Robert Campbell

Michael, Ahh, DDDDT is purposely reeling back on the mistress stories. Don't want to damage Lyin' Ted too much... I doubt DDDDT is that finely calibrated an operation. Do you think it is? Donald Trump keeps talking as though he is not a politician, all of his opponents are, therefore he would never beg to be the humble servant of any of them, but all will come crawling to him, and some of those who crawl might, after further drubbing, be accepted. He makes no secret of any of this. And when Paul Manafort says, "Hey, RNC! My guy isn't really unbelievably vain and tremendously vindictive. He just plays an egomaniac on TV," his boss promptly contradicts him in front of crowds in Pennsylvania. I know that plenty of Republicans will vote for Trump, no matter how they dislike him, if he is the nominee. Those are partisan alignments nowadays (not much different from Democrats getting out their clothespins and voting for Hillary). That's why i don't see a Goldwater or Mondale-level loss as a possibility. What you are not seeing is how relentless and outré Trump is in his attacks on other Republicans, how he gives every impression, every time he does it, of meaning it personally, and how unusual tactics will have unusual effects. In Republican delegates dropping him as soon as they are no longer bound, Republican officials not working with or for him, and in Republican voters staying home, voting down-ticket and leaving the President-VP lines blank, or voting third-party. I won't say all Trump supporters are doing it, because I doubt you speak for most of them. But with all your talk about how anyone who disagrees with you on these subjects can't see you, you do seem to be putting a lot of effort into not seeing them. Robert

Michael, Where, in all of these exchanges, have I said, or implied, that you were stupid? That's not what any of this has been about. Here's what it does seem to be about: You didn't have to pay attention in 2008. Because what happened then is what Donald Trump is now telling you happened. You didn't have to pay attention in 2010. Because what happened then is what Trump is now telling you happened. You didn't have to pay attention in 2012. Because what happened then is what Trump is now telling you happened. You didn't have to pay attention in 2014. Because what happened then is what Trump is now telling you happened. (The most thorough coverage I ever saw of McDaniel vs. Cochran appeared in Breitbart. No need to read it, I guess. Breitbart wasn't pushing Trump for President yet.) Now if it doesn't matter what the establishment is, or what a Silent Majority is, or who today's Trump supporters voted for in the past, or what they thought they were getting when they voted, or how McCain or Romney got nominated, why should it matter what the present problem is? Surely identifying the problem, with as much clarity as you can muster, is part of solving it. Do you realize that your appeal to "the history we lived" is the exact same one that Social Justice Warriors and hard Left campus activists make, whenever they demand "safe spaces," speech codes, clampdowns on "cultural appropriation," and the banishment of any public speaker who fails to toe their political line? The exact same one they make when they demand punishment for anyone who chalks "Trump 2016" on a campus sidewalk. Robert

Michael, Yes, of course, the Bush clan only pretended to support Jeb. That Jeb! candidacy was a tactical feint. Ted was their guy all along. You have to realize this is all complete BS. Precisely as credible as making Trump out to be a Clinton plant. And I'm sure you do realize it. Trump et al. have now sought to discredit Cruz: — As a Canadian ineligible to run for President (Trump's just pulled that one back out of his bag) — As an unhinged fanatic (Rafael! Rafael!) who believes he is the Messiah — As a player with a bunch of mistresses (hence, unacceptable to his religious supporters) — As a Bushie in sheep's clothing — As a phony who only pretended to oppose the Gang of 8 — As the guy Trump could have been if only he'd thought to hire Paul Manafort last July And they'll come up with a few more, before the nomination is decided one way or another. You must be disappointed in the reception of the National Enquirer story (and its already forgotten addenda). How much time elapsed between the initial charge against Herman Cain (the first sexual harassment allegation) and his decision to drop out (because he really did have a mistress)? Yeah, I know, 2011-2012, all framed by the Establishment, therefore history a Trump supporter needn't burden himself with.... Still, clock's ticking on the Enquirer stuff; it hasn't quite hit the expiration date, but it's tasting pretty stale. Yet many Trump supporters admit they'd bite the bullet and vote for Cruz, if Trump fails to secure the nomination. And even those who don't want him on the ticket want to him to stay in the Senate, where he can serve Trump faithfully. If the Canadian thing was for real, Cruz couldn't be the nominee. Under any circumstances. Not for VP, neither. If the mistress thing was for real, Cruz's evangelical constituents in Texas would desert him, and he wouldn't get reelected to the Senate. If the Messiah thing was for real, nobody would want Cruz in any elective office. Let the guy become Mayor of Copperas Cove, Texas, and, the next thing you know, he'd turn the place into Jonestown. Most of the people who are spreading this stuff don't act like it's for real. How could they? Robert

