Robert Campbell
-
Posts
4,015 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
1
Content Type
Store
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Gallery
Articles
Posts posted by Robert Campbell
-
-
17 hours ago, Mark said:
TAS is off my radar but I’m curious: was Jennifer Grossman living in the Houston area in the early 1980s? ZoomInfo has her in Kingwood, Texas today, which is near Houston and looks like a suburb of it.
Mark,
TAS is off my radar, too.
Kingwood is a suburb of Houston and to my knowledge she's lived in Texas for a while. She wouldn't have had to be there in the 1980s to have heard about Dick Minns.
Robert
-
Mark,
Dick Minns has made up a lot of stuff about himself over the years.
This might include when he first got into Rand.
My point about Dick Minns and Carl Barney was precisely that Minns is worse.
I'm not defending Barney on that account—I appreciate the work you've done to expose him. I continue to marvel at how the ARIans (and some others in Rand-land) can pick 'em.
Robert
-
Mark,
Without knowing *when* Dick Minns got into Rand, I'd stay off any Hickman-Roark-Minns connection.
Robert
-
On 9/28/2019 at 5:38 PM, Jon Letendre said:
Billy, you are so cute in your pathetic spinelessness.
You walked away from Jonathan and others at your pathetic climate doom hysteria blog. You are losing, so you left. You're been wrong about everything for three years. Everything.
So now you console yourself by hunting down and liking posts of anyone you can find who ever said something mildly sassy to me. Three and a half years old. god you are a loser.
You quoted me. But my name isn't Billy.
Robert
-
Dick Minns was the talk of Texas for several years after 1980. The corruption of Houston PD was a common topic of conversation from the 1960s through the 1980s, though before reading some of the material that Mark posted I never realized just *how* corrupt some of the cops were. There is no way the ARIans wouldn't have heard more than a little about Dick Minns. No way Jennifer Grossman wouldn't have, either.
His son, Mike Minns, was two years ahead of me in high school. Founded our school's only underground newspaper, which I worked for. I think he ran off some of the first copies in his dad's office. Mike Minns was very much into Rand in those days. Cathy Minns was in my class at the same school, though she didn't graduate from it.
Sculpture in roughly the same style now under discussion was on display at President's First Lady locations back then.
And... Carl Barney has not been accused of ordering a hit on anybody.
Robert
-
On May 8, 2016 at 11:10 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
You are right about the need to source, though. I just don't like the presumption I am lying to win an argument, if that is what you were doing. When passions rise, it's hard to tell.
It's going to be a slog (and I really do not have the time to look beyond a certain number of hours) to find Trump's statement about intending to phase out Social Security through offering private accounts to younger folks, but I cannot blame you for wanting the source. In your shoes, I would want it, too. It is 100% correct to want it.
And, since it is so hard to find, I will not rule out a glitch in my memory. I clearly remember it, but my memory is fallible just like the memories of all humans.
At least you can see (through a direct quote I provided from my Google search) that Trump thinks of Social Security as a deal Americans made with the government and he thinks the government should honor its side of the deal to them. It's not in the article, but Trump also holds those who want to welch on working Americans in contempt. This is a moral position, not mere bluster.
If I can't find the statement for the other part, we will just have to assume I am wrong. I don't think I am, but I agree I have to find the source if I am going to state it as a fact.
I remember the statement from the beginning (or early middle) of the campaign. Hopefully, someone wrote about it. If not, now there are all those goddam videos with no search function for their content...
Michael,
At a number of points in these discussions, you gave the impression of exulting in lies told by others (and given further circulation by yourself), as long as it appeared they would help your guy win.
You know, the alleged extramarital affairs of Randy Ted Cruz, and all.
But I did not think, and was not presuming, that you were lying about Donald Trump's stated views regarding Social Security.
I did think that you have may have been indulging in wishful thinking regarding them.
Trump has been rather adamant, since BNTE 2, that Social Security MUST BE PRESERVED. And he hasn't tried to discourage anyone from inferring that Social Security MUST BE PERPETUATED. If he actually has proposed a phase-out via private accounts, and he hasn't subsequently repudiated it (or pretended he never said it, because he does that, too), it's important to know these facts.
