Wrong Thinking about the War in Which we are Engaged

In response to the Orlando Attack these words were written by a man I know.  While I understand his anger and intention to find someone to blame, he is wrong when he blames America First.  He seems to ignore history.



His words:

    And we must also pull back and see the big picture of what is playing out here. Our government and its foreign policies and covert actions are the creator of ISIS. This is not conspiracy theory - it is a cold hard reality fact. What we created through our policies in the Middle East for the past at least 2 presidents have created this situation, and it has come back to bite us - in a very deadly way.

    We financed and supported with training and arms radical Muslims including Osama bin Laden since the Afghan-Soviet Union war of the late 1980's for our foreign policy objects. It didn't work. It just went from bad to worse. And they have turned on us - now having our weapons and bomb making expertise, arms, financing, etc etc.


    We only wanted them to declare Jihad on our enemies in the Muslim World to reshape nations and the power in the region. It backfired and they have declared Jihad on us. And no one in our government will take ownership of this from the White House to the CIA, because they prefer to cover up their ineptitude rather than letting us find out they have been the root of the problem over these years.

I respond:

While at first glance there seems to be logic in your contention, You have to go back to the early 1970s. The Oil Embargo of Saudi Arabia, an act of war against The USA. Saudi Arabia an overt Islamic State once more laid siege to the Gates of Vienna (western culture) as the Islamists did in 1683. This is and has been a very very long war.

This war is more than a clash of cultures, it is more than a difference in worldview, it is a clash of the Anti Christ religion Islam and Christianity as expressed rightly or wrongly in western civilization.

Let's go back in the wayback machine for 45 years and moving forward. There is good reason to come to grips with the fact that polices of the last ten years and Afghan intervention was only a small portion of what has been a long history of Islam at war.

In 1972, at the Munich Olympics, Israeli athletes were kidnapped and massacred by Muslim males.

In 1972, a Pan Am 747 was hijacked and eventually diverted to Cairo where a fuse was lit on final approach. Shortly after landing it was blown up by Muslim males.

In 1973, a Pan Am 707 was destroyed in Rome, with 33 people killed, when it was attacked with grenades by Muslim males.

In 1979 the Kidnapping of our citizens for 444 days in Iran after radical Islam took over there this also was an act of war.

At about the same time as the end of their captivity, was the beginning of the Russians incursion into Afghanistan. This went on for a decade and in part was the beginning of the destruction of the Soviet Empire. We did back some bad guys, but we did so after Beirut.

The Beirut Bombing in 1983 Iranian Backed Hezbollah murdered 271 American Soldiers who were trying to keep peace in Lebanon. This event was pivitol since we began to recognize that to keep peace we would have to go to war.

 In 1985, the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70-year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by Muslim males.

In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by Muslim males.

Memories are long. They create strategies. When the invasion of Kuwait took place by Iraq and Saddam, it created an appetite for swift and powerful response. Nominally a Muslim, he nevertheless represented the closest to a caliphate that anyone had ever seen in the Muslim world. Even in his war with IRAN he had come out not victorious, but held them off.

We crushed him, but didn't take him out. Then there was the Yugoslav war. I was in Europe during both the Desert Storm and Yugoslav wars. I was managing a factory in Germany. I had many Muslims working for me. Those two wars hardened the lines between western civilization and the Islamic culture.  People on the factory floor who were once beer drinking buddies became mortal enemies ending in fistfights we had to break up.

Fast forward to the first attack on the world trade center in 1993 with a truck bomb and the bombing of the 2 US embassies in 1998 where over 200 people died, many of them Americans.  

We now knew who Osama bin Laden was.  We knew they had declared war on the US.. informally, but to be a member of the opposing army required neither uniform nor membership.  There are no lone wolf attacks in Islam.  They are all supported at least ideologically by a warped theology.  We had a chance to cut the head off the snake, but we didn't.

Now the big shock. 9-11.  The nation was shaken to it's core.  The cries or some kind of retaliation for this attack went out loud and strong.  People's memories are short.  Many would have been happy to see a mushroom cloud over Tehran, Baghdad, Medina, Riyadh and Mecca.  Turn them all into dust piles and let God sort them out.

What the congress agreed to and what President Bush did in going to war in Iraq and against the parts of Afghanistan was an effort meant to appease the anger then afoot in the USA.  While many voices expressed concern, it was more humane it seemed at the time to go to war with the army you've got, not the one you wish you had.. to keep from blowing the whole place to HELL!

It wasn't great, there was much contention.  While at first both parties endorsed it nearly unanimously, 5 years later in 2006 there was a sea change of emotion as the democrats took both the house and senate from the President's party.  Get out.  We had been at war 4 bloody years.  A year into the war Saddam was captured. That helped.  Bush responded with the SURGE and it worked.  Things calmed down.  Stalemate took place.  This all in Iraq. 

Afghanistan was a different issue. The US discovered that 5th century tribal people were not easily conquered our ruled.  It is there where culture and religion really mattered.  Attempts to have rule of the people failed.  Purple fingers and all.  Democracy doesn't work without a shared core value system.

Then in 2008 Obama was elected president with the promise of ending both wars quickly.  He announced it.  The enemy formed a plan.  ISIS was born in the hearts and minds of misleaders.  The idea of using distortion of Religion to continue the siege of Vienna into the 21st century and beyond was on track.

When in ignorance Obama retreated from Iraq declaring the war ended without any kind of restraining force as was advised by his advisors in the military as we had done in Germany and in Japan that opened the door for ISIS.   He was foolish.

Then the Obama Driven Arab Spring.  His speech in Cairo in May of 2009 created an environment that has resulted in the death of millions.  Syria erupted with our support.  Libya fell with our support.  Egypt fell and then without our support regained it's foothold.  Many other nations have not yet recovered from the spell cast that day.

So you see, while your explanation had a grain of truth in it, it is not the full story.  The core of the issue is there is Radical Islam and it is driving people like the shooter in Orlando to kill and destroy.  It's what it knows.  To draw equivalency with what has been missteps and attempts with bombs and bullets as somehow weak justification for those who join with ISIS misapplies the idea of human justice and mercy. 

It was not merciful to bomb Dresden as we did in WWII.  The war was already lost by the Germans.  It was merciful to Bomb Heilbronn and Lauffen where I lived and where the munition factories were.

It was merciful to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to bring a brutal war to an end and the long reign of a despot to complete humiliation.

An out of hand dismissal of war as being noneffective thereby bringing retaliation from an ISIS force is wrong headed.  If that were true we would be doing battle with Nazi Terrorists or Japanese Kamakazi bombers in the name of the emperor.  Neither of those was capable of long lasting terror.  ISLAM IS.

