states he will vote for Hillary because even though a Democrat we have survived Democrats but Trump. in large measure, is the consequence of the policies of Democrats and the impact it has had on what remains of America's frustrated middle class etc.
Like on college and university campuses today, what we witnessed in Chicago, Friday night and earlier in St Louis, is the tactic the Obama Black Lives Matter and Black Panther crowd employs, threatening riots and creating disturbances through raucous protests when Trump tries to speak to his faithful. Nothing emotional about their actions, just pure sinister calculated tactics that fascists resort to when all else fails.
As the belated momentum gathers force within the Republican Establishment Ranks, the money and endorsements seem to be flowing towards Sen. Cruz who, prior to his candidacy, was the Senate's primary outcast.
Interesting how Trump, who claims to be a uniter, is uniting those with the Senator with whom they never thought they would be united.
Gooney and looney is what America is coming down to and that is symptomatic of a society breaking apart because it is infected from within by dry rot.
Interesting how Trump, who claims to be a uniter, is uniting those with the Senator with whom they never thought they would be united.
Gooney and looney is what America is coming down to and that is symptomatic of a society breaking apart because it is infected from within by dry rot.
The Enemy Remains US!
===
A little humor:
SPANISH OYSTERS
An Australian stopped at a local restaurant following a day roaming around in Madrid.
While sipping his wine, he noticed a sizzling, scrumptious looking platter
being served at the next table. Not only did it look good, the smell was wonderful.
He asked the waiter, 'What is that you just served?'
The waiter replied, 'Si Senor, you have excellent taste! Those are called
Cojones de Toro, bull's testicles from the bull fight. this morning. A delicacy!'
The Australian said, 'I will have the same please.'
The waiter replied, 'I am so sorry señor. There is only one serving per day
because there is only one bull fight each morning. If you come early and place
your order, we will be sure to save you this delicacy.'
The following day he returned, placed his order, and that evening was served
the one and only special delicacy of the day. After a few bites, inspecting his
platter, he called to the waiter and said,
'These are delicious, but they are much, much smaller than the ones I saw you
serve yesterday.'
The waiter shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Si, Señor. Sometimes the bull wins."
DickA little humor:
SPANISH OYSTERS
An Australian stopped at a local restaurant following a day roaming around in Madrid.
While sipping his wine, he noticed a sizzling, scrumptious looking platter
being served at the next table. Not only did it look good, the smell was wonderful.
He asked the waiter, 'What is that you just served?'
The waiter replied, 'Si Senor, you have excellent taste! Those are called
Cojones de Toro, bull's testicles from the bull fight. this morning. A delicacy!'
The Australian said, 'I will have the same please.'
The waiter replied, 'I am so sorry señor. There is only one serving per day
because there is only one bull fight each morning. If you come early and place
your order, we will be sure to save you this delicacy.'
The following day he returned, placed his order, and that evening was served
the one and only special delicacy of the day. After a few bites, inspecting his
platter, he called to the waiter and said,
'These are delicious, but they are much, much smaller than the ones I saw you
serve yesterday.'
The waiter shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Si, Señor. Sometimes the bull wins."
and
More Bull from The White House! (See 2 below.)
====
=======================================================================
1)
Desperate Tactics
By Thomas SowellIt is desperation time for the Republican party establishment. Its extremely well financed favorite -- Jeb Bush -- never got anywhere with the voters in the primaries, and has already been forced out of the contest.
This should at least cause some second thoughts -- or perhaps first thoughts -- by people who keep repeating that money buys elections. It is one of many theories that seem impervious to evidence.
The desperation of the Republican establishment comes from the fact that the two biggest vote-getters in the Republican primaries -- Donald Trump and Ted Cruz -- are people they do not want to be the Republican candidate for President of the United States.
The immediate panic is over Donald Trump. His surprising string of victories in the primaries conceals his vulnerability in the general election in November. Most of Trump's primary victories were with less than 50 percent, and even with less than 40 percent. In the general election, less than 50 percent usually means losing.
Even more important, while Trump's style and substance may endear him to his followers, both that style and that substance are deeply offensive to many other people. Polls repeatedly show higher negative responses to him than to any other candidate.
Trump is not just in danger of losing this year's presidential election, which the Republicans would otherwise have a high probability of winning. He can poison the whole Republican brand, taking Republican members of Congress down with him, along with Republican governors and other state and local officials.
Stopping Trump is obviously a high priority for the Republican establishment, as shown by their biggest gun, Mitt Romney, suddenly coming out swinging against Trump in the media.
After Trump's momentum from his primary victories, it will not be easy to stop him at this point. But the strategy chosen suggests that establishment Republicans have more in mind than just stopping Trump, even if that is job one.
One of the secrets of Donald Trump's primary victories has been that the majority vote against him has been split among the various other candidates, making him repeatedly a "winner" with a third of the vote or so, but seldom 50 percent.
The most obvious way to stop Trump, if that was the sole objective, would be for the other candidates to drop out of the race, leaving it a Trump versus Cruz contest. But the Republican establishment has chosen the opposite strategy, wanting all the candidates to stay in the race.