Meanwhile, I actually don't know whether Donald Trump "holds those who want to welch on working Americans in contempt."
How do you know this?
A lot of the views that Donald Trump supporters like to impute to him are hard to relate to his actual statements.
I have in mind your insistence, elsewhere on this thread, that Donald Trump supporters never blame any adverse economic outcomes here in the United States on CHIIiina, or Mexico, or even Japan—and of course would never blame any particular person or persons from those countries.
We are supposed to believe, on pain of being permanently dismissed as blind and hate-ridden, that for the trade and immigration issues that concern them Trump supporters only blame those Republican politicians who are not presently aligned with Donald Trump (the roster keeps shifting there). Only those politicians, who are morons and stooges of special interests, will ever receive the blame (and the particular special interests are rarely identified, which is just as well because now we have no idea when Donald Trump will start asking for their money).
Well, if all of his supporters are doing as you say, they are purposely rejecting plentiful and powerful rhetorical encouragement their own candidate has been giving them. I can hear with my own two ears, and I've posted some material upthread that I heard with my own two ears.
Robert
-
On May 2, 2016 at 1:28 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
Just on a quick Google search, I came across the principle of honoring the deal as Trump's moral basis for supporting Social Security. See here from Market Watch last year:
A quote in Trump's own words (my bold):
If I keep digging, I am sure I will come across the point of gradually phasing it out. But is this worth my time?
Keeerrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiist.
Are you giving out homework, now, and framing it by insinuating people are liars?
What value do I get out of this?
Michael,
The value you get out of responding to this kind of question is the value of being able to back up your own assertions.
You know, as opposed to such alternatives as requiring everyone to accept them on your authority.
Otherwise, why not just attribute to your guy, Donald Trump, any position you want, just because it happens to be a position that you like?
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-donald-trumps-new-plan-for-social-security-crazy-2015-10-09
There is nothing in this Market Watch article about phasing Social Security out at some future time. In fact, the passage you quoted is all about preserving Social Security, in terms that strongly imply perpetuating it.
Having done my own looking, I have yet to find a recent statement by Donald Trump that so much as hints at eventually phasing Social Security out.
What Donald Trump actually intends to do about Social Security, if elected, of course remains unclear. His currently stated position looks like a product of naked political calculation. From the same article:
QuoteOn March 15, 2013, while addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Trump stated, "As Republicans, if you think you are going to change very substantially for the worse Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security in any substantial way, and at the same time you think you are going to win elections, it just really is not going to happen."
By the way, both this statement and the one you quoted are from the same speech, back in BNTE 3—and you've often dismissed anything that Trump said about a political issue prior to NTE1 as irrelevant. But if you're willing to accept these statements as Genuine Trump, so am I.
And in case you need a reminder why Mitch McConnell has lined up behind Donald Trump, but Paul Ryan so far has not, there's this item from the run-up to the Wisconsin primary:
QuoteIt also just so happens that Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin is the site of the next big Republican presidential primary, which is why Donald Trump phoned in to WROK radio in Rockville, Illinois (just over the Wisconsin border from Ryan’s home town of Janesville) to talk politics this week. When asked about entitlements, Trump said flatly that Ryan and pretty much the rest of the party are dead wrong:
QuoteWell, Paul, who I like a lot, he called me last week, I think he’s a really nice guy. But I disagree with him on this. You know, Paul wants to knock out Social Security, knock it down, way down. He wants to knock Medicare way down. And, frankly – well, two things. Number one, you’re going to lose the election if you’re going to do that. That’s going to be easy. I was watching Bernie and Hillary debating, and they can’t give enough on that. So you’re going to lose the election. So that’s not the purpose of it. We have to do what is right, but you will lose the election if you do that. But more importantly, in a sense, I want to keep it. These people have been making their payments for their whole lives. I want to keep Social Security intact. Now, I want to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse. I want to do a lot of things to it that are going to make it much better, actually. But I’m not going to cut it, and I’m not going to raise ages, and I’m not going to do all of the things that they want to do. But they want to really cut it, and they want to cut it very substantially, the Republicans, and I’m not going to do that.
The Salon writer of course wants Republicans to lose, and obviously believes Trump is helping the Democrats here.
Is he wrong about this?