The first rule of war is KNOW YOUR ENEMY.. we don't so we blame ourselves.

And that is my problem.. over simplicity.  The gates of Vienna are still under siege.   It's still 1683.

Fits right in the Clinton Crime Family

DO YOU KNOW? ____ "Do you know the older man in these pictures? Well, he is Edward 'Ed' Mezvinsky, born January 17, 1937. Now you're saying, "Who in the world is Ed Mezvinsky?” ____ Okay, he's a former Democratic congressman who represented Iowa’s 1st congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives for two terms ... 1973 to 1977. He also sat on the House Judiciary Committee which DECIDED THE FATE OF RICHARD NIXON ____ He was outspoken claiming that Nixon was a crook and a disgrace to politics and the nation and should be impeached. (He and the Clintons were friends and very politically intertwined for many years.) ___ Anyway, Ed Mezvinsky had an affair with NBC News reporter, Marjorie Sue Margolies, and later married her after his wife divorced him. WELL GUESS WHAT ____ In 1993, this same Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, (then a freshman Democrat in Congress) CAST THE DECIDING VOTE that got President Bill Clinton’s controversial tax package through the House of Representatives ____ Now fast forward ... March 2001: Ed Mezvinsky was indicted and later PLEADED GUILTY to 31 out of of 69 counts of bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud. ____ HE EMBEZZLED more than $10 MILLION DOLLARS from people via both a Ponzi scheme and the notorious Nigerian e-mail scams. He was found guilty and sentenced to 80 months in federal prison. AFTER SERVING LESS THAN FIVE YEARS in federal prison, he was released in April 2008 and remains on probation ____ To this day, HE STILL OWES $9.4 million in restitution to his VICTIMS. ____ I know ... NOW YOU'RE SAYING, 'So what!' WELL ... Meet Marc and Chelsea Mezvinsky (photo provided) ____ That’s right; GOOD OLD ED IS CHELSEA CLINTON'S FATHER-IN-LAW :)
Marc and Chelsea are in their early thirties and purchased a $10.5 million dollar NYC apartment (after being married in George Soros’ mansion) ____ ANYONE HEARD ANY OF THIS MENTIONED IN THE MEDIA ?
____ BTW: CAN YOU IMAGINE if this guy was Jenna or Barbara Bush’s, OR BETTER YET, Sarah Palin’s daughter’s father-in- law? The news would be an everyday headline and every detail would be reported over and over ... but hey . . . there's no double standard in political reporting! RIGHT ? ____ Chelsea Clinton earned $600,000 a year when working for NBC and now works for the Clinton Foundation and sits on many boards.
THE UNENDING CYCLE REMAINS ____ Lying and corruption are now known as POSITIVE ATTRIBUTES in the political world." (author unknown)
Abraham Lincoln: "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

A note to Apostle Sippach..

Apostle, first you have to know I love you, we share a heritage that informs us. For that reason it is this piece of your argument where I find a problem. I suffer at my age from the LONG VIEW. History is not for me as much as memory.

Here's the issue: Your words:

And we must also pull back and see the big picture of what is playing out here. Our government and its foreign policies and covert actions are the creator of ISIS. This is not conspiracy theory - it is a cold hard reality fact. What we created through our policies in the Middle East for the past at least 2 presidents have created this situation, and it has come back to bite us - in a very deadly way.

We financed and supported with training and arms radical Muslims including Osama bin Laden since the Afghan-Soviet Union war of the late 1980's for our foreign policy objects. It didn't work. It just went from bad to worse. And they have turned on us - now having our weapons and bomb making expertise, arms, financing, etc etc.

We only wanted them to declare Jihad on our enemies in the Muslim World to reshape nations and the power in the region. It backfired and they have declared Jihad on us. And no one in our government will take ownership of this from the White House to the CIA, because they prefer to cover up their ineptitude rather than letting us find out they have been the root of the problem over these years.

Please read on: 
While at first glance there seems to be logic in your contention, You have to go back to the early 1970s. The Oil Embargo of Saudi Arabia, an act of war against The USA. Saudi Arabia an overt Islamic State once more laid siege to the Gates of Vienna (western culture) as the Islamists did in 1683. This is and has been a very very long war.

This war is more than a clash of cultures, it is more than a difference in worldview, it is a clash of the Anti Christ religion Islam and Christianity as expressed rightly or wrongly in western civilization.

After the Kidnapping of our citizens for 444 days in Iran after radical Islam took over there this also was an act of war.

At about the same time as the end of their captivity, was the beginning of the Russians incursion into Afghanistan. This went on for a decade and in part was the beginning of the destruction of the Soviet Empire. We did back some bad guys, but we did so after Beirut.

The Beirut Bombing in 1983 Iranian Backed Hezbollah murdered 271 American Soldiers who were trying to keep peace in Lebanon. This event was pivitol since we began to recognize that to keep peace we would have to go to war.

Memories are long. They create strategies. When the invasion of Kuwait took place by Iraq and Saddam, it created an appetite for swift and powerful response. Nominally a Muslim, he nevertheless represented the closest to a caliphate that anyone had ever seen in the Muslim world. Even in his war with IRAN he had come out not victorious, but held them off.

We crushed him, but didn't take him out. Then there was the Yugoslav war. I was in Europe during both the Desert Storm and Yugoslav wars. I was managing a factory in Germany. I had many Muslims working for me. Those two wars hardened the lines between western civilization and the Islamic culture.  People on the factory floor who were once beer drinking buddies became mortal enemies ending in fistfights we had to break up.

Fast forward to the first attack on the world trade center in 1993 with a truck bomb and the bombing of the 2 US embassies in 1998 where over 200 people died, many Americans.   

We now knew who Osama bin Laden was.  We knew they had declared war on the US.. informally, but to be a member of the opposing army required neither uniform nor membership.  There are no lone wolf attacks in Islam.  They are all supported at least ideologically by a warped theology.  We had a chance to cut the head off the snake, but we didn't.

Now the big shock. 9-11.  The nation was shaken to it's core.  The cries or some kind of retaliation for this attack went out loud and strong.  People's memories are short.  Many would have been happy to see a mushroom cloud over Tehran, Baghdad, Medina, Riyadh and Mecca.  Turn them all into dust piles and let God sort them out.

What the congress agreed to and what President Bush did in going to war in Iraq and against the parts of Afghanistan was an effort meant to appease the anger then afoot in the USA.  While many prophetic voices expressed concern, it was more humane it seemed at the time to go to war with the army you've got, not the one you wish you had.. to keep from blowing the whole place to HELL!