Michael, You're addressing this to a guy who has voted for Libertarians about as often, lifetime, as he has voted for Republicans. Never, for instance, have I cast a ballot for anyone named Bush. So, two sentences and you've lost me already. I've all at once become indistinguishable from Reince Preibus and Haley Barbour—and from Howard Dean and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. OK, if Establishment Republicans are exactly the same as Establishment Democrats, how did Donald Trump run against Scott Walker (twice, the second time when he wasn't on the ballot) employing Establishment Democrat talking points against a guy Trump wants us to believe is an Establishment Republican? It could be that they're all the same, except on the occasions when they're different. But perhaps you'll understand how it's hard to derive any guide to action from this. If typical Trump supporters (well, those who now are typical Trump supporters) were the people who put those Republican majorities in the House in 2010 and in the House and Senate in 2014, what you are saying? That they were the entire Republican electorate in those contests? A vast majority of it? What percent of it? And everyone they allegedly voted for (allegedly, because it isn't clear what percentage of the Republican electorate you actually have in mind), everyone all the way from Mia Love to Mitch McConnell, was and is a member of the Republocratic/Demopubilcan establishment. Jeff Sessions too (he got reelected in 2014). Unless you are simply equating Tea Partiers (plus everyone else who's had a beef against the Republican Establishment since, I don't know, 2004) with Trump supporters, it appears you're significantly undercounting the percentage of the electorate for which Republican insiders have shown disdain. Equating Trump supporters with a silent majority is questionable on a number of levels. First, I haven't noticed Trump supporters being silent. (If they were all Tea Partiers beforehand, they weren't silent then either.) Second, the politician who claimed he had prevailed with the support of the Silent Majority was Richard Nixon (a man whom I devoutly hope you do not see as a model for Trump). Third, you don't get to call yourself part of a majority without showing that it actually outnumbers the other side (otherwise, you're just doing the Bolshevik vs. Menshevik thing, and we know where that went). Few other things: If you think John McCain got the nomination in 2008 through what you are calling backroom manipulations, review the primary results from that year. If you think Mitt Romney got the nomination in 2012 by like means, review the primary results from that year. Yes, the insiders were all for Romney in 2012, and I guess they settled pretty quickly for McCain in 2008. But none the caucus/state convention/pledged/unpledged stuff that Donald Trump is constantly complaining about made any difference at all, as both candidates sewed up the nomination long before the party convention. (There was a spiteful gesture against Ron Paul from the Romneyites at the 2012 convention, which may have cost Romney a little in the general, but it had no effect on who was going to be nominated.) All I can infer from that talking point is that you weren't paying attention in 2008 (I didn't pay much, because I didn't like Huckabee or Santorum or Romney or McCain, and I figured the Republican was going to lose anyway). Or in 2012, where I paid quite a bit of attention (Mitt Romney did not win the South Carolina primary, and I just wish a bunch of other states had given him the same treatment). I'm not saying everyone needed to pay attention (it's disappointing to follow what's happening with a weak candidate, like Mittens, when instead of getting soundly walloped he instead contrives to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory). But each left behind a detailed record, and you don't need Donald Trump to provide your history for you. If you want dirty tricks, there was the Republican primary for Senate, in Mississippi in 2014. On the Establishment side (literally—most of the Barbour family was working for him, and the NRSC held an emergency fundraising meeting for him, from which the Republican Senators who had been invited slunk out a secondary entrance in the hope that no reporters would see them), Thad Cochran. One of the worst, most venal Republicans the whole time he'd been in the Senate; the king of earmarks several years running; had buildings named after him all over the state. By 2014, he was also displaying mental lapses and was widely suspected of being in early-stage Alzheimer's. On the Tea Party side, Chris McDaniel. In a state where the Democrats knew they'd be nominating a sacrificial lamb. In a super-nasty primary race, McDaniel came up a little short of 50%, so it went to a runoff. In Mississippi, the primaries are open. But if they go to a runoff, voters are legally required to vote in the Republican runoff if they voted in the Republican primary, and vice versa. There's a procedure called swapping the poll books that is supposed to take place in every precinct, just to make sure nobody's trying to go from the Democratic primary to the Republican runoff, or vice versa. The Barbours and Trent Lott and Mitch McConnell and the rest of the sorry crew were now in a panic, because they knew McDaniel would be highly effective getting his supporters to show up for a runoff, and Cochran wouldn't. So what they did was to hire Democratic operatives from out of state, the shadier the better. So shady, some took "walking around money." They ran radio ads encouraging voters in certain markets to turn out and oppose McDaniel because he wanted to cut welfare programs and "he disrespected our President." It's not as though Thad Cochran had actually shown any more respect for Barack Obama than Chris McDaniel had, but we all know that wasn't the objective of this exercise. Lo and behold, Cochran won the runoff by a hair. It turned out that in most precincts the swapping of the poll books had never taken place. Not that the Republican leadership knew anything about that, of course. And by the time the McDaniel campaign, having had trouble getting access to the records, filed suit, the court said "Too late! We weren't going to do anything anyway." Mississippi remains a highly corrupt state. Oh, and any illusions I might still have had about the Wall Street Journal editorial board were blown away by one incredibly cynical editorial (Hey, didn't the Republicans get black voters to turn out? Isn't this a good thing?). Now, there are some dirty tricks for you. And real, certifiable Establishment figures were implicated in them. I looked for Thad Cochran's name on this site. Nothing came up, except one post of mine from 2011. I looked for Chris McDaniel's name on OL. Nothing. Meanwhile, Thad Cochran still holds important committee positions and casts votes. But he doesn't make statements in the media. I presume his staff has been instructed to make sure he doesn't. Unless you came by your disgust with the Republican Establishment in the summer of 2015, this is the kind of story that might have interested you. By the way, Donald Trump endorsed McDaniel in 2014. In February 2016, McDaniel criticized Trump for being in favor of taking private property for private use (his piece appeared in Breitbart). Would Trump endorse him now? Your closing statement, taken literally, doesn't bother me. Far as I can see, Trump supporters are making themselves heard loud and clear right now. If their guy gets elected, they'll keep doing it (unless, of course, they're shouting because now they think he's betraying them). He'll be shouting, they'll be shouting. Worst that would happen is I'd have to lay in a supply of earplugs. Not taken so literally, I'm not sure what it implies. What kinds of reprisals are in store for those who wouldn't get on the Trump Train? Robert

Michael, And he kept them down? They must have been truly stupendous when he announced he was running. Robert

Michael, If Donald Trump, the man destined to win, had gotten his caucus and state convention operations together, he could be turning his victory lap as we speak. In which case, the rules and practices would be exactly the same as they are now, but there would be no "big honking spotlight." There would be nothing at all. Robert

Michael, No one needs expertise to notice that Mitt Romney and John McCain lost. Not after they actually did it. Now, if you mean before the event A non-expert might have noted that a Republican would have tough sledding in 2008. And less tough sledding in 2012, but with a weak candidate against a slick one... The bond Trump has with his supporters is presumably unaffected by their numbers. In other words, it will be qualitatively the same whether they are 10% of those eligible to vote, or 20% or 30%... or 80%. A generous estimate of their forces would take 100%, subtract Trump's present negatives (we'll say 65%), and assume nothing in between. Which give us 35% Enough to take the Republican nomination, even though Trump has still not quite hit a 40% average across his almighty primaries. Not nearly enough to beat a Democrat. If Trump doesn't actually beat a Democrat, no one's going to look back and judge his tactics to have been golden. Robert

Korben, George H. W. Bush once derided certain supply-side projections (for economic growth and Federal tax revenues) as "voodoo economics." It turned out that while some of the supply-siders needed to curb their enthusiasm, they did have a point. By contrast, I have no idea where Donald Trump is getting his projections for economic growth and Federal tax revenues. Are they more "perfect statistics"? He might as well be saying: more people will be paying into Social Security and Medicare, and each will be getting paid more and will be putting in more FICA tax—because I am magnificent and destined to win. (If I catch you peeking behind the curtain, Corey and his detail will be escorting you out.) The issues regarding Social Security and Medicare aren't that difficult to comprehend. It's just that trying to do anything about them entails political liability. As Robert Tracinski noted in his last installment, a Trump vs. Hillary contest will be a contest between two candidates who insist that Social Security MUST BE PRESERVED. So either, if elected, won't do a damn thing about it. And if not now, when? Consequently in 2035 (give or take a couple of years), if present law is still in force, Social Security will be out of both real money and funny money, and all benefits will get a 21% chop. (Not quite a slash, but sharp enough.) A Trumpian economic miracle, if he can conjure one, might push that horizon out a couple more years. And Medicare, which Tracinski did not get into, will run out a lot faster than Social Security. Establishment politicians don't want to touch Social Security, and neither does Donald. Cronies don't want to touch Social Security, and neither does Donald. And yet he is their mortal enemy... It is not that difficult to formulate plans for Social Security, Medicare, and replacing Obamacare. In fact, the fates of Medicare and Obamacare are joined, courtesy of the $700 billion forced transfer from one to the other that was written into Obamacare (to game the CBO) and that no one believes will ever take place. Very little of the underlying information is secret. Plenty of think thanks that have been working on the details, some of them for years. The Donald might overcome his aversion to non-doers, some of whom might even have associated with a despised opponent, and see what they have to offer. Otherwise, the only prudent thing to do is to treat his schemes for Obamacare, Medicare, and Social Security as sheer vaporware. You know, Barack Obama waited till after he was elected to decide what would actually be in Obamacare. How did that turn out? Robert

Korben, I arrived late to this thread, and am (on some occasions) still trying to sort out the personal positions of some Trump supporters from the various positions their candidate has taken on the campaign trail. Also, trying to distinguish your views from Michael's—as any disagreements Michael actually has with Trump, when he is not dismissing all policy discussion as gotcha-games and the product of an unhealthy interest in mere words, are being minimized for the sake of the ongoing campaign. Meanwhile, as you may have seen by now, I disagree with Ted Cruz about what I see as unforced errors (such as his "New York values" crack), misplaced priorities, and pandering (trying to get in on Huckabee's photo op with Kim Davis, supporting the North Carolina "bathroom bill"). I don't need to hear the latest short version of Ted's message all day either; a couple of times is plenty. I came in not knowing what your understanding of economics might be, while knowing that Trump's main campaign themes have their, errr, anti-economic elements. It's one thing to push for a counter to Chinese mercantilism, which the regime is obviously practicing. Much of the "detail" on Trump's campaign site is still not very detailed, but the section on intellectual property for American (and other foreign) companies trying to operate in China reads as though someone in Trump's operation had actually thought about the issue. And the section on Chinese export subsidies asserts that any continued operation of state enterprises in China, with any of the privileges appertaining thereto, ipso facto constitutes export subsidies. I get the point, though I don't see that getting what is still called the Chinese Communist Party, which still puts Chairman Mao on all its currency, to pull the plug on state enterprises will ever be attained through trade negotiations. It will take the Party's overthrow from within, or a couple of orders of magnitude more foreign troops than were brought in to stop the Boxers. It's another to push for American mercantilism, which Trump seems to favor (as long as the beneficiary isn't oil companies, or Big Pharma). With all due respect to a certain Trump defender, renminbi in the 2010s aren't reais in the 1980s. The Chinese central bank manipulates renminbi the same way the ECB manipulates euros, and we don't see Trump calling for the immediate abrogation of trade deals with Europe. Now, corn-based ethanol. First, is there any market at all for corn-based ethanol, in the absence of Congressional ethanol mandates and EPA enforcement? The corn ethanol lobby makes no effort to pretend otherwise. Besides, this isn't the first go-round for Federally subsidized corn-based ethanol. The previous wave ended abruptly in the 1980s, when oil prices took a dive. Even with subsidies, ethanol couldn't compete. Hence the rationale for compulsory blending into all the gasoline legally salable at the pump (compulsory blending to be amplified, soon, from 10% to 15%). Let's add compulsory purchase of ethanol by oil companies and refineries, even if it exceeds the total volume needed to meet the blending order. Now we have a purely contrived market for ethanol, with proof against collapse even if oil hits $5 a barrel. Meanwhile, the compulsory blending was sold, politically, on environmental grounds that the enviros themselves no longer pretend to believe in. We could stop right here, in the face of overwhelming evidence that corn-based ethanol is a gigantic boondoggle brought into existence by pull-peddling and perpetuated by further pull-peddling. Therefore, exactly the kind of thing Donald Trump wants everyone to believe he is against. Nonetheless... if you create subsidized or compulsory demand (the present system does both) for large volumes of corn-based ethanol, which on a free market no one wants 'cause no one needs, you don't just get the diversion of corn crops away from people food and livestock feed that's going to make people food. And you don't just get marginal land drawn into corn production. You also get the diversion of better-quality land from, say, soybean production into corn production (there are other crops, even in Iowa). Meanwhile, when not corroding engine parts, corn-based ethanol mandates raise energy costs (for food processors, along with everyone else). The whole purpose of the current system is force the continued purchase of ethanol, preferably for bleeding but even after they've already hit the "blend wall," even if oil is $5 a barrel, so some increase in energy