Robert
-
Korben,
There are some things I say a lot on this site (all of them much too often for your taste).
Here are several things I am going to say just once.
Your support of a candidate who just won a major party's nomination does not entitle you to lie on his behalf, to throw tantrums on his behalf, to vent your blind hatred on his behalf, or to play juvenile games with other participants in this discussion on his behalf.
And if you have been doing this stuff because you are incapable of posting intelligent responses, it's best to stay out of discussions in which these are occasionally expected.
If you don't know and don't care what Donald Trump said in his foreign policy speech, admit it. Or stay off the topic.
Instead, you reacted as though I was beneath contempt for asking how Trump intends to make good on his promise that Iran will not be allowed to get nuclear weapons.
Your reaction to my post about Paul Manafort was more of the same: a pure expression of contempt.
If you don't know who Viktor Yanukovych is, or who Mobutu Sese Seko and Ferdinand Marcos were, and you don't care to find out—then find yourself another topic.
Either you couldn't hold your brilliant repartee until you'd finished reading my entire post about Paul Manafort (it had one more paragraph, to which "just focus on the expedient for a minute" was an obvious lead-in).
QuoteWell if you change the context I guess you can make any assertion you want.
Here is the original context and reply:
On May 2, 2016 at 2:17 PM, Robert Campbell said:Paul Manafort didn't just work for Bob Dole (or for Jerry Ford against Ronald Reagan, before he worked for Reagan). He worked for Mobutu Sese Seko, Ferdinand Marcos, at least one dictator out of the dynasty that's ruled Equatorial Guinea, and Mohammad Siad Barré (the last dictator of Somalia).
He worked for Viktor Yanukovych. Visited him many times, at the gilded palace mentioned upthread.
Whenever I've brought up Yanukovych, he's been the client nobody wants to talk about.
Forget about Donald Trump's alleged integrity here. Just focus on the expedient for a minute.
On May 2, 2016 at 3:25 PM, KorbenDallas said:McCarthyism? Yah.
Time to start another blacklist.
Or you deliberately ignored the final paragraph.
In either case, your charge of McCarthyism makes absolutely no sense.
I neither said nor implied that Paul Manafort is an agent of global Communism (which, we might say, has seen better days). Even when he performed some major image polishing on Jonas Savimbi, he wasn't doing it for Savimbi's old Chinese sponsors.
Everything I said about Mr. Manafort's former clients is documented fact.
Manafort's work for Yanukovych nearly got his lobbying firm partner, Rick Davis, fired from the John McCain campaign. (Davis deserved to be fired, but McCain wimped out.)
I'm not calling for a blacklist with Paul Manafort's name on it. What kind of blacklist would that be? Hey, shady politicians and foreign dictators, you mustn't hire a guy who helps shady politicians and foreign dictators look good! It would only increase his revenues.
I was merely pointing out that a man of Donald Trump's supposed integrity, and supposed independence from special interests with ties to the Republican party establishment, would have no use for a veteran Republican K Streeter with a long list of skanky clients.
I was merely pointing out thet, if we now put aside any notions about Donald Trump being a man of integrity, it is foolish of him to hire a staffer with ties to Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs and an exiled Ukrainian kleptocrat (now being sheltered by Vladimir Putin).
Why hire a guy whose mere presence will neutralize your attacks on the Clinton Foundation?
Why hire a guy whose place in your organization draws all kinds of interest from Russian state-controlled media, anxiously expecting that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will understand each other perfectly?
Nah, you can't be bothered.
Clinton Foundation? What's that?
Joseph McCarthy? You mean, McCarthyism is named after a person?
Robert Campbell
-
Michael,
Somebody or something deleted it.
I wasn't suggesting you did the deleting.
Robert
-
4 hours ago, tmj said:
You bring up the idea that DT's supporters' hope is in casting him in a messianic role. It strikes me as a very important , if not pivotal, element in the success of his candidacy so far. But, at least for me, his appeal in that role is not as a redeemer as much as a table overturner. The proverbial political gatekeepers and money changers may still man their kiosks , but some pretty sanctifiying light has been glaringly shed in this election cycle. My hope for Jeffersonian bloodletting to nurture the tree of liberty is that that juice will be sucked out of the structure, practices and institutions of the current two party extra-governmental political machine, a much less bloody or violent revolution.