That way, if Senator Rubio can win his home state of Florida and Governor Kasich can win his home state of Ohio, that can deny Trump two important, winner-take-all states. This may keep him from reaching the number of delegates required to win the Republican nomination. At that point, it becomes anybody's game at the convention.
If the only objective is to stop Trump, this approach seems less likely to achieve that objective than instead consolidating the non-Trump votes behind one candidate. In a number of the states that Trump won, the combined votes for Cruz and Rubio would have been enough to defeat him.
Now that Rubio is being badly beaten almost everywhere, and is substantially behind Trump in the polls for his own home state of Florida, the most obvious person to have the best chance of beating Trump one-on-one is Ted Cruz, especially after his primary victories over the past weekend.
The Republican establishment is not about to go down that road, even if that would increase their chances of stopping Trump from becoming the Republican nominee. This is because they don't want Cruz to become the Republican candidate either.
Senator Cruz has been fighting against the Republican establishment for years before Trump decided to become a candidate. Nor does he have Trump's new-found "flexibility."
But, whatever his merits or demerits, Ted Cruz is not the Republican establishment's idea of the kind of candidate needed to win. Neither was Ronald Reagan.
The kinds of candidates the Republican establishment has chosen -- from Romney and McCain in recent times, all the way back to Thomas E. Dewey in 1948 -- have had an almost unbroken record of losing, even to Democrats who were initially unknown (Carter, Clinton) or unpopular (Obama, Truman).
===========================================================
2)
2)
The Donald and The Barack
Obama
President Obama is said to be a reflective man, and often he is the one saying so, but you
wouldn’t know it from his Thursday press conference with Canadian Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau. Asked about political polarization and the Donald Trump phenomenon,
Mr. Obama denied all responsibility. He doesn’t seem to appreciate the kind of country he
will leave behind.
“What I’m not going to do is to validate some notion that the Republican crack-up that’s
been taking place is a consequence of actions that I’ve taken,” Mr. Obama said. He
explained Mr. Trump’s ascent as the result of “the nasty tone of our politics, which I
certainly have not contributed to.” He blamed Republicans for this tone, as ever.
“Objectively,” Mr. Obama said, “it’s fair to say that the Republican political elites and
many of the information outlets—social media, news outlets, talk radio, television
stations—have been feeding the Republican base for the last seven years a notion that
everything I do is to be opposed; that cooperation or compromise somehow is a betrayal.”
He listed a few more GOP shortcomings, but you’ve got to hand it to him for that
“objectively.”
As Mr. Obama tells it, all of this reflexive Obama bashing created “an environment
where somebody like a Donald Trump can thrive. He’s just doing more of what has been
done for the last seven and a half years.” In other words, Republicans didn’t clean up the
standing water in their own backyard and now they’re complaining about mosquitoes.
One irony is that even as Mr. Obama denied any liability for Mr. Trump, he lapsed into
the same rhetorical habit that helped fuel the businessman’s ascent. For Mr. Obama,
principled opposition to his policies is always illegitimate or motivated by bad faith.
Like the President’s nonstop moral lectures about “our values” and “who we are as
Americans,” by which he means liberal values and who we are as Democrats, he reads his
critics out of politics. No wonder so many Americans feel disenfranchised and powerless.
And if we’re being objective, maybe Mr. Obama could account for the populist uprising
among disaffected Democratic primary voters for a 74-year-old Vermont socialist vowing
an economic revolution. Bernie Sanders is Mr. Trump’s leftward duplicate. The difference
is that the Democratic establishment is doing a better job keeping their outsider away
from a delegate majority.
The source of this public frustration is no great mystery. For the 10th straight year, the
U.S. economy is growing by less than 3%. Such a long stretch of underperformance
hasn’t happened since the 1930s. Slow growth for a decade means middle-class incomes
are stagnant, which in turn increases economic anxiety, which in turn creates political
unrest.
As for tone, the 1980s and 1990s featured bitter partisan conflicts—and for that matter so
did the 1880s and 1790s. But the late 20th century had popular two-term Presidencies
almost back to back, and the era didn’t produce backlash candidates promising to burn Washington to the ground and salt the earth. The reason is that the economy was booming.
Mr. Obama’s apologists claim 2%-2.5% growth is the best we can do, but the truth is that
the natural dynamism of the U.S. economy has been swamped by waves of Mr. Obama’s
bad policy. Instead of a second term that is bereft of domestic achievements, in an alternate universe he might have worked with the duly elected Republican majority and started to
repair the economy from the center out.
Instead, Mr. Obama has shown contempt for institutions that he doesn’t run, and, notably,
most of his growth-subtracting policies have been imposed through unilateral executive
action. He doesn’t do persuasion and compromise. Some policies were intended to sow
division, like his lawless immigration order that inflamed the restrictionist right, divided Republican elites and was only stopped by the courts.
The nature of Mr. Trump’s appeal can be explained by Mr. Obama’s own rule-by-
regulation governing methods and polarizing political style. You might even call him The
Barack, the more articulate and sophisticated liberal antecedent to The Donald.
The stability of the American political system depends on deeply rooted norms. What this
primary season has revealed is that when a President violates these unwritten rules, the
damage to self-government leads into uncharted territory.
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