costs is practically guaranteed. Three links: http://www.iowacorn.org/en/ethanol/ http://www.globalwarming.org/2013/09/16/new-york-times-covers-the-ethanol-scam-ethanol-mandates-spawn-credits-that-enrich-wall-street-speculators-rip-off-consumers/ http://hotair.com/archives/2016/01/23/do-iowa-voters-really-care-about-ethanol-anymore/ The first one is from a lobbying operation. Check the sources and you'll see that most of what the provide is advocacy statistics (i.e., they're lobbyists citing other lobbyists). There's even a link to talking points, in case you didn't know what kind of site it was. Still, here's a statistic that's in line with what i've been able to find elsewhere: 47% of Iowa corn now goes into ethanol production. Has everyone gone completely nuts? How much would be going into ethanol production without the mandates? It could easily be 0%. Does this mean that the Iowa corn crop would abruptly decline by 47%? Nope. Decreases from taking land out of production or changing crops would amount to much less than that. What would still be grown would basically all be going into human food and livestock feed. How could that, in turn, not affect food prices? (The US is by far the world's biggest corn producer. Also grows a lot of the crops that would be substituted for corn in Iowa.) It doesn't matter, in this context, how small a percentage of the price of the retail food product goes to the farmer. (That, by the way, is the first excuse in any brief for perpetuating old-fashioned farm subsidies—which corn farmers are still getting.) There is still leverage. And ethanol mandates also increase energy costs, every step along the supply chain. This is how payoffs to special interests in a few corn-producing states can harm consumers, both in America and abroad. OK, inflation. That there has been hidden inflation during the QE era, I don't doubt for a minute. If you can explain what makes inflation unhide itself for food items, at the same time enabling it to stay in hiding for so many other goods and services, I will be all ears. Otherwise, in the present context your appeal to inflation looks diversionary. The third link points to a poll taken not long before the Iowa caucuses. It was received with some skepticism then, but Cruz ended up beating Trump. So maybe there was something to it. It appears to show that most Iowans have quit caring whether corn-based ethanol keeps being propped up. Employment: It's hard to find trustworthy figures. The ethanol lobby has everything to gain from taking jobs that are corn-related, or merely agriculture-related, and making it appear they are uniquely dependent on corn-based ethanol. But let's assume that 36,000 jobs in Iowa are truly dependent on corn-based ethanol, so every last one would disappear the minute mandates were abolished. Then it would come down to: We must preserve a phony market in corn-based ethanol, by keeping or increasing fuel mandates, in perpetuity, to save 36,000 jobs in Iowa. Has everyone gone completely nuts? You may have noted that the same argument for perpetuating corn-based ethanol mandates could be (and actually is) used to justify perpetuating any and every other expensive boondoggle presently in operation. Just to stay inside the energy sector, mustn't special privileges and subsidies to the solar-panel industry also be perpetuated, to avoid job losses when the subsidized solar-panel factories all shut down? Aren't the actual past job losses, say, from Solyndra, mere proof that everyone in the country must make forced purchases of subsidized American solar panels, even if these end up gathering dust in their basements and their rented storage, to forestall any more such job losses? (That's, in effect, what we got after there were actual job losses in corn-based ethanol.) The argument makes just as much sense. But so far, I haven't heard Donald Trump calling for solar-panel mandates. Though he will be campaigning in California... and Ted Cruz won't be championing solar-panel mandates... I'm not an Objectivist. But this is not an area of exegetical uncertainty in Objectivism. We should further acknowledge that Ayn Rand was not in favor of going cold turkey on Social Security. She thought it would have to be wound down so as to reduce the damage to those who thought they'd be able to rely on it, even though no one had ever had a right to benefit payments. The Objectivist answer on corn-ethanol mandates is straight out of Frédéric Bastiat: Abolish the law, without delay. It's my answer too. Robert

Michael, If every time Donald Trump wins, you say he earned the win... and... Every time Donald Trump loses, you say it was stolen from him... and... Whenever possible in the event of a loss, you blame it on institutional rules and political maneuvers to which you would have had no objection, if either Trump had employed them to win, or Trump had won in spite of them... What other conclusion follows, but... Donald Trump is destined to win. Besides, there is an obvious model for such behavior. Donald Trump constantly acts and speechifies as though he is destined to win. Why wouldn't his followers believe that he is? Robert

Michael, People say the darnedest things in Rand-land. But in no corner, spot, neighborhood, or microclimate have I ever heard that Ayn Rand shouldn't have gone on Phil Donahue's show, because that, at the mildest, was casting the pearls without the pork chop. I don't even know whether Peter Schwartz believes such a thing, though he and his two-person entourage are so ill-equipped to broadcast their opinions that I might have missed it. Speaking of ARI intellectuals... Leonard Peikoff was advising her when she went on Donahue. Harry Binswanger and Peter Schwartz were trying. So I truly have no idea what you're talking about. Phil Donahue was not Gail Wynand. Donald Trump is not Phil Donahue. Did Phil Donahue ever try to get his viewers to believe that the Long Island Railroad is in bad shape because railroads in CHIIiina have trains that run at 250 mph—and all it will take to get acceptable performance out of the LIRR is to elect one loud guy so he can redo all the trade deals with that country? Robert

Ed, Here is a key sentence from your post: The first conjunct doesn't bother me per se. Trump likes applause—that's a common trait amongst people who go into showbiz, and no one faulted Louis Armstrong for it. I do get a little concerned when Trump seeks more applause by telling an audience that appears to love him how much other people love him. Or when he veers off-topic during a press conference, just to work in another reference to some group of people who he thinks love him (Scott Walker rides a motorcycle - maybe that's good - oh, did you know that motorcycle riders love me the most? - where was I?). It's the second conjunct that's really worrisome. Whether it's announcing that he won't appear on Fox News if Megyn Kelly is involved, because she asked him one tough question on the air, or losing the Wisconsin primary by running like a left-wing Democrat against a guy who wasn't on the primary ballot (Scott Walker), because Walker had run against him for President. Robert

Peter, Your second theory has some plausibility, though I've yet to be impressed with the efficacy of DDDDT. Maybe they did eventually realize that getting Donald's golfing buddy to place some prepackaged sleaze in one of his publications wasn't nearly enough, and they have come up with an assortment stories to place in other media outlets. It would take some close content analysis to distinguish between stories planted on Trump's behalf and stories written by those who merely want to elect Democrats and figure Cruz is close enough to endangering their pet Democrat that they'd better start softening up his position, now. There is some convergence of interests—a little more than usual because of the Drumpfian imperative to not merely defeat, but utterly destroy opponents from the same party. A quick look at some of the Cruz items on Yahoo today suggests more of a convergence of interests. An unsigned piece from the Atlantic blasts Cruz for allegedly speaking contentlessly. Many of the actually or allegedly contentless phrases could have come from the mouth of Donald Trump, who is not under indictment in the piece; perhaps the writer is trying to help Trump? But too much of the rhetoric is giveaway hard Left (He's read Hayek! The horror, the horror!) or just blinkered Democrat (a Republican who does poorly in a Massachusetts primary will be toast in a general election—in which everyone knows the Republican will do poorly in Massachusetts). If there's an intent to help Trump, it's only because the writer (disappointed that Bernie has fallen short) thinks Trump at the top of the ticket will be the best way to usher in the reign of Queen Evita. Robert

Yeah, history is a lot messier than any elegant, well constructed narrative. But the deeper problem is that history harbors actual facts, here and there, and narrative may be constructed in purposeful defiance of facts, in order to discourage anyone from examining them. Robert

Peter, I very much doubt that Donald Trump deliberately lost delegates in Wisconsin, consciously trading them off for future gains elsewhere. How would re-stomping Scott Walker in Wisconsin get Trump more votes and more delegates in another state later on? No one, not even the proprietor of this site, credits the re-stomping in Wisconsin with increasing Trump's margin of victory in New York. Does anyone think re-stomping Walker will gain Trump more delegates in Pennsylvania or Indiana or California than he lost in Wisconsin? Trump himself doesn't think that. The only people outside of Wisconsin who hate Scott Walker and are likely to vote in a Republican primary, or participate in a Republican caucus or state convention are: Donald Trump, and a few hundred people who shill for him professionally. So what is the benefit of pandering to such a nanoscopic segment of the electorate? He did what the vain and vindictive do (seek continued revenge on a former rival for the nomination), and the effect was to cost him the primary and 20 or more delegates. An unforced error. Ted Cruz's crack about "New York values" was likewise an unforced error. It did not bring him present gains in Iowa to offset his future losses in New York, and I doubt he really thought it would at the time. He'd have been best off putting a cork in it and not casting aspersions on the values allegedly prevailing in any jurisdiction—but if he truly couldn't help himself, he should have confined himself to "liberal Manhattan values." Once he said it, Donald Trump was going to profit from ostentatiously construing it as an aspersion not just on the City but on the entire state. And the New York City media (which normally see Rochester and Rome and Utica, when they see them at all, as modest additional sources of tax revenue) were going to take a brief pause from insuring the election of Democrats, and join right in. All easily anticipated. So I don't know whether Cruz is sorry for his crack, though he should be. As for Trump, how can one who is inalterably magnificent and destined to win ever be sorry for anything? Robert

The Federal court case (even if has to go to the Supreme Court) should lead to this tribal decision being overturned. Congress also has authority to step in. Robert

Robin, Not surprising to anyone who knows the least bit of history. It's funny how narrative and history manage to have so little in common. Robert

Brant, Some Cherokees hid out in the mountains of far Western North Carolina. Around 1900, they were able to come out of hiding and got a small reservation. (Mostly visible to us in SC from casino commercials, and a few movies that have been filmed there.) Most of today's Cherokees have some European ancestry. Some have a lot. Before the Trail of Tears, the faction that wanted to conclude a treaty and move to Indian Territory was led by John Ridge (last name an abbreviated translation of the Cherokee for he who walks along the mountaintop). His wife was white. The faction that wanted to refuse the treaty and stay where they were was led by the top chief, John Ross (last name not an abbreviation of anything Cherokee; he was at least 3/4 Scottish). After the Trail of Tears, Ridge and nearly all of the other leaders of his faction were assassinated. Ross remained chief through the Civll War (when he reluctantly allied with the Confederates; he even tried exile in Kansas to avoid that). They did keep a tribal identity. Robert

Robin, The Cherokees owned slaves, in North Carolina and Georgia before they were expelled, then after exile to Indian Territory (which all that serial Congressional compromising had put in the slave orbit). This is not exactly news. It was legal in those parts, and some of them probably thought holding slaves would make them more acceptable to white Southerners. Turned out it didn't. And not all of those descendants were excluded from the tribe. I've seen the papers (from 1913) identifying a man named Joe Brown (who was usually considered black and, many years later, ran a small record company on the South Side of Chicago) as a "Cherokee freedman," and confirming his allotment of what had been communal tribal land. His son showed them to me. The family still owns that land. All this tells you is that "indigenous peoples" and their folkways were complicated, morally and otherwise. This should not be news. And it has no relevance to Elizabeth Warren's case. For La Warren claims no slave ancestors. She does have an ancestor who helped to herd those who had been kicked out of North Carolina and Georgia into a stockade in Chattanooga, Tennessee, before they were dispatched along the rest of the trail. Robert

Michael, What do you know about political campaigns? Have worked for one in a volunteer capacity? Been a paid staffer or operative? Been employed by the kind of outfit that Trump says he doesn't need but doesn't mind getting help from (a PAC)? Ever even applied for a slot in an, um, special-purpose operation such as DDDDT? I'm not saying this because I have worked in a political campaign (closest I ever got was checking voter registration information for a Libertarian ballot petition drive—off microfiche, which tells you how long ago that was). I'm saying it because, while I make absolutely no such claims for myself, you keep presenting yourself as an expert on the subject. I've brought up Trump's ongoing treatment, both of Scott Walker and of the issues that matter to Scott Walker and those who have elected him three times, for two reasons: (1) Trump, in steering the ship around that iceberg, might actually need to pay attention to those issues. (2) If he ever does pay attention, and he has actually been elected, he will need the backing of people like Scott Walker and of people who have voted for Scott Walker. Which instead he has done everything to forfeit, and he's been damn successful. Something else, though. Trump lost in Wisconsin. You're writing about it as though he went in, re-stomped Walker, won the primary, and took nearly all the delegates. He did the first two. If he'd won, the answer would be, re-stomping won him a primary. And, OK, even if it wasn't strictly necessary, it worked. It didn't work. He didn't win the primary. You know, if he'd actually done the third and fourth thing, Donald Trump could be taking his victory lap next Wednesday. A lot earlier than June 7, in any case. Instead, he lost a primary that most observers agree he could have won (no one thinks every Wisconsin Republican felt a compulsion to vote for Cruz or for Kasich). Ted Cruz beat him, and took 36 delegates out of 42. Trump lost it because of his insistence on re-stomping Walker. That's Walker's own post mortem on it. Unforced error by Mr. Trump. But how could there be such a thing? A being so magnificent never hurts himself. It was all skullduggery by Paul Ryan, or Mitch McConnell, or Reince Priebus, or Charlie Sykes, or Liz Mair. Donald Trump is destined to win every time. Anything else happens, it was rigged, they didn't play fair, someone was out to screw him. A man who builds things so magnificent must surely be invincible in electoral politics. Here's the plodding truth. Trump wins primaries with votes—except when some place holds a primary and he doesn't win it with votes. Same thing is trivially true of Cruz. Kasich, even. Bernie. Hillary. They all win primaries, except when they don't. Special pleading for Donald Trump is not terribly becoming to anyone. Especially when Trump is its prime practitioner, and it's so obvious that the rest of it is being done in emulation of his personal example, if not under his direction. Trump may get to the convention with 1237 delegates on the first ballot. If he's at or past 1237, he won't have to, and probably won't, miss any delegates from any of the contests that he could have won and, through his own vanity, his own vindictiveness, and his own lack of organization, didn't actually win. If he's under 1237, he can yell and scream, blame it on everyone in sight, even get Roger Stone to dial him up a small riot or two. But he will miss those delegates. You know he will. Robert

!!! You do have to read all the way to the end to understand why Vodkapundit is willing to vote for Trump. Robert

WSS, A similar law is being promoted in South Carolina, where it appears to have a lot fewer chances of passing. A county sheriff asked out loud what his officers would be required to do to enforce it, and how much effort this would divert from somewhat more important duties. I'm not with Cruz on this one at all. And when it's not a Federal responsibility, he's pandering. On the other hand, the corporations that eagerly do business with Sa'udi Arabia but are threatening to boycott North Carolina don't seem to have their priorities settled either. Interestingly, the media outlet that's now nearly all Trump when it isn't just wandering in circles (Breitbart) still agitates regularly on behalf of laws like the one in NC. Robert

That is the money quote. It's from an article by Rick Wilson (known to Breitbart readers from a certain era as "Gollum"), But one needn't hate everyone else that Gollum hates (he had to perform several extra gollum-gollums, to be even sort of nice to Ted Cruz) to get the point. Robert

Michael, You might be confusing this presidential race with some of Mr. Trump's previous sales campaigns. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are both familiar figures to the American public. Getting more attention has already brought her unfavorables up, sharply. Getting more attention hasn't brought his down. Although he can turn Hillary's complaints about sexism against her—already has, with some impact—I think you're grossly overvaluing Donald's inside-dirt operation. DDDDT (Donald's Deniable Department of Dirty Tricks) seems to be about as well managed as his state convention operations. Hillary's legal problems can't destroy her candidacy. Unless she's actually indicted; her unfavorables are already way up and if the election were tomorrow, she'd still beat him easily, as we reckon that in the USA. Or if she is not indicted, then a foreign government (it doesn't have to be too unfriendly) would have to announce that its agents have read every email from her server. (Including all the ones she ordered erased: here are one or two, just to whet your appetites.) There are a very few people who can make either of these things happen, and Donald Trump isn't one of them. Robert

Michael, If that drastic debt reduction is meant to involve any spending reductions (drastic or otherwise), Captain Trump, bearing hard in whatever direction to avoid that iceberg, had better pay a little attention to Social Security, Medicare, replacements for Obamacare, and so on. CHIIiina! isn't going to start paying him tribute, in quantities sufficient to retire Federal debt. And he might need to pay attention to public employee unions, at least at the Federal level. You know, running up expenses, padding the payroll, failing to carry out Capain's orders, and all. We still need to see the pig, Captain. Robert PS. If the media get in the way of the Captain's emergency orders, or say anything bad about the way he looks while giving orders on the bridge, must he—will he—go full Erdogan (I'm assuming you know what that means)?