It wasn't great, there was much contention.  While at first both parties for the most part endorsed it, 5 years later in 2006 there was a sea change of emotion as the democrats took both the house and senate from the President's party.  Get out.  We had been at war 4 bloody years.  A year into the war Saddam was captured. That helped.  Bush responded with the SURGE and it worked.  Things calmed down.  Stalemate took place.  This all in Iraq.  

Afghanistan was a different issue. The US discovered that 5th century tribal people were not easily conquered.  It is there where culture and religion really mattered.  Attempts to have rule of the people failed.  Purple fingers and all.  Democracy doesn't work without a core value system.

Then in 2008 Obama was elected president with the promise of ending both wars quickly.  He announced it.  The enemy formed a plan.  ISIS was born in the hearts and minds of misleaders.  The idea of using distortion of Religion to continue the siege of Vienna into the 21st century and beyond was on track. 

When in ignorance Obama retreated from Iraq declaring the war ended without any kind of restraining force as was advised by his advisors in the military as we had done in Germany and in Japan that opened the door for ISIS.   He was foolish.

Then the Obama Driven Arab Spring.  His speech in Cairo in May of 2009 created an environment that has resulted in the death of millions.  Syria erupted with our support.  Libya fell with our support.  Egypt fell and then without our support regained it's foothold.  Many other nations have not yet recovered from the spell cast that day.  I wrote about it prophetically right after I heard it.  It stands unretouched today.  

So you see, while your explanation had a grain of truth in it, it is not the full story.  The core of the issue is there is a demon called Radical Islam and it is driving people like the shooter in Orlando to kill and destroy.  It's what it knows.  To draw equivalency with what has been missteps and attempts with bombs and bullets as somehow weak justification for those who join with ISIS misapplies the idea of human justice and mercy.  

It was not merciful to bomb Dresden as we did in WWII.  The war was already lost.  It was merciful to Bomb Heilbronn and Lauffen where I lived and where the munition factories were. 

It was merciful to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to bring a brutal war to an end and the long reign of a despot to complete humiliation. 

An out of hand dismissal of war as being noneffective thereby bringing retaliation from an ISIS force is wrong headed.  If that were true we would be doing battle with Nazi Terrorists or Japanese Kamakazi bombers in the name of the emperor.  Neither of those was capable of long lasting terror.  ISLAM IS. 

The first rule of war is KNOW YOUR ENEMY.. we don't so we blame ourselves.

And that is my problem.. over simplicity.  The gates of Vienna are still under siege.   It's still 1683.

Most Mass Shootings in 35 years or longer

The Destroyers

“Death is the sentence. We know there’s nothing to be embarrassed about this, death is the sentence...We have to have that compassion for people, with homosexuals, it’s the same, out of compassion, let’s get rid of them now.”

WATCH: Gays Must Die, Says U.S. Islamic Scholar

breitbart.com

Even though doing so will be painful.. there are reasons why I will have to vote for Donald Trump.

1. The Supreme Court. The left is getting positively giddy at the
prospect of a Supreme Court with a solid block of five liberal justices
who will reliably oppose conservatives on issues they consider vital,
from gun rights to religious liberty to abortion. Mark Tushnet, an
influential figure on the legal left, is already essentially advocating a
total judicial war on conservative policies, particularly those involving social conservatives.

The regulatory disputes surrounding everything from birth control to
transgender teens make a lot of religious groups feel -- not entirely
unreasonably -- that they are facing an existential threat, as their
rights of free association and conscience are trimmed back to “You can
say it in the privacy of your own home, or at church, but don’t you dare
act upon what you believe.”



2. Immigration. Trump supporters
are not wrong to say that elites of both parties have basically
conspired to keep both immigration and trade off the agenda. Nor are
they wrong to be annoyed when any opposition to increased immigration,
or to legalizing people who are here illegally, is immediately dismissed
as racist. No one who wrings their hands about gentrification can
reasonably dismiss “I like my community the way it is” as an inherently
racist and illegitimate sentiment.

Moreover, in a country
with birthright voters, immigration means importing your future
electorate; this, of course, sounds splendid to people on the left who
think that this electorate will be more friendly to social democratic
programs, but it is perfectly reasonable for people who prefer a more
conservative government to oppose greater immigration for the same
reason. Opposition to immigration can be racist, but it isn’t
necessarily so.



3. Elites need a rebuke. For all my criticisms
of Trump and his supporters -- and they have been many -- I find myself
quite sympathetic with the folks who are angry at the establishment.
Elites are smug. They are obnoxiously condescending. They have colluded
to keep legitimate issues off the table.

This sort of elite
collusion can certainly work, but if it becomes too disconnected from
the electorate, a political reaction is inevitable. We are in the middle
of that reaction. And I have to say that if I were out there in flyover
country, I’d probably be pretty mad too.



4. Economics. We are
on a long slide and even though I am skeptical of his actual prowess in
business and his ethical issues, we need someone who has actually HAD
business experience. The level of ignorance among the current
administration about economics and the level of corruption of Hillary
Clinton forces me to vote for Trump.



Sometimes by not voting for the lesser of two evils means the greater of two evils becomes the President.

Five Reasons Decent People May Want to Back Trump - Bloomberg View

Things to think about from John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, KCVO DL (10 January 1834 – 19 June 1902)—known as Sir John Dalberg-Acton, 8th Baronet from 1837 to 1869 and usually referred to simply as Lord Acton—was an English Catholic historian, politician, and writer.