[...]
And if their coming and going crack the foundations of the parties from whence they came, all the better. How else do we expect to get less of the same?Tad,
Clearly, many of Donald Trump's supporters do see him in a Messianic subrole: driving the money changers out of the Temple.
Some (not the proprietor of this site!) go further. For them being the disrupter is all that matters. Milo Yiannapoulos told an interviewer that he fully expected President Trump to issue a couple of big executive orders, then be in total, lock-down conflict with Congress (both houses, both sides of the aisle) for the rest of his term or terms—and he considered this an excellent outcome.
The problem is that Trump only pretends to be an overturner of tables.
Once he is in power—well before he actually is—you are going to see him surrounded by many of the same gatekeepers and money changers you thought he was going to rid us of.
If Trump were really trying to change the system, he would have found every way possible to work with Scott Walker, not stomped him and then re-stomped him (losing the Wisconsin primary in the process, though not the nomination). Any chance of those two working together is gone now.
If Trump were really trying to change the system, he would have gone after Mitch McConnell every day after McConnell told Republican Senators to drop Trump "like a hot rock" and run ads against him, if he turned out to be the nominee while they were seeking re-election. Instead, he sucked up to McConnell, and used him against Ted Cruz, in return for which McConnell has (rather tepidly) endorsed Trump, and Trump has announced he will invite McConnell to Mar-a-Lago.
See, for example
Or (reacting specifically to Bobby Jindal's decision to endorse Trump):
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/05/05/trumps_establishment_yes_men_130483.html
And Jindal, I might add, is a decent guy who has done some worthwhile things, not a hack or an apparatchik.
QuoteIt’s been fascinating to watch the GOP establishment—yes, that GOP establishment, the one both Trump’s fans and the media insisted he was fighting all along—breezily sidle up to the presumptive nominee like overconfident pigeons awaiting a stray cracker crumb or pretzel chunk. In his Indiana victory speech, even Trump seemed a bit incredulous at the sudden quisling eruption.
“People that have said the worst things about me,” he related, “they’re calling now, and they’re calling us all, and they’re saying, ‘We’d love to get on the train, the Trump train. … We’d love to get on the team.’”
And so we have Reince Priebus, whose entire job depends on the continued existence of the clown car pileup that is the GOP, calling for “unity” behind Donald Trump. We have John Boehner, Trump’s golf and “texting buddy,” subtly cheering him on. We have Newt Gingrich, who appears to be angling for a job in the Trump administration, maybe as vice president. We have fence-straddlers like New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who claims she’ll “support” but not “endorse” Trump, a hilarious position I’m sure will be all the rage in the coming months.
But hey, why not? Washington, D.C., is the ultimate company town, filled with people whose careers and livelihoods depend upon taking your money and preserving the status quo. This includes the current Republican apparatus, which does not care about principles and certainly does not care about you.
Trump will shake up the Republican party, but only in the manner that Obama shook up the Democrats.
He will put his people in charge of certain high-profile things, and try to push out anyone who contests his authority. Everything else will be farmed out to the usual suspects. After six months of Trump, four years, or 8 years, the party will be in much worse shape than it already was when he took over. Those who could have done a better job will, as a rule, no longer be around.
If Trump makes it clear that he doesn't care whether certain people fall in line behind him, that he even reserves the right to repudiate their endorsements... then Bill Shuster (a quintessential hack Congresscritter, coming right out of a primary in which he squeaked past a Tea Party challenger) endorses him, and Trump says nothing... you already know everything you need to know.
Robert
-
Good question. Was it deleted?
-
4 minutes ago, PDS said:
There is no harm in admitting this. Nobody loses their union for admitting they are wrong once in a while.
It's hard to admit being wrong when Donald J. Trump is your role model.
Robert
-
1 hour ago, Peter said:
But Mr. Trump pledged in the interviews to deliver on his campaign promises, even if they prove disruptive or explosive.
Ahh, and if anyone should complain that he hasn't delivered, President Trump and his surrogates will just tell them how badly they misinterpreted him.
Robert
-
7 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
Back when Barack Obama was elected, I remember thinking to myself, if that many people are resonating with him, he is touching them on some level. And since I am not a believer in condemning large swaths of people without trying to understand what they see and do from their eyes, I set my judgement aside and tried to look at Obama from their eyes. What I saw wasn't nearly as bad as the storyline in my head said it was. So I said at the time (here on OL) that I didn't think Obama was a bad man, that he was trying to be good in the form he understood it.
I remember being roasted for saying that, including by Barbara at the time.
So I went into silence. However, just by being silent, that did not change my mind. And this point--ironically about having good thoughts on Obama even as I was highly critical of him--has stayed with me, which is one of the reasons I understood Trump's appeal so early in this election cycle. What's more, I didn't think the people who supported Obama did so because they were less than human or trying to do evil or shameless whatevers. I realized they were trying to be good in the form they understood it--that Obama reflected this wish to be good. There were elements within him that were good-worthy so to speak--at least to the people who thought the same as he and saw them.
Then I went back to my standpoint and I saw there was some common ground with many things I think are good.
As you grieve and condemn others as shameful, I invite you to consider this perspective if you like. If you don't, that's cool, too.
Ask yourself the same question I did back then. How can it be that so many people see good where I see shame?
Part of the answer I came to is that people who had been silent were suddenly manifesting their sense of goodness because finally an opportunity appeared that reflected it. That goodness never went away. It was just silent. With Obama's appeal, I had mistaken their silence for agreement with the way I saw the world--according to the storyline in my head so to speak..
I assure you this all applies to Trump supporters and this is part of the hook that will increase his support massively up to the election. You don't have to agree with him to see this, but at least if you see it in the manner I do, you can understand it without condemning this beautiful world and country of ours as evil.
Michael,
Your post to M. Guyau is quite the eye-opener.
I am sure that you will not care for the least portion of what I am about to offer.
But there's a slender chance others will read it, so I'll give it a try.
I'll start by saying that I am hardly immune to all forms of charisma, but the kinds we often encounter in politicians generally leave me cold. I realize that in different forms Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump all have charisma. But I experience it, pretty much from beginning to end, as bullshitting.
Be that as it may, I did not think in 2007-2008 (and certainly do not think now, having learned quite a bit more about the man, his training, and his ambitions) that Barack Obama's political career was particularly motivated by a desire to do or achieve what is good. Not even by a seriously mistaken notion of the good.
I see Barack Obama as a massively narcissistic man who craves adulation from others (even though he thinks very little of nearly any, probably even less of those who bow before him and praise him, precisely because they have done what he wanted them to). Hence, from his college years, if not earlier, he has sought political power as a way of commanding other people and compelling their adulation.
Your view and mine may actually agree on hard Left ideology not being what Barack Obama is about. But this is not because Barack Obama identifies with any ideal. (Outside of his immediate family, I doubt he is much invested in pursuing anything you or I would recognize as good.) He really is devoted to political power, which he has pursued in a highly disciplined fashion—and, to me, that is a clear indication that he is just not a good person. But the political ideology is superficial. He was trained up in it as a boy, with significant reinforcements in college and in his community organizing years. Always for him it is purely a means to an end. Ultimately he is not about weakening America, or atoning for past sins against the different victim classes, or spreading the wealth around; he is now and forever only about Barack Obama.
With his charisma, his gift at oratory, and his skill at being a blank screen onto which others project their hopes and dreams, he was able to rocket upward in American politics, until he became President of the United States (something he'd been after, I suspect continuously, since age 20, if not earlier). He spoke of transformation, of the audacity of hope, was encouraged by his sycophants to view himself as a messianic figure, and probably came to see himself as such. (It's not an accident that the people who ran his 2007-2008 campaign referred to him, behind his back, as "Black Jesus.")
Well, we've seen where all of that led. He got reelected in 2012, even though he was too familiar by then to be glamorous and had disillusioned many who had fallen for the "hopey-changey" aspect.
Meanwhile, it's worth noting how thin-skinned Barack Obama is, and how he treats anyone who, in his mind, has shown him up.
You may hate Paul Ryan for different reasons (you know, like pushing through crappy spending packages after John Boehner failed), but Obama has hated Ryan ever since a certain meeting about health-care policy, at which Ryan challenged his budget analysis and showed him up. And he will keep hating Ryan, even after both of them are long out of politics.
Sorry, but Barack Obama was never pursuing the good. Many wanted to see that in him, but the wishful thinking or longing after a Messiah, though not not nearly like Obama's personal motivation, was far from the best thing for all of those who let themselves get caught up in it. Some also thought he would be the instrument or the vehicle for punishing their enemies, and he made occasional overt appeals of that sort. Not the world's healthiest motive, either.
Now when Ted Cruz—at the moment when you and I both now know he was on the ropes in Indiana—declared that Donald Trump is such a narcissist that even Barack Obama would complain he has an ego problem, he wasn't merely wondering how he could be losing to such a man.
Donald Trump is another Obama.
There are important differences in background and style. Had Obama not begun climbing the political ladder, it's hard to know what he would have done (and he probably would not would not have become famous doing it). Trump has already had a business career, not nearly as glorious as he wants himself and others to believe, but substantial. He has had a successful showbiz career as well. Politics has obviously tempted him for a long time, but was only a sideline till he catched on to a bunch of things last June (the beginning of NTE 1).
Trump is just as consumed as Obama by the pursuit of adulation, but until recently he didn't see political power as an important means to it (that has probably changed now, as he feels it's within his reach). He is just as thin-skinned as Obama, but Obama has been better at hiding it. Trump hangs his vindictiveness right out there for all to see. He boasts about the utility of being around unsuccessful people, whom he can dazzle with his embellished tales of success. He flaunts his sense of entitlement and will go to warp speed in his efforts to dismiss or argue away anything that looks like it might be a failure on his part.
Obama doesn't identify with an ideology, but there is one that he refers to, from time to time, because it has been instrumentally useful to him (and there would be massive re-learning in front of him, were he to try to use a different one).
Trump, I am fairly sure, has no ideology at all, even of the secondary or disposable variety. But he has discovered, quite recently, that emphasizing certain themes (which he may or may not believe in personally) and calling upon certain frustrations and resentments (which he surely does not share with most of the people who form his clientele; personally he has absolutely nothing in common with out-of-work coal miners in Buchanan County, Virginia) will gain him a mass following. Already a big enough following to garner a major party's nomination; whether it can gain him a big enough following to win the Presidency remains to be seen (some aspects of his appeal to the converted, particularly as they pertain to the desire for revenge, are utterly repellent to the unconverted).
Trump is no more about goodness than Obama has been. To a far greater extent than Obama (who pretended to have detailed plans for everything, even though Porkulus ended up being slapped together by ex-Congressman David Obey and his minions, Obamacare was slapped together by staffers to ex-Senator Max Baucus, etc.), Trump doesn't even tell anyone he has a program. That's how he can serve as a blank screen for his followers (who, naturally, cannot all see the same things on the screen; inevitably many, if not all, will be sorely disappointed if he takes office). What I've especially noticed about Trump supporters, however, is either aggressive rejection of even having a program (Trump will do it, whatever it turns out to be, and it will inevitably be wonderful; who do you ask?), or insistence that he will do precisely what their heart desires. (Do I really have to name posters and examples off this thread?)
If his supporters were not eagerly anticipating his accession to power, and others who may not like him at all were not seeking preferment from him, no one on God's green earth would be praising Trump's foreign policy address, a steaming pile of platitudes that could either be viewed as expressing no principle at all, or bit and fragments of 5 or 6 principles which unfortunately happen to contradict one another (No war in the Middle East! Eliminate the Islamic State! Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon!). Everybody sees something different in it, and hardly any of what they see was there to begin with.
So neither Obama nor Trump is particularly interested in pursuing the good. Both want adulation, and will take worship if they can get it. Obama's ideology is disposable, and anything that looks like ideology from Trump is the sales pitch that's been working for him up to now.
Since a cult of personality is essential to their appeal, Obama has left his political party in notably worse shape than it was in when he assumed control of it, and Trump will have at least as big a negative impact on his party.
Both have fed on many people's desire for a Messiah.
Sorry, folks, how can I break this to you? There is no Messiah on the horizon. If you aim at what an actual human being can accomplish, in collaboration with other actual human beings, you might get it. Salvation and redemption are never going to be there when you want them.
I don't think you're going to get all the revenge you're after, either. (Trump's appeal to longings for revenge is far more overt than Obama's ever was.) Trump stomps here, and he re-stomps there, and his followers are temporarily fulfilled. But the stomping has personal meaning only to Trump (who among the Trumpians genuinely hates Scott Walker?). Maybe Trump and his voters will next succeed in destroying George Will's career ("Nobody reads him anyway" is the most recent line from your guy), and in time obtain the ruination of a few others. But ending the reigns of hack Senators and Congresscritters, power-mad bureaucrats, public employee union heads.... that's really hard work, those people will fight you every step, and some of them (you know, Mitch McConnell) might turn out to be useful to a President Trump. Remember what happened with Obama's vows to change the culture of Washington, exclude all lobbyists from his administration, reject all special interests once and for all?
So you can discredit a Trump critic here or there, and I'm sure you'll do your best, but, hey, already a lot fewer people read me or Roger Bissell than read George Will.
No one here really needs a Messiah. And no one here is about to get one.
There's the lesson to be learned from the Obami.
Robert
-
4 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
Brant,
And that is exactly what I mean by not being seen.
Do you see us now?
Or do you prefer to keep imagining you see the world as it is and we don't?
Michael
Will Brant now join the list of those to be silenced?
Robert
-
3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
Here is a video of Ann Coulter on Bill Maher's show dated June 19, 2015.
All you need to watch is the first 15 seconds. Here's a transcript:
MAHER: Ann, which Republican candidate has the best chance of winning the election?
COULTER: Of the declared ones right now? Donald Trump.
AUDIENCE AND GUESTS: Sudden loud guffawing, whooping, shrieking, yukking it up, tears streaming down their eyes.
I have supported Trump openly since July.
I lived this back then and all the rest since.
Others may not remember what it felt like, but seeing the video brought back the memories. In my own way, I lived this.
As to whether Ann Coulter is "one of the greatest minds in the history of our species," I'm sure she is not. But she saw what I saw back when everyone else was not only blind to it, they were snorting and sniggering about it.
I don't hear any of those folks laughing anymore.
Michael
Michael,
Yes, I'm sure you do like the idea of silencing this audience.
(Being a Bill Maher audience, their derision would have extended to several other Republicans, but never mind.)
Ms. Coulter, moving right on to candidates not yet declared, states her preference for a Romney-Walker ticket.
Mitt Romney! Her guy in 2012.
Scott Walker! A man who, from your point of view, has been stomped by Donald Trump and could therefore never have done anything worthwhile.
She was still a long distance from redemption when she made these remarks.
Robert
-
Adam,
Yes, we both can do the math.
Kasich should have packed up and gone home a long time ago, but, OK, finally...
Robert
-
RCP now says (92% in);
Trump 53%
Cruz 37%
Kasich 8%
You had Trump within 1%.
And Bernie has been declared the winner on the other side, 53% to 47%. Not quite so close.
Robert
-
34 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
Here is Trump being very gracious about Cruz.
Michael
Michael,
I will credit Mr. Trump for trying to be gracious—trying hard—but he couldn't even hold the attitude for the duration of this clip. He had to get back to people who had endorsed him.
Robert
-
19 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
For people still confused about who the establishment is, let's say Hillary Clinton is part of the establishment. (Duh... I know... but I want to be clear for those with doubts.)
Now let's add a staunch Republican establishment mouthpiece: George Will. Intellectualoid. Smoke screen artist for establishment shenanigans and corruption. He makes the public look at lofty things in people who do despicable things.
What does he think about Hillary? Um... not so bad. See for yourself:
If Trump is nominated, the GOP must keep him out of the White House
by George Will
April 29, 2016
The Washington PostFrom the article (he's talking about Trump):
You read that right. The second task doesn't matter after that. George Will said the GOP conservatives should work to make Trump lose the election in all 50 states if he is nominated.
If Republicans adhered his boneheaded plan, it means Hillary Clinton (the probable opponent) would win.
George Will even gives Clinton some election advice on how to beat Trump:
You see, that's how it works. The establishment people help each other out. Republican or Democrat, it doesn't matter. They all belong to the establishment, America's royalty. And American citizens be damned.
