BaalChatzaf Posted April 30, 2016 Share Posted April 30, 2016 1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said: The ability to lie is a requirement for being President. --Brant that's the truth The noble or "necessary" was postulated as a component of state-craft by Plato in "The Republic" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted May 1, 2016 Share Posted May 1, 2016 This is one great example of what people who support Trump are sick of: All Cruz has to do is say, "I'm not going to answer that question right now. I'm in the middle of a campaign. I'll tell you after it's over." Or, "Yes, I signed a pledge and gave my word." Or, "No. Trump has gone too far and I cannot in good conscious do so." Instead, he goes for the political bullshit evasion tactic. This does not impress those who are sitting on the fence as an example of moral clarity. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Campbell Posted May 1, 2016 Share Posted May 1, 2016 Michael, No, what Ted Cruz gave is not an answer. One reasonable answer would have been, "I have serious reservations about Trump, but I won't be in a position to decide, or announce a decision, till we get to the convention." I would have much preferred it. Cruz has standard responses (or nonresponses, depending on the occasion) that he trots out too often. Now it so happens I just happened to see a few minutes of Chris Wallace talking to Donald Trump today. I'll paraphrase. Wallace: How about your high negatives with women? (Poll numbers shown on screen: 24% favorable, 75% unfavorable). Can you win with these? Trump goes into a rapid-fire spiel about how he's knocked off all but 2 of 17 Republican opponents, being sure to name the two he may hate the most, Scott Walker and Jeb Bush, and how he has to finish knocking off Ted Cruz and John Kasich. Then, after having made no reference to women at all up to this point, not even to Carly Fiorina as one of the vanquished, he jumps to how he just did great with female Republican primary voters in New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, etc. He says "landslide" and "60%" but gives no breakdowns on male vs. female support. Wallace: With all due respect...I was asking you about female voters in the general election. Trump continues his highly caffeinated filibuster, finally getting to how he will take down Hillary, how awful she is, etc. Somehow this will make his negatives come down. Never actually answered the question. Have you ever called your guy out for employing a "political bullshit evasion tactic"? Once? Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Campbell Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 On April 30, 2016 at 3:38 PM, Peter said: Some edited for brevity items from Robert Tracinski: . . . . They can try borrowing their way out of this, but by the time Social Security breaks down for good, 19 years from now, they might find it a bit difficult. Why? Because borrowing endless sums of money is how we're already papering over the fiscal unsustainability of the middle-class welfare state . . . . It's middle-class welfare that drives the budget. That's my answer to people who tell me we can deal with the problem by cutting "corporate welfare" or foreign aid or NASA space missions. Look at the federal budget. Aside from national defense--the only really big federal expenditure that's actually mandated in the Constitution--federal spending is absolutely dominated by Social Security and Medicare. Even welfare to the poor--like food stamps or Social Security Disability, which has become de facto welfare for the long-term unemployed--is secondary. Everything else is loose change. Except for one other big expenditure: interest on the national debt, which is becoming bigger and bigger. By the time the next president completes two terms--based on the choice we're about to make--interest on the national debt will be the third largest item in the federal budget. Shortly before Social Security uses up all of its nominal reserves in 2035, interest on the debt will be the second largest expenditure. A few years after that, it becomes the single largest expenditure. We will be taking the lion's share of government revenues and using them just to keep up the minimum payments on all the money we've borrowed for decades in the past. So don't think we'll just be able to go back to that well and borrow even more to save another failing government program. . . . . What we learned in 2016 is that it is also true of a lot of Republicans who claimed they were four-square in favor of small government and free markets and the Constitution and totally against debt and taxes and crony capitalism. And who are now voting for a front-runner who doesn't care about any of those issues. You know how politicians like to tell you a nice story about the principles they stand for, but when it comes time for action, they take the easy way out, kick the can down the road, and vote for the crudest conception of their short-term interests? Well, the lesson of 2016 is that the voters do that, too. Peter, Tracinski has run two good pieces in the last week, one on Social Security and one on the debt. In both cases, he rather pessimistically concludes that there is so little political will to deal with either that Social Security will have to run out of money (in 2035 or whenever) and benefits will be "automatically" cut 21% (or whatever the law says by then) to stay within current revenues. And the US government will eventually stop borrowing the way India stopped in 1991, because no one will lend it anything any more. We know that Donald Trump has declared that Social Security MUST BE PRESERVED and that the economic miracles he will work will enable it to be paid for. Nothing else. Any further interpretation (such as the one that Michael has presented on this site) appears to be the work of others seeing what they want to see in him. Trump has also claimed that the national debt will be totally retired in 8 years, without giving the slightest clue how he envisions accomplishing that. So maybe he will just be President Kick-the-Can-Down-the-Road. Only the size and weight of the can will be colossal, the driving distance unprecedented, the noise upon impact like nothing previously recorded. No one will kick that can better than he. Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 A whine that does not age well... Geez, Rafael is getting tedious... Quote Down in the polls and with zero margin for error heading into Tuesday’s crucial Indiana primary, Ted Cruz could be forgiven for seeing a silver lining in his apparent strength with unbound Republican delegates. Until Donald Trump’s romp through the Northeast last Tuesday abruptly changed the subject, the political world was captivated — and Trump supporters were infuriated — by the Cruz campaign’s successful effort to elect large blocs of friendly delegates at a series of state-party conventions. Drip drip - Cruz's posse is losing some of it's horses, you know the horses that want to get fed!! Quote Hogue’s senate colleague Dick Dever is also getting cold feet. “What I have said is I’m leaning towards Cruz, but I’m not committed to anybody,” he says. “And after [Tuesday’s vote], I think Trump has the momentum going forward.” Dever was impressed by the way Trump broke fifty percent in all five of last Tuesday’s primaries, after relying on pluralities to propel him to victory in previous contests. And he finds it just as telling that Cruz lost to John Kasich in all but one of those contests. “I think that was a real shift,” he says. A... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 2 hours ago, Robert Campbell said: Have you ever called your guy out for employing a "political bullshit evasion tactic"? Once? Robert, Of course I have. Earlier in this thread you will find several complaints from me about it. I came to realize later Trump is very selective when he does this and there are patterns involved (some positive) if you have the patience to detect them (I can go into this if you are ever interested), but this was not, and still is not, one of his endearing traits to me. Frankly, it's irritating to listen to even when I know why he is doing it and agree with his why. On a question like Cruz was asked, though, (would he support the nominee if it were not him), Trump has been crystal clear every time he was asked. He either said he signed a pledge and he was going to honor it, or he changed his mind and will now have to see because the RNC was not being fair to him--that the process had to be fair. Most recently he said if he were not the nominee, nobody would ever hear from him again. It was never something like Cruz's "that will never happen" bullshit. Actually, barring a Black Pterodactyl (which is even rarer than a Black Swan ) it will happen that Trump will be nominated and everybody knows it. Granted, now Trump is saying the election is over, but that's because he has some reality-based indications to back that up. It's not mere rhetoric and bullshit to avoid answering an uncomfortable question. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 The Cruz people don't want to see things like the following and get awfully offended when they come across it, but this is what is happening in the culture outside the Cruz bubble. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Campbell Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 2 hours ago, Selene said: A whine that does not age well... Geez, Rafael is getting tedious... Adam, When I've asked Michael whether he really believes everything he says about Ted Cruz (which, taken seriously, would imply that Cruz should be run out of politics, no later than the end of his present term in the US Senate) he's insisted that he wants Cruz to stay in the Senate, where he can act as the faithful servant of President Donald Trump. How about you? Your rhetoric about Cruz routinely has a nastier tone, even, than Michael's. You seem to regard him with utter loathing. Do you think Ted Cruz should be run out of political office? If he has anything at all going for him, what is it? Another way to put it: If you had to choose between a US Senate with Mitch McConnell and without Ted Cruz, or with Ted Cruz and without Mitch McConnell, which would you prefer? Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 Big Cruz Carly screw up. This man cannot run a successful election campaign against Hillary. Ronald Reagan had a perfectly integrated and attractive political personality. Cruz can't get to first base with his. Brains vs mouth; the mouth wins (so far). I don't trust Cruz's brains and I don't trust Trump's mouth. --Brant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 40 minutes ago, Robert Campbell said: Adam, When I've asked Michael whether he really believes everything he says about Ted Cruz (which, taken seriously, would imply that Cruz should be run out of politics, no later than the end of his present term in the US Senate) he's insisted that he wants Cruz to stay in the Senate, where he can act as the faithful servant of President Donald Trump. How about you? Your rhetoric about Cruz routinely has a nastier tone, even, than Michael's. You seem to regard him with utter loathing. Do you think Ted Cruz should be run out of political office? If he has anything at all going for him, what is it? Another way to put it: If you had to choose between a US Senate with Mitch McConnell and without Ted Cruz, or with Ted Cruz and without Mitch McConnell, which would you prefer? Robert My gut feeling is Adam is thoroughly pissed off by establishment Republicans betraying their electoral mandates. They've been running a con. The biggest illustration of this is Mr. "Read my lips, no new taxes," aka, President George H.W. Bush. Michael is nasty about Cruz? I don't get that, but I'm not going back to reread 6000 posts. I've not been reading this material as assiduously as you have. If I were in charge of this thread, but not the fun of it, everybody would be limited to 10 posts a month. --Brant twisted apperceptions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 Here. Let's give Teddy a boost from his biggest supporter (from The Hill). Glenn Beck mocks Trump by covering his face in Cheetos dust He actually does, too. And his sidekicks. Go to the link and see the video if you wish. I'm sure this will convince more people to vote for Ted Cruz and convince Donald Trump supporters to abandon him in droves. Cheetos dust is serious shit. btw - In the same show, Beck said his current layoffs (40 people) had nothing to do with all the money he's losing because of his hatred of Trump and support of Cruz. It's because of the employees he hired. They did it all wrong. It's all their fault. It's theeeeem. (From The Daily Beast.) Glenn Beck Blames Layoffs on Own Staff With support like that, it's hard to see how Ted Cruz is losing. (All right, that was snarky... ) Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 26 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said: Big Cruz Carly screw up. Brant, Think of the logic behind the attempt. Cruz is losing the race, so he teams up with someone who quit the race early because she was losing so badly. Just on logic alone, how does that every have a chance of working? Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
william.scherk Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 1 minute ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said: Brant, Think of the logic behind the attempt. Cruz is losing the race, so he teams up with someone who quit the race early because she was losing so badly. Just on logic alone, how does that every have a chance of working? Michael Evita is a woman. Trump has a problem with women. Carly has a vagina. Therefore, it is a brilliant strategy "going forward." All you have to do is "drill down" through the cheese doodle beard of Glenn Beck and you will find the revealed truth of God. A... Post Script: Have I mentioned that I detest the phrases "going forward" and "drill down?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 3 minutes ago, Selene said: Post Script: Have I mentioned that I detest the phrases "going forward" and "drill down?" Bad experiences in the oil business? --Brant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 22 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said: Bad experiences in the oil business? --Brant Lol - good one Mr. B... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Bissell Posted May 2, 2016 Author Share Posted May 2, 2016 4 hours ago, Selene said: Drip drip - Cruz's posse is losing some of it's horses, you know the horses that want to get fed!! A brief tutorial for *consistent* placement of apostrophes where they don't belong: Drip drip - Cruz's' pos's'e is' los'ing s'ome of it's' hors'es', you know the hors'es' that want to get fed!! (Apologies if I missed some.) REB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 Lookee here from Breitbart : Heidi Cruz: ‘Ted Is an Immigrant’ Here are her exact words while campaigning in Greenfield, Indiana: Heidi Cruz said: Ted is an immigrant. He is Hispanic. She has been trying to clean it up by saying she meant Ted is the son of immigrants, but guess what Trump is doing with this? And guess what Trump supporters are doing with this? When you live by the gotcha as much as Ted Cruz does in order to make absolutely bizarre accusations (like Trump supports Obamacare, he wants to grant citizenship to all the illegal aliens and so on), it's easy for folks--even independents--to let him squirm on this one. After all, why give Ted Cruz the benefit of the doubt on a rhetorical lapse or context when he never gives his opponents that--to the point of ridiculousness? Live by the gotcha, die by the gotcha... Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 Money, money and more money. From the LA Times: Cruz's faltering campaign shows the risks of depending on a few wealthy donors Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PDS Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 14 hours ago, Robert Campbell said: Adam, When I've asked Michael whether he really believes everything he says about Ted Cruz (which, taken seriously, would imply that Cruz should be run out of politics, no later than the end of his present term in the US Senate) he's insisted that he wants Cruz to stay in the Senate, where he can act as the faithful servant of President Donald Trump. How about you? Your rhetoric about Cruz routinely has a nastier tone, even, than Michael's. You seem to regard him with utter loathing. Do you think Ted Cruz should be run out of political office? If he has anything at all going for him, what is it? Another way to put it: If you had to choose between a US Senate with Mitch McConnell and without Ted Cruz, or with Ted Cruz and without Mitch McConnell, which would you prefer? Robert I would be interested in Adam's responses on this. Something of a side note/side question: is there a purpose to calling Cruz "Raphael"? With that said, I do agree with Adam that Cruz is getting tedious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Bissell Posted May 2, 2016 Author Share Posted May 2, 2016 51 minutes ago, PDS said: is there a purpose to calling Cruz "Raphael"? Mockery, I think. Some of us enjoy coming up with pet nicknames for the candidates we love to hate. My favorite for Cruz is Cruzifix, for no apparent reason. To me, Bernie Sanders is "The Uncolonel." Or maybe "Comrade Bernie." Supporters of Drumpf are "The Trumpenproletariat." Etc. REB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Bissell Posted May 2, 2016 Author Share Posted May 2, 2016 56 minutes ago, PDS said: I do agree with Adam that Cruz is getting tedious. I think that this is tendentious. REB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PDS Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 15 minutes ago, Roger Bissell said: Mockery, I think. Some of us enjoy coming up with pet nicknames for the candidates we love to hate. My favorite for Cruz is Cruzifix, for no apparent reason. To me, Bernie Sanders is "The Uncolonel." Or maybe "Comrade Bernie." Supporters of Drumpf are "The Trumpenproletariat." Etc. REB Can one's nickname be one's given name? Seems to violate the well-known rules of nicknaming to me. Kind of like calling the current president Barack "Hussein" Obama? I am giving Adam the benefit of the doubt and assuming there is no dog whistling afoot, which is why I wonder about the references. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PDS Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 13 minutes ago, Roger Bissell said: I think that this is tendentious. REB I Tender the view that Ted's Tendentiousness is Tedious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 Tedious is the best word here IMHO, not tendentious. In fact, Trump seems to be the tendentious one, not tedious (except to Robert?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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