“Liberty becomes a question of morals more than of politics.”
“Liberty is the harmony between the will and the law.”
“Free trade, to improve the condition of the people and fit them for freedom.”
“Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.”
“Political atheism: End justifies the means. This is still the most widespread of all the opinions inimical to liberty.”
“The object of civil society is justice, not truth, virtue, wealth, knowledge, glory or power. Justice is followed by equality and liberty.”
“All liberty is conditional, limited and therefore unequal. The state can never do what it likes in its own sphere. It is bound by all kinds of law.”
“Inequality: the Basis of society. We combined and put things in common to protect the weak against the strong.”
“Divided, or rather multiplied, authorities are the foundation of good government.”
“Duty [is] not taught by the state.”
“Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.”
“Liberty consists in the division of power. Absolutism, in concentration of power.”
“Bureaucracy is undoubtedly the weapon and sign of a despotic government, inasmuch as it gives whatever government it serves, despotic power.”
“Bureaucracy tries to establish so many administrative maxims that the minister is as narrowly controlled and guided as the judge.”
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”
“Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.”
“Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.”
“Everybody likes to get as much power as circumstances allow, and nobody will vote for a self-denying ordinance.”
“Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.”
“Socrates taught a law independent of the state and superior to it.”
“If we dealt with institutions, antiquity would be low. It realized no liberty. But in the domain of ideas it ranks high.”
“Towns were the nursery of freedom.”
“The central idea of Machiavelli is that the state power is not bound by the moral law. The law is not above the state, but below it.”
“Burke's Speeches from 1790 to 1795: They are the law and the prophets.”
“For it is a most striking thing that the views of pure democracy...were almost entirely unrepresented in [the American] convention.”
“A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.”
“The will of the people cannot make just that which is unjust.”
“It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.”
“Absolute power demoralizes.”
“There should be a law to the People besides its own will.”
“Democracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power.”
“The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.”
“Federalism is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of the majority.”
“Federalism: The only barrier to Democracy.”
“Federalism: It is coordination instead of subordination; association instead of hierarchical order; independent forces curbing each other; balance, therefore, liberty.”
“Socialism easily accepts despotism. It requires the strongest execution of power -- power sufficient to interfere with property.”
“All partisanship depends on concealment. Mere strong language and special pleading take in nobody.”
“Conscription is not tolerated by a people that understands and loves freedom.”
“Property, not conscience, is the basis of liberty. For the defence of conscience need not arise. Property is always exposed to interference. It is the constant object of policy.”
“Official truth is not actual truth.”
“Political economy cannot be supreme arbiter in politics. Else you might defend slavery where it is economically sound and reject it where the economic argument applies against it.”
“Every doctrine to become popular, must be made superficial, exaggerated, untrue. We must always distinguish the real essence from the conveyance, especially in political economy.”
“Self-preservation and self-denial, the basis of all political economy.”
“There could never be a revolution less provoked by oppression than America. Thenceforth the right of a nation to judge for itself could not be denied.”
“The Americans, having broken the thread in 1776, spliced it together again. They became eminently conservative in 1787.”
“Americans dreaded democracy and contrived their constitution against it.”
“In England Parliament is above the law. In America the law is above Congress.”
“The great novelty of the American Constitution was that it imposed checks on the representatives of the people.”
“Live both in the future and the past. Who does not live in the past does not live in the future.”
“What the French took from the Americans was their theory of revolution, not their theory of government — their cutting, not their sewing.”
“The value of history is certainty - against which opinion is broken up.”
“History is a great innovator and breaker of idols.”
“Progress, the religion of those who have none.”
“Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.”
“Politics = the ethics of public life.”
“It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.”
“Moral precepts are constant through the ages and not obedient to circumstances.”
“The notion of sin and repentance waned with the belief in authority. Men thought they could make good the evil they did.”
“A public man has no right to let his actions be determined by particular interests. He does the same thing as a judge who accepts a bribe. Like a judge he must consider what is right, not what is advantageous to a party or class.”
“A convinced man differs from a prejudiced man as an honest man from a liar.”
“There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.”
“The Laws of [Plato], the Politics of [Aristotle], are, if I may trust my own experience the books from which we may learn the most about the principles of politics.”
“The true natural check on absolute democracy is the federal system, which limits the central government by the powers reserved, and the state governments by the powers they have ceded.”
“Example is of the first importance in politics, because political calculations are so complex that we cannot trust theory, if we cannot support it by experience.”
“By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes is his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.”
“The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.”

Gloomy Article By Erick Erickson | June 6, 2016, 02:00am

Over the weekend, Donald Trump doubled down on claiming an Indiana native of Mexican descent is unfit to preside over the Trump University fraud trial. He also added to the claim, telling the news media that a muslim judge would also be unfit to hear a case involving Trump. Never mind the legal precedent Trump is gunning for — that one can insult a judge, a race, or ethnicity, and then preclude a judge from overseeing a case — the real issue here is racism. Donald Trump contends that based solely on someone’s ethnicity, race, or religion that person is unfit to do their job. This is the man the Party of Lincoln is running for President.
Yesterday, on Meet the Press, Mitch McConnell ducked and swerved around the issue of racism. He said repeatedly that he disagreed with Donald Trump’s statement, but he would not say why. All he knew is that he did not want to call it racism. When confronted with my previous post on the matter explicitly noting that what Donald Trump said was racist, the best Mitch McConnell could offer up is that the center-right coalition needs to come together to win the White House.
So the Party of Lincoln will entertain a racist as its leader in the name of winning?
What good does it profit a party to win the White House and lose its soul? Because the odds are the party will not win the White House and will forfeit future victories as it sees Hispanic voters, black voters, and a solid number of evangelicals flee the party of racists.
We should take stock of where the Republican Party is at right now.
It is a party willing to be led by a racist.
It is a party willing to be led by a man who praises Planned Parenthood.
It is a party willing to be led by a man who says he would demand our soldiers, sailors, and marines commit war crimes.
It is a party willing to be led by a man who has no core principles, no core values, and no core convictions who is on trial for defrauding single mothers.
This is not my party. This is not the Party of Lincoln. This is a descent into madness and the American public will not reward it and its politicians will be forced to trot around Trump’s words like dog poop on their shoes.
A Republican Party that abandons its principles and refuses to call out racism in the name of winning the White House will not win the White House and will lose everything along the way.

This for my Brother because you are dead a long time. Get out there and see the world.. it's a big place.

Check out Machu Picchu while you still can.We have BEEN to Machu Picchu. Spend some money and make some memories. They are indestructible.  You can't take anything with you when you die, but you do take good memories.

One of the biggest life regrets for older Americans is ... - MarketWatch

Regrets center around the things you didn't do, not the things you did.

Travel more now or you might regret it.

 Thinking back on their lives so far, one in five boomers say that one of their biggest regrets is not traveling enough, according to a survey of 2,000 baby boomers conducted by survey company Censuswide on behalf of British Airways, which has a vested interest in encouraging people to take more trips.

Those 65 and up say the same thing: Research into the lives of 1,200 older people over a 10-year period by Karl Pillemer, a professor of human development at Cornell University, found that elders often regretted not traveling more while they were young. “Based on my studies, I can almost guarantee you one thing: If you don’t do it now, you will wish you had traveled more,” Pillemer writes. “To sum up what I learned in a sentence: When your traveling days are over, you will wish you had taken one more trip.”

Many say that they didn’t travel enough when they were young because they were busy doing other things. Roughly one in four boomers said that they haven’t traveled overseas enough because of work commitments, the Censuswide survey found; many others stated that child care considerations were a factor. “Individuals are busy in their studies and work in order to fulfill the goals of life [like buying a home and car, for example],” says India-based psychiatrist Seikhoo Bishnoi, who does online consultations worldwide; in working towards these goals, they miss opportunities to travel.
Plus, many are afraid of new experiences and thus decide not to take trips, adds Jude Miller Burke, a psychologist and author in Phoenix.

