Roger Bissell

We all notice it. It's his living room. He can dance about naked with a lampshade on his head and accuse us of gotcha or of suspect motives if we protest. (Start your videocams now.) REB

Seriously? What has Hillary accomplished, really? REB

Very well said, Robert - and your post overall was quite good, too. The lesson to be learned from the Trumpenproletariat is that sometimes Stomping is (barely) euphemized more innocently as Stumping. Or perhaps that Stumping, in the hands of some people, slides precipitously into Stomping. Sometimes even very deranged Stomping, such as Tromp, on the verge of his total victory in Indiana, incomprehensibly accusing Cruz's father of being involved in the JFK assassination. Of course (and I hear this a lot, even on FOX News which has clearly gone over to the Dark Side), this is not supposed to dissuade people from supporting him - any more than his delusional remark about not losing support if he shot someone - but why? The only reason I can think of is: the end justifies the means. Which is what Pragmatists and Statists and Statist-Pragmatists embrace with no qualms whatever - and have for decades. Why I'm seeing so much of this kind of rationalization here on a website ostensibly dedicated to Rand and her philosophy, though, is not at all clear - unless it's an indication of the metastasizing of the severe intellectual and moral corruption that is unmistakeably present in the Tromp Godhead itself. REB

Stephen, out of deep personal respect for your mind and values, I say to you not that "I feel you...," but that I hear you, I understand you, and I agree with you. REB

A hearty (but facetious) congratulations to Hillary Clinton and her supporters. Her election to be our 47th President has now been assured, with Drumpf's win in Indiana and Cruz's withdrawal from the GOP nomination campaign. To all who shudder at this prospect, start now to cover your asses. It won't be a joyride. REB

Why did Hillary stay with Bill, given his outstanding proclivity for infidelity and predation on Hillary's fellow women (if that phrase is not an oxymoron)? Hmmm, money and power, ya s'pose? If I stick with this jerk-wad long enough, maybe someday it will be my turn to be rich and powerful? REB P.S. - I know that's very cynical, but this is politics and huge wealth we're talking about, whether billions or "mere" hundreds of millions. Trump's kids don't appear particularly reptilian, in contrast to Hillary's raptor-like demeanor, but maybe with time and experience...

That's where I'm at, more or less. Every time Trump does something in the neighborhood of adding to the plus column (for instance, I actually kind of liked his foreign policy speech), he does something like this. One step forward, 2 or 3 steps back. The dude really has no class. Maybe he should be invited to join (L)OL. REB

Publicly referring to himself as Ted CRUZ is "hiding his ethnicity"? Really? CRUZ - Helllllooooooo? CRUZ - get it yet???? Maybe Ted is just a NICKNAME???? BASED ON HIS MIDDLE NAME???? Edward Kennedy - Ted/Teddy Kennedy - nickname. Got it yet???? The California governor just before Reagan - and father of the current governor, Jerry Brown aka Governor Moonbeam - was named Edmund Gerald Brown Sr., but he went by neither Edmund or Ed, nor by Gerald or Jerry, but by Pat. WTF?????? Well, it was a nickname based on his Patrick Henry-like oratory when selling Liberty Bonds as a child, and would end his sales pitch with "Give me liberty, or give me death." Were either Pat or Jerry Brown "hiding" anything? No, and neither is Ted Cruz. My dad's name was Eldon Keith Bissell, and all his life he went by Keith. Was *he* hiding anything? No, and neither is Ted Cruz. CRUZ - Hellllooooooo? CRUZ - testing, one, two, three. Get it YET???? Ted=Edward=Ted=Edward=Ted=Edward - get it YET???? <sigh> We are doomed. REB

Several years ago, there were two groups deliberately calling our current Thug-in-Chief by his full "real" name: Barack HUSSEIN Obama. (Actually, his full real name is Barack Hussein Obama Jr., contrary to those who think someone else, like Frank Davis, is his real father.) One group was people trying to frighten people away from voting for or supporting him, because of the Muslim middle name. Rather feeble as a tactic for trying to keep him out of the White House. The other group was people teaching little schoolchildren to chant his full name for a video prepared for showing on the internet and television, in order to rub it in to the first group that Obama was President whether they liked it or not. Very irritating and a disgraceful way to treat innocent, ignorant children, but whatever... I do think that there might be some of the latter sort of thing, if Cruz is elected President. It would truly be karma, appropriately returned to the folks who are now calling him Rafael. However, since I strongly doubt Cruz will be elected, I also don't expect that I will get a chance to test this theory. I also think it's more than slightly disingenuous to assert that calling Ted Cruz by his "real" name is not mockery - or maybe something even more loathsome and pathetic. More specifically, an attempt to smear him by associating him with the inflammatory and/or wacky statements of his father whose name is, not coincidentally, Rafael. REB

This almost makes me kinda sorta almost like Cruz. The Trump supporter in the video, however, makes me want to run into traffic and just get it over with... Sounds like someone's got tendentionitis. REB

Apparently the term originated with Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online and author of Liberal Fascism. This is my source: http://thefederalist.com/2015/09/08/donald-trump-and-the-war-on-the-brains-of-the-right/ REB

I think that this is tendentious. REB

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

Toast without publicity? In the military mess halls, they have another name for it. REB

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

This is sooo totally Capitalism. Trump offers something of value to the media... and the media offers something of value to Trump. WIN/WIN Heck, just look at this monster thread as a microcosm.of Trump's abilities. Greg 1 I certainly wouldn't blame Trump, nor credit his abilities, for this thread. It strikes me less as an example of what is "totally Capitalism" and more like one of those documentaries about how a hoarder's house looks after years of shutting himself away from the world, with piles and piles of worthless crap piled all over. It is fascinating, but also kind of gross. I'm not proud of having helped create it, but I take some solace in having been a relatively minor part of the process. REB