To them, since they are the royalty, they are the ones who should decide. They are the smart ones. They are the beautiful people. They all have their snouts slopped in the same royal trough and they want to keep it that way. So they protect each other behind the scenes.
Some of them, like George Will, are not even trying to hide it anymore.
Michael
Michael,
Let it be recorded that 17-18 hours before Donald Trump closed the deal on the Republican nomination (beating Ted Cruz in a primary Cruz had to win; Cruz responded by ending his campaign), you wrote something like this.
On the verge of your guy's biggest win to date.
Then tell us that your support for Donald Trump is not primarily motivated by a desire for revenge.
Then tell us that support for Donald Trump, from you or from anyone else, is not and surely cannot be driven by hate.
George Will has been on the scene since the late 1970s. He has had his ups and downs (I can remember when he published a book titled Statecraft as Soulcraft, and looked down his nose at Ronald Reagan). If one looks up references to him at this site (these include your own), they used to be mixed, but often favorable.
Until Day 1, NTE 1.
Since then, nothing but scorn.
Opposition to your guy has made George Will into something you never called him before: a liar, a lackey, an "intellectualoid." A man who, we now learn, never in 40 years encountered a bad act by a powerful Republican without experiencing a massive, lasting urge to cover it up. (Meanwhile, cheerleading for your guy has instantly elevated Ann Coulter to one of the greatest minds in the history of our species.)
Will is a bitter man at present. What he called for in that column isn't just crazy spiteful. It simply can't be done. Even if Donald Trump were to lose Utah to Hillary Clinton, he would not lose 50 states to her. With today's political alignments, no major party nominee will lose 50 states. And as bad a President as Trump may turn out to be, Will cannot make a case that Hillary will be better.
George Will may get over his bout of spitefulness. Or he may not (he is older than Donald Trump; he may not be that far from retirement, whatever is in store).
Meanwhile, the iron logic of your position requires you to treat George Will as among the worst that ever crawled the earth, while Bill Shuster is wonderful (he endorsed our guy!), and Mitch McConnell remains OK until Donald Trump decides he doesn't have a current use for him.
And it requires you to hate anyone who has criticized your advocacy for Donald Trump here on OL. I, for instance, might never have known it, but I am now part of America's royalty. So are a few others here (WSS, being from the wrong side of the border, will perhaps get an exemption). Revenge is now therefore imperative.
You may get over your own bout of spitefulness. I hope so.
Robert
-
Adam,
Looks like you're going to be pretty close, on the Republican side.
Which effectively means that Trump will be the nominee.
(I do think you've overestimated Kasich's percentage.)
Bernie vs. Evita is currently very close to your prediction. Therefore, way too early to call.
Robert
-
On May 2, 2016 at 3:25 PM, KorbenDallas said:
McCarthyism? Yah.
Time to start another blacklist.
Korben,
My final paragraph was about the expedient stuff.
You know, Donald Trump wanting to defeat Hillary Clinton.
Donald says, "Hillary Clinton takes money from Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs." (Which, of course, is true.)
Hillary says, "Donald Trump's campaign manager takes money from Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs." (Which is also true.)
I'm actually wondering why Donald Trump would accept such an exposure.
What the hell does any of this have to do with McCarthyism?
Robert
-
On May 2, 2016 at 2:40 PM, KorbenDallas said:
I'm gonna guess Jon might have other Purposes than your own.
But I'm emotionally affected that my assignment had a word count requirement while Jon's didn't.
Oh well, there's always the student union.
Korben,
What you appear to be saying is that you don't actually care what Donald Trump's position is on anything.
All that matters is that he is winning.
That's great for Donald Trump, and it's pretty attractive to anyone who is, or will be, on his payroll.
What does it do for you?
Robert
-
On May 2, 2016 at 2:20 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
I've talked about Paul Manafort.
Even posted a few videos.
Michael,
Do you have anything to say about Viktor Yanukovych? You know, the politician who was Paul Manafort's client for 6 years, give or take...
I suppose it could be that people who see Yanukovych fail to see you, and people who see you will fail to see him.
Robert
Who Is Richard Minns ?
in ARI Corner
Posted
Hello Michael.
Robert