People may regret not traveling more in their lives because they feel like they missed important experiences, didn’t expand their horizons enough, were too risk-averse in life and did not escape enough from their everyday routines, says Rick Breden, the president of psychological testing and behavior analytics firm Essentials. “Most of the time regrets center around what you didn’t do, not what you did,” he says. “You regret not trying something” including taking interesting trips, he says.
And they may intuitively understand that travel can boost happiness, according to some research. Indeed, at least two studies show that low-stress vacations (those in which you aren’t dealing with a lot of logistical and scheduling issues, delays and other travel mishaps) that allow you to relax can make you happier. “A positive, well-managed vacation can make you happier and less stressed, and you can return with more energy at work and with more meaning in your life,” writes Shawn Achor, the author of the Happiness Advantage.

Read the whole thing

 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/one-of-the-biggest-life-regrets-for-older-americans-is-2016-03-11

A little like needing cigarettes in a blizzard

Where we are today

This is the way it used to be, not any more

‎

North Philadelphia, 1940s; Real neighborhood pride. Philadelphia children under the care of responsible parents were taught to respect and maintain where they live. Not one bit of trash. If it was done then, it can be done now. It's not up to the children, it's up to adults. By the way, the popular cleanser was Bon Ami, remembering our black pride!

Why are there no BLACK BRICKLAYERS? Where is LLOYD?

 

We bemoan the fact that there is high unemployment in the city among African Americans. The cry is if there were more good paying jobs that would solve many problems.  I got to thinking, there are but there aren't people available to take them. Here's the example, I will a name, LLOYD. It's a fictitious name, but it represents a black male of about 35 years old. I use this to illustrate the point. 

(By the way, there are almost no black bricklayers. Why?)

We will know we will have made the grade when you hear people say things like:

You need new granite counter-tops? get LLOYD to put them in, no one can form a piece of granite like he can.

Your car's engine blew up? LLOYD can build an engine from scratch and when he does it will last twice as long as the one from the factory. He's the best.

You had a fender bender? Take it to LLOYD. You'll never know it was in an accident.. and it will look like new. His prices are not cheap, but in line.

You need to get your rooms painted? LLOYD is so careful and perfect you never need to paint again for years. You will love the job he does.

You need new cabinets? Let LLOYD do it. He builds them from scratch and each one he puts in is perfect. I have some. WOW.

You need some work done on your yard? Let me recommend LLOYD. He planted my bushes and trimmed my trees. My yard has never looked better.

You say your plumbing has sprung a leak? Call LLOYD, he knows everything about plumbing and is quick, efficient and you don't have to call him a second time.

You need some new lights installed? LLOYD is my guy to do wiring in my house. I never worry because LLOYD does it right.

You get the drift. I speak as a white guy. This is how we talk about each other in our neigborhoods. Everybody knows a guy who is just exceptional at his skill and craft. When you ask, a name comes up. It just works. "I got a guy"

Now what can we do to have this kind of thing in the neighborhoods of Chicago? It's not enough to play good music, do good art and cook well. We need skilled LLOYDs to train new LLOYDs and take back the trades.

Pitiful

A list of the wonderful things Obama has done in 8 years, not comprehensive

Pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan announcing end of wars that didn’t end.

Arab Spring Speech in Cairo opening the door to disaster

Economic stimulus that did nothing except deepen debt and feed cronies

Obamacare that has stopped healthcare innovation is more expensive and no one gets more or better care.

Extra reporting from doctors that has hindered care

EPA over reach

Pretending Global Warming is real

Common Core

Highest real unemployment lowest workplace participation in 40 years

Food Stamp Expansion

OBAMAPHONE expansion and other freebees

Cash for clunkers debacle

Credit rating downgrade of the nation

Trying to stop oil exploration after BP particularly in the arctic

Singlehandedly destroyed the auto business.. to now 3, soon 2.

IRS as a tool of despotism

VA cover-up of incompetence

Using the bully pulpit to increase racial division re Trayvon, Ferguson, Baltimore

Cops under siege and not a word from Obama

Open homosex in the military

Gay Marriage at his behest

Libya et all taking out Kaddafi and Bengasi disaster

Getting Osama, so what?  He did nothing except say go.

OPENING the borders wide open, stopping AZ and other states from enforcing the law INVASION

Record numbers on food stamps and welfare

OVERREGULATION OF BUSINESS

Tax increases in spite of his promises When he was running for office in 2008, Obama claimed that, “Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.” He lied.

Enabling ISIS by trying to intervene in Syria

War on Christianity

War on Free Speech.

Constantly about Gun Control and ignoring second amendment

Legalized Pot

NSA Spying on everyone

IRAN gets the bomb

RUSSIA walks all over us in Ukraine

ISLAM grows in influence in the USA and most of the “Refugees” coming in are Muslim

Terrible economic growth He's not stupid it may be intentional

Calling all Vegans

How are these stories connected??

1. President Obama is in Vietnam today and has announced the total elimination of our embargo against communist our former enemy. He says such a move will normalize relations with Vietnam and eliminate a “lingering vestige of the Cold War”.

Obama said the United States is eager to boost trade with the middle-class of Vietnam. He is pushing for a twelve nation Transpacific Trade  Agreement that Congress doesn’t want to pass and that faces strong opposition from all the 2016 presidential candidates.

2. Mullah Achtar Monsouron, the leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan, was killed Saturday in an airstrike. His killing its feared will bring a halt to the peace talks that had been going on between Afghan leaders and the Taliban.

3. Dallas Maverick’s owner Mark Cuban said Sunday on “Meet The Press) he has zero interest in being a third-party candidate. But then added that he would “absolutely” consider being either Donald Trump’s or Hillary Clinton’s Vice President.
Cuban also said that maybe he will run for president in 2020 or 2024.

4. The Church of Scotland has voted 339 to 215 to allow its gay ministers to marry. The vote also means church ministers will now be able to register same-sex civil partnerships or solemnize same-sex marriages themselves.
In a confusing statement, leaders of the Church of Scotland said that this new law within their church “doesn’t compromise the Church’s traditional view of marriage as a union between one man and one woman”.

5. Ahmad Karimpour, a senior advisor to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards elite al-Quds Force, told the semi–official Fars News Agency reporters yesterday that if the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gave the order to destroy Israel, the Iranian military could do it in eight minutes.
Khamenei has continually threatened that Iran will annihilate Israel.

6. In an unrelated story, this past Thursday Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon abruptly resigned. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t disappointed. In fact, it fit in with the Prime Minister’s changing of his guard.
On the way to the door after Yaalon resigned, he hollered at Netanyahu that as defense minister he had lost faith in the Prime Minister’s decision-making and in his morals.
All of this is happening at a moment when Israel is coming very close to the end of a ten year 30 billion dollar package from the United States. It is the largest amount of money we give to any foreign country and Netanyahu is asking America to raise that figure to 40 billion dollars for the next decade.
The Prime Minister says if Obama doesn’t give Israel that money, he is certain the president who replaces him will.

7. At least 65 people have been killed during several explosions in Syria, in Tartus and Jableh. Both cities are strongholds of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The killings involved two car bombs that exploded several minutes apart in jampacked bus stations in both cities. And in Jableh, a hospital and the electric company were struck. The Islamic State has claimed they carried out the “successful” killings and destruction.

8. Austrian Freedom Party presidential candidate Norbert Hofer has emerged victorious from Sunday’s run-off election against the Green Party candidate Alexander van der Bellen by a vote of 51.9% to 48.10% – a vote sending shockwaves all over Europe.
The European Union will see its first-ever far-right head of state. Polling showed a tight race between Hofer and Greens-backed Alexander Van der Bellen, who ran as an independent. Then the majority broke through.
Candidates from both centrist parties were eliminated in April in the first round of voting, the first time that’s happened since World War II.
The losing candidate’s platform stood for “direct democracy, nonviolence, ecology, solidarity, feminism and self-determination”. The winning candidate opposed all these things.
Hofer ran on a platform of “Austria first,” and is against forced multiculturalism, globalization and mass immigration.
Hofer stunned the media and many of the people in Austria by carrying a Glock gun very openly in all of his rallies, calling it the “natural consequence” of immigration.
University of Linz Economics Professor Frederich Schneider explained what Hofer’s victory means for Austria and in many parts of Europe. Professor Schneider said “The shift to the right comes from the refugee crisis on one side and from the euro crisis on the other, from the dissatisfaction with the European Union.”
Hofer winning Austria’s presidency absolutely signals that drastic changes will be made to current Austrian policies. It is a historic moment in Austrian politics.”
In another evaluation of Hofer’s victory, Arnold Kammel, the director of the Austrian Institute for European Policy and Security in Vienna said “The victory of Mr. Hofer will be some kind of sign for this kind of anti–establishment, anti-traditional party movements in Europe that have been on track of taking over the current politics, which have posed some challenges not only from Austria, but for Europe as well.”
Previous to Austria, there have also been far right advances in France, Sweden, Holland, Finland, Norway and Greece, who have a feeling of being taken over by illegal aliens and to have many other complaints about what is happening when the left leads.
90,000 aliens entered their border this year, all of them intending to stay – that’s more than 1% of Austria’s 8 point 6 million population. Hofer has promised the people “You will be surprised what can be done by a president.”

9. Abdel Fatah el-Sissi, the president of Egypt, has sent a submarine that belongs to Egypt’s Oil Ministry to the side of the tragic air crash of EgyptAir Flight-804 in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea to search for the cockpit voice and flight data recorders that would be contained in its black boxes.
The final words of the pilot sounded extremely normal and not at all rattled. He said “This is 0-7-2-5 Padova control.(Then he said something unintelligible) 8-0-4. Thank you so much. Good day, er, good night.”
There are signs that smoke had come from the lavatory and permeated the plane. But we’ll just have to wait to see what actually happened.

10. Just in case you didn’t hear this over the weekend, it is no exaggeration to say that when Nyquist was beaten by Exaggerator at Saturday’s Preakness, and millions of dollars were lost. Of course, millions of dollars may have been won as well.
In fact, Nyquist wasn’t even second; he was third. Cherry Wine was second.
Tragically, in earlier races at Preakness Saturday, two horses died. One was the winner of the first race, Homeboykris. No one knows why, including the veterinarians who examined her, but she keeled over on her way back to the barn.
Then during the fourth race the four-year-old filly Pramedya broke her left front cannon bone and had to be euthanized on the track.
Jockey Daniel Centeno broke his collarbone when Pramedia fell.

And finally… Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Three mayors walk into an elevator…and then what happened? Well, this actually did happen last Thursday night and for forty minutes it was no joke.
The mayor of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Bill Peduto, along with the mayor of Millvale and the mayor of Leetsdale, stepped onto a Westin Hotel in Allegheny. The door closed and nothing happened. They just stood there looking at each other in great wonder.

Mayor Peduto said “It really wasn’t that bad. We all liked each other so we just stood there and waited. There were others with us in the same elevator and they joined in the conversation.”
Finally, one of the other passengers was able to make a cell phone connection that led to the summoning of a maintenance crew and first responders who used walkie-talkies.
The mayor said “The biggest thing that happened besides getting help was that we took a great selfie to honor the occasion.”

The Lantern Bearers

 The Lantern Bearers, was always one of my favorites. It is also
considered the first in Sutcliff’s Arthurian series and follows the
story of Aquila, a young decurion who goes “willful missing” to protect
his family farm from the invading Saxons as the last of the Roman
legions leave Britain. As the family farm is overrun and burned to the
ground by the barbarians, Aquila and his sister are taken into captivity
by the Saxons and his world collapses. Order, form, civilization are
gone. Years later, Aquila escapes his Saxon captors during which time he
discovers the raid on his family farm had been no accident, but a
planned effort to wipe out those still loyal to Rome and its ways.
Hearing of a new leader of the British people still loyal to
Rome, Ambrosias Aurelianius, Aquila pledges his fealty and becomes close
with Ambrosias and his nephew, Artos, also known as Arthur.

Over
the years that follow and the constant warring against the Saxon
invaders, Aquila, now one of Ambrosias’ generals, often wonders what it
is he and the others are fighting for as the conflict never seems to
end. One evening as he converses with Eugenus the physician, Aquila
wonders if the tenuous peace that Ambrosias has won will last.

“For a while,” answers Eugenus.

“For a while? You do not sound over-hopeful,” replies Aquila.

“Oh,
I am. In my own way, I am the most hopeful man alive. I believe that we
shall hold the barbarians off for a while, and maybe for a long while,
though-not forever. . . .I think that sometimes we stand at sunset. It
may be that night will close over us in the end, but I believe that
morning will come again. Morning always grows again out of the darkness,
though maybe not for the people who saw the sun go down. We are the
Lantern Bearers, my friend; for us to keep something burning, to carry
what light we can forward into the darkness and the wind.”

The Lantern Bearers | The Resurgent

Republicans for Hitler

By Erick Erickson  |  May 17, 2016, 05:00am

“Too few Republicans will come out of this with their integrity intact and too many Republicans, thinking they can change Donald Trump, will instead one day find that Trump has changed them instead. But hey, at least he is no Hillary Clinton.”

A curious story circulated late last week involving an audio tape of Donald Trump talking to a People magazine reporter. Trump, going by the name “John Miller”, bragged about himself, his sex life, his business, and more. Here is where it gets interesting.
Years ago Trump admitted it was him. As my friend Ben Domenech noted in his always excellent Transom, “Donald Trump admitted it happened, both in a court of law and in the press, in 1990 and in 1991. It is not and was not in dispute prior to the past week.” But on Friday morning, Trump denied it was him after years of admitting it was him. Suddenly, the Branch Trumpidians swung into action going on television and radio to deny it was him.
On the weekend shows, Trump loyal comrade Paul Manafort, the Kremlin’s favorite Republican, explicitly denied that Trump was Trump. It was a lie. It is always a lie with the Branch Trumpidians. They will crucify the truth at noon on a Friday if they thought it would resurrect Donald Trump’s career on a Sunday.
It serves the greater good, you see. Because Trump is not Hillary Clinton.

 http://theresurgent.com/republicans-for-hitler/

Soren Kierkegaard Philosopher, Theologian, Poet Social Critic, Author 1813 - 1855

Thought For The Day

"Life is not a problem to be solved,

but a reality to be experienced."

  

Soren Kierkegaard

Philosopher, Theologian, Poet

Social Critic, Author

1813 - 1855

Mothers

There have been many tributes to people's mothers. I get it and it's worthy. Yet there are some for whom Mother has multiple meanings. Me for instance. My mom was killed in a traffic accident when I was 14 years old. I remember her well.. but she was gone to early. I have cousins who are from my moms side and they remind me of her. My late aunt Betty was much like her.

When my mom and dad died (they died together) my brother and sister and I were kept together and raised by wonderful people. My uncle Earl, and Aunt Ruth Redlin. She became Mom. It was a hard task. I have often wondered how they did that. But they did. And I am so grateful to them, and to her. I wasn't easy, but I was raised well the last several years of my life.

Then there is Peggy, not my mother, but he mother of my children. I don't know how I can express how much she means to me and to my boys. We laughed today about memorizes of times we have had. Most of the best ones could have been interpreted as disasters, yet thru a rear view mirror they are the best memories. Things are neither good nor bad in themselves, but thinking makes it so. Sure there is evil in the world, but most of the things we interpret as bad, aren't.

There is then the memories of my Grandmother Redlin who had 17 children one of whom was my dad, and Grandma Lee who had 7. Families were larger then back on the prairie.

I remember them as a young man.. but they only symbolized the heritge of he we are and were.

Now I am that generation. I have outlived Grandma Lee. I am not even close to Grandma Redlin who was widowed with a large family and yet made a hundred as I recall.

So, moms, you matter. Mine matters, All iterations. I can't find a way to honor you enough. So I will do what I can and write about it all.

Happy Mothers Day MOMS

What Would “Winning” Look Like?

 



Long before my firsthand, financially challenging experience arm-wrestling with SJWs, I’d been shoulder-checking leftoid beta-male faggotry on my blog since the summer of 2001.



And before that, I’d been hearing about “the death of political correctness” ever since the day it came home from the hospital. Because I was at the baby shower.



Back then, in the late 1980s, SJWs were mostly British, and were
referred to disparagingly as “the loony left”—hideous, humorless
weirdos—even by leftists I worked and lived with.



The contagion spread to America, but no worries, because the satirical film PCU came out and people were like, “Look! We’re mocking them! They’re toast!”



That was twenty years ago.





Around that time, Nick DiPaolo won some Best Young Comic award and
was repeatedly assured he was going to be the Next Big Thing because he
was so politically incorrect and “people are dying for someone to take
that on.” Now, I LOVE DiPaolo with all my heart (and MasterCard), but, well, I hear he’s playing Hilarities in Trenton this weekend. Sometimes his liberal superstar pals Amy Schumer and Louis C.K. toss him guest spots on their award-winning TV shows.



I could go on: Tough Crowd, anyone? Howard Stern? “South Park conservatives”?



We have been “winning” since the beginning, and yet we keep losing.



And what would “winning” look like?



Take my home province: Our lesbian premier has mandated a new sex-ed curriculum that was co-written by a convicted pedophile and teaches kids, among other things, that there are six genders, not two. Brown and yellow parents protested
again and again. The white premier dismissed them as “bigots.” So did
the all-powerful teachers’ union and the other civil servants who got
the lesbian premier elected, and will do so next time around.



So: How does having 100,000 Twitter followers, and plenty of fun, fix something like this?



Can we really overthrow society’s self-selecting, multigenerational
“progressive” elite—the one that runs the government, education,
entertainment, and even the military—or should we focus on constructing a semi-underground counterculture, encompassing everything from homeschooling to self-defense?



And if so, does that turn us into the “safe spacers” we rightly loathe?



I’m also concerned about the emphasis on “cool.”



I’m as susceptible to its allure as anyone, but at bottom, “cool” is
not a Christian, or even a classical, virtue, and it’s led many astray.
Remember: Alger Hiss was the “cool” one, not Whittaker Chambers. Ditto
Gloria Steinem vs. Phyllis Schlafly.



Yes, I know: I’m old and even when I was young, I was never sexy and
hip. Frankly, I’m allergic to fun. Gavin and Milo’s intermittent
sex-and-drugs talk gave me hives.



But I’m also not a joiner, so this isn’t about me wanting to be one of the “cool” kids.



What I am is a contrarian, even among the contrarians.



So I’m compelled to ask again:



What would “winning” look like? Not just “leading the race,” but after “crossing the finish line”?



What Would “Winning” Look Like? (Besides Having “Great Hair”?) - Taki's Magazine

7 Compelling Stories Hollywood Won't Touch

Ask anyone connected to Hollywood and they'll tell you the same thing.

Tell a great story.


Simple. Straightforward.


That’s certainly true … to an extent. Certain stories are far more appealing to Hollywood

screenwriters than others.


Sometimes we get competing projects on the same theme. Remember the “dueling asteroid” films from the 1990s? Or how studios raced to make Janis Joplin biopics … until no actual movie materialized?


There are other reasons why some stories don’t grab screenwriters’
imaginations. Their content is, shall we say, inconvenient to their
ideology.


Consider the following seven subjects. Each packs a storytelling
wallop. Drama. Tension. Scandal. Intrigue. Pain. Loss. Yet here’s
betting we won’t see a feature on these true stories any time soon.


They don’t fit the liberal narrative. Not one bit.



7 Compelling Stories Hollywood Won't Touch - Hollywood in Toto

Four Reasons Trump Won, think Jesse Ventura

“There are any number of explanations for what Trump is bringing out in the electorate. But the most compelling explanation also, curiously, gets the shortest shrift: He’s a celebrity candidate, and celebrity candidates break election models. Jesse Ventura in Minnesota, Arnold Schwarzenegger in California: these people bring out folks who don’t normally vote. In a low-turnout election, or a badly divided field, that’s enough to turn things in their favor. Celebrity candidate voters aren’t normal voters. Normal voters care more about policy than normal non-voters, care more about party identification, care more about ideology. Simply trying to transfer analysis of normal voters over onto the new people that celebrity candidates bring out to the polls doesn’t work very well, because you’re searching madly for clues to things that aren’t really there. This is why such candidates often surprise political scientists by winning.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-04/the-four-horsemen-of-the-republican-apocalypse

Rush: I’ve got a hunch that Trump is headed for a landslide over Hillary

  here’s a pair of headlines via the Federalist’s David Harsanyi. One from 2008:





The other from 2012:





Which brings us to today. Third time’s the charm:

Let me give you one little thing: My instinctive feeling
right now is that Trump is gonna win, beat Hillary badly, that it could
be landslide proportions…


If you follow the news, it’s clear Bernie Sanders is winning (it
seems like) every primary the past month. And accompanying every Bernie
Sanders victory story is the fact that he won nothing, that Hillary
gets the delegates. So there’s just as many — or proportionally just as
many — agitated Democrats. You add up people supporting Bernie Sanders
to people supporting Donald Trump, and the people that supported Ted
Cruz.


You add up those voters — and if they all vote, too, Hillary Clinton
doesn’t have a prayer. I don’t care about the Electoral College. I
don’t care about anything else. Just like in terms of the people that
are fed up with Washington and the establishment, as we sit here today,
she is the lone candidate representing what obviously so many Americans,
Republicans and Democrats for their own reasons right now happen to
despise. She’s losing the vote in every state, and yet the Democrats
expect her to triumph. Where is her momentum?

Rush: I’ve got a hunch that Trump is headed for a landslide over Hillary « Hot Air

Ted Cruz: Why He Lost

“He’s got the whole establishment p**sed off at him, so
they didn’t rally to him as the alternative,” says former Virginia
representative Tom Davis, who has endorsed John Kasich. “They sat on the
sidelines with their hands in their pockets.” That’s because, according
to the GOP aide, supporting him “would establish a new model for how
ambitious young senators would behave in the Republican party that’s
totally intolerable for the establishment-senator types.”


At a press conference on Tuesday morning, his final day on the
campaign trail, Cruz let loose on Trump, calling him a “serial
philanderer” and a “pathological liar” and concluding, “Morality doesn’t
exist for him.” But the Republican establishment and the party’s voters
knew that, and they chose Trump over Cruz anyway.

Ted Cruz: Why He Lost | National Review

Hillary Clinton is walking into Donald Trump’s trap

Donald Trump has set a big, fat trap for
Hillary Clinton, and so far she has stepped right into it. He turned his
attacks against women against her. She is, he argued, playing the
“woman card.” And Clinton anted up, offering her supporters the chance
to buy a “woman card.” From now until Nov. 8, Trump will surely continue
to insult women. If Clinton routinely responds to those attacks, Trump
will turn her into the “women’s candidate,” and she will lose. She is
already perilously close to being that candidate.

Let’s be honest. Polling shows that Trump has a problem with women, but it also shows
that Clinton has a problem with men. Thanks to Bernie Sanders’s pushing
and prodding over the course of the primary, Clinton’s vision has
expanded, but we all know its core: She is a battle-tested warrior for
women and children.

Consider her slogan, “Fighting for us.” For
many men, this slogan would have to be experienced as emasculating. A
woman fighting for them? Rightly or wrongly, the slogan rubs the wrong
way in relation to traditional notions of masculinity. Her slogan itself
reveals a limited conception of who she seeks to represent. This is a
potentially fatal flaw in Clinton’s campaign. The more that Clinton
takes Trump’s bait around the issue of his denigration of women, the
more powerfully this flaw in her own campaign will show itself.

Hillary Clinton is walking into Donald Trump’s trap - The Washington Post

Fooled Ya!

By Brian Sikma

“He’s self-funding his campaign,” they said.
“He isn’t beholden to special interests like other politicians,” they said.
If you voted for Trump and believed those statements, or are a Trump supporter and have uttered something like them, you have been played for a fool.
Breaking news Wednesday evening is that Donald J. Trump, billionaire and Republican presidential nominee-elect, will not be self-funding his general election campaign. “I’ll be putting up money, but won’t be completely self-funding,” Trump told the press before asserting he will be putting in place a “world-class finance organization.” No doubt Trump’s experience in bankruptcies and poorly financed casinos combined with his love of spendthrift political hacks who sell their soul to the highest bidder (see: Wiley, Rick or any other number of Trump campaign aides) will help with that “world-class” fundraising machine.
The Wall Street Journal reports:

“The new plan represents a shift for Mr. Trump, who has for months portrayed his Republican opponents as “puppets” for relying on super PACs and taking contributions from wealthy donors that he said came with strings attached.”

Yes, now that he has secured the nomination Trump can shed all those conservative sounding things (there weren’t many, believe me) he said during the primary so he can become the creature that he always was. Donald Trump has never been, and is not, a conservative. He has always been, and is now, about himself and his ego. His strategy for the GOP primary was to play Republican voters and anyone who voted in the GOP primary for him as a fool.
That strategy worked.
Meanwhile, the GOP elites that Trump’s candidacy was supposed to be a sort of crude gesture toward are, after good conservatives of principle in the party have embraced #NeverTrump, signaling that they will bow before Smaug and make peace at any price. “Life is a series of choices, and this choice looks like one between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, ” declared former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour to the Washington Post. “Anybody who proposes a third party is saying, ‘Let’s make sure Clinton wins.'”
Wrong. Life does include binary choices, but it is not entirely made up of binary choices. Sometimes principles play a role, but that’s not something Mr. Barbour would be familiar with.
For his part, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the leader of Senate Republicans in Washington, released a statement late Wednesday that read in part: “I have committed to supporting the nominee chosen by Republican voters, and Donald Trump, the presumptive nominee, is now on the verge of clinching that nomination.”
That Trump would reverse himself should be no surprise, that the same GOP elites who repeatedly sold out conservatives would bow before him should shock no one. Alas, some will feign surprise.