I'm not sure the parallels are as extensive as this, but there is definitely some important truth in what you say. Robert. 1. I'm not aware that any of the Trumpanistas, either local or express, have dared as did Ms. Dr. Brickell Mertz Hsieh Brickell to actually engineer a palace coup. A few years back and not long after she had galloped off from TAS (then TOC) and lobbed some highly rationalized stink bombs at every significant non-ARI person who had helped her along the way, I witnessed an ARI Q&A session in which she tried to put St. Leonard on the spot about when (other than when Nazis are at the door) it might be morally permissible to tell a lie. I don't know whether someone behind the scenes put her up to it (using her as intellectual cannon fodder, as it were), or whether she did it on her own. But the reaction to this "impertinence" was the well-deserved beginning of the end, the administering of Primacy of Karma, to Comrade Sonia. I'm not sure what she's doing now, but I would wager that her hopes and chances of breaking into the ARI Inner Circle have been justifiably reduced to .somewhere between slim and none. 2. Also, there really seems to be little reason for MSK et al to treat their erstwhile friends the same way, even if some significant position in Trump-Land were dangled before them. Sad to say, stomping us would just not have the same octane rating for Trump and his Inner Circle as Diana's stomping the Brandens, Chris Sciabarra, and David Kelley had for the folks at ARI who were salivating at stealing away practically the only authentically "best and brightest" in Kelley's stable of graduate students. That's why it's highly unlikely that an entry requirement to Trump-Land would require savaging people on such a minor, out of the way place as OL. No offense, MSK, but this place just does not loom high on Trump's radar (or hit list), like Kelley's beleaguered group does to the Peikovians. However, 3, I do see a similar ratcheting up of bizarreness and inconsistency in both the Trumpanistas' arguments (here and in the media) and Diana's whacked-out critiques of the above-mentioned former friends, now "Enemies of Objectivism." So, perhaps "Enemies of Trump" had better either keep silent or "pass over into Trump ground," eh? REB

I think he saw the writing on the wall regarding his re-election to the Senate being in jeopardy. The rich, liberal mayor of Louisville - a Democrat - is running against him in the fall, and the DNC has supposedly targeted him as one of those (if not the one) they'd most like to replace. I'm thinking of helping out his campaign. He is almost a neighbor, living little more than an hour away from me. Wish he lived in Tennessee. REB

Rand Paul has been doing the rounds on the liberal talk shows lately. The libertarian-leaning Republican even appeared on “All In With Chris Hayes” Monday night as well as with Larry Wilmore on the “Nightly Show.” Wilmore dedicated the top of the show to Donald Trump’s hate-filled supporters and but the second act of the show he sat down with Rand Paul to ask WTF about Trump. As an optical surgeon, Paul knows all about people who can’t see clearly. “Have you ever had a speck of dirt fly into your eye?” he began his response about Donald Trump. He called it “annoying, irritating, might even make you cry. But if the dirt doesn’t go away, it’ll keep scratching away at your cornea until eventually it blinds you with all its filth… and then it makes fun of you on CNN.” Larry just wanted to clarify the metaphor, “So the eye is the conservative voter and Donald Trump is the speck of dirt?” he asked. “No, Larry. Donald Trump is a delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag. A speck of dirt is way more qualified to be president,” Paul clarified.

Yeah, and Trump looks like a purse-lipped fishhead with a bad do, and Cruz looks like Grampa on The Munsters. We're on a roll here. Who's next with astute, relevant observations? REB

However, it also looks like Trump may be garnering a few more delegates, if this ingenious pressure tactic is successful: http://www.ifhscience.net/trump-calls-iowas-statehood-into-question.html Trump Calls Iowa's Statehood into Question At a press conference following his loss to Sen. Ted Cruz at the Iowa Presidential Caucus on Monday, Donald Trump suggested that Iowa had not been legally admitted as a state in 1846. Trump said "I'm not saying it's absolutely not a state but if they are a state, why not show the official state charter?". Trump said "I heard..my sources tell me that Iowa may not have gone through the proper channels when becoming a state which would make this whole caucus null and void.". Iowa governor Terry Branstad calls Trump's claims "ridiculous" saying "There is nothing to suggest that we are not a legitimate state" at a press conference following the caucus. "Trump is sore because he lost to Ted Cruz and is just grasping at straws." the governor continued. Ted Cruz narrowly defeated the real estate mogul and reality television star. Canadian-born Cruz's eligibility has been called into question by Trump. “The son of a U.S. citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen,” Cruz said in a CNN “State of the Union” interview aired Sunday. “The internet has all sorts of fevered swamp theories including Iowa not being a state” Iowa caucus results Republican vote, 99% reported: Ted Cruz: 26%, eight delegates Donald Trump: 23%, seven delegates Marco Rubio: 23%, seven delegates Ben Carson: 10%, three delegates Rand Paul, Jeb Bush: one delegate each. Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Jim Gilmore, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich and Rick Santorum: no delegates The candidates immediately left Iowa Monday night for New Hampshire where the primaries will take place on Feb. 9th. The aim of these primary and caucus races is to determine which candidates will represent the two main parties in the November presidential election. Trump claims he's confident he'll win the primary and subsequently the White House.

It's quite possible that Rand had a more sophisticated, nuanced view of the origin of species than just "natural selection" versus "divine creation." Here's an indication of what she may have been exploring as an alternate theory of the development of life forms in our world:

It's looking like a major Cruz endorsement will be announced tomorrow in Metropolis:

This could be a serious setback for the Trump campaign: